Nao Kanzaki's Japanese and Korean drama emporium: Jin Ki-Joo: A brief resurrection from the dead....

Konnichiwa and Annyeong Haseyo minna-san

Konnichiwa and Annyeong Haseyo minna-san

Hope that's correct above but what I'm saying is welcome everyone. May 10, 2019 is the first day of this blog and many may know me from 'Nao Kanzaki and Friends'... aitoda.com. There I have such a mix of things and finally decided to branch out with just a blog devoted to Japanese and Korean dramas. Will also be having some film reviews but one thing you won't see are any J-Pop idols or gravure models except for their dramas, this blog is dedicated 100% to dramas and films.

Also actresses as will be having many, many posts for them. Such as them appearing at events, mag spreads, interview pics and whatever else. So you should be seeing a lot of my bigger long time faves such as Erika Toda, Park Min-Young, Lee Yeon-Hee, Tsubasa Honda and too many others to count. The first few weeks there many not be too many posts for new dramas as I'll be copying many recaps from the old blog along with some film reviews and actress posts.

Won't be going too far back, perhaps to 2015 with a few exceptions and will have an entire series in a row to make it easy to follow. Did find it a problem completing series at the Nao Kanzaki blog, won't be doing that here as all the series will have a post for every episode. Thanks for visiting, it'll will be a work in progress for a while here but hopefully not for too long. Comments are also appreciated, like to know your opinions on dramas and for any recommendations you may have.

News and upcoming projects

News and upcoming projects

Should have done this on my Aitoda blog which is to let viewers know what's going on. Seems like a good way to let everyone know if I'll be taking a break, what to look forward to and any other tidbits.

Updating update, May 19th:

Whew, have finally finished transferring over enough posts from the Aitoda blog. May be a few here and there in the future for some new that's being introduced but there shouldn't be too many. Have also included announcers for women that I'll be posting about as my top two current faves just happen to be in that profession.

The first five episodes of '3-Nen A Gumi' have now been posted. For series over five shows will be doing two batches of them as I figure ten posts are way too many to read through during one sitting so will have the second half of the drama coming up in 2-3 weeks, highly recommend the show.

June 4th.... Have written up the recaps for episodes 7 and 8 of the '3-Nen A Gumi' show and will have those long with episode eight by June 6th. Up next for Korean dramas is up in the air but leaning towards a pair of shorter series which will be either "Splish Splash Love" or "The Universe's Star".

Tuesday, October 6, 2020

Jin Ki-Joo: A brief resurrection from the dead....

By brief I mean this could be the smallest post of the year, also because I don't think this will be the start of many of them but truly hope that forecast is wrong. Ki-Joo's last post was thirteen months ago and she seemed to disappear off the face of the Earth as during that time she appeared in zero dramas or films along with only being at one mini event. Have no clue where Ki-Joo went off to as 2019 wasn't an overly busy year with just one drama. That series was "The Secret Life of My Secretary" which was my #1 show for last year.

Have seen Ki-Joo in two other dramas and she is one of the top actresses around. She's so good thought she'd become my #1 Korean actress by now but with that huge gap of inactivity it'll probably never happen. But that doesn't mean she won't remain a fave of mine as I'll always try to do as many posts as possible. Sometimes breaking the ice such as this post tends to be the beginning of a few of them and that'd be nice if it came true this time around.

Only three segments to this post which is so small for ones in this vein. Did start on Ki-Joo's new drama and have some info on that following these new pics from the Bazaar magazine.

Ki-Joo's new drama is titled "Homemade Love Story" which began on September 19th. It's a weekend prime time series and those are so immensely popular in Korea. While weekday dramas struggle to get a rating of 10% weekend shows usually get well over 20% and some top 30%. The reason is they're much more family orientated and the storylines aren't nearly as intense, to be honest a bit too fluffy or heartwarming at times. Four episodes have aired which have had an average of a little over 22% for a rating, the last show approached 25%.

Have watched the first two episodes and while a bit too fluffy for me it actually was a decent beginning, two other semi faves of mine are in the show. It's a bit of an honor for Ki-Joo as she has the starring role in the drama, she plays the character of Chae-Woon. She's been working as an interior designer for close to a decade but her dream is to become a fashion designer. In these first two shows bit of the story was of Chae-Woon submitting an entry to a prestigious fashion design contest.

Meanwhile Chae-Woon works full time as an interior designer at buildings and really knows her stuff. No romance in the first pair of shows but there will be with an architect who we met a few times and of course the duo haven't hit it off. Chae-Woon still lives at home with her mother and three siblings, they could be on the verge of being tossed from their apartment. An odd thing about the family is that they all celebrate the same birthday, sounds impossible but all were born on the same day.

How about a few superb older pics which had never been posted. They're from a July 2018 interview with the Top Star site for her fine but confusing "Come and Hug Me" drama.

For the current drama there was an event for it two weeks ago, Ki-Joo did look fabulous and they're the first new pics I've seen of her in about a year. Such a lack of solo videos on YT but there is an interesting interview for fans that's from March 2018 which is subbed in English and have that after this too small batch of pics.