• Korean Drama Reviews: Start Post

    From Joe Bernstein@21:1/5 to All on Sun Dec 12 01:03:43 2021
    Hello again

    This post is meant to provide people who use scorefiles a one-stop
    way to score up or down my reviews of speculative Korean TV dramas.

    Starting in late 2013 or early 2014, I long expected to post my
    comments on K-dramas to rec.arts.sf.written, possibly cross-posted
    here, in the context of posting a long-delayed book log. This year,
    it became clear to me that this wouldn't work, and if I wanted to
    make my views on K-dramas public at all, I'd have to do it on a Web
    site like everyone else.

    In the meantime, however, I now have several introductions to K-
    dramas, reviews of K-dramas, and whatnot on my computer written as
    for Usenet, and haven't really tried to break that habit, since I
    haven't budgeted to pay for the website yet. I don't know how long
    that'll continue, but at least today's first review fits that model.

    Three of my writing conventions appear in that review.

    1. I refer to other dramas when reviewing by the order in which I
    watched them, for example, #145.

    2. Most of the first dramas I watched portray romances in which
    double triangles appear. I refer to the characters in these as Woman,
    Man, Wrong Woman and Man, Woman, Wrong Man. Since most K-drama
    viewers are women, Wrong Women are more often absent than Wrong Men,
    especially in the shorter dramas premiered online, such as the
    one I'm reviewing today.

    3. In order to convey a lot of information about YouTube uploads
    without using a lot of words, I developed a coding system. For
    example:

    abcdefghijk 2025 R 8 ("Boris Pirate") K1 RoC2k E3MC S/M4 IJ5i T-V6 MV

    means that the YouTube upload whose URL terminal is abcdefghijk

    <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abcdefghijk>

    offers a music video released in 2025, in Russian, with Korean
    supertitles, Romanised Chinese titles which evanesce karaoke-style,
    English subtitles member coded to represent which of several people
    is singing, Spanish and Malay subtitles in the closed captions,
    Italian and Japanese lyrics, interlined, in the info box, and Thai
    and Vietnamese lyrics in the comments, separately. (I don't promise
    to have checked comments exhaustively.) Finally, the "8" refers to a
    set of codes meant, not to *determine* the legality of an upload, but
    to summarise things possibly relevant to that legality, and the
    parenthesis identifies the uploader, because I expect, in other
    reviews, to cite other uploads that person has done.

    I expect to post four followups to this post today:
    1) Review of <Shining Nara>
    2) Post about the music of <Shining Nara>
    3) Key to YouTube codes
    4) List of introductory posts already written

    <Shining Nara> is the only speculative drama which I've so far
    watched twice, the second time taking notes, as my current writing
    standards require. I make no prediction now as to when I'll have
    watched another speculative drama twice thus.

    Joe Bernstein

    --
    Joe Bernstein, clerk <Kdeurama@gmail.com>

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Joe Bernstein@21:1/5 to All on Sun Dec 12 06:32:17 2021
    151. <Shining Nara>, ? 2017

    I don't have a clue where this children's drama originated. It was
    definitely online before cable channel Tooniverse, which made it,
    gave it its TV premiere. It may have first shown at YouTube.
    This kind of uncertainty applies to many Korean Web dramas, not
    because they have wildly diverse histories (most premiere at Naver),
    but because they're so poorly documented.

    TITLE - Several of the drama's characters have punning names. "Nara",
    in particular, means "land" or "country". But if this relates to the
    show's themes, I don't see how.

    LENGTH - The YouTube uploads I watched both times total 2:21 in
    twelve episodes averaging 0:12. A combined upload is 2:15.

    COMMENTS

    This show, like #145 and especially #149, represents access to magic
    as addictive. A late episode frames its moral in terms of greed, but
    it's hard for me not to see - in its protagonist (actress 11,
    character 12) finding herself lying, spending money, discarding
    commitments, and eventually getting stuck like that - a very soft,
    but unappealing, depiction of an addict. She acquires, through angry
    actions but not by choice, a "magic make-up diary", shaped like a
    book, but actually holding only one page of minimal information, and
    otherwise full of cosmetics and relevant tools. Use of these turns
    her into an idealised older version of herself (actress, an idol, of
    course, 18, character claiming to be 16). The transformation lasts
    longer the more cosmetics she uses. She employs this mainly to
    pursue the older boy she already had a crush on, in training to
    *become* an idol. Other boys older and younger serve as Wrong, um,
    Men to her two selves (the younger one, more prominent, is a
    convincing geek), there's some dancing in the training building, when
    she gets stuck it's reasonably tense, it manages a neat trick in the
    inevitable happy ending ... it's a pleasant enough time.
    But the reason I've paid much more attention to it than to most
    fantasy Web dramas I've watched is its music. It briefly quotes many
    songs, mainly by idols (including two by "IU"), and often the
    relevant acts' best then-recent work. So in it, I finally found a
    balance to the indie-heavy soundtracks of #042 and #044. The songs
    are identified only in comments, which Tooniverse or YouTube
    periodically flush to make things harder. Episode 2 uses two
    anglophone songs I identified, so I tackled songs in Korean, but
    mostly without success; mainly based on others' comments, I posted
    song lists in comments on the first eleven episodes, months after
    first viewing, in December 2019. Two had already been erased by July
    2021 when I wrote this entry, so I made playlists instead.

    WEBSITES
    Info: <https://ko.wikipedia.org/wiki/%EB%B9%9B%EB%82%98%EB%8A%94_%EB%82%98%EB%9D%BC>
    <https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9251348/>
    <https://mydramalist.com/28326-shining-world>
    I think I've identified most of the cast, unlike these sites.
    Review (not selective): <https://mydramalist.com/profile/PatriciaRyanellZulueta/review/37795>
    Subtitled access: <https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8QiZ2xLgpIRjnCAZ3wQnHTtSFH2EqsIK>
    2 ("Tooniverse") E-In-K4. If you aren't logged in at YouTube, the
    site restores the subtitles to default Korean each episode.
    Raw video: The show is at several Korean streaming sites, but carved
    into one-minute snippets. It's much easier at YouTube:
    <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zw_36t9nXus> 2 ("Tooniverse";
    combined).
    <https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLiYEBo6e-dO588NhQNeKRCf2ZbnPOVf30>
    2 (everything Tooniverse has uploaded, much English-subbed).

    LINKS

    "Eunchae" (older Girl) <- #121, 2016 (the McGuffin)
    Lee Chae-Yoon (younger Girl) -> Has appeared in #099, 2017 (Woman as a
    teenager) and in #233, 2018-2019 (Woman as a teenager)
    (This section is meant to indicate which actors in shows I review
    appear in other shows I review, and has complicated rules to limit
    its length. But I haven't yet re-watched either #099 or #233, so
    don't know whether I should really list Lee, but do know that the
    rules are intentionally looser for child actors. "Eunchae" does
    qualify by the rules. Nobody else does, based on what I've watched
    so far; those who played the younger Wrong Boy and the Girl's mother
    are likeliest to, based on shows I might watch in future.)

    Other dramas mentioned in this post

    #042 - <Coffee Prince>, MBC 2007, non-speculative, notable for much-
    praised, mostly indie, soundtrack albums
    #044 - <The Lover>, Mnet 2015, non-speculative, notable for many
    *credited* quotes of mostly indie music
    #099 - <Because This Is My First Life>, non-speculative, tvN 2017
    #121 - <Life is somehow...>, ? 2016, speculative
    #145 - <Thunder Store>, Tooniverse 2013, speculative
    #149 - <Thunder Store2>, Tooniverse 2014, speculative
    #233 - <Memories of the Alhambra>, tvN 2018-2019, speculative

    <Life is somehow...> is a ghost story, ten minutes long, first in a
    trilogy of short dramas meant to promote members of girl group DIA.
    (The other two aren't speculative.) "Eunchae" gets only one short
    line. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TMOIdnwVDM> 4 E3

    <Thunder Store> and its sequel are much longer (9-hour) children's
    dramas. They're at YouTube with English subtitles, but because they
    were at Amazon briefly in 2018, Tooniverse has geo-blocked them to
    greater or lesser extents in the US, and probably North America in
    general, presumably in the hope that someday they'll sell here again.
    (Hasn't happened so far.) Here's #2 in a playlist most of which
    seems to be available here: <https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLTmUTemI01vA8oOJzD6NuD1drQ3pEj_XM>
    2 ("Tooniverse") E4
    Most of the geoblocking is at the beginning of season 1, but at least Tooniverse produced an uncluttered playlist: <https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLiYEBo6e-dO4Jf91YxLHGCsFJy6-sEqhO>
    2 ("Tooniverse") E/In4
    I think I watched the geo-blocked parts via a VPN server in the UK.
    The magic in these shows comes from magic items obtained from a
    store which only appears near the kids' school surrounded by a very
    localised thunderstorm. Season 2 ended in a cliffhanger long enough
    ago now that we can be pretty sure it won't be resolved.

    <Memories of the Alhambra> is a regular show for adults, and not at
    YouTube. At the moment I find it only at Netflix for American, and
    probably North American, viewers. It concerns a virtual reality game,
    but I think it's much more fantasy than science fiction.

    Although <Because This Is My First Life> isn't speculative, it's one
    of three K-dramas I've watched that I tentatively consider great
    works of art. It's the only one of those that's primarily a romance;
    the Man works as a programmer. It's at Netflix, but also free at
    Viki, here.

    --
    Joe Bernstein, clerk <Kdeurama@gmail.com>

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Joe Bernstein@21:1/5 to All on Sun Dec 12 06:49:04 2021
    OTHER MUSIC

    The drama's music track is reasonably full and quite kiddish. Little
    is interesting except for the quoted songs. My playlists, with songs
    first, then music videos: <https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLz7UJJpG4tR3DBkpdsXcqHQvwrXG7w7Rb> <https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLz7UJJpG4tR11jmwWT3OvdIfQCro1oWV6> <https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLz7UJJpG4tR2Sw_uGkuMrid7CA9WWwNrn> [Five videos have since disappeared from these lists, at least as I
    see them in the US, one from the first and four from the third; I
    don't know when I'll get around to fixing them.]
    74 quotes have been identified with 49 songs, from: eight male vocal
    groups, nine female, all idols; four indie duos (those not named
    below are Bolbbalgan 4, Lucite Tokki, and Seenroot); various solo
    singers, idol and not. 22 quotes with singing remain unidentified, 9
    in episodes 10 and 12, probably 14 songs total. But some songs were
    identified without singing in the quote, so I may have missed other
    such instrumental quotes.

    HIGHLIGHTED SONGS

    I probably would've highlighted one unidentified song (at 4:10 in
    episode 10), and might've picked others, but for now...

    "[I Chigûm]" or "{I Jigeum}" (This Right Now or dlwlrma), composed by
    Kim Je-Hwi for "IU"'s 2017 4th album <Palette>, sung by "IU". Quoted
    in episodes 4, 8 and 12. Jm5ZXu7vY1U 4 "TamTam Lyrics" K1 RoK2 E3.
    A jazzy, upbeat piece whose lyrics (by "IU") are science fictional.

    Each video for the next four songs shows more female skin than most
    full-length K-dramas. None is quite NSFW, but all four in a row
    would probably raise eyebrows in some strait-laced places.

    "Five", written by "Shinsadong Tiger" and "Beom and Nang" for Apink's
    2017 EP <Pink Up>, sung by Apink. Quoted in episodes 4 and 5.
    KS_QK1gERQw 4 K-RoK2 E3 MC. Watch also qmM7aPDrVQw 4 "LoveKpopSubs"
    K-RoK1 E3 MV. A fast but minor key danceable song and earworm.

    "{[Narang Saguillae?]}" (Will You Go Out with Me?), composed by
    "Ddoli Park", "Peter Pan", and four members of DIA (pronounced "die-
    ah"), with lyrics by the same group plus two more members, for DIA's
    2016 2nd album <Yolo>, sung by DIA. Quoted in episodes 4 and 6.
    zOYxvKghUNA 4 K-ROK2 E3 MC. Watch also Fn7GFHT7WO4 2 E4 MV. Note
    also 3VdHrwLKB1I 4 K-ROK2 E3 MC ballad version, which doesn't work
    well, because this is a high-pitched happy dance number and earworm.
    "Eunchae", who played the older Girl in the drama, wasn't a
    songwriter and didn't star in the video, but did sing, and appear in
    the video.

    "Red Flavor", composed by Daniel Caesar and Ludwig Lindell for Red
    Velvet's 2017 EP <Red Summer>, sung by Red Velvet. Quoted in
    episodes 4 and 9. bUwHblpMX1M 4 "Yankat" K-RoK2 E3 MC. Watch also
    AVWEDsPbEF8 4 K-RoK1 E3 MV. Another danceable earworm, rather better
    sung. By the time I picked it, Red Velvet was on my list anyway
    because its member "Joy" stars (and sings) in #210.

    "[Naro marhal kôn kat'ûmyôn]" or "{Naro malhal geon gateumyeon}" (Yes
    I Am), composed by Kim Do-Hoon, with lyrics by him and three members
    of Mamamoo, for Mamamoo's 2017 EP <Purple>, sung by Mamamoo. Quoted
    in episode 4. EMLcfTTn9bs 4 "krystalized" K-RoK2 E3 MC. Watch also gPeFx0lPK4k 4 "LoveKpopSubs" K-RoK1 E3 MV. The song is a distinctive
    anthem, the video unlike any girl group MV I'd watched before. This
    and the "IU" song up top were the two I chose on first viewing,
    before I studied the music much or started considering this drama as
    Idol Central. Mamamoo was the favourite group of the K-Pop Vocal
    Analysis crowd.

    "[Pomnal]" or "{Bomnal}" (Spring Day), written by "Pdogg", "Adora",
    "Hitman" Bang, Arlissa Ruppert, Peter Ibsen, and two members of BTS
    for BTS's 2017 album <You Never Walk Alone>, sung by BTS. Quoted in
    episode 8. H2HQWHKDREI K-RoK2 E3 MC. WATCH also DgpNXh4Q0eI 4 K-
    RoK1 E3 MV. The song has an 83K English Wikipedia entry, the video
    brings me to tears every time I watch it. This was my first exposure
    to BTS, believe it or not, and in my opinion it fully justified the
    hype. The video explicitly quotes two major works of science fiction.

    "{[Sonagi]}" (Downpour), composed by "Woozi", Won Young-Hun, Dong Ne-
    Hyoung, and "Yama Art" for I.O.I's 2017 final single, sung by I.O.I.
    Quoted in episode 8. QCKOWQ-_CYc 4 K-RoK2 E3 MC. Note also
    lEJ6n7u2Pq0 4 "LoveKpopSubs" K-RoK1 E3 MV. I.O.I was the first group,
    so the least tainted, from a TV competition franchise that became
    increasingly corrupt. It had eleven members. Problem is, it also
    sang a beautiful song. Members also do serve my goal of bringing in
    more idol groups: one went on to Cosmic Girls (2016-), several of
    whose song titles make speculative allusions, two to Pristin (2017-
    2019), two to Weki Meki (2017-), plus one who returned to DIA (2015-)
    and two who were in Gugudan (2016-2020) with Han Hae-Bin (#099).

    "[Pam P'yônji]" or "{Bam Pyeonji}" (Through the Night), composed by
    Kim Je-Hwi and Kim Hee-Won for "IU"'s 2017 4th album <Palette>, sung
    (and lyrics) by "IU". Quoted in episodes 8 and 11. HEYOsR1DlWE 4
    ("TamTam Lyrics") K1 RoK2 E3. Watch also Lz_ZcjlXZTE 4
    ("LoveKpopSubs") K-RoK1 E3 MV. A quiet, reflective love song.

    "Dinosaur", composed by Lee Chan-Hyuk for his duo AKMU's 2017 single
    "Summer Episode", sung by AKMU. (The other member is his younger
    sister Lee Su-Hyun.) Quoted in episode 9. WNp_XLCOTBw 4 K-RoK2 E3
    MC. Watch also 8Oz7DG76ibY 1 E4 MV. AKMU is referred to in older
    English publications by its full half-Korean name, Akdong Musician.
    The song wonderfully evokes childhood fear; the video lives up to it.
    I considered several indie songs in this drama, but this is the only
    one that I had to highlight.

    PERFORMER'S NOTE

    Performer's notes due on "IU", Apink, DIA, Red Velvet, Mamamoo, BTS,
    I.O.I, and AKMU. For "IU" see #036; for Apink, #023; for Gugudan
    (but not the members who were in I.O.I), #099. Otherwise, although
    DIA and AKMU each have three other songs in this drama, I haven't
    listened to enough to say anything.

    (From sometime in 2014 to sometime after 2018, I intended to write
    "performer's note"s on each member of a subset of performers on each
    song I "highlighted"; that was what highlighting *meant* to me during
    those years. For most of the relevant performers for this show, it's
    still possible to write by the standards I developed, but for many
    others it isn't, so for the time being, at least, performer's notes
    in general are on the back burner. I still have documents I wrote
    about "IU" at an earlier stage of my writing about Korean popular
    music, which I will not be making available.
    (That said, I've done much of the listening relevant to "IU",
    Apink, and Gugudan, so when I wrote that I wasn't just blowing smoke.)

    Other dramas mentioned in this post:

    #023 - <Protect the Boss>, SBS 2011, non-speculative
    #036 - <The Greatest Love>, MBC 2011, non-speculative
    #099 - <Because This Is My First Life>, tvN 2017, non-speculative
    #210 - <The Liar and His Lover>, tvN 2017, non-speculative

    I already recommended #099 in the previous post. The other two
    dramas I've so far re-watched in the way that would allow me to post
    a review here are #023 and #210, but both would be off-topic.

    --
    Joe Bernstein, clerk <Kdeurama@gmail.com>

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Joe Bernstein@21:1/5 to All on Sun Dec 12 07:36:47 2021
    I wrote earlier today:

    I expect to post four followups to this post today:
    1) Review of <Shining Nara>
    2) Post about the music of <Shining Nara>

    These are now posted, though I forgot to change their subject lines.

    3) Key to YouTube codes

    Here it is, along with various other music-relevant bits.

    First, titles of songs.

    Songs with Korean titles have, in my view, four relevant titles:
    "Title" - the one in Korean, which I won't be posting here
    "[Title]" - the one in Korean romanised by the McCune-Reischauer
    romanisation
    "{Title}" - the one in Korean romanised by the Revised romanisation
    "{[Title]}" - these romanisations produce the same results
    (Title) - the *usual* English rendering of the title online, which
    often isn't an exact translation

    YOUTUBE (AND OTHER STREAMING SITE) CODES

    Copyright-related codes:

    1 Uploaded by a channel that credibly appears to represent one of the
    song or video's creative personnel. This includes Vevo, but not
    the channels YouTube creates for artists.
    2 Uploaded by a channel that credibly appears to represent a company
    or organisation you could plausibly find in a phone book.
    3 Uploaded by YouTube itself (often by a channel named for an artist).
    I try to avoid these now that they all have comments turned off, so
    no route to subtitles, corrections, or much else.
    4 Uploaded by someone else, but YouTube has added to the info box
    licensing information that correctly identifies the music.
    7 Uploaded by a channel that credibly appears to represent fans of
    an idol act.
    8 Uploaded by someone else.
    8* Uploaded by someone else, but YouTube has added to the info box
    licensing information that misidentifies the music.

    I see now that I mis-coded <Life is somehow...>, one of the other
    dramas mentioned in the review of <Shining Nara>; that code should've
    been 7, not 4. Obviously these codes are pretty YouTube-specific.

    Language codes:

    By default, the audio language is Korean. So if the song is in
    English:

    abcdefghijk E ...

    I've also picked songs in a few other languages, but I'm not sure any
    were in speculative dramas. (I'm not even sure any English ones were.)
    Well, but if I post a review of the speculative *Chinese* drama I've
    watched, here, I picked songs there in at least one Chinese spoken
    language, maybe two.

    C - Chinese (written); I usually don't know, but when I do, sC means
    simplified Chinese, tC traditional.
    E - English
    Ha - Hangulised ('transliterated' into the Korean Hangul script;
    followed by the code for the language Hangulised)
    In - Indonesian
    K - Korean
    M - Malay
    Ro - Romanised (followed by the code for the language Romanised)
    Z - Wordless, or the only words are one syllable repeated ("la", etc.)

    I expect to need more language codes for later reviews, so will
    probably follow up to this list.

    Lyrics codes:

    1 - Supertitles
    2 - Titles
    3 - Subtitles
    4 - Subtitles in the closed captions
    5 - Lyrics in the info box
    6 - Lyrics in the comments
    k - Karaoke-style lyrics that disappear before you can read them
    (if the "karaoke" effect just emphasises the current lyrics,
    without making the rest vanish, I don't use this letter, so it's
    always bad news)
    MC - Member-coded lyrics (useful for, and increasingly the default
    for, vocal groups; usually called "color coded", but I wanted no
    confusion with "closed captions"; uploads of soloists' songs
    also increasingly claim to be "color coded", which I ignore)
    While member coding *can* involve only one version of the
    lyrics, it can also *not* involve lyrics, and *usually*
    involves multiple versions, so "MC" is usually free standing.
    i - Lyrics interlined (in the info box or comments)

    Miscellaneous:

    MV - It's an official music video, usually released through the music
    industry and available at sites like Bugs
    FMV - It's an unofficial music video, often fan-made, sometimes
    performer-made or whatever, and normally *not* available at
    sites like Bugs
    LD - Line distribution video posted for fans of vocal groups; they
    usually lack lyrics, but can substitute for member coding
    NSFW - I think it would get you in trouble if you worked in a church

    WEBSITES RELEVANT TO KOREAN POPULAR MUSIC

    Bugs:
    <https://music.bugs.co.kr/>
    Sometimes responds correctly to searches in Roman script, but if you
    want to use it much, learn how to search in Hangul.

    Other sites in Korean, useful for information about Korean popular
    music, though not about music videos:
    <https://www.melon.com/> - now the most comprehensive
    <http://www.maniadb.com/> - best for older music and for releases'
    physical or electronic form; often better than the others at
    identifying group line-ups
    Bugs, besides covering videos, specialises in weird links (it was how
    I learnt that a drummer had also produced a movie soundtrack), and
    offers first minutes, which maniadb never did and Melon has stopped
    doing at least in the US. I now usually start with DramaWiki, then
    Bugs, but eventually have to check everywhere; for the latest drama I
    watched, #235, maniadb is the only site documenting the normal album.

    Sites in English are much less comprehensive, and often less reliable. DramaWiki, <https://wiki.d-addicts.com/>, usually gives a separate
    page to recent dramas' soundtrack releases. English Wikipedia
    sometimes covers the soundtrack releases. Both are often incomplete
    and occasionally wrong.

    Best:

    <https://www.generasia.com/wiki/>

    mainly covering, among Korean musicians, idols, and not usually
    soundtrack releases.

    More specialised:

    <https://kpopvocalanalysis.net/> preceded by <https://kpopvocalanalysis.wordpress.com/>

    More journalistic:

    <https://seoulbeats.com/>
    <https://www.allkpop.com>
    <https://www.indiefulrok.com/>
    <https://www.koreanindie.com/> <https://web.archive.org/web/20180501000000*/https://krockisreal.com/>
    (later captures get domain name merchants) <https://krockisreal.livejournal.com/>

    --
    Joe Bernstein, clerk <Kdeurama@gmail.com>

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Joe Bernstein@21:1/5 to All on Sun Dec 12 07:54:47 2021
    I wrote, much earlier today:

    I expect to post four followups to this post today:
    1) Review of <Shining Nara>
    2) Post about the music of <Shining Nara>
    3) Key to YouTube codes

    All now done. The key to the YouTube codes also lists a bunch of
    Web sites useful to people interested in Korean popular music.

    4) List of introductory posts already written

    This is that post.

    Each listed document I tried to limit to 130 lines, except a few
    intentionally doubled or tripled, as indicated. After I decided that
    I couldn't post them to Usenet, some have exceeded that length, but
    none has gotten wildly longer. I'm listing them here on the off
    chance that someone who finds this thread may want one or more.

    K-dramas:

    WHY (might anglophones interested in things speculative wish to watch
    K-dramas, or not)
    WHEN, part I: History of K-dramas
    WHAT, part I: Genres - digression into odd romances, such as LGBTQ
    WHEN, part II: Timeslots and schedules
    WHAT, part II: Form
    WHO, part I: Characters
    WHAT, part III: Themes, motifs, cliches
    WHEN, part III: History of Korea
    WHAT, part IV: Religion and K-dramas - digression into folklore
    (the latter turned into a series of posts to rec.arts.sf.written)
    WHO, part II: Makers (two posts)
    WHERE (settings) - digressions into race and into North Korean dramas
    WHO, part III: Streaming and download sites (mostly not then, nor
    now, written, because I haven't yet gotten around to getting a VPN;
    meant to be two posts)
    WHAT, part V: The Korean language - mostly digressions: names, etc.
    WHO, part IV: Subtitlers and subtitles
    WHAT, part VI: Korean pronunciation
    WHO, part V: The K-drama infrastructure (meaning websites; two posts)
    WHAT, part VII: Format
    WHO, part VI: Me (as a critic of K-dramas)

    Korean popular music:

    a. History of Korean popular music in general
    b. Idols and "indie"s (two posts)
    c. Drama soundtrack albums and music tracks
    d. The music sections or posts in this thread
    e. Some websites (three posts; major source for the previous post)
    f. Streaming site uploads: Criteria and codes (other major source)
    g. My tastes: highlighted songs, digressions and performers' notes

    Not then written, but planned:

    A brief introduction to Korean traditional music (mostly websites;
    not yet written because one online resource I really want to cite
    has vanished, and its creator hasn't replied to my e-mail)

    --
    Joe Bernstein, clerk <Kdeurama@gmail.com>

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Ubiquitous@21:1/5 to Kdeurama@gmail.com on Thu Dec 16 17:50:24 2021
    Kdeurama@gmail.com wrote:

    Hello again

    This post is meant to provide people who use scorefiles a one-stop
    way to score up or down my reviews of speculative Korean TV dramas.

    And you posted this off-topic article here because?

    --
    Let's go Brandon!

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Joe Bernstein@21:1/5 to Ubiquitous on Sat Jan 8 05:00:56 2022
    Ubiquitous <weberm@polaris.net> wrote in news:5YednTq2QqYmXyb8nZ2dnUU7-IednZ2d@giganews.com:

    Kdeurama@gmail.com wrote:

    Hello again

    This post is meant to provide people who use scorefiles a one-stop
    way to score up or down my reviews of speculative Korean TV dramas.

    And you posted this off-topic article here because?

    I'm not sure why you're focusing on this particular post; I posted
    five posts that night, of which at most two were on-topic.

    But as it happens, the quotation you selected answers your question.
    Are you perhaps a teacher, checking my ability to read my own writing?
    I posted this first post specifically to give people the ability to
    killfile (or conceivably score up) the whole thread, that is, all my
    Korean drama reviews at once. I just figured as long as I was doing
    that I might as well cover a few things that would make the *on*-
    topic post(s) easier to read.

    Any more questions?

    Joe Bernstein

    --
    Joe Bernstein, data entry clerk and writer <Kdeurama@gmail.com>

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Adam H. Kerman@21:1/5 to Joe Bernstein on Sat Jan 8 17:22:07 2022
    Joe Bernstein <Kdeurama@gmail.com> wrote:
    Ubiquitous <weberm@polaris.net> wrote:
    Kdeurama@gmail.com wrote:

    Hello again

    This post is meant to provide people who use scorefiles a one-stop
    way to score up or down my reviews of speculative Korean TV dramas.

    And you posted this off-topic article here because?

    I'm not sure why you're focusing on this particular post; I posted
    five posts that night, of which at most two were on-topic.

    . . .

    Any more questions?

    Ubi-the-shithead is not the moderator of unmoderated Usenet. Please
    ignore him.

    I read what you write. Thank you.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)