From Manga To Idol Drama

Japanese anime and manga have always been extremely popular in East Asia, especially Taiwan and Hong Kong. Popular manga titles in Japanese have been known to fly off the shelves of bookstores faster than books published by local authors in the local language. Many people flock to language schools to learn Japanese for the sole purpose of reading untranslated manga and watching Japanese anime and drama. In fact, I personally feel that anime and manga have a greater cultural impact in East Asia than cartoons from Disney or Warner Bros.

Especially in Taiwan, the Japanese love of all things "kawaii" (cute) have so successfully taken root that many of the pop stars or actresses that have became famous in the last 4 to 5 years look very much like shojo manga (young girl's manga) characters themselves - big round eyes, long hair, peachy complexions, super sweet smiles and slim girlish figures... Classic examples include Jolin Tsai, Cyndi Wang and Rainie Yang...

Adaptations of popular Japanese manga into Taiwanese "idol" dramas are also extremely common. The only "localization" done is usually that the setting of the story is changed to Taipei instead of Tokyo. The names of the characters are more often than not the same... even if the Japanese names sound strange in Chinese. A good example is Meteor Garden's "Dao Ming Si", in the Taiwanese adaptation, the character's surname becomes "Dao Ming" and his given name becomes "Ah Si" which is a direct translation of the character's surname Domyoji in the manga.

Examples of manga that have been made into Taiwanese idol dramas include:

Meteor Garden 流星花園 (2001)
Based on manga Hana Yori Dango(花より男子) by Yoko Kamio
Starring Barbie Hsu and pop group F4 (Jerry Yen, Vic Zhou, Ken Zhu and Vanness Wu)

Peach Girl 蜜桃女孩 (2002)
Based on manga Peach Girl (ピーチガール) by Miwa Ueda
Starring Annie Wu and Vanness Wu

Marmalade Boy 橘子醬男孩 (2002)
Based on manga Marmalade Boy (ママレード・ボーイ) by Wataru Yoshizumi
Starring Stella Huang Xiangyi and Ken Zhu

The Rose 薔薇之戀 (2003)
Based on manga Bara No Tame Ni (薔薇のために) by Yoshimura Akemi
Starring Ella (from pop group S.H.E), Zheng Yuan Chang and Jerry Huang

Mars 戰神 (2004)
Based on manga Mars by Fuyumi Soryo
Starring Vic Zhou and Barbie Hsu

It Started With A Kiss 惡作劇之吻 (2005)
Based on manga Itazura Na Kiss (イタズラなKiss) by Kaoru Tada
Starring Ariel Lin Yichen and Joe Cheng

Devil Beside You 惡魔在身邊 (2005)
Based on manga Akuma de Soro (悪魔で候) by Mitsuba Takanashi
Starring Rainie Yang and Mike He

Tokyo Juliet 東方茱麗葉 (2006)
Based on manga Tokyo Juliet (東京ジュリエット) by Miyuki Kitagawa Starring Ariel Lin Yi Chen, Wu Zun and Simon Yam

Hanazakarino Kimitachihe 花樣少年少女 (2006/07) (picture)
Based on manga Hanazakari no Kimitachi e (花ざかりの君たちへ) or Hana-Kimi by Hisaya Nakajo
Starring Ella (S.H.E), Wu Zun and Jiro Wang

As you can see, creating idol dramas based on manga is really common. One reason could be that the ratings for such dramas are usually pretty good as there exists a ready audience from fans of the popular manga and also because the boy-girl relationship issues in manga suit the Taiwanese idol drama genre to a tee.

So... expect more such manga/anime based drama serials in the years to come...

Tags: idol drama, Taiwanese drama, Chinese drama series, drama serial, manga, anime, shojo manga

Goong Theme Song From Radio.Blog.Club

Just a short post...

I know I am really slow in catching up with things :-P but its only today that I came across a really great website Radio.Blog.Club that has lots of music from East Asian movies and TV dramas. Just click on the Play button below and you will hear one of the theme songs from popular Korean drama Goong that is from this website (a personal favorite of mine).

Will be back with more substantial posts soon :O)

Cheers!




Tags: Goong, princess hours, theme song, soundtrack, korean drama, drama serial, drama series, radio blog club.

Heroines In Modern Korean TV Dramas

Have you noticed the change in the personalities of the lead female characters in modern Korean TV dramas in the last few years?

When the Korean Wave first exploded from 2001 to 2003, the heroines in the most popular dramas during that period were usually sweet and gentle girl-next-door types that somehow had extremely tragic destinies. However, they still maintained their sweet smiles and stoic optimisim even in the most difficult circumstances, which of course made the situation look even more tragic in the audience's eye. Classic examples include Eun-Suh (played by Song Hye-Gyo) from Autumn In My Heart AKA Endless Love, Yun-Hee (Kim Hyun-Ju) from Glass Slippers and Han Jung-Suh (Choi Ji-Woo) from Stairway To Heaven. If you want to enjoy a good cry, try watching these dramas, especially Autumn :-P

But since about one or two years ago, the producers must have realised that audiences were getting tired of the unrelenting tragedy in their dramas, possibly signalled by falling ratings in similar dramas and decided to make more light hearted dramas. In came the comical, down-to-earth but klutzy heroines such as Kim Sam-Soon (Kim Sun-A) from My Lovely Sam Soon, Yoo-rin (Lee Da-Hae) from My Girl and Ji-Eun (Song Hye-Gyo again) from Full House. Besides the usual comedic but sometimes touching romantic entanglements with the male lead characters, these modern misses mostly do not have painful pasts or tragic destinies like their sisters in earlier dramas. They are more like Asian versions of Ally McBeal and Bridget Jones... and immediately struck a chord with young Asian women who identified with the characters' struggles and problems.

The success of these light-hearted dramas in terms of ratings showed that perhaps this is the road to TV drama land success for Korean drama serials at the moment. However, who knows, there may come a time in the near future when weepy dramas launch a comeback with a new vengence haha....

Technorati Tags: Korean Drama, TV Drama, Korean Drama Serials, Modern Korean Drama.