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dangermousieMeteor Garden is a giant black hole that swallows up time and space. I wanted to watch a few minutes last night and ended up spending hours absorbed into the cracktastic, gloriously angsty world of melodrama.
I didn't set out to watch anything in particular (though I did want to rewatch the double date from hell) but once I started I couldn't stop. Mmmmm.
I love Lei. I am a hardcore DMS/SC shipper (how could one not be?) but I adore Lei and wouldn't mind taking him home (and hey, he is unattached at the end...:P). I think it's because recently I've fallen in love with male-female friendships (and nothing more) in fiction. And Lei is such a good friend to Shan Cai. I love the scene where SC is frantically searching in an ornamental pond for the Saturn pendant DMS gave her (she returned it to him and he threw it away) and she sees Lei and, frantic, she asks him to help her look, and without any hesistation he just wades in and finds it. And he gives it to her and she is crying and he just stands there and holds her. And the cool thing is their relationship is purely platonic. I never got a romantic vibe from them and I love that (yes I know MG2 went there and it's one of many reasons I won't watch MG2). Maybe it's just that I want a friend like that, gender immaterial. I find it really cool that her dreamboat crush ended up being her really good friend and she ended up having a passionate OTP with his arrogant, pig-headed, hate-at-first-sight best friend. I just love that.
I don't want to bring Veronica Mars in, because I bring it into everything, but indulge me just this once. There is no doubt VM is in a very different category. It's a sharply written marvel while MG is after all a romantic melodrama. But how I wish, oh how I wish, RT & Co. would have written Duncan half as well as MG/HYD/every incarnation of the manga does Lei (Rui). A quiet and reserved, somewhat passive guy who the heroine used to have a thing for but realized they weren't compatible after all, who is friends with her current flame. See the similarities? But I love Lei and Duncan bores the hell out of me. When Lei leaves for Japan and writes SC "my dear friend" letter, I melt, and when Duncan leaves, I just breathe a sigh of relief.
Hmmm, other random observations. DMS sobbing by the sink is totally worth the price of admission (on in this case, the price of DVDs). I don't know what's wrong with me, but I love my hot boys best when they are angsty. I was also pleased to (re)discover that Taiwan TV adopted the classic Hollywood trope of 'the sicker you are the better you look.' I have never gone on a hunger strike so I have no idea what I'd look like, but I don't think I'd look too good. However DMS has never looked hotter than he does when he is self-starving, and locked up with needles (part of it has to do with the fact that Jerry Yan looks his hottest in black and part with my decided preference for angst but still...). That is why I adore Meteor Garden so much btw. It's like a good Bollywood movie because I enjoy it on two levels. A part of me is totally amused at the whole 'we are REALLY going to appeal to women here' thing and yet the other part of me is totally panting at the screen. My inner grown up and teenybopper are both giddily satisfied.
But my favorite bit is a little conversation between DMS and SC which actually exemplifies why I love this couple in every freaking incarnation of the story I've seen.
SC: I don't want you to move out of your family house.
DMS: But if I don't, how can I protect you?
SC: You might not like it, but I don't want you to protect me. That would lose our relationship its equality.
DMS: You are right, I don't like it. Why can't you be gentler, like other girls? *pause* Forget it. That's why I fell in love with you after all.
Underneath all the melodrama and the angst and the humor and the questionable fashion (though I must say, though I am not in love with MG fashion, it doesn't actively make my eyes bleed the way HYD jdorama fashion does. No poodles have died on anyone's collar) of the story, I really love SC for being such a strong, self-sufficient heroine and I love DMS for falling for those qualities.
I find the fact that he moved next door to protect her anyway totally adorable. Earlier, he didn't want to go on a commoner double-date but now he is living in a rattrap of an apartment to be close to her. Awwww. There are not enough awwwwws to encapsulate my glee. Especially when he tells her he will stay until she falls asleep. And I just love when she makes him a lunch-box and he is so giddy about it (SC is so hard to catch he gloms like a little boy on every sign of her caring. It's adorable, in a very 5 year old way). It also reminded me of the first time I cooked for Mr. Mousie. We've been dating for less than a month and I invited him to my apartment. I baked this really complicated, labor intensive dish with three layers and as he was sitting there, I was fishing it out of the oven and the handle broke and the dish ended up on the kitchen floor. He came to where I was staring in horror on the floor and started picking it up and ended up eating it anyway (if you've seen the kitchen floor, you'd recognize the bravery). I knew then it was definitely love.
And on that food note, I also love that DMS is always trying to feed and fatten SC up. To a Russian, nothing says love like feeding someone. Heh. And their dating in secret is totally adorable. Especially their date at the end of which he just saw her off and then stands there immobile and tells his Mother's goons to come out. And he tells them they can take him but if they harm SC he will kill them. OMG. And the last scene of the show is so freaking adorable. I love it that when he holds her he lifts her off the ground (tall guys and short girls are a huge thing of mine) and they are so happy and eeeeeeeeee!
The hilarious thing is that those two, when not being all romantic or angsty are constantly fighting. They thrive on it. I totally know couples like that so it cracks me up, though personally I prefer something more peaceful :P
And I am just as big a Xi Men/Xiao Yu shipper as I was the first time around. The whole attractive, kind, and compeletely emotionally unavailable combo is girl kryptonite. Poor Xiao-Yu is going to spend a couple of years getting over Xi Men. But when he spends her last night in Taiwan just holding her. All night. I just die. Eeeee.
I am sure I have ten billion other things, but I can't remember them at the moment.
And if you are still wobbling whether to watch Mars here are a couple of MVs to lure you:
This one is a decent intro one. Here hits the angst and here hits the ship and here My favorite of the bunch, it is just a general good preview where I love the intercutting. And the angst.
ETA: In case people are wondering where it's available on line, Mars is available with subs either as a torrent here or on youtube (just type in "Mars barbie" and ep number (1-21) and start from there). Here is a link to the first part of first ep.
I didn't set out to watch anything in particular (though I did want to rewatch the double date from hell) but once I started I couldn't stop. Mmmmm.
I love Lei. I am a hardcore DMS/SC shipper (how could one not be?) but I adore Lei and wouldn't mind taking him home (and hey, he is unattached at the end...:P). I think it's because recently I've fallen in love with male-female friendships (and nothing more) in fiction. And Lei is such a good friend to Shan Cai. I love the scene where SC is frantically searching in an ornamental pond for the Saturn pendant DMS gave her (she returned it to him and he threw it away) and she sees Lei and, frantic, she asks him to help her look, and without any hesistation he just wades in and finds it. And he gives it to her and she is crying and he just stands there and holds her. And the cool thing is their relationship is purely platonic. I never got a romantic vibe from them and I love that (yes I know MG2 went there and it's one of many reasons I won't watch MG2). Maybe it's just that I want a friend like that, gender immaterial. I find it really cool that her dreamboat crush ended up being her really good friend and she ended up having a passionate OTP with his arrogant, pig-headed, hate-at-first-sight best friend. I just love that.
I don't want to bring Veronica Mars in, because I bring it into everything, but indulge me just this once. There is no doubt VM is in a very different category. It's a sharply written marvel while MG is after all a romantic melodrama. But how I wish, oh how I wish, RT & Co. would have written Duncan half as well as MG/HYD/every incarnation of the manga does Lei (Rui). A quiet and reserved, somewhat passive guy who the heroine used to have a thing for but realized they weren't compatible after all, who is friends with her current flame. See the similarities? But I love Lei and Duncan bores the hell out of me. When Lei leaves for Japan and writes SC "my dear friend" letter, I melt, and when Duncan leaves, I just breathe a sigh of relief.
Hmmm, other random observations. DMS sobbing by the sink is totally worth the price of admission (on in this case, the price of DVDs). I don't know what's wrong with me, but I love my hot boys best when they are angsty. I was also pleased to (re)discover that Taiwan TV adopted the classic Hollywood trope of 'the sicker you are the better you look.' I have never gone on a hunger strike so I have no idea what I'd look like, but I don't think I'd look too good. However DMS has never looked hotter than he does when he is self-starving, and locked up with needles (part of it has to do with the fact that Jerry Yan looks his hottest in black and part with my decided preference for angst but still...). That is why I adore Meteor Garden so much btw. It's like a good Bollywood movie because I enjoy it on two levels. A part of me is totally amused at the whole 'we are REALLY going to appeal to women here' thing and yet the other part of me is totally panting at the screen. My inner grown up and teenybopper are both giddily satisfied.
But my favorite bit is a little conversation between DMS and SC which actually exemplifies why I love this couple in every freaking incarnation of the story I've seen.
SC: I don't want you to move out of your family house.
DMS: But if I don't, how can I protect you?
SC: You might not like it, but I don't want you to protect me. That would lose our relationship its equality.
DMS: You are right, I don't like it. Why can't you be gentler, like other girls? *pause* Forget it. That's why I fell in love with you after all.
Underneath all the melodrama and the angst and the humor and the questionable fashion (though I must say, though I am not in love with MG fashion, it doesn't actively make my eyes bleed the way HYD jdorama fashion does. No poodles have died on anyone's collar) of the story, I really love SC for being such a strong, self-sufficient heroine and I love DMS for falling for those qualities.
I find the fact that he moved next door to protect her anyway totally adorable. Earlier, he didn't want to go on a commoner double-date but now he is living in a rattrap of an apartment to be close to her. Awwww. There are not enough awwwwws to encapsulate my glee. Especially when he tells her he will stay until she falls asleep. And I just love when she makes him a lunch-box and he is so giddy about it (SC is so hard to catch he gloms like a little boy on every sign of her caring. It's adorable, in a very 5 year old way). It also reminded me of the first time I cooked for Mr. Mousie. We've been dating for less than a month and I invited him to my apartment. I baked this really complicated, labor intensive dish with three layers and as he was sitting there, I was fishing it out of the oven and the handle broke and the dish ended up on the kitchen floor. He came to where I was staring in horror on the floor and started picking it up and ended up eating it anyway (if you've seen the kitchen floor, you'd recognize the bravery). I knew then it was definitely love.
And on that food note, I also love that DMS is always trying to feed and fatten SC up. To a Russian, nothing says love like feeding someone. Heh. And their dating in secret is totally adorable. Especially their date at the end of which he just saw her off and then stands there immobile and tells his Mother's goons to come out. And he tells them they can take him but if they harm SC he will kill them. OMG. And the last scene of the show is so freaking adorable. I love it that when he holds her he lifts her off the ground (tall guys and short girls are a huge thing of mine) and they are so happy and eeeeeeeeee!
The hilarious thing is that those two, when not being all romantic or angsty are constantly fighting. They thrive on it. I totally know couples like that so it cracks me up, though personally I prefer something more peaceful :P
And I am just as big a Xi Men/Xiao Yu shipper as I was the first time around. The whole attractive, kind, and compeletely emotionally unavailable combo is girl kryptonite. Poor Xiao-Yu is going to spend a couple of years getting over Xi Men. But when he spends her last night in Taiwan just holding her. All night. I just die. Eeeee.
I am sure I have ten billion other things, but I can't remember them at the moment.
And if you are still wobbling whether to watch Mars here are a couple of MVs to lure you:
This one is a decent intro one. Here hits the angst and here hits the ship and here My favorite of the bunch, it is just a general good preview where I love the intercutting. And the angst.
ETA: In case people are wondering where it's available on line, Mars is available with subs either as a torrent here or on youtube (just type in "Mars barbie" and ep number (1-21) and start from there). Here is a link to the first part of first ep.
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no subject
Date: 2006-07-26 10:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-26 10:09 pm (UTC)Here is a link to the first part of first ep:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwdgknq2LjE
no subject
Date: 2006-07-26 10:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-26 10:15 pm (UTC)Is Mars based on the manga by Fuyumi Soryo? If so, I must acquire it somehow...
no subject
Date: 2006-07-26 10:20 pm (UTC)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwdgknq2LjE
It's also located with subs for download (torrent) at http://www.d-addicts.com/forum/torrents.php?search=mars&type=twdrama&sub=View+all&sort=
Alternatively, I've seen burned copies from time to time on ebay.
I went nuts for it in the winter (just hit the 'mars' tag for proof) and it's actually the one that got me started on my dorama obsession. I loved the manga so was giddy to find out an adaptation of it.
no subject
Date: 2006-07-26 10:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-26 10:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-26 10:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-26 10:38 pm (UTC)Yeah, sounds pretty angsty. Points to her for making it so different from Mars. (I still remember sitting in the bookstore, for hourse, just reading volume after volume. It was the first manga I ever read).
no subject
Date: 2006-07-26 10:46 pm (UTC)And...as far as E'S goes...if she'd masde it just like Mars, we'd only complain about how it can't compare. But I'll be talking about it at my LJ once I've read it...
no subject
Date: 2006-07-27 12:14 pm (UTC)Cool!
no subject
Date: 2006-07-27 05:08 am (UTC)i have MARS in vcd format, coz my friend
no subject
Date: 2006-07-27 12:10 pm (UTC)I have Mars on vcds too (I had to have proper copies, I loved it so).
no subject
Date: 2006-07-27 06:49 pm (UTC)