Recommendations: Slice-of-life Webtoon & Manga

Sneaking a bit of time here to show my appreciation for all of my favourite webtoons/manga/manhwa of the slice-of-life genre. Hope these recommendations will make for a rather relaxing (or lazy) weekend for you folks! ^^

I enjoy a lot of slice-of-life stories and there are a lot of good ones, but for some reasons these five really left a print in my heart even after a long time.

Annarasumanara by Ha Il-kwon

What does it mean to grow up?

“Do you believe in magic?” starts this incredible coming-of-age story of a teenage girl name Yoon Ai.  Standing at as one of the top of her class academically, Yoon Ai is hurrying herself to grow up faster so that she can take care of her younger sister and escape poverty.  However, regardless of social status and economic situation, the journey of growing up is never easy. As the story unfolds, Yoon Ai will learn and accept herself.  She will also realize that the magic of innocence needn’t be given up despite of how tough life can be. Another lesson illustrated through this story is that sometimes we shouldn’t merely take things at face value.  This is a breathtakingly beautiful story full of metaphors and figurative speech that will just warm you up by the end of the day.

Asian Entertainment Blog Recommendations

Please note that this gif has nothing to do with this post other than the fact they’re Asians (& this post is Asian-related). Just want something to fill in the void of the this post la~ XD

Over the last few months, I noticed that some visitors have mistaken this blog as an Asian entertainment blog.  Well, it’s not.  However, I do have some recommendations!  Some of which are not for the faint of heart.  

Forever OTP in My Heart — Alex Fong & Stephy Tang

March 17, 2016 — marks the end of a decade long romance of Alex Fong & Stephy Tang…which is actually not very surprisingly for anyone who knows the basics of face reading.  I’m rather surprised that they have lasted this long.  O____O  For those of you who have listened to their duets before, you will realize how their songs pretty much sum up their bitter-sweet relationship throughout the decade.  Anyways, despite everything, they’re still one of my favourite on-screen couples…otherwise, I wouldn’t have bothered to watch any of those crappy movies starring them.

From their latest collaboration, Anniversary.  This is my favourite movie of them…L for Love and L for Lies follows right after.  ^^

Alrighty, this is really a tribute post of their awesome duets that have left a tiny footprint in my younger days.  As usual, all song titles are roughly translated by moi.

A Time-Travel with Dramas

It has been a while since my last blog post, so I might be losing my touch with how I usually write these posts (not that I have any particular style to begin with).  Anyways, today I just want to spazz about some of the dramas I always seem to come back to almost year after year even though they might or might not be “outstanding” at all in terms of acting, plot, and cinematography-wise.  Heck, some of these dramas wouldn’t even make my top ten list.  However, they are dramas that I tend to go back to time and time again for whatever mundane reasons.  I’m not sure if I can categorize them as “guilty pleasure dramas”, but they certainly provide some level of comfort whenever the present drama land is being shitty on poor old me who’s getting older & less energetic each passing day (these days, I just drop onto my bed & sleep immediately after work @___@).  Anyways, enough about my sleep-deprived situation (as I’m pretty much always sleep-deprived anyways since high school).  And, yes, it’s a definitely a “time-travel” post today.

Anyways, not in any particular order and surprisingly, only one C-drama from mainland China (despite that I have a few more that would have made it to my top ten list):

Autumn’s Concerto

A Taiwanese idol drama starring Vanness Wu and Ady An.

Usually I can’t take anything that has an “idol romance-melodramatic” vibe to it.  But surprisingly, this one works for me as it continues to spoil me with awesome OSTs and scenes of a particular cute child actor throughout all the “melodrama-mess” (& no, it’s not a typo).  Asides from the main leads’ chemistry, a few good actors, and the cute kid, the plot is actually quite…typical.  I rewatch this at least once every couple of years because of all the heart-throbbing moments between the main leads (& again, to “aw…” at the cute kid).

My To-Watch Drama List

I posted this initially over at AFF about a week ago as I continued to fight the slow internet (then, I got bored & decided to troll others with my weird stories, but that’s an entirely different story for another day XD).  Just some random thoughts as I jog down some titles so that I can refer back later on.  ^^”

Chinese Dramas:  

*HOLY MOLY, there are just way too many good Chinese dramas nowadays that I’m really having a hard time to keep track of my To-Watch list.  XD  Compare to just a few short years ago, Chinese productions have really up-scaled in quality.  Can’t say that I’m not impressed.

Room39 – From Singing Covers to Topping Music Charts

Members of Room39.  From left to right: Tom (the youngest looking dude), Mon (the lady), and Olran (the boss dude).

The first time when I listened to Thai music, I’ve only accidentally stumbled on it through random YouTube recommendations.  However, now that I’m more confident to dive further into this “new” area of music (despite still not understanding the language), I’ve deliberately gone out of my way to find more Thai music gems.  Room39 is one of the gems that I’ve discovered recently.

Chinese Equivalents of Sunbae/Hoobae or Senpai/Kohai

I really didn’t realize that there are so many Chinese equivalents of the terms, “sunbae” & “hoobae”, until I started listing them recently (and thanks to a friend from AFF for kindly pointing it out).  O___O”

Anyways, here are the equivalents and their usage (please do kindly point out if you see any inaccuracy here):

Sunbae (Korean), Senpai (Japanese), Senior (roughly translated):

Qianbei (前輩) – this is probably the term that sunbae and senpai derived from as they sounded the closest, phonetically-speaking (also, Japanese use the same kanji).  This term can be used in most settings.

Xuezhang (學長) – refers generally to older male students in school (or older male alumni who graduated from the same school as you).

Xuejie (學姐) – female version of xuezhang (學長).

Digimon

Oh yes!  The original Digimon characters (Season 1 & 2) are finally back!  Finally, I can get some closures, such as how the heck did Sora get with Matt (aka Yamato)??  Because when that happened, it totally felt like a punch on my face that came out of nowhere.  Also, it seems some of the characters *cough* Matt & Joe *cough* have finally got rid of their ridiculously sleek hairstyles from Season 2.  Thank you!

Yup, another one of those fan posts from me today.  At least, it’s a short one today!  XD

MILD – A Thai Music Group that makes My Heart Flutter

Most of the time, I listen to random music of a specific genre on YouTube based on my writing need (ie. am I writing a dramatic story, a romcom, or slice-of-life story?).  Once in a while, I would get introduced to a musician or music group that by the time I finished writing, I realized that I could not let go of that particular musician or music group.

MILD is one of those music groups that I simply cannot turn my back on after I’ve heard their music once.  There musical style is a mix of jazz and R&B.  Overall, there is an easy-going quality to their musical style.

1) The song that totally made my heart fluttered and motivated me to research more on this band despite not knowing the language.  This song is titled “Nemesis”, solely based on Google translate. XD  Hm…when I listened to this song initially, I didn’t realize it was about the effects of cheating.

a) This was the version that caught my attention.