So I’ve been in the grips of a horrible cold for the past couple weeks, and thus have had more time to watch TV on my laptop since I’ve been up late at night coughing too much to sleep. I was happy to discover Dramafever, a site that has legal streaming Korean drama TV shows. We really are living in a great time for geeks, what with Crunchyroll and other free streaming anime sites available and now streaming dramas. I tend to restrict my drama viewing to just shows that are adaptations of manga. I’m not sure why I find manga live action adaptations so fascinating. I think that since the best a fan of American comic books can hope for is a movie that doesn’t suck too much, the idea of a season long adaptation of a series is something rare. Meanwhile, manga series get adaptations all over Asia.

I never really got into the Taiwanese version of the story, Meteor Garden. I thought it was hilarious that the actors in that series formed a boy band based on their F4 characters though. I liked the Japanese Boys Over Flowers, but it is hard to suspend one’s disbelief when the lead male role is miscast. Matsumoto Jun is ok and all, but he’s so tiny. Doumyouji is supposed to be physically threatening, but it is hard to think of Doumyouji in the Japanese drama as being threatening. It always seemed like the lead actress would be able to snap Matsumoto like a twin if she’d felt like it.

I’m really enjoying the Korean version of the story. I think I’m only up to around episode 6, but there seems to be slightly less cheesiness and mugging in the acting department, and the Korean actor playing Doumyouji is sufficiently physically imposing that it is believable when he looms. So if you have enjoyed the manga version of Boys Over Flowers, I encourage you to try out the drama!