K-Drama: Hi Bye, Mama!

Hi Bye, Mama! is a heart wrenching tale of a mother who lost her life and watches over her young child as a ghost. Spooky, am I right? But that's not the direction this K-Drama takes. It is a lovely story that guts you in the feels and makes you wish you could go in and fix everything yourself, like in Dramaworld, another kind of K-Drama...  but not really.

K-Drama: Possessed

I have decided on branching out a bit beyond just talking about anime and manga and talk about some other things I have been watching since this pandemic started. So... I have started to delve into the K-Dramas that are available on Netflix! This is not my first time watching K-Dramas but it is the first time I get to talk about the ones I have seen, solely due to the fact that I don't have many friends that enjoy K-Dramas as much as I do. 

Moving right along, this Korean drama centers around Kang Pil-Seong, a detective in the Violent Crimes unit at the Sangdong Police Station and Hong Seo-jeong, an online clothing store owner and extremely powerful psychic. These two meet and their fates become entwined with one another, especially after Hwang Dae-du, a serial killer that had been executed over twenty years ago, is resurrected and starts killing again... 

Anime: Kakegurui by Homura Kawamoto (Season 1)

This thrilling, gambling anime has everyone sitting on the edge of their seats. I had to rewatch this to refresh my memory of everything but it's as good as I remember it being. The story centers around Hyakkao Gakuen, a prestigious private school full of rich kids and the more money you have the greater your status in the school, also did I mean that you have to be a great gambler too? All the students in the academy gamble, it's a pastime for them and it also can help them achieve a greater status with their peers with the accumulation of their winnings...

Anime: Death Note by Tsugumi Ohba

Despite this anime being out for years, I've never completely watched it, so now I can check it off my list as complete since it's available on Netflix. Anyways, Death Note by Ohba Tsugumi is an anime about shinigami, death gods, and what happens when they get bored, more specifically when Ryuk, the main shinigami, gets bored. The series is 37 episodes long which is quite odd for an anime to end with from this era. Usually anime are 12, 24, 48 or 52 episodes long but this one stuck out to me all these years because it doesn't follow the norm. From the couple of episodes I had seen prior, it's a really good show and I know why it's highly recommended and revered. Moving on though, this is the story of when a shinigami gets bored and decides to drop his Death Note, which will be explained, into the human world...

Manga: Kitchen Princess by Natsumi Ando

Kitchen Princess by Ando Natsumi is a really cute shoujo manga centered around cooking. This is a classic for me, it was originally published by DelRey, I believe, in America and after DelRey shut down, it was rescued by Kodansha, who published it in Japan. It is 10 volumes long, originally DelRey's publishing, but now it is available as a 4 volume omnibus series with Kodansha. There is a light novel that accompanies it but unfortunately Kodansha hasn't rescued that yet, I'm hoping that they will. Although, I'm really glad they brought this series back, it caused a spark in me, leading me to love flan! 

Manga: Red River by Chie Shinohara

One of my absolute favorite series makes its debut on my blog, Red River by Shinohara Chie! I cannot stress enough how much I love this manga. The series had a long run, ending with 28 volumes. It is a historical fiction manga dating back to the B.C. era in the Hittite Empire during King Suppiluliuma’s rule, really near the end of his rule. Many of the events that happen within the manga are actual events that was recorded in history, which I personally think is amazing. This manga, I believe, is the first of its kind. I have never see another manga to use this time period in this location, most mangaka write about Japanese history due to the fact that it’s what they know. You don’t normally get to read western history in manga unless it’s about Egypt, but this is not a story centered around Egypt, it is about the Hittite Empire during the peak of its reign.

Manhwa: Snow Drop by Choi Kyung-ah

This manhwa, a Korean manga, is an epic love story, where love conquers all, literally! Choi Kyung-ah did a fantastic job with this title and I personally would love to read more by them. Snow Drop is about a young teen named Yoo So-na who lost her mother some years ago. So-Na’s mother had a nursery for flowers and now So-na has taken the responsibility of taking care of it because it’s where she feels closest with her mother. Along with a book her mother wrote about flowers called “Snow Drop,” too. Due to her mother’s death she didn’t feel well enough to go to school anymore until now. Her best friend, Jang Ha-da, ends up at school with her, where she meets Oh Hae-gi. Once they met, nothing would go back to the way they were...