My unpopular upcoming twdrama opinions, I show them to you!

While not all of this is confirmed yet (well, just Joe Cheng in Skip-Beat, I think) I shall now voice what shall now doubt be unpopular opinions on a few upcoming dramas.

Hua Wu Fei Xue:  Eva Huang.  Eva Huang in a period drama.  Eva Huang in a period drama where her character is a thief.  Eva Huang in a period drama where her character is a thief who has two former friends turned enemies interested in her(not a fan of love triangles, but I love "friends/lovers/family turned enemies" the way some love "enemies as lovers" and/or love triangles.)  So far, I am so in love with this, you have no idea.  (Eva!  Period drama!  Thief!  Friends turned enemies and romantic rivals!)  And then I get to the part where her co-star is Mike He, and my unpopular opinion of "No!  NONONONONO!" rears it's ugly head.  I realize it's unfair of me, but Devil Beside You turned me off Mike He to an unbelievable degree.  It doesn't help that I'm clearly supposed to think he's hot stuff and can't think of him as more than passingly cute.  Also, why do all his costars seem to hate him and not want to work with him?

Skip-Beat:  This rumor has been floating around for a while, but apparently it's now mostly-confirmed that Ariel Lin and Jerry Yan will star as Kyoko and Ren.  There's also a rumor that Joe Cheng will be Sho but is backing out because Jerry wants  his (Joe's) screentime reduced, but I suspect the Joe Cheng part is a publicity stunt.  Ariel Lin I approve of.  Heartily.  Jerry?  You know, I could buy him as Sho (I suspect they'll age the characters anyway) but Ren?  Nuh-uh.  Again, probably unfair of me, but while he was likable and had himself some very nice arms in Meteor Garden, he couldn't act there at all.  From what I hear, that hasn't changed.  For a character like Ren, who operates about 90% off charisma and attempts at being stoic and standoffish with some angst and perfectionist tendencies mixed in, that's kind of a bad thing.  (Were I to choose a Ren, it would be Kingone.  And Kingone and Ariel would be an awesome collision of cute.)  I also can't help but think that the insanity and humor will be tuned down too much.  There's something about twdramas (too reserved, maybe?) that keeps them from ever really reaching the depths of humor and crack and insanity jdramas and manga reach, and Skip-Beat kind of thrives on that.  Skip-Beat also isn't a romance, but I've never seen a twdrama that wasn't focused primarily on romance.

BUT!  MORE POPULAR OPINIONS!

Love and Bread:  Ariel Lin and Joe Cheng.  Apparently set in the country and Joe is poor.  This is all I know and all I really need to know.  Except they made Ariel gain weight for it.  STOP MAKING HER GAIN AND LOSE LOTS OF POUNDS!!!  Seriously.  I'm still recovering from the fact that they made her lose weight for Legend of the Condor Heroes.  I'm worried that when I watch it, she'll be in danger of getting blown away by a gust of wind.  I mean, has the girl ever had a co-star whose pocket she couldn't fit into?

I also want to see Rainie Yang's upcoming dramas.  Again, not as big a fan of Rainie as others, but I like her well enough.  Miss No Good has her as a jewelry store owner who gets a makeover.  I'm not sure why it appeals, but it does.  Superstar Express has her playing the anti-Rainie Yang character as she's supposedly  somber and anti-social.  (Her character in Strange Tales of Liao Zhai was pretty serious, so I'm sure she can pull it off.)  It also has Jiro Wang as her love interest, which has to be the most random pairing ever.

There's also Clue Collector and Paper Rose.  Both have cool names, one has delinquents turned high school detectives and the other has Ariel Lin, and that's about all I know of either.

I think, though, that this is about equal to the total number of twdramas I've ever been interested in.

Psych: Season 2 (complete)

So, I kind of have this strange love-hate thing going with Psych.  On the one hand, I love the gimmick of the genius detective who's a slacker who can't keep a job because he can't get motivated, but then realizes he loves solving crimes and gets really motivated with that, and drags his high strung best friend along.  I don't love the "fake psychic" bit they added to it.  Shawn as Shawn provides enough hijinks and off-beat behavior to keep the show running.  Shawn  with his fake psychic act going tends to move him from "annoying but endearing" to "someone just hit him already" territory for me most of the time, and I tend to really hate his "visions" and just want them to be over with.

That said, S2 seemed to have that aspect under control better than S1 did, but it also seemed more slapstick at times than S1.  I kind of want to forget that the counterfeit episode ever happened.

Juliet and Lassiter also got some of their own storylines here.  I'm glad they aren't pushing "Lassiter is a jerk" as hard as they did in S1, as how they did it then just made me more inclined to like him and be irritated with Shawn.  (I do like Shawn, just not as much as I do other characters.)  They didn't portray Juliet as being as willing to buy into Shawn's  act as they did in S1.  As much as Juliet/Shawn is pretty much an odd, mass collision of cute and snark, I kind of hope the show never actually hooks them up.  Even though she "knows" he's lying to her about being a psychic, she still gives him trust and the benefit of the doubt, and at some point, it will have to be stated "yes, I've been lying to you from the moment we met," and she isn't the sort of person who will take that well, especially given how much she defends him.  It should stay with Shawn having a massive crush but being allergic to adult relationships, and Juliet having an "adults only" policy.  I'm continually impressed, though, that they can constantly make her so cute and perky and honest and trusting (and, sometimes, a complete, stereotypical blonde) but also clearly smarter and more competent than almost anyone else on the show at any point in time.  Not to mention she's the resident badass.  Now for Vick to get some more independent development in S3.

( some spoilers )

Seimaden Vol 2

I should not be reading this looking for the prototypes for Cantarella characters. Except…it’s so easy in bits. I blame Laures. He’s Cesare so much is almost hurts. Hilda is kind of a combination of Sancia and Lucrezia. She leaned more towards Sancia in Vol 1, but more towards Lucrezia here. Cheryl is also a bit like Lucrezia, but maybe that’s just Higuri You’s kind of character. Tetius is Volpe if he were about 1000 times more naïve. And prettier. Roddrick is kinda like Chiaro, except I want to smack him and I’ve never wanted to smack Chiaro. Maybe a light tap upside the head from time to time.

Though, if Roddrick is Chiaro, and the whole thing is “Laures became a demon lord to save his true love’s soul but she died anyway and was reborn as Hilda, who was Roddrick’s childhood love before Laures wiped out their village,” (all this revealed early in vol 1) does this mean Seimaden is also going to be a Love Triangle of Epic Doom? Except, I can’t imagine Laures ever viewing Roddrick as more than an annoyance.

I really hope there isn’t talk about how pure and perfect Elis was the whole series. Though I wouldn’t mind seeing Hilda get annoyed and tear into someone after getting annoyed at hearing her past self talked about like such a paragon.

Higuri You also seemed to be channeling her inner Kaori Yuki (that, or the copy editor was having some problems) and her inner Clamp. Unless X/1999 came after Seimaden. I should look into that. 

( spoilers )

Orfina Vol 2

( unconnected spoilery thoughts )

To recap: Badass scarred warrior chick in armor who rocks. Some of the less pleasant aspects of war, but as tastefully done as is possible. An unrelated and unnecessary bit of fanservice. Lotsa blood and death. In general a pretty solid fantasy centered around a mysterious heroine, despite the sad-sigh worthy scene. 

(no subject)

 For better or for worse, based on a few posts on the f-lists today about shipwars in their fandoms, I've created the LJ user interest liking multiple female characters.  (Though, if there's a better version of this, someone tell me.) 

ETA:  Related interest that's been around for a bit:  all the fictional women you hate.