My Year 2021 In Dramas

AlphaGirl Reviews completes 6 years today and I am beyond elated to see my baby make it this far. I started this blog on a whim as an outlet to express my views on my favorite topics.

Back then, this blog was only about lifestyle, relationships, and beauty. But after a few months, I discovered Korean dramas, and my life and this blog never remained the same again. I had no intention of reviewing dramas but I was so excited to discover these amazing shows that I just had to share it out here. In the very first year, I reviewed over 30 Asian dramas so you can imagine how badly I fell for these shows.

But over the years, my personal commitments got the better of me and I was unable to give time to dramas. So, at the start of 2021, I resolved to watch as many dramas as I possibly could and I’m glad that I managed to watch and review 20 Asian dramas.

Country	Dramas Watched
Japan	11
South Korea	6
Taiwan	2
Philippines	1

I wish to look back at this year and reminiscence all the good moments attached to these dramas. So, here is my year 2021 in dramas. 🙂

 

January 2021

My drama year 2021 started with a solid romantic show Lost Romance. My motivation to pick the show was Taiwanese hottie, Marcus Chang but I ended up loving lead actress Vivian Sung who was the life of the drama. In fact, I hardly remember Chang in the show because Sung overshadowed everyone with her lively acting. The show is funny and extremely entertaining.

Lost Romance is about our main leads meeting in a parallel universe and falling in love with each other in some of the most hilarious situations.

February 2021  

I watched two dramas in February, one Japanese and one Korean.

When One Day I Will Sleep is a short Japanese drama dealing with love, loss, and friendship. The female lead meets with an accident and her soul is given the chance to visit her loved ones and speak to them one last time to resolve any unresolved issues. This drama was short but insightful. It gives its viewers a reason to take a while and think about their own relationships in life.  

Mask is a Korean drama in which the female lead fraudulently replaces another woman who is murdered and falls in love with that woman’s husband. This drama has overlapping layers that are revealed through the course of the show and we get to see the horribly intertwined lives of a rich family. If I ignore the draggy climax, the show overall was a decent watch.

 

March 2021

March was a busy month so I could manage to watch only one drama i.e. Lovestruck In The City starring my Oppa Ji Chang Wook. I was so excited for the show and had high expectations of it since it also had the talented Kim Ji Won as the female lead. I thought this fresh drama pairing could not go wrong.

Sadly, even if their acting was good, the script was too bland for my taste. The drama is about finding and losing love and then finding the same love again. But when I watched the drama I realized that a major chunk of it dealt with Ji Chang Wook’s character agonizing over a lost love which was too much for me to take. I dropped the show more than halfway through it because I could not see my Oppa suffer for that long.

 

July 2021

I have noticed that each time I watch a disappointing drama, I invariably end up in a drama slump thereafter. Lovestruck in the City probably weighed down on my drama excitement and I went into a drama slump for the next few months until the hoobae-sunbae office romance drama, She Will Never Know came my way.

This drama pressed all the right drama buttons to make me watch it and get fully involved with it. Though it was an average drama for me, it certainly helped me get over my drama slump.

The show is about a junior being in a one-sided love with his mentor. The mentor is already in a relationship but unaware that she is being cheated on by her boyfriend. The junior exposes her cheating boyfriend and then helps her heal through the pain that she experienced while making a place for himself in her life.

Next came the much-awaited Japanese slice of life, comedy-drama Can’t Write A Life Without Scenario. I am a fan of J-actor, Toma Ikuta so I was excited to watch this show. And he was as good as expected in the role of an unsuccessful, struggling screenwriter living as a house-husband. The drama shows the tricky business of daily TV dramas and how writers have a tough time meeting the illogical demands of showmakers.

August 2021

Once I got back into the swing of watching dramas, I managed to complete three Japanese doramas in August. Now let me admit my current drama favorite is J-actor, Ryusei Yokohama. I find this young boy extremely talented and of course good-looking so I watched two of his shows back-to-back.

I Bought My Boyfriend on a Loan is a drama about rich women hiring a temporary boyfriend to vent their frustration and keep them company in the absence of their actual boyfriend or husband. The drama was below-average and quite boring at times but I could tolerate it because of Yokohama.

 

Then I watched the thriller Cursed in Love which had the gorgeous and equally talented Minami Hamabe as the female lead with Yokohama. Both these young talents did a great job playing their respective characters in this revenge drama. Their on-screen chemistry was piping hot and I wish these two are cast in more dramas together.

In-House Marriage Honey was an unexpectedly pleasing drama. It is the story of a young couple who get into an arranged marriage and fall in love after they start living together. This drama felt like a fresh break from a regular romance. Forced cohabitation is one of my favorite tropes so this show was tailored-made for me. 😀

September 2021

September was the most productive month of the year because I held on strongly to my resolve to watch dramas as regularly as I could. I managed to complete four dramas from three different countries.

September started off with a breezy K-drama, True Beauty. I had saved this drama for a time when I would be stressed and my trick worked. This drama was such a fun watch, it is perfect for some mindless drama viewing time. It is about a girl who has some skin problems and is teased for her ugly appearance. But when she discovers makeup, her life changes drastically as she transforms into an admirable beauty who is loved by everyone around her.

Next was the Japanese engineering drama Asuka High School March! It was about a girl’s experience studying in a school full of boys. The plot made the drama seem like a fun watch but sadly the script was lacking and the characters too were neither relatable nor likable.

Then came the unrequited love drama, More Than Friends. A show is about a girl who holds onto an unrequited crush for over ten years. Try not to look incredulous because the reason behind her fixation with the guy is explained and we also see what makes him so appealing to her. It is a nice drama for days when you are in the mood to watch a slow-burn romance.

I finally managed to complete the Taiwanese drama, Someday or One Day after deliberating over it for months. It is a complex drama with intertwined plotlines that made the drama complicated to follow. A time travel suspense show, it was like no other drama I have watched before.

October 2021

October was a mixed bag of J-doramas. I watched three Japanese dramas and enjoyed all of them. The first one was an obvious choice.

Why I Dress Up For Love is a show following the life of an Instagram influencer who works as a PR for an interior design company. She is in love with her boss but his sudden disappearance leaves her in the company of a chef who lives in the same house as her. It was a good watch especially for a Yokohama fan like me. 🙂 

Then I watched the sexy office romance Love Is Phantom. This is a hot affair between a boss and his employee at a hotel. I dunno how I got to this drama but it was a quick watch so I have no complaints. It is a decent watch for a sexy show.

Lastly, I watched the cringy yet intriguing thriller Alice In Borderland. This show still makes me uncomfortable each time I think of it. Something about it is unsettling, I just cannot put a finger on it. But my main leads, Kento Yamazaki and Tao Tsuchiya did a fab job with this one so the cringe was worth it. 

November 2021

This was a busy busy month so I could squeeze only one drama in the whole of 30 days. Can’t Run Away From Love is yet another office romance between a boss, still being bogged down by demons of the past, and his employee who falls for his childish charm. A weak plot and poor script are what made this show suffer. I did not enjoy it as much as I wanted to.

 

The next show was my first Filipino high school romance, He’s Into Her. I had watched the show way before November but posted the review late. Max and Deib’s young and innocent love story is not at all smooth and easy. What starts with hate slowly develops into love but not without extra complications. It is a nice show with a very promising cast.    

 

December 2021

I finally managed to watch the worldwide phenomenon, Squid Games and had mixed feelings about it. The show is highly engaging and even captivating but it is not a show I would recommend very highly. And I have given my reasons here.

Then I watched a teacher-student romance, A Story To Read When You First Fall In Love. Such plots are not my preferred idea of a romantic angle but I watched it because it had Ryusei Yokohama in bright pink hair and the gorgeous Kyoko Fukada as his love interest. Now how am I supposed to miss a show like that??

Thankfully, it did not have any cringy love scenes or dialogues. In fact, the show was a pleasant watch. Both the main leads were fantastic and looked great together on-screen.

My last drama of 2021 was the Taiwanese classic, At The Dolphin Bay which is about two lovers meeting in their childhood before separating and then reuniting as adults. It is a sweet show with lots of complications that keep our leads from having a happy life together. Since it is an old show it has those typical old twists, turns, and troubles in the lead’s lives. Its main highlight is its music and its strong cast. 

  

 

Thanks to OTT platforms Asian dramas have become easily accessible. Netflix and Viki are both updating their Japanese and Taiwanese drama collection, so I wish to watch more good J and T dramas. Of course, there is a good lineup of K-dramas for 2022 so I will try to watch the latest Korean shows too. Let’s see what 2022 has in store for dramaddicts like me. 🙂 

 

Have a Happy New Year and keep watching dramas. <3 

 

 

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