Asian Idols: Business, Pop Culture & Some Catchy Tunes

I have a new song stuck in my head at all times of the day. The song is called Yue Lai Yue Ai (越來越愛) , or Loving You More and More by Fahrenheit.





Fahrenheit is a Taiwanese boy band. Each member of the band has his own season and temperature to coincide with the boy band name. No, I'm not making this up. lol. They are Taiwanese but they have done some songs in Japanese. I guess they want to be like BOA (Korean) or Arashi (Japanese), with huge success all over Asia.

I just found out about them because I was watching a really good Taiwanese drama (ToGetHer) and the opening and closing song is sung by them. Then, when I looked into it, I realized that the main actor in the drama, Jiro Wang, was one of the singers in the band. It's kind of like MatsuJun doing Hana Yori Dango with his band Arashi doing the theme songs. The same is true with the Korean version of Hana Yori Dango, except it's the actor that plays Rui Hanazawa's (Ji Hoo) character,Kim Hyun Joong, who is in the band SS501 .

Asian idol machines and pop culture is so interesting. They really know how to get a big pay off with an idol's 15 minutes of fame. They just squeeze these celebrities dry with movies, music, tv, modeling, products, ads etc. Once they are used goods and the new thing is here, the cycle begins again with the new talent. It's so much more intense than in the States. An idol in the States, like the 'NSYNC boys, are supposed to sing, but people don't expect them to act as well and do a million other things. In Asia, they are expected to have many preforming talents.
Man, I love pop culture. Sorry for the long useless blog. I just love this shit.


Anyway, to end this post, I'll put the music video for Fahrenheit's closing theme song to ToGetHer. It's called MoMo (默默) or Silently. The song is great and you can see scenes from the tv drama.









By the way, just FYI, when I was in Hong Kong (Golden Week vacation), I heard Utada's English album everywhere. I would go into stores and they would be playing it. I thought that was cool.

Boys Before Flowers, of course. Is that even a question?

“I’m so busy that I don’t even remember that you didn’t call me for 3 days and 13 hours!” -Goo Jun Pyo

I am a bit addicted to Asian dramas. I feel as if this past year my anime addiction has turned into a tv drama addiction. lol. There always has to be something, right?

Anyway here are two Asian Dramas that I really like.


Hana Yori Dango 花より男子　(Japanese) & Boys Before Flowers 꽃보다 남자 (Korean)
They are 2 versions of the same story. lol.

-Some spoilers


A few months ago my obsession was Hana Yori Dango (Japanese Drama). It's based on the manga series. It's basically about a rich boy (Domyoji) with a power trip who falls for the one girl (Makino) who doesn't let him get his way. The drama series was great and of course how can you not love Oguri Shun, the actor who plays Hanazawa Rui, the love rival and best friend to Domyoji. Oh boy, I wanted him to end up with the girl at the end because he is soooo much cooler. lol. Anyway, I digress.
If you want to check out more information on Hana Yori Dango read on:
Hana Yori Dango has 2 seasons and a movie. The first season has 9 episodes and the second season has 11 episodes. The movie takes places after the 2nd season. For more information on Hana Yori Dango and all of its episodes, you can go to MySoju . You can also watch the first part of the first episode down here, so check it out:










Anyway, my new obsession is Boys before Flowers, which is the Korean version of the same drama. Yup, it's basically the same story, except it's in Korean with Korean actors (obviously) and a bit of changes here and there to the story line. I have to admit though that I was way more into the Japanese version than the Korean version. Maybe it's because I saw that one first.

In the Korean version, the rich boy is called Goo Jun Pyo. The poor girl he becomes interested in is Geum Jan Di and the love rival/ best friend if Yoon Ji Hoo
There is one more episode left and I can't wait to see what happens next. While the "oh-so-beautiful-boy" in the Japanese version was Oguri Shun, in the Korean version it's Lee Min-ho (Goo Jun Pyo).

The Korean version has one season so far with 24 episodes. I'm waiting for the 24th (last) episode right now. For more info and all of the episodes click on MySoju
To check out the first part of the first episode, look below

BoysBeforeFlowers01.1
by jangchris0101

If you guys haven't watched any of these, you should definitely go watch them. I recommend watching the Japanese version first.