The Great Asian Dramathon

da SeRose, ottobre 30, 2012

The Great Asian Dramathon

Just pick your drama and run! From KDrama Biscuit Teacher, Star Candy

Definition: MARATHON
(1) long-distance race:
A – Footrace run on an open course usually of 26 miles 385 yards (42.2 kilometers)
B – A race other than a footrace marked especially by great length

(2)
A – An endurance contest
B – Something (as an event, activity, or session) characterized by great length or concentrated effort

Definition: DRAMATHON
(1) Asian-drama race against time:
A – Stationary session on a closed circuit course contained within a TV/Monitor screen (52 in.)
B – A lengthy race marked by a drama’s episode count, 8 to 200

(2)
A – An endurance of willpower, against the competition of real life
B – Where some drama (Korean, Japanese, or Taiwanese) is watched whole, or for a concentrated effort of no less than 4 hours; maximum limit not required.

Let’s face it. We’ve all done this, or at least tried to. You start a brand new show, and it’s almost irresistible. It finished airing years ago and is just sitting there with link after link of sweet temptation. Next… next… one more… almost there… two to finish… one left… Score! Who can resist it? An entire season’s worth of entertainment is yours instantly at just the click of a mouse.

More than any other sign, the drama marathon is a confession of true addiction. Forget the culture of instant gratification; this is about the culture of Asian drama fanatics, and it comes to us so easily. Most of us don’t get live drama broadcasts on our TVs. Instead, we use an advanced form of social media called the internet. For those of you who don’t know the term, the internet is a highly intelligent being created for the express purpose of delivering Korean, Japanese, and Chinese language videos from there to here.

True story from Drama Queen http://donnapie.tumblr.com/

By the time I stumbled across my first Kdrama, marathoning had long since become a verb in my vocabulary, and never was a genre of entertainment so perfectly suited for marathoning! Unlike American TV shows with their years-long run of seemingly inexhaustible OTP-crushing plot devices, Asian dramas give you actual story progression all nicely wrapped up within a day’s worth of episodes. Put simply, Asian dramas were meant to be marathoned! (We’ll just ignore the fact that this is television, and apparently, TV shows are only supposed to come out once or twice a week for longevity or better ratings - whatever).

Alright, so I’ve made my admission: I love dramas, and I marathon them like crazy. What does that say about me, though? I have to ask myself some questions:

What does it mean to want to marathon a drama? Does that mean I like it more, or that it’s better?
What about the dramas I refuse to marathon? Does that mean I like them any less, or that they’re somehow not as watchable?

I dare you not to marathon this! From KDrama Time Between Dog and Wolf

Looking back at the dramas I have truly marathoned, some are among my Top 10 favorites. Nobuta Wo Produce, Time Between Dog and Wolf, and MARS all fit into the category of ‘so awesome I couldn’t stop.’ Other dramas were fun to marathon, but looking back I no longer find My Princess or The Greatest Love very exceptional. In the case of My Princess, I’m pretty sure my hand was a slave to the remote, egging me on to finish just so it could be over sooner. In contrast, I didn’t marathon Coffee Prince or I Need Romance, the reigning champs on my dramalist. I also couldn’t seem to watch more than one or two episodes of Buzzer Beat or Fugitive: Plan B at a time, though I enjoyed almost every moment I spent with them.

I’ll try to account for some of these discrepancies.

Perks of the Dramathon

Cliff-hanger endings? Hah!
Complete immersion: A feeling of oneness with the characters
Pure accomplishment – One drama down, on to the next!
Less chance of forgetting side-characters’ names
Your cat likes you more if you sit in one place without moving for hours at a time…

Disadvantages of the Dramathon

Missed anticipation of next week’s plot twists or revelations
A sense of unreality when it’s over: What do I do with my life now?
What if I watch all the good ones, and then there are no more dramas left?!
Side characters who might have been funny become obnoxious at close intervals
Your cat starts to get really heavy, like a giant fuzzy furnace…

Truer words were never spoken...

Alternatives to the Dramathon

Currently-airing dramas
Getting to squeal with other fangirls as episodes unfold
Try movies for a change of pace.

Why I Hate ‘Alternatives to the Dramathon’

I want to know what happens now!
Waiting for subs!!
I like relationships that I can invest 20 hours of my life into because that’s just more realistic…

What I look like at about 5:00 AM in the morning, after finishing a dramathon. From KDrama To The Beautiful You

You know most of us wish we could marathon everything if life would just give us a break every now and then. Unfortunately, it’s not always possible, and I always need a fallback show not for marathoning, but for savoring. At the end of a long day, it's a good feeling to have your favorite bias waiting for you (Song Joong Ki, in Nice Guy), but nothing’s quite as exciting as planning the next great dramathon. (Hmm... should I do Dream High next?)