Boys Text ... Men Talk

<ALERT> This article will not focus on a drama review but more a character review. <ALERT OVER>

Before we get started, we want to offer our filtering list for identifying if our character was a “real man” or “boy.”  Our 8 Filter Characteristics for Identifying Real Men (not in any order):

1.Gentleman  2.Direct  3. Faithful  4. Integrity  5. Honest   6. Mature  7.Self-Confident  8. Positive Attitude 

The tough part is narrowing down the men or boys who left an impression and explore the why. Let's get started...

Character: Satou Asahi_ Wakamono Tachi

It would be difficult to sum up everything about him, but I’ll do my best to highlight his main traits. Satou Asahi is just an average guy to tell the truth.  He’s not an action hero or a super intelligent career man; he’s just a common man who is trying his best for his family. He is poor, uneducated, opinionated and old-fashioned. But! He is also hard-working, honest, and sincere. Despite his preconceived notions about life he is not so close-minded that he is not willing to see things from others’ points of view. He protects his family, he’s willing to fight (physically as well as verbally) for his family, and he puts his family before himself. Despite his family’s many hardships, he stays true to himself and remains loyal and honest to them. Despite his siblings’ frustration with his actions, they truly love him for all he’s done for them (it’s not easy being a legal guardian after all). In my opinion, he’s as close to being a real life real man that you can get in a drama: he’s not perfect, but he does try his hardest - as an imperfect person - to live his life in this messed up world among messed up people the best he can.

 ~ Introspective A

Character - Dok Ko Jin (DKJ) _ Greatest Love

Dok Ko Jin was a character who hit all eight (8) characteristics and held them strong throughout the drama. As in contrast, his love competitor ‘the Doctor’ who possessed the 8 characteristics rather weakly, giving him a young boy feel throughout the entire drama. What was the difference? DKJ possessed a self-confidence to the point of comedic narcissism however it protected & strengthened him and his love.  Watching this drama (more than once) I noticed he never left the important talks to a text or ignored phone calls, he was direct, honest, and held his love with the highest integrity with her and more importantly with others. Ok, back to the Doctor… his weak self-confidence and maturity left me feeling *blah* no spark, no connection, rather a lackluster blank page thus earning him a spot on my boy/man list. When you think of what you want in a partner, we want all those characteristics, some may need strengthening YET we want them all! 

“Boys break your heart. Real men pick up the pieces.” ~Drake ~Bookish A

Bottomline, the men, boys and people we are attracted to in drama or life varies much like flavors of ice-cream however something keeps us all cheering & wanting more of “bad-boy,”or the one “with great swagger,” or the one “who transforms into something better.”

So fellow MDL’ers, what do you think differentiates REAL Men for BOYS? We’d love to hear from you!  

BTW - really “great swagger” is almost better than ice-cream or chocolate. Hehehehehe!