Annnnnnnd another year comes to a close.

Big thanks to our recap minions HeadsNo2, gummimochi, and kaedejun for sharing their reviews with us and joining the spirited discussion for the Editors’ Picks this year. There wasn’t even any hair-pulling, and only one person lost an eye! It’s been a great year for K-dramas and an even better one at Dramabeans because of all our readers, so thanks to you guys for making this community what it is. Okay, enough mushy stuff.

And the winners are…

SONG OF THE DAY

Queen In-hyun’s Man OST – “내 남자, 김붕도” (My Man, Kim Boong-do) [ Download ]

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Read the rest of 2012 Editors’ Picks [Year In Review, Part 6] (4,080 words)

© javabeans for Dramabeans, 2012. | Permalink | 315 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Answer Me 1997, Arang and the Magistrate, Big, Dr. Jin, Fashion King, featured, Gaksital, History of the Salaryman, Nice Guy, Padam Padam, Queen In-hyun's Man, Rooftop Prince, Shut Up: Flower Boy Band, The King 2 Hearts, The Moon That Embraces the Sun, year in review

On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me
A gummi fetus in a braaaaaain

On the second day of Christmas, my true love gave to me
Two sleeping beauties

And a gummi fetus in a braaaaaain

On the third day of Christmas, my true love gave to me
Three crossdressers

Two sleeping beauties
And a gummi fetus in a braaaaaain

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Read the rest of Santa presents: 12 Days of Christmas (428 words)

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Post tags: featured, year in review

If there’s anything that Santa has taught me over the years (other than a musical mnemonic about single-malt scotches), it’s that Christmas is a time of giving. Dramaland gives us so much throughout the year, that I thought it was finally time for me to stop being a grinch and give back, out of the goodness of my heart. *waits for credit*

So this year I’ve made a Christmas list, and every drama I’ve watched this year is on it. Because everyone deserves presents. Yes, even you, Show.

 
SONG OF THE DAY

The King 2 Hearts OST – “Hang-ah’s Dream” [ Download ]

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Read the rest of Dramaland: The gift that keeps on giving [Year In Review, Part 5] (8,856 words)

© girlfriday for Dramabeans, 2012. | Permalink | 138 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: A Gentleman's Dignity, Answer Me 1997, Arang and the Magistrate, Big, Faith, featured, Gaksital, I Do I Do, I Miss You, I Need Romance 2012, King of Dramas, Nice Guy, Queen In-hyun's Man, Rooftop Prince, Shut Up: Flower Boy Band, The Chaser, The King 2 Hearts, The Moon That Embraces the Sun, To the Beautiful You, Vampire Prosecutor 2, year in review

My first year-end review!

I was so excited for this opportunity that I decided to watch as many dramas as I could in preparation this year, and all but forced myself to doggedly stick with obvious train wrecks because I figured, “Hey, at least it’ll give me something to write about.”

If I learned anything, it was that I should never do that again. That’s a life lesson every drama viewer should learn early in their infancy, so I’ll just chalk it up to some late blooming on my part. Ergo, take some of these review choices with a grain of salt and (hopefully) not as a pure representation of taste.

This was the year for time traveling heroes, questionably nice guys, single-minded kings, guardian angels, reapers, rockers, brothers, heroes, and hanbok-wearing chickens. Not every year has a bandwagon, but 2012 sure did; there was more time traveling than you could shake a stick at. And for most of those offerings, you’d be shaking that stick pretty angrily.

Since hindsight is 20/20, I’m riding out this year’s trend by posing this question to each drama: If I could turn back time, what would I do differently?

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Read the rest of If I Could Turn Back Time [Year In Review, Part 4] (7,565 words)

© HeadsNo2 for Dramabeans, 2012. | Permalink | 154 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Arang and the Magistrate, Big, Dr. Jin, Equator Man, Fashion King, featured, Gaksital, History of the Salaryman, Love Rain, Nice Guy, Oohlala Spouses, Operation Proposal, Padam Padam, Queen In-hyun's Man, The King 2 Hearts, The Moon That Embraces the Sun, To the Beautiful You, year in review

Looking at the buffet table of 2012, I’m left in awe at the vast array of possible selections before me. The sheer number of choices is growing every year and I feel like I have to taste-test the premiere and make a quick decision of whether to keep digging in or move on. Sometimes you don’t just know for sure until you’re left with the aftertaste.

And because some dramas that fall within the same genre can have unique flavors, I’m using a Taste O’Meter to assess this year’s dramas. Was it sweet, sour, bitter, salty, or savory? Maybe more than one?

Like any “Thanks to…” in a good Kpop album: My unending thanks to javabeans and girlfriday for the opportunity to let me write about what I love; to HeadsNo2 for the squee-fests and love of makgulli; to kaedejun for the laughs, hugs, and love of Oppa; and last but not least, to YOU GUYS for being awesome readers. I put in a good word for y’all with Santa but he may have used my note as a coaster instead. Or a tissue.

The series below include the ones seen in its entirety, listed chronologically(ish):

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Read the rest of A Variety of Flavors in 2012 [Year In Review, Part 3] (4,403 words)

© gummimochi for Dramabeans, 2012. | Permalink | 130 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Answer Me 1997, Arang and the Magistrate, Big, featured, Full House Take 2, Gaksital, I Do I Do, Marriage Plot, Nice Guy, Operation Proposal, Queen In-hyun's Man, Shut Up: Flower Boy Band, The King 2 Hearts, To the Beautiful You, Vampire Prosecutor 2, year in review

2012 was certainly a mixed bag: I saw plenty of action dramas and then I saw fluffy dramas that made no sense. There were dramas I loved, dramas that I liked enough, and then dramas that I hated. It was a tough year for me, and I felt I had bad luck in choosing which dramas to watch this year. But it helps to appreciate all the dramas – good or bad – because there are still plenty of life lessons to be learned from them.

One of my goals for this year was to watch a drama from every letter of the alphabet – HA! Like that really happened. But in the hopes that I did, the reviews will be in alphabetical order… with life lessons in between.

SONG OF THE DAY

“Might Gonna” from What’s Up OST [download]

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Read the rest of Life Lessons from a Mixed Bag of Dramas [Year In Review, Part 2] (6,225 words)

© kaedejun for Dramabeans, 2012. | Permalink | 147 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Answer Me 1997, Big, Faith, featured, Full House Take 2, Ghost, Haeundae Lovers, Hero (OCN), I Need Romance 2012, Love Rain, Padam Padam, Special Affairs Team TEN, The King 2 Hearts, Vampire Prosecutor 2, What's Up, Wild Romance, year in review

Review extravaganza time!

I know: Already? It feels like just the other day I was killing myself to corral all my thoughts in coherent fashion in a monster review of 2011′s dramas, and already it’s time to lose sleep wrangling my thoughts together for 2012. Time sure flies when you’re having fun, or old. Guess which one I am?

These days I shy away from blanket statements like “This was an awesome year” or “This was a terrible year.” Dramaland has been putting out so much material that all the nuance gets sucked out of a flattening statement like that. If anything, 2012 was the year it overflowed with variety—so yes, there were terrible shows, and there were awesome shows, and there were shows every step in between. But thanks to the explosion of cable programming—aided by the launching of not one, not two, but four new cable stations boasting big drama lineups—there was just about something for everyone.

 
SONG OF THE DAY

Shut Up Flower Boy Band OST – “Jaywalking” [ Download ]

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Read the rest of 2012: Something for everyone? [Year In Review, Part 1] (9,584 words)

© javabeans for Dramabeans, 2012. | Permalink | 260 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Answer Me 1997, Arang and the Magistrate, Big, Color of Woman, Dr. Jin, Dream High 2, Faith, featured, Gaksital, History of the Salaryman, I Do I Do, Ma Boy, Nice Guy, Oohlala Spouses, Queen In-hyun's Man, Rooftop Prince, Shut Up: Flower Boy Band, Standby, The Moon That Embraces the Sun, Vampire Idol, Vampire Prosecutor 2, year in review, You're Here You're Here You're Really Here

Can you believe it’s December already? I know the awards shows have started to come ’round again, but it always feels like This Time Of Year always sneaks up on me — as in, the time when we take a look back at the best, the worst, the weirdest, and the most surprising dramas of the past year.

Our so-called Beanie Awards have been a tradition on this site pretty much since the beginning, and you can take a look into the wayback machine to see the state of years past. Here’s the 2007 Polls, 2009 Polls, 2010 Polls, and 2011 Polls.

You know what else this means: We’ll be rolling out our annual Year End Review Extravaganza in the coming days and weeks as well! Keep an eye out for our reviews, and if you’re curious at past installments, here’s a Year In Review tag for your convenient browsing purposes.

On to the voting!

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Read the rest of 2012 Beanie Awards: Vote for your favorite dramas of the year (202 words)

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Post tags: featured, year in review

Part 5 is here!

As in past years, we here at Dramabeans owe huge thanks to guest bloggers — thank you, kaedejun and Dahee Fanel! — for participating in the review series, as well as HeadsNo2 for contributing to our Picks. You guys are awesome and make this time of year extra-special, providing lots of good stuff to read, think on, and, yes, sometimes disagree with. It wouldn’t be as invigorating without a little friendly debate, would it? We’d also like to extend our gratitude to thundie, who was a key part of our selection crew in voting for our Picks below. Much love to all of the reviewers, as well as everyone reading.

On to the Picks!

SONG OF THE DAY

Dear Cloud – “반짝이는 밤, 메리 크리스마” (Twinkling Night, Merry Christmas)
[ Download ]

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Read the rest of 2011 Editors’ Picks [Year In Review, Part 5] (4,602 words)

© javabeans for Dramabeans, 2011. | Permalink | 383 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Athena, Best Love, City Hunter, featured, Flower Boy Ramyun Shop, Girl K, Lie To Me, Me Too Flower, Miss Ripley, Paradise Ranch, Scent of a Woman, The Princess's Man, Thousand Day Promise, Warrior Baek Dong-soo, year in review

 
Wow, another year of dramas, come and gone. Where does the sanity go? I decided that for this year’s review, I would learn to be impartial and precise, and give systematic mathematical ratings for every show. Because numbers are fun. But then, I found that trying to rate a year’s worth of dramas was a lot like comparing apples and oranges and giraffes. It made my brain hurt and then I was all sleepy. So I did what anyone would do. I built a machine to do it for me.

Meet… the DramaMeter (patent pending): a highly scientific, totally foolproof system of computation, fine-tuned to measure any drama in any circumstance. It uses complex algorithms, longitudinal matrices, and other mathy things, to calculate a drama’s rating with exact precision, every time, without fail. I know. It’s likely to blow your mind. So without further ado, the dramas of 2011:

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Read the rest of The DramaMeter: highly scientific and foolproof [Year in Review, Part 4] (8,317 words)

© girlfriday for Dramabeans, 2011. | Permalink | 181 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Best Love, Can't Lose, City Hunter, Dream High, featured, Flower Boy Ramyun Shop, Girl K, High Kick: Counterattack of the Short Legs, I Need Romance, Lie To Me, Man of Honor, Miss Ripley, My Princess, Myung-wol the Spy, Scent of a Woman, Thousand Day Promise, Vampire Prosecutor, Warrior Baek Dong-soo, year in review, You've Fallen For Me