More news on To The Beautiful You + my thoughts on the cast.

I’m officially ready to watch this drama now. It comes out in about a week and a half so I can probably get an episode in before school starts. I started making a cast guide but never got around to updating it. Thankfully, someone else did. If I would have actually taken the time to update mine, it wouldn’t have taken me long really. Just in case anyone is too lazy to click the link I’ve provided, here’s the cast as provided here.

Choi Minho as Kang Taejoon (Sano Izumi)

Choi Sulli as Goo Jaehee (Mizuki Ashiya)

Lee Hyun Woo as Cha Eun-gyeol (Nakatsu Shuichi)

Ki Tae-young as Jang Min-woo (Dr. Umeda)

Seo Jun young as Ha Seung-ri (Nanba Minami) *DORM 2 LEADER

Hwang Kwang-hee as Song Jong-min (Nakao)

Yoo Min Kyu as Young-mahn (Megumi Tennoji) *DORM 1 LEADER

Kim Ee An as Na Chul Soo (Oscar M. Himejima) *DORM 3 LEADER

Kang Ha-neul as Joo Ji-cheol (Makoto Kagurazaka)

Honey Lee as the President of the school

Ahn Hye-kyung as Yang Seo-yoon (Akiha Hara)

Julien Kang as Daniel (Mizuki’s brother from America)

Sungwoo Jae Duk as Tae Jun’s father

EXO - students at the school

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There’s not much I can really say about the cast honestly since I’ve only watched two maybe three Korean dramas and haven’t heard of 3/4 of the cast. I can see EXO will definitely be there for eye candy, which I can’t complain about. This is supposed to be Ikemen Paradise after all. The guy who is playing Nakatsu, Lee Hyun Woo, I hear is a great actor though his hair isn’t doing him any justice. I’m not at all sure why there is another main female character, but I’m guessing it’s an additional thing this remake is adding. Maybe to get more depth to the plot. Hopefully that proves to be more good than bad. Speaking about adding things in and whatnot, I really really really hope they leave Dr. Umeda and Nakao‘s characters as be. I didn’t see anything about Kayashima’s character, who was my favorite after Nanba and Nakatsu lol maybe not my absolute favorite. Before I heard about L playing his character, which I would have liked, but there’s been no word since.

Why wasn’t this a full track?

I’m going back to the EXO days…disappointed that My Lady and Baby Don’t Cry didn’t make it on the album. Sad day. But back to Teen Top, this song had the opportunity to be amazing.

Definitely my favorite rookies of 2012.

It was really a toss up between B.A.P, EXO, and NU’EST. Maybe because I’ve been exposed to B.A.P three times this year as opposed to twice (NU’EST) and once (EXO) music wise that I’ve gotten more time to like them. B.A.P didn’t even debut with my typical favorite genre but they caught my attention and have kept it so far. But regardless of all I’m saying, I still will not consider myself a Baby.

What inspired this post? I just finished listening to their mini album. I’m definitely buying it.

Talk about memories of SS501 with A-JAX.

I try to review every rookie, whether good or bad, but not all of them get posted. Usually the really good ones and the really bad ones get posted on my blog. This group, A-JAX is somewhere in the middle.

I can’t help but feel that the video was made to be so great to make up for the song. The song is quite flat and is very reminscient of Break Down by Kim Hyun Joong (0:54 part anyone?) and other SS501 songs. I suppose it’s because of the song being produced by the same composer who does SS501 songs. That can be both good and bad in my opinion. Good, keeps making great hits. Bad, it becomes too predictable and unoriginal at times.

The video itself was very entertaining, thankfully. The dance was pretty good and you can tell the music video was quite expensive. Here’s some lovely screen caps:

Despite all I’ve mentioned, although it seems like I’m totally tearing them apart, the debut was good. Somewhat memorable but not too impressive as a whole. It’s like a part of EXO and B.A.P just not as fierce and dark.

I have to post about B.A.P again.

I honestly didn’t think B.A.P could top Warrior. I mean Warrior was powerful and full of swag. I don’t typically use anything related to kpop and swag in the same sentence. Power is similar to Warrior but at the same time it’s completely different. And the vocals in this song, I think I love them more than BYG/Zelo’s rap.

Best rookie of 2012, EXO can’t touch them.

Only one question for EXO’s ‘debut’.

Technically they don’t debut till tomorrow. But their title track, MAMA, left me with just one question.

Why is the  video six minutes long?

I think the first minute and a half was a waste of time. The video can progress without it. Besides the beginning which bored me to death, I really liked the video. I’ve already came to the conclusion that EXO will always impress me with their dancing, they are just on point with that. The special effects make the video great but if you strip that away, it’s a generic debut. But about 2/3 of the way through the video, it started freaking me out.

But the song, not feeling. It’s probably because it is not my kind of genre. I would have been a bit happier if they debuted with History because this song just isn’t memorable to me.

I haven’t followed a group this extensively since DBSK.

Sorry for the lack of posts, I’ve been quite busy with school. It’s that time again, the wonderful process of studying for AP exams. So as a head up my posts will be less frequent.

Anyway, I am all over EXO. Seriously. I never noticed how deep some of their voices were, especially Kris’s.

I am disappointed with EXO.

1. Mama
2. What is Love
3. History
4. Angel
5. Two Moons
6. Machine

The two tracks that would have made me so happy, Baby Don’t Cry and My Lady are not on the mini album. I would have actually bought the album if at least one of those singles were on the album. I’m sure they’ll be on a repacked album or a full length album soon. What I find very interesting is how two of the singles have already been introduced to us, What is Love and History.

Which means calling them prologue singles was useless.

Why EXO-K succeeded in making me a fan.

From the beginning when no one even knew how many members of EXO there would be, you could classify me as a “cautious fan”. I followed 2011 pretty extensively and I was tired of all those debuts from mediocre groups that I’m never going to see again. When I heard that SM would be debuting a group I had a bit more faith but I was still cautious. So here, I shall walk you through my road to becoming a fan of EXO-K.

First teaser with Kai. I personally didn’t find him too attractive then and all the teaser displayed was his dancing skills. Not that I had a problem with that, but I’m more of a “captivate me with your vocals” kind of girl.

Second teaser with Kai and Se Hun. More dancing and another member.

Third teaser with Tao. I found this to be a pointless teaser still to this day. And once again, dancing.

Fourth teaser with Kai, again. I’m thinking here hmmm he must be pretty popular if they are showing him in two teasers. And no surprise here, even more dancing. But I have a soft for the song and I really hope it’s on the album.

Fifth teaser with you know who, Kai. We’ve made it into 2012 and all I see is Kai. At this point I start to lose faith in the group consisting of other guys besides Kai.

Sixth teaser with yup you guessed it, Kai. I didn’t even post about this because I was irritated that I was seeing Kai again.

Seventh teaser with Kai and Se Hun. I wanted some vocals now.

Eighth teaser with Se Hun. We finally learn that EXO doesn’t just consist of Kai and there will be a total of 12 members.

Ninth teaser. I stopped naming post and I question why EXO has nine teasers. But highlight, I finally got to hear some vocals.

Tenth teaser with Lay. It took me forever to realize that he was apart of EXO M. No Kai but no singing either.

Eleventh teaser with the Lovely Kai and Xiu Min. No comment, Kai returned.

twelfth teaser with Kai and Lay. I started running out of titles with Kai because I used his name so many times. Here started leaning the fence towards giving up on this group.

What is Love prologue single. The absolute turning point. Great vocals, my favorite part of a group + ballad like song = gaining a new fan.

Thirteenth teaser with Se Hun. Amazingly, I never got tired of this guy. He came in second for SM’s favorite member.

Fourteenth teaser with Kai, yes again. No post meaning I cared less about it. My beginning fondness of the group didn’t spread to Kai yet.

Fifteenth teaser with Tao. Another turning point. I began to appreciate the videos for their content and not the members in the teaser.

Sixteenth teaser with D.O. and Su Ho. Back to judging the teasers harshly. But I was introduced to my possible bias D.O.

Seventeenth teaser with Kris. Back to question what is SM thinking with seventeen teasers.

Eighteenth teaser with Kai. Big hint about me, I’m very sarcastic with the things I like. This post explains it all ^.^

Nineteenth teaser with Lay, Chen, and Baek Hyun. No comment as a result of being teased too long.

Twentieth teaser (oh yes we continue) with Chan Yeol. Official turning point. I started missing Kai. Meaning? Found my bias.

Twenty-first teaser with my bias Kai. Loved the song, loved the dance, no other comments.

Twenty-second teaser with Lay and Se Hun. I enjoyed my rant about the excessive teasers with EXO. They  definitely have the record. I don’t think anyone plans on challenging them.

Twenty-third teaser with Kai + other members secretly. This time, I continued my friendly sarcasm with Kai but focused on SM’s trademark pants.

History prologue single. If What is Love didn’t do it for me, History definitely did.

No 24?

Nope no 24. I know thankfully It took technically 25 teasers for me to officially claim to be a fan of EXO, more particularly EXO-K. As much as the majority of us complained about these teasers, to a certain extent we have to admit that those teasers made people very interested in EXO. You say you won’t watch another teaser and then you end up watching it. The way SM is marketing EXO is that they are going to definitely leave a long lasting impression on you. Maybe they’ll take DBSK’s spot for me, we’ll just have to wait and see.

Too much EXO news for me to ignore any longer.

I did say in my last post that I was going to ignore all EXO news so I’d be surprised for their debut but I can’t really ignore it. It’s all over my dashboard so I’m forced to do something about it. Not that I’m complaining…

So it’s official that EXO (I will be referring to EXO K when I say EXO just because this is a kpop blog after all) will be debuting with the song MAMA.

I see SM infamous special effects will be including in the video as well.

The above video is more for those who don’t know all the members of EXO, such as me even though I’ve been through like 23 teasers with them.

This really made me realize either Kai or the guy who sings at :49 is going to be my bias. Also I hadn’t really seen EXO M prior to this video and I must say they are all pretty boys. EXO K and EXO M could have honestly debuted as a 12 member group but we all know how SM is trying to break into the Chinese market deeper so it wouldn’t and is not going to happen.

1:29; probably my favorite song from them. Yes, I picked a favorite song already although the album hasn’t even dropped yet. I’m really hoping it’s on the album otherwise I’ll be quite disappointed. At the very least, Baby Don’t Cry, should be there.

While watching the showcase, I got the feeling I’ve seen this before. Probably because it was like teasers relived. Besides that, I actually have some pretty high expectations of EXO’s debut and I shall be looking forward to them meeting my expectations.