Truth In Advertising with Jiyul

Jiyul wears a self-descriptive tank top t-shirt in an animated performance of “Bling Bling” that echoes my gushing sentiments about her exactly! 

At first I couldn't really see what the letters on her tank top spelled out,but soon enough Jiyul was posing in the perfect positions to read the lettering, and I just HAD to laugh at how PERFECT the words were!       

 Though I'm at the stage where I'm really loving each and every member soooo much, Jiyul is still the apple of my eye, and that shirt spelled out JUST what I was thinking at the time I watched this performance! Don't know exactly where she got such a perfect accessory, but you know what they say- if ya got it, flaunt it! Indeed:

Now that's some REAL truth in Advertising!!!
Posted by zdorama @ zdoramaagain.blogspot.com

Part Two of my Dal★Shabet Obsession Arrives!!!

Got my SECOND shipment of DAL SHABET goods in today! Technically, they came in yesterday, but once again my working schedule was such that I’m never home when the mailman arrives so had to go pick it up at the post office this morning- but it was WELL worth it!

Dal Shabet Photobook "For DALing"

Got two awesome collectible Dal Shabet items, the first one being this GORGEOUS , THICK 250+ page Photobook called “For DALing”, which I think (judging by what I’ve seen online) was originally paired with the girls’ mini-album “Have, Don’t Have”; Unfortunately, by the time I got around to wanting it, the set had long since sold out and gone away, so I had to find someone selling the book by itself.  Such a Cool Book, featuring the girls in various locations and times, from their trip in New York...

To studio time recording the Have, Don’t Have album, shooting the Mr. Bang Bang MV as well as free time with the girls running around town shopping together! Man, this book was just chock FULL of new favorite pictures of the girls!

The other item I was thrilled to receive was what is SURE to become the centerpiece to my entire Dal Shabet collection- an autographed copy of their second mini-album PINK ROCKET, signed by all six of the (then) current members, Subin, Serri, Ayoung, Jiyul, Viki, and Kaeun! Paid a pretty penny for it, too, but when I saw it up for auction, I just HAD to have it!

Autographed Dal Shabet "Pink Rocket" album

  Going to now spend some time listening to the Pink Rocket CD while once again flipping through the Dal Shabet Photobook- Can’t wait til Part THREE of my Dal Shabet Shipment comes in! Updates Soon!
Posted by zdorama @ zdoramaagain.blogspot.com

Stairwell Second-Sight

Don’t know how much this shows how much I love, love LOVED the first Yuusha Yoshihiko drama “Maou No Shiro”, especially the last story arc when they arrived in Tokyo and fell under Maou’s charms, but when I was watching the last episode of “Otenki Oneesan”, I IMMEDIATELY recognized the stairwell the detectives were standing in front of as the same set cutie Murasaki was acting in a spoof of “Dr. Jin", where Yoshihiko comes to talk her into rejoining the cause!

Detectives and Stairwell in "Otenki Oneesan"

and with Yamada Takayuki and Kinami Haruka in Yuusha Yoshihiko

Man, Now that I think about it, I wonder how many times I’ve seen that darn staircase and just never noticed it before?
Posted by zdorama @ zdoramaagain.blogspot.com

Otenki Oneesan 終わり

Emi Takei  as Haru in Otenki Oneesa

Ahhh, just finished watching the Emi Takei crime drama Otenki Oneesan tonight, and I have to say that it was quite an enjoyable romp! Individual episodes were your usual “Person-of-eccentric-abilities-solves-strange-crimes” formula, but by gosh, you really liked the characters, and the development of Haru as a person throughout the series was done so well! 

Of course, the main attraction for me was the amazing and beautiful Emi Takei who completely immersed herself in the mysterious Haru role, so much that I completely believed her character, but the supporting cast was also superb, especially the fun and witty gang at the "Bar Mitsuya" where Haru lived and they broke down the cases each evening.

Dan Mitsu, Sasaki Kuranosuke, Takei Emi and Okura Tadayoshi

Something about this show really touched me- very moody atmosphere and carefully crafted scenes which were very pleasing to the eye! The show had a very abruptly cut ending which makes me think they’re gearing up for a Special, which I would totally be up for! An abrupt but altogether satisfying ending to a really sweet and gently-paced series.

A wonderfully Moody drama

Posted by zdorama @ zdoramaagain.blogspot.com

Reading & Writing with Dal★Shabet

Up until this point in my K-pop fandom (nearly one and a half-years in), though I’ve picked up the meanings of the various and oft-repeated lines of dialog and phrases heard in songs and variety shows (Otokke, anyone?), when it came to understanding the Korean Hangul writing, it was simply beyond me.
   It wasn’t until Dal Shabet came along that I suddenly had an actual desire to read those strange characters written and wanted to make an actual effort to learn the characters- Seems that after watching Dal Shabet videos incessantly online, I found that I could easily recognize part of their name in Korean, which I identified as “a C followed by a kanji “to” and a number2”: 달. Feeling quite proud of myself for even recognizing THAT much, I began to want to know EXACTLY what each symbol meant, and so FINALLY after all this time, I went online and began to study the writing in earnest!
   Fortunately for a TOTAL Hangul newbie like myself, Korean culture is BIG TIME online, and I easily found a bunch of really great places which taught Hangul in easy-to-understand lessons! Using the instructions that taught the basic sounds attributed to each character, I learned enough that I began to experiment writing names on my own! I tried to write “Dal Shabet” using the lessons I’d learned and came up with this:

Well, that wasn’t quite right, as I was still learning the “breakdowns” of the language, (which words are identified as “uee” and which are ‘ooi”, etc) but after figuring some of it out (as well as the fact that the “s” sound is pronounced with a “t” if it’s at the end, I realized it was actually written like this:

But it was a start, and my next project was to try and spell all the Dal Shabet members names using the lessons I’d learned…to limited success- as you can see my original guesses written on the left had a few errors here and there (only Serri and Jiyul spelled without mistake)...After I checked my answers, I corrected the mistakes in red (on the right), but at least I understood what had been written wrong and WHY. I was learning! Not Bad!

  For my next lesson, I wanted to see if I could translate members names using only the written Hangul and my lessons. I decided to try and see if I could figure out all the APink members names, since, Eunji and Naeun aside, I didn't know any of the members. Finding a Hangul listing of the girls' names, I wrote out what I thought the Hangul spelled out (in blue) and when I was done, I checked the chart’s names listed and saw what I'd translated wasn't too far off what their names really were! Hey-those lessons work!

  Got a lot of studying and memorizing to do, but hopefully these lessons will “stick” and I’ll be able to better read things like Member and group names as well as the titles of the albums and songs I’m into! See what a whole lotta Dal Shabet Love can do for you? LOLOL! Nothing Drives Like Obsession!!!

Posted by zdorama @ zdoramaagain.blogspot.com

SNSD's "Love And Girls" Is Here!!!

Amidst all this Dal Shabet excitement a small package from CD Japan arrived with the latest Japan release from Girls Generation, and as usual, they remind me at once why they’re at the utmost TOP of my K-pop faves! Just a  few days ago I was telling a friend how SNSD was one of the few groups where I’ve loved each and every CD and Single they’ve put out, and their new single “Love and Girls” and its’ sweet “Lingua Franca” continues the awesome trend!!! Just PURE POP PERFECTION!!

Posted by zdorama @ zdoramaagain.blogspot.com

Part One of my Dal★Shabet Obsession Arrives!!!

Was a HAPPY DAY here when my Dal Shabet package arrived today!!! Ooooh, been waiting all week to dig into these goodies!!! As you can see in the above pic, I got Dal Shabet's "Bang Bang" Album, "their new "Be Ambitious" Mini-Album, and the "Have, Don't Have" Mini Album, which came along with a gorgeous colorful POSTER!!!

As far as bonus goodies, the Bang Bang album yielded the best- a clamshell hard box case, beautiful photobooklet, postcard and a cool KAEUN trading card! The Have, Don't Have album came with a trading card of cutie Ayoung, and the Be Ambitious album came with...nothing! LOL! Of course, each mini-album also came with beautiful gatefold digipaks, with built-in picture booklets, so that's something, and of course there's the MAIN thing- those wonderfully AWESEOME songs!!! I'm ripping them right now as we speak and can't wait to load 'em into the ipod and go for a spin!!!

Along with the Dal Shabet order I also got the first HelloVenus album which came with not one but TWO trading cards, of Alice and Yoonjo! I'd always liked their song "Venus" and since I've been liking them more and more recently, when I saw the vendor who was selling me my Dal Shabet stuff also had this album, I figured, what the heck!
   Anyway. I've got some listening to do, and hopefully in the next few weeks the SECOND HALF of my huge Dal Shabet Orders will be arriving! Can't Wait!
Posted by zdorama @ zdoramaagain.blogspot.com

I Dream of Jiyul

Though many out there hate the term BIAS to describe his or her favorite member in any given group, in K-pop it tends to be a natural and inevitable progression of fandom, and my love for current K-pop Flavor of the moment Dal Shabet is no different and in this short information-packed week, the one that rose to the top and became my Dal Shabet Girl Numero Uno was none other than Ms. Yang Jung Yoon, the delectable Miss Jiyul!

After spending the last week in a sweet sherbet induced haze and devouring solid hours of Dal Shabet videos, clips, live performances and variety show appearances, I can now say that I’m a bonafide, true FAN of these gals, and though I can probably come up with a ranking list where each member stands (so far), the real focus of my fan mania has always been solidly centered around two particular members of the group; while I like the other four members more or less equally, the other two are ABOVE AND BEYOND the HEART AND SOUL of why I love Dal Shabet so much in the first place were the sweet and adorable Jiyul and the svelte and sexy Kaeun!

My Two Faves: Kaeun and Jiyul

In the beginning when I was just discovering the girls’ awesome songs and performances, it was clearly Kauen who was my early favorite-She was such a striking figure onstage with her “Cool Beauty” image and statuesque postures, MY GOSH was this chick SEXY as HELL onstage! I’d even find out that that was a role she’d personally chosen for herself in the group, even down to telling some TV show hosts she doesn’t like doing aegyo because “she’s the sexy one” LOL!   

But as I began really watching the variety shows, interviews and backstage antics, the one that kept getting my attention was the girls’ pretty and petite singer, Jiyul! I don’t know, maybe it was the fact that she spoke English (and in such a soothing, lilting accent) and seemed so enthusiastically CHEERFUL, but it didn’t take long til SHE was the one I was waiting to see in every video and clip! 

The first time I ever saw the group in a non-performing setting was on the show Gurupop, and as the show was geared towards a western audience, the Q&A segment of the show was read by UK raised Jiyul in English and right away her personality was shining like a beacon- 

Already I could tell that this girl was funny and easygoing, but BOY, I didn’t realize how doggone SPUNKY she was til the interview part of the show, where she playfully mugged, gestured comically and cheerfully smiled throughout the whole show- and with those killer dimples and that adorable eye-smile-WOW did she make an impression with me!!! 

It was while watching these variety shows that I began to realize how much Jiyul reminded me of Tiffany of Girls’ Generation- not only did they have the same English-speaking backgrounds, they had the same eye-smiles and even both had those trademark worried-eyebrows LOLOL

Another aspect of Jiyul I learned was how much she cared for the rest of the Dal Shabet members. When asked which member was the most "motherly", the others all quickly pointed to Jiyul, saying that she's a good cook and will always whip up something for them to eat when they're hungry. Reminded me that she'd been a contestant on Celebrity Chef awhile ago (which I then had to go online and look for) sadly, despite her hard work she was let go in the very first episode! Poor girl, she was so sad after studying stressfully with her mother to prepare for the show. But at least we know that the Dal Shabet girls themselves love her culinary skills!

So, yeah, in the end, Adorable won over Sexy (probably for the first time in my life, LOL) as I continued watching new clips and performances, I realized that at some point Jiyul had become my  favorite member in the group! Though I know that as I get to know the girls even more my outlook may change, and though I'll still be keeping an eye on Kaeun's sexy moves whenever they're onstage, the girl who has been deemed the auspicious (LOL) title of my Dal Shabet BIAS right now is dear darling Jiyul!

By the way, one GREAT thing I’ve noticed about loving Jiyul and watching a ZILLION performances of Mr Bang Bang back to back is that each and every one of them begins with a pretty closeup of her as she breathlessly whispers the line “You’re a Guy…with no guts”!   Devastating Critique, but MY does she look gorgeous saying it! Definitely a screencapping opportunity for the budding Jiyul fanboy! LOLOL

Posted by zdorama @ zdoramaagain.blogspot.com