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Jan. 2nd, 2017 10:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skygiantsFor my first post about television in 2017, I want to grab all of you by the collar and tell you at great length about Age of Youth, now on Netflix as Hello My Twenties.
Age of Youth is about five college roommates, almost all of whom are haunted by a DARK SECRET of some sort or another -- murder! ghosts! crushing debt! loan sharks! stalkers! even more murder! -- and yes, all of these are problems, but you can't worry about them all the time when you're also sharing a house with four other people, and the trash always needs taking out, and someone is ALWAYS borrowing your stuff without asking, or looking out the window and whistling obnoxiously when you're trying to have a romantic moment, and also there is ONLY ONE BATHROOM.
Although there are a couple of love interests floating around here and there, the primary focus of the show is emphatically on the relationships between the girls; there's maybe one reverse Bechdel pass in all twelve episodes. And let me tell you, every time we got a fakeout where it looked like a girl was about to call on a love interest for help and instead the roommates came charging to the rescue, MY HEART GREW THREE SIZES.
Also, the general lack of tolerance the show has for male angst is ... kind of amazing.
Eun Jae is the baby -- a socially anxious, deeply awkward freshman who spends the entire first episode shuffling silently from room to room, seething with bottled-up resentment at her new roommates for forgetting to empty the laundry and eating all her jam.
Eventually, however, her older roommates take her under their wing.
Much to everyone's surprise, baby Eun Jae also gets her very own love triangle!
Bachelors A and B:
Eun Jae, for the record, thinks Bachelor A is the dreamiest dreamboat she's ever encountered.
Child. CHILD.
...however, it must be admitted that poor taste in men and social anxiety are not Eun Jae's only problems.
Murder baby Eun Jae is my favorite.
The only person in the house with fewer social skills than Eun Jae is her roommate, 28-year-old Yoon Jin Myung (known to her housemates as Senior Yoon). This is because Jin Myung is a full-time student AND works three jobs AND has no support network and just does not have TIME for social skills. Instead, she communicates with her roommates via passive-aggressive post-it note.
Unlike many impoverished kdrama girls who work three jobs to pay their bills, Jin Myung is neither plucky, cheerful, nor feisty. And certainly not optimistic.
She does have a mutual pining thing going on with the cute chef at one of her jobs, but refuses to allow it to progress an iota because she has no time or emotional bandwidth for human relationships.
Jin Myung is a bitter would-be-robot of a person, and she also is my favorite.
Her polar opposite is the next-oldest, Kang Yi Na.
Yi Na does not have a real job, never seems to study, always seems to have expensive jewelry and a slightly sleazy older man on her arm, but that is nobody's business but hers?
Note: this man is not Yi Na's love interest. He appears for literally this scene and is never seen again, because her life is, we repeat, NONE OF HIS BUSINESS.
Which doesn't mean Yi Na has no worries about what her future might hold.
For the record, Yi Na also features in pretty much every femslash ship for the show, and ... there are reasons.
Her main buddy outside the house, meanwhile, is a gigolo. This is not played for laughs; the show is very matter-of-fact about their collegial relationship. However, colleagues or not, Yi Na will not brook any interference with her precious roommate children.
Yi Na is ferocious and careless and occasionally distressingly relatable. Surprise: she is my favorite.
Intrepid reporter Song Ji Won is pretty, intelligent, funny, charismatic, the life of the party, and cannot seem to land a second date with anyone. SOMEHOW, NONE OF THE TROPES APPLY.
It's OK, though -- at least she has her carefully curated porn collection!
And her rich inner life of imagination!
And, you know what, at least she's Eun Jae's idol.
She's an incredibly weird drama queen, and she too is my favorite.
Ye Eun, meanwhile, is completely normal!
She smiles no matter how she's feeling, like a normal girl, and has a carefully curated social media feed designed to give the impression of a happy and busy life, like a normal girl --
-- and has a really heinous asshole of a boyfriend that all her friends are hoping and praying she breaks up with, like a normal girl --
-- OK yes, Ye Eun, as unwilling as she might be to admit it, has her own problems. Ye Eun is an Utena episode waiting to happen.
(...which then happens. Um, please take this as a trigger warning for episode 11 in particular.)
SHE ALSO IS MY FAVORITE.
("But Becca, you just said that every single one of these girls was your --"
Yes, yes I did. DO YOU WANT TO MAKE SOMETHING OF IT.)
Oh, and let's not forget the landlady, whose appearances are brief BUT MEMORABLE.
Anyway, as aforementioned, I highly recommend this drama -- though please ask me if you want trigger warnings, as trigger warnings may be needed.
Age of Youth is about five college roommates, almost all of whom are haunted by a DARK SECRET of some sort or another -- murder! ghosts! crushing debt! loan sharks! stalkers! even more murder! -- and yes, all of these are problems, but you can't worry about them all the time when you're also sharing a house with four other people, and the trash always needs taking out, and someone is ALWAYS borrowing your stuff without asking, or looking out the window and whistling obnoxiously when you're trying to have a romantic moment, and also there is ONLY ONE BATHROOM.
Although there are a couple of love interests floating around here and there, the primary focus of the show is emphatically on the relationships between the girls; there's maybe one reverse Bechdel pass in all twelve episodes. And let me tell you, every time we got a fakeout where it looked like a girl was about to call on a love interest for help and instead the roommates came charging to the rescue, MY HEART GREW THREE SIZES.
Also, the general lack of tolerance the show has for male angst is ... kind of amazing.
Eun Jae is the baby -- a socially anxious, deeply awkward freshman who spends the entire first episode shuffling silently from room to room, seething with bottled-up resentment at her new roommates for forgetting to empty the laundry and eating all her jam.
Eventually, however, her older roommates take her under their wing.
Much to everyone's surprise, baby Eun Jae also gets her very own love triangle!
Bachelors A and B:
Eun Jae, for the record, thinks Bachelor A is the dreamiest dreamboat she's ever encountered.
Child. CHILD.
...however, it must be admitted that poor taste in men and social anxiety are not Eun Jae's only problems.
Murder baby Eun Jae is my favorite.
The only person in the house with fewer social skills than Eun Jae is her roommate, 28-year-old Yoon Jin Myung (known to her housemates as Senior Yoon). This is because Jin Myung is a full-time student AND works three jobs AND has no support network and just does not have TIME for social skills. Instead, she communicates with her roommates via passive-aggressive post-it note.
Unlike many impoverished kdrama girls who work three jobs to pay their bills, Jin Myung is neither plucky, cheerful, nor feisty. And certainly not optimistic.
She does have a mutual pining thing going on with the cute chef at one of her jobs, but refuses to allow it to progress an iota because she has no time or emotional bandwidth for human relationships.
Jin Myung is a bitter would-be-robot of a person, and she also is my favorite.
Her polar opposite is the next-oldest, Kang Yi Na.
Yi Na does not have a real job, never seems to study, always seems to have expensive jewelry and a slightly sleazy older man on her arm, but that is nobody's business but hers?
Note: this man is not Yi Na's love interest. He appears for literally this scene and is never seen again, because her life is, we repeat, NONE OF HIS BUSINESS.
Which doesn't mean Yi Na has no worries about what her future might hold.
For the record, Yi Na also features in pretty much every femslash ship for the show, and ... there are reasons.
Her main buddy outside the house, meanwhile, is a gigolo. This is not played for laughs; the show is very matter-of-fact about their collegial relationship. However, colleagues or not, Yi Na will not brook any interference with her precious roommate children.
Yi Na is ferocious and careless and occasionally distressingly relatable. Surprise: she is my favorite.
Intrepid reporter Song Ji Won is pretty, intelligent, funny, charismatic, the life of the party, and cannot seem to land a second date with anyone. SOMEHOW, NONE OF THE TROPES APPLY.
It's OK, though -- at least she has her carefully curated porn collection!
And her rich inner life of imagination!
And, you know what, at least she's Eun Jae's idol.
She's an incredibly weird drama queen, and she too is my favorite.
Ye Eun, meanwhile, is completely normal!
She smiles no matter how she's feeling, like a normal girl, and has a carefully curated social media feed designed to give the impression of a happy and busy life, like a normal girl --
-- and has a really heinous asshole of a boyfriend that all her friends are hoping and praying she breaks up with, like a normal girl --
-- OK yes, Ye Eun, as unwilling as she might be to admit it, has her own problems. Ye Eun is an Utena episode waiting to happen.
(...which then happens. Um, please take this as a trigger warning for episode 11 in particular.)
SHE ALSO IS MY FAVORITE.
("But Becca, you just said that every single one of these girls was your --"
Yes, yes I did. DO YOU WANT TO MAKE SOMETHING OF IT.)
Oh, and let's not forget the landlady, whose appearances are brief BUT MEMORABLE.
Anyway, as aforementioned, I highly recommend this drama -- though please ask me if you want trigger warnings, as trigger warnings may be needed.
no subject
Date: 2017-01-03 02:34 pm (UTC)Anyway, this was one of my favorite kdramas from 2016 and I'm thrilled Netflix got it, even though I'm not hugely fond of the title they put it under.
no subject
Date: 2017-01-03 11:20 pm (UTC)Yeah, I got nothing. I still can't believe they SURVIVE with just one bathroom! I'm so proud of them for not murdering each other (whoever else they may have murdered in their time.)
no subject
Date: 2017-01-03 11:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-01-03 11:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-01-03 11:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-01-03 05:06 pm (UTC)I love all the pics you selected, and the hilarious-and-not-too-spoilery description of each girl! AND YOU INCLUDED THE LANDLADY TOO!
I'm very grateful that Netflix got this, though I'm not a big fan of their subs (I think Dramafever's subs actually beat theirs for this drama. Let that sink in). But I'm very pleased to see that more and more ppl are checking out this drama.
no subject
Date: 2017-01-03 11:46 pm (UTC)The landlady is a shining treasure and every minute of her screen presence was a gift we have done nothing to deserve.
I haven't yet seen any Netflix subs -- they actually picked it up right after I finally caved and got paid DramaFever so the ads wouldn't mess up subtitling on my TV, which I was so mad about! But I'm here now, I guess. >.>
no subject
Date: 2017-01-03 05:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-01-03 11:54 pm (UTC)- Jin Myung's storyline includes an examination of workplace power dynamics and sexual harassment by her boss (not violent and for the most part not physical, the most we ever see is his hand on her knee)
- Ye Eun's terrible boyfriend escalates steadily throughout the series from 'jerk' to 'abusive'
- in episode 11, one of the girls is kidnapped and spends the episode trapped and restrained and it is a BAD TIME
- mostly but not entirely unrelatedly, Eun Jae spends a big chunk of the last two episodes extremely depressed and dissociative
- episode 11 really is just a bad time for everyone
- idk how you feel about euthanasia for braindead persons but one of the storylines deals heavily with this
- 2 of the girls start out the show with some form of PTSD; by the end of the show, it is 3
All of this is handled really well and the show would like definitely like you to understand that the patriarchy is shit, but it's best to go in braced.
ETA:
no subject
Date: 2017-01-05 02:45 pm (UTC)Thank you! That all sounds bearable, will definitely be giving it a shot!
no subject
Date: 2017-01-03 06:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-01-03 11:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-01-03 11:35 pm (UTC)I will keep this in mind, thank yoU!
no subject
Date: 2017-01-04 12:02 am (UTC)is
it
ever
no subject
Date: 2017-01-04 02:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-01-04 04:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-01-04 04:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-01-03 08:47 pm (UTC)I would like trigger warnings, please (in particular for sexual violence).
no subject
Date: 2017-01-03 11:36 pm (UTC)-portrayal of depression/suicidal thoughts
-work related sexual harassment
-very serious depiction of dating violence/an abusive relationship
-multiple instances of a man attacking/threatening a woman
-stalking
-some deaths which might be triggering
no subject
Date: 2017-01-04 03:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-01-03 09:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-01-04 12:15 am (UTC)Other stuff: a guy almost murders one of the other girls in another episode - I think 7? - but it is not sexual or sexually motivated at all. Yi Na has a lot of consensual commercial relationships. There's also that one time that Yi Na makes out with Ye Eun, non-consensually (alas), to prove a point.
no subject
Date: 2017-01-04 04:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-01-04 04:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-01-04 08:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-01-04 12:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-01-04 11:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-01-04 10:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-01-05 02:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-01-05 08:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-01-05 09:39 pm (UTC)Both these things are tied in to DRAMATIC MURDER BACKSTORY which I can give you spoilers for if you want!
no subject
Date: 2017-01-06 07:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-01-23 01:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-01-18 09:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-01-23 01:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-02-04 02:28 am (UTC)Also, the landlady has given me a clear vision of what I want to be when I grow up.
no subject
Date: 2017-02-04 02:37 am (UTC)(every girl is so good! HOW ARE THEY ALL THE BEST, why are there not twelve seasons of them being the best, how do I get to own my own fancy apartment where I can bask on the roof and throw vegetables at the unworthy suitors of the children who live in my fancy apartment)