When/How/Because of Who did you discover Asian Dramas?

When I went to Hawaii on my honeymoon in 2002 I caught snippets of k-dramas on TV in the hotel. I thought it was hilarious that men cried at the drop of a hat. That piqued my interest but I didn't really start until about 18 months ago when I was watching MNET on TV and then I went to "Eat your Kimchi" s website and I think there was a tab for watching dramas or something about "Shut Up Flower Boy Band" because that was the first drama I watched and I began watching BoF shortly after that.

myself :D

I started out from watching anime (which I can no longer stand, actually), which then got me into manga, and when reading Hana Kimi one day I stumbled upon the drama lol. I don't think I ever had a special actor or actress that made me watch dramas, in the beginning I mostly watched whatever was on dramacrazy's top list that was Japanese. So I guess I introduced myself to drama. Hehe.

Is it weird if I tell you that is was an actress that got me into drama? No?! For me it was Yoon Eun Hye with her role as Shin Chae Young in Goong.

It is all because of Sailor Moon. I'd heard that there was a live action show back in 2004/2005. I was determined to find some infos about it (back then there was not that much YouTube - which kind of boomed 2006/07ish) but there where all this fanpages who had small download-sections. To get some bits of the show I downloaded quite a few music-videos and clips. (yepp mvs were allready a thing back then...). Besides all those weird Sailor Moon Clips I accidentally downloaded MVs of Sweet 18 (which became the first kdrama i watched) and Save the last Dance for me. After finally finishing Sailor Moon I sticked more to t- and kdramas (Sailor Moon is just epic trash but nonotherless not the best way of intodrucing jdramas to the world...). Side-Note: I cleary remember the confusion between the subs and the things the actors said. Because in no language would Hyeok Jun sound like Ajusshi... Ahhh.. good old times. beautifully tragically deathes on beaches, women becoming stiff planks when hugged or kissed (once or twice in the series)... and bad haircuts... it has been quite a journey...

I started watching Hana Kimi Japan 2007 after I read the manga and realized that no anime existed for one of my favorite manga. Oguri Shun gripped me instantly, and that's how I got into HYD (because I had read that too and loved it).

My best friend randomly told me I should watch You're Beautiful one day (though the drama she was actually looking for was To the Beautiful You but she told me to watch this one anyway). After that I found out Lee Hong Ki was in a band and spazzed (introduction to all things Kpop) and that there was a Japanese version of YB so I decided to watch that. Then I watched Hana Kimi because I had read the manga so long ago. :) That's my beginning story xD

Also, I was watching Dream High a few months ago and I was having total déjà vu because I felt I had seen this scene before **when Hye Mi was getting eggs and such thrown at her by her school mates and Sam Dong protected her** that's when I remembered I was at my friends aaagees and she was watching it :) It's funny cause I used to think nothing at all of her drama watching back then, now I'm way more into it than she is! (I don't think she even watches now :( ).

For me, it happened about a month or two ago, when a couple of my classmates (I'm studying Japanese) talked about dramas and they were so in love with Rich Man, Poor Woman.

I wasn't very interested at first, I only watched it because I wanted to try a j-drama... but yes, I fell in love with RMPW! :) And then, somehow, I couldn't help noticing that Arata Iura is soooo handsome!! So the next two dramas I watched were Mitsu no aji, and Chase. :) He's seriously the most beautiful man ever!

My classmate's next suggestion (more like "you HAVE TO watch it now!!") was Hana yori dango, and last night I watched 6 episodes... So even though my classmates, or especially one of them, made me watch my first, ARATA made me want to stay in DramaLand... and Hana yori dango proves that I like it there even without him. ;)