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WHERE_ANGELS_GO_NUN_FOLLOWS

                                     February  3, 2014
About the Korean television
show usually called "You're
Beautiful" (sometimes it's
called "He's Beautiful",
which makes more sense):

   A young woman (in training to be a Nun, of
   all things) has a fraternal twin, a brother
   who has been invited to join a boy band
   (named "A. N. Jell").  Her brother is
   unexpectedly hospitalized for several              In keeping with what I
   months, and she's recruited to join this boy       think of as the
   band by cross-dressing and passing herself         Monkees-convention,
   off as her brother.                                all the members of the
                                                      band live together in
                                                      the same household.
Eminently watchable, though at 16 episodes it
could be criticized for being 6 too long.

Unlike "Tokyo Bandwagon", one does start
wondering when they're going to get moving
on conflict resolution...

The trouble is that nearly every ball in
the air is easily resolvable, simply by
character A saying something obvious
to character B.

On the other hand, the sheer amount of space in the
plot leaves room for some lightweight goofing where
the real creativity is shown.
   
The manager tells the female lead about      
pressure points, inventing a pressure  
point to "control one's feelings" on           This manager rapidly turns into
the tip of your nose.  This leaves the         a plot device: he says silly
female lead suddenly pressing the point        things to people without much
of her nose up, doing a "piggy nose" at        motivation on his part, simply
various inappropriate moments.                 to generate confused situations.
                                       
The use of this is not exactly inspired,
but they work it *really* hard, without
quite over-working it.                         TOUCH


   It's interesting how many of the motifs of this
   story are shared by Japanese shoujou... Is Korean
   culture really that similar to Japanese, or are they
   just imitating what they've seen, treating it as
   genre conventions?

     o  Clumsiness as a moe element.
                                                       LOLITA_MOE
     o  The ridiculously innocent and passive
        female lead.
                                                       ROMANCE
     o  The playing with incest-- could it be
        that the romantic leads are really
        (unbeknownst to them) brother and sister?

                                                                    
                               The central elements are common to many       
                               such stories: the female lead has             
                               multiple, famous rich young men chasing       
                               after her, and earns the envy and hatred      
                               of one of the most famous young women--       
                               this achievement is performed without any     
                               intent or positive action on her part         
                               (she is thus not conniving or slutty),        
                               her sole weapon is her superior, inherent     
                               niceness.                                     

                                         SECRET_HOTEL


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