Asian Addicts Anonymous

Is this my personal ranking of dramas? No. Methinks you don’t want to know my own personal views on dramas that aired in 2013 since I failed to actually complete…over like 50 of them. I was just kind of curious after seeing my year-end report that WordPress so lovingly supplies that I had to dig deeper into some stats and all that jazz. Statistics-wise I was surprised and yet not surprised all at the same time depending on the drama, it’s length, and the completeness (as in did I finish recapping the series or not). Note that these rankings are based on total views of all recaps and related posts (like specials and OSTs and information pages) from January 10, 2013 to January 10, 2014.

I am thinking, because I never really thought to do this before, too much, that I would kind of like to take a look at this every year. It’s really interesting…to me at least, I don’t know about to you. SEO aside, it’s really just interesting to find out which dramas bring people here and which dramas receive more views (doesn’t necessarily mean more love, I suppose).

Do I think these statistics are 100% accurate? Well, no, because some dramas that aired this year had missing episodes. Meaning I found no view statistics at all. My thinking is that they had a low view (it is possible they didn’t have any…but) under 270 which is the smallest view number any one drama recap had from my total list.

Okay, so what can I say about the top 10 dramas with the most views on Asian Addicts Anonymous? Well…the numbers definitely show that for some reason Korean dramas are more in demand than Japanese. I believe that Last Cinderella only made it into the top 5 dramas rank-wise because of a certain cast member. Sure the drama wasn’t overly horrible or anything like that, but I think the rankings could be solely based on Miura Haruma being one of the leading actors (not that he got a whole lot of screen time in comparison to our second male lead and the female lead).

I also believe some of the higher rankings have to do with the fact that dramas like Crazy Love, Smile, Donghae, and May Queen have more than the average drama episodes. So…you could say it’s unfair for a normal drama to compete against a weekend or daily drama… You can also tell that currently airing dramas don’t necessarily receive more views than older dramas as only 4 of the top 10 were from this year.

What shocked me about the top 10 dramas on AAA? Last Cinderella’s high pageviews. I didn’t really expect a Japanese drama to break 20,000. I am happy it got that much love, but that was still shocking especially when the totally awesome xxxHOLIC couldn’t break 10,000 views. Another shock for me was Spring Love. That was such a painful drama in terms of plot and character development, etc., but it got that many views? It never really seemed all that popular to me, but it got enough views to break into the top 10. Another shocker (and yet not 100% shocking) was the fact that Bachelor’s Vegetable Store, Absolute Boyfriend, Ikemen desu ne, and Ouran High School Host Club managed to rank in the top 10 dramas. I guess they are that popular still even though it’s been 1-3 years now since they originally aired. More power to them for having such staying power and interest.

So…what about the rest of the dramas in the top 25? What were they?

Again, a lot of older dramas mixed in with the 2013 dramas. After the top 25, you get more and more dramas that I failed to complete and probably never will complete. I always feel guilty, unless I really hated a drama, that I dropped it and left it lying unfinished, especially if it’s a drama that people really wanted to see completed recaps for. Like Gong or Gumiho: Tale of the Fox’s Child, etc. I actually have a horrible finish rate which I explored, I think, in 2012’s year-end review. I don’t know what keeps driving me forward for say a daily drama like Smile, Donghae that I have never officially dropped the series even though I have been recapping it for 4 years now. Yes, 4 years. I am rather sad that it was Crazy Love I completed first as my first ever daily instead of Smile, Donghae. My goal every year is to finish Smile, Donghae and I will accomplish it this year 😛

Kazoku Game was an amazing drama. Sure, I didn’t recap it in a very timely manner, but I expected it to get a much better ranking than that. Brand Guardians… it’s not surprising that they took off this past year in comparison to the year it aired as it is no longer available on its official website, so people are looking to watch it and can’t really find it any more. Poor them. It was a good enough web drama. I didn’t necessarily like the “A” and “B” versions of episodes that they did…ESPECIALLY with the end of the drama, but it was overall fairly interesting and our leads did a good enough job.

For 26-48…the fact that Glass Mask got a ranking at all is laughable as it only ever had one recap on AAA. It’s a great Japanese drama that people should definitely check out at some time, but thanks to a Korean drama by the same name, people came looking for Seo Woo’s drama and find a 1996 Japanese drama instead. Haha. I am also sad that the dark and interesting Japanese drama Karamazov no Kyoudai didn’t really get that much love. It was a very good drama that really had a person questioning family, love, sanity, and just how strong the bond of blood really was. But, alas, not too many were interested. I wonder if Tsumi no Batsu which was another Russian novel turned into a Japanese drama got any better ratings…but I didn’t cover it, so I don’t know.

The “Complete” column means in terms of recapping…but you know if I didn’t finish recapping a drama 9 times out of 10 that means I haven’t finished watching it either. I can’t really explain my drama watching…it’s…complicated. But let’s just say I start more dramas than I ever finish. Some dramas I just stop watching with no explanation as to why and other dramas I dropped because they just didn’t work for me. When it comes to books, I have amazing finishing prowess, even if I hate the books (looking at you Twilight saga). I can devour 1,000 page novels in less than a week. So why can’t I ever finish dramas which have only an average of anywhere from 8-20 hours give or take? I just don’t know.

A funny side not. Episode rankings. For some dramas that didn’t necessarily get a high number of views, but still had one or two episodes that received attention…guess which two episodes they were? Episode 1 and/or the final episodes. I will say this…it is definitely okay to check out a drama’s beginning…but peeking at the end can totally ruin watching the drama for you. I high discourage it. I will cite this very reason as why I am not so anxious to finish watching some dramas. Sure, peeking can save you some drama-watching grief in the long wrong, but some times it’s really best to discover it for yourself.

It’s a personal pet peeve of mine when it comes to books…people look at the ending before deciding if they should buy it. Why bother buying something and investing the time if you already know the outcome? At that rate, it doesn’t really matter how you got from point A to point B if you already know the end. I read synopses and check out a few pages to see if I like the writing style…but I won’t peek at the end. I do the same thing with dramas (for the most part). I’ll watch one episode, check out some reviews or maybe a few middle episodes…but I try not to peek at the end (if it’s completed). It’s just the way I’m wired.