If Korean TV dramas are popular internationally, why is Toku not getting the same?
 

I want to create a follow-up thread to what I created 4 years ago on Tokunation. When I created that thread 4 years ago, I'm not sure if I should use the word surprised or shocked that people that watch toku don't end up branching out to Asian TV dramas, not even Korean TV dramas. This is like a fan of Kung fu film don't branch out to other genre of Chinese films (and this still make me scratch my head).

Fast forward to today, I'm still mind-blown that Toku fans and K-drama/Asian TV drama fans aren't helping each other introducing their favorite genre to each other. I don't see K-drama fans branching out to Toku shows, and I don't see Toku fans branching out to Korean TV dramas. Korean TV dramas are still popular as it was 4 years ago:

Korean dramas enjoy huge wave of popularity in U.S.

'Universal Stories' Help Korean Dramas Find International Success

Variety: Korean Broadcasters Launch U.S. Streaming Service, Taking on Warner Bros.’ DramaFever

Variety exclusive: ‘Dramaworld’ Deal Sees Propagate Board Breakout U.S.-South Korean Series (EXCLUSIVE)

U.S., Europe Looking to Catch Korean TV Drama Wave

Because of the popularity of K-drama in the US, it led to one K-drama getting a US remake, The Good Doctor. Yes The Good Doctor on ABC was a remake of a 2013 Korean TV drama of the same name. That same K-drama is also getting a Japanese remake this year.

Also factor in K-drama's global popularity thanks to BTS's American breakthrough.

But what really disturb me is that despite Korean TV dramas gaining popularity outside of Asia, it's not helping Tokusatsu shows gain a bigger audience outside of its niche fanbases. Korean dramas have helped Mainland Chinese, and Taiwanese TV dramas find audiences outside of Asian-American demographic. But it's not helping Toku, and it's not only Toku from Japan. Toku from South Korea or as I called them, K-toku aren't gaining any big audiences from people that watch Korean TV dramas. I say this because I was watching a Korean Toku on Youtube, just recently I'm watching Legend Hero on it's official Youtube channel and yes it has English subtitle for US and western audiences. So I started watching the episodes on Youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUKUjYIsnUA

despite the full episode video having English subtitles, I looked at the comments left on the video, and a lot of them are not in English!!! They're either in Korean, Indonesian, and some in Vietnamese. But only few comments are left in English. I was in shock, because this tells me K-drama fans in the west aren't branching out to K-Toku shows. It's not only episode 1, I've been watching 13 episodes on Youtube and same thing, lack of English comments, and to me it looks like K-drama fans in the US and the west are not giving Legend Hero or K-toku the same type of love like they would give to K-dramas.

If you want another evidence, have a look at this Onehallyu thread I created a few days ago: How many of you watch Tokusatsu (special effect show) from South Korea

Onehallyu is a very popular forum website for K-pop and K-drama fans in the west. I asked if any of them on the website are aware of Tokusatsu including K-toku and judging from the # of posts I linked above, it looks like K-pop/K-drama fans don't seem to know or are not aware of K-toku, they don't seem to know about Legend Hero.

So I have to asked: Why aren't K-drama fans branching out to Tokusatsu including K-toku despite these same K-drama fans branch out to Taiwanese and Mainland Chinese TV dramas? How come Legend Hero is not getting the same type of love and hype from Korean drama fans in the west?

I have to ask again on Tokunation: How come a lot of you have never bothered to watch Korean TV dramas when you heard about it's rising popularity in the US?

I'm a toku fan, but I'm also a K-drama fans too. There don't seem to be more people like me that can love both Toku and Korean TV dramas.

I believe it could have to do that K-drams are normally more grounded to our world while most casual people in America view Japanese special effects as cheep and laughable. They are so used to high budget special effects that you see in Superhero movies, Star Wars, Disaster Movies, etc. I even remember seeing people that like the 1998 American Godzilla movie over the Japanese Godzilla movies because Godzilla look more realistic and felt like a wild animal to them (This was long before Godzilla 2014).

Not to mention Toku is just more than Superheroes and Giant Monsters, even Toku movies and special shows that have none of those are still view as cheep and bad to most casual people in America.

Guyver, regarding the bold part I highlighted. I don't think so, and it doesn't make sense several K-dramas that are popular outside of Asia are fantasy-based Korean drama, let me list you some of them that are popular amongst non-Asian audiences:

Oh my Ghost

My love from another star

Secret Garden

Master's Sun


All of these have fantasy (and also some element of toku-styled special effect being used) in them. It's not only this K-drama, one Chinese drama which might remind you of Toku and Avatar the last airbender has gotten popular amongst K-drama fans also, have you ever watched Ice Fantasy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdRcmVXqg8M

Guyver, it doesn't make sense for fans of Korean drama and Ice Fantasy to have not been turned off from tokusatsu.

Guyver, it looks like you never watched Korean or Chinese drama since I brought it up 4 years ago, am I right? Do me a favor, start watching Ice Fantasy and these K-dramas I mentioned above. After you watch all of them. You end up coming back here telling me "you're right, it doesn't make sense for Toku including K-toku to not have gotten the same type of popularity like K-dramas."

if Ice Fantasy was able to get popular mongst K-drama fans, then Korean Tokusatsu like Legend Hero would've gotten the same thing too. As I said, it doesn't make sense for Toku (which include K-tokus like Legend Hero) to not have gotten the same type of popularity like their K-drama counterpart.

The show that aired here in America called "The Good Doctor" was based off of a K-Drama of the same name. Granted there were a few differences, but it was essentially the same.

I'm not sure the point of your post. Yes, I've stated on my first post the Good Doctor on ABC was a remake of the 2013 Korean drama.

We're talking about why aren't K-drama fans not branching out to Toku including K-toku. So I'm not sure your point of your post.

Sorry, I missed where you mentioned The Good Doctor. Also, since this is in the general section, it doesn't have to be specifically about Toku. Lol. Also, reiterating that you're not sure of the point of my post kinda comes across condescending. Lol

Well when you mentioned The Good Doctor, it looks like you were going off topic. I wasn't being condescending to you, but your post did went off topic a bit.

I didn't post this topic on the Toku show discussion because I would be using Korean and Asian dramas as evidence, so it wouldn't fit into that discussion label. So that's why I put it under general discussion so I can used Korean and Asian dramas freely in this thread without violating any rules.

Also, if there are people on Tokunation that are fans of both Toku and Asian/Korean dramas, then it would help people on this site figure out what is keeping Toku shows (which include K-Tokus) from reaching the same type of popularity like their Korean drama counterpart.

I don't really see why the popularity of Korean drama worldwide should lead to toku becoming more popular?

I really don't see the correlation here?

It's a matter of demographics.

Campiness is viewed as a niche market or for kids.

Seriously handled scifi though, tends to still do well but it's rarer.

Like for example, the South Korean show "Are You Human Too?" It's essentially a more serious handled life drama about a robot. So if more scifi angles were used like that, the genre could take off more.

The problem isn't that the genre isn't 'taking off' the problem is the limited adult series because monetization/merchandising is easier with kids. So we only get limited adult ones. That in turn means the content is handled less seriously since younger demographics can deal with more absurdities than older demographics.

Amazons, Garo, and other similar more adult series have managed to get their hooks in fine as well as on the world stage. But the amount of the show types to that aren't as plentiful as they once were. Shows that could market to both could do well. Even scifi series still do well. Discovery did well enough, the 100 has been doing well enough to warrant another show like it with "The Outpost". And various other CW hero dramas are doing well. And it's because they better balance the content away from the campiness, and approach the material in more real to their world ways.

So material that was more catered to that blend could hold. It's one of the reasons Garo does so well even with a healthy dose of campiness. It's built in a fantasy modern world mix.

But right now, we aren't getting that many shows like Mirrorman Reflex, Ultraman Nexus, even Amazons was really a rare treat in itself. And Cutie Honey the Live even managed to do rather well. It's creative genre trends in a way. We had a period of darker more serious Toku in the mid to late 2000s. Right now it's back to colorful, bright and cheery with stronger emphasis on merchandising, and soon we'll see a trend back to more mixed between the serious dark overtones and colorfulness.

You can borderline feel the want to do it by creatives from various studios too. The darker aspect of Shin Godzilla that was more rooted in how would the world react to this. The flippancy of Pacific Rim but still maintaining to its own in world rules. Aspects of Ghost and the Ichigo movie where they tried to bring more real world gravity to it. Even bits of Build built in more political upheaval aspects of divided world affairs.

So give it a few years, and we might see a genre turn with various Tokusatsu areas experimenting again as audiences are more receptive to it from the slow build of wilder scifi shows that cover more random topics. Whether it's Timeless on NBC, the super hero shows and zombie shows on CW and AMC, or even the more daring scifi mixes(and time travel stories!) over in South Korea, the more audiences become receptive to ideas and are opened up to concepts, the more those concepts can push the envelope in new ways.

Now with South Korean media though, you also have to keep in mind a lot of it is very love story driven, so they do build on the more universal softer heartfelt moments and on less flash. So their material tends to be more universal character driven with less emphasis on the effects even if it's a heist series like Mad Dog, or robot scifi show like "Are you human too?"

But I wouldn't say that an "armored" type hero show isn't possible, and if anything, as audiences and creatives get more daring to try new things because of what they've already done, it's more likely to come later.

Still do think a remake of Mirrorman Reflex and other mid-2000s toku (Shibuya 15, Ultraman 7X, Akihabara@Deep, and others) could do well for a comeback though. In many ways, much of that was before its time. With Amazons rather showing the timing for material like that is getting better now with stronger demand again.

These things often come in waves too. Design trends that are popular at the time. For the past few years we've been in a more absurdity heavy toku period. Relishing in their outlandishness. So whatever the next trend is, will likely determine a lot, but with as strongly responded to as Amazons was in season 1 & 2. I think we might see some more serious takes on properties again, but this time more balanced to be a little less violent. Granted Amazons needed to be violent to homage the original Amazon.

So it really depends on where the upcoming genre trends decide to lean. But like many forms of scifi or other genres, they do tend to come in clumps for small stretches of time before the next one takes hold.

Though there is no direct reasoning why one country's media is doing well in the modern world and tokusatsu currently is more child fare.
There's kind of an inherent flaw in that thinking by assuming since South Korea is Asian media then why isn't other Asian media doing better. Because it has nothing to do with it being Asian media or not, but in content and approach of the programming itself. As your references point out, the wider k-drama appeal is because of the universal undertones of the stories that's easier to relate to. Also doesn't help that several K-Dramas are remakes of american shows too. Like Suits, Leverage(Mad Dog in south korea), and some others. Which were already well proven strong premises to begin with.

During the early boom of the mid to late 2000s, the same was true for Japan with how Densha Otoko took notice, Shibuya 15 tried new things, Akihabara@Deep celebrated geeks and handled social anxieties before it came into demand more in programming and was trendy to talk about. Heck, Shibuya 15 and Akihabara@Deep were well ahead of the curve in the topics they talked about and handled, including interesting casting choices that these days you would hear non-stop whining about "pandering" if they did it today. Many of those shows don't get the credit they deserve in what they tried to do and show to audiences before it was "trendy" to do so.

But to suggest because one area of Asian dramas is doing well, why aren't others since they are asian material too(and some are! J-Dramas have some strong life right now too in various topics, just not the overtly campy ones get much attention right now), is kind of rather problematic in itself. The genres do well because of how they play to audiences and their content, not because an Asian country made it.

On that note though: Seriously cannot recommend "Are you human too?" enough. It is outright genius and heartfelt and wow. Feels kind of like an inversion and serious take on the old Disney movies about Chip and his scientist dad, but then with an interesting love story and having a strong female protagonist that was a former MMA fighter. It honestly kind of feels like a romance show made by someone that binge watched a lot of 80s-90s anime and disney shows. And Mad Dog was an outright thriller and joy to watch that really felt like the Legacy of Leverage lived on but was conformed to the cultural proclivities of South Korea to better fit. Using insurance fraud investigators was an inspired original choice, but in the characters and music you can feel how much they were inspired by Leverage to do the show their way.

That's one of the things about South Korean and Japanese cinema and shows though. They'll push the norm even before it was trendy to push the norm. Taking films to even deeper questioning areas than much of american cinema, except some rarities, often fear to tread. So in a world that's constantly looking for media to fill this void of modern questions and wider approaches, these shows stand out more. Even Kamen Rider W tends to stand out in that regard with breakout performances and more varied approaches to clothing styles before that was the constant talk of modern american society. That's part of what made a show like Sense8 work so well. I wasn't afraid of 'diversity' and embraced it worldwide as the show needed.

Personally I wouldn’t count the autistic doctor show for the same reason no one really counts 98 as a Godzilla movie. There’s only a very topical connection between the east Asian original and the American redux. You know, since pretty much the entire cast is thrown out for people that would be more recognizable in America and the plots aren’t straight translation.

Because K-drama (with it's soundtrack) in early 2000's led to the popularity of K-pop music. The idol that acted in K-drama and the soundtrack in K-drama helped K-pop got it's popularity. Also when Korean drama got popular, it led to other Asian dramas like Taiwanese and Mainland Chinese dramas to get audiences outside of Asia.

In Latin/South America, where Korean drama got popular. It led to Taiwanese dramas finding audience in that area:

Politically ignored Taiwan practices soap opera diplomacy, in Spanish

TV drama exports Taiwan culture, soft power to Latin America

TV drama broadcast in Latin America to promote Taiwan soft power


Taiwan has credited Korean dramas for helping Taiwanese dramas finding a major success in Latin/South America. So if Korean drama helped Taiwanese dramas in Latin/South America. K-drama has also helped K-drama fans being open minded to a Chinese fantasy toku show, Ice Fantasy. So both of what I listed should've helped K-drama fans discovered K-toku like Legend Hero find similar success in the US and in the west. Instead I didn't see Legend Hero finding the same success amongst western K-drama fans like it's Korean drama counterpart.

Regarding Legend Hero, it's a little campy but it's more K-drama then some campy kid show. To describe Legend Hero, it doesn't have a monster of the week and the plot is not stand-alone in every episode, the plot of the drama transcend all episodes. So that's why I find it different from other toku show I've watched. But then again, Legend hero is a unique K-toku from the one from Japan.

Well, Ice Fantasy being a Chinese drama it had a lot of toku-like element in there if you watched that show carefully.

That could be another explanation why Legend Hero didn't catch the same attention like Ice Fantasy did. Despite Legend hero is a K-toku, and Ice Fantasy is a Chinese epic fantasy with a lot of toku-like element in it.

So we need more K-toku that feels like Ice Fantasy as in more drama, but less campiness.

I can't speak for those because I never got chance to watch Garo, Also the fact that K-drama fans are able to watch Ice Fantasy with no issue and yet aren't able to watch Legend Hero really doesn't make sense to me.

Librarian, just to let you know. Not all Asian dramas get the same love like K-drama and Taiwanese dramas.

You mention J-dramas, sadly J-dramas have suffered from accessibility issues, and some J-dramas that we do have on streaming sites like Viki, and Netflix. They don't get the same type of love like their K-drama counterpart.

After looking at Tokusatsu show discussion section and seeing this topic. I think maybe this topic does fit better in the Toku show discussion then here. Again, I didn't know if this topic would've fit in the Toku show discussion because I would bring up Korean and Asian drama, so I didn't know if this topic would be appropriate in that section, so I wanted to play it safe. But after seeing some topics in that section, I think I should've had that topic set up on Toku show discussion.

Also, I don't know how many people out there beside me are both fans of Toku and K-drama, but I did found another person. Would like to have this person's perspective on how can Toku get the same type of global popularity like Korean TV dramas and Ice Fantasy.

For me, I don't think Toku shows and K-dramas have the same target audience. I enjoy watching both Toku shows and K-dramas (though I haven't seen any as of late) but I do have many friends who enjoy K-dramas and none of them seem like the type that would enjoy Toku shows. For one, they probably just see them as another "Power Rangers" show which is just full of bad acting, cringy dialogue and superheroes in spandex targeted at kids. I know that's not always the case, especially for Super Sentai and Kamen Rider but it'd be hard to convince to watch it without any bias.

Did you try showing them Legend Hero? Try showing one episode from Youtube and let see how they react. If they liked Legend Hero over the Japanese toku, then maybe that's show that Toku spoken in Korean and set in South Korea could work but need maybe famous K-pop/hallyu idols in it.

I do agree maybe if South Korea can improve and make better toku show and have it market toward K-drama fanbases, it could help get K-drama fans branch out to toku shows.

I did came up with an idea of South Korea adapting Marvel's Silk into a K-drama/K-toku fusion. I want the K-drama adaptation of Silk to be reminiscent of Toei's Spider-man but with less campiness and more drama.

My other idea for South Korea to help Toku gaining a bigger audiences for K-drama fanbase: Do you recall Ultraman: Towards the Future, and Ultraman: The Ultimate Hero? Both of these were co-productions were done between Tsuburaya Productions and another country. Maybe they should do it with South Korea, I think a Korean Ultraman series could work and maybe that alone can get K-drama and K-pop fans to branch out to Toku shows.

But here's how the Korean Ultraman series should cast, I want Tsuburaya and whichever Korean company they worked with to cast one of the 2 K-pop idol from BTS. This K-pop boy group has been getting a lot of attention in the US since 2017, I think if we were to cast either V:

https://www.sbs.com.au/popasia/sites...ime=1515639561

or Jin:

http://fimg4.pann.com/new/download.jsp?FileID=45114507

as Ultraman's human identity in the Korean adaptation. As of now, I only know V is the only one with acting experience since he has done acting in one K-drama. Casting V or Jin as Ultraman alone can attract a lot of K-pop and K-drama fans into watching Toku and that include Korea's Ultraman. BTS is the only K-pop boy group that has gotten mainstream popularity in the US, so if you want Korea's Ultraman to get the same love like any K-drama, you got to have a handsome K-pop idol from that group to play Ultraman. I know it seem like pandering to K-pop fans, but what other way can you get K-drama/K-pop fans to watch toku shows. Just like the Korean adaptation of Silk, I want the Korean Ultraman to be more serious and more dramatic then any of their Japanese counterpart. I want the episode to be tied together, not stand-alone. So that means every episode not only have a happy ending, but also at the end it lead to what will happen in the next episodes.

I also have an idea of doing a K-toku that take place during Korea's Three Kingdom era (not to be confused with China's three kingdom that inspired Romance of the Three Kingdom). Do any of you know Mystic Knight of Tir Na Nog? After watching this, and the K-drama, The Night Watchman's Journal:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9mBPm3GK4s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wp4JrIzWT_U

If we can combine the sentai squad & format of Mystic Knights and the plot, tone, and atmosphere of The Night Watchman's Journal. Replace Irish period & mythology with Korean mythology and make it take place during pre-Joseon Korea, and remove the campiness and try to match the serious and dark atmosphere of this fantasy period drama. Yes I want a Korean Mystic knight to be like what you're seeing in the 2 video above. Serious and not a lot of campiness.

This is how you can get K-drama fans to get into Toku/K-toku. I don't know who should I cast for my proposed Korean "mystic warriors", but for my female member of the Korea's "Mystic Warriors" squad, I want Nana of After School:

https://0.soompi.io/wp-content/uploa...5616/Nana1.jpg

https://www.wowkeren.com/images/news/00185050.jpg

I want Nana to play a Korean princess similar to Mystic Knight's Deirdre for the K-drama/K-toku of Mystic Warriors.

If South Korea can make a K-drama/K-toku fusion show like what I suggested above, then it can lead to K-drama fans branching out to Toku shows.