[mdo7]

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:

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.