[mdo7]

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Originally Posted by Princess Viola

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?

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.

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Originally Posted by Librarian

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.

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.

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Originally Posted by Librarian

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.

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

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Originally Posted by Librarian

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.

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.

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Originally Posted by Librarian

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.

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.

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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.

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.