Comment by tinco

> I'm more of an action adventure kind of guy, there's not many good new stuff in that genre either as far as I'm aware.

Take a look at Gaksital (2012). I've not had a chance to watch it yet, but it's got action and is apparently quite good.

Another excellent action K-drama is City Hunter (2011), which is actually based on a late 80s/early 90s anime series, and has a corresponding anime as well that was first released in 1987. City Hunter was probably one of the first K-dramas where the production values and special effects really struck me in the face. Things have only continued to improve since then. Unfortunately, most J-drama producers haven't opted to continually increase production values in the same manner (and the Japanese wonder why K-dramas are so popular in Japan).

Another good K-drama in the last year (which I've seen) was Ghost, which (while it has some action) is more about crime and computers/hacking, but since you're on HN, you might like it. It had a surprisingly realistic portrayal of computers/hacking - not your usual CSI crap. Plus, the lead actress, Lee Yeon Hee, while still rather young/inexperienced in terms of acting, is one of the most beautiful (in a uniquely understated way) I've seen in K-dramaland in quite a while.

I certainly enjoy melodramas as well though, especially the makjang dramas[0] that Korea is famous for. Nice Guy (2012) is a thrilling example of this, and one of the best K-dramas overall from last year. And if you're interested in historical dramas, I hear Arang and the Magistrate is quite nice.

Dramabeans[1] is a good (and surprisingly professional) blog for keeping abreast of K-drama news in general. They have good year-end roundups[2] that allow you to quickly spot the good shows.

> The most recent one I really enjoyed was Steins;Gate which is really quite brilliant!

Yes, Steins;Gate has been a notable exception - I've been meaning to play the visual novel the anime is based on, but that would require me to boot into Windows :/

> Also I'm jealous you're able to read Japanese, I've not had the discipline to really learn it yet.

Learning how to read/write Japanese is all about making it fun. I used the standard RtK/Anki approach, but what really motivated me was using a brush instead of a normal pencil/pen. It really improves your handwriting and makes practicing a lot more fun. Once you've got all the jouyou kanji down, it's just a matter of picking up jukugo in context, which is inherently a lot more fun, if you can find interesting stuff to read and make Anki flashcards out of. I started out with lines from dramas (there are Japanese subtitles available on D-Addicts[3]), and then moved onto websites, before going to actual novels.

0: http://belectricground.com/2011/04/11/korean-language-and-cu...

1: http://www.dramabeans.com/

2: http://www.dramabeans.com/tag/year-in-review/

3: http://d-addicts.com/forum/subtitles.php