Confession: I had no idea who TVXQ were when I saw them for the first time. LOL! My very first experience was with the Banjun (I think) drama Dangerous Love. A link to that short, hilarious drama was posted on a shounen-ai fanboard.
I watched it and I thought it was one of the most hilarious things I had ever seen. It was funny, not too long and had some cute guys in it. But I had no idea these guys were in a group. I just assumed they were guys hired to act in the drama like every other drama. ROTFL
What I remember most was
1. Jaejoong’s red lips. He has a face that once you see it, you don’t forget it.
2. A gorgeous young kid, which turned out to be Changmin
3. A guy who sang so beautifully I literally said aloud ‘Damn, that guy sounds good! He should be a singer.’ Turns out that was Junsu. ROTFL
I watched Dangerous Love and it became a favorite of mine. Still had no idea who TVXQ/DBSK was.
Months later I was surfing some video website (I think it was dailymotion or crunchyroll) and there was information and related videos for Dangerous Love. Some of the titles mentioned “DBSK”. I remember thinking, ‘what does DBSK mean?’
I did an internet search and literally happened upon THOUSANDS of sites about the guys, pictures, blogs, forums, etc.
This is where I first saw the video for Love in the Ice. Love in the Ice live (the one where they were wearing white) was THE reason why I fell in love with their music. I have no idea what they were singing. I can’t speak Korean or Japanese (yet).
I noticed some of the guys looked familiar, especially Jaejoong. I looked, paused the video and looked again. Then I quickly did a search for Dangerous Love and watched a bit of the short drama again.
I was like ‘That’s THAT guy!’ ROTFL. Literally in those words. I went to more sites and that’s how I found out who they were and that I had been charmed by these guys months earlier before I even knew who they were. I found out that Dangerous Love was an old Banjun drama they did.
One other funny thing is that by the time I “discovered” them, I was wondering where that cute kid was (Changmin). I noticed there was “another guy” there who was tall and gorgeous with long hair.
First let me say it took me a long time to develop my staring capability with them so I didn’t pay nearly as much attention to them as I do now.
My first thought was ‘I guess they replaced that cute kid with that guy right there’. And then I looked…. and looked closer. Imagine my shock when I noticed the resemblance! It was Shim Changmin looking all manly, grown-up and gorgeous!
Seriously, Changmin with long black hair in a sleeveless shirt is a sight to behold.
So yeah, that’s how I came to TVXQ. And I have my love for shounen-ai to thank. 🙂
/ dongbanger \