[serie] Misaeng – upcoming K-drama

Tagline reads: “on the baduk board of life, no stone is worthless”

So I just found out that in October this year a new K-drama is set to premier, all about baduk; the drama is based on the popular web comic Misaeng [미생], meaning “Incomplete life”. Apparently the comic is quite popular and is available on Daum for a small price per issue, about 1 000₩; I have no idea how to pay for it though, so it is fairly inaccessibly unless you’re in Korean or have access to a Korean bank account, or know how to break into the Daum website.

The story is basically about a failed pro-baduk player who falls into a depression and then tries to get out of it, slowly picking up his life. As he takes job at some company, and is all existential about his future, he learns to apply the lessons he learned from baduk to his life.

I wish I could read the web comic, but that is won’t happen because a) I can’t access it, and b) my Korean sucks harder than a [***censored***] So basically I am waiting for the adaptation to premier end this year, and find a way to get it… “somewhere”. Considering the cast and crew I am quite excited about it. Production is in the hands of the same guy who did Sungkyunkwan Scandal, and in the lead roles Kang So-ra and Im Shi-wan… which, unless you watch K-dramas often, doesn’t mean really that much. Just take my word for it, as you should on lots of things.

I love the premises, the lessons of baduk and how they can be applied to life in general; and while baduk related movies have been released in recent years (e.g. The Stone, The Divine Move, Tokyo Newcomer, The Go Master, etc.) I hope a TV series will be able to go more in depth in terms of the details and complexity of the game. At the very least I have a double excuse to procrastinate in life by watching this for the purpose of improving my Korean language skills and for improving my baduk skills, whether it’d actually help with any of that is really besides the point. For those understanding wanting a preview, and understanding Korean, here is a web prequel that was released a while back:

Kim Satgat – Baduk

This a post on a blog I follow by Kuiwon, who translates Classical Chinese poetry by Koreans as a hobby. This poem specifically is part of a series he did on traditional games, and explores baduk (or gi [기, 棋], as it often appears in compounds, such as the Korean name of the Korean Baduk Association: Hankuk kiwon [한국기원])