Letter #1: Hotel Del Luna

Good morning, Erin.

So, I finished Hotel Del Luna, last night (at a totally reasonable time and certainly not at 3 AM as I sobbed into my couch cushions (absolutely not that)), and…gosh, that was a good time. Thank you so much for the recommendation—I really, really enjoyed it.

Now, I’m…how do I put this…I’m prone to talk endlessly about something like this, once I’ve finished it. Very much someone who likes to analyze (or perhaps “analyze,” given I’m also prone to only dig into something as far as my excitement takes me) and discuss and pick apart to see how something is put together. I like to go over how it works, why it works, why it matters or doesn’t matter why it works. 

In other words: I’m a big ol’ windbag—but, mostly, I’m time-consuming.

SO…rather than spend a billion years standing around giving you my most prominent initial impressions, pointedly asking students with questions to wait as I discuss—at great length—exactly what the symbolic takeaways of the eye makeup choices were (…and, believe me, I have thoughts), I figured it might be easier to hand this off to you as a start, with a more suitably-lengthed chat to follow when most convenient. 

Anyway—on to my most prominent notes (in no particular order) about my time with the series:

1) My favorite thing in the series is, unsurprisingly, Ms. Jang—for many, many reasons. But my favorite thing about Ms. Jang, honestly, is how she’s always in a new outfit, in every scene. I absolutely LOVED that. (And my favorite outfit of hers was any outfit that required her to wear one of those floppy, wide-brimmed hats.) What a great way to show us so many different aspects of her character: vain, glamorous, mercurial, unearthly, particular, materialistic, pedantically sensitive to decorum (even if only her internal rules of decorum). 

2) Overall, it’s just a really solid show. The locations and set design were the most obvious boon, because the characters could be saying literally anything in that main area of the hotel and it would have been great simply for the surrounding architecture. The characters were all fun and distinct. The acting sometimes dipped into soap opera territory, but not often enough for it to affect the general charm of the cast. Admittedly, there were more than a few “convenient” twists in the side plots—but I’m giving them a pass because the show specifically says Mr. Koo’s association with Ms. Jang would draw more than a little coincidence. Which is handwave-y nonsense, but I don’t care, because it was all so gosh darn charming. 

2.5A) ...that said, the gun scene in the Boston flashback was ABSURD. Even the prop gun thought so (because the hammer of the gun was cocked back for literally the whole thing—which means it was prepped to go off pretty every time one of them touched it—which I know was a malfunction of the prop, but I found it funny). 

2.5B) Seriously, that serial killer plot was…an odd choice. I didn’t hate it or anything, just…odd.

3) For what it’s worth, Hotel Del Luna reminded me of three other shows I quite like—or, rather, very specific aspects of three shows:

—xxxholic, for the general supernatural setup (even the obligation for the non-supernatural character to serve the supernatural one) and the dynamic of the lead characters (if not specifically their relationship)
—The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, for the contentious but symbiotic relationship between the leads, particularly with one of them having immense power and the other just being some regular guy.
—Arrow, for how the flashbacks gain momentum as the series goes on, to the point where I’m hoping to get more from that story with each episode rather than simply accepting that it’s background info.

4) Have I mentioned that I love Ms. Jang? Because I absolutely love Ms. Jang.

5) Lemme just say…I did not see the firefly twist coming. And I thought it was really clever. I also thought the show was going to be a circle, in a way, with Mr. Koo taking over the hotel and Ms. Jang staying as a firefly. And I was wrong, of course, because that would have been entirely antithetical to the whole point of the show. And also because I’m very ill-informed about how reincarnation works, so Ms. Jang staying behind as a firefly would have been, like, the worst outcome—thematically, if nothing else. (The worst possible outcome would have been Ms. Jang being turned to ash by Mago and then Mr. Koo becoming an angry spirit and meeting the same fate. Which…boy, that’d’ve been a bitter pill to swallow.)

6) How good was the music, in this show? And, as a point of personal preference, I like how they had, like, five tracks that they just used over and over and over again.  I’m kind of a sucker for this kind of melodramatic repetition. And, yes, I’m aware that it’s a manipulative storytelling technique. I don’t care. I liked it. 

6.5) My favorite song was the oo-oo-oo choral track that sounds like Skyrim music. You’d think I’d have looked it up to tell you the exact name. But I didn’t.

7) Y’know who else I really liked? The Grim Reaper. I like that he’s mostly...just...there. Like, he didn’t need to do a lot, but I liked that he was around. (Not dissimilar from how I liked knowing Sunglasses Ghost Girl was there, now that I think about it.) Also, I thought he looked rad. 

7.5) …though not as rad as Ms. Choe in her “I’m a badass ghost, gonna hunt you down” outfit, when they all confront the serial killer.

8) I sort of mentioned this before, but I played this little game with myself: catch how much red eye shadow they use in each scene. On everyone. Because it’s there a lot. And also I love it.

9) My favorite Mago: probably ghost police(?) variant. 

10) Given the choice between the two, I pick the Man-wol moon-and-slash symbol over the Hotel del Luna pin symbol. They’re both great, but I just think the Man-wol symbol is cleaner. 

11) Not that I need to repeat this, because, I mean, this is obvious, but I was definitely not crying into my couch cushions, for the whole of the last episode.

12) Wait wait wait—who in the heck is the dude at the end?! What is that reveal? Am I supposed to know who he is? WHAT IS HAPPENING?!

13) Dear God…there’s going to be an American remake. Just…why.

…and those’re my thoughts. (Told you: windbag.)

Next up is Vincenzo, and then literally anything I can find with Lee Ji-eun in it. And anything else you can recommend that you think would be worth a gander, now that you know I’ve been hooked by Hotel Del Luna. 

Though, of course, if I am even slightly less than satisfied, by these, I will hold you forever responsible. So…prepare yourself for that. 

Thanks, again.

--Daryl