ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a case study of the Korean and Chinese TV Drama Meteor Shower. Meteor Shower is based on Hana Yori Dango (Boys over Flowers), which is a Japanese shōjo manga that was written and illustrated by Yoko Kamio in a bi-weekly Japanese magazine from October 1992 to September 2003. The drama features a romance between a poor girl and a wealthy boy, which takes place in the setting of an elite school founded by the boy's family. The chapter provides information about the localization of the dramas. A significant question is whether and how much the media reflect reality in their cultural construction. It is first important to understand how the social context is constructed in the drama. Conflict within the upper-class family is highlighted in the Korean version, which further essentializes the so-called rich class in Korea. Love is the theme of the original Japanese manga, and is the main theme of the Chinese and Korean versions.
