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H Universe Awards 2024—Taking Over the Resident Grump (See the end)
These aren’t just awards; they’re reminders of how art can save lives, challenge perceptions, and bring beauty into our worlds.
Potential Lifesaver Award
🏆 Winner: Baby Reindeer (UK)
Care is not an invitation for possession. Self-hatred may get in the way of justice.
Raw. Unflinching. Devastating. Baby Reindeer doesn’t hold your hand—it grips your soul and refuses to let go. This Netflix original dives headfirst into the messy, painful realities of trauma and abuse. It’s a tough watch, but it just might change how you see the world.
Most Meaningful Character
🏆 Winner: Player 120 Cho Hyun-ju – Squid Game Season 2 (South Korea)
People are more than their circumstances.
Feminine yet fierce, tender but tough, Hyun-ju is a wake-up call to stop boxing people into stereotypes.
And her bond with Player 149 Jang Geum-ja? Absolute dynamite. This silver-haired grandma might not get gender identity, but her care for Hyun-ju speaks louder than any words. Together, they’re proof that humanity is messy, complicated, and full of surprises.
Most Thought-Provoking Series
🏆 Winner: Hell / Hellbound Season 2 (South Korea)
Human hubris isn’t about defying divine forces—it’s pretending to know what we don’t.
If Season 1 got characters questioning their beliefs, Season 2 left them spiraling. This supernatural K-horror goes beyond the shock factor to grapple with big questions about belief, morality, and the consequences of our assumptions.
Best Finale
🏆 Winner: Eternal Night Star River / Cringey Official English Title (Mainland China)
This finale hit us with the ultimate truth bomb: You can only love others fully when you love yourself first. (But Ziqi’s real problem? It’s not some conventional “demon” identity—it’s believing he is one.) Emotional, uplifting, and just the right amount of bittersweet.
Geekiest Series
🏆 Winner: Avatar: The Last Airbender (US)
Cultural depth? Check. Epic fight scenes? Double-check.
Avatar draws inspiration from Inuit and various Asian traditions, blending them into an action-packed adventure that’s as visually stunning as it is culturally rich. For fans of intricate world-building and diverse fighting styles, this series is a must-watch.
Best Aesthetics
🏆 Winner: Luxuriant Blossoms / Blossoms Shanghai (Mainland China and Hong Kong for cinematography)
Every frame of Blossoms Shanghai looks like it belongs in a film museum.
Wong Kar-wai’s signature style shines through, making this a feast for the eyes. And yes, the “director’s color-graded version” fixed those earlier hiccups, giving us the lush visuals we deserved.
Best Music
🏆 Winner: What Comes After Love (South Korea and Japan for soundtrack)
Each track is like a perfume note—delicate, layered, and unforgettable.
The music isn't just background noise; it’s an essential experience, taking you to new places with every note.
Notes and Reflections
Here’s the thing: there’s already a ton of online chatter about acting, directing, and writing. Why add to the noise? Awards in these areas just feel unnecessary—especially since acting, in particular, is so vulnerable to cultural differences. What’s more, assigning a “Best Drama” title is always subjective. Why should you impose your idea of what factors to include or exclude and how to weigh all the factors on everyone else?
On a personal level, Tibetan Sea Flower (or Adventure Behind The Bronze Door) is the drama that hit H hardest this year. Its breathtaking visuals, pulse-pounding directing, and sci-fi adventure kept H hooked. But let’s be honest—why should that matter to anyone else? Is it as thematically meaningful as some of the other dramas on this list? Probably not. Is its storytelling flawless? Not quite. The show repeats a certain trick, and when some big mysteries are revealed, it opts to tell rather than show.
For H, though, some of these choices make sense. Tibetan Sea Flower is part of the larger Lost Tomb franchise, and its place in this intricate, interconnected universe justifies a lot. It’s built for those of us who love Easter egg hunts and piecing together the big picture—something H finds thrilling. But is that enough for it to resonate universally? Not necessarily.
H's more level-headed pick for “Best Drama” would be any series recognized with the Potential Lifesaver Award—dramas that go beyond entertainment to deliver messages that genuinely matter. That's even if the drama conferred the honor were an artistic disaster. Is that something you can accept?
Finally, a word of caution: awards are often shaped by sampling errors. The dramas that get shortlisted—or even noticed—are frequently determined by marketing prowess and social media buzz, rather than their intrinsic quality or impact. Keep that in mind when appraising any list like this one.
📝Guest-authored by your cheery machine, with some edits, based on original version here. Hey, say you prefer the human grump's!
H Universe Awards 2024
Potential Lifesaver Award
Baby Reindeer [United Kingdom]
Care is not an invitation for possession. Self-hatred may get in the way of justice.
Most Meaningful Character
Squid Game Season 2's Player 120 Cho Hyun-ju [South Korea]
Discriminated people are more than their discriminated statuses and traits. Femininity does not lessen a person's capacity for toughness or leadership. We often don't fall neatly into one box or another conceived by society. So. Stop. Treating People. As. Little. Categorization. Games.
Hyun-ju cannot be mentioned without mention of the silver-haired mother, player 149 Jang Geum-ja. The ignorant elderly woman frowns upon gender transition yet she tenderly looks after the much taller and well-built Hyun-ju more than many trendy young people around you and I care about marginalized individuals in their midst.
Most Thought-Provoking Series
Hellbound / Hell Season 2 [South Korea]
Human hubris manifests not in defying divine forces, but in knowing that which you do not truly know.
Best Ending
Self-love-themed finale of Eternal Night Star River / Eye-Rolling Official English Title [Mainland China]
You're capable of tapping your full strengths to give important people in your life your all only if you are comfortable in your own skin. The other side of the coin, though, is Murder Mindfully. Ziqi's problem is not that he is a demon in the conventional sense of the term, but that the him beneath it all wrongly identifies as one.
Geekiest Series
Avatar: The Last Airbender [United States]
Diverse cultural elements and martial arts galore.
Best Aesthetics
Blossoms Shanghai / Luxuriant Blossoms [Mainland China and Hong Kong in relation to the cinematography]
Wong Kar-wai did not compromise for the small screen. The question is whether any scene is overdone. It's also a pity he could not get the color grading perfected in time for the CCTV broadcast. A "director color-graded version" with richer colors in at least various scenes was later released.
Best Music
What Comes After Love [South Korea and Japan in relation to the soundtrack]
What comes after that? Fragrance notes-like music that takes you places, of course.
Notes
There is plenty of online discussion revolving around acting, directing and writing, so awards in those areas are unnecessary. The acceptability of acting, moreover, is perhaps particularly vulnerable to cultural differences. Also subjective is the weights and combinations of factors that should go into the assignment of any Best Drama award. On a gut level, the drama that worked best for H this year is China's beautifully-shot sci-fi adventure series Tibetan Sea Flower / Adventure Behind The Bronze Door, but why should it be important to anyone reading this? Is it as thematically meaningful as various dramas above? Is its adrenaline-pumping, breathtaking directing and writing close enough to flawless, given its repetition of a certain trick and choosing to tell instead of show when unveiling the secrets to certain mysteries? How important is it for everyone to accept like H does that some choices can be justified by its place in a larger network of stories (the Lost Tomb franchise) apt for Easter egg hunts and jigsaw puzzle games? A more level-headed personal pick in any event would be any drama conferred the honor of Potential Lifesaver Award.
Beware of sampling errors that may contribute to the appraisal of shortlisted dramas. This unspecified shortlist, in turn, is subject to marketing prowess and social media reach.