3
5
jpny01
There's really not much sex in this.
I liked this. There was an unrealistic aspect to it, though, which is that I think whenever anyone met Kao they would scream "Oh my God, your eye! What happened to your EYE!" But other than that, it was cute and fluffy.From the comments and reviews where everyone was calling it "gay porn", I expected penises everywhere, but the love scenes were actually very restrained and realistic, and sweet and loving. I think maybe people are starting to get used to the Victorian-era level of sexuality in BLs. Anyway, they don't show anything - it's about equivalent to TharnType if you've seen that.
This isn't deep by any means, but the guy playing Kao is very good in his role - he makes the character kind of dim but sweet, and other than one of his eyes, he's easy to look at - so is Pete. Hey, I just realized it's another Pete & Kao!
Anyway, I would recommend this is you want a thin plot with boys being cute together and in love.
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Not good, but had its moments
This series was a mess - but there was a passion behind it that sort of (but not quite) saved it. I'll start with negatives:There are some offensive things in here - Jelai is that disturbing stereotype, a very effeminate person who is made ridiculous and played for laughs. He's predatory and his treatment of Jam is fairly serious sexual harassment. He also tells off a female employee for her skirt being to high, which is misogyny. The actor playing Jelai (Gio Emprese) is constantly misused in roles like this when he's actually a powerful dramatic actor as you can see in Meet My Angel).
There are people that do horrible things, but suffer no consequences - that is a terrible message to send. The main villain of the story doesn't even apologize, but is forgiven. The story is all over the place, and there's no real plot - it's just a bunch of things that happen. Even the obligatory breakup made no sense - it was just a dramatic device with no motivation or logic. A lot of the dialog and "humor" will make you cringe, so be prepared.
The sound is poor, the cinematography is competent but uninspired, and the acting is uneven, generally not good.
On the plus side, the two leads seriously committed - they are one of the most believable couples I've ever seen in a BL, and their love scenes were smoking hot - even straying more than a bit into BDSM. (however, the big love scene was very poorly set up and lacked the emotional impact it should have had - I'm all for sex, but it still needs to work and not feel gratuitous) I'm used to being given nothing more than a chaste kiss - that does not happen here. Sky's family is wonderful, except his brother Ken, who is another offensive predatory effeminate stereotype, which was a waste of an obviously talented actor. The love and validation are the right message and series ended on a positive an affirming note.
I think the problem with this series is that it needed to cut loose and just be campy as f#$%. It wanted to, but always held back, and as a result, the outrageous elements fell flat. For example, Ace's clothing is almost ridiculous, but not quite, and because Aki Torres is so gorgeous he can get away with a lot. I'm not sure what the point of Miss Becky was - if you're going to have a female role played by a man, make it a proper drag queen! There were times where she flirted with being a Disney character - fine, but commit! A middle-aged woman could have filled the role just as well. Moira was cartoonishly evil, but her schemes needed to be more over-the-top (and less time-chewing). She could have been given a hilarious death or comeuppance, which would have been entertaining and satisfying.
Anyway, for all its faults, I watched it and was entertained - and didn't fast forward through too much, so there's that. But it's not the type of show that will have you counting the minutes for. It probably doesn't deserve 5 stars, but there's a lot of effort put into this and the leads did not hold back at all - which I hope all other BLs take notice of.
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The only way to watch this is to fast-forward through everything involving everything uninteresting, which on the bright side means it will only take you an hour or two to get through.
Edit: Having now watched 1,000 Stars it's hard to believe that Earth is the same Earth as one in this. What a complete waste of perhaps the most talented actor in BL.
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This review may contain spoilers
Ugh. Close, but not quite - by about 6 years.
This had some things going for it. The leads are both very attractive. They don't behave like your standard seme and uke (with one extremely large exception) - they're just two guys in love. The plot is conventional and unoriginal, but it has a charming quality to it - maybe a naive sincerity.But then the ending happened. Because BL seems to require by some unwritten but unbreakable law to have ridiculous manufactured drama thrown in, this was spoiled by an overdramatic crisis with an unfortunate resolution.
So if you want to watch this, I would recommend stopping after the kiss.
On to spoilers. There are also spoilers for Addicted in here as there are obvious comparisons to be made.
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First of all, a lot of people are going to use the R word. That's not what this was, but hear me out. Rape is horrible. If he had been raped he would most likely be bloody and bruised, physically and psychologically, need medical and psychiatric attention, hospitalization, and depending on where it happens, criminal charges would be automatically filed because doctors are required to report it and neither of their families have the power to cover it up. Also, the "victim" was clearly fine with it afterwards, and after they start he appears to immediately join in willingly, although you only have feet to judge by.
So what was it? That's the problem. It's not supposed to be rape, but it's not exactly not-rape. Let's compare it for a moment to the infamous scene in Addicted. There, the two are already in a relationship, they're already phyiscal (albeit not anal yet), and one doesn't want to do anything solely because he's afraid he has a communicable disease, and in the uncensored version, it's clear the sex was just a hand job, which can be sexual assault, but it's really, really hard to do that to an unwilling person for... reasons anatomical. I get why people didn't like this, but at least it didn't have a morally repugnant motivation on the part of the writer.
This wasn't a hand-job, and they hadn't done anything physical yet whatsoever other than a lips-barely-touching kiss. So we've returned to the incredibly homophobic idea that it's morally unacceptable for a man to desire and pursue being penetrated, and therefore he has to be forced, because somehow rape or sexual assault are less morally objectionable than being gay. This is also common in straight romances, for the same reason - a woman shouldn't want or pursue sexual pleasure, so she has to be forced. So it's repugnant as a message. That was not a factor in Addicted. When they finally had anal sex, Luo Yin is afraid it will hurt, and Gu Hai offers to bottom instead, but Luo Yin wants to be f@#$ed. So there's no judgment of top vs bottom in the writing.
As drama, a BL setup can be as ridiculous as you want - one of them can be a ghost or a vampire, or they can be in magical universe where all boys pursue other boys - but within that context, people on an emotional level need to act like people. If Zi Ming wanted to have sex, then it doesn't make sense for him to try to fight him off - and there were punches to the face involved, so he felt serious violence was necessary to defend his virginity. So if he didn't want it, then he was raped, in which case it makes no sense that he was fine with it afterwards, unless he has some sort of severe trauma in his past that makes him feel like he deserved it, which there is no sign of in this story. So it's bad writing. It would have been OK for him to resist a bit because he was upset Cheng Yi was leaving without talking to him, but this was not that. This was "guys don't let other guys do THAT to them."
Further, in Addicted we also had some love scenes, and interaction as a couple. Here we didn't - just the force part, and none of what it is implied that followed, i.e. love-making. And then one of them leaves for contrived reasons and the ending is ambiguous, although it's implied they're staying together and planning to reunite (all that stuff about gravity).
Cheng Yi's motivation seemed to be trying to get Zi Ming to to admit his feelings. So, here are the options:
Option 1: Tell him that you love him, and ask if he feels the same way about you.
Option 2: Have a fist fight and rape him until he admits he likes you.
So in the end, we get a regressive message about gay being worse that sexual assault, we got an unoriginal story with writing that doesn't make emotional sense, and we got an unsatisfying ending. What's not to like?
As for the contrived reason for leaving, I get that his grandmother feels she's getting too old to take care of him - but he's 18. He's now at an age where he can take care of her, or at least be equal in that regard - so what kind of nonsense is this? If she felt it was for his own good, then she should have sent him away years ago, and if she's selfish, then she should hold onto him. But it's not selfish keeping someone you love and who loves you with you instead of sending him to a parent he doesn't love and who doesn't really seem to love him. So again, a fail on the emotional level for the writing. She seems to be aware of how important Zi Ming is to Cheng Yi, so she comes off as a homophobe who doesn't care about her grandson's happiness or thinks it's some passing phase.
Addicted was really funny and the transgressive things that happened made sense in the context of the story and characters. Here we had a cheap and unimaginative knockoff that replicated the transgression for no apparent reason and without it really fitting the story or characters. Also, have you ever tried to have a fist fight and force someone to have sex in a small apartment with someone's parent in the next room? That's not likely to end well. Even if she wasn't home, the neighbors would hear every bit of it.
I was enjoying this up until the kiss at the end of Ep 6, and then it accelerated downhill to a terrible ending. I want to support Mainland Chinese BL, but if bad knockoffs of Addicted is all we can expect, maybe forget it. Wait till Xi dies and then shift the high-production value bromances back to BL.
Story: 4.5 - unimaginative but relatively coherent plot-wise, less so from a character perspective.
Acting: 7 - average. Not great, clunky at the beginning, but improved throughout.
Music: 6.5 - not bad, not intrusive, not special.
Rewatch Value: 1. There's not even a shower scene to replay over and over. You get only a cruel glimpse at Zi Ming's beautiful body and then it's over.
Overall: 5 - I went with the suggested average. 5 sounds about right.
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Maybe there's something wrong with me.
When I started this I was pleasantly surprised - I thought Vice Versa was awful, and so I had no expectations. But both Jimmy and Sea were much improved, the story, although a bit formulaic, wasn't overly so, especially in having two men in the lead roles and not a seme and uke, and I engaged with and enjoyed the series. I especially thought Sea was doing a good job as it's hard to show feelings without using your eyes.But like so many Thai series, it's way, way too long - I'd say twice as long as it should have been, and so many of its positive qualities grew stale.
I had liked how Day and Mhok interacted like guys, teasing each other - but that got so tiresome and predictable that I began to sigh wearily at it all.
Anyway, the central problems for me:
There is no character development. And what little there is is erased by the way the series ends. Mhok's character changes, but it doesn't develop. He starts off as a sexy rough and surly guy who is suddenly neutered and can take any amount of abuse with infinite grace and forgiveness, to the point that he's a total simp, thanking Day for dumping him and breaking his heart. It's a light-switch flipping, not a journey. All of his issues are passed over, like his grief over his sister - it doesn't play into the plot at all past the first couple of episodes, when it's used to propel Mhok into the caretaker job, then he forgets she existed, except to create manufactured drama in Ep 11. Day, on the other hand, starts off as a self-centered entilted brat, and ends exactly the same. You'll note he never shows any concern for anyone other that himself, other than obeying his harpy of the mother (who is supremely well acted, but she's awful. And let's get real - there is 0% chance she would accept her eldest son marrying a poor girl with a baby by someone else. 0%.)
There is no plot.
Everything is just arranged to present romatic set pieces. For example, at Christmas, Day comes to surprise Mhok after work, in a cute reflection of an earlier surprise visit by Mhok to Day's house. They have dinner and Mhok says it's a moment that's so wonderful that he wishes it could last forever. Awww, so sweet. Except that Day had just ditched him all day at Christmas without sending a text like a complete asshole, making Mhok sad all day. Mhok, who used to be surly, is now a saint and isn't even slightly upset about this, because... well, reasons. He has no character anymore, and the plot doesn't either. There is no interplay of action->reaction. Did anyone even for a second think Mhok was the groom in Ep 12? Come on, do they think we're stupid?
The writing is cheesy.
Not a little bit cheesy, but relentlessly, oppressively cheesy. "I used to believe that people were blind because they couldn't see things. I just realized today that true blindness is being unable to see hope." Ugh. It's like the author robbed the greeting card rack of a convenience store and dumped their contents into her story. Even the one occassion of meta-awareness of this cheesiness is cheesy: "I've heard many such cheesy lines, but this is the first time I've believed one."
The morality and moralizing is way off-base.
How was Night to blame for anything? All he did is got drunk. It was Day who practically let go of the wheel and certainly took his eyes off the road (which was a lost opportuntity for irony and consequences paid for actions) to search for a bucket or something, as if there would be one in the car, instead of just pulling off the road. Night should have been praised for not trying to drive drunk, not condenmed to being blamed by everyone including his awful mother. Why does Mhok have to apologize for not wanting to move to a different country and have to be away from the man he loves? If Hawaii were the only place in the world he could get a cooking career, OK, sure, we can discuss that, but DAY'S MOTHER IS A CELEBRITY CHEF. There are better oppotunities at home.
The acting is OK.
Like I said, much improved, but the "enemies" portion of the story had the best acting, and it was interesting storywise because they weren't really enemies - it was a bit of a game to hide their mutual attraction and it was quite lovely. But in the end, I don't think either actor shined, and this is underscored by how strong Mark Pakin is - the most moving moment in the whole series is his reaction to being forgiven. I didn't feel the romantic chemistry between the leads at all - they had good "friend" chemistry, but their interaction is so sexless (and I don't mean sex scenes, which can be more sexless than anything, I mean no heat between them) that it felt like a primary-school relationship with tickling and sniff-kisses to the cheek being about all we see. Again, Mark and Namtan outshone them - I felt the heat the first time they met and it never abated. Sea had a hard job, and he did his best, which was not bad, but it grew dull by the end. Jimmy can do sad-puppy-dog and sexy smirk very well, but that's about it, and he too grew dull.
The writing is shallow.
This could have been about dealing with loss and resiliance, about moving on and adapting to adversity, but Day's character is so thin and inconsistent that we get no depth. His reaction to an unsuccessful surgery implying permanent blindness is wasted on the greeting-card line I referenced above and he processes the situation for literal minutes before being totally over it. And the ending renders the entire series a pointless string of plot points with no meaning or impact. Instead of dealing with the consequences of their decisions, the story makes a time jump, the first refuge of an incompetent writer, and skips over all that for an insta-reunion. Well, not instant, as there had to be a rush-to-the-airport cliche thrown in. Sigh.
In the end, this was just boring. There was a whole episode about jogging. In Ep 12, even the YouTube algorithm was despondent and kept throwing reaction videos to Deadpool into the queue instead of the next part of the episode. The rating of this as I write is 8.6, which is astoundingly high - but I'm willing to bet that in a year it will be down around half a point. There are lovely moments in this that buoy the score, and many people vote early on and don't change it - but subsquent viewers will binge it and it just won't have an 8.6 impact on them, and I doubt people will be talking much about this in a year, because there's nothing to talk about.
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Complete waste of time
This isn't a BL, or at least I hope not, or it's about a zoophilic pedophile and his victim.I know this is supposed to be sweet and cute, but it's cloying and dull, with no plot, And even with no plot it manages to be full of plot holes. The first episode was the worst. It went downhill from there.
This is the entire series: A guy finds a cat that turns into a human-like thing. They move in together. The end.
The acting is universally weak, except maybe Bright as Faiyen. To be fair, Bodo's job as Evan is to not act, so in that light he did an excellent job. Meow is so child-like that he doesn't understand what happened when Dermdem gets a haircut (and takes off the most ridiculous wig since Ja's in Until We Meet Again. Actually, I think it might be the same wig.)
The plotline between Faiyen and Evan had potential - Evan is incapable of facial expressions, which was good for one or two moments, but was never explored or used for either dramatic or comedic effect, so it was just a shallow affectation assigned to the character - which in live action doesn't work, it's just distancing and boring.
The music is trying to be cutesy and Japanese-ish, but they've somehow skewed it so that it made me feel enraged and violent. If you need the Hulk, just play the theme song in front of Bruce Banner.
Rewatch value - I would rather vacation in Mariupol than watch this again.
This is the shortest review I've ever written - there's almost nothing to say. It's that vapid and dull. If you like this sort of thing, watch the first ep - if you don't like it, run. It never gets better.
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The first episode is the worst. It goes downhill from there.
It's not at all necessary to watch Star In My Mind to understand this series - anything that matters is shown in flashback in the first episode.Mark is certainly cute, and Mek has no lack of sex appeal, but the overall chemistry here is missing, except insofar as Mek generates it by standing around and looking sexy, which in the end has a 2D quality that wears thin.
The central problem for me in this series is the character of Prince, who is humorless, judgmental, constantly disappointed in everyone , and generally a tiresome priggish elderly woman trapped in a young man's body. And yet as interesting as damp cardboard.
Example: At the beginning, the kids hide in Fah's room. It's cute and harmless, but Prince acts like they're all bad people instead of taking it like, well, a normal adult, amused at the situation. Then he's very rude to Fah for no reason and doesn't even thank him for getting a huge spider off his head. I get the formula. They don't like each other at first, I get it. But Prince never changes and just shits on Fah the whole series, constantly making him feel like he needs to apologize even though he never does anything wrong, but rather is very generous and kind to him.
Then he says he's tired of waiting for Fah to make a move - then immediately leaves in a huff so that Fah can't make a move. He's so standoffish and unpleasant that it's not clear why Fah has any interest in him, but if Prince is interested, why can't he make the first move, or at least give Fah some indication that he'd be receptive? So now he's disappointed Fah doesn't have telepathic powers?
This whole series is formulaic and pointless. There's no redemption arc for Fah, because he's always been a good and caring person who had one bad moment because his girlfriend of 7 years dumped him for another man and he got drunk and drove. There's even an arranged marriage plotline that chews up a lot of time and has nothing to say about it, and like all conflicts in this series, is handwaved away anticlimactically. In this case, everything works out because the husband-to-be is hot, so the resolution isn't just lazy, it's shallow and misogynist - "Sure, I'll give up all my agency and have my future assigned to me by men without my input just so long as I get my tall handsome man."
The highlight of the series is easily Fah's sidekicks, played by Mike Chinnerat (clean-cut and bespectacled, which is really fetching on him) and Arm Weerayut, both of them funny and charming and a breath of fresh air. Everything else is a dreary mishmash of standard BL tropes like falling on each other and staring endlessly, the uke tripping about 47 times. etc.
Mek's acting has improved - not great, but a little more natural - but in the end the writing is so bad, and he's stuck acting against someone that could have been replaced by a clay figurine, that whatever appeal he has wears out its welcome.
Mark's acting is not exactly bad so much as non-existent. Aggressively bad acting is worse than the non-acting we often get in Thai BL, but in this case, it's so non that it collapses into a black hole that sucks all life out of the drama. He's really that bad.
The final dramatic crisis is so stupid and poorly written that it's only worth a weary sigh. Somehow, Prince gets malaria which is somehow untreatable, because the medications necessary for this were only developed 180 years ago. His evil ex-bf won't tell Fah which hospital Prince is at, so Fah decides their relationship is over and gives up. Which is what one does when one is in love. Unfortunately, Prince decides moping is more useful than contacting Fah, and when Fah finally decides to try to find him, he can't, until it turns out his brother is a good friend of Prince's, which somehow never came up in conversation before,. And so Fah is able to find Prince, who is a drum major in Bangkok for no apparent reason, and they live happily ever after.
The whole final episode is full of stupid and inplausible coincidences and miscommunication - sure, coincidence is a staple of romantic drama, but they still have to make sense.
Anyway, this series is an incredibly dull and charmless waste of time.
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I will say that the acting was great - especially Arthit. The Our Skyy episode with this pair makes up for a lot of the problem - it was nice to see them actually touching each other without acting like they were going to get cooties.
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Fluffy, but for once not in a bad way.
Normally I would loathe a series like this becaus I find fluff tedious - but not when it's interspersed with an actual story with consistent characters that have development arcs, which is a rarity in BL. Even the uke had character development.Hong Wei Zhe does a good job of making a bratty character likeable, and there's a certain convoluted structure to his whining that is always entertaining.
Yang I Hsuan is really sexy and does one of the best jobs of acting like he's really into someone I've ever seen. He's the kind of guy everyone would want as a bf. The boys are not afraid to show phyiscal affection - they are always touching, rubbing noses, kissing, or even wrestling around - the latter of which I appreciated because it felt like two guys instead of a man and an uke. Jiang Chi is sweet and takes care of Bu Xia, but he's not above laughing at him when he's being ridiculous or teasing him - he feels like a real person, and his interaction with Bu Xia feels genuine and unrehearsed.
There are a few funny take-downs of BL tropes - for example, Jiang Chi has a fiancee that drops out of the sky as it typical in a BL - he basically just says "I'm gay, get lost". and that's the end of that.
The plot is a little thin, but there is one, it is thought out and flows nicely. And best of all, there's a setup for another season, which I hope happens.
The cinematography is very good, with some lovely shots of Taiwan, and in general it's well-produced.
I highly recommend this series - it's relentlessly pleasant, there is drama but not caused by awful people - it's mostly character-driven, although ghosts also play a role in moving the story foraward.
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Bokura no Shokutaku Spin Off - Bokura no Kyujitsu
4 people found this review helpful
Cute but underwhelming.
The main series is one of the best BLs that's aired in the last few months, but this follow-up episode really doesn't go anywhere or add anything new to the characters or their relationships - it was a retread of ideas we've already seen.Also, it was a bit of a grab-bag of BL tropes - unwarranted jealousy, implausible misunderstanding, internal monologues in place of acting (although at least there weren't flashbacks. And by "in place of acting" I mean the cast is more than good enough to convey everything through their acting). When they pulled out beers I was afraid they'd add drunken vomiting and memory erasure, but no, they just sipped it.
They've been together a bit long to have such a non-romantic relationship - I thought when Yutaka scoots toward Minoru in the pool there might be something cute, but he was just worried Minoru was mad at him. Which was cute, but not in the way I would have liked.
Anyway, it won't harm you to watch this, and if you enjoyed the series you'll enjoy this - but just expect a shallow but pleasant slice-of-life.
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Tough one to review
This is difficult, because the acting in this is really superlative - there are no weak players. All the performances are moving and powerful, and it did make me cry more than once.But unfortunately, everything else is rather bad. The story is way too melodramatic and Mexican soap-opera-like, and it's way too preachy with it's themes - I mean, it literally has God telling people how to love each other. The first season showed - season 2 was all tell.
The technical aspects of this were even worse than season 1, with the dialog drowned out by music, roosters and other livestock, or just so faint it couldn't be heard, and whenever anyone was shouting, which was 90% of the time, the sound was badly distorted. All the scenes are too long and repetitive.
There's nothing notable or special about the music, and it got in the way, which is not good. As for rewatch value, I can't imagine ever watching this again, although I will definitely be all over God's instagram.
The suggested overall rating was 4.5, but I have to give it a 7 for the acting. This was really a missed opportunity, wasting the talents of perhaps the strongest cast ever assembled for a BL.
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It's OK
This series had a lot going for it - a good cast, interesting main characters that are well-acted, the main character's smoke-show brother lifting heavy boxes... but the quality of the writing is low, with improvised moments ending up the highlights of the series.The plot is frustrating, as Phumjai (Offroad) spends two thirds of the series obsessing over a girl, who in fairness is not evil and doesn't attempt to sink the ship. Once the romance starts, it's immediately derailed by a ridiculous plot turn that could have been fun if it went camp like it did at the very end, but unfortunately was instensely boring. the writing is poor, repetitive, and lazy. There's a point where it turns out Yang has a number code system for some reason, including a code number for "just don't come". What possible purpose would he have for that phrase? Unless he's kinky or something.
There's too much of people behaving out of character just to move the plot along. Yang won't allow Phumjai to give him $5,000, but he's OK with selling Phumjai's brother into slavery? OK, good to see he has his priorities in order. That did lead to Phojai lifting heavy things shirtless and sweaty, so it was all worth it in the end, I guess.
Offroad has always been compelling, and Daou Pittaya is a stunning man... when he's not disfigured with a hideous wig. Why is BL so terrified of short hair on men? Look what they've done to poor Frank Thanatsaran!
Anyway, this is silly and immature - it left me missing high school dramas and engineers - but the cast is able to compensate and make it a worthwhile watch. Special mention goes to Ngern Anupart who had me fanning myself whenever he was onscreen - I hope we get to see him in a lead role at some point.
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IT's OK, but this should have been better
I think part of the problem with this series is it's based on a manwha that isn't very interesting, and the qualities of it that are were not brought to the series.The beginning of the series is largely taken up with a bullying plotline that isn't very pleasant to watch, made worse by the implication that the main character's foster brother has not done anything about this for 3 years. The manwha makes it clear that he didn't know about it, but that's not at all apparent in the series.
The othr problem is a general lack of chemistry between the leads, which I think is largely due to the directing and editing.. The seme is quite cold, which is fine, but he's never really allowed to warm up - he goes from avoiding the main character to obsessing over him. Also, the casting is a bit off. The guy playing Haebom is totally beautiful and has an obviously athletic build, and he also has a much more formidable presence than the guy playing Taesung, so the dynamic is never really beliveable.
The story builds up some dramatic tensions that are more or less handwaved away, so once the boys are togther there's really nothing left to say, yet the series continues, leading to an underwhelming finale.
As is typical in a Korean BL, there's an almost total lack of physical affection between the leads - even when they're in bed together they aren't really cuddling and they're wearing heavy layers, like a hoodie sweatshirt. Honestly, they just feel like brothers or friends.
Ok Jin Uk us engaging as Haebom and nice to look at, and there are some sweet moments in this. It's isn't bad by any means, but it's eminently forgettable.
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Charming, a little light on plot
This was a very pleasant watch, with a charming cast and good acting.Points for playing and singing music - I like that in a show that's largely about a band that they actually perform.
What I would say about this is that it takes a threadbare formula and executes it very well. But it was formulaic, and really had nothing to say. College students, demanding parents, typical seme and uke dynamic (although the uke was taller and better built, which is a rarity), and lots of the usual tropes, like umbrella holding, wiping crumbs off the face, lots of tripping and catching. and I'm not really sure what the story was about other than it being a romance.
The parent thing was never really resolved, and Ye Guang's desire to make his own decision was to... turn in a blank test and not run for student body president. Nice ambitions there. Way to prove your dad right.
The first 5 episodes are really wonderful, and then the creativity ran out and it leaned more and more on formulaic elements, but it was never overwhelmed by them.
I enjoyed the series and I recommend it, it you like fluffy romance. It's not overdone or cloying, and it feels more like two boys than usual (as opposed to a boy and a 19th c 12 year old girl).
The technical aspects of this were all quite good, with good directon, camera, and editing.
So I'd rate it "above average", but the lack of plot and themes stopped it from being truly memorable.
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Very cute and pleasant
This series doesn't cover a lot of new ground, but it's worth watching.Positives:
The characters are better drawn than in most longer series and more consistent. The story doesn't wear out its welcome, like most longer series. There is humor in it without getting silly and slapstick, the acting is fairly good - especially Jame Kasama, who I think has the best potential. He's able to project his emotions so that you feel what he's feeling.
When it ends, you'd like more, but you also feel like it stopped at the right place. That's what a good series should do. Usually love triangles are tiresome and make you cringe, but here, where everyone really cares about each other and treat each other with respect and empathy, you'll find yourself actually wishing for a thrupple - I'm not kidding, in the comments section it was almost universal.
The actors aren't afraid of m/m affection, which is refreshing and makes the romantic resolution kind of exciting. The chemistry between everyone is strong, and it isn't immediately clear who the final pair will be. There's an extremely strong clue up front so it's not like you don't know, but still, it's nice for the relationships to be left to develop.
There is no seme and uke thing, which is refreshing - just three guys. No evil ex-gf, no "I'm not gay, I only like___________" It's not explicitly stated, but all three appear to be just plain gay - it doesn't even need to be said. There's the usual failures of communication, but in this case they'r plausible, and motivated mostly by insecurity, not "but we're both guys!"
Negatives:
There aren't really any, other than a few too many tropes - there was one ep that was stuffed with them and it irritated me. I was just starting to get over my BL-character-using-a-knife PTSD, but now it's back. It't not a top-tier series, and it's a fluff piece rather than something that will stay with you like I Told Sunset About You, but it doesn't make mistakes, and its fairly enjoyable from beginning to end.
Story: 8.5 - not groundbreaking, but very well-laid out and doesn't waste time.
Acting: 8.5 - solid - not amazing, but never cringey, and Jame (Mix) strays into pretty good.
Music: 8 - better than most BLs. It's not loaded with sappy overblown balads accompanying montages of good times spent together, it's not the usual insipid BL background music but actually sounds modern, and it's never instrusive.
Rewatch value: 7 - I could rewatch it. It would be a good antidote to a bad mood, and I could watch Big take a few more showers.
Overall: 8.5 - about as good as it gets for what it is.
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