Watchable but Don't Believe the Hype!

I was excited to see a new BL jump up to the top of the MDL BL rankings. This drama currently holds an 8.5 rating and is in the all-time top-ten of BL dramas. I think the problem may the growing popularity of BL dramas and viewers that may not have see many of the BL dramas from the past get excited overly excited about a new show, without the perspective of what some better dramas may be. So before I get into my review, I would ask viewers that love this show, if they really think it's better than other realism style dramas such as Like in the Movies, I Told Sunset about You, The Eighth Sense, Moonlight Chicken or even the unfairly low-rated Kimi no Koto Dake Mite Itai?

[Spoiler's ahead!] The biggest problem isn't the tired trope of the step-brother's falling in love -- although if you want more of that, feel free to watch Stay with Me, Addicted, History 4: Close to You, Gray Shelter, History 2: Crossing the Line, History 1: Stay away from Me, My Bromance or Cherry Blossoms after winter. The biggest problem also isn't the glacial pacing of the series, with way too many dialogue-free montages of the past, or of a character "acting" to demonstrate their emotions. The biggest problem isn't the convoluted story of the gang - particularly when they come back towards the end of the series -- didn't Wei Qian already clear his debt in the the fighting matches years ago? The biggest problem isn't the stalker-ish behavior of the younger step-brother who won't take no for an answer -- over and over and over. The biggest problem isn't the absolutely terrible acting of the Xiao Yuan's teacher who visits Wei Qian (episode 2) who apparently learned that furrowing one's brow and repeating touching and taking on and off your glasses constitutes acting. And the biggest problem also wasn't the over-the-top melodrama of it all -- the trials and tribulations of this family could have been portrayed much more realistically if the director had just pulled back a little bit on a number of creative choices.

No, none of those. The biggest problem with this series is the music. Instead of working harder to find some more unobtrusive music cues to gently support and accentuate the drama that unfolds within this small family, the producers, director and editor chose to use a very limited number of songs over and over too many times throughout the series. The instrumental music with the piano and strings that they used multiple times in every episode got repetitive very quickly. It felt like the acting and the story wasn't creating the desired emotional weight that the producers wanted, so they thought that by playing swelling music that it would lift the scene, but it felt just the opposite like they were forcing the scene to have emotion, instead of just letting the story and actors propel the emotions. It felt overly-manipulated, instead of just supporting. However, the most distracting uses of music were the repeated vocal tracks that they would play under scenes of dialogue. The music was too loud and took me out of the scene every time. Maybe they could have used instrumental versions of the OST pop songs for the show or something. It might have helped, but the bottom line is whoever had the final say on music for this series, shouldn't be allowed to sign off on music in the future.

Now, just in case you think I hated this show, I didn't. I just don't think it deserves the score it currently has on MDL. There were a number of great things about this show. The main actors did a good job, the cinematography was better than many other BLs out there, the leads were quite attractive, and the sex scene, although not explicit, was quite hot. I just think as viewers we should turn the page on the step-brother trope (or at least find a more interesting way to present it), and I think the viewers should start being a little more discerning when it comes to things like logical plots, music aesthetics and melodrama.

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An Ambitious Failure That I Still Kind of Liked

So there's a lot to appreciate about this series... and a ton of problems.

I really appreciated that the producers attempted to do something different by creating a complex plot with complex emotions and problems that don't really imitate any other BL that I've ever seen. The cinematography was quite nice and OST was great. Additionally, Ha Jong Woo brought an adorable and goofy demeanor to his character that reminded me of a labrador retriever. I can see how some people were annoyed by his spacey almost surfer-esque character, but I thought it was endearing. I also couldn't take my eyes off his lips. Also, a lot of people commented that they were annoyed by Im Too Chul's character, Kang Woo Joo. I have to disagree. He's got great comedic timing and without him this series would have been interminably dull. Ha Jong Woo's character, Han Tae Young was kind of flighty, and Karam's Cha Jung Woo and Leo's Kim Jung Hyun were very dour. If it had just been the three of them, the series would have felt to aimless and too dark. It needed Im Too Chul to keep things upbeat and pushing plot points that the other characters were too self-immersed focus on.

However, despite the producers attempts to do something different, they also lost sight of the forest through the trees. Somehow they thought it would be clever to never directly explain what Cha Jung Woo said or did at the beginning of the series to offend the legendary writer Jang Su Cheol. This was a huge mistake since the entire driving force of the series were the ramifications of this act. It's always possible that my confusion is a victim or poor subtitling, but I've read the comments on here and it seems many other people have the same issue.

Other glaring problems included the unfortunate choice of repeating scenes from the previous episode. I'm not talking about a 30 second, "previously on Happy Ending Romance..." kind of thing. I'm talking about whole scenes replayed. Like 10 minutes of a 30-minute episode were scenes from the previous episode. This happened more heavily in the early episodes, but it really sucked. It always sucks when shows do this! Do the creators really think we can't remember what happened half an hour ago (in this day and age of binge watching) or if watching weekly single episode roll-outs, that we can't remember what we watched last week? It's a little insulting to the viewers' time.

The show also spent a lot of it's time having Han Tae Young explain his infatuation with Cha Jung Woo's writing and how it made him quit trying to write and instead decided to focus on publishing. We got it! You don't have to have him explain this over and over and over. He explained to to Kang Woo Joo and then it felt like he covered it with Cha Jung Woo multiple times. Again, it feels like the creators are underestimating our intelligence. It would have been better to remove some of these scenes and instead built a better story around what Cha Jung Woo did initially to set off this chain of events.

It would be easy to blame the actors for how they presented their characters, and where they failed to make them seem real. There were were plenty of failures of this sort in this series. However, ultimately I blame the directors and writers. If the writers can't write a believable and multidimensional character, and if the director can't articulate and guide an actor to a nuanced performance that displays the full range of the character, then the writers should have written better characters, and the director should have done more rehearsals, or additional takes to coax those performances out of the actors. In this series Cha Jung Woo is portrayed as a wounded, fragile and depressed man with zero personality. He's not cute, nor interesting. He's just a boring sniveling baby that no one would like. So much so, that Han Tae Young falling in love with him is completely unbelievable. No one would like Cha Jung Woo. I don't care how much they loved his writing. The writers needed to write a better character for Cha Jung Woo, and the director needed to a ensure a better performance out of Karam so that he does something or says something that makes it believable that Han Tae Young is falling in love with him. There was ZERO chemistry between these two characters. I also think that failure of the show to reveal Cha Jung Woo's "original sin" added to this problem. If we knew what he did, we may have been more sympathetic to his depression, but not knowing what it was makes us think he should get over himself already. And this is where the series really failed. They failed to put forth a couple that you were rooting for. You sort of wanted Han Tae Young to run in the other direction. Not only was Cha Jung Woo a risky investment for his publishing house, he also seems like he'd be a sucky boyfriend.

My criticism of one dimensional characters continues with Kim Jung Hyun. This character in my humble opinion had the greatest challenge, and it totally failed. The writers, directors and producers of the show thought they were being clever with this character by being deliberately opaque with his motivations, but in the end the performance of the character (again, due to writing and direction, not the actor's talents) felt incredibly one note. It's like they told him to just be a moody bad guy. They didn't give him any lines or scenes to hang the characters true feelings on. This wouldn't have had to give away the series' twist either. There are many possible ways that they could have portrayed Kim Jung Hyun as caring about Cha Jung Woo, without only making him look only like a controlling bad guy. With a little nuance they could have made you feel that he cared about Cha Jung Woo and their relationship, while still allowing that creeping feeling entering in the story that maybe Kim Jung Hyun was still up to something no good. Then when the final episodes take place, you might feel the pull of this three way relationship and the pain of all the characters, but instead you're just happy that Kim Jung Hyun who was portrayed only as a villain for too much of the series, is finally getting his punishment. It's a cheap trope instead of a thoughtful character arc. How much more would we have been shocked by Kim Jung Hyun trying to block Cha Jung Woo from writing, if we saw Kim Jung Hyun being very loving to Cha Jung Woo to his face, and then doing this stuff behind his back. We would have thought he was a terrible two-face liar. But in the end, when the truth came out, we would have been able to identify with his loving side. As presented, even though he was motivated to do something good for Cha Jung Woo, he couldn't surmount his villain status and we just don't really care about him.

In the end, I still enjoyed watching a BL drama that attempted to tackle something other than love for love's sake. A crush is never enough for an entire series plot. This unique plot gave the characters something to care about other than the "will he or won't he fall in love with me" trope. Unfortunately, with the execution of this series they made things unnecessarily confusing by never revealing an important plot point, portraying characters to one-dimensionally, and most importantly, by forgetting to develop an actual love story.

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A Comedic Star Is Born in a Poorly Scripted Series

This show started off great. Taiwanese singer and C-pop boy band member Hong Wei Zhe makes star turn in his first ever acting role. He brings to life a ridiculous and aimless college in the problematic BL. He delivers a performance that perfectly balances earnestness and humor, and the camera loves his goofy faces. Unfortunately he can only carry the show so far and the last third of the show is paced so poorly with little to no dramatic momentum that it's pretty vapid by the end and ultimately makes you forget how good the show was at the start.

First the good! As mentioned about, Hong Wei Zhe was great. There have been several BL series and movies that used the ghost story theme -- HIStory: My Hero, He's coming to Me, Ghost House Ghost House, After Sundown, Y-Destiny, Sweet Curse, Low Frequency, Ghost Runner. IMHO the best of this genre are Eien no Kinou and Marry My Dead Body. This series doesn't do anything dramatically new here, but the execution in the set-up of the first 5 episodes is very well done.

Additionally, in a genre littered with manipulated misunderstandings pushed forward as interesting drama motivations (they aren't), this show had a nice balance (initially) between two characters who both had ulterior motives behind their actions. Jiang Chi had romantic desires, and Gu Bu Xia had talismanic needs. This dual deception kept things hopping through the first half of the show.

Also, the trope of the more serious unflappable character being the one in love with the silly and naive character was fun to watch. It's been done before, but this trope always feels a little disruptive, as usually the more emotional and verbal character (Gu Bu Xia in this case) is the one who is expressing that they like or love someone. I think it's always nice to see the character we wouldn't expect to be as consumed by those feelings to actually be the one who's love sick.

I also really appreciated all the kissing. So many BLs are filled with very tepid pecks, or no kissing at all. It was nice to see the production dive into this with such gusto.

Unfortunately there was a lot more bad then good. Isaac Yang is a very handsome actor, but the storytellers didn't give him a lot work with. He only had two modes in this show -- stoic or fawning. They kept talking about the conflict with his parents, but never expanded on it, which would have given his character a stronger backstory perhaps given him some more scenes to display more range in his acting.

The main dramatic force in this series was two characters each pushing their secret agenda's, so when they get together as a couple in episode 7, most of that dramatic motivation dissipates. Yes, Gu Bu Xia still doesn't come clean about why he allowed Jiang Chi to get close to him in the earlier episodes, but even that sort of gets wiped away when it turns out Jiang Chi knows about it and is ok with it. The writers could have used that to play out some real drama between the two in the last few episodes. It may have felt predictable, but at least there would have been something interesting to watch.

Instead we're forced to sit through episodes 8, 9 and 10, where nothing really happens happens except the two characters continue to fawn over each other kiss a lot. I do like the kissing, but it needs some story to support it. During these last three episodes they are tying up the ghost story, but it's really not enough to keep things interesting. The real nail in the coffin comes with the special episode 11. It's a whole episode where the two main characters just continue to declare their lover for each other. It's all vapid and ultimately makes you forget how good the first half of this series was.

The producers and writers missed an amazing opportunity with the surprise acting prowess of Hong Wei Zhe. They had all the ingredients to make a really fantastic and memorable BL, but dropped the ball with the story telling and pacing and left a really vacuous impression at the end.

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Far from Perfect, But Better Than Expected

Thanks to the other reviewers, my expectations for this were sufficiently lowered that I actually ended up enjoying it. I would never say this was great, but it had some fun moments and a very attractive lead.

The negatives are this is pretty low budget and it shows with rudimentary lighting and cinematography, and frequent poor audio recording. The setup (the relationship between the boss and the employee) has got to be the most used trope in BLs so that was a little tired. The plotting frequently felt forced and lacking surprises -- you knew he was going to become the star employee despite his early struggles, you knew the fiance wasn't really a fiance from the get-go, and you knew who he was going to end up with from the opening credits. A little more nuance and surprises could have elevated this rote plot. I would have loved to see more shenanigans about his hiding and eventually being discovered as a former idol. I think his character would have felt more developed if they dove deeper into why quit being an idol, which was never explained. A little more back story on how the two boys felt after the were separated as children would have been good. Some more serious work struggles before Lee Jun succeeds at work, and maybe some more authentic feeling of inadequacy when he compared himself to his coworkers, would have made his eventual success feel more triumphant. Some misunderstandings used at twists weren't played out as dramatically as they could have. We knew the moment we heard about the fiance thing that it wasn't real. Wouldn't it have made the drama that more impactful if we thought it was real? Finally, what was up with Song Hyun Jae unrequited love. He never even confessed. Seeing as he was portrayed as a saint, if the writers had really pitted his interest in Lee Jun against Choi Jun's pursuit of him, that would have really given the audience something to pick a team and get behind. Fans would have been much more invested and there probably would have been endless debates on My Drama List about which one was the right boyfriend for Lee Jun. Unfortunately, this production didn't want to think that hard about what was going on.

However, the second lead actor, Ki Hyun Woo, is super easy on the eyes and that goes a long way in holding your attention. Since this series was mostly supported by him being eye candy, I think they could have pushed it a bit further and turned up the heat even more. They could have added some sex scenes or at least shown him shirtless. I appreciated the frankness of where things were going with the box of condoms and the one in his hand at the end, but given the recycled and thin plat that the producers ran with, a little steaminess would have helped a lot. In the end, even despite the recycled plot, Jun & Jun is light, breezy, quick, and mindless -- I watched the whole thing in one night and mostly enjoyed it.

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An Excellent but Too Short Adult BL Romance

This was very enjoyable to watch. The actors have an amazing chemistry, and whoever the cinematographer was should get an award for how well they made Hasegawa Makoto and Furuya Robin look. There were so many moments where both men were lit with an amazing golden hue that rivals feature film or big budget advertising cinematography. Plot-wise, I must say that there's a nice feeling seeing two men navigating a past shared teenage trauma and trying to figure out if they right for each other as adults. Amidst the drama, there are some nice comedic touches from Takashi's assistant, and Takashi's "brother." It also presents a nice story of gay man standing up for himself in the face of some traditional Japanese conservatism. They did a great job of casting three teenage versions of the adult men, actually finding young actors who looked like the adult actors, particularly the young Miyata. I think that some very talented hair and make-up people also had a big hand in that. Lastly, although there was no explicit nudity, the sex scenes, though brief, were quite frank and passionate.

My only criticism is that six 24 minute episodes felt too short. I could have used a little more delving into Takahashi's psyche and how he was affected by his broken relationship with his family. They explained everything in the final episode, but whereas I felt I really understood Miyata's trepadations about entering into this relationship again, Takahashi was a bit of a mystery throughout the series. I know a big part of the plot was predicated on Miyata not trusting Takahashi's words, and us not completely understanding his motivations helped elevate that plot thread. Miyata's voiceover gave us really clear insight into his character and I think some time could have been added to do something similar with Takashi's character. But this is nitpicking. Koi wo Suru nara Nidome ga Joto is an excellent series and very much worth your time if you like adult BL dramas.

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What A Mess!

I'm not sure how so many people are swept away by this, nor how it's scored over eight stars on MDL. However, I also never quite understood the hype around We Best Love: No. 1 For You, which is one of the top 10 ranked BL dramas on MDL. Both shows come from the same author.

IMHO there are a bunch of much better BL dramas that are rated lower than this on MDL, but are infinitely better, including Kinou Nani Tabeta?, Utsukushii Kare, Kamisama no Ekohiiki, Hello Stranger, DNA Says Love You, Once Again, Kimi no Koto Dake Mite Itai, More Than Words, Ossan's Love, Bokura no Micro na Shuumatsu, Oh Mando! and Mood Indigo, to name more than a few. More Than Words and Mood Indigo are particularly well produced shows, though quite serious dramas, and as ridiculous and over the top as Ossan's Love is (the 2018 version), it's actually quite funny and Tanaka Kei is comic genius. Your time would be much better spent on any of these titles.

The cinematography on this show is very similar to what we've come to expect from most Taiwanese BLs -- It's very professional looking, but has a very candy coated sheen which lacks any realism. When you venture beyond schoolboy and cafe romance fantasies, and instead venture into gangs and prison, I think a grittier, more realistic look would have done much to help this show be taken a little more seriously. Having said that, the actors are made to look very attractive, so if you're in it for eye candy, you may like this show. They also did a better job than many other BLs by developing the characters histories and motivations, so you really knew what these characters defining background stories are. This show also did a nice job of bucking expectations about sexual roles in bed, which I appreciated.

Where this series really fell apart however, was the writing and plot. The "never exactly explained" list for the series is troublingly long, and after a while you just stop caring about what's going on.

[STOP READING HERE IF YOU DON'T WANT MASSIVE SPOILERS!!!]

The entire warring gangs storyline was thinly explained throughout. The machinations of Fan Ze Rui hiding from his gang in order to keep his gang looking for him, so that his boss can take over Zhang Teng's territory was particularly convoluted. Then, that the high school let a gang member come in undercover to become a temporary teacher in order to expose a rival gang's drug dealing within the school made zero sense. The connection between the Fan family orchestrating the chair attack in prison also felt very tenuous. Especially after Bai Zong Yi took the fall for Zhang Teng's murder. I understand it's because Fan Hong Da didn't approve of Bai Zong Yi and Fan Ze Rui's relationship, but wouldn't there be some respect for Bai Zong Yi saving Fan Hong Da's grandson from going to prison? And if Fan Hong Da hated is bastard grandson so much, why did he want to keep him out of jail, and why did he care so much about his relationship? Didn't he sort of want to disown him anyway? The motivations here all seem very contradictory. Do you want to know how Ai Di got himself into jail to protect Bai Zong Yi ? I would like to know that as well, but it was never explained! Bai Zong Yi has short term amnesia, but doesn't really seem to forget everything -- except his wedding vows in the final scene. Fan Ze Rui is pretending to have long term amnesia to protect Bai Zong Yi (from the Fan family I guess) and to get dirt on his family's business... maybe? Was he blackmailing his grandfather, or was he offering a bribe to his grandfather? Again, never really explained. There's also the Hail Mary of plotting at the end to throw in a twist from a character that the show kind of ignored throughout the series. And would you like to know why Chen Dong Yang's boyfriend was coughing up blood in the final episode? Well, you won't find out. Those are just a few of the reasons this show is a mess.

My understanding is that this was originally a novel, and with any novel they always have to cut things back to make work in the running time of a show. However, I also read that Chen Yi and Ai Di were side characters with no romance in the novel. If the writers didn't spend so much time fleshing out this additional story and turning it into a romance, maybe they could have gotten the basics down and made the overall plot points connect better and make more sense. It feels like they added an extra story in at the expense of creating a show with an understandable and believable plot.

Oh... and the theme song was terrible.

If you're interested in BL gang's, I suggest you check out Not Me. It doesn't have as attractive actors, but the plot is infinitely more interesting and logical. Another title you might enjoy would be Kinn Porsche, which is also kind of terrible, though not as terrible as this, and it's got a lot of sex, so that's a plus.

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Deceptively simple, but astoundingly mature and nuanced!

I was so surprised to see something jump to the top of BL rated dramas on MDL after what has felt like a year (2023) of less than great BL productions, but after watching it I believe it deserves the accolades. I’ve always gravitated to the BL dramas that prioritize a sense of realism and emotional heft, over the shenanigans and illogical misunderstandings that many BLs try to pass off as legitimate plot points. Kimi to Nara Koi wo Shite Mite mo stands head to toe with many of my favorite BLs, like Eien no Kinou, Fujoshi, Ukkari Gei ni Kokuru, Gameboys, I Told Sunset About You, Like in the Movies, More Than Words, Otto No Otto, Bokura no Shokutaku, The Eighth Sense, Mood Indigo, Kinou Nani Tabeta?, and Blueming. So if you like any of those, you will likely also enjoy this. The plot of Kimi to Nara Koi wo Shite Mite mo seems very simple, but hidden inside is a very relatable story, engaging characters, plot tension that emanates from believable human emotions. This show made me tear up (happy tears) many times. It’s incredibly refreshing to see characters be so honest with themselves about what they want. The drama hinges on actual human desires, without any “gotchas” like the forced under-explained misinterpretations and missed connections that many BL dramas unfortunately rely on as plot devices. this show was incredibly well written, and well acted. My only criticism of the may be that it might be slightly unbelievable that these two high school students would be able to communicate with such maturity. A bonus of this show is the amazing theme song, and closing credits song, which both perfectly convey the emotions of this series. I’ve watched over 150 BL dramas and this was one of the best!

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