Re: For Him the series
Firstly, let me say I don't regret watching this and if I was not being strictly objective it would have been a 6, but I cannot escape my sense of fairness that is just who I am.
The first half of the series started off good enough as I said previously. It established an intriguing story and the scenes especially the ones in the bar were very sensual and aesthetically pleasing and the accompanying music created a suitable mood. However after episode 5 onward the series deteriorated with the story and production taking a nose dive into the underbelly of mediocrity, ineptitude and apathy.
There were plot holes that left the story inconsistent. After episode 5 it was apparent that the writers were at a loss however I appreciate so much what they did to try and salvage it. What they did was to start cutting episodes shorter than the 45 minutes. The episode would last for approximately 30 minutes and the remaining 15 minutes is just behind the scenes footage. I appreciated this because they did not bother to write in useless scenes as fillers. They also had episode 10 and 12 at full 45 minutes and those episodes had body to them hence the writers knew when they had enough substance and utilised it appropriately.
The writing of the characters I found disappointing as in the beginning they made certain characters out to be strong and sassy but they later had these characters appearing weak and taking bullshit from the antagonists.
The second couple's story was horribly written. There was no proper communication between them right up until the last few episodes and so their story dragged on and for the most irritating reason being the ex of one of them. One half of the couple had no growth while the other half was made to seem immature and lacking shame.
The whole story surrounding Blue had potential but it lacked substantial writing that would have made the Blue's revaluation more coherent than just dropping in all at once the fact that his parents were homophobic. I think they should have at least hinted at this before in past episodes so that when the climax of his story, where he committed suicide, came along it would have flowed more smoothly instead of having the audience fixate on the homophobic parents, while dealing with the suicide plus Him's negligence as it relates to the suicide. Even Him's negligence should have been better written to add some depth.
Now, the antagonists, Type and Te; if you watched Tharntype and hated the antagonist there then you will hate these two with just as much passion. Te's whole reason for revenge relating to Blue lacked so much substance leaving his whole character senseless. The redemption arc they wrote for him was so rushed that it seemed as if a whole piece of the story was missing and everyone just jumped to forgive him. Type's character in my opinion was just a disaster. Even his ending was polished over. For such an evil villain his downfall was unfulfilling as it was quickly swept under the rug, we did not even get to see his arrest or him in jail. There are so many plot holes, I would be here all night if I should pick them all out.
The product placement for the perfumes were a lot, but I did not mind as they were done in a sexy way. One of the few saving graces of the series is the N/C scenes as they were done well and looked appealing. Personally the foot fetish thing that occurred in episode 12 is not my thing, but I won't judge. I will say though that Sky from LITA still has the riding championship because Nail had nothing on him lol.
I also appreciate that this series broke the stereotype of the mean girls group in BLs instead they had the popular girl group being friends with one half of the lead couple (Nail), and they supported him all the way.
I would not recommend this series to a new BL watcher but I think it is worth looking at because the story just needed better writing and production and it could have been great.