Editorials
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The minus points are the 20 first minutes I proudly skipped (not even fast-forwarded) — the rating, thanks to me doing the editing work for the editor, gets +2.0 on the rating.
The PWP sex scene, which was just hilarious — did Little Jane watch porn before this intercourse?
The absolutely disgusting episode where Big Jane approved of women hitting/beating. That is the biggest taint of this series; there wasn't even an attempt at redeeming it there.
Misleading trailer — I would rather see BigJ (not Big Jane's BigJ's, not to confuse!) as a seriously meant demon than it being Little J's fantasy projection.
Which brings us to... hideous sculpture.
Overuse of art fields. Like, if everyone is an artist, it gets obviously too much (no, hon, no, IRL everyone is, no worries — it stops making sense only in fiction).
Despite what was being said and/or if we like Biggie JJ, Biggie JJ IS a red flag. He is manipulative, obsessive as fuck, and approves of violence. Even contributes to it. So — no, no grass anywhere near him, sorry. 🤷
Any excuse why, after LilJj removes Dan from Jamie, BigJJ is standing there like a dumb yo-yo?
Plus points:
They are really good at angsty, dark waters. I would stick to that, and I would cut the crap about LilJ's vanilla personality.
Also, I wish they got a better script next time. Not only exciting, tensioning, darking, and making sense, but also not a stupid one.
...I mean, the first 22 minutes were absolute crap I would cut out — and no, making it extreme later on just highlights how crap the first 22 minutes were. Don't do this, please. Do not waste 22 initial minutes for some psycho move later on.
...I am gonna write down the rest later...
...OK, Imma not: I' m not surprised the rating here dropped, and I expect it to drop further.
(Story wise it is good, as taiwanese usually are, but it is way more than just underfed for this to be a BL. U sure this was supposed to be BL? Maybe the drunken kiss meant close/tender friends...?)
If the story is partly a crime/investigation story, then I would actually expect the case they’re working on to be the dominant part of the storytelling, with their personal lives taking more of a backseat to it. At the same time, because it’s a BL, I would expect their relationship to remain the main focus when it comes to the characters themselves — and I feel like the show did satisfy both of those things.
Yes, they were doing their jobs and the personal connection was revealed later — but I thought that was actually the point of the investigation storyline, because the apparently separate cases were gradually leading toward the central family conflict. So I don't really see the fact that the cases weren't personally connected to them from the beginning as a problem in itself.
There were definitely imperfections, especially in the details and execution, but structurally I don’t really see the problem you’re describing. If anything, I’m not sure what I would have expected it to do differently without fundamentally changing what kind of story it was.
If you have an example of a BL with a similar crime/investigation setup where you think this balance was handled better, though, genuinely send it my way. Maybe seeing what you mean in practice would make your criticism clearer to me.
If by “I was really disinterested in the overall plotline” you mean that you were simply disinterested in the investigation itself, then I actually agree with you — because I’m not particularly into detective/crime stories either. 😂 Which is probably also why the shorter format suited me perfectly.
There were basically three things that had to be balanced here: the investigation, their relationship, and their individual/background stories. And personally, I was quite happy with the proportion we got. The investigation was obviously going to take up a significant part of the story because that’s the actual genre premise, while the BL relationship was still the main focus when it came to the characters.
I think this is also why I tend to enjoy the exceptions to the detective-story formula much more — something like Monk, for example, where there’s something unusual or fundamentally different about the character, and you’re also following their personal struggles and relationships with the people who matter to them. That kind of thing gives me something beyond just “here’s another case to solve.” 😂
So you definitely won’t find me seeking out detective/crime stories for the investigation itself. But if you add an interesting couple or some other character-driven element to it, I’m suddenly all in.
And because of that, I actually think the length worked quite well for me. There was already a lot to fit in, and I’m honestly a little afraid that if this particular company had been given more episodes and longer runtimes, it might not necessarily have become more fleshed out in a good way — it could just as easily have become more dragged out. 😭
So I’m pretty happy with where it landed. That doesn’t mean I think it was flawless — there are definitely weaknesses I’d love to see them work on, just as there are strengths I really like about their work. But in terms of the overall construction and the balance of the different elements, I personally had very little to complain about.
I’m staying for the strengths and hoping they keep improving the weaknesses. 😂
And if by “I was really disinterested in the overall plotline” you mean something else — like you weren't particularly into the whole “I hate you because of crimes committed by your family, so I'm going to punish you for something you personally didn't do” premise, followed by them gradually realizing that the other person is nothing like what they expected, is actually a much better person than they thought, and that hurting them is becoming personally painful to them — then, again, I think that's just where our tastes differ.
Because honestly, I was quite happy to see that here. 😂 I don't feel like that kind of storyline is represented enough in BL, especially when it actually allows the relationship to develop through that process of changing your perception of the other person.
So whether you mean that you weren't interested in the investigation itself or that you weren't interested in the revenge/family-conflict storyline, I can understand why it didn't work for you. I just don't personally see either of those things as a reason why the story needed to be constructed differently, because I actually liked having them here.
And especially knowing that I'm not particularly into detective/crime stories in the first place, I thought the overall balance worked surprisingly well for me. There was enough investigation to make that part of the premise meaningful, but enough focus on the relationship for me to actually care about the characters. That's pretty much the combination I wanted from this.