Or, This Flower Will Bloom, a one hour special that stars Inukai Atsuhiro in a supporting part. He was the reason why I watched it which is why I'm mentioning it.

It's a story about a real estate agent, Chika, in the town of Kagoshima which lies in the shadow of an active volcano, Mount Sakurajima. Her childhood friend, Yohei (Inukai Atsuhiro), asked her to marry him but she's always been hesitant about that because of how her father died when she was a child. And ever since Yohei joined the local Disaster Relief Unit, her reluctance grew tenfold because she's so terrified of losing him. And then, one day, a man comes into her office and asks her to find him a flat - a place where he won't be able to see Mount Sakurajima...

This is a very atmospheric movie, all orange tinted and almost... well, hazy, interspersed with authentic footage of times when the volcano went off in the past, one hundred years ago and then forty years ago, and accompanied by jazz music, sometimes soft, sometimes jarring. You can see what it's like living in this town where you have to follow the news about wind direction and ash fall, where you regularly have to sweep away bags and bags full of volcanic ash...

There are no big upheavals, now histrionics or drama in this special, it's just so... soft and calming, a slice of life story. And it was exactly what I needed today.

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Not even 30 min. long but so good because it heavily focused on Kairi (Lupin Red) and Keiichiro (Patren #1), kidnapped and brought over to the Gangler world. Every story that focuses on those two is simply marvelous.

And this one was no exception. It started with them bickering while they tried to fight the Gangler's henchmen only to realize that they would have to cooperate if they wanted to survive. And then the big explosion and the fall off the cliff and... Keiichiro waking up, realizing that he was hanging suspended in the air, held by the hand by Lupin Red whose blood was dripping down on Keiichiro's face. That was quite... something.

And the big fight between Lupin Red and Keiichiro on the one side and Gauche and Destra on the other! That was so well done! The action, the CGI!

Really, every scene, every story that focuses on Kairi and Keiichiro is gold because their chemistry is amazing. You can see that Ito Asahi and Kousei Yuki truly clicked and became great friends while filming this series.

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This was a strange little movie. A 19-year-old art student falls in love with a man twice his age. And the man, an art photographer, falls for him, too. But then the man is transferred to another city. What now? And... that's the movie.

What was interesting to me? That the student's, Yoichi's, loved ones didn't care about the fact that he fell for a man or that the man could be his father, they were simply glad that Yoichi finally felt something for anyone. Yoichi was namely very, very closed off because of what happened to his family years back so seeing him finally come out of his shell? That was enough for those who took care of him to be grateful so they all supported his feelings. That was a nice change from the usual hateful reaction of various family members in other dramas.

Also! This movie features Shiono Akihisa AKA Toujo from Zettai BL! He plays another gay character here because his Fujimoto also falls for Yoichi.

Overall, not a bad movie. Very quiet and atmospheric sice it mostly takes places in or around Yoichi's house with cicadas chirping in the background...

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This was a good one! I loved that it introduced someone important from Marvelous' past - and that it once again showcased the bond between Marvelous & Joe.

Because Joe was the first one to notice that something was wrong when Marvelous turned all broody. I loved this scene because the other four were bickering in the background while Marvelous & Joe actually had a serious conversation. And then at the end, when everyone rushed to the space sheriff and Joe headed directly to Marvelous to grip his shoulder again the way Gavan did it before...

It's such tiny details like this that make a consistent characterization and show - instead of telling - the bond between two people. I love it! It's a drama for kids but certain Western shows could honestly take pointers from it!

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I cried. I cried so hard that I actually felt sick. I can't remember this ever happening to me. This was a wonderful movie but so incredibly sad that just thinking about it brings tears to my eyes.

Fukushi Sota was amazing as Satoru - and Satoru was an amazing character. Inspiring in his inherent sweetness and kindness. The way he touched the lives of everyone around him, the way he brought the best out of people! Roles like that suit Fukushi Sota so well because he truly has the sweetest smile, he has the ability to make his eyes laugh!

The movie also featured the late Takeuchi Yuko as Satoru's aunt, Noriko, which added to the sadness of it. Because she was a great actress and her death two years back made the world a little... less.

Takahata Mitsuki as the voice of Nana the Cat was perfectly chosen, too. Nana's petulance but also his - yes, the cat was a male, though Takahata Mitsuki is female - love for Satoru, the way Nana adored his owner and stayed with him till Satoru's very last moments.

A beautiful, but also a terribly sad movie. Don't watch it if you feel depressed or down. But do watch it if you feel like having a good cry. The movie is worth your tears.

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The main draw for me here was Inukai Atsuhiro playing the lead, 'Mob'. Mob, as in the 'extra' in a BL manga. The character who's there but doesn't really add anything to the story. And he's just fine with it, thank you very much.

Gosh, Inukai and his facial expressions were the cherry on top of an already hilarious plot. The way he hunched over, narrowed his eyes and almost wrinkled his nose, expressing his "Pah, lovebirds!" feels, had me in stitches. I loved how he dodged his own love encounters, refusing to become a "trope victim" while "sacrificing" others for the greater good - and wishing them all the happiness in the world!

But also, Mob's relationship with his brother honestly warmed my heart. He loved Ayato and Ayato loved him, dearly so, that much was obvious. And though Ayato couldn't help but see his big brother as a bit of a nutjob - really, no wonder! - that didn't change anything. And even their parents - also eyeing Mob with suspicion - were sweet. At the center of this mad thing truly was a sweet, loving family. Which was what ultimately sold me on this drama, its solid center.

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This is a story of two couples who switch partners after university. And then, 18 years later, they switch partners again, divorcing and remarrying immediately. And then, on top of that, they all move into one big house together, the four of them and their two teenage kids, Miki, the main heroine, and Yuu, the Marmalade Boy. The teens start off on the wrong foot but after some time, they become good friends and then they fall in love. But then the real bombshell comes when it seems that Miki and Yuu are actually half-siblings, that they're blood related. But are they really?

Sakurai Hinako as Miki and Yoshizawa Ryo as Yuu were absolutely fabulous! I loved how different they were, Miki and Yuu. Miki was so brash, always saying out loud what she didn't like and not budging. Yuu, on the other hand, kept it all in, all his hurt and everything else, because all he wanted was for their parents to be happy - despite their questionable life choices! - for everyone to be happy.

It's a story about the consequences of miscommunication, really. Because Miki and Yuu were simply trying to navigate the mess that their parents unwittingly created by keeping vital info from them. What I did love, though, was that not for a single moment did the kids think that they were not loved. They knew they were, deeply. Even Yuu, thinking that his dad was not his real father, didn't feel bitterness towards his parents, no, he was grateful that his mom didn't simply abort him and that his dad brought him up as his own child and he loved them for it. It was honestly wonderful.

I loved it a lot. What a weird and not at all normal family, true, but also so full of love!

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Finally a BL drama that didn't make me feel like I was ingesting empty calories while watching it. Because that's the overwhelming feeling I've had lately, that all BL dramas as of late were empty and without any substance, all stuffings and no real core.

But after finishing this one, I honestly didn't feel like I wasted my time, I felt like I watched actual art. The cinematography, the music and its timing, the performances... everything simply clicked.

That said, it doesn't mean I found the characters actually likable. Not at all. Not at first, at least. It took me a while to get them - and to get into them. But that was good so! It meant that they were flawed and human, multilayered and multifaceted.

The story was mostly told from Hira's POV but when we were finally allowed to see all that happened from Kiyoi's side too... wow. It was the perfect example of an "unreliable narrator" storytelling. Or, when you get to see everything from just one person's POV, much gets lost. Wonderful!

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This movie! Magical realism at its best! And honestly, one of the most amazing roles I've seen Iwata Takanori in so far!

Juliette Binoche plays Jeanne who returns to Japan after some twenty odd years to look for a herb called Vision that appears only every 997 years. It's a miracle herb that should be able to erase all the pain in the world. She meets a forester and his old blind female friend who claims to be 1000 years old. The old woman recognizes Jeanne and Jeanne recognizes her. And then the woman disappears, we last see her dancing in the forest and the trees and the wind responding to her. And Jeanne returns home, promising to come back in the fall to see Vision come alive...

When she leaves, the forester, Satoshi, who now lives all alone just with his dog, finds a hurt young man in the forest, Iwata Takanori's Rin. He takes Rin home and Rin stays with him and he starts taking care of the forest with Satoshi. Satoshi really takes to him, treating him almost like a son. And then Jeanne returns and she immediately senses that there's something odd about Rin who almost doesn't speak, though he's very smart - odd like the fact that he can sense approaching death and things like that...

And now to the awesome twist!

It turns out that Rin is Jeanne's son, she had him with a Japanese man who got accidentally killed during a hunt. When Rin was born, Jeanne left him with the old blind woman who then took him to his grandparents who brought him up. But that's not all. Because Rin was born in the forest, it reacts to him just like to the blind woman before him and, guided by his father's spirit, he sets the forest afire with his dance to make Vision come alive again...

Wow, it was so... I mean... that was so cool! You can speculate if Rin is like the old woman, if he will also live to 1000 years till the Vision herb will need to be reborn to guide the next person who will have the power to set the forest afire and make it grow again. Or if it was all just a dream and a series of coincidences and made up stories, but that's the amazing thing about magical realism, there doesn't need to be an explanation. It can just be.

Amazing movie, honestly. The cinematography, the music, all the relationships - especially between Satoshi and Rin, it was awesome to see Satoshi laugh! Though it took me a bit to get used to them switching between French, English and Japanese constantly. That was fun!

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This will sound sacrilegious, I guess, but The Final is my least favorite of the Rurouni Kenshin movies. So first, let's get that off my chest...

This was meant to be a tale of revenge but instead of going deep and intense, they went blockbuster wide. In the fights, instead of simply relying on Satoh Takeru's awesomeness, they focused way too much on neck-breaking wire-work so the fights lost much of their intensity. And in order to let every character have his/her moment, the movie felt scattered.

Plot points were pulled out of the hat and dropped again without a second thought. Why did the priest have the diary that Kenshin took with him at the end of The Beginning? Did Aoshi live? And why were the Watchers even there? What was the point besides giving each a big fight? What happened to Sojiro? How did Saito and his men escape the trap?

But my main complaint: Kaoru was, once again, reduced to the role of a kidnapped love interest. Seriously, she owns a dojo but she gets knocked out more easily than Tomoe. Also, I liked her and Kenshin as a couple in the first 3 movies but here? I wish they just let them stay friends. After seeing Kenshin with Tomoe, someone who could truly grasp the darkness he faced, I found Kaoru... well, let's face it, Kaoru is way too naive and innocent to really understand what Kenshin had gone through during the war. She's kind and understanding but she will never truly get it.

And now to the good stuff!

Satoh Takeru. Just that. Satoh Takeru. In a movie that kinda lacked intensity, he had intense down to a pat. Whenever the movie just let him do his thing, it shined. Just him standing in the rain... and I was all, yeah, yup, that, this.

The last fight between Kenshin and Enishi. Specifically the moment when Kenshin let Enishi stab him. From the shock on Enishi's face, it was obvious that he didn't expect to land a hit. I think he never really wanted to kill Kenshin in the first place. Because Tomoe loved him. Enishi was furious with Kenshin - but there was the fact that Tomoe loved Kenshin. And when Kenshin first let Enishi stab him, then he apologized and then the crazy Chinese dude shot Kenshin... That wasn't what Enishi wanted.

The scene where Enishi read Tomoe's diary in his prison cell and he truly understood not only how much Tomoe loved Kenshin but why she loved him in the first place and that she died willingly and gladly for him, that her death wasn't Kenshin's fault. That moment when Enishi truly saw his sister as she had been...

The fight where Sojiro joined forces with Kenshin, the way they almost... danced around each other because their strengths and styles matched so perfectly. And Sojiro's happiness that he finally experienced what it felt like to have someone truly have his back. That did things to my heart!

So yeah, I was a bit disappointed in the movie but there were still many scenes that I will replay again and again because they were so good!

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I really liked this drama - until the finale, that is.

Like I stated before, I don't like coffee shop romances, they're all fine and good in fanfics but I need some real conflict, something that in a way carries the fluff, and though it looked like this drama would have that, it was just a red herring, that was all. I kinda felt cheated.

Also, that the people closest to Yu Zhen manipulated him and made him think he was being left behind again? Made him chase after his love even though the last time he did that - chased after a man - he got in an accident and almost died? That rankled. Instead of Shi Lei telling Yu Zhen, "Look, I get that you're really bad at communicating for understandable reasons, so sit down, shut up and let me do the talking!" they played this... game on Yu Zhen? Uh.

I'm curious about the special next week and about where Yi Zi Tong's story is headed, true, but I would lie if I said that the conclusion of BLIHID didn't disappoint me.

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This drama started really strong but around the middle slowed down a lot and even became rather boring. The final episode was excellent, though. I loved how they all connected, became friends, that at the end, it wasn't just the ship couples but one big interconnected group of friends who shared different interests, these two and them two, but everybody had everybody else's back. It felt very... rich.

I also really liked the introduction of a gay character and how one of the characters reacted to finding out that he had been said person's first, unrequited crush. That was so sweet and lovely.

And it featured one of my favorite tropes too: older woman/younger man which also covered cold woman/warm man. Thumbs up!

Overall, a really good, solid series, though a bit heavy-handed with the "you're your own first and foremost" message.

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It was definitely different. I loved the atmosphere of this drama, the creepiness of the cursed castle, the creepiness of the fairy tales, the creepiness of the culprit. I loved the relationship among the main three, the love they had for each other, the fact that each of them had his or her own flaws, that they all made mistakes they needed to take responsibility for, it made them feel 3D. I loved the cinematography, the costumes - wow, Ko Moon Young’s dresses were really something, just wow! - and the music, too, the main song was so catchy! And I loved all the patients in the psychiatric hospital, I loved that the writers went that extra length to give them all their own personalities and stories, that they weren’t just props.

What I cared little about was the relationship between Ko Moon Young’s publisher and the young nurse, that one didn’t really click with me. I also didn’t like how the publisher treated his assistant. Sure, the girl knew how to use her young looks to her advantage but that didn’t justify his behavior towards her.

Overall, an excellent drama that I can highly recommend.

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Boring

Unfortunately, this was just plain boring for me. There were some really good scenes in it - like when Bar set some boundaries for Gun because he didn’t want Gun to work himself to exhaustion - but overall, this drama made me realize anew that “coffee shop” stories, ie stories with little to no angst or drama, just don’t work for me. I need some push-n-pull, some tension, some conflict to happen to keep up my interest.

Or maybe, it was the acting. The actor playing Bar was amazing - but the one playing Gun... wasn’t, to be kind. I felt that Folk Thitiphat who played Bar carried the entire show by himself and, really, when the story is very plain then the drama needs to be build on the actors. And here, one part of the couple was simply lacking in acting skills. Or maybe in experience. Maybe Win Achawin will turn out to be a fantastic actor in the future but here, well, he simply couldn’t keep up with Folk in the acting department. Which is too bad.

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It’s about a web toon artist who decides to make a BL web comic about archers and so she joins a boys’ archery club as their manager for inspiration. But then she actually gets to really like the boys and she helps them become really good and win a competition. And she also realizes that two of the boys might actually have feelings for each other so she decides to help out…

I watched it for Seo Ji Hoon who plays Yoo Ji Wan, the sweetest boy there is. Yoo Ji Wan and Joo Seung Joon are childhood friends and they are very close. But when Yoo Ji Wan gets hurt during a training in the country - he is bitten by a snake during a night training - Joo Seung Joon gets absolutely terrified and he realizes he can’t stop thinking about his best friend. Enter gay panic of truly epic proportions.

I’ve seen many people accuse this drama of queerbaiting. Sure, the lead girl’s fantasies are played up for the lulz, but, IMHO, there’s no actual queerbaiting in the story itself. Because Joo Seung Joon’s feelings for Yoo Ji Wan are 100% not just friendly. And the drama doesn’t debunk it, it doesn’t go “but NO HOMO,” it’s simply left unresolved, open-ended, but with them closer than ever at the end. And that’s not queerbaiting.

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