Nolan Peale

I'm going to miss having Amagi in my life on Friday mornings. Its been a treat. That said, I think the series ended about the right time before its formula got boring. There's only so many times Katori can jump in and give fatherly advice when the two leads have worked themselves into a lather about something. I could support a sequel every once in awhile of them in university and another when they start working, but in short bursts. It would also be amusing to see the ever so always on point with the advice Katori be in a relationship and end up releasing the inner lovestruck teen that we know has to be inside him somewhere. A few short series here and there, but not years upon years of the same sit com episode each week like a US series.

In a sequel though, I want them to go to a barber. Seriously. Every mob in the series has less distracting hair than these two.

Huh? Are you confusing Love of Siam with Bangkok Love Story? I mean, at the time, the ending was very much not fatal to either Mew or Tong, which was a step in the right direction for gay dramas in Thailand. Given the events of the prior 3 hours in the movie, there wasn't a happy ending available. But at least they didn't do the "lets have Mew lose his eyesight to emphasize how far gay men are off the path towards enlightenment" or "lets have Mew get hit in the head and turn straight to emphasize how homosexuality is your mind not functioning properly" or "lets have Mew feel so despondent that he shoots himself and ends up in a coma for the rest of his life at only 15" or "out of nowhere, Tong turns into a tiger and Mew can no longer find him" or "let's have Tong's mom jump off a roof because she's so shamed by her son." Seriously, LOS was sad, but not ridiculously and melodramatically so like the gay dramas in Thailand were at the time.

Hope so. Otherwise next week it'll be
-You should treat your friends better and not be thinking they are holding you back.
-Thanks, boy in the mirror. You should work on your anger issues and not buy a gun.
-Thanks, boy with the guitar. Well, you're cute. Want to kiss.
-Sure, boy in the mirror. (smooch)
-Wow, boy with the guitar, you have such soft skin. Wherever do you go to get your skin so clean and acne free?

Good to see familiar faces, as KBL has had maybe 3 actors who've returned to BL before this series. It's mainly been a one-and-done acting job. I think this is the first time in a KBL that an actual pair has reunited.

I like the lively banter. Please, keep it up. No...slow...talking...because...we're...in...a...romance. Both characters are capable of speaking up for themselves, which is a nice change.

I don't know if there are enough episodes to resolve all the issues between them, though.

My one complaint is that in both episodes they inserted in ridiculous and implausible pratfalls. The dialogue is enough to support the comedy. If they can't do more with physical comedy than "it's funny when people fall over" I hope they stop.

I'm not sure the subject of the series is going to be told well in 34 minutes of total run time. Especially if we have to go to a Subway and get another skin treatment. So far it looks like more a moral drama than a BL. If they do fall for each other, it'll have to be a 30 second decision.

I think Wednesday is a great day for a series like this. So I'm not going to grouse about some of the oddities, like why the gardener never heard that they were dead until now. I mean, what a cold community where a family of four dying suddenly isn't the talk of the town.

I wonder what gatekeepers are doing with all the merit points they are gathering. Maybe turn them into coins for the tooth fairy. I don't know if there is a tooth fairy in Thailand, but its probably a front for a large multi-national merit racket that launders its profit through Europe.

Episode 11
This segment is going to be a slog for me, since I’ve never liked the scripted reality series and phony fan service, and fake cute. I feel for Peak, though. He wasn’t ready for this. He needs the money though.

I was confused by the sequence in the university bathroom. Was all of that the fiction peak was reading, or was the first part how their ship started? Guessing it was all part of the fiction, since who walks into a bathroom with their phone out ready to take pictures? Yuck. Him immersing himself in the story and imagining himself being exuberant and ecstatic during his own rape was a nice touch. “There wasn’t much blood”…lol

Not going to rehash the Husband/Wifey debate. But I do find precious how the industry folks claim that it’s how the fans want ships marketed when they are the ones dividing the boys and slapping the labels on them. Nice touch for Kla bringing in the whole “complete man” vs “gay” dichotomy. If I’m as confused as Peak is right now about who he is, I’m screaming inside, with all these words that he’s told don’t matter and he should forget about, when they clearly matter a lot to him.

If anyone has the link to youtube episode 11 part 4/4 it would be greatly appreciated. Once again AIS play has only posted 3 of the 4 segments properly so only those in certain countries can see them in queue.

I think the ponytail guy is on the fencing team and intercedes when Pie and Phet are fighting. So he's neither Rain's friend nor Sun's friend nor Phayu's friend nor Khim's friend. So a gatecrasher.

"This place is not on the map, so they'll never find us" makes me wonder what the maps in Thailand look like. Are there these tiny 20 acre dots on the map that are colored in white with a note at the bottom that says "void of all land, water and air". Or do the mapmakers need to adjust latitude and longitude lines so that they truly disappear from the records.

Honestly, its been so long since some of them have appeared that half of them I couldn't remember who they were and how they fit in. Khim is not the only one losing his memory. Maybe they were brought in so that we'd empathize with Khim more.

Maybe he was gathering troops to fight off the bad guys who have been camping in the woods for 3 months. The rugby players will tackle them as the fencers run them through with swords.

As someone who has had relatives with dementia and memory loss, one of the last things they need is a surprise. Like warning everyone what they are walking into is really important! For all we know, Kim has forgotten even that his parents have died and one of the students will be reminding him of that. It'll be like he's learning of it for the first time.

Episode 15
-Lordy, this has been a slog. I think we deserve medals for making it this far. Its like being tasked with shoveling snow from an 800 yard driveway for a nice little old lady you'd never think of charging. Week after week of the most thankless part of BL fandom. Unlike the nice little old lady, though, I don't think this series is inside making cookies and cocoa as a reward.
-As much as I want to pick this episode apart, I just can't anymore. Shouldn't the thugs camped out in the woods for 3 months be a little stinky by now? Is this really someone's idea of what would happen if Snow White started dating Cinderella? Why not make them lesbians, then? Does bird's nest soup mean anything? I can't...go...on...must...start...typing...in... Star...Trek...voice.
-My fear is, as we take the piss out of the out of whack pretensions of this series, that it'll turn out that it was written by an fujoshi who has never actually experienced the outside world because she's been in the hospital since she was 6 with a heart condition and memory loss and our happy thoughts are the only thing keeping her alive. And each of our comments is one more nail in her coffin.
-My other fear is that there's no way they can end this in one more episode. By design. Because this series will turn out to have been the most popular BL of the year in Thailand, so they've ordered up 16 more episodes for season 2. I'm going to wake up with cold sweats tonight worrying about that. Either that, or we're talking My Dream or Comet! I love You cliffhangers that will never be resolved because there will be no season 2. I'll wake up with hot sweats tonight worrying about that.

Episode 1
-Awesome to see Mam Wongrabeb again in a BL mom role. There was a time when she was cast as every gay kid's mom.
-Yeah, I agree with the commentators who don't like the acne makeup. My guess is that it would have been fine circa 2002 when our viewing technology had lower definition. Ironically, there don't seem to be product placements in this series. If ever there was a need for a NIVEA spot, it would be now, instead of all those other times where they rub it on actors with already pristine skin. It goes away, so I'm not going to grouse about it.
-This is the second time for Meen and third time for New to take on this time period in a series. I think one of the difficulties I'm going to have watching this series is that its a nostalgia piece for a time period that I don't have much nostalgia for. And the characters come from a kind of teen series that would have been current pre-Hormones. In the US, it would be like making a series today set a series in 1990 and making it like "Saved by the Bell" but with the gay characters that were in Bayside High, but wouldn't have been on that series at that time. So, I don't think the target audience for this is teen BL fans, but their parents.
-Anyway, this setting (2002) is pre-BL. Like maybe there were some fans importing Manga from Japan, but there probably wasn't much Thai original content being written, let alone published, and there probably weren't a lot of fujoshis hanging out in this provincial city regardless. Unlike in My Only 12%, there isn't going to be Love of Siam coming to the rescue to help a character understand his feelings. Yet.
-Based on the trailer, and the first episode, one major theme of this series is the evolution in the ways people communicate and receive information. But one character cannot speak. And another does not want to be seen. Interesting starting point. I wonder if that's intentional. It has the potential to be a liberating experience.

Lordy. The trope of "I saw him with a girl, so I'm going to run away" happens enough in BL that I'm about to slap someone silly. Its 2022. You're at a co-ed institution of higher education. The sexes are allowed to mingle without a chaperone! Even in Thailand. LOL. Its one of my least favorite tropes. At least he did it because he realized he was jealous and realized that he was losing his battle against falling in love with someone. It wasn't one of those "I just thought you'd be better off in a heterosexual relationship, so I've decided to push you in that direction, whether you want that or not" reasons that's usually given. (Because we all know, eating with someone today means wedding bells tomorrow and the pitter patter of little feet next Tuesday).

Well, to be fair, the novel is porn. Not even porn with a plot. Just a bunch of situations where to humans have sex. So if they are planning on making any money on the series, they might as well add in a few things that pass for for characterization or it won't find a non-porn streaming platform.

Episode 1
-So two men, who barely know one another and are fighting over a woman who neither is actually dating, have grown to hate each other so much that they are willing to commit crimes against one another that would get a person 20 years in prison if discovered, but instead have sex after being given drops of a magic potion. Got it.
-Thank goodness they established that both men share a fondness for women of loose morals. If they both liked men from the beginning, the magic potion might have been unnecessary.
-I suppose one way to get us to look past the fact that Mangkorn was going to rape Yai, had the magic potion not suddenly kicked in putting them both in the mood, is to make Yai so unlikeable that our first thought isn't revulsion at the idea but instead "Yeah. The little shit kind of had it coming." I'll give the writers points for working around that. I mean, Yai's not dating Hong and he's got a PI following her around like a husband might do with a cheating wife. And given the set up of his apartment and the fact that he has the magic potions on hand, its probably not the first person he's tried to knock out and take nudie picks of without consent. Not that I'm actually rooting for Mankorn in this dick measuring competition. But the little shit kind of had it coming. Fucked around and found out.
-Comparing to other series after 1 episodes its behind KinnPorche, but ahead of Unforgotten Night in terms of quality. Hoping that it doesn't turn into a complete hatewatch.
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Episode 9
-I did have a laugh when Earth and Prem were amazed that in the US, kids dyed their hair all the time. Mainly because I think both of them have had so many different hair colors over the years. Prem alone has had more than half dozen hair colors in the two years I've been following him.
-Something tells me that Cake didn't play American football all through high school, or he'd be coming home a bit beefier.
-Literally, we did just blink and high school was over. I didn't want them to drag it out for a number of episodes, but I would have liked a bit more of transformation. I didn't want Earth to become an asshole, per se. But it would have been nice if his new passion for drama and more adult personality had taken him in directions that would make their reconciliation more challenging. Or made the character more interesting. (Sorry, Seeiw is a very dull boy. Not unpleasant, but still dull.) I have no idea how they are going to stretch this out for 10 more episodes. Maybe Cake comes back and had such a bad experience that he is now an emotional burden to Seiw.
-I'm glad they kept in touch in MSM. Even series set in cotemporary times never seem to get that its far easier to stay in touch today than it was in the past. There are series where they pretend that when someone moves away, its 1910 and the only transportation available is boats and writing letters isn't practical because 90% of the country can't read or write.

Episode 9
Probably not going to be a popular opinion, but I'd wish they'd tone down the boyslove tropes a bit and focus more on the thriller aspect of the series. Its kind of failing as a thriller because the tension hasn't been escalating and all the characters are who they appear to be. There's been nothing that forces us to re-evaluate the characters. Bad superintendent and bad teacher Chadock are still the baddies and they do what they do for donations to the school and its reputation. There isn't anything to be discovered. The stakes need to be ratcheted up beyond "students might be expelled." "The Curse" is delivering more threatening threats using more audacious media, but it isn't doing anything more threatening than issuing threats. I was hoping based on the preview to this episode that the dripping red stuff was actual blood this time. Maybe from that stray dog the boys used to feed. Shocking? Yes. Tonally out of touch? Sure. But it would also escalate the situation and make the fighting on be more dangerous and indicate that the kids who fight on are in a perilous situation. It's like having a ghost yell "get out" over and over again at new home owners, but never doing anything but that. Eventually that ghost needs to hurl a kitchen knife or we go home.

We got a sponge bath and an underwater kiss and some hot and heavy food wiping action. I forgot when Akk mentioned that he likes to swim or needed to go to a pool. Or that Aye suffers from panic induced asthma. Maybe because that was never mentioned before. But hey, BL demands its moments, who cares if setting up those moments makes any sense, right? Or that things that happen after those moments matters.

The BL is starting to get in the way of what could have been a good BL series.