-Aprillen-

Both Akaso Eiji and Machida Keita should be controlled substances!

It's hard to find dramas (especially BL dramas) that are so well made! I'm not a film geek, so I can't talk production process with you, but I'd like to mention a very different but also amazingly well made series called I Told Sunset About You, just in case you weren't aware of it. These two series are what saved 2020 for me! (Sadly, it's very expensive to watch legally)

I think the Philippines are doing a lot of BL lately that is more oriented toward the LGBTQ+ community than toward straight teenage women. It almost seems like the LGBTQ+ community there decided to jump on the BL train and make it theirs. A significant difference is that a lot of it is written by gay men and not by straight women. The quality varies wildly, though.

I could not get into Make It Right and dropped it a few eps in, but I loved Together With Me. That might have been due to MaxTul, though. I didn't mind the sex in TWM, probably because they made it look "real", neither forced and uncomfortable or porny and gratuitous. That's a hard line to walk. Any sexy scenes in a love story need to be there for a reason, to carry or convey character or relationship development. If you can't do it right, it's better to skip them. Mostly I want it to look real whether there is skinship or not, which is part of why I liked SOTUS and love Cherry Magic -- the chemistry is there, it's convincing. The stiff discomfort we often see between actors in some Thai BL makes me just as uncomfortable as gratuitous sexualisation does.

I loved Ae and Pete (though I heartily dislike other aspects of LBC and in fact never finished it), and I think a lot of it is because Ae also struck me as demi-ace (and such a fluffy little care dom) and the chemistry between Perth and Saint was lovely.

We don't even know if Mich is going to sub the specials. Ichihachi has said they might if the raws are available, but we don't know for sure .

I did find okay versions of the specials on YouTube. But I'm still holding out hope for Irozuku or Ichihachi to do them.

I can only recommend the usual steps -- clear cookies and history etc, restart your browser, open the links again, and see if you can turn on the subs.

I like that it almost felt as if we were watching Kurodachi in real time, since it took place during the same time of year as it was aired!

The Irozukusub for episode 12 is up!

Good luck! It's true that all the people hanging out in this comment section are biased because we're die-hard fans, but we're die-hard fans *for a reason*.

Yes, and that's because it's a BL fetish to "turn the straight boys gay", which is (a) creepy and (b) a completely different thing from realising that you are bisexual, or even that you've been gay all along, but were so deep in the closet that you couldn't even admit it to yourself. I do think there's a place for the latter instance in BL, but it shouldn't be played as the first. And yes, I also think that we need sweet, straight-up romance where we don't have to go through all the identity struggles and the homophobia once again, but just get to see more-or-less normalized love and acceptance and a happy ending. Because romance is at heart a fantasy.

Not normally my type of drama, but I will watch it for Saint!

Thank you for asking and for sharing this! She did play it safe a little, but I think her good intentions really shone through. I do understand her wish to not alienate the BL fandom, but also not just cater to it 100%, since (and I say this as a BL fan) there's a lot of issues with the BL/yaoi/danmei genre. CM is not really an LGBTQ+ drama, but it's also significantly different from other BL in that it actively tries to avoid common BL issues that are problematic for the LGBTQ+ community, and that was obviously intentional.

Maybe you can edit it to Tsuge going "Thump!" XD
I tried to add a Kurodachi moment for episode 2, but it doesn't look like it got added: When Kurosawa cooks breakfast for Adachi (and already knows how he likes his tamagoyaki).

I noticed that there are two "do you know what that means?"

Does anyone have any info about subbed versions of the special episodes? I'M DYING HERE

I don't think you'll be disappointed!

Thanks for clarifying that! I haven't read the manga, so I was only going by things I'd seen people say about it.

"Gay for you" is such a tiring trope. Call it what it is: bisexual.

It's of course perfectly conceivable to be a closet bisexual and have to go through that awakening, and it's also possible to be more predominantly on one end of the scale than the other, but you can't be in love with a person of the same sex and still credibly claim to be straight. (*Mostly* hetero, perhaps, but not straight.)

Yes, I agree. There is some really good BL that has come out of the Philippines lately, but some of them seem to rely more on the "provocative" and titillating aspects of same-sex love than on plot, writing and acting, and that's sad. I don't actually mind intimate scenes if they are well and tastefully done, and part of the character and relationship development, but I can get uncomfortable when they seem gratuitous.

I've edited and added to my comment above to make it more clear.

Oh, I'm definitely glad I waited until episode 12 was out! But I've seen comments about people being angry and disappointed, and that's not how I felt at all.