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Soul Mate — What If Love Doesn't Need a Name?
How am I supposed to describe Soul Mate? Beautiful, certainly. A BL? Maybe, depending on what we expect that label to mean. A bromance? That feels too small. A romance without romance? Perhaps that comes closer. What I am certain about is that I loved it. Netflix itself presented Soul Mate as a ten-year love story between two young men and categorises the finished series as LGBTQ+. So technically, calling it BL is hardly something viewers invented afterwards. But anyone going into these eight episodes expecting the usual BL language should probably know what they are getting. There is no kiss, no sex scene and almost none of the conventional skinship we have learned to associate with two fictional men becoming a couple. Ryu and Johan don't even spend much time trying to define what they are to each other. And strangely, that is exactly what made me think about what a “soulmate” actually means.
We often treat love and sex as if they automatically belong together, then treat romance as if it can only be proven through physical behaviour. But the soul isn't the body. Someone can desire another person's body without loving them at all, while another person can become so essential to your existence that imagining life without them becomes almost impossible. Soul Mate seems much more interested in that second kind of connection. Ryu and Johan meet because both are already damaged. Ryu has fled Japan carrying enormous guilt over what happened to his friend Arata, while Johan is a Korean boxer being exploited inside a violent environment of his own. Their meeting in Berlin is almost absurdly dramatic—Johan literally saves Ryu's life—but what develops afterwards isn't the instant sexual attraction of a conventional romance. It is recognition. One lonely person seems to recognise another. Then life keeps pulling them together for ten years.
Berlin, Tokyo and Seoul are not simply pretty international backgrounds. Their relationship has to survive geography, different languages, work, military service, family, violence, illness, grief and long periods when one cannot physically be beside the other. Yet whenever something truly matters, they move toward each other again. Johan saves Ryu. Ryu searches for Johan. They create a home. They help Sumiko. Eventually they construct something resembling a family without ever stopping to explain to everybody what box that family belongs in. That is why calling them simply “brothers” doesn't work for me either. Brotherhood can absolutely produce extraordinary devotion, particularly between men who have survived difficult experiences together. Friendship can also become more important than many marriages. But Soul Mate deliberately places Ryu and Johan within a queer story and repeatedly uses the language of love, fate and spending a life together. Netflix didn't advertise this merely as two male friends; even its original Japanese announcement calls it a story of their “souls and love.” At the same time, I understand why some BL viewers were frustrated. Queer audiences have spent decades being given relationships where everything was implied because filmmakers were unwilling or unable to show two men actually being lovers. So when a drama markets itself as an LGBTQ+ love story and then refuses even one kiss, questioning that choice is legitimate. Critics themselves were divided over exactly this point. The Japan Times thought the ambiguity allowed the script to play things both ways, while other reviewers saw the lack of conventional physical romance as essential to what the drama was trying to express.
For me, the difference is intention. I didn't feel that Soul Mate was embarrassed by these men loving each other. I felt that it was deliberately asking whether their relationship still needs our permission to be called love when it isn't demonstrated through sex. There is a significant difference between censoring homosexuality and presenting intimacy that simply isn't sexual. Would one kiss have destroyed that idea? Of course not. That is where I remain slightly conflicted. There are moments where the absolute avoidance of physical affection becomes so conspicuous that you start noticing the absence rather than concentrating on what is present. Two people can have a nonsexual relationship, but even platonic friends hug, lean against one another or touch naturally. The restraint occasionally feels less organic than the emotions surrounding it. Yet the emotional commitment is never small. These aren't two men who meet, spend a summer together and remember each other fondly. Their lives remain intertwined across a decade. They repeatedly make choices most people would only make for someone occupying an extraordinary place in their lives. Eventually the question “Are they boyfriends?” starts to feel less interesting than “Why do we need them to be?” That is where the title becomes beautiful. A soulmate isn't necessarily the person you sleep with. It isn't necessarily your spouse either. It can be the person whose presence permanently changes the direction of your life—the person who understands a part of you nobody else can reach. Some people marry their soulmate. Some find that person in friendship. Some probably never meet one at all. Ryu and Johan become family in that deeper sense.
The addition of Sumiko is important because Soul Mate also refuses the traditional idea that a family has one acceptable structure. After tragedy changes her life, the three of them eventually build a household around a child. Netflix even describes the series through friendship as well as LGBTQ+ themes, and that combination makes sense: the drama doesn't keep putting walls between romantic love, friendship and chosen family. Everything overlaps because real relationships often do. That broader definition of love also explains why the series can sometimes feel much more painful than a normal romance. It is filled with people carrying guilt they cannot easily put down. Ryu believes his actions—or his failure to act—helped destroy someone else's life. Johan has learned to survive through physical endurance. Other characters deal with bereavement, family expectations and responsibilities that arrive whether anyone is emotionally ready for them or not. Love does not magically repair those people. That may be one of the things I appreciated most. Johan cannot punch trauma until it disappears, and Ryu cannot simply meet a wonderful man and suddenly forgive himself. They help each other survive, but they don't become magical medicine for one another.
Shunki Hashizume was probably an ideal writer-director for that kind of story. He previously directed More Than Words that I love, another Japanese queer drama far more interested in the complicated shapes relationships can take than in fitting them comfortably inside conventional romance. With Soul Mate, he wrote and directed all eight episodes himself, so this unusual emotional language is clearly not the accidental result of several creators disagreeing about what kind of series they were making. The production also had considerably more experience and resources than the average BL. ROBOT has been producing Japanese film and television since the 1980s and was behind major Netflix productions including Alice in Borderland and Yu Yu Hakusho. Netflix itself produced Soul Mate, with filming spanning Berlin, Seoul and Tokyo. Whatever we think about the romantic ambiguity, this is certainly not one of those BLs where weak production limits what the creators are capable of showing.
And the two leads justify that investment. Ok Taecyeon is excellent, as usual. Johan could very easily have become the stereotypical strong Korean boxer whose purpose is simply to protect the more emotionally vulnerable Japanese protagonist. Instead, Taecyeon makes physical strength and emotional isolation exist simultaneously. The body looks powerful while the person living inside it often seems terribly alone. That contrast suits him particularly well because Taecyeon has spent years playing characters with very different energies, from the terrifying Jang Jun-woo in Vincenzo to romance, historical dramas and action roles. He said when accepting Soul Mate that he wanted to broaden his acting spectrum, and Johan certainly gives him something different. Isomura Hayato is an equally strong match. He doesn't need to compete physically with Taecyeon because Ryu's vulnerability operates differently. Isomura lets guilt remain visible even when Ryu appears functional. The series depends on us believing that ten years can change somebody without completely erasing the younger man he once was, and he carries that continuity very well. Both are established actors with substantial careers in their respective countries, and that maturity matters. This story could easily have become ridiculously melodramatic in less capable hands. Instead, even when the screenplay piles tragedy upon tragedy, the performances keep the emotional centre surprisingly quiet. Perhaps that is ultimately why I don't really care whether everybody agrees about the BL label. If somebody asks me whether Soul Mate resembles the BLs we normally watch, I would say no. If you specifically want flirting, romantic tension, kisses, sexual intimacy and the progression toward an identifiable boyfriend relationship, this may actually disappoint you. The marketing created understandable expectations because Netflix itself described it as a love story between two men. But if you ask whether I think Ryu and Johan love one another, then my answer is completely different. Yes. I just don't know whether the vocabulary we normally use is large enough to describe exactly how.
Final Thought
Maybe Soul Mate works best when we stop asking whether Ryu and Johan are boyfriends, brothers, best friends or something somewhere between all three. They are soulmates. Two broken people from two different countries accidentally meet thousands of kilometres from home. One saves the other's life, and from that moment their lives keep returning to one another for ten years. They protect each other, search for each other, hurt because of each other, construct a home around each other and become part of a family that would not exist in the same form without both of them. If that isn't love, then I'm not sure what else to call it. The absence of a kiss doesn't make that devotion meaningless, just as adding a sex scene would not automatically have made it deeper. At the same time, I understand viewers who wanted the series to be less afraid of physical intimacy, because queer love deserves to be allowed a body as much as heterosexual love does. Both reactions can be true. For me, however, Soul Mate ultimately reaches for something slightly different. Bodies age. Bodies become sick. Careers disappear. Countries separate people. Life changes around us whether we want it to or not. What the series asks us to imagine is a connection surviving beyond all of that—something that cannot quite be reduced to sex, romance, friendship or family because it contains pieces of all of them. That is why I found it beautiful.
Not a conventional BL. Not simply a bromance either. Just two souls that found each other, and never really became separate again.
We often treat love and sex as if they automatically belong together, then treat romance as if it can only be proven through physical behaviour. But the soul isn't the body. Someone can desire another person's body without loving them at all, while another person can become so essential to your existence that imagining life without them becomes almost impossible. Soul Mate seems much more interested in that second kind of connection. Ryu and Johan meet because both are already damaged. Ryu has fled Japan carrying enormous guilt over what happened to his friend Arata, while Johan is a Korean boxer being exploited inside a violent environment of his own. Their meeting in Berlin is almost absurdly dramatic—Johan literally saves Ryu's life—but what develops afterwards isn't the instant sexual attraction of a conventional romance. It is recognition. One lonely person seems to recognise another. Then life keeps pulling them together for ten years.
Berlin, Tokyo and Seoul are not simply pretty international backgrounds. Their relationship has to survive geography, different languages, work, military service, family, violence, illness, grief and long periods when one cannot physically be beside the other. Yet whenever something truly matters, they move toward each other again. Johan saves Ryu. Ryu searches for Johan. They create a home. They help Sumiko. Eventually they construct something resembling a family without ever stopping to explain to everybody what box that family belongs in. That is why calling them simply “brothers” doesn't work for me either. Brotherhood can absolutely produce extraordinary devotion, particularly between men who have survived difficult experiences together. Friendship can also become more important than many marriages. But Soul Mate deliberately places Ryu and Johan within a queer story and repeatedly uses the language of love, fate and spending a life together. Netflix didn't advertise this merely as two male friends; even its original Japanese announcement calls it a story of their “souls and love.” At the same time, I understand why some BL viewers were frustrated. Queer audiences have spent decades being given relationships where everything was implied because filmmakers were unwilling or unable to show two men actually being lovers. So when a drama markets itself as an LGBTQ+ love story and then refuses even one kiss, questioning that choice is legitimate. Critics themselves were divided over exactly this point. The Japan Times thought the ambiguity allowed the script to play things both ways, while other reviewers saw the lack of conventional physical romance as essential to what the drama was trying to express.
For me, the difference is intention. I didn't feel that Soul Mate was embarrassed by these men loving each other. I felt that it was deliberately asking whether their relationship still needs our permission to be called love when it isn't demonstrated through sex. There is a significant difference between censoring homosexuality and presenting intimacy that simply isn't sexual. Would one kiss have destroyed that idea? Of course not. That is where I remain slightly conflicted. There are moments where the absolute avoidance of physical affection becomes so conspicuous that you start noticing the absence rather than concentrating on what is present. Two people can have a nonsexual relationship, but even platonic friends hug, lean against one another or touch naturally. The restraint occasionally feels less organic than the emotions surrounding it. Yet the emotional commitment is never small. These aren't two men who meet, spend a summer together and remember each other fondly. Their lives remain intertwined across a decade. They repeatedly make choices most people would only make for someone occupying an extraordinary place in their lives. Eventually the question “Are they boyfriends?” starts to feel less interesting than “Why do we need them to be?” That is where the title becomes beautiful. A soulmate isn't necessarily the person you sleep with. It isn't necessarily your spouse either. It can be the person whose presence permanently changes the direction of your life—the person who understands a part of you nobody else can reach. Some people marry their soulmate. Some find that person in friendship. Some probably never meet one at all. Ryu and Johan become family in that deeper sense.
The addition of Sumiko is important because Soul Mate also refuses the traditional idea that a family has one acceptable structure. After tragedy changes her life, the three of them eventually build a household around a child. Netflix even describes the series through friendship as well as LGBTQ+ themes, and that combination makes sense: the drama doesn't keep putting walls between romantic love, friendship and chosen family. Everything overlaps because real relationships often do. That broader definition of love also explains why the series can sometimes feel much more painful than a normal romance. It is filled with people carrying guilt they cannot easily put down. Ryu believes his actions—or his failure to act—helped destroy someone else's life. Johan has learned to survive through physical endurance. Other characters deal with bereavement, family expectations and responsibilities that arrive whether anyone is emotionally ready for them or not. Love does not magically repair those people. That may be one of the things I appreciated most. Johan cannot punch trauma until it disappears, and Ryu cannot simply meet a wonderful man and suddenly forgive himself. They help each other survive, but they don't become magical medicine for one another.
Shunki Hashizume was probably an ideal writer-director for that kind of story. He previously directed More Than Words that I love, another Japanese queer drama far more interested in the complicated shapes relationships can take than in fitting them comfortably inside conventional romance. With Soul Mate, he wrote and directed all eight episodes himself, so this unusual emotional language is clearly not the accidental result of several creators disagreeing about what kind of series they were making. The production also had considerably more experience and resources than the average BL. ROBOT has been producing Japanese film and television since the 1980s and was behind major Netflix productions including Alice in Borderland and Yu Yu Hakusho. Netflix itself produced Soul Mate, with filming spanning Berlin, Seoul and Tokyo. Whatever we think about the romantic ambiguity, this is certainly not one of those BLs where weak production limits what the creators are capable of showing.
And the two leads justify that investment. Ok Taecyeon is excellent, as usual. Johan could very easily have become the stereotypical strong Korean boxer whose purpose is simply to protect the more emotionally vulnerable Japanese protagonist. Instead, Taecyeon makes physical strength and emotional isolation exist simultaneously. The body looks powerful while the person living inside it often seems terribly alone. That contrast suits him particularly well because Taecyeon has spent years playing characters with very different energies, from the terrifying Jang Jun-woo in Vincenzo to romance, historical dramas and action roles. He said when accepting Soul Mate that he wanted to broaden his acting spectrum, and Johan certainly gives him something different. Isomura Hayato is an equally strong match. He doesn't need to compete physically with Taecyeon because Ryu's vulnerability operates differently. Isomura lets guilt remain visible even when Ryu appears functional. The series depends on us believing that ten years can change somebody without completely erasing the younger man he once was, and he carries that continuity very well. Both are established actors with substantial careers in their respective countries, and that maturity matters. This story could easily have become ridiculously melodramatic in less capable hands. Instead, even when the screenplay piles tragedy upon tragedy, the performances keep the emotional centre surprisingly quiet. Perhaps that is ultimately why I don't really care whether everybody agrees about the BL label. If somebody asks me whether Soul Mate resembles the BLs we normally watch, I would say no. If you specifically want flirting, romantic tension, kisses, sexual intimacy and the progression toward an identifiable boyfriend relationship, this may actually disappoint you. The marketing created understandable expectations because Netflix itself described it as a love story between two men. But if you ask whether I think Ryu and Johan love one another, then my answer is completely different. Yes. I just don't know whether the vocabulary we normally use is large enough to describe exactly how.
Final Thought
Maybe Soul Mate works best when we stop asking whether Ryu and Johan are boyfriends, brothers, best friends or something somewhere between all three. They are soulmates. Two broken people from two different countries accidentally meet thousands of kilometres from home. One saves the other's life, and from that moment their lives keep returning to one another for ten years. They protect each other, search for each other, hurt because of each other, construct a home around each other and become part of a family that would not exist in the same form without both of them. If that isn't love, then I'm not sure what else to call it. The absence of a kiss doesn't make that devotion meaningless, just as adding a sex scene would not automatically have made it deeper. At the same time, I understand viewers who wanted the series to be less afraid of physical intimacy, because queer love deserves to be allowed a body as much as heterosexual love does. Both reactions can be true. For me, however, Soul Mate ultimately reaches for something slightly different. Bodies age. Bodies become sick. Careers disappear. Countries separate people. Life changes around us whether we want it to or not. What the series asks us to imagine is a connection surviving beyond all of that—something that cannot quite be reduced to sex, romance, friendship or family because it contains pieces of all of them. That is why I found it beautiful.
Not a conventional BL. Not simply a bromance either. Just two souls that found each other, and never really became separate again.
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