RandomUsagi

You kinda did go after all fans of the show (the incel thing) which is why I responded originally. Cause I know we have a whole community in this comment section (90% of the users here will be people I have known for a long time). I do feel protective of that but I'm always willing to hear new opinions/different viewpoint ^^ I definitely agree that Japan has issues with LGBT anyway so it's good to discuss that.

I prefer shounen-ai as well! Anyway about the kawaii-thing. It actually has quite an interesting history in Japan, even going back to the after-effects of worldwar 2 according to some. It was massively used by young girls to rebel against the expectations of the older generations and gave an opportunity for some men to express themselves with a soft image as well. Basically kawaii is the punk-culture of Japan. its meant to show individuality for older teens/adolescents/adults but anime kinda makes people outside of Japan misunderstand it.

I like that some young men in Japan can feel comfortable with cute stuff and the cute look. It's definitely not like that for the entire society.

I 100% agree that gay people in the West generally have it so much easier than in Asian countries like Japan. Depictions of LGBT in Japan aren't always great either. Like depicting gay characters as perverse which happened very often. Kinda disturbed me as they used to make comedy surrounding that perversity concept. Because of that it was good to see a show like CM which showed normal people falling in love. Yeah they missed out on showing certain types of intimacy but the main commentary of ''these guys are in love and that's valid'' was important to see on Japanese tv.

China is politically very different from Japan so I wouldn't be too worried. Japan values its freedom of showing whatever topics they want. China is more like a BL wallet than a BL producer. A lot of money comes from China to foreign BL productions thanks to Chinese fans.

Absolutely no problem to me as a jdrama fan ^^
I think this would've been one of my favorite straight jdramas if it had been a hetero couple with good chemistry. I would prefer seeing them as a lesbian couple though since good GLs from Japan are rare. I also saw fanart of them as female-characters and thought it looked cute.

Played for laughs unfortunately. I'm referring to stuff like Chief Kim, ''Kill me, Heal me'' and some others.
For serious stuff I highly recommend checking out webdrama Korean BLs. These are mentioned as the 2020/2021 entries on this list:
https://mydramalist.com/discussions/korean-dramas-movies-variety-shows/28124-korean-bl-dramas-films

Ayy I'm glad I at least managed to make you reconsider your look on the actors. :D Cause those two guys are really wonderful human beings in real life. Machida (Kurosawas actor) actually played a role as a friend to a trans-character in a past drama.

Anyway you do make good points about censorship and I will certainly agree that Japan isn't perfect and we still have a long way to go for LGBT content. I'm glad you still liked the show overall though! It was a step forward for LGBT content on Japanese tv whether you want to believe it or not. Things are progressing so I do remain hopeful for future releases.

Anyway, wish you much love! I know the Asian market for BL isn't always fantastic for gay fans of BL and there are lots of problems in ALL countries involved with BL. With time we will get things better though and I truly believe in a hopeful future.

Keep an eye on this list: https://mydramalist.com/discussions/japanese-drama-movies/28121-japanese-bl-dramas-films
If there's a future BL from Japan it'll show up there. I will mention that most Japanese BLs of 2020 did have the main leads kiss. Cherry Magic was a bit of an exception with that.

Alright first of all. The only people who watch Shota are indeed creeps and that sort of stuff never makes it into any jdramas. The anime community and jdrama community have some overlap but please keep topics like this far away from jdramas. I know age-gaps were mentioned but there's a difference between what I mentioned with adults and that disgusting anime genre.

'' I know BL isn't made for gay/bi people but its made ABOUT us'' Many BL fans are gay/bi, you do have a voice in this community and don't be afraid to speak out about issues. I'm just responding with my opinion as I do disagree with some things you said about this specific drama and its fans.

Anyway I liked second couple but that's personal preference and I get that not everyone gets to like them. I do recognise that a complete lack of intimacy in BLs would be wrong to the real experience of gay people. However, I've seen both the most intimate (yaoi) and least intimate (shounen ai) BL related productions of Japan. So to me this light stuff isn't censorship but rather just a light form of BL. There's options for both extremely s*xual content and light BLs for people in Japan.

The young blond guy of the second couple likes to present himself as young because he wants to have that cute/kawaii look. If you think he purposely made himself look young and cute for the show then you really don't want to see his instagram. That's literally how he is in reality, some guys in Japan just love that stuff and that's a cultural difference again. I'm against stalking too but just mentioned that it isn't specific to this show.

I'm not saying Pro-gay=Western culture. However, I am calling out that there may be differences in the Western LGBT culture in comparison to some of the Eastern LGBT culture. A refusal to acknowledge that is Western-centrism. There's a genre of gay men who write gay stories in Japan. It's called Bara/gay manga in case you wanna check that out.

You can involve China in this discussion if you want but that's an entirely different culture and has little to do with LGBT in Japan. Yes both have forms of censorship but to compare China with Japan... China literally banned any depiction of LGBT. Japan is doing a ton better in comparison to that.

Alright here comes my criticism of Thai BL writer MAME. I'll quote an internet user for this cause I don't want to bother reading the novel myself.
''It bothers me that r*pe is often used as a catalyst to get 2 characters together. It bothers me even more that authors like MAME, can write that characters like Ty-- and Ta- are r*ped and put it in a negative light, but also use r*pe to get Keng--- and Tec--- together or even against antagonist like Fi--/Fai---. It's very hypocritical.''

I ommited the names a bit to avoid spoiling stuff for others. But yeah this doesn't sound like its very LGBT-friendly stuff to me. These aren't the ''high-standards'' I'd want to adhere to.

Alright you added that *BTW section later so let me respond to that as well.

Machida and Akaso (main leads) are both part of agencies. Sometimes those agencies will indeed have certain rules and restrictions for their actors. That is indeed homophobic of those agencies but I'm not surprised they still chose them as main leads for the show. The casting directors were looking for men that could fulfill the roles of the characters well and that was their main priority.

Plenty of gay men loved watching Cherry Magic. It really depends on what you watch BLs for and if that's solely for the goal of seeing men kiss/have bedscenes then yeah Cherry Magic isn't going to be your type of drama.

''if they can't do it right they shouldn't do it at all. ''
Have you considered that mayby Japanese LGBT do find this drama meaningful to their current situation? This drama wasn't meant to reflect Western LGBT and I know you said you don't care about culture but I wanted to mention it regardless. Also, Adachi never gets called a ''wife'' in the show. I do hear that reference used often in Thai BLs though.....

You only watch Japanese BLs anyway so I don't really think you'll risk encountering these actors again since you don't watch other jdramas. It's not like in Thailand where actors often stay in the BL acting scene for a few years.

Also just mentioning it here but I would still watch and love the show if it was a straight or lesbian drama with the exact same concept. It's just a cute innocent lovestory between two people regardless of gender.

Alright then. I'll engage with this discussion.
First of all, not every BL fan specifically wants to see the characters go full intimate in every show. Also, some of us view intimacy as something that can be expressed through small actions and words too. Respect others BL-preferences, you can dislike it but that doesn't mean everyone has to. I don't particularly like some yaoi movies in Japan that feature violent intimacy and toxic relationships but I just don't watch them. I'm not going to use negative words to refer to those fans.

The lack of a kiss scene of main leads is certainly a valid criticism and widely has been discussed in the fandom already. If you watched the show though you should know the second couple had a kiss scene, so it's not like it's completely left out. If your criticism was just about the kiss I probably wouldn't have written this whole comment but you went after multiple things.

Now for the cultural stuff, because you did watch a Japanese show made for Japanese people. Age-gaps in Japan are more normalized than in the West, whether it be straight or gay relationships. They're both adults in the show though so I don't see the issue. The stalking was creepy yeah but I see that stuff in straight romance shows too sometimes. It wasn't something unique to this show.

What you want is for Japan to get their culture into the Western 21st century and that's just very unlikely as every culture has different roots. A lot of Japanese still love to avoid saying ''I love you'' directly because the culture is just different like that. Fun little notice but Japan is the origin of all BL in Asia. Without Japan you would not have those Thai BL with men making out and doing fanservice. In Japan you have plenty of content for s*xual intimacy between men though and plenty of that is made by straight women.

You blame straight women for BL being ''low on intimacy'' which clearly shows me that you've never read the source material of this show written by a woman (the mangaka). There's some stuff in that manga that simply just can't be shown on mainstream Japanese tv. The end result of CM was a qualitative show that left its viewers with warm feelings thanks to their chemistry. I didn't need to see them make out to believe that they were a couple. I definitely don't think the chemistry was wasted at all.

Also since you praised Thai and Taiwanese BL I went and looked if you watched Thai BL Tharntype and surprise surprise. You gave it a 10/10. Tharntype was written by a woman too (MAME). So please stop this ''BL should not be written by straight women'' nonsense since apparently you DO like straight women writers. Also lets mention here that Thai BL has a whole different problem of consent and toxic relationships. So I don't know to what degree I should see that as having ''high standards and wonders for the LGBT+ community''.

I definitely do advice you to stick to Thai and Taiwanese BL if you can't adapt to the local ways of producing BL shows. Just don't go after fans of different types of BL shows for no good reason.

From what I'm seeing on that page, a lot of questions are certainly being asked. I'm sure the staff will have to sift through a lot of stuff. Some of the questions did make me laugh though XD like that suggestion of them both doing the Gura dance.

XD That costume and make up is quite something, truly like a yokai. Guess I'll have to recognise him by voice. Yokai stories are usually fun though so nice that he's doing this project

We've seen men kissing in mainstream Korean tv so Mr Queen did not exceed my expectations for BL at all. It was more of a GL if anything with that maid and those concubines. I would say the series did shortly delve into gender identity. In the end this show has less of BL than censored Chinese bromance shows.

However, yes it was a fun show and I did like it and the cast.

I can kinda imagine an alternate version of this show now.
*So Yong the Queen becomes possessed by an evil spirit/demon*

King Cheoljong:
''Yeah lately she feels kinda distant. A bit different, she has been screeching inhuman sounds and chanting in unknown language a lot. I kinda love that quirky nature of hers though, that's just her thing. At first we didn't get along, she attacked any human in sight. However, as the palace was almost burned down when she had access to fire this made me realise that she may be on my side politically. Recently I've made a dictionary in an attempt to communicate with her but results vary as it seems indecipherable. I really do feel like we're starting to make a unique connection since that time she almost died and completely changed. It's definitely still her though, just her newest mood I suppose. Women are mysterious like that.''

Biggest misleading plotline was the Han villain guy of the cook. I mean his exact copy appears in Joseon? And everything the queen did related to the Han guy didn't do anything to modern Han guy. I'm pretty sure she castrated Joseon Han guy last we saw him (becoming a Eunuch). I mean I get that he was a threat but that was harsh for a plotline that went nowhere.

China actually did go through with it in their version of Mr Queen in one of the endings.
Go Princess Go episode 36, last scene.
You can just solely watch the last scene since the shows and their concepts are very similar.

Yeah thats what I've been doing as well. You really don't need to watch the entire series since you already kinda know every important thing after watching Mr Queen.

I certainly am XD
Go Princess Go episode 36. And yes exactly like you said, that is the final ending they give. But you're free to believe multiple versions in the Chinese Mr Queen.

Ehhh considering you haven't watched historical romcom cdramas before I'll warn you that these types of lowbudget shows can go full crazy sometimes (example is in ep 12).
But its still fun, episode 36 has the ending you would like.

The whole theme gives me PsychoPass vibes. I'm curious what the story will be like

I can join in as well. I'll be watching it in the future as well ^^

''So Yong is Bong Hwa's past life self and Bong Hwan will meet his own Cheoljong in 2021 *a wild Cheoljong appears*''
Ohh like one of the endings of the original Chinese Mr Queen version! Yeah I wouldn't mind that, seems fun.

Byung In will be missed. I loved his character as well and its so unfortunate that he found himself in this situation.