Ryn

I think we're on the same page then :)

My bias lies with Taiwan, but that's probably because I lived there for a while and it's my absolute favorite country to exist in :).

I meant to use the example of Addicted as a series that's not Thai and still has a toxic relationship that's endgame and is portrayed as a 'happy ending'. I meant to prove that illogical happy endings are not just a Thai BL thing, but are common in all BL.

Given your username, I knew you'd watched that one, so that was the series I referred to, because it would be kinda useless to refer to a series you haven't watched. It's not like I expect someone to watch a whole new series just to see if I made a good point or am talking out of my ass.

I guesss my underlying frustration here is not with you, but with a growing sentiment among fans that goes something like 'ugh, all Thai BLs currently suck and they're all basically the same, and BLs from other countries are all better and artistic and unique, so we should just give up on Thai BLs before they even air'.

(Yes quite a few Thai BLs suck and are formulaic, but the same is true for some Korean and Japanese BLs. And productions like 'I feel you linger in the air' are brilliant and I'm sad that so many people never gave it a chance simply because it's Thai. I think that's prejudice.)

Your comment reminded me of that general sentiment, but I don't think that was a fair assessment for me to make. So. Sorry about that. I was wrong.

Is that unique to Thai BLs? I think that's all BLs.

I mean the Chinese series your username is based on has the single most abusive love interest in any BL I've ever watched, and somehow Bai Luoyin still agreed to date him.

Man I really hope they don't force a happy ending with Peach and Shin. Would be great to have a BL in which you're meant to see red flags and give up on shipping the main leads.

BL love interests often get away with too much, but I hope there's a limit to how much fans are willing to accept, and I think that limit has been reached here.

I have since learned two things.
1. People have in fact been put in prison for writing popular BL fiction in China, but since authors are often semi-anonymous, and the government probably doesn't want them to be talking about the fact that they were imprisoned because that would create unnecessary uproar and backlash, information about this is hard to come by and not super solid.

2. A lot of Thai BL productions are funded by Chinese companies, presumably because they expect a Chinese audience to be watching and buying their product placements. So we do in fact still have the popularity of BL in China to thank for the BL content we can all enjoy today lol.

Namtan and Film are the main couple in the upcoming GL series 'Pluto', so anyone knows what the chances are that their characters will have a GL subplot in this one as well?

Let me know if there's somewhere to watch this for free with eng sub thank you!

It's trope-y and the production quality is mediocre, but I don't even care. I will absolutely be watching the whole thing :)

I'm seeing a lot of projection here. Do you yourself perhaps have religious trauma that caused sexual hangups? Is that why you're so upset?

I'm not a lady. I'm a born and raised atheist. I'm approaching 30.

I think this scene could've been hot if Kakeru had been into it, but as it stands, it just made me cringe.

I like watching messy characters make bad decisions, as long as the show knows that they are bad decisions, rather than 'normal and fine decisions'. I love 'Only Friends' exactly because all the characters are messed up and authentic.

This scene would've been expected in a mafia show where we know the characters are f*cked up, but in a sweet bff high school show this is jarring and out of place.

I don't know who hurt you or why you're upset enough about an online comment to write three responses in a row each including a bunch of CAPSlock, but you'd probably do good to figure out why this hit a nerve with you, for your own sake.

Yes these stories would take place in Japan, with only Japanese characters, maybe including a half-Japanese half-American character. An inordinate amount of main characters were named 'Kai' or 'Kei'. It is messed up, but they were 13 and I'm sure they know better now.

I wouldn't know how to find these comics now because I'm sure a bunch of them got deleted in shame once these people reached their late teens, early twenties, and most of these stories were only the start of a story, before these people realized the amount of effort that goes into drawing a whole comic and dropped it. I don't know if the website still even exists. I think it was called Smackjeeves? And there was another website. Can't remember.

I do know how to find BL webcomics that are actually good though. Take a look around the website Tapas. BL is the singular most popular genre. Of course, not all of it is good.

But I mean, Heartstopper was a webcomic before it was a TV show, and you bet I read that.

Currently I'm really enjoying a comic called 'plain boy and prince' by Amanduur, which exaggerates the dynamic I mentioned earlier to a ridiculous degree in order to make fun of it, and also flips it on its head a couple of times.

Ghost Lights by Fantakoi is good. Finding home by Hari. Dissent by LinneaDoodles. That Awkward Magic by SomeBunny. Faroff by Lennon Rook. But I don't know if our tastes are the same, so you might want to take a look around for yourself instead. There's a bunch of cool GL's too but I don't know if you care for those.

Some people genuinely believe the Earth is flat, the country of Australia is a hoax, and Hillary Clinton is an alien who drinks the blood of babies. Never say never.

I have seen people be fully serious about consent contracts. They fully believe that #metoo enthusiasts are arguing for actual literal written consent forms. I thought you meant to accuse me of arguing for literal actual physical consent contracts, because it wouldn't be the first time.

I misinterpreted your words and missed the sarcasm. I'm sorry for missing the sarcasm. But I did miss the sarcasm, and you don't get to tell me that actually I didn't and I couldn't have. You're not in my head to see how I interpreted what you wrote.

You really don't need to talk down to me like that. I know what a strawman is.

I don't think my standard for consent is 'extreme'. My standard is sure higher than yours, but I could call your position extreme on the lower end. 'Extreme' is not a neutral term to use here.

I don't think Yamato sexually assaulted Kakeru in a legal sense. I do think what he did was a dipshit thing to do that he shouldn't have done, and he should've been more attentive to Kakeru's verbal and nonverbal communication. He did ignore Kakeru's clear repeated signs that he did not want this to happen. That's all I'm saying. I'm not using big scary words like 'sexual assault'.

I don't personally mind the old slip n catch. Sure, it's overused and a bit dull, but I guess I view it as a neutral thing rather than a negative thing. I'm mostly apathetic towards it.

I really like the concept of a character having been in love with his BFF forever and having to hide it as well. The concept isn't new by any means, but it's still excellent. It's why I've stuck with the show. I just wish they actually acted like they were BFF's and were comfortable around each other. I don't think the actors are at fault here. This is how the characters are written.

This show just reminds me too much of the 200 unfinished BL webcomics I read during my teens, written by American 13 year old weebs who had the same fantasy that looked exactly like this. Cool stoic Japanese guy secretly likes akward and clumsy Japanese guy. The characters are repeatedly forced to be physically close, then freak out and don't communicate at all, rinse and repeat.

But well the BL genre hadn't developed much beyond webcomics written by teenagers and depressing YouTube shorts that ended in the suicide of the main character, GL sure didn't exist, and I wasn't yet aware of the existence of trans people, so what was a young queer to do? You can only rewatch Glee so many times.

Given that I was not a weeb at any point in my life, I didn't understand the obsession with Japan, or why being Japanese would make a character any cooler or more interesting than them being of any other nationality, and it did annoy me.

But obviously there are a bunch of Japanese BL's that don't rely on this story archetype and do have more unique characters. It's just that this specific show isn't one of them.

Some people really do like to pretend that people who care about consent are arguing for written consent contracts to become a thing, which is a strawman. I guess I didn't catch on to your sarcasm. It's hard to convey tone in text.

I said this scene was nonconsensual. I didn't use the words 'sexual assault'.

I really liked 'Our Dining Table' 'Jack O Frost' and 'Kieta Hatsukoi'. I don't have anything against Japanese BL's on principle, no.

There are more Thai BL's by sheer numbers. If you roll the dice 200 times, you're going to end up with more 6's than if you roll the dice 20 times.

The main reason I dislike 'Kimi ni wa Todokanai' is that the leads are so uneasy around each other and so bad at talking to each other that I find it hard to believe they're friends at all. They don't act like humans. They act like manga characters. Kakeru is constantly flinching. He acts like a scared bunny caught in a trap.

I don't like the classic seme/uke dynamic where one is essentially the stoic predator and the other the clueless reluctant prey. One has high social status, and the other considers themself inferior.

I like dynamics in which leads are comfortable around each other, they joke around with each other, both pursue each other, both want this to work. Or maybe they pester each other at first and only grow close later. I want both of them to have an equal amount of agency, not one passive, one active.

I dislike plots that revolve around miscommunication for miscommunication's sake. If all of a couple's problems could be solved with a single good conversation, and literally nothing else needs to change, they don't actually have problems, and there are no stakes, and I am not invested.

Kakeru's body language and verbal communication beforehand expressed clear discomfort with even chaste kissing. Yamato was well aware that Kakeru wouldn't be up for getting naked, and yet he pounced anyways.

On top of that, Yamato did NOT immediately stop. That is simply not what happened.

Yamato yelled his affections at Kakeru, and Kakeru backed away. Yamato got closer, Kakeru backed away again, up until the point where he was with his back to the bookcase and couldn't back away further, he tried anyways, and banged his back into the bookcase. His facial expression looks like surprise or mild fear to me. Yamato lunged at Kakeru for a kiss, Kakeru turned his face away so Yamato would miss and kiss his cheek instead. Then Kakeru said 'Yamato, wait!' with a shocked expression on his face, and he physically pushed Yamato off of him, then he got up and tried to walk away from Yamato. Yamato grabbed him, threw him onto a bed and got on top. Kakeru verbally expressed confusion and surprise several times ('eh?'). Yamato kissed his neck. Kakeru said 'Wait a second Yamato'. Yamato slid his hand towards Kakeru's crotch and then under his shirt. Kakeru yelled at Yamato to stop and that's when Yamato finally came to his senses and actually heard him. Yamato was so shocked at his own actions and the fact that he'd scared Kakeru that he apologized, ran out of the room and cried.

Yamato ignored a ton of signs Kakeru gave him that this was not okay before he finally relented. Not even Yamato himself interpreted this series of events as 'okay' in any way.


The idea that people who care about consent require a written contract is an obvious strawman.

Before attempting to kiss someone for the first time (or undress them for God's sake), the bare minimum amount of effort you could put into making sure that the other person is okay with it is to go slow, look at their body language, look at their facial expression. If they turn their face away, it's a no go. And yes I do think it is necessary to be relatively sure someone else is okay with you kissing them before you do it. You can't just rapidly face-plant on someone else's face out of the blue.

As someone who's been the person who got lunged at despite having given a clear rejection beforehand, this really fucking sucks to go through. It instantly destroys trust. If I've been clear about my 'no' already, and yet they still pounced out of absolutely nowhere, who's to say they won't do it again? Clearly, I can't see it coming.

Ah. Well I do agree that this specific BL is pretty trash, but there's much better stuff out there. I don't know what kind of genre you're into so I don't know what to recommend.
Idk try 'my school president' for a silly little school setting BL.
'Triage' for mystery/plot skills.
'Not Me' for political message.
'Bad Buddy' for well-acted enemies to lovers.
'KinnPorsche' for flashy visuals and steamy toxic relationships (I don't personally like that one, but it's very popular). If you're under 18, don't watch KinnPorsche.

Your account has only 1 watched series, and it's this one. Did you make an account specifically to rate this series a 1? Why the dedication when you could just ignore lol?

Why the f did that non consensual scene need to be there? Ruined the whole thing. Come on Japan, get with the program, this sh!t doesn't fly anymore. It's not cool to throw your crush onto a bed and start undressing them while they yell 'no' at you. "He couldn't control himself" is not an excuse. It's not an expression of love. F*cking quit doing this.

This isn't brilliant, but it's a fun little show. Just don't take it too seriously.

I can't with the bad English in ep 7 though. Please, if your actors cannot actually speak English, don't make them pretend to be American. It's fine for them to just speak Korean.

I don't really do social media so I don't tend to know which shows are popular.

I'm only on ep 6 of only friends (because emotionally, it's some heavy stuff), but so far I love it. I gave both shows a 9/10, the two best shows currently running. They're completely different genres of course, but I don't think they're in entirely different leagues of brilliance. So I think you can compare them, somewhat?

But I do see why only friends would stir up more discussion. More controversial. Messier. And I'm not saying that's a bad thing.