Luly
Argentina
More than meets the eye
I had 0 expectations with this one. The title isn't really helping and the premise is a bit...strange. However, I was, for the most part, pleasantly surprised.
I don't know the manga this was based on, but this adaptation really smoothed a lot of edges of what "regular BL content" is mostly like. They took a story that could have been yet another one of those, and gave it a lot of heart, polishing some (not all) of the problematic aspects of storylines that play in the edge between representation and fanservice.
The main relationship is devoid of a lot of the toxic tropes you normally get, not only in BL content, but in romantic dramas in general. The premise of the lead being able to read thoughts makes it so that the situation could have gone into a serious dub-con territory and it never did. The relationship progresses in a natural, interesting way and the mind-reading assists in telling the story, rather than provoke unnecessary complications.
The absolute gem for me in this one was the first ever canon aroace character I've seen in a jdrama. I've found ace and aroace characters in manga before (few and far between) but this is the first time that, not only I see one in a jdrama, they are also confirmed by the writing team. I won't spoil which character this is, so I'll remain ambiguous with my description, but it's not one of the two mains, it's a side-character. Not only are they iconic, they're also depicted as loving, caring and a fantastic friend, and that's the kind of aroace representation I want.
My only issue with the drama was the side couple. It made me kinda uncomfortable, I'm not gonna lie. Minato (Goto Yutaro) looked incredibly young and Masato (Asaka Kodai) looked even older than he is. I'm glad Minato wasn't supposed to be a teen, and that at least the actor was older than he seemed, but I couldn't help feeling pretty uncomfortable with their development, especially since they had more physical scenes than the lead couple, albeit nothing major.
All in all, I wanted to leave a review because 1) I was super close to not watching this at all, based on the marketing and title and 2) it has an aroace character and pretty good handle of relationships, for the most part. I'm glad I gave it a chance.
I don't know the manga this was based on, but this adaptation really smoothed a lot of edges of what "regular BL content" is mostly like. They took a story that could have been yet another one of those, and gave it a lot of heart, polishing some (not all) of the problematic aspects of storylines that play in the edge between representation and fanservice.
The main relationship is devoid of a lot of the toxic tropes you normally get, not only in BL content, but in romantic dramas in general. The premise of the lead being able to read thoughts makes it so that the situation could have gone into a serious dub-con territory and it never did. The relationship progresses in a natural, interesting way and the mind-reading assists in telling the story, rather than provoke unnecessary complications.
The absolute gem for me in this one was the first ever canon aroace character I've seen in a jdrama. I've found ace and aroace characters in manga before (few and far between) but this is the first time that, not only I see one in a jdrama, they are also confirmed by the writing team. I won't spoil which character this is, so I'll remain ambiguous with my description, but it's not one of the two mains, it's a side-character. Not only are they iconic, they're also depicted as loving, caring and a fantastic friend, and that's the kind of aroace representation I want.
My only issue with the drama was the side couple. It made me kinda uncomfortable, I'm not gonna lie. Minato (Goto Yutaro) looked incredibly young and Masato (Asaka Kodai) looked even older than he is. I'm glad Minato wasn't supposed to be a teen, and that at least the actor was older than he seemed, but I couldn't help feeling pretty uncomfortable with their development, especially since they had more physical scenes than the lead couple, albeit nothing major.
All in all, I wanted to leave a review because 1) I was super close to not watching this at all, based on the marketing and title and 2) it has an aroace character and pretty good handle of relationships, for the most part. I'm glad I gave it a chance.
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