TianQi

I feel like they just spent an usually long time illustrating the physically romantic side of Fighter and Tutor's relationship in Why R U (practically all of episode 10, I think), but during the times when they were just talking, I could see the love there too.

And their behavior and the filming of the beach scene felt so real to me. I felt like if I were to go to Phuket, I might just run into Teh and Oh-aew hugging and reminiscing together. The actors both deliver so well.

Once again, cinematography/visual storytelling takes the cake for this series, but I'd be remiss to not mention how much of an impact the acting had on me as well. Oh-aew's tears falling on Teh's shoulders T_T
I don't even recall being (very) emotional during all five episodes of the first season, but this single episode was just so beautiful. There's nothing like living through an ominous bliss. Being so happy because you're about to be so sad. This episode was absolutely perfect in my eyes.

Bad description, yeah, but the show's title is 'Close *Friend*' and love doesn't have to be romantic.

My objective ranking:
5 Jimmy/Tommy
6 Kim/Copter
4 Yoon/Talay
1 Om/Fluke
3 Max/Nat
2 Ja/First

My biased ranking:
6 Kim/Copter
5 Jimmy/Tommy
2 Ja/First
1 Om/Fluke
4 Yoon/Talay
3 Max/Nat

I'm a huge fan of Kim/Copter and it was nice to finally see Copter play a character that's actually crazy about Kim's character instead of being cold and hard to get. Mark/Ming from Gen Y/2Moons would be very excited to see his other incarnation treated so well. Once again, I'm embarrassed at how easily I gush for Kim's cheesy charm. I really do love him.

Jimmy/Tommy were as lovely as I expected them to be. Their chemistry is beautiful and watching almost Tommy having to break his neck to look up at Jimmy the Giant with this big eyes and sweet smile gets me EVERY. SINGLE. TIME.

I don't know if I liked the story of Yoon/Talay's episode too much, but I'm so used to watching them be in ridiculous, wacky situations and just focusing on their chemistry (which is great), so it worked.

I don't feel like I got to see enough Ohm in their episode, but I liked it overall. What did get to see enough of was Fluke's acting. Always a pleasure.

The Max/Nat episode kinda fell flat for me largely because the fighting moves were mostly one move. That took me out of it quite a bit. I also just didn't find it too entertaining.

I feel like I especially enjoyed the Ja/First episode, but I didn't watch it from a romantic angle at all. For me, First was literally just a possessive cat and his loving adoptive owner that's all there was to it. As a lifetime cat owner, I totally felt the friendship there. Especially in the bathroom scene. The abandonment Minjoon feels is exactly how I used to think my cat felt when I left him at home alone for too long. People who may have misinterpreted the scene where First gets really close t oJa's face (as if he's about to kiss him) should get more experience with cats. They do that. My cat used to like to get close to my face to just smell the air coming out of my nose. They're weird.

Yeah, not exactly everyone everywhere, but enough for the US to be easily within many countries' "Top 5 worst countries in the world" list...ironically right next to China.

Everyone everywhere complains about the US government. Many of the complaints you see might be coming from people who are actually within the reach of the CCP's foreign influence (i.e.-other Asians). I could, but I won't get into the CCP's complicated relationship with governments and the economies of their neighbors.

I don't hate it, but tbh I'm mostly sticking around for him too.

Yes and because I think it’s because it doesn’t step out of reality into romantic fantasy with as much fluff and cheese as the other stuff does. Lol

I think the English titles of this series are purposely made to be more evocative, personally. Though the original title directly translated to English fits a theme of this series just as well as it does in Thai, it comes off a lot more light-hearted than than the tone of this series actually is. If I heard of a series called, "Translate 'Love Me' with your Heart", I'd think of a rom-com with a guy who moves to a different country to work and falls in love with his co-worker or boss that he can't communicate well with because the guy doesn't speak his boss' language fluently yet. Or maybe a funny story between a poor translator and a diplomat with a heavy accent even. Just something light-hearted, not this.

Many, myself included, wouldn't even put this in the "BL" category at all. I also wonder if it's to early to say this isn't as good as ITSAY. Why do you think it isn't as good?

I think it’s all down hill from here emotionally. :( Tissues ready.

Don't feel bad. There don't seem to be any subtitles anyway. :(

I'll try. T_T

I still can't think of a bigger reason as to why this even exists other than for the ships and to be nostalgic, but the actors did well, especially Mean and Perth.

I’ve been simultaneously an avid fundashi and a huge fan of Luo Yunxi for Y E AR S. Now that it’s time for him to star in a BL/bromance, they’re stalling. Ugh! Patience? I don’t know her.

I think you might be referring to the amount of skin shown at the parades? Or maybe that it's too sexual? If so, I think it depends on the parade you go to. In Taipei, it's mostly just as you've seen it in the series. Everyone having fun, kids everywhere. Nothing overtly sexual.

I really loved the slice of life aspects of this drama. Cooking, picking Kai Kai up from school, playing with him. I also loved how it showed the normal stressful parts about being a parent like the scare of losing your kid for a while and dealing with tantrums. The dad's speech when he arrived to give them the bracelets also tugged quite a bit at my heartstrings. I definitely think we need more shows like this with gay people in family situations.

Now for the stuff I have some issues with. As adults, preparing to be parents, I understand that there are certain things that we have to just say "We'll cross that bridge when we come it" about like if your kid turns out to be super unruly and violent at school. That's not something at the front of your mind before you have a kid. However, being a gay parent of kid and not really having any idea (like not even a well-crafted lie) to tell to people you don't want to know that your kid has two dads seems like something that would have been discussed a lot earlier. Another thing is explaining to Kai Kai why he doesn't have a mom. He was 3. Like all other three year olds, they spend most of their time with their mom and dad and so that's who they always talk about. It's a wonder he didn't ask about that during the first week of daycare. It seems like they should have been a little better prepared with how to deal with that or at least have thought a great deal about it. Lastly, it strikes me as odd to start a family before fully coming out. Mian touches on this in the show a bit about how you don't want your kid to have to deal with the same awkwardness that you do. In spite of my opinions about those aspects, there's no such thing as a perfect parent, perfect family, or perfect circumstances, so I get that things will happen differently for everyone.

I'm not even going to rant as much as I truly want about how bad some of the acting was and how ridiculous Mian's excuse for not telling Jerry about Jimmy was. lol

True, but it's not as easy to find a grown American kid/preteen living in Taiwan as it to find an American adult. So, they probably just made do with what they had.

A short peek into the lives of two brothers trying to find their way. You can tell they each care for each other, but are both trying to carve out their own lives while being financially tied to each other. Being made in 2011, it really fits the dark theme both literally (by being filmed at night) and figuratively that characterized the sparsely populated world of gay Korean cinema during the last decade. A lot of emotions were implied through looks rather than fully displayed, which was totally ok for me and I feel like I was able to feel and understand everything quite clearly.