BL Compilations

extremely well done

Overall: acting, tension and production were all stellar in this series. 6 episodes about 22 minutes each. Was available on Viki under the title "The Novelist", currently available on  GagaOOLala https://www.gagaoolala.com/en/videos/2189/pornographer-2018-e01 

Content Warnings: manipulation, dub con touching/kissing/and more, alcoholism, punch

What I Liked
- tension/chemistry
- some of the best intimate scenes ever (natural noises, facial expressions, body movements)
- acting (the silent screaming scene in episode 5 was amazing)
- production value (cinematography, music, attention to props like Kuzumi's shirt in ep 3)

Note: I normally struggle with manipulative leads in romances, but although Kijima is flawed, I still want him to work through his stuff and end up with Kuzumi. I think that is testament to strong writing and acting. 

Room For Improvement
- the voice over
- could have shortened the story of the student and his teacher in ep 1
- multiple running scenes
- up to 2 minute recaps at the start of episodes
- in episode 6 I've never understood the "though I'm a liar, I'll keep my promise" as he doesn't in the morning, but perhaps it's the promise to do what Kuzumi asked him earlier in the episode

Franchise Watch Order
Pornographer aka The Novelist (2018)
Pornographer: Indigo Mood aka Mood Indigo (2019) (this is a prequel but should be watched after The Novelist)
Pornographer: Spring Life (2021)
Pornographer: Playback (2021)
Pornographer: Continued Spring Life (2021)

Read More

feels dated (and not a BL)

Overall: this is a sitcom about two guys who pretend to be a couple for views/money. I did not interpret this as a BL or censored BL. There are maybe hints with one guy towards the other but it did not feel mutual. 12 episodes about 10 minutes each, on GagaOOLala.

Content Warnings: attempted self harm played as comedy, mentions of stalking, harassment, fight

What I Liked
- laughed 3 times
- abs
- the innuendo in the title (and at one point they cooked eggplant so maybe that was on purpose)
- translator notes

Room For Improvement
- did not see mutual attraction/love, definitely didn't see the same kind of hints/chemistry like in other censored things from China
- the laugh track, didn't find majority of their jokes funny
- making fun of masculine woman and effeminate men
- making fun of abusive contracts
- bad sound quality in episode 3

Read More

sweet and fluffy moments from two couples of Coffee Melody

Overall: this is a follow up 1 year later of two couples from Coffee Melody the series. I rate the 1st episode 7 and 2nd 8 for an average of 7.5. Each episode is about 30 minutes long. Aired on YouTube.

Content Warnings: none

What I Liked
- the fluffy, domestic bliss and sweet moments (and there were quite a few)
- the teaching moments in episode 2
- same sex marriage advocacy in both episodes

Room For Improvement
- in both of these it felt like their dialogue and physical affection is what we'd see at the start of dating, not after 1 year, episode 1 had more physical affection but they felt unnaturally shy about it
- particularly in episode 1, scenes jumped around and lacked a coherent story line, episode 2 was less jumpy
- the road noise was a bit loud over some of the talking scenes outside
- the intro has a bunch of characters that aren't in either episode which seems strange (they were characters from the full series)
- a bit too slow paced for me which is reminiscent of the series

Read More

A sweet, slice of life high school story

Overall: a nice, short (35min) realistic movie about two high schoolers, one of whom is trying to figure out who he is and what he wants

Content Warning: homophobia (mainly from 1 teacher, bleh)

What I Liked
- the theme of being true to yourself and pursuing your dreams
- a confident, out gay guy (and his friends were fine with his sexual orientation)
- the pairing of a goofy extrovert and a quiet introvert (this reminds me of MODC)
- how both apologize for pushing each other (both physically and mentally)

Room For Improvement
- no sense of how much time passed when they were getting to know each other or after the incident
- the night scenes are too dark and need a bit more lighting
- the two female students were intrusive and were not being as supportive as they thought
- the female teacher telling him not to pursue art and then being terrible at classroom management
- the male teacher for being homophobic (slight redemption after the incident)
- the ending was fine, but it would have been nice to have a super short scene (or even pics) during/after the credits with them meeting up later
- having both small hard coded and soft coded English subs, they were actually a bit different but I couldn't tell which was better (watched on gagaoolala)

Read More

A beautiful story about family, love, self-acceptance, regret & atonement

Content Warnings: (not between m/m) character death, suicide (not shown and not sure if that's what happened)

Overall: I was moved to tears by a beautiful story about what it really means to be family (it's more than biology), how to accept oneself, and trying to right past wrongs. FYI the title on GagaOOLala is "On The Way Home."

What I Liked
- the themes of the story that I mentioned: family, love, self-acceptance, regret, atonement/2nd chances
- the friend's reactions were realistic, almost like going through stages of grief such as disbelief, anger, sadness and acceptance

Room For Improvement
- the m/m relationship was too off screen for me. It was a major factor of what happened, but if I hadn't read the synopsis, I wouldn't have even known anything until too far into the movie. I'm not saying that I wanted NSFW scenes, just to show the love between the characters and how the daughter was feeling left out (see below point)
- I realize the daughter was going through quite a lot, but there could have been additional motivation (like showing what was happening at school for example, was she being bullied? did she see classmates display homophobia and it made her worried?) to give her actions more reasoning behind them

Read More

didn't feel the chemistry

Overall: 8 episodes about 8 minutes each. Aired on Lovememory YouTube channel https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwW9ZsuS2FnYxGa2hkgRv7hMGCneDNfdA&si=XMjQlQBH_K9FXIr_

Content Warnings: manipulation, manhandling, college professor/student (did not bother me)

What I Like
- a forthright character
- a character talked about something right away to get answers in episode 3

Room For Improvement
- did not feel chemistry
- some awkward kissing
- why did a character lie about his feelings? it didn't seem that he had that low of self esteem
- the line "you can use me and throw me away"
- hopefully it was a mistranslation but the line in eps 6/7 that all female students were pitiful

Read More

First Impression: Double Helix

Overall: I'm a bit leery of the dynamic, rating could change quite a bit in either direction depending on characters/plot. 12 episodes about 40 minutes each. I have not read the book this series is based on, I have watched the two one hour movies from 2016 (A Round Trip to Love) but will try to review the series based on its own merits.

Content Warnings: there are several, I'm keeping this spoiler free for now

What I Liked
- acting
- sweet moments
- I did appreciate the apology in episode 2

Room For Improvement
- the wealthy/powerful aggressive pursuer and the not wealthy/not powerful reluctant pursuee dynamic didn't work for me because the pursuee felt more like an abuse victim most of the time
- characters were a bit stupid to realize that there could have been family interference
- it's a shame the sweet moments were mainly montage, wish that would have been longer so I could root more for their romance, really hope this isn't going to be 10 episodes of abuse and then HEA in the last 10 minutes of episode 12

Question: I'm not sure when this is supposed to take place. I saw landlines but also iPhones (first created in 2007). If it's set a couple decades ago, then the other students freaking out at school would make a bit more sense because I can't see that happening now.

Read More

one of my favorite BL series with a sci-fi element

Overall: wish they would have explained a few more things. 8 episodes about 25 minutes each. Aired on iQIYI https://www.iq.com/play/always-meet-again-episode-1-1d04lztvma8?lang=en_us ; GagaOOLala https://www.gagaoolala.com/en/videos/6303/always-meet-again-2026 (not available in U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, U.K., Mexico, Spain, Chile, Peru, Colombia, Argentina, Brazil, Portugal, Japan, Korea, and Taiwan); Heavenly (S. Korea) and FOD (Japan)

Content Warnings: (a major one but it's complicated), blood, punch

What I Liked
- different situation where time travel happened
- protagonist had a believable amount of disbelief, then acceptance
- flirty protagonist
- how a character acted on the information he had and when he gained new information he changed his actions realistically

Room For Improvement
- a character punched another character (which seemed like an overreaction) and then suddenly all was fine and dandy, a few nonsense things happened
- there were aspects of world building that they never explained

Read More

Love Triangles, part 2 (more triangles and a worse plot)

Overall: the writers thought that they didn't have enough characters/love triangles so they threw in another triangle and then made them into rectangles? Am I in geometry class? If you want to watch idiots and jerks totally mess up their love lives, then this is the show for you. I slogged thru ep 1, 2, 6 and 8 and cannot bring myself to watch the rest. Watched on Gagaoolala.

What I Liked
- Valen's awkward attempts at moving their relationship forward in the beginning was kind of adorable
- overall production value was good, a few errors with the English subs but not bad
- the enjoyable OST is by Jeff Satur
- the kissing scene was fairly well done in ep 1, at least no dead fish lip press kiss
- I did appreciate that there was an apology from Mr. Goldfish Memory

Room For Improvement
- characters were really stupid and unlikable, I'm not even going to get into all the ways that they were awful
- a 16 minute recap of season 1 out of a 45min episode, 16 minutes! I like a short recap to center what happened before but this was way too long. And it wasn't clear where it ended. Weren't they lying in the sand/water at the end of season 1, that's where it should have started.
- a third love triangle, you've got to be kidding me (update they got even worse with even more characters added in to create love rectangles)
- Kaitoon is the stupidest protagonist, he has both the memory and brain of a gold fish. He can't figure out that either guy is romantically interested in him? And why can't they just tell him directly? Kaitoon and Valen stupidly started back at square 1 when I thought they were going to advance their relationship in season 2.

Read More

a darker revenge short series

Overall: this was not a fluffy romance but I didn't judge it by fluffy romance standards. 6 episodes about 10 minutes each. Aired on Secret of Us YouTube channel https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7BSona1dmx4ez-PNNMmmFsAt8zwjDhsj&si=tbfb1Upl2OXvxJGa

Content Warnings: sexual assault, violence, blood, non con recording, stalking, manhandling, blackmail, deaths/murders, non con kissing turned consensual, drugging, past bullying, threatened suicide

Notes:
- to skip most of the content warnings start episode 1 at 2:15 and episode 4 at 4:45, then end it at episode 5 9m30s
- the subtitles say half brother but it might mean step brothers (i.e. not biologically related)

What I Liked
- bath tub scene
- the BL manga
- when a character decided to change (in ep 4 after 4:45)

Room For Improvement
- flash forward/present and then went back to start
- seemed needlessly dark with the third guy
- no consequence shown for a terrible character

Read More