worth watching once but uneven

each aspect of the series had good and bad moments. The actress who played Shin Ye Chan's aunt certainly won't be winning a drama award anytime soon. Shin Ye Chan's performance had a lot nuance and depth, and in my opinion is one of the better performances in a Korean BL series thus far. I'm looking forward to his future performances on screen. The overall vibe created by the screenplay, directing, and performances naturally moves toward the lead characters inevitably kissing at some point, and that moment would be a pivotal part of the story. The end result felt like reading a book with a handful of pages torn out -- its omission broke the fourth wall and completely ruined any suspension of disbelief. If a kissing scene needed to be cut, then the screenplay either needed to be rewritten, or produced by a team comfortable including it.

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squandered promise

I was disappointed with how Bump Up Business turned out. In the premise there was so much potential for a far richer story. There should have been three or four members of Lion Heart, not just two, and two of which are gay, two straight. And the CEO decides to publicly announce that one gay and one straight member are a couple. And then the other gay member begins to fall for the gay member in the fake couple, setting up the standard BL love triangle trope. Meanwhile, fans begin to pick up on the artificiality of their relationship, and start shipping different lion heart members together, and posting absurd, hilarious, and/or cruel content on media. The unceasing media commentary begins to strain the members of the group. Sasaengs should have stalked them at the airport, and sent gifts to their private homes, confusing the love triangle further. The story really should have been a bl romance mixed with themes of the pressures idols feel to interact with fans, idols' right to privacy, and the folly of using same-gender romance as a marketing gimmick. All of that is just one suggestion. The story needed to be twice as long -- 16 episodes. After finishing the series it feels like the writers were going to go somewhat in the direction I described, but the production ran out of money halfway through and needed to end the series in a hurry.

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