Wasted Time

I'll start with a positive - the actors are really cute, and the guy playing Ohara is talented, with good subtlety of expression, and his eyes are beyond stunning. The guy playing Yamato is less impressive, although I doubt that's his fault as he was clearly directed to act like a manga character, which didn't work in live action. It rarely does.

The writing is abyssmal, stuffed with every possible cliche, and lazy beyond belief, with EVERY SINGLE important conversation or almost-kiss interrupted, often by the very people trying to get them together. This happened several times per episode, to the point I stopped caring and wondered where Godzilla is when you need him.

When everything is driven (or rather tha brakes applied) by ridiculous, contrived external events, some unbelievably coincidental - as if Tokyo is so small that you can't go anywhere without running into someone that wil ruin your relationship - there is no character development or organic development of the relationship, which was already there because of the childhood friends cliche. The only thing about this that I liked is that Yamato knew Ohara liked him, but consciously tried to deny to himself that he knew because he was afraid it would mess up their friendship.

I get that this is a chaste high-school drama, but there's a point where something is so devoid of heat that it's hard to understand why they should change their status as best friends. There are a couple of kisses, which were awful and destroyed by the obession with cliches, so that Yamato always had to have his eyes wide with shock, even when he was expecting to be kissed, which made it come off as vaguely non-consensual - not so much so that it was disturbing, but it left them totally without any quality that made it something I wanted to watch.

This is frustrating and ultimately boring and is the last JBL I will ever attempt to watch. I would pass, altough most otherpeople seemed to like it.

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Great acting, mediocre everything else. Awful editing.

I feel like this series isn't aimed at me, because I didn't think it was all that. The acting is wonderful, and the characters well-drawn. Even the minor roles are really well-acted.

The story, however, is pedestrian, melodramatic, and stuffed with cliches. The ganster angle was fine in the beginning, because we see what Qian had to do for his family - but when it comes back later, it's just unnecessary drama that drops out of the sky, and ruined the organic progression of the main relationship. It should have ben Yuan's absence abroad that made Qian confront his feelings, and it seemed like it was written that way - but for some reason the author didn't trust us to buy it and threw in a ridiculous plot thread where Yuan had to behave uncharacteristically idiotic (what on earth was his plan?). And the endless time-jumping - the first refuge of an author that can't imagine a coherent plot.

As for cliches, it's got it all, from suggestive seatbelting to hair blowdrying. At least the obligatory 30-year old with a critical illness cliche was written in a way that made sense, and they didn't overdo it.

The editing is just terrible, and nearly ruined the series. By Ep 9 I didn't care about the series anymore and stopped craving it like I had for the first 8 - there is not one emotionally important scene that isn't mutilated by an endless series of flashbacks played to the maudlin theme song, which is good. Occasssionally. Not stuffed in every conceivable moment and far beyond.

There's a very, very important scene in Ep 11 that shocked me how badly it was ruined, and I was thinking "this is just me, and I'm sure everyone else loved it", but I discovered in the forum that my opinion was almost universally held, which was a nice surprise - I'd hate to think I'm alone in the world.

This could have been an 11/10 with less indulgent writing and a good editor. As it was, the actors managed to carry it - Qian was stoic, but not cartoonishly so (except when played for humor, which was effectively done), the Lili is not OTT silly and wasa a surprisingly nuanced character, which I attribute to the actress, the gangster leader was clearly a man who pretends to be more insane than he is for stragtegic reasons, again ably acted, and the actors playing the younger versions of the characters were first-rate as well, which was wonderful - I even felt a little cheated at first when the younger Yuan's time was up.

I would recommend this, and I think the majority of fans will give this a 9.5 or a 10, but it's an 8 for me. A 9.5 for the acting, a five for everthing else, and a 2 for the editing.

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Cute but a bit shallow

This was a cute romance with good chemistry between the leads - especially in the earlier episodes. The dialogue was fairly snappy and cute, and it had many nice moments.

I think the premise is a little wasted. There were two directions they could have taken, but didn't. One would be to accent that he's a robot and doesn't really understand humans and human society outside of what someone could read, and all the funny situations that develop from that. There's a scene where the main character is so turned on by the robot that he has to "relieve himself" - I would have liked to see him wondering what's wrong with him, and asking himself is Ever 9 is in effect sophisticated porn.

The second, and probably the one that would have made the most sense, is to examine what a person is. What are we? We're constructed with our DNA as a blueprint and we have basic emotional and behavioral settings also programmed by our DNA, and the rest of what we are is based on whatever we experience. Is an artificial being like Ever 9 much different?

We often blame things we do on past trauma, essentially "programming" that we have no control over, so why is an AI any less a living thing, provided it is truly autonomous?

This was totally ignored, even in the decisions his uncle makes.

This reduces the premise to a shallow gimmick and the plot is formulaic and predictable. I enjoyed it until the last 2 episodes, which degenerated into a tedious montage of past happiness played against a truly sappy love ballad.

Speaking of which, the music in this was tiresome and got on my nerves in the last two episodes.

The acting and production values are quite good. Ever 9 is just robotic enough to seem not quite human while conveying emotion clearly, and the main character is good at portraying how closed and clueless he is in dealing with humans and only able to open up to a robot (another lost opportunity for examination).

This is a good series to binge - it was hard to wait for a weekly episode at the beginning, and the last few episodes are better all at once, especially the last two. I wouldn't enthusiastically recommend it, but it's cute and entertaining and short enough that even if it's not really your thing it's not a huge investment of time.

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Very ambitious production

I gave this a relatively high rating because the scale of ambition here is so high, and the execution is fairly impressive for such a low-budget production - not low in BL terms, but for the CGI and effects, and all the fight scenes, they got good bang for the buck.

The cast is beautiful - every frame is full of eye-candy (for me, it was all about Gap as Yai and Nat as Art, but they're all hot and gorgeous), it's well-filmed, the acting is overall very good, the music is a step above the norm - but the writing is a mess.

How would you summarize Phaya and Tharn's characters? How did they develop over the course of a long series? Their personalities are similar and there's no journey at all. Even Chalothon (played with wonderful malicious glee by Heng), who has the largest character development, does it with a light-switch off-screen in the #1 enemy of good writing, the lazy time-jump. The side characters were all better drawn than the mains - for example, I could describe Yai in detail, but to be fair, he and Nat were the two best actors in the series, and infused their characters with layers.

Instead of Tharn sulking in flashbacks for the entire final episode, wouldn't it have been nice to see Tharn & Chalothon's interaction? What was the point of the artist character (named "Art")? I appreciated having Nat Sakdatorn wearing very little on my screen for an episode, but it, like most of the plot threads, went nowhere.

The main day-to-day villain is stolen from a Scooby Doo cartoon - I almost expected the "and I would have gotten away with it too, if it weren't for those pesky kids!" His sidekick has no personality whatsoever, so he should consider himself lucky. I think we know who the mentioned but never seen Big Boss is, but I'm really not sure given the way the series ended.

Billy & Babe get high scores for their lack of inhibition in the love scenes - that was real kissing, and their bodies even touched - but they're so hyper-romanticized and formulaic that they lack any heat, and I just didn't feel it. There is chemistry between the characters, but it's more best-friend chemistry than lover chemistry, at least from Babe, who didn't show much emotional range and I just didn't feel the love from him like I did from Billy. It was strange that they had Tharn in drag in all the past life scenes - that really served no purpose. Even if that role in the mythology it's derived from is female, then either have a woman play the role in those scenes, or just make his character male.

The series had a lot of good stuff in it, some great visuals, some intense scenes, but it seemed a bit like a collection of ideas someone had for great scenes with no coherent plan behind it. There are many plot threads that go nowhere and just take up time (although again, I'm not going to complain about getting my naked Nat, useless or not). His storyline seemed like it belonged to a totally different series (which I would have much rather watched), and I can't help but wonder if this was written as an episodic serial rather than a coherent novel.

And in the end, I was bored. I think perhaps the biggest problem is the lack of stakes. Shot 15 times? No worries, pshaw, he'll be fine! Impaled with a magical ice spear? Just a flesh wound. Fall off a cliff and plunge 1000 meters onto rocks? A nasty bumb, for sure, but nothing to worry about. It even got to the point where when people made comments that are usually the kiss of death, like "when this is all over, I'll have your favorite meal waiting for you at home", I still wasn't worried. There are a few characters for whom there's an explanation for why they aren't bruised and battered after fights, but that shouldn't apply to their hair still being pefect, although I suppose being supernatural could include magically-arranging hair. (Speaking of which, Billy's hair in Ep 12. Yikes.)

I was hoping for a spectacular final confrontation, but nope, nothing of the sort, other than a drug raid which resolved nothing. There was too much that I had to fast-forward through - so many flashbacks and pointless scenes - and because there were no stakes and no real purpose to them, the fight scenes were just filler for me.

I would recommend this for the visuals and actors, but I don't understand the incredibly high score. It's worth watching, and I hope it emboldens more sci-fi & fantasy-themed BLs, and I applaud the effort that went into this, but with better writing it could have been a 10/10.

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Beautiful Story and Beautifully Shot

First, this is not for everyone. If you're expecting a BL, you can stop expecting a BL - it's not one. There is an LGBT aspect of the story, and the male gaze is present as Atom wears very little thorughout which is a goldmine for shallow people like me, and when he is dressed up, he looks amazing.

Reading the comments section, there is a bit of overstatement of the theatricality of the series. It is intentionally play-like, but the purely visual elements are of equal importance to the dialogue, and I think that because this was deceptively marketed a BL, the audience was looking for BL and not seeing what was really there, and you can't blame the audience for that.

If you approach this as a straightforward story, you may hate it - it's an allegory, so it's important to think about what everyting symbolizes and what is metaphor, and what the message is.

There are many related themes, a couple of the more surfacy ones being the futility of second-guessing past decisions - and the utility of atonement in order to move on.

The structure of the story has Sunshine given the power to totally erase a person from the universe each night for 7 Days before Valentine('s - I wish these productions could get the grammar of the title correct), and the correct decision will bring love back to him. Each erasure has a lessson, but this causes the biggest problem with the series and what I think is the main reason so many people disliked it and/or dropped it:

it's too long, One of the erasures is a self-indulgent political statement by the writer, which didn't belong in here. What would have been more meaningful and universal would have been to erase the Conservative, ending up in a Stalinist far-left conformity, as without balance even the side you're on can become descend into oppression.

Another of the erasures just makes Sunshine evil and malicious and should not have been included, Some of his decisions are bad, but viewed through the lens of his heartbreak is understandable, but this one isn't - it's just awful of him.

The acting in this is fantastic - the series rests firmly on Atom's shoulders, and he carries it. His heartbreak is heartbreaking, his smile is even worse (so beautiful it hurts), and there's a scene with him on stage that's worth it in itself. Jet is good too, but he has a more limited range and I don't think he quite kept up with Atom. The small parts are all very well acted, even "annoying stock characters" that made them all compelling, like Jared the Flower Guy. who could have just been irritating, but it's hard not to fall in love with him.

I loved this series, but I did feel it bogged down in the middle. If you can put up with that, the end is worth it. But again, this is not a BL, so don't watch it expecting one.

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Sweet and Funny

First: There's a lot of pearl-clutching in the discussion section about the age gap, and particularly that Toki is a minor when the story starts. If you're uninterested in this topic, skip down to ANYWAY.

I really don't see how this is objectionable. So Toki has a crush on a handsome and charming teacher - haven't we all been there? My junior high PE teacher was so hot I spent all day in the restroom "imagining" things he could do to me, and I was 13 and he was 20-something.

The point is that Sahara makes it plain that nothing is going to happen, although he does say he'll wait for Toki to grow up, and there is a time skip at the end to when he's 18. It's hard to tell how old Sahara is because the same actor, who is 26, plays him in flashbacks. I would guess he's 6-7 years older. Big deal. My first positive experience was with a 26-year old when I was 18 - it was wonderful to have someone experienced and kind to ease me in, as opposed to boys my age, who just wanted what 18-year old boys are wont to want.

17-year olds do - almost invariably and universally - develop crushes on people of varying ages, and let's be honest, there is nothing you can do about it if you're an adult who has a crush on a minor. If he's 10, there might be something really wrong with you, but if he's 17 with an adult body, it can happen. You just don't act on it. There is a huge difference between having feelings for someone and acting on it. One you can't help, the other you can.

There is an accidental kiss, but it's not sexualized in the least - in fact they're both mildly injured by it and Toki reflects sardonically that his first kiss tasted like blood.

ANYWAY.

Toki is a fascinating character, immature in behavior, but unusually mature in moral fibre and inner strength - it's no wonder what Sahara sees in him, not to mention his looks. The actor does a wonderful job, making Toki both vulnerable and strong, affecting and really funny. Sahara is a less interesting character, but he's not without complexity either.

There is a lot of comedy in the series - most of it is pretty funny, and some of it is too obviously adapted from manga - where running screaming offpage works better than it does in live action.

This is a sweet story with a lot of charm and one of the best BL characters I've seen in a while with Toki - I'd fall in love with him too.

On the negative side, way, way too much time is chewed up by Sahara's former love interest, who brings the narrative to a screeching halt for a character that isn't introducted until two thirds through the series and who it's nearly impossible to care about. I found myself internally screaming "I DON'T CARE GO AWAY" You will want, no, NEED, to take clippers to his ridiculous bangs. I think his stylist must be the ghost from The Ring. There's a flashback to a confession in the rain that we're shown so many times that I nearly bought a plane ticket to Tokyo to go slap someone. Nekoto is dull, depressive, irrelevant, and takes forever to say anything - he should have been limited to one scene, not stretched out over 2 episodes.

Anyway, the payoff at the end is worth it, but I do wish that time had been spent on Toki & Sahara or on the secondary couple, who I hope get their own series.

I highly recommend this - unless you're one of the abovementioned pearl-clutchers, in which case you should probably just go to church instead.

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Maybe there's something wrong with me.

When I started this I was pleasantly surprised - I thought Vice Versa was awful, and so I had no expectations. But both Jimmy and Sea were much improved, the story, although a bit formulaic, wasn't overly so, especially in having two men in the lead roles and not a seme and uke, and I engaged with and enjoyed the series. I especially thought Sea was doing a good job as it's hard to show feelings without using your eyes.

But like so many Thai series, it's way, way too long - I'd say twice as long as it should have been, and so many of its positive qualities grew stale.

I had liked how Day and Mhok interacted like guys, teasing each other - but that got so tiresome and predictable that I began to sigh wearily at it all.

Anyway, the central problems for me:

There is no character development. And what little there is is erased by the way the series ends. Mhok's character changes, but it doesn't develop. He starts off as a sexy rough and surly guy who is suddenly neutered and can take any amount of abuse with infinite grace and forgiveness, to the point that he's a total simp, thanking Day for dumping him and breaking his heart. It's a light-switch flipping, not a journey. All of his issues are passed over, like his grief over his sister - it doesn't play into the plot at all past the first couple of episodes, when it's used to propel Mhok into the caretaker job, then he forgets she existed, except to create manufactured drama in Ep 11. Day, on the other hand, starts off as a self-centered entilted brat, and ends exactly the same. You'll note he never shows any concern for anyone other that himself, other than obeying his harpy of the mother (who is supremely well acted, but she's awful. And let's get real - there is 0% chance she would accept her eldest son marrying a poor girl with a baby by someone else. 0%.)

There is no plot.

Everything is just arranged to present romatic set pieces. For example, at Christmas, Day comes to surprise Mhok after work, in a cute reflection of an earlier surprise visit by Mhok to Day's house. They have dinner and Mhok says it's a moment that's so wonderful that he wishes it could last forever. Awww, so sweet. Except that Day had just ditched him all day at Christmas without sending a text like a complete asshole, making Mhok sad all day. Mhok, who used to be surly, is now a saint and isn't even slightly upset about this, because... well, reasons. He has no character anymore, and the plot doesn't either. There is no interplay of action->reaction. Did anyone even for a second think Mhok was the groom in Ep 12? Come on, do they think we're stupid?

The writing is cheesy.

Not a little bit cheesy, but relentlessly, oppressively cheesy. "I used to believe that people were blind because they couldn't see things. I just realized today that true blindness is being unable to see hope." Ugh. It's like the author robbed the greeting card rack of a convenience store and dumped their contents into her story. Even the one occassion of meta-awareness of this cheesiness is cheesy: "I've heard many such cheesy lines, but this is the first time I've believed one."

The morality and moralizing is way off-base.

How was Night to blame for anything? All he did is got drunk. It was Day who practically let go of the wheel and certainly took his eyes off the road (which was a lost opportuntity for irony and consequences paid for actions) to search for a bucket or something, as if there would be one in the car, instead of just pulling off the road. Night should have been praised for not trying to drive drunk, not condenmed to being blamed by everyone including his awful mother. Why does Mhok have to apologize for not wanting to move to a different country and have to be away from the man he loves? If Hawaii were the only place in the world he could get a cooking career, OK, sure, we can discuss that, but DAY'S MOTHER IS A CELEBRITY CHEF. There are better oppotunities at home.

The acting is OK.

Like I said, much improved, but the "enemies" portion of the story had the best acting, and it was interesting storywise because they weren't really enemies - it was a bit of a game to hide their mutual attraction and it was quite lovely. But in the end, I don't think either actor shined, and this is underscored by how strong Mark Pakin is - the most moving moment in the whole series is his reaction to being forgiven. I didn't feel the romantic chemistry between the leads at all - they had good "friend" chemistry, but their interaction is so sexless (and I don't mean sex scenes, which can be more sexless than anything, I mean no heat between them) that it felt like a primary-school relationship with tickling and sniff-kisses to the cheek being about all we see. Again, Mark and Namtan outshone them - I felt the heat the first time they met and it never abated. Sea had a hard job, and he did his best, which was not bad, but it grew dull by the end. Jimmy can do sad-puppy-dog and sexy smirk very well, but that's about it, and he too grew dull.

The writing is shallow.

This could have been about dealing with loss and resiliance, about moving on and adapting to adversity, but Day's character is so thin and inconsistent that we get no depth. His reaction to an unsuccessful surgery implying permanent blindness is wasted on the greeting-card line I referenced above and he processes the situation for literal minutes before being totally over it. And the ending renders the entire series a pointless string of plot points with no meaning or impact. Instead of dealing with the consequences of their decisions, the story makes a time jump, the first refuge of an incompetent writer, and skips over all that for an insta-reunion. Well, not instant, as there had to be a rush-to-the-airport cliche thrown in. Sigh.

In the end, this was just boring. There was a whole episode about jogging. In Ep 12, even the YouTube algorithm was despondent and kept throwing reaction videos to Deadpool into the queue instead of the next part of the episode. The rating of this as I write is 8.6, which is astoundingly high - but I'm willing to bet that in a year it will be down around half a point. There are lovely moments in this that buoy the score, and many people vote early on and don't change it - but subsquent viewers will binge it and it just won't have an 8.6 impact on them, and I doubt people will be talking much about this in a year, because there's nothing to talk about.

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Cute and forgettable

I enjoyed this, and I would recommend it, but it's a bit of a missed opportunity. There is no character work at all - and before anyone says it, it had the same run-time as The Godfather, so don't tell me there wasn't time for character arcs.

Its started off brilliantly, with the tsundere character actually being an insane fanboy barely repressing himself, which was genuinely funny - I even laughed out loud, which is unusual for me. The main character is surly, but in an interestingly masculine way even inside his cute boyish body.

But the entire plot is driven by misunderstanding, including implausible easily cleared up ones. A misunderstanding needs to be driven by the nature of the character, not just thrown in and not explained or dealt with, and the resolution also needs to be consistent with the characters. None of that is the case - the ending is just... the end. It happens suddenly and without any character progression or processing of anything, including the state of someone's apartment.

The chemistry between the leads was so-so - it wasn't unbelievable, but it also wasn't palpable.

This was cute and enjoyable, but I don't think I'll remember any of it in a month except for how delightfully weird Akafuji is and how it did things to me whenever Aoyanagi was angry.

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The cake is too dry.

It looks great on the outside, but it tastes like sawdust.

The cast is special. Atom is fantastic at everything, including perfect comic timing, Guide is both adorable and sexy, Poom is gorgeous and an excellent actor, and Ohm showed up to work.

The chemistry of the main couple is non-existent. Or I should say Guide makes a valiant effort but he pours his chemistry onto a fencepost. If only this series had Poom in the lead role - he and Guide had so much better chemistry that it was nearly impossible to cheer on the main pairing.

It's a mercy this was only 6 episodes, but it should have been 2 or 3. Or it could have worked as 6 if anything ever went anywhere or was explored. Why is Atom & Oab's mother like that? Why didn't Atom's character arc go anywhere? Why was Atom always wearing a shirt? What happened to Guy's store? Why did they wait until the last 2 minutes to sell grandma's cakes? Everthing is surface and there's no real character development. Shin SAYS he's become compassionate, but we never really saw it. Grandma is cute, but she's a stereotype of grandmotherly grandmotherness. (It's a minor miracle that she made it to the end - I lost a lot of money on that bet.)

I can't recommend this - it's dull and pointless, although if you want to stare for a few hours at a bunch of gorgeous men and Ohm, you may get some pleasure out of this.

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Beautiful short story

This is a fairly economically-written story in which more happens than in some longer series, and with an emotional authenticity often sorely lacking in BL.

The reactions of the three characters are very realistic and age-appropriate, experiencing heratbreak, longing, jealousy, love, and especially loyalty in non-pathological ways. Loyalty is an important theme in the story, prioritizing it over attraction, and making it a primary characteristic to be attracted to. Poon has a fight with his best friend in which he even punches him, but it doesn't break up their friendship because the best friend understands Poon's motivation and even values it. It's obviously wrong to hit someone, but nobody, especially high school boys, has perfect self-control, and he apologizes and they discuss it like good and mature people.

It's a really beautiful story, wonderfully acted by very attractive boys and well filmed and edited. My only criticism is that there is too much flashback for such a short story. One is excusable as it's from the previous part, but there are others that are from the previous scene, which is tiresome and unnecessary. Also, Rachmaninoff needs royalties for the score, but it works well with the story.

I can highly recommend this - Mind Trio is batting 1,000 at this poiint.

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Well, that happened.

I'm not sure I've watched as series that's had such a reversal in my opinion of it. I was excited after the first episode - I like Meen & Ping, and I had hoped for a better vehicle for them than Ai Long Nhai, and here it was! But it was just a trick.

The first couple of episodes were good and engaging, with an odd and silly intersection of gaming and gangsters - I thought it would be campy fun, but instead, we got an endless stream of people making inexplicably bad decisions - solely to get the plot to progress from step to step. In order for there to be final drama, Tew has to spare the life of someone totally psychotic and evil when doing so put himself, Guy, the Boss, and everyone else associated with them in mortal danger - in fact it was double suicide, because he disobeyed the Boss to do this. It was so completely stupid and out of character that it pulled me completely out of the story. Maybe if the villain had been compelling instead of the offspring of a non-binary clown and John Lennon it could have worked, but Kenji is such an awful actor that his scenes gave me secondhand embarassment. (Tommy has a day job as a model, so he'll be fine - and he is fine, underneath the clown suit they make him wear.)

The rest of the series is a meandering mess, with an intriguing secondary couple that doesn't go anywhere, and a ton of side characters that could have been integrated into the story - like what if instead of being a sneering Beetle the villain had been sophisticated and smart, and it took the whole crew to take him down using their individual skills? But nope, all we got was Elton John on a bad hair day chewing up the scenery and also making insanely stupid decisions.

In the final episode there were lots of time jumps, over the types of things that it would have been interesting to watch, like the secondary couple getting together, but it was apparently necessary to cut all that out to include lots of scenes of Tew cooking boring dishes and having the same conversation with Ping on an endless loop.

OK, the positives - Meen is hot. I'm not even sure that's subjective. In fact the whole cast is attractive to the point that it made me watch the whole series (with judicious fast-fowarding).

Winner Tanatat is wasted on a side role, but he absolutely nails it and makes Wal a fully-realized character rather than just a villain-esque dick. He managed to play Wal as a loyal and loving friend while still giving him an unpleasantly domineering edge, but never so much as to send him over the line into villainy.

The fight scenes were not exactly cinematic in quality, but there were impressive for a small production like this.

I can't recommend this. Meen takes off his shirt a couple of times, which is worth seeing, but he probably does that on social media somewhere and you can stare at the glory that is his body all you want.

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Not bad. Not great, but not bad.

There are a lot of good things about this - the acting is solid, especially from Hsiao Hung, who throws himself 110% into the role. His character can be a little OTT, but he pulls it off, and he has really good comic timing.

The story and writing are not the strongest aspect of this - it leans way, way too heavily on misunderstanding, which is a particular crutch of Asian drama. Shang Zhou's emotional constipation is well-supported, and it's clear his character was formed by an unloving mother, so I did buy that, but it's carried too far - there is a situation in particular that could have been solved by a "yes" or even a subtle nod of his head, and Shun Yu's misunderstanding of the situation is less explainable and comes off as forced drama.

This works well as a comedy, but the problem is that it veers to heavily into drama, which is tonally dissonant and none of the drama is sufficiently supported.

What might have worked better is to have made the mother a more central villain, and made her the obstacle that had to be overcome, rather than really stupid misunderstandings. That would aslo have made Shun Yu's "boss moment" in the final confrontation with her much more satisfying. It was very well-acted, and it was quite a moment to see him finally become confident in love, but if there had been more of a development arc to that point it would have had a larger payoff.

The interaction between the two as a couple at the end was some of the best I've ever seen in a BL, with both of them acting like men, and not shying away from affection, There's no sex, but the way they hug and touch each other is uninhibited and convincing.

I really hope to see Hsiao Hung again - he's really talented, not to mention beautiful and hot. That skin is like porcelain.

Anyway, there is a lot of frustration in the second half, but the payoff in the finale is quite good, so I can recommend this, although there are some parts you might want to ff through.

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Very good, stops short of great

There is lot to recommend this series - foremost the acting, which is uniformly excellent. I'm not sure I've ever seen couples behave more realistically and without reserve - you really felt like these were people with feelings for each other. The physical affection in this is natural and convincing, with lovers sleeping cuddled up and not wearing enough clothing to survive arctic exposure with a minimum of one meter between them at all times like is typical in BL.

There's clearly a lot of passion that went into this production, from direction, to wardrobe, to all aspects of the production, and it makes a huge difference.

The dialog is better than normal, and most of the characterization is steady and consistent.

There are a few issues, however. This is a classic enemies-to-lovers story, and it's at its best - as usual - in the enemies portion, with an interesting and fairly equal dynamic that's unusual and entertaining, with the enigmatic and non-maliciously manipulative Zherui showing up in bizarre and unexpected ways, and the frustrated and grumpy Zong Yi trying to get rid of him while missing him when he's gone. There is no particular seme-uke dynamic at first, which is refreshing, and when they do fall into those roles it's in an unexpected way.

The secondary couple is more clearly seme-uke, but the uke is not useless and without agency. He's crazy and mercurial, and would benefit from a steady-handed partner, but I liked that he's to be reckoned with, not a helpless damsel.

There are, however, a few issues which prevent this from reachingthe top tier. One is the convoluted plot with many holes in it and contrived relationships and coincidences, greatly exacerbated by numerous very large time jumps which plaster over organic resolution of dramatic tension, i.e. the important things tend to happen off-screen.

There is also a silly cliffhanger at the end of every episode and in the middle of them as well. For example. a character is shot, but it turns out with a rubber bullet as part of a life lesson someone was trying to teach which was totally ridiculous. Someone is stabbed, and in the next scene his friends are standing at a bridge with white flowers. To give to him because it was only a flesh wound (to the intestines) - never mind that white flowers are for the dead, and that was just cheap misdirection for 10 seconds of angst. The cliffhangers required a lot of time to be burned on backtracking to fill us in on what happened, and made it very difficult to follow the series if you watched it weekly - so I would recommend binge-watching. As it was, I usually had to review the previous episode because the beginning of each episode is unconnected to the end of the last.

Finally, the dynamic between the main pair descends into stereotypical BL roles, with the formerly grumpy and irritated Zong Yi transmogrifying into a sweet romantic lead, which is frankly boring and inconsistent with the character as originally drawn. He was bound to soften a bit, but he didn't need to become a different person. Clearly the writer wanted lovey-dovey interaction, but it could have been done with some of the edge left in. Due to what happens along the way, he suffers from a short-term memory problem - for about 5 minutes after a huge time jump, then it more or less goes away and has no further impact on anything.

There is a fake memory loss plot that is resolved so quickly that it's pointless and probably should have been left out. The story arc of the mafia boss was very well-acted, but had so little impact that it essentially wasted time. Too much was attempted for the run-time available, when it would have been better to just cut out elements that weren't necessary to the story.

Would I recommend this series? Definitely. Despite the criticisms above, it has so much going for it that the problems are overbalanced by it's good qualities, not least of which the unbelievable attractiveness of the cast - they are all smokin', and even better are all talented and skilled actors.

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It's OK

This series had a lot going for it - a good cast, interesting main characters that are well-acted, the main character's smoke-show brother lifting heavy boxes... but the quality of the writing is low, with improvised moments ending up the highlights of the series.

The plot is frustrating, as Phumjai (Offroad) spends two thirds of the series obsessing over a girl, who in fairness is not evil and doesn't attempt to sink the ship. Once the romance starts, it's immediately derailed by a ridiculous plot turn that could have been fun if it went camp like it did at the very end, but unfortunately was instensely boring. the writing is poor, repetitive, and lazy. There's a point where it turns out Yang has a number code system for some reason, including a code number for "just don't come". What possible purpose would he have for that phrase? Unless he's kinky or something.

There's too much of people behaving out of character just to move the plot along. Yang won't allow Phumjai to give him $5,000, but he's OK with selling Phumjai's brother into slavery? OK, good to see he has his priorities in order. That did lead to Phojai lifting heavy things shirtless and sweaty, so it was all worth it in the end, I guess.

Offroad has always been compelling, and Daou Pittaya is a stunning man... when he's not disfigured with a hideous wig. Why is BL so terrified of short hair on men? Look what they've done to poor Frank Thanatsaran!

Anyway, this is silly and immature - it left me missing high school dramas and engineers - but the cast is able to compensate and make it a worthwhile watch. Special mention goes to Ngern Anupart who had me fanning myself whenever he was onscreen - I hope we get to see him in a lead role at some point.

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A surprisingly good series

The first two episodes were confusing and not too engaging, but it's well worth giving it a chance.

This is one of the most attractive casts I've seen in a long time, and the acting is fairly good. There are three couples, the main pair and the two side couples - as is not uncommon, the side couples far outshone the main pair, who were the weakest in every regard - their story was odd and full of holes, they looked like they were held at gunpoint to play gay, and their kisses were among the worst I've ever seen. Fortunately, J-Min has his singing career to fall back on, and Kim Yeong Suk looks really, really good with his shirt off, and I liked that the show didn't pretend his abs had no effect on Lee Hyun.

The other two pairs have wonderful chemistry and their characters are more appealing, with MVP going to Lee Kwang Hee as Maru, who is a powerhouse of vulnerability and cuteness and yet so sexy.

I liked how this was about pairs of guys, and didn't divide them into ukes and semes - in fact it subverted expectations. You would assume Sung Min was the seme - older, taller, more muscular. and yet passive and shy, whereas Joo Hyuk is more assertive and confident. None of which means anything in real life about who does what in bed.

The last episode is a bit of a throw-away and could have been skipped, although it wasn't unpleasant.

Anyway, I'd recommend this - it's possibly my favorite BL series lately.

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