So, about that throuple...

I'm not going to dive into the show as a whole, plenty of people have already done that. Instead, I want to talk about the throuple in particular, in case anyone is debating to watch the show because of it.

First of all, I want to say that I applaud the show for actually including something that isn't your standard monogamous relationship. Throuples are a real thing, and they are in desperate need of representation. This show is a first step in a long journey, and I'm very glad of it. I've seen my fair share of Thai BLs at this point, and I've never seen this done before, so props to Deep Night for trying (No, I'm not counting Unforgotten Night because that was basically just a threesome without any build up or follow up, so let's not talk about that trash fire of a show).

That being said, I don't think the throuple in this show was done very well. There were interesting ideas, but the execution just wasn't it. Granted, they were the side characters of an 8 episode show, so it's not like there really was much room to explore this relationship to begin with. I think that was the first mistake. If they were going to tackle this right, the show needed to be longer with more room for development of this romance.

Let's dive into the different dynamics of these three guys, shall we?

So, first you have Seiji, who is basically the focal point. He's been best friends with Ken since they were kids and Ken has a major crush on Seiji. I think Seiji is also supposed to have feelings for Ken, but I honestly couldn't tell until he agreed to the whole throuple idea - but I think that's just because the actor was doing a poor job at depicting any semblance of chemistry. Which was part of the downfall, but anyway... So, Seiji and Ken are best friends and everything's great until Japan shows up. Seiji and Japan have a strong case of insta-love - meaning that they like each other for no discernible reason at all right from the get-go. However, Seiji plays hard to get (Assumably because he has feelings for Ken too, but I only know that now in hindsight. While watching the show, I was confused why he didn't just go for Japan, but again, bad acting paired with unclear writing). With Japan coming into the picture, Ken suddenly decides that it's now or never, and the two of them begin to compete for Seiji's love. Which ultimately results in Seiji kissing Japan, thusly making his choice, and them beginning to date. Ken is heartbroken and walking around all sad and dejected. Japan is feeling guilty over the whole thing and Seiji feels bad about it all too. Again, I assumed Seiji was feeling bad because he hurt his best friend, not because he actually likes Ken, but I digress. Japan talks about feeling guilty, leading to his friend joking about how they could always have a threesome. Japan then fantasies about said threesome which came completely out of the blue. And funnily enough, in his imagination, both other guys are basically focused entirely on him, rather than Japan and Ken focusing on Seiji, who's the one they both have feelings for. This left me confused once again, because I assume this was the writers' attempt at showing that Japan kinda has the hots for Ken or likes him or something, but it was done so poorly that it just left me feeling very wtf-ish. Anyway, after his little fantasy, Japan proposes to Seiji and Ken that Seiji could date them both. Which he definitely should've discussed with Seiji first, before mentioning anything to Ken but oh well... Japan says that Seiji having two boyfriends means double the care and double the happiness (It would also mean double the issues, but I won't ruin their fun). Ken agrees to this, and Seiji - with all the enthusiasm and emotion of a depressed piece of toast - does too. Alas, the throuple is formed. They have a group hug, and a few cute montage scenes. The end. No kissing, not actual threesome, nada. Just a lot of unanswered questions and frustrations.

Basically, during that scene of Japan proposing the throuple idea, we were led to believe that it's going to be both him and Ken dating Seiji. There is no talking about Japan and Ken also being romantically involved. Which was the biggest point of confusion for me, because of his threesome fantasy and because in one of the final scenes, Japan and Seiji both offer Ken some food - a nudge to a past scene where it was Ken and Japan fighting over whose food Seiji picks, a very unsubtle allegory for having him choose one of the two. So, maybe over time Japan and Ken developed a romantic bond too? Or maybe they didn't. I guess we'll never know. We'll never know at what point Seiji started to like Ken either. They had some moments, but it always seemed like Ken was the only one interested out of the two. Again, a mix of bad acting and bad writing I assume...

None of this is great, but it's not the worst thing I've ever seen. The biggest problem is how frustrating it all is, because this could've been SO good. They had all the ingredients, but somehow managed to bake it into something that is confusing at best and nonsensical at worst. Now, allow me to tell you how I think the entire thing should've gone.

Have Seiji and Ken be childhood friends. That was all well and good. So was Ken being secretly in love with Seiji. None of that needs to change (other than swapping the actor of Seiji because that guy had no chemistry with either of his romantic partners and no emotional range). Then, Japan comes into the picture. But instead of him being completely new to Seiji's life, have them know each other from the start. Maybe they've been friends for a while, but Japan went to study abroad and now he's back and they reunite. That way, it won't feel as insta-lovey, because they already have a bond. So, Japan comes back into Seiji's life after a while. They both have changed, grown, and matured. They catch up, notice how the other has changed, and they begin to fall for those new sides of each other. Ken realises that Seiji is spending more time with Japan and starts worrying. Things get tense when Seiji brings Japan home for dinner and the three of them have a meal. Seiji goes to the bathroom and Japan and Ken basically tell each other they're in love with him. Thus, the competition for Seiji's heart begins. Seiji is kinda enjoying this, because he obviously likes Japan and seeing him fight for him is something he finds cute But also, seeing Ken be this serious about winning him over is kinda stirring something within Seiji. Something that wasn't there before.
While competing for Seiji's love, Ken and Japan somehow get forced to spend more time together. Maybe when they go on their little getaway trip with their friends, they fight over who gets to share a room with Seiji. Eventually, their friends get fed up and put them in a room together while Seiji rooms with someone else. During that time, Ken and Japan get to know each other better, and would you believe, they somehow start realising the other isn't so bad. In fact, they start finding each other kind of cute and suddenly... What is that?... Oh, they start falling for each other too! Of course, they don't know that about the other person, so it's angsty and a lot of silent pining. Ken realises that now, he wants both Japan and Seiji to be happy, so he backs out willingly and gives them his blessing to be together. So, they kiss and are now dating.
But something feels off. They get all weird as soon as Ken is around which leads the two to have a talk. Seiji admits that despite being head over heels for Japan, he also has feelings for Ken. In what is the plot twist of the century for Seiji, Japan admits to also having feelings for Ken. Suddenly, things start clicking in Seiji's head and we get a slide show of moments between Japan and Ken that Seiji hadn't really noticed before, and he blurts out "I think he likes you too!" And thus, they decide why all the heavy hearts if there's a simple solution to the issue. They sit down Ken and Seiji is basically like "I like you. Japan likes you. I know you like me. And I know you well enough to know you like Japan too. So... What are we doing? We should all just be together." They have their little group hug and then they make things awkward when they want to kiss but aren't sure who should go first and all that jazz. It's cute and embarrassing and eventually, they get the hang of it. Throw in that threesome scene if you must. Have a cute montage of them bonding and being all happy together. Then add a special episode where they figure out their different dynamics and boundaries and all. And so, they live happily ever after. (It would be even greater if they explored the difficulties a throuple brings as well, but I don't trust these writers to handle that well, so I think it's best not to go there at all...)

If they would've done it this way, I would've easily rated this an 8 or a 9. However, with the clunky writing and the poor acting/chemistry, this storyline is only a 6. And even that is kind of generous, but I gotta praise the attempt at least. I think out of everyone, the guys playing Japan and Ken had better chemistry than either of them did with Seiji's actor, which wasn't really helping the narrative... Maybe if Seiji had better chemistry with Ken, things would've been a little less confusing, but I guess casting attractive people over actors with actual skills is a growing issue...

Despite its flaws, would I still suggest you watch this? Absolutely. Not because it's great, but because if people are rooting for this throuple, there's a greater likelihood of us seeing more throuple storylines in the future. Hopefully ones with better writing and chemistry. And one day, we'll get an actually great one. I'll be here, waiting.

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Maybe this should've been left in a different universe...

I want to start this by saying that I was never the biggest fan of Vice Versa in the first place. I didn't enjoy the acting that much and the chemistry between the two main leads left a lot to be desired. It's also a pretty forgettable show in my opinion, so I was going into these two episodes not remembering much of Vice Versa, thus not really having any expectations. And still, I got disappointed?

The start of it all was pretty cute. I liked the conflict about Talay and Puen living together, but still not having enough time for each other due to work. I felt like it was a good set-up for two cute and light-hearted episodes. And it started that way. Talay coming up with a different theme for each day of the month, in an attempt to bring them closer again and re-ignite their spark was pretty adorable.

Even the child suddenly standing in front of their door, calling them "dad" didn't bother me. The child actor is very adorable, and especially Jimmy suddenly started being more expressive in his acting, whenever the kid was around. It was pretty cute. Despite not really caring for these characters, they had me in awe in some moments and I was intrigued as to what had happened, causing this child to suddenly appear.

Talay's fear - that the child might be Tess' and thusly his own, considering how Tess was inhabiting his body for a while - was very interesting to me. I think that would've actually made for a very interesting plot for a season 2 of Vice Versa (not that I want one, but there's an idea at least). Exploring what it would mean to suddenly have a child, that shares your DNA because someone inhabiting your body did his part in creating it, but you not having known about it, and now having to come to terms with this... That would make for a very interesting story to dive into. Obviously, that couldn't have been done in 2 episodes, which is why I suggested a second season. Then again, I don't really trust them enough to explore such a plot in a coherent and meaningful way, so maybe we're better off this way. Anyway! I was not opposed to this surprise child plot line. At least until we found out the reason...

Puen being the one behind this, basically using this child as a way to bring him and Talay closer again, is just plain stupid. I think he might have left his braincells in that other universe, that's the level of stupid we're talking. But that wasn't my main issue. I can believe that Puen did something incredibly dumb, in a desperate attempt to save his relationship. What I can't believe however, is how calmly Talay responded to this. Imagine you finding out that your significant other basically blackmailed your friend's nephew with stuffed animals into pretending to be your long lost son. How would you respond? Yell at them? Kick them out of the house? Break up? All very valid responses in my opinion. But not Talay, nope. He's basically as calm as ever and they then treat it as 'lol, this is a funny thing that happened'. All I could do was yell "WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU???" at my screen. They had me get very upset at a special episode of a show I never really cared about, yet somehow now I was screaming at my computer, wanting to shake both Talay and Puen, as well as their friends who helped Puen.

So those are my main thoughts. If you like cute child actors and if you want to see Jimmy be as excited as he has never been before in this role, then go ahead and watch it. Otherwise, I'd say skip this one. I still think the acting isn't the greatest, and the chemistry between the leads is still lacking. Their kiss scene at the end felt as mechanical as their kiss scenes in Vice Versa did. So you're really not missing out on much.

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A typical GMMTV show with more eating than actual time travel

This show is definitely not my favorite, but it’s not entirely unenjoyable either. I would classify it as a very typical GMMTV BL, and thus a perfectly mid show. Most GMMTV shows are in that range of "not great, but not horrible either“ for me, and Be My Favorite is no exception.

Acting / Chemistry:
For me, the main reason this show didn’t crumble under the weight of its flaws is the acting. Gawin and Krist are both great in their roles. Krist pulls off the awkward and whiny Kawi so well, but he’s also delivering a great performance in emotional moments. I actually like him in this a lot more than I did in Sotus. Gawin has been great in anything I’ve seen him in, so it comes as no surprise that he’s doing an excellent job in the role of Pisaeng as well. He’s naturally charismatic, and he knows how to deliver emotions when needed. The performances of the entire cast were really good, and they definitely saved a lot of what went wrong with the writing.
The chemistry between the romantic leads was decent. They’re not one of my favorite pairings, but they do have more chemistry than other pairings (cough Pastsenger cough). To me, it was just lacking the real butterflies that come with other ships, so I don't crave more of them together, but if they were paired again, I wouldn't mind either.

Characters:
I’ll start with the positive—Pisaeng. I adore him, and he deserves the world. He’s very easy to like. That’s partially because Gawin lends his natural charm to the character, but also because he was really refreshing. It’s not like he was super well fleshed out, but he was a genuinely kind and caring guy, and he had a lot of emotional intelligence. In many ways, he reminded me of Ayan (from the Eclipse), who might be my favorite GMMTV character up to date, so that’s a huge compliment. I loved watching Pisaeng on screen, and I was rooting for him.

Kawi on the other hand was horrible. Okay, that’s a bit harsh. I actually liked him in the beginning. But the longer the series went on for, the more I started disliking him. At the start, he was just this awkward, self-deprecating guy who was actually quite cute. However, as time went on, his "I’m such a loser“ attitude began to get annoying. He also became a pretty big asshole in many moments. He was only concerned about his own emotions and thoughts, completely disregarding other people’s feelings. Him then being like "I’m such a bad guy, I feel horrible, boohoo“ didn’t help. If you’re aware that you’re being a douche, maybe try not being one next time? But then he did it again. He was also very judgmental, which didn't help his case. It got incredibly frustrating. Especially since Kawi always needed someone to point out that he was in the wrong, but never realized it by himself. I know he was written that way on purpose, but it’s just not great for a main character you’re supposed to root for. Krist also being naturally charming did help, but even Krist can’t make me enjoy watching this whiny little prick. All of this wouldn’t necessarily have been a bad thing if there was severe character development. Him starting out as selfish and judgmental, but then growing and opening his horizon would’ve been great. But that didn’t really happen. Or well, it did by the power of montage and time-skip and time travel magic. But that wasn't enough for me. Kawi was the main reason I really started disliking this show about half way through.

On a more positive note, I really liked Kawi’s best friend, Max. What a shame he didn’t really have much of a storyline to himself, but only served as Kawi’s emotional trashcan. He basically helped Kawi function and act like an at least somewhat decent human. You know how in Pinocchio, the cricket acts as Pinocchio’s conscience? That’s basically what Max was to Kawi. He was patient enough to put up with Kawi’s attitude. What an angel. Couldn't have been me.

Pearmai was fine. I appreciate the attempt at fleshing her out as a character, for example by giving her a difficult relationship with her mother. It wasn’t a lot, but it was a lot more than most other BLs do with their female characters. She wasn’t portrayed as a villain either, which I was super happy about. In general, she was really likeable and I would’ve loved to see more of her. I hope more BLs will take this approach with their female characters, rather than having them be two-dimensional villains that only exist as objects in the way of the boys love aspect.

Romance:
I was in favor of the romance because I wanted Pisaeng to be happy. And for some reason unbeknownst to me, he finds his happiness in Kawi. I also liked the general idea of Kawi travelling back in time to get Pear to like him, just for him to realize it was Pisaeng he was meant to be with all along. That actually makes for a really fun and cute story. However, because I really disliked Kawi, I found it hard to root for the romance. Especially since Kawi’s constant self-deprecation and Pisaeng serving as someone to assure him that he’s not a loser seems pretty unhealthy. Also, Pisaeng constantly having to give in to Kawi’s wishes and demands while Kawi is being stubborn also seems problematic. To me, it felt like one of those relationships where 10 years down the line, Pisaeng will probably have given up on anything he had going for himself, in order to make Kawi happy, while Kawi is not even willing to do as little as compromise. They had very cute moments, don’t get me wrong. I just don’t think Kawi was ready for a relationship at all. As we got to see in the future, it luckily didn't turn out this way. But that's probably because Kawi did an unexplained full 180 and is apparently entirely different in the future, thanks to the power of montage and time-skip.

I feel like this show would’ve greatly benefitted from a side couple (whatever the Not-Kwan-Pear love triangle was doesn't count). Spending all the time with Kawi and Pisaeng was A LOT, so a side couple to mix things up would’ve been great. Anything for me not to be trapped with Kawi for the entire episode would’ve been appreciated honestly.

On a different note, I was genuinely surprised by how little I minded the love triangle between Kawi, Pisaeng and Pearmai. Normally, I hate love triangles in BLs, especially if they involve a girl. Usually, because it’s tied to a lot of toxic jealousy and the girl being the villain of the story. But in this show, I actually thought it was handled very well.

Also, I want to talk about how they had the perfect opportunity for some asexual representation. To me, it genuinely felt like Kawi had no interest in sex. I would’ve loved it had they actually made him ace. But instead, we got a super awkward sex scene that made me feel so uncomfortable to watch, because Kawi was looking like he didn’t wanna be there (at least in the beginning). So instead of ace representation, it turned into yet another BL where one character wants to cuddle, kiss and have sex, while the other is portrayed to be reluctant to any of that for no explainable reason.

Writing / Storytelling:
Let’s start with the time travel aspect of it all. I’m simply not a fan of time travel shows in general. That’s because it’s extremely difficult to pull it off in a way that doesn’t leave 100 plot-holes. I think they were pretty clever by not really focusing much on the time travelling as a mechanism itself. At least they were until episode 11, when Time Travel Man showed up, and lectured Kawi about how he can’t use time travel to win the lottery, because that apparently depends on destiny. If you haven’t won the lottery so far, you weren’t destined to win it, and you can't win it even with time travel magic. So, according to that, apparently love isn’t based on fate then, since you can just travel back in time to fix it? Usually, BLs heavily steer into the direction of love being entirely destiny-based, so this was actually an interesting thought. But still, it left me with many questions. I wouldn’t have been too bothered by everything, if it weren’t for these glaring issues:
(1) When Kawi travels from the past to the future, he gets there with no memories of what happened during the past ten years, and then gradually gains back those memories. This is proven by the fact that in episode 7, he doesn’t remember his apartment or how he’s on bad terms with Pisaeng. But how is it then that he somehow did know the lyrics of a song he had assumably written within those past 10 years? He arrived backstage of his gig, not even remembering he was a famous singer. So how the hell does he remember the lyrics? I guess by the power of plot-convenience.
(2) They kinda broke the time travel mechanism in episode 10, when Pisaeng spun the time travel thingy, but somehow nothing happened? Why did he not travel to the future, like it happens with Kawi? Does that mean the time travelling ability is tied to Kawi specifically? I could’ve accepted that with a frown, but then in episode 11, Pisaeng spins it again, and he actually does travel in time. This made no sense to me.
(3) I thought the whole purpose of time traveling was for Kawi to right his wrongs, and then go back to the future. But apparently, he just stayed in the past? I wasn’t aware he could even do that. The whole show seemed to steer into the direction of him eventually having to return to the future, and that was just dropped entirely. To me, the end of the show would’ve been much more satisfying if Kawi had travelled to the future again, instead of the whole almost death and Pisaeng time travel arch.

The writing of conflicts wasn’t always great either. The issues weren’t as offensively bad as in A Boss And A Babe for example. But oftentimes characters’ motivations or moods changed from one scene to just a few scenes later without any reason or resolution. For example, Pear got very upset with Not for basically having pressured Kawi into a love confession, and recording the whole thing. She even calls him out in front of his friends, seemingly very angry. Then, without any resolution to that, Not gave her his book to read, and she thanked him and told him he was doing great— the bad blood seemingly having vanished into thin air. This wasn’t the only instant either. Some fights between Kawi and Pisaeng were left with no resolution too. They just suddenly got along again. It probably isn’t as notable if you watch the show week by week, but it gets very apparent when binging it. The whole love triangle story between Not, Pear and Kwan was dropped completely without any resolution whatsoever. I could not tell you if Not and Kwan ever actually got together, or if they stopped their fling entirely. Not that I really care about what Not does or who he’s with, since he’s an asshole, but leaving it unresolved is still unsatisfying.

In a similar manner, there are things that just happen out of nowhere and are left with no further explanation. For example, in episode 8, Max thanks Kawi for "helping me realize I should stay here and keep fighting“. But we saw none of that actually happening. Kawi was just using Max as his unpaid therapist, but we didn’t see anything about Kawi helping Max. The story didn’t show that, so the dialogue was clashing with what was actually happening. Similarly, in episode 9, we suddenly find out that Kwan and Not have a friends with benefits situation going on (or something like that). That also came out of the blue. We knew from that one time of travelling to the future that they would eventually have an affair, but there was no reason to believe that was already going on in college. Us finding out very late in the show that Kawi apparently is into music when it was never alluded to before also felt very sudden. These things could’ve been implemented in much better ways that wouldn’t have left you feeling like some brand new piece of information was just thrown at you out of absolute nowhere.
In this regard, another thing was Pisaeng suddenly playing the guitar and singing to Kawi in episode 7. Why the hell did that happen? Well, I know why. Because Gawin is a solid singer, and GMMTV has this agenda of pushing all their actors into a singing career as well. But in terms of the writing, it made no sense. We had no reason to believe Pisaeng had any interest in singing or playing the guitar. It was entirely illogical for him to suddenly serenade Kawi, and should’ve been cut. Not every single character needs to sing in your shows, GMMTV. Please stop forcing it in when it makes no narrative sense, I’m begging you.

I already mentioned the friendship between Kawi and Max. It was pretty badly written. For one, the story starts with Max being mad at Kawi. He then suddenly changes his mind about being mad (god knows why) and they’re back to being best friends. If you just make him change his mind without Kawi really having to work for it, why start off their relationship with any conflict at all? It was pointless and left entirely unexplored. We’re then supposed to believe they’re both helping each other and are there for each other. When really, all we ever see is Kawi using Max to complain about life. It felt so insanely one-sided that I really felt sorry for Max. I don’t think there’s a single instance where Kawi asks him how he’s doing. It’s just Kawi here, Kawi there, Kawi everywhere.

Another random thing that bothered me was the amount of scenes we got of characters eating. I know that being a foodie was part of Kawi’s character, so I don't mind more eating scenes than usual. But after a certain point, it just felt like a lack of creativity. Like please, there are other scenes that can serve as a basis for characters to talk to each other. They don’t have to be eating every other scene.

The worst offence in my opinion, however, was their annoying way of storytelling. The amount of times they cut away from a scene, just to show how that scene ended in a flashback five minutes later, made me want to rip my hair out. They did it for dramatic effect, I suppose, but it only took me out of the story with the constant flashing back and forth. It’s just unnecessary and makes it more difficult to follow the narrative. Just let the scenes play out, and then move forward. It didn’t happen all the time, but it happened often enough for me to really get annoyed by it. And there were even instances when scenes ended very abruptly without us ever finding out how they ended at all. Which in my opinion was still better than the annoying back and forth between present and flashbacks.

Positives
- I liked the relationship between Kawi and his dad a lot. It was heartwarming, and the only moments I actually liked Kawi were when he was with his dad. However, this actor in my mind will always be the mafia boss and dad of Kinn (from KinnPorsche). So I had this head-canon that the mafia business of Kinn’s dad went really south, and he had to take on a new identity. So he started a new life, with a new wife, and a new kid.
- The show had some solid comedy in it.
- As annoying as he was, Kawi felt like a pretty unique character, and not just like the stereotypical character GMMTV goes for in every other show.
- Them not making Pearmai the villain of the show just because she’s the girl was very appreciated.
- The line "Parenthood is about more than just raising our children. We have to grow with them.“ That was the best line in the entire show. It was said in a scene that was entirely useless and senseless, since it was the only scene we ever got of the parents alone. But I’m glad it was there, for that line alone.
- I liked how it opened with Pear getting married to Pisaeng, and ended with her getting married to someone else. That was a nice full circle moment.

Final Thoughts
Initially, I liked the show. For the first few episodes, it felt fresh and funny. However, the longer it went on for, the more I started disliking Kawi. And it’s just really hard to like a show when you constantly want to yell at the main character. This, paired with the weird editing choice of cutting away and then flashing back five minutes later, really took away from my enjoyment. The writing wasn’t great. It wasn’t as bad as in other GMMTV shows, but a lot of it could’ve been an easy fix, which is always very frustrating. It seems as though GMMTV puts more effort into making all their actors sing and dance these days, rather than actually putting that effort into solid writing. With all of that weighing the show down, around episode 9 I just wanted it to be over.
It was not my cup of tea, but I see why other people enjoy it a lot. There were enjoyable aspects there, for me they simply got overshadowed by the bad. But I was watching this with a very critical eye, I’m aware of that. If you’re someone who views BLs maybe a little less critically (and if you don't find Kawi as irritating as I did), then you’ll probably enjoy this. As I said, it’s a very typical GMMTV show, so if you’re into most of those, you’ll probably be into this too.
This was quite difficult to rate for me. I really didn’t enjoy it much, but giving it a very low score just because I personally have vendetta against Kawi doesn’t seem fair. Therefore, I’ll just rate this somewhere in the middle ground, like I would most other GMMTV shows.

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I preferred them in Bad Buddy...

First of all, let me tell you how happy I am that GMMTV finally chose to do a GL. When the news first dropped, I was excited. When I heard that Milk and Love would be taking the main roles, I was over the moon. Sadly, though, the actual series has me a lot less thrilled than the idea did...

I absolutely adored Milk and Love in Bad Buddy. Their chemistry was great, they were adorable, and their acting was nice too. However, I cannot get myself to feel the same way about them in this show, sadly. I think these two excel at portraying a crush, but not an actual relationship, if that makes sense. Their chemistry is perfectly fine when all they have to do is give each other sweet looks and subtle touches. However, when it comes to actual physical chemistry beyond that, everything somehow evaporates, and not much is left. Their kiss scenes felt incredibly forced to me, like they got dared to kiss during a game of truth or dare or something. The scene where Sun's towel fell down and Ongsa started screaming made me want to crawl out of my skin because it felt so awkward and uncomfortable. Honestly, Ongsa kind of reads as asexual to me, which would've been nice representation. Like she is in love with Sun and wants to be with her, but has no interest in anything physical. And even if they didn't go for that idea, they could've just not included any kiss scenes either way since it's a high school romance, and those don't really need kiss scenes in my opinion. I much prefer no kiss scenes to these awkward moments that end up ruining the chemistry for me.

Because of that, I will always choose to rewatch Bad Buddy if I need my fix of MilkLove, instead of this heap of awkwardness.

But my biggest gripe with this show is how boring and dragged out it feels. It has almost no plot, which I don't generally mind if there's great characters and great chemistry. My School President didn't exactly have the most exhilarating plot either, but it still ended up as one of my favorite shows because of the amazing chemistry and the lovable characters. But this show didn't have much of either (at least not in my opinion). The nonexistent plot really made it a slog to get through, and I found myself fast-forwarding quite a lot after the first half of the show. The only thing it had going for it was the catfish storyline. But that was resolved in a very unsatisfying way (Sun was mad for 0.2 seconds, which was not enough at all) and then, everything kind of faded into nothingness. They started inserting drama for drama's sake in the later episodes - like the studying abroad and the outing thing. But the conflicts felt so shoehorned in and unnatural that it wasn't exciting to watch, it just made me roll my eyes. Let me say it again... Don't write conflict if you aren't going to resolve it in a meaningful way.
So, this just ends up being yet another one of those GMMTV shows that should've been 6 solid episodes instead of 12 that feel bloated with nonsense and side characters that get only a few scenes, which is not enough to flesh them out at all, so their storylines feel unsatisfying. Alpha, for example, was a really compelling character that never got quite enough screen time to really do the idea of her justice.

As far as the main characters go, I think Ongsa is developed decently well (at least for GMMTV standard). Sun on the other hand is lacking the screen time it would take to actually flesh her out beyond being sweet, trusting and kind. I would say her character gets ruined in episode 10, when she outs not only Ongsa but also Aylin and Luna in front of Ongsa's family, but there isn't much of a character there to begin with, so it can't really be ruined. But either way, that scene made me absolutely despise her. You don't out anyone ever, there's no room for discussion there. But especially not when it was super obvious how uncomfortable Ongsa was with the situation, even trying to deny the whole thing.

I want to praise GMM for having made the decision to replace North and Night with an actual GL pairing as the side couple. Obviously, I would've loved to see Gemini and Fourth in this, but I much prefer it to actually give those roles to girls instead. Give the girlies their time to shine when we have so many BLs already. Luna's and Aylin's storyline is much more interesting than the main romance. However, I couldn't help but scream "THIS GIRL NEEDS THERAPY!" at my computer whenever Aylin was on screen. Clearly, she has severe mental health struggles that are very reminiscent of autism-spectrum disorders or perhaps even schizophrenia with her conviction of being an alien. At best it's a really unhealthy coping mechanism, but either way, her family not actually getting her any help hurts my heart. She really needs a professional at her side, and I really really hope that this will still happen in the two remaining episodes. But knowing GMM shows, I doubt it.

The humour of this series did not land with me at all. It reminded me a lot of Japanese shows - very over the top, outright cringe in many instances, and clashing with the heavy moments of the show. This is just down to personal preference though, so while I don't vibe with that kind of thing, other people might.

All in all, this was a big disappointment for me. I think other people might really enjoy it, but it just wasn't for me. I'm very happy to see GMMTV actually trying their hand at GL, which is why I'm actually glad that other people seem to really enjoy this. Because the more support this show gets, the more likely it is that we will get more GLs in the future - which we desperately need! So I would honestly suggest you give this a try, even if it hasn't been an enjoyable experience for me. Hopefully in the future, we'll see GLs with better plot lines and chemistry. Until then, I will just rewatch Bad Buddy again whenever I'm in need of a cute GL couple.

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