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Made Me Feel So Much in Only 5 Episodes

"Kimi to Nara Koi wo Shite Mite mo" is a BL miniseries that has had an absolute choke-hold on me since I first watched it.

The characters feel realistic—complex but not over-dramatized, and have some good development throughout the series. The casting was perfect, I loved both Takato Okura and Wataru Hyuga's honest and refreshing portrayals of the main characters, Amane and Ryuji. I think their chemistry was incredibly well-developed and maintained throughout the show.

The story was just straight up slice of life story-telling that had wasted no time getting it's point across, leaving little room for fluff and filler. It was a captivating and very easily bingeable show from the get-go.

After rewatching this series for like, the third time, I read the first few volumes of the manga that it was originally adapted from, and I can confirm that the show is very much faithful to the book, with only some minor changes here and there. I honestly think that I like the show adaptation better overall.

For as simple as this series is, for some reason I have grown so fond of it that it has become my current #1 comfort drama! I just wish it was longer TT

At first I was thinking 9 or 9.5, but now that I've watched it one million times I think I gotta go 10/10!

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I Can’t Believe This Has Such a High Rating on Here

Sooo...the acting was fine, and the girl friend character was funny and somewhat relatable at times, but that is where my praises end.

This show is built around an abusive power dynamic between Segasaki, a conventionally attractive and well-liked weatherman, and Yoh, an unsuccessful, down on his luck ero-manga artist.

We learn early on that they met in college and that Segasaki told Yoh he could live with him on the condition that he would have to "do everything he says," and in return, he could live there for free and work on his manga. It is made clear from the very first episode that they have a dynamic reminiscent of an abusive breadwinner husband and an old-timey trad wife, with Yoh being essentially a personal slave to Segasaki—cooking and cleaning for him everyday and following his every command no matter what.

The inciting conflict of the story is based around this dynamic, and especially the sexual aspect of their relationship. Over the course of the show, we see Segasaki getting more and more posessive and paranoid about where Yoh is when he goes out and what he's doing, etc. It gets to a point where he is constantly forcing him to cancel plans that relate to his personal friendships and career, even going so far as putting a tracking device in his bag and following him in a later episode.

There are little moments throughout the middle of the show that make you think Segasaki might be starting to change his ways, but that is all completely thrown out at the end of ep 7 / beginning of ep 8 when he suddenly ties Yoh's hands together and tells him to never go out or talk to anyone else ever again. When I say this part really shocked me, I mean it. It was disturbing to watch and Yoh's character looked extremely uncomfortable (despite this shows efforts to make you believe that he secretly likes being obsessed over).

There are moments where this show attempts to be sweet (like in the backstory of how they met for example), but it just feels sour when you remember the situation they are in. Towards the end, I really felt like Yoh was developing stockholm syndrome, which might sound extreme, but I really do think is an accurate description for him.

I saw a lot of the negative reviews on this show saying that they could "look past the toxic relationship", and that they cared more about the fact that the story didn't really go anywhere and that essentially this shows' worst crime was being boring. Now, while it's true this show kind of ends the same way it begins and no one really develops as a character, I certainly think that this shows' romanticized portrayal of abuse is its biggest, most glaring issue. Shows like this perpetuate the normalization of abusive dynamics in gay media (especially in Japanese gay media where this is a perpetual problem), and also the fetishization of gay relationships as a tool for straight women to project their fantasies onto.

I think this show is an important example of what NOT to do when it comes to writing gay media. It was just a gross and uncomfortable watch overall, which sucks because I do believe that abusive relationships can be written well and this kind of subject matter can be interesting when it is treated properly. But I don't think this was aiming to be anything more than a typical abuse fantasy yaoi for a non-gay, woman audience.

Definitely one of the worst "BLs" I've watched (if you can even call it a BL). There are little moments with the girl friend and her husband that make the show a little more bearable at times, but other than that, ehhhhh, it's not good.

I'll give it a 1.5, on par with "Utsukushii Kare" (my previously most-hated BL ever).

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Still Holds Up!

I rewatched "SOTUS" for the first time in like 6 years or something recently, and this show really holds up!

"SOTUS" is a bit of a slow burn, but it kept me engaged all the way through. The romance between Kongpob and Arthit was pretty effective, even though they were super slow to get together, but I think that helped make it all the more exciting when it finally happened. Their relationship seemed pretty healthy towards the end of the show as well when it was really starting to get serious, so that was nice.

I kinda like that Kong and Arthit are the only gay couple in the show. It's common in a lot of BLs to have multiple side-story relationships, but I like that this one focuses on just the main. I also love that there is a femme lesbian character. She never actually has any on-screen gay moments with any girls, but she is known throughout the whole series to be a lesbian. I honestly really liked all the side characters, I don't think there was a single one that I hated.

I saw a lot of people in different comment sections saying that they didn't like the hazing and that it was a big problem for them while watching "SOTUS." While I sort of agree (obviously this kind of hazing is bad and in the show it was getting out of hand at points), I do think that it ended up being fine, all the juniors seemed relatively unaffected when the hazing period was finally over, and they seemed to have found some community in it. That being said, I also don't think the show was trying to portray hazing in a super positive light or anything, but I definitely see where people are coming from.

Overall I wish I could say more about this show. It's a classic for a reason. I will say that it feels pretty tame, and other BL series' that came after this have certainly taken things to higher heights, but I think that "SOTUS" was a good original ground to stand on.

9/10.

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Creepy Stalker Fantasy Garbage

What the hell did I just watch lmao.
This show is supposed to be a...uh....romance? I guess?

It follows the two main characters Hira and Kiyoi. Kiyoi is a conventionally attractive, highly insecure guy who wants nothing more than to become an idol one day but has way too much pride to ever tell anyone. He is also a huge bully to the other main character, Hira, basically making him act as a servant for him throughout their final year of high school.

Hira is a very delusional (putting it kindly) character who thinks of Kiyoi as basically a god and seems to take pleasure in being his personal servant, even though their arrangement is pretty unequal and abusive. From the very start, Hira's character was actually quite alarming to me. There are a few short imagination sequences scattered throughout the series in which Hira has fantasies about shooting everyone in his school whenever they make him upset. This is framed in the show as being kind of "silly," with glitter/confetti flying around whenever it happens, but I personally just find these parts really odd and disturbing.

Hira also makes this show incredibly frustrating to watch just by his sheer absurdity as a character. He has absolutley devoted his entire life to just being a stalker to Kiyoi, even after graduating high school. There is even a point where he meets a much better character named Kazuki who ends up being a wayyy better friend/love interest for him. But Hira, of course, rejects Kazuki because he is for some reason still obsessed with Kiyoi despite everything. The "love" that Hira has for Kiyoi isn't even romantic. It's just stalkerish and devoid of any real idea that they could be equals. He just wants to be near and serve Kiyoi for whatever reason. Like, he really has no personality outside of that.

In the final few episodes where Kiyoi's point of view begins, we can see that he has been secretly falling in love with Hira. We can also see how much Hira's view of Kiyoi as a god has really messed with Kiyoi's head, which just adds yet another weird layer to their dynamic for me. Despite all of this, the series concludes with Hira supposedly becoming normal all of a sudden and them falling in love and living happily ever after.

This show was overall just so frustrating, even creepy at times. The main characters were both clearly unstable and pretty unlikeable, never really changing or developing in any way until literally the last minute of the final episode.

But anyway, I mean...I watched it all, that's gotta count for something I guess (even though it was only 6 episodes). Definitely will never watch this again, pretty terrible.

1.5/10

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Physically Unskippable Title

Watched this on a whim solely because of the title and because I saw that the whole thing was only thirty minutes long altogether.

Despite being such a short series made for some kind of drama app thing, I still really appreciated a lot about it. This show actually looks really good visually despite being a very small, probably fairly low-budget production made by a small company. The acting was pretty good, I feel like they managed to build up some decent chemistry somehow over the course of only thirty minutes. The series definitely feels very fast-paced because it is trying to tell a story that is ultimately too complex for the amount of time it has to tell it. There are a lot of things that are clearly skipped over for the sake of time which makes it feel rushed. But it does manage to tie things together in the end for the most part. I do think the acting and production carried this overall though. Also the oddly good soundtrack?

I gotta say, something about this leaves me feeling a little empty though. This could have been an EXCELLENT full-length series or even a movie. But sadly, it's not, nor do I imagine they'd ever go back to try and turn this into something bigger like that. Oh well, it is what it is.

I really can't rate this any higher than a 6/10. Not bad for what it is, but not the best thing ever.

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A Story about Loneliness, Familial Loss, Suicide, and Self-Love...all in a Dating Sim!

If there's one thing to take away from this show, it's the importance of having your own back, and understanding that you are all you can ever truly rely on.

I really enjoyed the story, it felt unique and fresh by BL standards. The story gets to a point in the second half of the season where it is supposed to feel kind of psychological and 'scary', which I think the show did to a decent effect. I have never read the manhwa, so I don't really know what kind of ideas they did or didn't get to explore in comparison. However, I found myself often wishing that some points would have been elaborated on, but due to the runtime limit for each episode, I feel that certain things weren't as impactful as they could be. Although, I didn't quite feel confused at any point necessarily, I did feel that some things did not meet their full potential. I honestly mostly wish that this series got even more experimental in it's thriller/horror elements. In the moments where the main character was glitching through the game, it felt very unsettling. The ending was really excellent as well, I felt it wasn't terribly rushed, and was mostly satisfying. But as I said, a lot of things could have been expanded upon more to make that final moment all the more impactful.

The side characters were fine, but they were not developed very well and didn't really have their own plots or anything, they were just kind of there to support the main characters. But I suppose that's justified considering they are literal NPCs. which by the way, whenever I felt myself getting really emotionally invested, I just kinda thought to myself "what makes this even more messed up is that none of these people are real (in the story) other than the main character. (until the plot twist at the end of course which implies that this is all just in Myung-Ha's head and the love interest is kind of just a representation of himself). This added a really interesting and complicated emotional element to the story for me.

I think that this story is heavily open to interpretation in terms of its meaning. There are a lot of themes here that are explored in a somewhat vague way that leaves the viewer wanting to think deeper about it, rather than leaving them just feeling confused. This was definitely another classic case of a much more profound storyline disguising itself as a "BL." I went into this expecting a cheesy high school BL, but I came out of it not even feeling like I watched a BL at all (despite the few kiss scenes here and there). Overall, I was thoroughly invested the whole time, and I honestly really liked the deeper elements that you kind of have to cut through the layers to get to. Also the casting was awesome, the actor for Yeo-Woon really stood out to me especially.

Edit: I've been reading around and I don't like the theory that Myung-Ha got a second chance at life after he woke up. I'm thinking of it more as the video game being like a purgatory type of place, and that when he wakes up after disappearing in the final episode and he's still in the video game world—but it's not acting like a video game anymore—I think he has basically ended up in his own version of 'heaven'. (cuz like the 'game master' guy must represent like either the grim reaper or god from how I see it). Also I feel like him getting a literal second chance at life would kind of defeat the purpose of the story.
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Updated Rewatch Review:
Just rewatched this after a little over a year or something and just wanted to update since my first review was a 7.5/10. Upon rewatch, this show is a lot better than I remember and I think I appreciate it a little more now for what it is. Everything I said before is pretty much the same, but I guess I just enjoyed it more this time around. I definitely stand with what I said about this not even feeling like I watched a BL—this feels like it has so much more to offer than the average BL series. But anyway, that is all, update complete!

8/10.

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Nothing New

Pretty basic BL story—two childhood best friends fall in love in high school.

I was a little bit annoyed at the overuse of tropes in this, mainly the thing where someone's about to confess something or say something important and then all of a sudden they get interrupted. At first it was fine, but then it felt like it was happening almost every episode lol.

The romance was cute, although it was a little plain and, once again, very trope-y. This show is just really formulaic, and I can't really find anything particularly special about it when comparing to other BL's (or romance dramas in general).

The production was pretty alright, but not quite as good as I want from a show that was hosted on Netflix. I really liked all the actors—the main characters were great, but I also really liked the one blondish wingman guy, and Yamato's sister.

Overall, it was alright, but brought nothing new to the table for me. Fine, but pretty forgettable.

The Hi-Fi Un!corn song was good though.

6.5/10.

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Kuudere Final Boss

I discovered this series after seeing a clip of it in a YouTube short, where I thought to myself "that wig looks pretty funny" and added it to my planned to watch list.

I didn't know much about this show ahead of time, but I thought it was going to at least be a little more enjoyable than this.
"Takara-Kun to Amagi-Kun" is presented as a cute series about an innocent romance between two high school boys who are trying to keep their relationship secret. However, upon watching it, I didn't quite get that same sweet impression. The story felt very sparse, with no serious structure. A lot of moments felt kind of randomly placed. I felt like a lot of the things that happened throughout just kind of ended up meaning next to nothing for the development of the story, and I couldn't really pinpoint whenever a scene was major to the plot or not.

The main characters, Takara and Amagi, are a super awkward, kinda angsty couple who I felt had barely any chemistry the entire time, which never really got better as the season went on. The acting was okay I guess, but both Takara and Amagi were characterized in ways that made them just sort of unlikeable to me. Amagi is a hyper-cute character that feels really fake and one-dimensional (which his shoehorned-in traumatic childhood backstory fails to help with at all). He felt more like a person pretending to be an anime character more than a real teenager. As for Takara, he was a little more bareable, but not by much. He is a mega kuudere who fails to show any emotion throughout the entire show, except for a couple tiny smiles towards Amagi as time goes on. I will say, I think the actor played him as decently as he could of, but the character is just so strange that I don't really care. Takara could have been a really good opportunity for the show-runners to write in some good character development, but he basically never changes. Towards the end, he starts to say more bold things, but he still keeps the same lifeless demeanour. The only character I genuinely liked in the show was Katori (the glasses guy). He was pretty funny and was very refreshing to see amidst the blunders of every other character.

Overall, this was a little below average mid-levels, and I honestly was getting bored in the second half. At least the ending was happy I guess, but still. Very cringey and jam-packed with lame tropes.

3.5/10.

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