Movie equivalent of fake plastic display food
Sure, it looks good from afar with all the handsome faces, but once you look more closely and hold it in your hands, you quickly realize that it's completely hollow and inedible.I really wonder if they even tried with the writing because the story unfolds in such a confusing and backwards way that makes the characters feel empty. The whole time I just kept shouting "Why??" at my screen because the motivations behind everyone's actions don't make any sense, or they're explained in retrospect through cheap "reveals" and exposition dumps after the fact which doesn't at all lend itself to caring about anything that's happening. It's not a good sign for a live-action adaptation if it feels like I needed to have read the manga (which I haven't) for baseline context to follow the story.
The abysmal lack of chemistry between the two leads also means that there's nothing to latch onto in the romance side of things either. I'm an EBiDAN fan, but after seeing this on top of their other projects I've watched, I'm starting to feel like Aloha and Jyutaro just can't act. At the same time, I can't fault them too much because this movie seems wholly uninterested in letting them develop their acting skills and is instead solely focused on their visuals, as evidenced by the two separate and prolonged shower scenes and the gratuitous shots of them shirtless. Their interactions really felt like a kid smashing two Ken dolls together and calling it a day which is just sad.
The only points I'm willing to give are for Arashi Shoma, who - apart from being a handsome new face - actually brought some semblance of personality and romantic yearning through his character. My favorite part of the whole movie was the throwaway scene where one of the Beni High kids gives Madoka a Western-style breakfast and Tsuyuki said he prefers Japanese food lol.
"Boring, boring, boring!" is ultimately a very fitting line to be repeated in this movie. It's a complete and utter disservice to BL and yankee media that brings nothing but disappointment. Let's expect more from our BL everybody!!!
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They really had me in the first half
Echoing the comments that said this went rapidly downhill, around episode 8. I was super disappointed because I was enjoying myself so much - it's surprisingly high quality for an MBS drama, I thought the dynamic between the two leads was relatively fresh, the mystery had intrigue, and this is by far the best styling I've seen for Yagi Yusei imo.I didn't watch the Korean version, so I can't say how well it holds up as an adaptation, but I imagine it suffered a lot trying to condense twenty 60min long episodes into twelve 30min eps, because everything was way too rushed in the end. The romance had no real build-up, the mystery was unfulfilling, the motivations for all the characters were poorly fleshed out. I usually appreciate how Japanese adaptations of Korean dramas are able to trim the fat and keep the story concise, but it didn't work in this case. Too many characters, too many things going on. It's a shame since I also liked Kusakawa Takuya and Morita Kokoro here, but they barely matter to the plot. And I know they establish at the beginning that he has a thing for her, but tell me why I thought there might be some kind of twist that Takuya's character liked Yusei's character all along.... Maybe I'm just too influenced by those two actors' previous works, but I swear the vibe was there!! Ijima Ku was another highlight in the cast - a relatively new face for me, and I think he did well with what he was given, all things considered.
Overall, I give this a pass because I cannot overstate how much I was giggling and kicking my feet at Yagi Yusei in the first half (tbh the second half is worth watching for the kiss scene in ep 10 alone) and while it was ultimately disappointing, it had enough going for it to hold my attention to the end.
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