puwupy
Annoyingly plain
At first I had very high hopes for this series because of what seemed to be the setting - I have never watched any series/film that revolves around street races, and since the teaser seemed to include both that and a good amount of romance, I was looking forward to it.
The first disappointment for me was exactly this: racing in Love in the Air is a minor device at best, and an aesthetic at worse. The characters are seen being involved in this illegal race that seems to be such a big deal for everyone, but the setting is explored so little that, now that I finished watching, I'd argue that Love in the Air is more about university life than racing. (Minor spoiler here: we don't even get to see Pakin in person for the entire series, he's only ever mentioned despite being such an important and powerful character.)
The second disappointment was finding out that this story relies on a handful of tropes that are just... handled in the worst way? There's multiple instances of dubious consent, assault, stalking, and other things that are heavily romanticised. I read/saw these tropes in BLs multiple times in the past, but it was about 10 years ago or so, and I really thought that we had gotten over bad writing in favour of good characterization and introspection. I guess I thought wrong. After realizing that the author of the novel this series is based on is also the same author of TharnType, I'm not even surprised.
Despite my disappointment, I decided to keep watching, in hopes that I would still get to enjoy the series to some extent. The couples are cute and they have some very romantic moments, but I'm afraid there isn't much more that I can say.
- Rain's character seems to be almost entirely undefined. At times he looks stubborn and decisive, then he randomly turns all soft and cute and well-behaved; at times he almost looks capable to think and make decisions on his own, but then he seems to just lose his brain. I feel like his personality changed at every scene, which was frustrating to see.
- The series did a good job with Rain and Payu, showing that they don't just live for each other, but they also have their job/studies to take care of which are equally important. Then the story decided that Sky and Pai only need to be around each other and think about each other at all times; Sky got to show a little more of his university life, but Pai literally seems to be a rich guy whose only task in life is to pursue Sky in any way possible.
- I'm not a fan of dubcon, but I was willing to let it slide in case the series tackled it well. And... it didn't. Not in a horrible way (I'm not expecting a series to teach me that something is Bad and Wrong), but in a very plain way. The most controversial tropes were handled in such an unoriginal way that I felt annoyed and bored.
In the end, I can say that the couples were cute enough to let me watch until the end. Rain and Payu were more interesting to me, while Sky and Pai's story (which starts at part 4 of episode 7) got boring very quickly and I ended up fast-forwarding the last two episodes. I can only recommend this in case you have nothing better to do.
The first disappointment for me was exactly this: racing in Love in the Air is a minor device at best, and an aesthetic at worse. The characters are seen being involved in this illegal race that seems to be such a big deal for everyone, but the setting is explored so little that, now that I finished watching, I'd argue that Love in the Air is more about university life than racing. (Minor spoiler here: we don't even get to see Pakin in person for the entire series, he's only ever mentioned despite being such an important and powerful character.)
The second disappointment was finding out that this story relies on a handful of tropes that are just... handled in the worst way? There's multiple instances of dubious consent, assault, stalking, and other things that are heavily romanticised. I read/saw these tropes in BLs multiple times in the past, but it was about 10 years ago or so, and I really thought that we had gotten over bad writing in favour of good characterization and introspection. I guess I thought wrong. After realizing that the author of the novel this series is based on is also the same author of TharnType, I'm not even surprised.
Despite my disappointment, I decided to keep watching, in hopes that I would still get to enjoy the series to some extent. The couples are cute and they have some very romantic moments, but I'm afraid there isn't much more that I can say.
- Rain's character seems to be almost entirely undefined. At times he looks stubborn and decisive, then he randomly turns all soft and cute and well-behaved; at times he almost looks capable to think and make decisions on his own, but then he seems to just lose his brain. I feel like his personality changed at every scene, which was frustrating to see.
- The series did a good job with Rain and Payu, showing that they don't just live for each other, but they also have their job/studies to take care of which are equally important. Then the story decided that Sky and Pai only need to be around each other and think about each other at all times; Sky got to show a little more of his university life, but Pai literally seems to be a rich guy whose only task in life is to pursue Sky in any way possible.
- I'm not a fan of dubcon, but I was willing to let it slide in case the series tackled it well. And... it didn't. Not in a horrible way (I'm not expecting a series to teach me that something is Bad and Wrong), but in a very plain way. The most controversial tropes were handled in such an unoriginal way that I felt annoyed and bored.
In the end, I can say that the couples were cute enough to let me watch until the end. Rain and Payu were more interesting to me, while Sky and Pai's story (which starts at part 4 of episode 7) got boring very quickly and I ended up fast-forwarding the last two episodes. I can only recommend this in case you have nothing better to do.
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