luca
Spain
This review may contain spoilers
One of the best BL series of 2023
Oh my God. Where to start?
This was a nice surprise. I wasn't expecting to love a censored, probably bromance-y chinese series I knew nothing about (apart from the edits on TikTok that convinced me to watch it), but here we are. To be honest, I'm devastated.
When I started it, I didn't know it was an adaptation of an already existing series, so I didn't have that to compare it to. Immediately I fell in love with the funny and quirky acting, the pacing, the story and production. The actors have great chemistry, the music is amazing (I found myself humming along to that one song that was used in almost every episode lmao) and the story covers important topics such as found family, grief, messy divorces and remarrying after the loss of a loved one, jealousy, friendship and much more. I loved that the relationships were portrayed as realistic, nuanced and sometimes toxic (for example, Su Yu's mom and Wu Bi's dad's dynamic was really interesting to me). I also like that both actors for Wu Bi and Su Yu look like teenagers, even though they are 22 and 25 years old. I'm usually bothered when they cast actors who look way too old to play highschoolers, but it wasn't the case here, and I'm grateful.
Because of the censorship, this show is very different than other BLs I've watched, where you usually get a good amount of kissing, as well as direct admissions of love. However, this didn't bother me. It still doesn't. I understand how difficult it must be to put out BL content in China, and I appreciate the entire production team's efforts to avoid censorship while still getting the message across. In the end, we got plenty of physical interactions (wrestling, hugging, even a good amount of cheek-kissing! Which had me dying if I'm being honest), and their emotional bond is more than enough to satisfy my expectations from the BL genre.
Everyone should watch this series. Did it break my heart into tiny pieces? Yes. Will I still rewatch the hell out of it? Also yeah - except from that last episode, I think I might never recover from that ending (hence the rewatch value score is a little bit lower).
Hoping that we get a season 2. I need to know they'll be okay after what happened.
Edit 2 months later: after some bullying from my sibling, I will say I am NOT endorsing step-sibling incest (which this technically is) - I just liked everything else so much that I cannot drop the rating too much. Idk.
This was a nice surprise. I wasn't expecting to love a censored, probably bromance-y chinese series I knew nothing about (apart from the edits on TikTok that convinced me to watch it), but here we are. To be honest, I'm devastated.
When I started it, I didn't know it was an adaptation of an already existing series, so I didn't have that to compare it to. Immediately I fell in love with the funny and quirky acting, the pacing, the story and production. The actors have great chemistry, the music is amazing (I found myself humming along to that one song that was used in almost every episode lmao) and the story covers important topics such as found family, grief, messy divorces and remarrying after the loss of a loved one, jealousy, friendship and much more. I loved that the relationships were portrayed as realistic, nuanced and sometimes toxic (for example, Su Yu's mom and Wu Bi's dad's dynamic was really interesting to me). I also like that both actors for Wu Bi and Su Yu look like teenagers, even though they are 22 and 25 years old. I'm usually bothered when they cast actors who look way too old to play highschoolers, but it wasn't the case here, and I'm grateful.
Because of the censorship, this show is very different than other BLs I've watched, where you usually get a good amount of kissing, as well as direct admissions of love. However, this didn't bother me. It still doesn't. I understand how difficult it must be to put out BL content in China, and I appreciate the entire production team's efforts to avoid censorship while still getting the message across. In the end, we got plenty of physical interactions (wrestling, hugging, even a good amount of cheek-kissing! Which had me dying if I'm being honest), and their emotional bond is more than enough to satisfy my expectations from the BL genre.
Everyone should watch this series. Did it break my heart into tiny pieces? Yes. Will I still rewatch the hell out of it? Also yeah - except from that last episode, I think I might never recover from that ending (hence the rewatch value score is a little bit lower).
Hoping that we get a season 2. I need to know they'll be okay after what happened.
Edit 2 months later: after some bullying from my sibling, I will say I am NOT endorsing step-sibling incest (which this technically is) - I just liked everything else so much that I cannot drop the rating too much. Idk.
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