ziugae

“my love is heavy”

the story focuses on a friendly rivalry, both of the leads having this dynamic since high school. the premise of this was nice, but i think the way the “rivalry” falls flat really helped highlight how much of an excuse it was for these two to get closer and spend so much time together.

zen is aloof, reserved from both the world itself and ryo to a degree. though they reunite at work, it’s pretty evident they don’t really know much about each other beyond work related subjects and the past that they shared.

it doesn’t take long to notice how devastatingly in love ryo has been this whole time, but seeing the pure anguish, the tormenting emotions in his eyes when he misunderstands zen, it really drives home how real his love has been for the one person that had been there for him.

the only thing that felt stunted in the storytelling was how little we see into their early friendship, but overall this was a genuinely good surprise from japan lately. it’s been a stagnant market for bl and i loved seeing yusuke come back to bl in a very different art form compared to his previous work. you could see his comfort in a whole different way with kaito and none of this felt as awkward as i had feared it would.

Read More

a legendary and culturally influential series

this series has given so much joy to not only international fans, but the thai general public as well. the impact and incredible impression that pond has had really became his mangum opus.

phuwin, his interpretation of peach was phenomenal. he gives such a laid back and *full* personality to peach that is not seen all the time. i could sing praises about both of them, but i want to also highlight that p'x did an absolutely beautiful job in every step of the story timeline for thee and peach. the comedy was so good, the romance was well balanced given the very clumsy style from thee growing as his feelings developed, and the visual imagery/symbolism was breathtaking.

my only complaint is that they kept the perthsanta story too prevalent. no matter how i feel about perthsanta, the tawan & aran arc was skippable for me. both of them were a mess, so i guess it's fine since they wanted to be in a mess, but the way they kept pulling peach/thee into their conflicts or toxic personalities. aran, though sweet looking, lacked so much respect for himself as a person that it just made it uncomfortable to watch him self-destruct himself. if the book is different, then that's it's own thing. in the series, we didn't actually need to see them.

the arc that should have been focused on more was rome & mok. there was so much left unsaid and we didn't really see their own dynamic too much. it makes sense given the fact that william was essentially a last-minute addition, but it would've been great if p'x had more time to work him in to the series better.

still, this series is the series of the year for me. there isn't much that i can compare to it, but seeing the way pond & phuwin have been able to blow away the general public with their naturalness on screen, it makes me so happy to see them get that recognition that is hard for most, if not all, bl pairings to achieve. truly deserving of so many accolades this year!

Read More

a float serve at best

you start this series and think it’s going to go a certain way and try to track it, but it ends up just dropping in front of you without making it to a real significant point.

I am still giving this a high rating because frame and ryan genuinely carried the entire series, both in acting and promotions. more so that frame being able to pull off two roles, and make me feel very different things for each character, deserves to be praised. they both poured so much into this and don’t deserve to be overshadowed by some of the worst writing to exist. it rivals mame in the sense that there is minimal critical thinking from characters, no world building, dialogue is not a thing, and production that just accepts bare minimum in editing, filming, and sound.

which leads into my second point: there’s too many couples. I would let sam and that other guy get a pass if they actually had chemistry, but team always looks so tense it was actually uncomfortable watching him. I had hoped he would loosen up a bit or even give some unscripted type of improv but it didn’t happen. I hope he gets more comfortable if he continues in this industry, but that couple should’ve been written out of the series or changed how their scenes went. generally, I find second lead couples to take my interest, but this one was a hard pass.

overall, it’s fun but suffered a lot from keeping zee as a relevant part of the plot. this needed more thought put into it from an outside party or something. disappointing, but I still think it was a good watch just to see rising actors like frame and ryan.

Read More

trust the process!

the first couple episodes might be hard to get into, as IWKY it seems very slapstick comedy at first, but you truly have to trust the process and the storyline.

the characters are so charming as the drama advances, it’s really not even surprising this won an award. there is comedy, some great friendships, and a good use of vintage styles.

I truly enjoyed all the actors in this series, most of all thiw. he seems rough and abrasive but he is a big drive to the story working as well as it does.

only watch this if you like comedy and if you go into it with an open mind. you won’t like this otherwise. I loved all of this. and the ending, although missing things i would’ve liked to see, was still good, in my opinion.

one of the most fun BLs I’ve seen in a while.

Read More