Reviews

Flawed Execution, but Interesting Plots

This drama has significant execution issues, and the ending fell short for me. However, I still enjoyed it and would recommend it to those who don't mind watching imperfect dramas, as the storyline is worth overlooking the flaws. The narrative itself is engrossing and, for me, unique, making it easy to become absorbed in the story. I also enjoyed the character development and dynamics. It was interesting to watch how the lead was torn between love interests, with their histories equally well-founded. It also includes political intrigue, adding depth to the narrative, while its fantastical elements offer a fresh and unique twist to the storyline.

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Fox Demons + Luo Yunxi = An Easy Win for Me

I loved this—I really did. It is underproduced and has some execution and cinematography issues, likely due to limited funding. But I still loved it. I thought the narrative was unique, and I really enjoyed how the plot developed. If you know me, you know my weaknesses are fox demons (we have three of them!) and Luo Yunxi—so this was incredibly enjoyable for me. Some of the fantastical elements were a bit far-fetched, so you have to take them with a grain of salt. Still, I don’t think that detracted from the main narrative, which was often touching, especially as you learn the foxes’ backstories and watch how they come to terms with their pasts in the current lifetime. The ending may not be for everyone, but I didn’t hate it—and I could definitely see myself watching this again.

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A Fantasy World Worth Exploring: A Memorable First Visit to Novoland

This drama was a bunch of firsts for me. It was the first one I watched featuring Guan Xiaotong, Zhang Ruoyun, and Chen Ruoxuan. It was also the first time I saw Ju Jingyi—before I even knew who she was. Most notably, it was my introduction to the Novoland universe.

Novoland is a fictional world, somewhat akin to Tolkien's universe for those more familiar with that reference. Multiple dramas take place within the Novoland realm, often sharing similar communities, creatures, and timelines. Some are direct sequels, while others are standalone stories. In addition to dramas, Novoland also includes full-length films that connect to or expand upon its series. It's an expansive world for anyone interested in diving deeper into its lore. With that said, I greatly enjoyed this drama. The narrative and subplots kept me engaged, and I was drawn in by both the characters and the richly imagined settings. The performances were strong, and the series was quite manageable at 28 episodes, each around 30 minutes. My only critique is the ending—it’s a bit confusing because there are two of them. However, the sequel helps clarify things.

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Ichitan's Ad

I'll admit it, I fell in love with Net in this series. I didn't realize that man is hot AF. 🤭🤭 And Latte... arghhh. Do I even need to explain myself when it comes to these two?

Chemistry-wise, NetJJ and LatteKim are carrying it. Story-wise, it's amazing. They managed to perfectly balance the depth of the story, the comedy, the romance, and of course, the angst. I especially love the JomKaew angst. I'm a sucker for that kind of emotional pain.

As they say, Domundi has done it again. And one thing I always appreciate about DMD is how they handle their NC scenes. They're not driven purely by lust; they're delivered with passion, emotion, and the characters' devotion to each other.

One highlight I'll always remember is how cleverly they squeezed in Ichitan's ads. Seriously, how smart was that? I won't spoil anything, but it's definitely worth the hype.

Highly recommended.

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Why I Decided to Stop at the Halfway Point

This is a drop review—commentary on the first half of the season. No numerical ratings, opinions only.

This wasn’t my cup of tea. I don’t want to get too deep into specifics since I’ve already shared my thoughts on the drama a few times in the group, and after a while, repeating the same points feels less like reviewing and more like criticizing.

I will say that I was immersed at the start, and I enjoyed the characters, their roles, and the dynamics between them. But as the story progressed, the characterization started shifting in ways that didn't land for me, and the plot gradually lost my interest. I stayed with it through to the midpoint because I wanted to remain open to where the story was heading. But after that, I was mostly just keeping up with the parts I was drawn to, mainly the political aspects.

That said, I do think the performances themselves were wonderful from what I watched, and the cast really stood out in their roles. We don't see enough of Ci Sha IMO and Winwin delivered a masterful performance with his character.

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It was just okay

I feel that this BL was missing something and I mean a whole lot of something. Both of the gentlemen that they picked are both nice looking and pretty good actors, however, I think their talents were squandered on this particular BL. There was a wasted opportunity to make this a really good BL. Some of the things jumped around a bit and really didn't make a whole lot of sense. The intimate scenes weren't as good as I expected them to be because to me, even though I think the main characters make a good pairing, it didn't look like they were very comfortable kissing each other. When a male actor decides to do a BL that requires kissing another guy, there has to be some level of comfortability in order to do it, successfully; and I feel feel two main actors were unsuccessful with their attempts to act intimately with each other. I feel that their chemistry in this particular BL, wasn't chemistring this go around. They were a lot better in "Love in the Moonlight" with their chemistry. I'm not going to say it was a good BL and I'm not going to say it was a bad BL. It was just okay. I just felt this BL had the opportunity to be so much more than what it was and that's disappointing. I won't completely write it off and say that I'll never watch it again, but it won't be anytime soon because I really did feel this BL was kind of a letdown considering who the main two characters were.

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WHO CAME UP WITH THIS

I finished the show a while ago, but I am just now writing the review. I would give it an 8 out of 10, and then I am going to say what I liked and what I did not like (this review is short becasue there is not a lot to work with).

Starting with what I liked, both of the guys are very sexy. I think they are the epitome of Japanese beauty, especially the dark guy; he is low-key hot as fuck. I do not remember his name, so I am going to refer to him as the dark guy and the other guy as the prince guy. The prince guy is also really beautiful. Where did they even find these guys? Because they are sooooo gorgeous. Also, they have really good chemistry, apparently. I could feel it through the screen, even though this show was a little bit questionable. I thought that their chemistry was great, and it really brought this show to life. That is really it for what I liked.

What I did not like was the plot. I do not know what it is with Japanese BL and these bullshit fucking plots, but I swear to God, this plot is terrible. This girl rejects him and says she only dates princes, so he joins a random fucking contest. And this guy randomly appears out of nowhere and suddenly does his makeup for the contest. What are we doing? What's going on? Also, the entirety of the 30 episodes builds up towards this contest. The contest literally lasts three seconds, not even a full episode. It is genuinely three seconds long. He wins, and then the other guy got expelled previously, so he could not even go to the contest. I am so lost. There were also childhood friends, which makes no sense. They should have gone into more detail about that instead of having us wait for 25 episodes. He is like, oh my God, you have a scar on your ear just like my childhood friend. What does that even mean? Also, there is a season 2 that I did watch, but why do we need a season 2 if he is already a prince? That is the whole point of the show. But yeah, just hooting and hollering and pissing me off with this very random plot. Despite this, I still rated it pretty high because their chemistry and acting outweigh the terrible plot.

Would I recommend this? I would say yes. If you just ignore the weird, non-continuous plot and focus on their good chemistry, it is short and enjoyable, so I would say do it. Okay, bye!

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Whatever this was

This was genuinely a waste of time. The storyline was all over the place and made very little sense, the acting was weak, and most of the characters were more irritating than engaging. The excessive filters were distracting, the second couple added nothing interesting to the story, and the pacing was painfully slow. Every episode felt longer than it actually was, yet somehow the plot barely moved forward. I kept waiting for things to improve, but they never did. By the end, I wasn't frustrated with the drama as much as I was with myself for actually finishing it. Definitely one of the most disappointing watches I've sat through.

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Meh..

I was looking for more things from Issey Takahashi coming off Kishibe Rohan, and I landed on this story. I thought the premise and the title sounded super interesting and was eager to watch it. The whole movie has a slow, dark, and gloomy vibe- not a bad thing but it wasn’t very interesting. I’m all about slow but it was missing real juice and life. The whole movie felt lifeless. I literally watched it for him, but after a very short while I couldn’t bring myself to care about any of the characters. Also the Takahashi character’s flashback about his wife killing their kid and then killing herself reminded me a lot of Shutter Island- where the man basically loses himself after that incident. Never thought I would say it but in this particular case I would prefer the Hollywood version (which I usually don’t).

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I don’t smoke weed, but I imagine this is what it feels like

Okay, I just finished this show, and I have mixed feelings about it. I am gonna give it a 7.5 out of 10, then say what I liked and what I didn't, and then call it a day because it's a short drama, and I don't need to add that much to it (too late).

Before I start, I am gonna write this review a little differently: I'll talk about the main points and what I liked and didn't like on those, so yeah.

The Plot:
Okay, so the overall plot of the show is that this guy's ex-boyfriend breaks up with him and then 5 years later comes back and GETS WITH HIS DAD. Of course, there is more to it, but that's like the gist of this show. So knowing that, you understand where my mixed feelings come from. The dad owns a drug company, I think, and the son and the ex-boyfriend want to kill the dad, but for separate reasons. The son because his dad caused his mom to overdose and die, and then the ex because the dad sent men to kill his father. Yeah, wild ride. For the main part of the plot, while I do think they could have written it out better and stop fucking skipping around, I liked it. And I really didn't think I was going to. I think it's a good plot and definitely fun for a short drama, and they did it pretty well because I was really into it, and the whole thing where there is always a bigger fish to fry and pick sides to stay alive, I could really get behind that, so that was good on their part. For the parts I didn't like about the plot, as I mentioned earlier, they jump around a lot, and it feels like not much is happening, but I am still really confused. Does that make sense? This is also in part due to THIS BEING SO LONG. I swear to God, 55 episodes is usually nothing, why the fuck was this one so long, my God? We started to do the same thing over and over again, like, oh, I'm gonna lie to you even though we are on the same team now, oh no, you got drugged, oh, somehow our rival is on the same team as your dad now, like what? Just bullshit. We could have made this shorter and gotten rid of the repetition, and it would have been fine, but noooo, we just wanted to be fucking different because we are holding our FUCKING BALLS at the drawing board, foaming at the mouth trying to come up with more bullshit and make our show even more terrible. Like, don't piss me off. There was another thing that was one of the most pressing plot points, but I will talk about that in problematic quirks lmao. Overall, the plot is good, but the bad outweighs the good in my opinion, making it a long, annoying, but fun watch.

The Characters:
There are a lot of characters in this, and it makes it really hard to remember everyone, but there 3 main ones: the guy, his ex, and the guy's dad (I am not gonna put names because I could not give less of a fuck about this shity ass show). Okay, so regarding the characters, I hated everybody. They were all dirty bums and had no decorum. I think our main character's mom died of an overdose, and he is the victim in this situation, even though he is low-key a bitch-ass. Imagine your mom dying because of your dad, and then your dad getting with your ex-boyfriend. That is low-key insane. I feel like he has the right to be crazy, but I also do not know. Regarding the love interest, he is low-key a dirty bum, and I mean survival of the fittest, but at what fucking cost? He has no spine, and he is like on the good side, but not really, because he is low-key just betraying everyone. He is like, oh this, oh that, and I am like, bitch, be fucking for real right now. You are going to make me so fucking angry right now. Like, you betrayed your man at the end of the day, and you got with his dad. What line did you even cross there? Because that is fucking gnarly, dude. Just overall, like, I was trying to understand his character, but I feel like his background and lore just felt ignorant and dumb, and like, oh, his dad got shot by these guys, so he got with the leader of the guys who killed his dad. That does not make ANY sense. I am really confused. And then finally, for the dad, he was just evil for the love of the game. There was no reason behind what he was doing, and I could not understand his character very well. I think because it is a love story, his character was not very fleshed out and was just kind of ass. I kind of understand if it is like, oh, he took the mom's company because of this, or he was jealous. Something. Give me some substance, but no. He is just evil for the love of the game. He hates everybody, and he is just money hungry, I guess, but I do not know. They could have done that better. I just thought that was poorly written. Yeah, overall, there are some more characters, but I feel like they are not really relevant to talk about, and they are just kind of one-offs. I feel like that is the problem with short dramas and a lot of different shows: you pack in all these characters and want me to empathize with them, but you do not flesh them out at all. So I am just like, okay, there is this guy on the screen. There are also 8 trillion other guys. Why do I give a fuck about this specific guy? I will answer that point. I really do not give a fuck about that guy. Overall, I did not really like any of them, end of story LMAO.

Problematic Quirks:
For problematic quirks (this whole show), my main thing with this is the stepmother thing. That was so fucking weird, and it wasn’t even like cute romantic or anything like that. It was just flat-out weird. Like, why are we calling our ex-boyfriend's stepmom? That is weird. Am I crazy for that? I feel like I really cannot get behind that, because it just felt like somebody's weird fetish that they used AI to write. I'm like, babe, this is not real. And there's another show on IQIYI that has the same plot. Is that like a thing? Like, ooh, I like it when I call my man stepmom. Dude, are you high? Am I high? Are we all high? What are we smoking in this goddamn show? Just weird, just plan fucking weird. And I want to say, it gets better. It does not. He does this to the very end, even when the dad is dead. He's like, well, stepmom, stepmom. No! Stepmom not. You are weird and incestual, and I hope you die, to be honest. I literally hope we kick rocks, do three backflips off a tree, and die. For the second and final quirk, in episodes 30 to, I think, 40, I do not know which episode it was, but it was around there. There was a rape scene, and I was like, okay, maybe if we had more lore, but no, it was just terrible. He kidnaps his ex to keep him from his dad, even though he does not want the dad, and he has made that clear. Then he rapes him twice, just unnecessary, dude. I do not understand. What are we doing? What's going on? It is just pissing me off for no reason at all. We are just being silly goofy to be silly goofy. Like, girl, bye. Okay, that is all the hate I have for this bum dum-ass show, so yeah.

In the end, I am not really sure I would recommend this. The plot is good, but some of the problematic quirks are VERY hard to ignore. So maybe not because of that aspect, but overall, if you are bored and you already pay for the streaming service, just watch it. You do not really have a lot to lose besides your dignity. Okay, bye!

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“Love at First Sight is a Horrible Thing”

After watching a couple of other series starring Haruka Ayase, like “I Want to Die Alone” (Hitori de Shinitai), and Hotaru no Hikari, and seeing that our birthdate is just a few days apart in the same year, and seeing how she plays empowered, independent and quirky women characters that are very similar to my own personality and mindset, and taking into her account her exquisitely beautiful face, I’ve decided that she is one of my most favorite Japanese actresses.

This series does not disappoint. Starting with that super catchy samba style intro theme song/music, and Nami’s badass ninja fighting skills, the story goes into how she is a woman who just wants love and has been fighting and defending herself and protecting others in this dangerous world. It’s a very interesting set of stories. Except for a few, many of the “bad women” are not actually bad but are trying to create justice for a terribly unjust situation. The men on the other hand are all portrayed as selfish, bullying, narcissistic, entitled, exploiting, misogynistic, and controlling- especially in marital and family relationships. This is not far from the truth obviously. It shows how marriage is basically a soul trap for women, where they are reduced down to objects wearing a happy mask that cook, clean, and wake up the man, pouring their life and soul and love into him and the kids, while he’s busy having affairs.

I don’t understand the martyr complex that the women have. Like Kyoka- she trails and finds her husband cheating and still says that she loves him and is waiting for him even when her own mother in law kicks her cheating son out of the house. She puts on this “brave, martyr, saintly face” in from of her friends Nani and Yuri as if bearing the torture somehow makes her a good saintly person. It doesn’t. Her husband doesn’t respect or love her any more for her saintly doormat act, and nor does anyone else. Then she misses him and like a soggy doormat, she ruins her own self empowerment and leverage in the situation and calls her cheating husband crying and saying “I miss you, please come home!” While the husband basically says no and disempowers her further. Can the wives be any more powerless? Why do they have to be like this?

I wonder why everyone is so two faced- I get it, it’s part of the culture. Not just Japanese but worldwide too. In marriages and social interactions people put on a happy clown face to others and show off and brag while hiding the horrors underneath. Marriage and family are a kind of performance for show. This series exposes that so well. Even Nami finds out that her charming husband is not the person she thought and hoped he was- whatever these women are in love with is a projection of their own longing. But the men in reality are despicable as husbands. For example, Yuri’s husband was her college professor who basically decided that he wanted to “have her and keep her” so he got her pregnant immediately so that she would get married to him and never leave the house. Possessing her like an object and treating her like utter trash. He is such a loathsome creature. If it weren’t for survival and having a roof over their heads, I’m sure most women would leave these ball and chain marriages where they are treated as indentured servants who should be grateful for their servitude. It is utterly deplorable. I’m glad that Haruka Ayase brings these shows where the woman is a little more empowered- even though her characters do want love deep in their soul, they are true to themselves and authentic and to some extent, free.

As Nami starts to find out that her own husband is a shady character, and that scene where the husband comes back from home and she’s cutting the cabbage and then throws a knife at him, and he blocks it with his suitcase- that moment when the mask drops is just so satisfying and thrilling to watching as they get down and dirty in the fight. It’s bizarre how married people live together for decades and are essentially strangers wearing masks in front of each other, trying to cover up over their true identity and seething hatred for each other, all in the name of a “stable life”, status, image or for survival or financial reasons. All so bizarre and all so fake. It would be one thing if it were just a TV show- but this is exactly how it is in this world. Nishijima is the perfect charming handsome fake husband with a streak of danger. There is something terribly romantic about one party coming to arrest another party but upon meeting her he forgets his mission and falls in love. But is it romance or thrill? Well there is no better way of controlling, subjugating, and surveilling a woman than to marry her. I was very impressed and squealing with excitement at Ayase’s fighting and stunts- she’s a true badass.

A very chilling dialog between husband and wife in the last episode.
Wife: “How long will I be watched? Until I die? I’ll have to live like I have a collar around my neck right?”
Husband: “If you behave yourself and live like an ordinary housewife, the day you can take the collar off, will come.” OUCH. This is the status of women in marriages. Treated as objects, slaves to serve the man and child.

The wife says: “There are couples who can be happy without telling each other what they really think right? But I don’t want that. Because I love you. I adore you. I want us to be honest with each other. We’ve been deceiving each other until now, so I want us to fight with all our might and make up with each other. And yet you want to put a collar around my neck? Do you not love me?” The woman, the wife is trying to break free from this torture.

Then a housewife who decided to have a short affair as a way to escape her husband who was literally being an emotional abuser and acting like slave owner, then gets blackmailed and subsequently beat up by men, while the “boss” says how boring it is. These scenes are very disturbing to see that much misogyny and it made me very sad.

It did make me happy to see Nami beat up guys in the warehouse to the legendary title samba music. But why do they approach her one by one like zombies? Anyways.. Shes a true hero. And very thrilling to watch. The last scene, the last moment was.. WTF .. a cliffhanger??

With all that said, even though I did not watch it and have no plans to, it seems like the story may have been inspired by Mr and Mrs Smith- an ode to the boring middle aged married couple that are secretly assassins. It explores the idea of a double life among all the characters very well, with a Japanese twist. I can confidently say that this series would be far more enjoyable than subjecting myself to the pompous nonsense of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt.

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