My Strawberry Film

A soulful BL and GL

The discourse about whether this series is a BL or not is asinine. Of course it is. Male-male love does not have to be consummated to be a BL; it merely has to be perceived. At its core, this series is that. Most assuredly, it is a love story of unrequited love. In addition, this series is certainly a GL. More overt but never fully realized.
The story is a deeply reflective, pensive at times, coming-of-age narration of four inquisitive high schoolers. Each is hiding an inner secret not atypical of individuals of their age. But for all, it seems crushing and perhaps overwhelming. That is the burden of youth they must carry - until their next quest.

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Slow, Quiet, Simple

My Strawberry Film is a Japanese series about a group of friends. The story follows them as they are trying to investigate who is the mysterious girl that they found in the film as they are also trying to navigate the heartbreaks of falling in love and getting rejected by your first love. I actually watched this show because it was recommended to me as a BL but it was clearly from the very beginning that it was not and that it really is about that feeling that you get from falling in love and getting rejected. The friendship of Ryo and Hikaru are the main thing here and little did Hikaru know is that Ryo is actually in love with him while they also met two girls who were added to their friend group that are important members of this now. Chika likes Ryo but Ryo likes Hikaru likes the new girl who looks like the girl in the video named Minami. This dynamics will lead them into awkward moments while trying to understand what it means to fall in love and get rejected. The story highlighted the importance of friendship as it trumps any other emotion that they have for each other. I actually liked the show. I know that the story may not be as strong as one would hope for it to be but I like the message that they are telling and how they handled such sensitive topic without over analyzing or complicating things. At the end of the day, the characters felt like individuals who are in a bind and they have been more honest with how they truly feel with each other. I love the moment that Ryo and Hikaru spent at the end where they held hands and that even though Ryo said that it will be the last selfish thing that he will ask for, Hikaru still held his hands. This was such a sweet moment that really resonated with me. I just wish that every rejection can be as sensitive and mature and lovely and considerate and as beautiful as that moment that they shared together. Well, they are really good friends so there is that and I think another thing that I enjoyed here is how human the show felt. It is a very simple show and we only have a few characters here but there is so much care in the writing that you can really see them handling the vulnerability of the characters so well that it is just interesting and fun to watch. It is a good show with the ending highlighting who these four characters are and what this moment felt for each and everyone of them.

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Light, comfy and warm

[no hard spoilers]
After watching this, I came imediately back to MDL to rate this with a high score, then got surprised with the 6.7 rating.
I thing people here are just insufurable.
Usually, when most people search for BLs (especially japanese bls), they'll have high expectations for something with no censor or a very fan service type of dinamic.
With this piece, you will get a genuine story of teenagers being teenagers in high school. No sex, no jumping to "give the public what they want, dammit". It's just how they're learning about themselves and discovering love.
For many japanese bls, i feel like they try hard with a low budget but My Strawberry Summer showed simple/daily environments, without a large cost, and proved that is not a requirement for a good show.
The picture is simply amazing. I makes it so cozy to watch! The actors are also really good with the script - I'm sooo used to see them acting all awkward or with a very robotic style of overreacting or low effort on expressing the character's feeling. For this one, it feels like the cast genuinely liked working together.

[a little bit of the plot spoilers below]
So, for the plot... I found it quite a cliche. What added up was the girls liking each other. Despite the fact of the girl Mizuki's mom liked being her teacher, I liked how natural they made it seem. The students were very chill and understanding of it, and I think the whole lore had an impact on Hikaru. He then proceeded to talk to Ryo after, maybe, getting more comfortable to touch the subject.
Overall, I love how the happy ending was not necessaraly a happy couple. In fact, there were no couples. And that is fine :)
They worked on themselves and the most important job was done. They maintained the friendship and we, as the watchers, can just assume Ryo will learn how to deal with his feelings towards Hikaru as they grow up.
I would love to see what happens in the future, as they graduate. I hope they won't lose their friendship by going to different colleges (if that happens) :,)
Would be fine to have a 40min movie telling us about their college years, but still, if that ever happens, I would wish Ryo and Hikaru remain as friends, just because the show made it so natural how "ok" it is that the guy's friend won't end up falling for him like in many other dramas :D

[conclusion]
Definetely worth watching and deservers a higher score. MDL people are too harsh. It's simply a nice and cozy 8 episodes show with teenagers understanding love in all types of relationships :)

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Go Girl! Give us nothing!

I've only watched up until episode seven as of writing this review. So please take that into consideration as you continue reading.

First and foremost, this is most definitely not a BL. It has ELEMENTS of a BL, but they're so scarce and non-existent that they practically don't matter. Only adding a little bit of drama alongside other one-sided crushes. Which basically sums up the entire plot of this show. They're all Pearl from Steven Universe. There that's your synopsis. And while there is a key mystery as to who the girl in the film is, its not really addressed throughout the series as much as it should be. One of the characters even mentions that it seems like no one really cares anymore about the mystery. The only time its really brought up in a meaningful manner again is episode seven. Which, honestly wasn't surprising when the new friend to their quartet was in fact...the girl in the video. Now why she hid it or why the teacher is involved is anyone's guess.

I won't sit here and lie it did have its interesting moments but overall this show is just high school relationship drama and it's most basic and immature. Just with the mysterious strawberry girl added in for extra flavor praying it keeps you intrigued throughout the eight episodes. Having said all that I do plan on finishing it, might as well after watching the first seven episodes right? Although I wouldn't have even of started if I knew this wasn't going to be a true BL.

UPDATE; After having finished watching the final EP my opinions have only changed slightly. The reveal of the person who recorded the footage being the female teacher was so obvious I couldn't even pretend to be shocked. And the girl in the video was actually the mother of one of the girls in the friend group. Although the reason WHY the teacher and girl in the video had a falling out I did appreciate. I also do like how each of the characters remained single but were all able to stay friends. Opposite to the teacher and mother's friendship. Honestly could have just been a mini series and it would have been 10X better.

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Very nice drama

i know my opinion on this might differ from others but i personally enjoyed watching this drama,it might not be wholesome and fun all the time but it was about youth.Also making mistakes as teenagers and moving on i think it had a special meaning and yeah i know that sometimes our words can hurts others.I feel like the meaning behind this drama was to be honest and say our feelings,kaoru probably caused a missunderstanding but if she had realized her friends feelings sooner maybe things would have worked out but also maybe not cause her friend was bottling it up.Anyway i feel like this drama was really good even if some people are not into this and might feel its underated i would totally recommend this to someone from me it's 10/10

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Well! This is not everyon's cup of tea

I started with a dilemma whether to watch or not as I read many comments saying it not entirely BL. But I am glad I watched it. Yes, the plot is a bit dragging, but still beautiful.
The actors have done really a great job in showing emotions, caring and sacrifice for each other. Ryo's turmoil in silence, trying to keep his feelings hidden for Hikaru. Chika's heartbreaking love towards Ryo and yet being a supportive friend, Minami's caring nature towards Chika, Hikaru, although a bit ignorant to start with, but finally seeing Ryo's feelings an properly having a talk simply shows how beautiful friendship can be. This drama shows love of Friendship can be sometimes be much more deeper than romantic love.

I like the way the drama has open and honest conversation between each other which clears misunderstanding, how the leads doesn't turn evil by being jealous when someone they like likes someone else, but simply support each other. The suspense was kept well to add cherry on the top. The actors are shown so mature, understanding, caring for their age.

Yes, it is not everyone's cup of tea if you watch for a proper BL/GL story. But still worth giving it a try.

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I honestly dropped it for this reason

Okay, I wasn't going to talk about this series because it honestly just annoys me but here I am.

This series is listed as a BL, it also has "Gay Romance" & "LGBTQ" in the tags under this show on Mydramalist. Here's my problem for those who haven't seen it. It's 100%, not a BL (We have two eps left so they could throw it in there At the last minute or not) but it's borderline bromance but more of a one-sided crush.

I think it annoys me because if you take away the excitement of the BL aspect, it's a decent little high school Japanese drama. When you throw at us that it's a BL and "Gay Romance" we who love BLs are going to assume it's a BL, you cant even call it a bromance because the other guy looks like he has no interest in the one who has the crush. I definitely would have liked it a lot more if it was just considered a J-Drama and you took away the tags and the BL concept.

I don't use the word "Queerbating" loosely but that's what you could depict from this series, now I'm not denying that the one who has a crush is part of the lgbtq community, that's not the problem. The problem lies with it being called a BL, if you aren't going to give us BL ( BL means, physical intimacy (i.e kissing and such) and confessions), you can't label it a bromance either (Bromance means a close relationship between two males without confessions or physical intimacy) This series gives neither of those. They are just two boys who are simply best friends.

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