Soul Mate

Not an 'any of the tag words' - story, but a beautiful adult love story

I just finished watching this in one go and just want to say that this is one of the most beautiful love stories I have seen yet.

I don't watch any of the modern, copy and paste feminised BL dramas for many reasons I don't want to elaborate.
But I watched this and was deeply moved by the way this story was told, and by the fact it was NOT about cheap, repetitive, one-dimensional, childish, unrealistic romance mainly made for teenage girls.

In fact, this was not about sex and cheap butterflies in the stomach triggers at all. It was about human relationships and it was about love in different shades, and life coming in between in all sort of ways. I was touched by many things in this, by the FL with the story of her childhood with a mother who completely ignored her as well as I was touched by the main male characters and especially the last few episodes.

I also liked it was multilingual and shot in different countries, one of them my home country even. I loved that the two male lead looked ordinary, in a way of their natural complexion instead of chalky white makeup and pink lipstick. I liked that their hair was messy when they got up in the morning, that they had dark circles under their eyes when they were stressed and desperate. I simply liked they looked like real people for a change.
This was not something to watch in between or for escapism and feeling better, many things here were without words and explanations. Many things were about reading the room, about glances, about guessing what a character might think in one moment or another, so, in short, it was something for people with brains - which I crave so much and which is so very rare these days.

Of all the actors I only knew Ok Taecyeon, whom I liked because he was in one of the first dramas I watched and liked about ten years ago.
I think his role as Jo-han here was by far his most serious, adult and actingwise his best role.
I enjoyed this a lot and will certainly rewatch it some time.

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Wow. The tears really came with this one. 😭

I was only planning to watch one episode, but somehow that turned into all eight. I just couldn’t stop watching.

This is a truly beautiful queer series, filled with emotion and heart. It stayed with me long after it ended.

Definitely worth watching. 🤍✨


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Life Just Happens

I loved this show. I was so excited to see a well known actor like Ok Taec Yeon main role in a queer show that didn't focus on family drama dynamics of a coming out story, but a story that focused on how life just fucking happens and you have to deal with it, and it's all about the choices you make.

Ryu and Jo Han showed a different side of what being a soul mate can mean. Whether physical or emotional, you got to watch them build a connection that superseded time and space. But that it's the choices you make and the decisions you make on behalf of other people that shape your life and* the the lives around.

I did not anticipate this to be a BL story, because BL is a very specific fictional category (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boys'_love) and fully anticipated it to be a queer show similar to Love in the Big City, I over all felt this show had the vibe of being a cross between Love in the Big City and Mr. Plankton. I was glad it did not end up a tragedy, but it was definitely bittersweet*.

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More than friends less than lovers

I used to be an avid hater of when I’m promised a queer romance but instead get nothing but subtlety and no indication of love whatsover. Countries like these often censor queer love especially with big name actors like Taecyeon.

I didn’t know what to expect going into this, and I read a couple of comments on it, where people said it’s just pure queerbait— so I decided to avoid it.
But the more the show popped up on my timeline on netflix, the more curious I got.

I didn’t see much promotion on this show, hell I didn’t even see many edits either. So I really went in blind.

The beginning started, and from the getgo they made sure you know what the genre of this show will be. It IS a queer story, and it did not hide it.

It might not fall under the BL category but it most definitely is a love story. One that doesn’t need an explicit kiss to show that it’s romantic.

The main characters kept showing their love, and confessing in the most beautiful ways. Everything that they’ve done for each other, is a love confession.

This is one of the most beautiful shows I’ve watched…I cried so much; my heart still hurts, but that’s how you know it’s a well done show. Amazing performances by the actors, every episode captivated me. So much rawness and pain, yet the most beautiful love story came out of it.

Amazing show. I’ll remember it forever.

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Soul Mate — What If Love Doesn't Need a Name?

How am I supposed to describe Soul Mate? Beautiful, certainly. A BL? Maybe, depending on what we expect that label to mean. A bromance? That feels too small. A romance without romance? Perhaps that comes closer. What I am certain about is that I loved it. Netflix itself presented Soul Mate as a ten-year love story between two young men and categorises the finished series as LGBTQ+. So technically, calling it BL is hardly something viewers invented afterwards. But anyone going into these eight episodes expecting the usual BL language should probably know what they are getting. There is no kiss, no sex scene and almost none of the conventional skinship we have learned to associate with two fictional men becoming a couple. Ryu and Johan don't even spend much time trying to define what they are to each other. And strangely, that is exactly what made me think about what a “soulmate” actually means.

We often treat love and sex as if they automatically belong together, then treat romance as if it can only be proven through physical behaviour. But the soul isn't the body. Someone can desire another person's body without loving them at all, while another person can become so essential to your existence that imagining life without them becomes almost impossible. Soul Mate seems much more interested in that second kind of connection. Ryu and Johan meet because both are already damaged. Ryu has fled Japan carrying enormous guilt over what happened to his friend Arata, while Johan is a Korean boxer being exploited inside a violent environment of his own. Their meeting in Berlin is almost absurdly dramatic—Johan literally saves Ryu's life—but what develops afterwards isn't the instant sexual attraction of a conventional romance. It is recognition. One lonely person seems to recognise another. Then life keeps pulling them together for ten years.

Berlin, Tokyo and Seoul are not simply pretty international backgrounds. Their relationship has to survive geography, different languages, work, military service, family, violence, illness, grief and long periods when one cannot physically be beside the other. Yet whenever something truly matters, they move toward each other again. Johan saves Ryu. Ryu searches for Johan. They create a home. They help Sumiko. Eventually they construct something resembling a family without ever stopping to explain to everybody what box that family belongs in. That is why calling them simply “brothers” doesn't work for me either. Brotherhood can absolutely produce extraordinary devotion, particularly between men who have survived difficult experiences together. Friendship can also become more important than many marriages. But Soul Mate deliberately places Ryu and Johan within a queer story and repeatedly uses the language of love, fate and spending a life together. Netflix didn't advertise this merely as two male friends; even its original Japanese announcement calls it a story of their “souls and love.” At the same time, I understand why some BL viewers were frustrated. Queer audiences have spent decades being given relationships where everything was implied because filmmakers were unwilling or unable to show two men actually being lovers. So when a drama markets itself as an LGBTQ+ love story and then refuses even one kiss, questioning that choice is legitimate. Critics themselves were divided over exactly this point. The Japan Times thought the ambiguity allowed the script to play things both ways, while other reviewers saw the lack of conventional physical romance as essential to what the drama was trying to express.

For me, the difference is intention. I didn't feel that Soul Mate was embarrassed by these men loving each other. I felt that it was deliberately asking whether their relationship still needs our permission to be called love when it isn't demonstrated through sex. There is a significant difference between censoring homosexuality and presenting intimacy that simply isn't sexual. Would one kiss have destroyed that idea? Of course not. That is where I remain slightly conflicted. There are moments where the absolute avoidance of physical affection becomes so conspicuous that you start noticing the absence rather than concentrating on what is present. Two people can have a nonsexual relationship, but even platonic friends hug, lean against one another or touch naturally. The restraint occasionally feels less organic than the emotions surrounding it. Yet the emotional commitment is never small. These aren't two men who meet, spend a summer together and remember each other fondly. Their lives remain intertwined across a decade. They repeatedly make choices most people would only make for someone occupying an extraordinary place in their lives. Eventually the question “Are they boyfriends?” starts to feel less interesting than “Why do we need them to be?” That is where the title becomes beautiful. A soulmate isn't necessarily the person you sleep with. It isn't necessarily your spouse either. It can be the person whose presence permanently changes the direction of your life—the person who understands a part of you nobody else can reach. Some people marry their soulmate. Some find that person in friendship. Some probably never meet one at all. Ryu and Johan become family in that deeper sense.

The addition of Sumiko is important because Soul Mate also refuses the traditional idea that a family has one acceptable structure. After tragedy changes her life, the three of them eventually build a household around a child. Netflix even describes the series through friendship as well as LGBTQ+ themes, and that combination makes sense: the drama doesn't keep putting walls between romantic love, friendship and chosen family. Everything overlaps because real relationships often do. That broader definition of love also explains why the series can sometimes feel much more painful than a normal romance. It is filled with people carrying guilt they cannot easily put down. Ryu believes his actions—or his failure to act—helped destroy someone else's life. Johan has learned to survive through physical endurance. Other characters deal with bereavement, family expectations and responsibilities that arrive whether anyone is emotionally ready for them or not. Love does not magically repair those people. That may be one of the things I appreciated most. Johan cannot punch trauma until it disappears, and Ryu cannot simply meet a wonderful man and suddenly forgive himself. They help each other survive, but they don't become magical medicine for one another.

Shunki Hashizume was probably an ideal writer-director for that kind of story. He previously directed More Than Words that I love, another Japanese queer drama far more interested in the complicated shapes relationships can take than in fitting them comfortably inside conventional romance. With Soul Mate, he wrote and directed all eight episodes himself, so this unusual emotional language is clearly not the accidental result of several creators disagreeing about what kind of series they were making. The production also had considerably more experience and resources than the average BL. ROBOT has been producing Japanese film and television since the 1980s and was behind major Netflix productions including Alice in Borderland and Yu Yu Hakusho. Netflix itself produced Soul Mate, with filming spanning Berlin, Seoul and Tokyo. Whatever we think about the romantic ambiguity, this is certainly not one of those BLs where weak production limits what the creators are capable of showing.

And the two leads justify that investment. Ok Taecyeon is excellent, as usual. Johan could very easily have become the stereotypical strong Korean boxer whose purpose is simply to protect the more emotionally vulnerable Japanese protagonist. Instead, Taecyeon makes physical strength and emotional isolation exist simultaneously. The body looks powerful while the person living inside it often seems terribly alone. That contrast suits him particularly well because Taecyeon has spent years playing characters with very different energies, from the terrifying Jang Jun-woo in Vincenzo to romance, historical dramas and action roles. He said when accepting Soul Mate that he wanted to broaden his acting spectrum, and Johan certainly gives him something different. Isomura Hayato is an equally strong match. He doesn't need to compete physically with Taecyeon because Ryu's vulnerability operates differently. Isomura lets guilt remain visible even when Ryu appears functional. The series depends on us believing that ten years can change somebody without completely erasing the younger man he once was, and he carries that continuity very well. Both are established actors with substantial careers in their respective countries, and that maturity matters. This story could easily have become ridiculously melodramatic in less capable hands. Instead, even when the screenplay piles tragedy upon tragedy, the performances keep the emotional centre surprisingly quiet. Perhaps that is ultimately why I don't really care whether everybody agrees about the BL label. If somebody asks me whether Soul Mate resembles the BLs we normally watch, I would say no. If you specifically want flirting, romantic tension, kisses, sexual intimacy and the progression toward an identifiable boyfriend relationship, this may actually disappoint you. The marketing created understandable expectations because Netflix itself described it as a love story between two men. But if you ask whether I think Ryu and Johan love one another, then my answer is completely different. Yes. I just don't know whether the vocabulary we normally use is large enough to describe exactly how.

Final Thought

Maybe Soul Mate works best when we stop asking whether Ryu and Johan are boyfriends, brothers, best friends or something somewhere between all three. They are soulmates. Two broken people from two different countries accidentally meet thousands of kilometres from home. One saves the other's life, and from that moment their lives keep returning to one another for ten years. They protect each other, search for each other, hurt because of each other, construct a home around each other and become part of a family that would not exist in the same form without both of them. If that isn't love, then I'm not sure what else to call it. The absence of a kiss doesn't make that devotion meaningless, just as adding a sex scene would not automatically have made it deeper. At the same time, I understand viewers who wanted the series to be less afraid of physical intimacy, because queer love deserves to be allowed a body as much as heterosexual love does. Both reactions can be true. For me, however, Soul Mate ultimately reaches for something slightly different. Bodies age. Bodies become sick. Careers disappear. Countries separate people. Life changes around us whether we want it to or not. What the series asks us to imagine is a connection surviving beyond all of that—something that cannot quite be reduced to sex, romance, friendship or family because it contains pieces of all of them. That is why I found it beautiful.

Not a conventional BL. Not simply a bromance either. Just two souls that found each other, and never really became separate again.

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A love that needs no labels, a love that dares to stay undefined.

Throughout the series, I had mixed feelings about the way the story was told. I found myself confused, endeared, longing, and melancholic, every emotion and scene burying deeper into me and leaving me with more questions than answers. The story itself is hard to relate and integrate into, yet, the characters add so much depth, flaws, nuance and vibrance to what would otherwise hold no form.

One of the asterstrokes of the story was Sumiko and Ryu's mother, both abandoned by family that ought to catch you when you fall, yet refusing to stay within the grasp of its pain. Their kindness, strength, refusal to diminish themselves even when it comes to being a mother, a wife, and a friend, refusing to give up love for their own self in the name of sacrifice truly settled down something deep within me.

Ryu and Yohan's relationship was so sheer, raw, unexplained and unapologetic. The team took such a brave yet dangerous step in deciding to leave most of their genuinity, closeness and tenderness hidden behind the scenes. And this is exactly what pushed us audience into the role of the society around them. We know they live together, we know they belong to each other in ways we'll ever be left guessing, we know they share a home- and that's all we know. Oftentimes, we look at snippets of people living next to us and carve out their life deciding we know enought about them to do so. Just like that, within this story, we are left to project our ideologies into their relationship, forcing it to fit within frames that were never meant to hold them.

We yearn for a conclusion, a label, a status, an answer. But, the series remains stubborn in not giving one. It dares us to fill in the gaps left behind while silently moving forward on its own terms with no remorse. And that's where it perfectly captures life and love. It flawlessly denies conformity and definitions, truly existing free within a literary utopia where to live together and create a home, you owe no one any explanations.

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Beautifully raw and real

This show was beautifully done. I wouldn't consider it a BL, maybe more of a queer story. I loved this so much. I watched it one sitting. I loved getting to go through so many years of life with our cast. It felt like watching someone's life more than watching a show and I loved that.

Ryu was my favorite character. He was so caring and so adorable and just the biggest green flag. Jo Han was an incredible character too. He went through so many hard time but I loved that he kept getting back up and trying to make the best out of his life. Sumiko was also so enjoyable to watch. She is so strong and I loved her determination too. All the characters in this show had such a complexity about them that made them feel so real. They all went through good times as well as a lot of hardships that life throws at you.
The boys wanting to help Sumiko raise the baby and seeing the three of them raise her together was so beautiful to see. I loved that it showed different sides of it including the judgement that would naturally come from other people. Even after Jo Han left, Ryu agreeing to marry Sumiko to make it easier on the child was so incredible to see too.
I have a feeling some people won't care for the ending since the boys never confessed to each, nor came out and said they were gay, but I loved it. Somehow that made the story seem that much more real. You as the audience knew they were gay and knew they had feelings for each other from little moments here and there throughout the show without it ever being said outright and I loved that. We hear their monologues and the end and hear the I love you's but I personally think the I love you's were just in their heads. I think they spent Jo Han's finals moments together and then Ryu goes back home without them ever saying anything to each other, but I don't think they needed to. I think they knew deep down how they felt and that was enough for them and even though some may say it's tragic they never heard it from the other, I think it is still beautiful.

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It hurt me!! But I loved it.

I've been waiting for this series ever since the casting was announced, I truly couldn't care less if it was gay or not I just wanted to watch it because I really like these two actors.

I gotta say that I am absolutely impressed with how good this series is, I didn't know what the plot was going to be exactly as I avoided reading the description and didn't watch the trailer, but that poster, it was obvious that it was going to be a sad one, but I didn't expect it to be this sad!! I cried, I'm still crying, from the very beginning it's just so gloomy, although there are cute happy moments it's mostly sad. It is still worth it, the story is beautifully told, the acting is fantastic and the episodes are short so it's an easy binge.

I loved it, it hurt me, it hurt me so that I need to go watch some cartoons or something cute to lighten my mood, but I still would recommend and maybe watch again at least 1 more time.

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Good start. Horrible ending.

I honestly had a lot of expectations for the movie, especially because it had Taecyeon in it and the fact that it was marketed as a bl...but it's not.
But even as a queer movie I think the plot would have been better overall but it just gets confusing.

All of a sudden sumiko's husband dies and then she moves in with Ryu and yohan. From that moment on I just knew that there would be no chance of romance when she entered the picture.

What's up with Japanese bls always putting a woman between the love interests?? Same thing happened in More than Words than that just put me off.

All I can say is that the plot should've developed better.

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