Shoebill

If you read the manga you'd know that Taichi didn't go to the notetaking course at all. So she is right that he isn't taking it seriously and although he isn't taking advantage of Kohei, it's logical that she'd assume so because of the fact that Taichi was getting compensated for it. She was rude to him but it wasn't "all of a sudden". There was a clear thought process behind it.

It's also on GagaOOlala

Agreed, but if you're talking about the My Best TV Awards, it's won the monthly drama poll but hasn't yet won the annual poll. It'll be going up against Ossan's Love Returns and At 25:00 in Akasaka at the end of the year, but hopefully it'll win!

Also, do you have info about the show's reception among HoH communities in Japan that you mentioned? I'm curious to know more but I couldn't find much on Twitter besides 1-2 comments (which were positive!).

Thanks for sharing your thoughts nicely! Although I don't agree that there is no romance at all, I'm glad you wrote your comment with consideration and said that this is "not for you" rather than insulting other people's tastes or disregarding the disability focus.

In this case it is indeed something that the author neglected at first but has started to rectify in the latest installments of the manga by showing that homophobia exists. I agree there could be more queer issues addressed overall.

I'm not sure, I viewed it on the phone so there's an auto translate button under each comment. Also I would say most of the hate comments are from Chinese fans.

Yeah the singer definitely fucked up and his choices are questionable. I don't think he deserves hate though and definitely not Kohei's actor or the actress.

Many fans justified the hate with "disrespecting the original work", so the author, the authority of the work, showing support can pacify them. I don't think her justification is what truly matters.

The fact that anyone who has a different opinions than you about a show is "delusional" while you are "justified" says more about your character.

??? The entirety of Episodes 9 and 10 are Taichi centred... (Also the lack of gay exploration is not a Maya screentime problem)

Sure! The gist is that the singer of the ED made a heterosexual MV for the song and got Kohei's actor to star in it. So many people got angry at him, Motoki and the actress. Obviously the guy's decision is stupid, but it did not justify the harassment. The YouTube MV was temporarily locked and they also put together a version with Kohei-Taichi scenes from the show to pacify fans. It's been a while so the comment section of the MV has been filled with positive ones, but the Twitter posts are still up.

https://x.com/kawasaki_staff/status/1821157378706042954?t=waUGv6-VwSgzLwbYjtvTKA&s=19
https://x.com/kawasaki_staff/status/1821103402845196610?t=AZWp0cavt5qQkIHMyBSONQ&s=19

It got so bad even the manga author came forward to approve the MV and reassured fans that the character in it isn't Kohei.
https://www.instagram.com/p/C-ZiWHkPN3c/?igsh=MXRqbXI1eHJza3ZxNA==

It is angsty lol.

(Manga spoilers discussion below)

I agree but I think Fumino-sensei is starting to do some interesting things in Four Seasons. I don't know where it'll lead but I'm interested at least.

I've always felt like the romance has always been written from a very cis-hetero POV, in a "love regardless of gender" way. Taichi shows some internalised homophobia but it's not explicitly spelled out or tackled, and the story hasn't done much with Yumi who is a HoH trans woman. So their love feels kind of "spiritual" with little material consequence (compounded by the fact that there is little sexual desire on Taichi's part). But Four Seasons starts delving into social aspects of their relationship like homophobia (Sudo) and possibly being outed, so it starts exploring the dimension of their relationship and the series' themes that's been lacking so far. I also hope it will also lead to Yumi playing a bigger role. Sensei is very commmitted to portraying disabled perspectives so it would be great if she had the same commitment to portraying LGBTQ+ perspectives too.

It's very acclaimed in Japan, has been ranking high on many polls and even on Twitter majority of international fans have been loving it. MDL is not an accurate representation of the show's reception and thankfully the staff doesn't care about MDL users.

But there has in fact been a harassment problem, mainly due to the incident with the Ending song MV. Not because of miscommunication

Because it is. People come to watch a series that is literally about treating disabled people with empathy and understanding then complain when a disabled character is treated with empathy and understanding. Even if you don't find her personality likable it's pretty obvious why Kohei and Taichi would defend her against ableism and try to get her to open up.

The coming of age, career stuff and the disability drama IS the main plot. Taichi and Kohei's romance development, though important, isn't the main focus. This makes the drama a different genre than purely romance BL shows, and it's perfectly fine if this genre isn't for you, but you should adjust your expectations going forward and accept that that's just the direction the series is gonna go.

Some of these changes can clearly be attributed to cutting corners on budget (they'd have to hire Sai's actor for an extra day of filming on the campus). It's also why Yasu was removed from Maya's scenes this EP and Tendo from the whole drama lol. I think they would've chosen to keep it like the original if they had the resources, since the show has been pretty adamant about being faithful to the key manga scenes, but it is what it is.

No, it'll end at the end of Vol 2 when they get together. It's already been announced that that's where they're adapting up to.

There is no "second half of the books" because the manga is still ongoing. Kohei isn't a secondary character at all, the next arc is all about his internalised ableism, but itll only be adapted if we get a season 2.

Yes, actually. True allyship and advocacy includes people who might hate you and act in the "wrong" way. And as you can see because of the empathy and kindness he shows towards her he ends up changing her mind and she starts to soften up.

Because he's someone who has empathy and actively wants to help hard-of-hearing people? If he wants to make it his life's calling to improve society for disabled people he can't pick and choose which disabled people deserves more understanding and care.

About the help/exploitation at the beginning, yeah you can view that way, because that's actually Maya's main criticism about Taichi. It's also true that Taichi initially began notetaking for money/lunch and not truly to out of a desire to help.
BUT it is through that that Taichi begins to see all the injustice in the world towards hard-of-hearing people and grows a desire to eliminate it, and so he goes to pursue a career to make society more accommodating. He cares for Maya too, even though she hates him, because he sees that she is struggling. His desire to help is no longer just about lunches. Their notetaking relationship at the beginning IS fundamentally flawed and that's why they have to separate in order to get together.

"Taichi, I like/love you." It's a confession. (The word is "suki", but can be translated to like or love depending on context and the translator.)