EmperorCaligula

Trying to make a review abut the the recently finished Thai BL show You Maniac, with William and Est in the two main roles.

Now, the point is something I realized yesterday, when I was watching the tenth and final episode. I was actually fast-forwarding, and I was asking myself: Am I getting old and forgetful? Do I have some sort of BL Alzheimer's, especially with certain shows? Because I couldn't remember anything that had happened before!

Now, I followed the series as it was released, all ten episodes, week by week, and I can't, for the love of God, make any sense of what actually happened. If someone asked me, looking back, "What is this BL story about?", I would have the greatest difficulty explaining what the actual point of the series was.

There is an admittedly wonderful song and music video they made, called Red Flag, which is probably the most interesting outcome of the series. I'm sorry to say. I have to add that I'm not very familiar with William and Est as actors. The first time I saw them was not so long ago in the series Me and Thee, as supporting characters, where Est played the butler and personal bodyguard of Mr. Kuntee, and William played the brother, who had only brief appearances.

I realized back then, for the first time, that they had a huge fan following, which was absolutely surprising and unexplainable to me. But maybe they have made some really breathtaking series in the past that I don't know about. That's something I genuinely have to consider, without any irony.

Now, the interesting thing is that the story itself left me wondering: What is this actually about?

I mean, basically, it's about one playboy who always drinks, goes to discos, has one guy after another, and has no interest in leading a steady, serious life. And then there's the other character, not exactly an introvert, but rather reclusive, whose dedication is to painting, although there is never any real clarity about whether his painting career is going anywhere.

And the funny thing is that we only get told, in text at the end of episode ten, what happened to them. So there isn't even a proper conclusion showing us, "Oh, they got together, he became a successful painter, and they lived happily ever after," blah blah blah. We get all of this in text at the end!

And even in episode ten, they had to put in some drama, because I feel they realized there wasn't much going on. And it was the same old drama of non-communication, which dragged and dragged and dragged. I was watching this practically solely to understand the huge fandom that William and Est have. For any other reason, I would have stopped watching out of boredom.

Now, I know some people watch episode one and instantly say, "Ah, this is nothing for me." I'm usually more patient. I have even watched series to the end that I really didn't like, just to see whether maybe there would be a turn, some big revelation that suddenly made everything interesting. Or sometimes simply to get a complete impression of something.

But this wasn't really a bad show. It's not as if I could get angry and aggravated and say, "Oh God, what a horrible show this was!" But it wasn't a good show either.

You know this show felt a bit like elevator music! It doesn't aggravate you, but it makes the journey a little less boring.
I'm sorry if this sounds a little harsh, but frankly, in comparison, I felt that the acting abilities, at least in these roles, of Est were considerably better than those of William, who is so often praised as the big star.

And I don't want to aggravate fans of the series, or of either actor, least of all. But it remains entirely mysterious to me what people find so extraordinary about them. I think Est was probably the most convincing when it came to conveying emotions. Maybe it's simply the role of Dean that William had to play, because Dean isn't really an interesting or particularly sympathetic character.

But then there's Est playing — I actually forgot the name of his character — this reclusive painter who isn't sure whether to go forward or backward, whether to ask his friend something or not. And then some of his friends tell him, "Oh, Dean has to ask you! Do you want to be his boyfriend?"

And I thought: Why don't YOU ask him if you want to know? I mean, are you the princess in a castle, waiting for the prince to come and ask? You can do exactly the same thing yourself!
And I'll finish here.

You know that I sincerely use the full scale, where five really is the middle ground. And I mean that seriously. And as such, I can only give it a

6/10 points.
Gods knows what the idea behind it all was. I didn't get it.