timotey

Well, that was very... Japanese. And as much as I looked forward to this movie - I own the manga in its entirety and I watched and loved the anime - I simply didn't like it. Why?

For one, the music was very jarring. Terribly loud, electronic, very... 2001: A Space Odyssey like with the whole droning thing etc. After a while, it made my eye twitch. I really hated it.

Also, I felt like I was actually watching a theater performance. It was mostly filmed in a studio, among very obvious set pieces - the shop didn't even look like a real place - and the performances themselves were so overwrought, especially by the villains. It felt very "even the viewers in the last row need to see I'm batcrap insane, watch me cackle." Yeah.

The only saving grace? Watanuki and Doumeki. This kind of a relationship was what I wanted from the manga and the anime and the movie actually delivered. So brownie points for that.

But... yeah. This? Not my cuppa. Maybe someone who is really into artsy stuff will love it but not me.

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A great little drama literally murdered by horrible subs by MangoTV.

This is Mr. & Mrs. Smith wuxia style. They adore each other, bless their little hearts, but he's the palace's secret agent and she's a gun for hire - so to speak. And they don't know that about each other.

Goodness gracious, the shenanigans! Not only is the writing truly hilarious, the actors play their parts perfectly which adds to the overall funny - and yet loving - tone of this web drama.

It's too bad that Mango butchered the subs so badly. Because of it, the overall plot with the palace intrigue and whatnot is literally lost in translation. I kinda doubt that the visiting... official or whatever was really a "proton" 🤨

Also, the ending song is truly lovely.

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Oh, this was wonderful. Short and sweet and, well, wonderful. A tale of two best friends since childhood who fall in love. And pretty much nothing changes. It's a tale about how amazing it is when your partner is also your best friend.

I loved all the pairings in this drama, the main one, Sakura & Yuma, but also the het pairings, their classmates' and the teachers'! Gosh, I loved the teachers, they were just the right amount of quirky without feeling like clowns. And it was so touching how much affection they had for their students - and vice versa! The students poked fun at them, sure, but they honestly liked and admired their teachers.

My main draw, of course, were Sakura and Yuma, their relationship, their personalities, how perfectly they clicked, how well they knew each other, how easily they slipped into being a couple. I think my favorite moment was Yuma's "I will always cherish you" campfire confession. That was just... perfect.

Overall, short and sweet and funny, perfect for curing blue moods.

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The cases in this drama honestly surprised me. They never turned out the way I expected them to. Totono-kun's observation skills were simply awesome, not just regarding the cases but also people, simply people. He might've been a loner but he knew about people. I loved that, yeah, he was annoying to some but when he started talking to the culprits or to the victims, he truly got through to them and made them see reality as was, not just the way they thought it was.

Suda Masaki was fantastic as Totono-kun. I saw him in a few things already but he has never really caught my interest, I was always all, "Yeah, and so-n-so was played by Suda Masaki. Alright." But here, he was truly marvelous. The way his Totono-kun was a loner, a bit weird but not in a bad way, a walking encyclopedia but also someone who just walked in the rain, singing a song about potatoes, who was all excited about a bento and an impressionist exhibition, who never, ever wanted to get involved in the cop's cases and yet, when push came to shove, he always helped... Yeah, that was cute.

Also, Totono-kun & Garo! Wow. I'm so curious where that is headed and I hope that there will be S2 that will explore their relationship!

Overall, a great series. Funny but also so intriguing!

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Kamen Riders vs. Super Sentai. And really, truly, honestly a fantastic movie! Not only did it showcase great battle moments - like between Fourze & Meteor (Kamen Rider Fourze) - it also featured storylines between Tsukasa & Kaitou (Kamen Rider Decade) and Marvelous & Joe (Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger) that carried the whole thing. It also introduced me to so many teams that I didn't know but now I want to!

My favorite thing was, of course, the storyline that focused on Joe and his bond with Marvelous. Joe's grief, his trust in Marvelous and then his despair when Marvelous betrayed that trust, that was so... wow. I did miss some fallout of that, true, but this is a kids movie, after all.

My favorite moments?

When Tsukasa's henchmen almost killed Joe and Marvelous stepped in at the very last moment and saved his life. It didn't exactly fall into Marvelous' plan but he couldn't just let them kill Joe, after all.

When Marvelous betrayed Joe and Kaitou - Kaitou!!! - stepped in and protected Joe from him. Kaitou's "He's been hurt enough!" made me squee on the inside!

And then, when Kaitou was leaving and his last goodbye was for Joe - and Joe returned it. That was simply perfect, the cherry on top.

Also, the combined robot creature? It was actually scary O.O Wow!

This movie made me very, very happy!

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Finally a BL drama that didn't make me feel like I was ingesting empty calories while watching it. Because that's the overwhelming feeling I've had lately, that all BL dramas as of late were empty and without any substance, all stuffings and no real core.

But after finishing this one, I honestly didn't feel like I wasted my time, I felt like I watched actual art. The cinematography, the music and its timing, the performances... everything simply clicked.

That said, it doesn't mean I found the characters actually likable. Not at all. Not at first, at least. It took me a while to get them - and to get into them. But that was good so! It meant that they were flawed and human, multilayered and multifaceted.

The story was mostly told from Hira's POV but when we were finally allowed to see all that happened from Kiyoi's side too... wow. It was the perfect example of an "unreliable narrator" storytelling. Or, when you get to see everything from just one person's POV, much gets lost. Wonderful!

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What a cute little drama (only 8 eps)! I loved both the pairings, SunSky and PitchBank, though I do wish that PitchBank had been a little more developed, given more screen time. Both couples were so cute, though, that I wanted to pinch their cheeks!

I was actually surprised by how hard I fell for PitchBank, especially considering how Pitch was introduced. But he turned out to be so funny and sweet and loyal. The way he accepted that Bank and Sky came as a package deal which meant they would all get involved in Sky’s father shady business on a regular basis, was just marvelous. Also, he and Bank were pretty much the polar opposite of SunSky, with them, there was no drama, no big upheavals, just some confusion and miscommunication. But they clicked so fast and slipped into a stable relationship so smoothly…

With SunSky, I was mostly enamored with how Sun blossomed when he finally allowed himself to want Sky and love him as a lover, not just as a servant his master. He became so relaxed and smiley and overall simply happy that it was a marvel to watch. Wonderful.

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It’s about a web toon artist who decides to make a BL web comic about archers and so she joins a boys’ archery club as their manager for inspiration. But then she actually gets to really like the boys and she helps them become really good and win a competition. And she also realizes that two of the boys might actually have feelings for each other so she decides to help out…

I watched it for Seo Ji Hoon who plays Yoo Ji Wan, the sweetest boy there is. Yoo Ji Wan and Joo Seung Joon are childhood friends and they are very close. But when Yoo Ji Wan gets hurt during a training in the country - he is bitten by a snake during a night training - Joo Seung Joon gets absolutely terrified and he realizes he can’t stop thinking about his best friend. Enter gay panic of truly epic proportions.

I’ve seen many people accuse this drama of queerbaiting. Sure, the lead girl’s fantasies are played up for the lulz, but, IMHO, there’s no actual queerbaiting in the story itself. Because Joo Seung Joon’s feelings for Yoo Ji Wan are 100% not just friendly. And the drama doesn’t debunk it, it doesn’t go “but NO HOMO,” it’s simply left unresolved, open-ended, but with them closer than ever at the end. And that’s not queerbaiting.

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Personally, I didn’t really feel the romance but everything else about this drama was just about perfect. The characters, all of them, the friendships, the mother-son relationship… Thun had, hands down, one of the best coming out episode I have ever seen. Yes, pretty much a whole ep was dedicated to him coming out as gay to his friends and the girl who liked him and his mom, and it was one of the most wonderful, most wonderfully acted thing I’ve seen.

I adored Thun’s friends, how much they all genuinely loved Thun, how worried they were about him keeping secrets from them, how they were willing to face his wrath to get him the help they thought he needed when they convinced themselves he was on drugs, the way they went above and beyond casual friendship “duties” for him.

And his mom, his mom deserved a Mother of the Year™ award. She was so incredible, so fantastic. No wonder Thun grew up to be such an amazing boy with a mom like her. They pushed all my parent-kid buttons with their love and care for each other. That was beautiful.

Also, the mystery was so intriguing! I genuinely didn’t think that it would turn out to be that particular person, the murderer. Huh. I adored the whole reveal scene, the way Thun kept pushing and pushing and pushing to get to the truth because he promised Met to figure out what happened to him!

The ending felt a bit like a cope-out, TBH. I think I would’ve preferred if Met reincarnated and went looking for Thun as an adult. But that’s just me…

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Hands down, one of the best Kdramas I’ve ever seen. I mean it. Sweet, touching and heartbreaking, a slice-of-life series about people dealing with the fall-out of a terrible accident. It has everything, including physical and mental whump, PTSD, you name it. It’s like one of those amazing, 50+K slow-burn fics that break you and then piece you back together only to repeat that process over and over again… Incredible!

Lee Junho’s Lee Kang Doo is one of the most amazing heroes I’ve seen to date. To watch how his integrity and brash honesty changes those around him and all that without him even realizing how important he’s become and to how many people is a thing to behold.

The acting is simply phenomenal and I really hope that Lee Junho sticks with it. Not that he isn’t a great singer but I think he really found himself as an actor and I can’t wait what else he has in store because so far, all his series have been big hits for me, personally.

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This was a very sweet drama about friendship and family - with a smidgen of soap opera - whose ending gave me warm fuzzies.

It’s no secret that I watched it mainly and mostly for New Thitipoom playing Teedet and I really loved his character. I loved his love for plants and small animals, his almost terminal foot-in-mouth-is and his determination not to suffer any BS from anyone. Also during Teedet’s monologues, Newwiee’s voice was so wonderfully warm and soft.

It was cute - but too short!!! - and you could see how much the actors enjoyed playing their parts and acting together because, though they’re the original pillars of GMMTV, some of them never had the chance to act together. I guess this was their last stab at playing students for GMMTV before they jump to adult roles. And no wonder, considering that some of them will be 30 next year. I hope we’ll see them in something else together in the future but if not, then this drama was a wonderful gift to the fans of the three Royal Couples.

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The Most Wonderful Bromance

This was a wonderful series. The last time I was so caught up in watching a Cdrama was during The Untamed craze. Tang Fan, Sui Zhou and Wang Zhi, these three and their odd friendship made the drama for me. For once, though, it wasn’t just the characters but the story itself, the cases, the plot what caught my interest because the storytelling was wonderfully smart and woven together with meticulous care which at the very end bore fruit when the various people our heroes met during their previous cases came together to help them save the emperor and the whole Ming Dynasty.

So yes, the story was so good and the characters - the found family trope - were the sweet cherry on top. This drama was based on a BL book but because of censorship, the love story between Tang Fan and Sui Zhou couldn’t be portrayed as such. Instead we got the most wonderful bromance with deep devotion and much care - but mainly, no shoehorned love interest for either. So, just like in The Untamed, the leads might not have kissed on-screen but their love for one another was undeniable. And the characters were portrayed just wonderfully by the actors! Kudos for the excellent job they did!

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This was, hands down, one of the best dramas that I've seen this year, at the very least. The music and sound mixing was fabulous, the cinematography incredible, the characters so lovable and engaging that when the end finally came, I didn't want to leave their world. It made me very, very happy!

I loved all the twists and turns of the story, the supernatural side of it, but mainly, I loved the relationship among and between the various characters, their friendship and their closeness - and their romance! And not just between the secondary characters but between the main two, Yi Kang & Hyun Jo, too.

Theirs was one of the most wonderful romances that I've ever seen. It was very mature and without a single "I love you" or a single kiss, and yet the feelings that they had for each other ran through the whole drama like a red thread, manifested in the lengths they were willing to go for each other. It was absolutely amazing!

I also loved the ending, it was everything I wished for - and more! It was really, truly, honestly perfect! Down to the tiniest hint of Goo Young possibly finding a new love in Hyun Jo's little sister! The way he ran from her was hilarious!

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I must say that this has been my least favorite Kamen Rider Build outing so far.

I get that this was a Banjo Ryuga vehicle and Cross-Z was given the chance to shine for once but that Sento was totally sidelined, as in, he didn't leave the lab even once during the whole movie... IMHO, that was taking it one unnecessary step too far.

Another reason why I didn't like this event as much was the roughly shoehorned love interest for Banjo. Female characters who are made to punch and kick men for the viewers' LULZ are really not my cuppa and she just really irritated me. Like, she blamed Banjo for not saving her in the middle of a big battle while he was fighting alien creatures, outnumbered several to one? I mean, he might be a Kamen Rider but he's not Superman!

The best moment for me was when Banjo called Sento his hero and he found in him his inspiration and strength to get up and fight. That was cool!

Overall, I'm glad that their loved ones finally remembered Sento and Banjo but overall, it kinda left a bit of a foul aftertaste in my mouth, for the above-mentioned reasons. It didn't feel like Build anymore.

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This was a great series. It seemed like the plot was simple but then came the big twist at the end and it left the plot open for a possible S2. Will there be S2? Did they plan the whole thing with the idea of another season already in mind? Or did they leave the ending open just in case it was a hit, so that they could bring it back if need be? Who knows? Not me ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

There were two things that I truly loved about the series: the casting and then the music.

The drama introduced me to Inukai Atsuhiro and it showed me a very different side of Suzuki Nobuyuki whom I knew from High & Low and Tokyo Revengers. And I became a big - or a bigger - fan of both. I love when that happens, when I find new actors to follow. So... nice!

And the score! The score was so good. Unlike movies, dramas rarely have a great score but this one did. And for me, it certainly added a lot to the experience.

I'm very happy with how the drama turned out. The development of Shiro & Ichiro's relationship was simply amazing. The way they went from a simple cooperation/cohabitation over friendship to something much deeper was a thing to behold. The depth of their trust and love for each other... mwah! Outright romances have less romance than this drama. Their looks, their little touches, the things they did for each other, that all honestly gave me butterflies! So good.

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