-Aprillen-

Thank you so much for reminding me of SKAM! I had never watched it (despite being a Scandinavian), but now I have (well, season 3), and it was amazing!

I didn't mean to be rude, my sincere apologies. I'm very grateful for everyone who makes these amazing series available to us non-speakers; without you we would live in ignorance of these gems. Thank you for your hard work and I'm very sorry if I offended you.

I especially liked that you translated the song lyrics and the text messages, that is something that often frustrates me with translations.

I agree, I felt like fast forwarding through all of their scenes. They just annoyed me, and (except for Khem) were just stupid people who kept doing stupid things.

I wish I had had that when I was younger! I spent so many years thinking there was something wrong with me, because the terms ace and aro weren't even around then.

It was such an innocuous thing to do and yet so intimate!

Thank you! It's not quite as good as Irozukusubs, but beggars can't be choosers!

I liked that we saw a different dynamic with Tsuge and Minato.
And I think (or that's how I read it anyway) that the real difference is that Adachi was a virgin because he is a shy, unconfident introvert AND demisexual, while Tsuge was a virgin only because of the first reason.

My feeling exactly! How can it just keep getting better and better? There are literally no filler episodes!

Grey Ace/Grey Aro here!

I am half happy for Keita and Eiji because they are gaining such popularity, and half afraid for them, because they are going to see so much toxic behaviour from new "fans". :\

And people who gladly watch BL but are actual homophobes -- that just makes me want to bash my head against the wall, Adachi and Tsuge style.

Great post!
I watch BL for the romance, because that's what I need right now, sweet escapist fantasies of love and happy endings. But I hate the way there's so much contrived conflict and stereotyping and toxicity in BL, and a weirdly large percentage of super toxic female characters (considering that a lot of BL is, as you say, written by and for women). LGBTQ+ content, on the other hand, is often much less contrived and more realistic, and focusses more on the struggles and realities of being LGBTQ+ in our time, but isn't necessarily romantic or even hopeful.

So few of these dramas manage to combine real representation and realistic struggles with hopeful romance in a non-toxic, non-stereotypical way. ITSAY did it, but I hesitate to call it a BL -- for me it's rather an exquisite but heartwrenching coming-of-age LGBTQ+ drama, and none of us dared even hope for a happy ending until we saw it with our own eyes. I adored it, but it kind of destroyed me.

I see a big difference in all the "BL" coming out of the Philippines now, and one of the fundamental differences is that unlike the Thai BLs, a lot of the PH dramas are written by men, who are themselves LGBTQ+, and they strive to be inclusive in the casting and the way they tell the stories, and some of them manage to walk that line between representation/respect for the community and romance, but they do lean more toward being LGBTQ+ dramas. They vary wildly in quality, from amateurish low-budget kitchen-sink dramas to polished gems like Gaya Sa Pelikula, and some of them are also problematic, though in different ways from the Thai BL dramas. (I wrote "BL" in quotes because some of them seem like they are just riding on the BL trend but are in fact sending a different message.)

Cherry Magic is the only one I've seen so far that has given us everything I want in terms of sweet fluffy romance, with no contrived conflict and toxicity attached (not even from the side characters), with characters that are perhaps idealised (as they are in all romance) but not fetishised, and really trying to be aware and respectful toward the community while doing it -- and being so incredibly well-made, too. It's something I can enjoy wholeheartedly and unabashedly without feeling uncomfortable or guilty about it. It just... buoys me. As Tamago Onigiri said, it's like a dream come true.

We can only hope that its success makes the rest of the BL industry sit up and take notice.

I just went and retroactively rated all the past episodes, and they all have consistently high ratings, none below 9.6, most of them higher. So how can the overall rating be so low? It's infuriating.

Exactly! And the silent confessions in the well which should really have been made aloud.

Fun fact: The author of the book (Chai Jidan) is also the screenwriter for the series!

Thank you. I guess I need to rewatch it :)

Yeah, that's my theory too, that they framed is as a complete flashback because they had to put everything in this special instead of letting it unfold in the series. But then we went from the beach scenes to the post-concert situation, and that switch wasn't completely clear to me (although I may have myself to blamefor that, due to watching this at 2 am, lol)

I liked this a lot, and I'll tell you why.

My main problem with Saifah and Zon in Why R U (SPOILERS AHEAD FOR Why R U) was always the fact that Zon was kind of mindfucked into a relationship with Saifah by the "magic" deal he made with Zol, where he at first was super confused about what was going on, and quite freaked out, and then just kind of ... stopped resisting and went along with it. It felt off, and a little too easy, like he was just giving up and accepting that he was a character in his sister's novel now (which is not a healthy basis for a relationship, lol).

And this seems to be exactly what they are addressing now! Seeing Saifah get his heart broken hurts a lot, but aside from being a bit too harsh about it, Zon's reactions here make absolute sense. He is losing his heart, but he can't trust that it is real, it's like he's inside a huge prank set up by his fujoshi sister, and he doesn't even believe that Saifah is the real Saifah. To us, with full hindsight, his actions look cruel (and can we just take a moment to appreciate Jimmy's acting -- he's not saying much, but we can *see* Saifah's heart break in front of our eyes! The hurt! The vulnerability!) but to Zon, he is just trying to protect himself from being totally screwed over mentally and emotionally. In his fragile state of mind, Zol holds his heart in her hands and is *toying* with it.

(I'm pretty sure at this point that Zol doesn't actually believe in the magic; she probably just thinks her brother is being superstitious and that everything is happening for real, which is a nice analogy for the delulu fujoshi mentality, because if she did, that would be truly cruel of her. And if she does, she actually deserves what happens to her in this episode.)

The only thing that confuses me is the time jumps. In the beginning, Zon and Zol are writing their novels and talking about the beach trip as if it *has already happened*, but then we are suddenly right after the concert, and Zon's and Saifah's actions don't make a lot of sense unless they take place after the concert but long before the beach. I'll have to watch it again to see if I can make more sense of it.

Me too! I think he's said that he would do it if it was a good script and a role that would let him grow as an actor. A lot of young male actors start out doing BL not because they like the genre but because that's a way to gain a fan base and become known, and some of those series aren't very good (and some of those young actors very obviously aren't comfortable with it). But Nanon is from an actor family and has been working since he was a little kid. He never needed to do BL in order to get a foothold in the acting business, and has been able to be more circumspect when picking his roles. So now that he has actually decided to do it, I have high hopes for it!

Gun is playing a pair of twins, Black (who is the gang member) is straight, but ends up in hospital, and his twin (whose name we don't know yet) who decides to take his place, seems to be gay. And during the GMM-TV live YouTube event the director said that she's done LGBTQ content before, but this is her first time with a BL. So I'm pretty confident that it is.

Official trailer is here: https://youtu.be/Nwh5M2uWDmM

I think the second ep will be free next week. The newest episode will always be behind a paywall, but the previous ones for free, if I have understood things correctly.