PPBongi

Admittedly Choppy But Beautifully Poignant!

There are a lot of back-and-forth scenes that admittedly can be a bit hard to follow and could have been tightened up to make the story flow better. I still ardently enjoyed this series. Mainly due to the solid performances of the protagonists and the supporting roles. Plus, admittedly, the arc of the story is so entertaining. These actors took their roles and seasoned the characters, matured them, and gave them fervent personalities. That is quite an accomplishment. I was actually surprised as to how deep that sentiment was conveyed. I felt as if each fully intended to go through life without anyone else because they had lost the love of their lives 5 years earlier. That is remarkable to be able to get that strong of a sensation from a series that is frankly not all that intensely developed. Overall, this is an emotionally intense series and is as satisfying as Season One. Even more so because it now felt complete.

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Don't Meet Again

Regrettably, this is yet another BL love story where a somewhat successful but isolated individual in the present is still living in the past. Racked with guilt about something traumatic, he has obviously not dealt with its lasting effect. It seems to hang over him like a continuous voice that whispers into his ear – perhaps if I could go back to stop a tragic situation, maybe everything would be different. Although I had been lied to as to what those circumstances were, I still want to go back and change something else just to make sure the same predicament which I am not sure what that is, never happen. Confused? Well, you should be. The story frankly is bewildering from a logical point of view. Oddly enough, it also made little sense from a mythus frame of reference. Is this series enjoyable? Well, yes, it kind of is, only because of the acting of the main protagonists. Yet, the screenplay itself let the actors and the story down, I am afraid. Unless you find a way to travel back in time to be completely 17 again – fully, wholly, and unequivocally – then do not. You will always bring some part of you back with you that will inevitably change elements you did NOT want to change. That alone will digress the outcome you intended. Perhaps it might be best to leave the past – alone.

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Cringey, but...

Sereno literally means serene in Spanish (there is a lot of Spanish influence in the Philippines) which this series displays very little of. It is an attribute sorely missing in this series. Lately, there also seems to be a rash of BLs about mermen with none piquing an exotic imagery. Most were cringey. While this series initially offered an interesting premise, it ultimately focused on the lowest common denominator – mainly sensationalism and titillation. The saga of mermen is ironically only instrumental; not integral. Admittedly, however, the graphics for the introduction to each episode and the music score are the most serene moments of this aberrant series. Overall, this series is unfocused and unhinged. Perhaps, if it had stayed to one theme, maybe it would have been a better series. Initially, its attention to the theme of merman was promising, but it soon got bogged down in tangential trivialities and/or silliness. Frankly, I am not sure what the intent of this series was. There is a lot and I mean a lot of innuendo and down-right silliness in this series. But secretly I did find myself surprisingly entertained when it got campy and off-the-wall gay (call me crazy). If the production seriously went campy totally or concentrated on telling a risqué gay story with a sharper script told in a tongue-in-cheek style or off-the-wall method, you might just develop an outright cult following, as no one and I mean no one is doing that. Keep refining what you are doing. Honestly, focus on one thing and make it really, really campy, nuanced, and above all melodramatic. And allow the actors to show their talents besides their bodies; you then just might have a hit. This theme could have been it. The male performers were all certainly eye-poppingly handsome and many were decent actors. Next time, do not be so trashy.

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ReReReReReloved!

Sometimes story ideas come along that are so dumb and so mind-numbingly bad, you wonder how you sat through it without completely losing your own sense of reality. Honestly, this is one of the dumbest ideas for a plot I have seen and even adding adorably cute kids to the mix could not salvage this mess. You know you are also in trouble when throughout the series, flashbacks while the protagonists were in college 5 years previously looking the same as they do now. When a series that relies so heavily on days-gone-by without considering that they might have changed in 5 years, you know you have a weak story, and this is one of the most mediocre BLs I have ever seen. Regrettably, this is yet another saga of miscommunication—this time, at its very worst. The story carried this cross to such an extreme that I wanted to jump into the story personally and just scream in the very first episode, will the two of you simply sit down and talk to each other as adults! Sanely. Rationally. And stop with the artificial drama. If they had done so, the story then perhaps would have been forced to have a theme worth exploring. Instead, it droned on and on and on about missed windows of opportunities. All because basic, and I do mean simple basic questions from the beginning were not ASKED.

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More Touching Than Funny

This series started out in the traditional sense of most Thai BLs. Initially, I almost thought it was a spoof on Thai BLs because it seemed like the characters were more like parodies than representatives of real people. However, as I got into this series, I found it to be intriguing and fascinating, maybe unintentionally? While most perhaps found this series humorous with tongue-in-cheek situations, as it is billed as a ‘comedy’. However, I found it utterly sad and melancholic. It represents one of the dolefulest stories I have watched in a very long time. Admittedly, I cried more than laughed through most of this telling. Honestly, this series could have been an early contender for Top Ten for 2026 honors, but as usual it took the low road to simply making it cute rather than completing the story behind the story. ALL four of the protagonists are astonishingly sad characters whose lives have not been destined by their actions but by the antics of others. This was not a comedy but a serious study of very sad, stunted young men who miraculously found love with each couple, meriting all the happiness that a fairytale ending should give them. They deserve one. Their lives have not been necessarily easy ones. More importantly, they seemingly understand that but are willing to give back to society tenfold more than society gave them.

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Good Series; Really Lousy Script

The allegory behind this theme is fascinating. Its screenplay is where it fell flat. If they had followed the initiative of the story, the saga would have been a way more compelling BL. Instead, it became spasmodic. The receptivity behind this story is very good; the screenwriting is simply awful. Frankly despite its awful screenplay, this is well acted, and the actors and actresses did the best they could with a lousy script. This series is deeper than what it is given credit for. It gets lost in the endless and totally unnecessary cat-and-mouse, ‘enemies-to-lovers’ fiasco. Thai BLs absolutely need to get out of the rut of being formulaic. This series was a shameful waste. This was good; it just was not great. But it could have been.

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A Secret Pleasure of Mine

This is such a feel-good series particularly currently. Honestly, I should not have liked this, but I did. It is slow, predictable, filled with the usual suspects but so much fun. I could not help laughing at its silliness and cuteness at the same time. If it were not for these actors, this would have been a total disaster. They made this series so real, so comedic, and just a joy to watch. I did not care that it had no depth to it or great message. It was just entertaining. It is a thing of beauty to watch. The ending is as unrealistic as this entire plot but so in synch with the rest of this series. This was a comedy and indeed has a happy ending (well you know what I mean). Everyone wins in the end. Do not read too much into this series. This is not a slice of life; it is essentially asking you to suspend your reality and simply enjoy a feel-good series about love between guys. There are a lot of flaws in this series from ridiculous characters, such as Amp, to crazy plot lines, like a surrogate pregnancy. But for me, it worked. Why? Because I believed the characters.
However, there were some situations in this series that made me shudder. One is the overuse of ‘hubby-wifey’ connotations. Again, I am NOT Thai, and I do NOT even pretend to know the Thai culture or customs, but for me these terms are simply cringeworthy. I am hoping we can stop using these terms to define gay relationships. I know that they might help make them more relatable to societal norms, but these terms are simply outdated and literally have no and should not have meaning in the gay world. They make it sound as if these are your assigned roles and duties, thus perpetuating the stereotypical roles of each gender.
The words that Chon's mother is so apt here and we should all remember them, “It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not.” If you would like to review my full review of this series, it is posted on my free blog site at ppbongi.medium.com. I have to caution you that I actually liked this series, despite its flaws.

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A Solid & Effective LGBTQ Story! Told Well!!

I was indeed pleasantly surprised and found this story to be exceptionally well done. It is not just entertaining, it is contemporary, relevant, and quite consequential. This story is a tale of their redemption along a journey involving major growing adjustment pangs between the two of them. However, it also created a path to learn about each other through the eyes of the other members of the team. Because no matter how much you might want to deny it, we influence others sometimes in ways we least expect it. So, it is not just a story of restoration, it becomes a story of acceptance also. This is above all also a story of misfits. If you are familiar with the Christmas tale about the island of misfit toys, then this story will make more sense. To some degree, it is even more relatable because each member of the volleyball team represents an oddity from a world of nonconformists. This is a deeply personal series to watch because we notice how others see them and frankly how they view themselves. It is painful and sometimes sad but always idiosyncratic particularly if you are a member of one of their sodalities.

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What is Its Point?

Some things simply should not be extended. And this is one series that should not have been prolonged. While I was not particularly enamored with the first season, I thought its concept was an interesting one and found it reasonably entertaining. So, I took a ‘chance’ on this second season. What a complete disappointment this was! Wow! It took me by surprise how inept and really substandard this story became. Not only is this story bad; so was the acting. Overall, this is an astonishingly dumb plot with zero growth in the characters. The main actors have no real chemistry either individually or even less as a couple. Both seemed only half-hearted in their attempts to portray their personas. Worse than all of that is that there is no emotional payoff either. Not for one split second did I believe they were a ‘couple’ in any way, shape, or form, and did not for a New York minute ever believe they were in love. Their acting was rote and perfunctory.

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Deserves A Class Unto Itself! A Masterpiece!

This series is so near perfection that it almost belongs in a separate category. Wow! (However, I do think it is infelicitously titled). I had almost given up on Thai BLs until by happenstance, I came across this discovery. I was so enthralled from its beginning that I binged watch it from start to finish with just a small break in between. An exceptional rarity for me. It captured me on every level and seized every fiber of my being. I cried. I laughed. I felt joy. I encountered pain. I understood. Most of all, I regarded each and yet both. I perceived two individuals destined to be together. They made their journey so credible, real, genuine, and most of all sincere. They gave us passion, devotion, and an unwavering sense that the only thing that mattered was each other. And they did it without sacrificing their own sense of who they were or diminishing their own connection to humanity.

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Weird, Funny, Then Fell From Earth

Honestly, I do not know WHAT this series was. It is just weird and completely off-the-rails. Had they continued with its original thread, which I think was humor (tongue-in-cheek specifically), then this would have been an outstanding if not memorable series. Instead, it lost its way towards the end as if it was not sure how it wanted to conclude. At that point, it ruined its tenacity and mojo, and it fell from Earth. The production of this series is so unique and different that words are hard to describe it. Where it unraveled is that it tried to do too much and so your attention could not focus on any one thing. You can read my full review of this unique series at BLBliss.com.

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Intriguing/Fascinating Until the End...

This series has so much going for it. Acting is superb. Screenplay is surprisingly strong and sharp. The cinematography is captivating and succinct, given that this series is not very long. Yet, I had such mixed feelings about this series. Perhaps it was because it goes so deep into the despair and sickness of three-way love connections. With each knowing how the other felt about one another, the outcome was bound to lead to toxicity and bitterness and a heaping amount of resentment. I loved the story but found myself experiencing revulsion in some of its more disconcerting parts. One has to be intrigued, perhaps even mesmerized, by its premise, but at the same time perplexed by how sick, twisted, and convoluted a love can get. Especially when that love is not projected outwardly but only inwardly. I must have what I want at any cost no matter what I have to pay to get it. That is both sad and sick.

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A Cute Gay Soap-Opera

This is romantic imagery at its best. I thoroughly enjoyed this series and did not see it as bad as some comments about this series have stated. While I am hardly one to dispute another person’s opinion of a series, this one, I think, was misunderstood. It is a gay soap-opera, not meant to be deep or intense. I loved it because it is not pretentious in any way. What you see is literally what you get. A stardust between two guys who found each other at exactly the right time in their lives. Will it work out? Will it last? Who knows, but it sure was a fun romp. The story itself is congenial, entertaining, and enjoyable. Nothing more and does not pretend to be anything but that.

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The Performers Deserved Better

I hate to be so brutally honest, but this is one of the worst BLs of 2024. Literally, everything about this series, except perhaps the acting, was uninspiring. Although the young performers did a ‘yeoman’s job’ in trying to keep this shipwreck afloat, they alone could not salvage this complete mess from sinking. Honestly, to say otherwise, is living in a fantasyland and not dealing with any sense of reality. It is a tepid story with a fragmental screenplay, ineptly directed, disjointly executed, and undoubtedly should never have been (re)made. The only plus about this series literally is that they had the appropriate aged actors and actresses for the roles. They were young, attractive, innocent in real life, and tried their best to make sense of a story that was essentially senseless. Full disclosure, I did not watch the first ‘Love Sick’, so this was all ‘new’ to me. Thus, I cannot compare it to the original. Besides, this is a stand-alone production and ought to be judged on its own merits or faults.

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All Show, No Substance

Frankly, this movie, turned into a BL mini-series, presented better than it actually was. Well-acted and certainly well-crafted but it says absolutely nothing. Yet, it looks so good in the process. I kept waiting for a ‘punch line’ but it never came. These kinds of movies/series are so exasperating to watch and I for one am frankly getting tired of hiding a non-existent story under false and artificial melodrama nonsense. Certainly, this series will pull at your heartstrings but perhaps because I am old and cynical, I saw right through this ruse. Flatly this series said nothing. At least nothing of substance and again reinforced the stereotypical thinking that gay people from an early age really do not want to be gay, or will hide it for as long as they can, or are ashamed of what they are, or lack the courage to be who they are, or are terrified of their own feelings, or, or, or…. All perhaps well meaning but sending a wrong message.

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