John Master

I agree that Mix had the one role that offered any actor much chance to show range. Having said that, I thought Mark invested this older version of Nick with a ton of emotional resonace. For one brief cameo appearance, you could see how encountering Boston caused Nick to flashback to the emotional trauma Boston left him with but then their as their chat progressed you could tell, despite the brevity of the scene, that time had healed Nick's wounds and we was in a good space today. Compared to the other "fan service" cameos the other four vets of S1 delivered, Mark actually uad some acting to do.

"I thought he would be gone after he took the money." For the amount they cited, it defies belief that a criminal case did not result. At minimum, an embezzler would be separated from his position with the production. Instead, they continue to invite the thief on fun group outings. Either do not write such a stunted story line in the first place or play it out to its logical conclusion.

I actually thought the way the later episodes portrayed "gangster boss has to struggle to accept his own feelings" contradicted the way the character was portrayed in the early part of the series. A post-credits flashback implied Gangster fell at first sight, and then going out of his way to recruit the "pride of the neighborhood" to work on the film makes no sense, except as a means for Gangster to get close with the boy. So, for me, not just a cliche story line--worse!--the character seemed to go backwards.

Oh, yes. You probably need to watch this one just out of professional curiosity.

They definitely laced some genuine trauma into the story. That, too, differentiates it from most BL crisis fodder. But with three couples and only 8 episodes, I'm unsure they gave themselves enough runway to deal with genuninely serious issues in a substantive way. The stunted story line about the pilot is a good example of that.

I think the difference is probably the character quirks. The people who really liked sunny Duang paired against his opposite loved the series. But those personality types never drew me in.

The first paragraphs sums up every issue so very well.

I do not think this actor ever worked for GMMTV. Me Mind, maybe.

You are absolutely correct about the fish kisses. I have simply resolved never to let lame kisses influence my reviews. That statement reflects more about my overarching philosophy of writing reviews than about my reaction to the series under discussion. Dead fish kisses are common enough in Korean and Japanese TV series, that I have concluded that some cultural factor is at work. Something I, as an outsider, cannot evaluate. To analyze the portrayal of intimacy through lens of western TV's kissing benchmarks (where the actors go at it) therefore strikes me as counter-productive. (Though when actors commit to the physicality of the intimacy, a review might be positively influenced--because that's a bonus.)

So as a reviewer, I just pretend I didn't see it. As a viewer, not so much. These lip presses are so jarring they rip me right out of the moment. Only in two cases would I use a review to call a series or its actors out for this flaw. One, where the series sets itself up for an expectation of verisimilitude by including many (or prolonged) NC scenes. Two, when the actors cannot conceal their disgust/discomfort. Neither of those exceptions applies here. But disappointing as fish kisses are, I think we get those bad kisses because of some cultural hang up that supersedes these actors or this series. That's why they recur so much. And because they recur so frequently, I don't factor that into my assessment.

I also don't begrudge you the privilege of calling them out for it! Someone should.

Your comments on directors aren't wrong.* But in the spirit of "control what you can control," the actors failed to control their area of responsibility. So I will stand by my point.

*--An old axiom declares that film is a director's medium; television, a writer's. In TV, the director is hired to realize the vision of a writer within the parameters allowed by the studio financing the work. Casting may or may not have happened before they are hired. In short, a TV director is more likely to be a cog in the wheel than the person powering the wheel. Film directors, by comparison, are generally accorded more latitude to achieve their own "artistic vision." (This is why film directors get described as "auteurs" while TV directors are usually anonymous.)

Having not read the book first, almost none of the things that bothered you bothered me--or at least not to the same degree. With one exception. I also did not think the actors managed to portray the concept "these two characters are into each other." That isn't on the script or the director. That's on the actors.

I was unaware of S2 for that show. It would be difficult for them to be worse. Well, that's unfair. It was not a bad show, per se. Just wasn't an especially good one, either. Watch, enjoy, forget. So it seems to me the potential for growth exceeds the potential for regression.

I'll never understand why you put such effort into reviewing Special Episodes. The last paragraph sums up every last one of them, and the last sentence explains why they exist. Special Eps are not "bonus episodes" in the sense that they finish a story. The storytelling concludes in the finale. Special Eps usually just offer a bit of bonus time with the the characters.

Or, in this case, with the characters-within-the-characters. Now, that, I agree, was an odd choice. The fictional series did not even factor into S2 (not after e 1 anyway), and I don't even recall from S1 what the storyline for those characters even was. So, yes, it would have made far more sense to see Sakuma and Yamakase interact, extending their arcs from S2 a tiny bit.

One other note....the finale seemed to float the possibility, but circling back to the UK subplot certainly suggests someone in the Writer's Room is thinking about the Big Arc a potential S3 might follow.

Sometimes when you watch an e 1, it is impossible to recognize which things are important when they get said because you dont know the story yet. Then, if you rewatch later, you have an "ah ha" moment and realize it was all explained from the start after all. Not so with that quote. As a sequel about an established couple, anyone should have known the director spoke of Daydream, but the meta meaning referred to Akasaka itself. I ought to have written it down when I saw it!

The most underrated achievement we viewers should credit to this series?

No turtles were harmed in the making of this production.

That quote you cited in the first paragraph caught my attention when I watched e 1, and I knew it had to be deliberately self-referential. But I then promptly forgot all about it. My own review even has a statement to the effect that all seasons 2 face an inherent difficulty because "the chase" is more interesting to the viewer than watching a couple work to sustain an ongoing relationship. Courtship trumps established couple! How perfect that quote would have been to illustrate my point. Nice catch.

Having mentioned "Double" (2022) above, I am adding the link to my review of that series. It is very underappreciated as a series. Perhaps because it does not have a strong enough BL element to draw in that fandom. But it is a very well-written and well-acted series. And just like the two seasons on Akasaka, it explores the dynamic between actors trying to navigate their personal relationship against their career aspirations. Thematically, these series fit well together.

https://kisskh.at/profile/8984637/review/224739

That thought occurred to me while writing my own review. The depth and fury in the current mood is startling. Not so much that it exists. But that what had been a quiet undercurrent is out in the open.

I think the long-term legal implications of al three siblings dying never dawned on the writers at all, which is why that permutation never came up. Because they didnt think through their own plot. Oh wait. Younsaid they were lazy. We pretty much agree here.

There is so much here to complain about, I am afraid if I start it will never end. I do want to point out a further absurdity from the finale. Namely, Pheem's goal to have nothing further to do with Thanavej. Near as I can figure, Than now owns it. We presume both siblings died without a will or heirs, which means their shares fall to Pheem. As the spouse of Pheem, Than inherits. Out of all the things that bugged me, that is the one i wanted to point out.