if u were Asian u would know we dont really talk abt sex openly like u wish lol. and they're real people, some…
Do you think there aren't Asians in other countries? or that Asians all follow an identical code in their home countries? Yes there are societal norms. Generally Gay people are purposefully excluded from those especially in more conservative countries.
One of the dramas on the show from the couple people liked literally had their first obviously scripted drama from a guy being on a gay dating app with nudes!
Sorry 30 year olds pining for love at first sight as a major plot point and all converging on two dudes wasn't interesting or realistic. If they were all in their early 20's? I'd get it
Also they all discussed recognizing a sex worker they weren't even unwilling to discuss sex on the show.
Reality shows aren't reality! I'm very aware of that lol. I'm commenting on the directorial decisions, not how "close to reality" it is.
Even down to infantalizing weird things. Do straight dating shows have 1 kiss and say "it went down in history" when it happens?
u are not being realistic. they're real people, this is not a made up scripted plot. and btw it was a month show…
Reality shows aren't real lol. None of the interactions they had didn't feel scripted. They were scripted like all reality shows, in this case they just tried to hard to feel wholesome.
Since I had an issue with the last episode I watched, I'll watch the last bunch all at once, it makes it way easier to skip the plots I'm not super interested in seeing develop (the potential gay teacher thing could have really taken place earlier instead of all the scenes about grades if they were serious about it).
I do have advice for people who feverishly refresh this page to complain about people disagreeing with them.
Stop. It's weird. Do things you enjoy lol.
There are way too many comments complaining that people don't feel identical to you.
I scrolled down like a day and HALF the comments were complaints about people not liking the show as much as them, to the point where it actually outnumbered actual complaints.
Honestly a lot of the insults tossed at people who don't think this show is gods gift to mankind reveal a lot of reasons why I rarely interact with communities of people who watch these shows - a lot boils down to liking the idea of these shows but not liking actual gay people. People aren't dirty or lesser than you for wanting to see kisses or simulated sex, and shows aren't worse or better because they feature that. It's a part of human life. It's what gay people do! Like how many shows featuring straight couples get complaints when there is more than 2 kisses in a series lol? Think about that behavior.
You don't don't need to toss insults at other popular shows because people don't love this one. I'm glad you found a show you adore. Enjoy! Allow people to also discuss it if they are middling on it.
Very valid argument. I do have to disagree about the believability. Maybe it’s a generational or cultural gap,…
Id say for you, it's less a generational gap and more circumstance. You weren't a rich kid moving into a home with your own space with parents who weren't home physically but gave you money when you were 17. (I'm assuming. if you were, I am very jealous lol)
If they had written an experience like yours I'd absolutely be on board and understand the slow burn nature more.
If they didn't decide on the second episode to kiss in their room because its just lips and have a "can we come out of the closet now" dialogue, I'd happily accept inner turmoil with sexuality.
They just haven't set the scene for it, so it feels unearned. Even the episode 2 kiss in context of the teacher's "this is a very conservative private school" like 6 episodes after. The show just kinda wants to have its cake and eat it too.
The show is perfectly fine, and that's me being fairly generous. It feels like it doesn't do a ton new or strictly better than some of its peers so far, in fact it kinda goes below average in some really important areas that it sets up and presents to us. (We have two late adolescents who have their own agency, little parental supervision, have weird feelings for eachother and they get wild and crazy and... study.)
I feel like the hyperfocus on school and the bumbling around for the first few episodes really soured my initial impression and a lot ideas are held back by those initial trappings.
It's been 8/12 episodes and they've had maybe 1/2 to maybe 1/4 of an episode where I didn't have to hear about someone's grades, especially two protagonists who don't really have learning disabilities or anything one is top of his class. I've even been left wondering, even the most like school focused shows typically have a few highlights of the days they DON'T go to school. Not here so far.
______________ Longer form -
The start was below average (oh wow another transfer student at a super prestigious school where studying is life and everyone's going to be super unreasonable about academic achievement, good thing you, one of the protagonists, is way above the bell curve in some things and better than most in other areas, uh oh, protagonist 2 is a hard ass carrying a world's worth of trauma in every breath he takes and we're supposed to be curious and feel the chemistry oozing out of the clipped words instead of repulsed by immaturity! How dark and mysterious).
The dorm drama is kinda contrived and just not very believable? If these were students who were on a scholarship? Sure go crazy with every single plot or character point circling back to "studying" in some way. Fine. These are rich people. These are two (oddly entirely unsexually curious) teens who are throwing a fuss about spending too much time in their final years of schooling with their own agency in a house where there parents are respectful of their boundaries and don't just bust in their rooms etc? What?
Even with the added trauma of a dorm being "home" (instead of using Tian's new room and having others in the house interact with it as a way to express his desire for home...) to try and gel it all over, it just doesn't feel like it was set up in a way that feels how teens who aren't written act.
I understand, it's likely a holdover from the source material, but I have to suspend so much disbelief lol.
It's a fun fine watch but at the same time feels frustratingly held back. I'm not saying this needs to a be a playyboy moment where the characters are screwing all the time. Far from it, there's just a giant chasm where it feels like I'm watching a fan fiction trying to hit plots they wrote in an outline vs making a believable character sometimes.
I know I left my thoughts below in a longer post, it seems like the show was too focused on a BL audience even though it was a show full of gay men.
It's not about "a kiss going down in history" (realistically no, it won't. What the hell? That's a weird behavior, it treats gay adults like puppies or something, this isn't a drama lol, they are adult men.)
Conceptually I was kind of expecting a house full of 20 something to 30 something men kinda of talking and dealing with the complexities of dating. Discussing sex openly, kisses not being a damn "prize" for watching, and not men in their mid to late twenties constantly pining for love without even having conversations.
(Was it editing? Did we need 1,000 shots of Shun having an attitude because his shoes weren't as comfy as he wanted that day vs adults speaking? Did we need a panel recounting exactly what we saw seconds before while key conversations were flashbacks or discussed among the cast vs seen?)
In the end, we basically get to watch a dating show with little to no actual dating that's fully sanitized of a lot of actual "gay". Everyone being super interested in Shun and Kazuto (even when the show pointed out he wasn't around for multiple days for people to even get to know) felt orchestrated. Everyone seems to want to skip past the dating stage. So we get a show fully of people looking for happily ever afters with no stories, no experimenting, no fun.
Multiple dudes know the Go-Go boy, but no one discusses sex, apps, clubbing, sexual attraction or anything adults would. Just fluff. For an audience who often treat gay men like anything but.
IDK that I'm super fond of how it was as a reality show. I'm not sure ALL japanese reality shows are like it, but the panel detracted from the show more than it added.
They also cut out key interactions between people in the house and showed them in flashbacks or had characters discuss them. It breaks a key rule of a lot of creative work: show don't tell, its a television show.
Maybe it's a cultural thing? I'm not sure
The entire house swarming in on Kazuto and Shun was weird and kinda my main gripe with the show. I understand its out of their control, but it just felt very off. Was there like some rule that they were only allowed to be interested in one guy? Like its a 2 month show with a bunch of attractive gay dudes and they honed in on 2, with mostly all losing interest in Shun once he acted like a 16 year old angsty teen. (By the way, other people left on their own but the one dude who spent the majority of the show not having fun and constantly talking about how uncomfortable he was with everything and how much he didn't like things, STAYED?)
Due to the above, most of the characters barely existed, the Korean dude literally could have been a lamp. He talked in the last episode about all the close relationships he's formed but he's shown saying about 2 paragraphs of text during the 10 episodes with most of it being how close he felt to people.
It's hard to feel anything good about Dai and Shun when it was basically like watching Dai go through an abusive relationship lol. He constantly shifts around some dude he "loves on first sight" in a house full of super attractive dudes. It feels like he was fixated on him to prove a point vs any actual chemistry. And no, vlogs post show are no-**** going to be overly cutesy and seem like paradise. If you cut out all of Shun acting like a child in this show and only showed when he smiled or had fun with Dai, it'd look healthy too.
It was entertaining TV that got in its own way more often than not due to weird pacing, the largest issue really being too much of 23-37 year olds hyper-fixated on being in "love" before having conversations but with about 2 people.
If this were a High School aged BL? Sure.
Usak also left way too early. WTF was up with kazuto? "Oh Usak is a god, I don't feel worthy of his attention" *Usak openly expresses interest multiple times even in the heavily edited show* Actually I'm going to go check these other dudes out and ignore you even though I'm interested!
tl;dr - Cute show as a concept, show editing takes away more than it adds, pacing is bad, a lot of the initial warm welcome to the show wears off by like episode 4/5.
A season 2 with less faux-bachelor energy would feel way better than the "we love Kazuto even though he doesn't particularly care for anyone show"
Something feels, off, about the casting here 1 episode in, not a fan of the protagonist in anyway that I can quickly type without it coming off as problematic.
The Introvert vs extrovert thing is just far too dramatized to the point where these don't feel like people at all. The protagonist being the main offender. It feels like a middle school character who should be going home to confide in mom vs a college student.
This dorm is entirely silent aside from the new guy? in college? really?
A person can be introverted and converse normally!
Big seems great in his role but he's entirely carrying any sort of chemistry to the point it's simply not believable. There's love at first sight and then there's love because its in the script. This is giving latter energy.
Aside from this being a television show he's putting far too much effort into a random dude who was too nervous and social awkward UwU, demure, cutesy, definitely actual human behavior and not an anime trope to help someone carry crap into their room, say introduce himself and say good night but could easily just walk into the elevator with same said person like 10 seconds before.
Wouldn't he have taken the steps to avoid being around any potential people?
IDK i'm all for something saccharine and sweet, this just feels really infantile compared to some recent output in this genre, and honestly some old too.
Seeing comments about slowburn etc. Am i missing something? God is clearly already head over heels for a dude who doesn't want to say hello, or finish a sentence without thai BL hi-jinks. (oh wow i'm too shy and unfocused to say, "hey I have to go" when I see my turtle has broken out of its cage)
Edit- Watched the start of ep 2 at 2x speed.... I S2G if this ends up being some "learning to accept myself and past trauma through relationships instead of therapy" story...
I think i'll save myself the time, and im glad others enjoyed this.
The first two episodes felt REALLY slow, i caught my self browsing sites on my second screen vs full attention.
And the cheesy fall into a kiss scene with the second "couple" i guess. I don't know where this is going but the start feels glacial or I feel like I missed an episode seeing all the talk of excitement and chemistry.
It feels generic. Maybe I'm not the target here.
Playboyy wasn't good but at least had a more intriguing start than whatever this is.
Reading so many people having controversial thoughts towards male prostitutes being a theme or feeling like its scandalous is interesting considering how many thai shows with murder, and prostitutes and nonconsenual action there is, but hey to each their own.
Watching this series and then reading the reviews are fascinating. I watched it without much info going in.
Of all the out of line things this series does, it funny enough ISN'T one of the ones that hand-waves Sexual Assault or lacking in consent, especially considering how many BL shows use it as a core plot device and then just go straight to madly in love. It's addressed here by the characters - unless you are a person who thinks it being present alone is bad and can't get past that, this is the one criticism lobbied against this series that makes very little sense. This is one of the few thai shows with non consent I've seen always handled in a way that directly addressed it in some conversation surrounding the action VS just randomly it being ignored and them falling in love because someone took the first action.
The English being "cringey" commentary feels weirdly racist because, it was simply English with an accent. The sentences even all had proper grammar and cadence. People from different countries with languages other than English as a primary language... have accents. The "jokes" were absolutely all over, but thats the jokes, they'd have been awkward in Thai as well.
It flat out is just a weird worse combo of Not Me and KinnPorsche.
It's the BL "we don't communicate trope" but turned to 10,000 with characters lying with little benefit to themselves for most of it's runtime. Characters "forgetting" or "omitting" key details until the plot demands them suddenly remember or mention it when its relevant. (With a pretty extreme plot reason why saying it sooner than later would have been beneficial).
In not me characters didn't tell the whole truth because the protagonist was pretending to be someone else. In this series he tells them VERY early he is not who he claimed. They still lie to him, without any benefit to themselves.
The first half of the show was fine, the latter half with a lot of unearned character moments, was just me rushing through to see if they decided to end in any way that was satisfactory.
I'm not fully caught up but Boston doesn't work as a character so far. He's a bit too 1 dimensional. Flawed characters are fine, villains the cast deal with because its convenient for the plot is boring. There's a distinct difference between, wow I love to hate him and rolling my eyes because I see a character appear and can guess they are going to make the worse choices possible and everyone else will simply put up with them to progress the plot.
I know BL shows aren't exactly known for realistic depictions of queer men, or much else tbh, but he's written like a person who just stirs sh*t, everyone knows it, but somehow and for some reason they all put up with it, and they forgot to include a reason why? He isn't particularly charming, hasn't really had a "ah he does that as a friend so they keep him around", their casting choices don't make him stand out as more handsome than anyone else on the cast.
It certainly does NOT make the show unwatchable but it sticks out so much in such an extreme way it makes me question if they things right about the show were an accident and are only going to get worse.
People sympathizing with Boston are genuinely confusing, mainly because the writing doesn't support it. He doesn't do anything besides "tee hee this is inconvenient to everyone, even me!" constantly. All it took was at least a generic flashback or something. Characters who cause chaos without reason are worse for a show than boring characters because you draw attention to them and then do not follow up. Even if their backstory is them just being a chaotic person, it adds SOME depth.
I can't tell if they forgot to make more scenes from his perspective or something but sheesh, its a drag to even watch this when he comes up because it feels so "generic villain insert". The kind of character I *think* they wanted to write here is much more difficult to do, and wouldn't have appeared to most viewers to align with a sh*t stirrer in like episode 2-3/12. (simply make them more likeable, make characters like them, make believable excuses for their selfish behavior.).
(I find mew boring as hell, but hey, its better than a chaotic character doing it so the show isn't lovey dovey.)
I like about this series that's not overly gay, to be honest. It's just so unrealistic to have a bunch of guys,…
Its a show about time travel. its ok to have gay characters. Think about how many shows where everyone is straight globally and then look at what you typed lol. if you want reality you're in the wrong genre. It doesn't need to be grounded. you have shows releasing by the minute globally you can chase reality in. Let gay people have a little fun.
Probably not gonna watch this because I am not foolish enough to indulge in this industry beyond the handful of shows i watch. (even those are barely gay shows and just m/m with a self insert for female watchers).
Whats up with Thailand being a tropical country, actors having visible sweat on their clothes etc but Earth being like the darkest person they'll cast for anything outside of a joke role?
Tragic to see Mike(Jack) utilized for this sorta character lol. I enjoyed him in Theory of Love and 2gether, I kind of hope his character agency improves, he hasn't really had a chance to shine in this show, he kinda feels bland here.
The plot here is acceptable, fluff is fun, the issue is it feels like there are random tonally inconsistent issues that don't feel earned.
Everyone suddenly caring about the intern that clicks a few keystrokes and brings coffee being some company disruptor is really pushing suspension of disbelief. (OH NO the Boss is HAPPY with us ALL, AH, thats not fair!)
The friend group is fine it's just, its just been A LOT of episodes of toeing the "do you like me" line between adults.
Protagonist is a college aged adult living on his own and there are other plot points to explore, it'd have been nice to just have them be together already at this point and deal with other issues presented + letting some of the rest of the friends of these characters develop vs infantalizing the intern. (with his trauma and the details of it he shouldn't be reacting to kisses from a crush like a 15 year old)
They are also acting like he's going to disappear into the dust once the internship ends instead of continuing his classes, as a college aged adult, until he graduates lol.
tl;dr - either go fluffy and be silly or be serious, dancing between the two just ends up making the flaws show harder. It's a thai BL so I'm not expecting the Sopranos here or anything but the silliest parts feel so avoidable.
I watched this a while ago, the main praise i have for the show is that they had couples getting together not be the focus of the show, but actually deal with things that came up after they were together.
Undetailed Episode 7 spoiler after first paragraph and breakEarth's popularity is interesting. I have mainly seen…
After finishing, overall a pretty decent show, but suffers from the usual Thai tropes. My thoughts (note everything here from the perspective of a non-white American gay man, expect at least pacing spoilers and one specific spoiler):
1- Adult Queer men don't need a random "gay is ok" ark, and Earth was too focused on. Yes he is a popular GMMTV actor. He was over focused on to the point where two character who had no reason to think of him as more than a nice guy who runs a noodle stand wanted forever relationships with him, vs a date. Adult queer men can form relationships that aren't permanent bonds or soul mate relationships. And we don't need those to justify queer romance. It doesn't help that Wen (mix) spent the entire series being nearly flawless as a character and just constantly throwing himself at a man who was unreasonably resistant, worse considering his story arc was ABOUT ONLY WANTING A RECIPROCAL LOVE. It felt like there was too much fan service around earth, (same exact issues I had with tale of a thousand stars, besides it's glacial pacing)
2- The ages of all characters were fucked. The 29 year old was in a double digit (11?) year relationship? The teens had a more emotionally mature relationship blossom? The 40 or nearly 40 year old reacts to every interpersonal relationship like a 17-21 year old, but is a (failing) business guru? The teens could have been 20's and the controlling parents trope could have easily simply been a mental health decision upon becoming deaf. Li Ming (fourth) spent the entire show being more emotionally mature than every adult that interacted with him aside from Wen, which is basically just a leftover from typical GMMTV writing.
3- Age constantly being alluded to as failure, or fault, or the end of dreams etc is boring. According to global capitalistic media, we basically have about 3 years of life and agency, the rest is child hood, being a worker drone that's given up on dreams or agency, and essentially waiting for death. It's ok to have adult characters be experienced but not sage like, its ok to have flawed adults that aren't just blockades on another characters relationships. Does someone at GMMTV need therapy?
4- Intersectionality handled with grace! (not a problem). Wow they did a very decent job with the deaf community (dunno how Capital D deaf is handled internationally) but Heart's story-line was handled alarmingly well with the other failings of the show. There was development, I could spot any specific episode and Li Ming and Heart were at different points of development. Episodes 1-7 were Wen throwing himself at a man who said "I am not your boyfriend, I am damaged." I don't really expect Thai shows in my life time to address the fact that Earth is the darkest Thai man to make regular appearances in Thai BL shows despite him being at most a light tan and Thailand being a tropical country with people of all shades. So this bone being thrown felt nice.
5- Ex storyline was overwrought. Didn't add anything. I am thankful to see Papang's pecs whenever possible but the corpse scene felt like one of the few times the story cues gave away enough that we didn't need to see a dead body lol. The show would have been stronger to just feature both adult main characters with a bunch of exes that didn't work out over "this is THE ONE" relationships that failed , one for cheating (wow innovative) and the other the end of love (without enough build up to be relatable). Kaipa didn't have enough on screen reason to be so distraught over not receiving affection from Jim. And they are both adults. It'd have been perfectly ok and better for them to just go on a few awful dates and figure out they aren't a match! We don't need his mother to die as a plot vehicle!
6- " You were already born poor, but now you're gay too?" - Says a character born gay and poor. The homophobia plotlines may have served a political purpose but were so clumsy they may as well not exist. Not me and Kinn Porsche handled it with more grace.
7- Final point, mainly a criticism. It's OK FOR CHARACTERS TO GET TOGETHER BEFORE THE FINAL EPISODE. It adds to plotlines. There is more to explore besides 8 episodes until a reciprocal kiss or cheating being the only post relationship plot-line. Especially for a show that tried so VERY hard to shoe horn in a larger focus on family, essentially surrogate parent hood, There was so much more to explore besides what was. One worked corporate and quit his job off screen. Their living situations, their leisure, their friends. There is so very much more to explore besides the same old wheel house of thai BL checklists!
It's a turn your head off show, that bit off way more than it could chew in it's short run, but features the most curiously popular thai BL star (earth), who is at this point nearly typecast into someone emotionally immature and needing to be over cracked like a hard egg due to past trauma.
The teens were the highlight which sucks because I'd love for these sorts of shows to leave the blue shorts and school behind.
One of the dramas on the show from the couple people liked literally had their first obviously scripted drama from a guy being on a gay dating app with nudes!
Sorry 30 year olds pining for love at first sight as a major plot point and all converging on two dudes wasn't interesting or realistic. If they were all in their early 20's? I'd get it
Also they all discussed recognizing a sex worker they weren't even unwilling to discuss sex on the show.
Reality shows aren't reality! I'm very aware of that lol. I'm commenting on the directorial decisions, not how "close to reality" it is.
Even down to infantalizing weird things. Do straight dating shows have 1 kiss and say "it went down in history" when it happens?
None of the interactions they had didn't feel scripted. They were scripted like all reality shows, in this case they just tried to hard to feel wholesome.
I do have advice for people who feverishly refresh this page to complain about people disagreeing with them.
Stop. It's weird. Do things you enjoy lol.
There are way too many comments complaining that people don't feel identical to you.
I scrolled down like a day and HALF the comments were complaints about people not liking the show as much as them, to the point where it actually outnumbered actual complaints.
Honestly a lot of the insults tossed at people who don't think this show is gods gift to mankind reveal a lot of reasons why I rarely interact with communities of people who watch these shows - a lot boils down to liking the idea of these shows but not liking actual gay people. People aren't dirty or lesser than you for wanting to see kisses or simulated sex, and shows aren't worse or better because they feature that. It's a part of human life. It's what gay people do! Like how many shows featuring straight couples get complaints when there is more than 2 kisses in a series lol? Think about that behavior.
You don't don't need to toss insults at other popular shows because people don't love this one. I'm glad you found a show you adore. Enjoy! Allow people to also discuss it if they are middling on it.
Most take place in High School and this one would have a hard time cracking my top 10 of THOSE alone, let alone when I include ones on other merits.
You might just have to accept, people are allowed to have individual ideas that dont agree with yours lmao.
If they had written an experience like yours I'd absolutely be on board and understand the slow burn nature more.
If they didn't decide on the second episode to kiss in their room because its just lips and have a "can we come out of the closet now" dialogue, I'd happily accept inner turmoil with sexuality.
They just haven't set the scene for it, so it feels unearned.
Even the episode 2 kiss in context of the teacher's "this is a very conservative private school" like 6 episodes after. The show just kinda wants to have its cake and eat it too.
Again?
So is this really just We Best Love X My Bromance?
The show is perfectly fine, and that's me being fairly generous.
It feels like it doesn't do a ton new or strictly better than some of its peers so far, in fact it kinda goes below average in some really important areas that it sets up and presents to us. (We have two late adolescents who have their own agency, little parental supervision, have weird feelings for eachother and they get wild and crazy and... study.)
I feel like the hyperfocus on school and the bumbling around for the first few episodes really soured my initial impression and a lot ideas are held back by those initial trappings.
It's been 8/12 episodes and they've had maybe 1/2 to maybe 1/4 of an episode where I didn't have to hear about someone's grades, especially two protagonists who don't really have learning disabilities or anything one is top of his class. I've even been left wondering, even the most like school focused shows typically have a few highlights of the days they DON'T go to school. Not here so far.
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Longer form -
The start was below average (oh wow another transfer student at a super prestigious school where studying is life and everyone's going to be super unreasonable about academic achievement, good thing you, one of the protagonists, is way above the bell curve in some things and better than most in other areas, uh oh, protagonist 2 is a hard ass carrying a world's worth of trauma in every breath he takes and we're supposed to be curious and feel the chemistry oozing out of the clipped words instead of repulsed by immaturity! How dark and mysterious).
The dorm drama is kinda contrived and just not very believable? If these were students who were on a scholarship? Sure go crazy with every single plot or character point circling back to "studying" in some way. Fine.
These are rich people. These are two (oddly entirely unsexually curious) teens who are throwing a fuss about spending too much time in their final years of schooling with their own agency in a house where there parents are respectful of their boundaries and don't just bust in their rooms etc?
What?
Even with the added trauma of a dorm being "home" (instead of using Tian's new room and having others in the house interact with it as a way to express his desire for home...) to try and gel it all over, it just doesn't feel like it was set up in a way that feels how teens who aren't written act.
I understand, it's likely a holdover from the source material, but I have to suspend so much disbelief lol.
It's a fun fine watch but at the same time feels frustratingly held back.
I'm not saying this needs to a be a playyboy moment where the characters are screwing all the time. Far from it, there's just a giant chasm where it feels like I'm watching a fan fiction trying to hit plots they wrote in an outline vs making a believable character sometimes.
It's not about "a kiss going down in history" (realistically no, it won't. What the hell? That's a weird behavior, it treats gay adults like puppies or something, this isn't a drama lol, they are adult men.)
Conceptually I was kind of expecting a house full of 20 something to 30 something men kinda of talking and dealing with the complexities of dating. Discussing sex openly, kisses not being a damn "prize" for watching, and not men in their mid to late twenties constantly pining for love without even having conversations.
(Was it editing? Did we need 1,000 shots of Shun having an attitude because his shoes weren't as comfy as he wanted that day vs adults speaking? Did we need a panel recounting exactly what we saw seconds before while key conversations were flashbacks or discussed among the cast vs seen?)
In the end, we basically get to watch a dating show with little to no actual dating that's fully sanitized of a lot of actual "gay". Everyone being super interested in Shun and Kazuto (even when the show pointed out he wasn't around for multiple days for people to even get to know) felt orchestrated. Everyone seems to want to skip past the dating stage. So we get a show fully of people looking for happily ever afters with no stories, no experimenting, no fun.
Multiple dudes know the Go-Go boy, but no one discusses sex, apps, clubbing, sexual attraction or anything adults would. Just fluff. For an audience who often treat gay men like anything but.
IDK that I'm super fond of how it was as a reality show. I'm not sure ALL japanese reality shows are like it, but the panel detracted from the show more than it added.
They also cut out key interactions between people in the house and showed them in flashbacks or had characters discuss them. It breaks a key rule of a lot of creative work: show don't tell, its a television show.
Maybe it's a cultural thing? I'm not sure
The entire house swarming in on Kazuto and Shun was weird and kinda my main gripe with the show. I understand its out of their control, but it just felt very off.
Was there like some rule that they were only allowed to be interested in one guy?
Like its a 2 month show with a bunch of attractive gay dudes and they honed in on 2, with mostly all losing interest in Shun once he acted like a 16 year old angsty teen.
(By the way, other people left on their own but the one dude who spent the majority of the show not having fun and constantly talking about how uncomfortable he was with everything and how much he didn't like things, STAYED?)
Due to the above, most of the characters barely existed, the Korean dude literally could have been a lamp. He talked in the last episode about all the close relationships he's formed but he's shown saying about 2 paragraphs of text during the 10 episodes with most of it being how close he felt to people.
It's hard to feel anything good about Dai and Shun when it was basically like watching Dai go through an abusive relationship lol. He constantly shifts around some dude he "loves on first sight" in a house full of super attractive dudes. It feels like he was fixated on him to prove a point vs any actual chemistry.
And no, vlogs post show are no-**** going to be overly cutesy and seem like paradise. If you cut out all of Shun acting like a child in this show and only showed when he smiled or had fun with Dai, it'd look healthy too.
It was entertaining TV that got in its own way more often than not due to weird pacing, the largest issue really being too much of 23-37 year olds hyper-fixated on being in "love" before having conversations but with about 2 people.
If this were a High School aged BL? Sure.
Usak also left way too early.
WTF was up with kazuto?
"Oh Usak is a god, I don't feel worthy of his attention"
*Usak openly expresses interest multiple times even in the heavily edited show*
Actually I'm going to go check these other dudes out and ignore you even though I'm interested!
tl;dr - Cute show as a concept, show editing takes away more than it adds, pacing is bad, a lot of the initial warm welcome to the show wears off by like episode 4/5.
A season 2 with less faux-bachelor energy would feel way better than the "we love Kazuto even though he doesn't particularly care for anyone show"
The Introvert vs extrovert thing is just far too dramatized to the point where these don't feel like people at all. The protagonist being the main offender. It feels like a middle school character who should be going home to confide in mom vs a college student.
This dorm is entirely silent aside from the new guy? in college? really?
A person can be introverted and converse normally!
Big seems great in his role but he's entirely carrying any sort of chemistry to the point it's simply not believable. There's love at first sight and then there's love because its in the script. This is giving latter energy.
Aside from this being a television show he's putting far too much effort into a random dude who was too nervous and social awkward UwU, demure, cutesy, definitely actual human behavior and not an anime trope to help someone carry crap into their room, say introduce himself and say good night but could easily just walk into the elevator with same said person like 10 seconds before.
Wouldn't he have taken the steps to avoid being around any potential people?
IDK i'm all for something saccharine and sweet, this just feels really infantile compared to some recent output in this genre, and honestly some old too.
Seeing comments about slowburn etc. Am i missing something? God is clearly already head over heels for a dude who doesn't want to say hello, or finish a sentence without thai BL hi-jinks.
(oh wow i'm too shy and unfocused to say, "hey I have to go" when I see my turtle has broken out of its cage)
Edit- Watched the start of ep 2 at 2x speed....
I S2G if this ends up being some "learning to accept myself and past trauma through relationships instead of therapy" story...
I think i'll save myself the time, and im glad others enjoyed this.
And the cheesy fall into a kiss scene with the second "couple" i guess. I don't know where this is going but the start feels glacial or I feel like I missed an episode seeing all the talk of excitement and chemistry.
It feels generic. Maybe I'm not the target here.
Playboyy wasn't good but at least had a more intriguing start than whatever this is.
Reading so many people having controversial thoughts towards male prostitutes being a theme or feeling like its scandalous is interesting considering how many thai shows with murder, and prostitutes and nonconsenual action there is, but hey to each their own.
Of all the out of line things this series does, it funny enough ISN'T one of the ones that hand-waves Sexual Assault or lacking in consent, especially considering how many BL shows use it as a core plot device and then just go straight to madly in love. It's addressed here by the characters - unless you are a person who thinks it being present alone is bad and can't get past that, this is the one criticism lobbied against this series that makes very little sense. This is one of the few thai shows with non consent I've seen always handled in a way that directly addressed it in some conversation surrounding the action VS just randomly it being ignored and them falling in love because someone took the first action.
The English being "cringey" commentary feels weirdly racist because, it was simply English with an accent. The sentences even all had proper grammar and cadence. People from different countries with languages other than English as a primary language... have accents. The "jokes" were absolutely all over, but thats the jokes, they'd have been awkward in Thai as well.
It flat out is just a weird worse combo of Not Me and KinnPorsche.
It's the BL "we don't communicate trope" but turned to 10,000 with characters lying with little benefit to themselves for most of it's runtime. Characters "forgetting" or "omitting" key details until the plot demands them suddenly remember or mention it when its relevant. (With a pretty extreme plot reason why saying it sooner than later would have been beneficial).
In not me characters didn't tell the whole truth because the protagonist was pretending to be someone else.
In this series he tells them VERY early he is not who he claimed. They still lie to him, without any benefit to themselves.
The first half of the show was fine, the latter half with a lot of unearned character moments, was just me rushing through to see if they decided to end in any way that was satisfactory.
I know BL shows aren't exactly known for realistic depictions of queer men, or much else tbh, but he's written like a person who just stirs sh*t, everyone knows it, but somehow and for some reason they all put up with it, and they forgot to include a reason why? He isn't particularly charming, hasn't really had a "ah he does that as a friend so they keep him around", their casting choices don't make him stand out as more handsome than anyone else on the cast.
It certainly does NOT make the show unwatchable but it sticks out so much in such an extreme way it makes me question if they things right about the show were an accident and are only going to get worse.
People sympathizing with Boston are genuinely confusing, mainly because the writing doesn't support it. He doesn't do anything besides "tee hee this is inconvenient to everyone, even me!" constantly. All it took was at least a generic flashback or something. Characters who cause chaos without reason are worse for a show than boring characters because you draw attention to them and then do not follow up. Even if their backstory is them just being a chaotic person, it adds SOME depth.
I can't tell if they forgot to make more scenes from his perspective or something but sheesh, its a drag to even watch this when he comes up because it feels so "generic villain insert". The kind of character I *think* they wanted to write here is much more difficult to do, and wouldn't have appeared to most viewers to align with a sh*t stirrer in like episode 2-3/12. (simply make them more likeable, make characters like them, make believable excuses for their selfish behavior.).
(I find mew boring as hell, but hey, its better than a chaotic character doing it so the show isn't lovey dovey.)
Whats up with Thailand being a tropical country, actors having visible sweat on their clothes etc but Earth being like the darkest person they'll cast for anything outside of a joke role?
The plot here is acceptable, fluff is fun, the issue is it feels like there are random tonally inconsistent issues that don't feel earned.
Everyone suddenly caring about the intern that clicks a few keystrokes and brings coffee being some company disruptor is really pushing suspension of disbelief. (OH NO the Boss is HAPPY with us ALL, AH, thats not fair!)
The friend group is fine it's just, its just been A LOT of episodes of toeing the "do you like me" line between adults.
Protagonist is a college aged adult living on his own and there are other plot points to explore, it'd have been nice to just have them be together already at this point and deal with other issues presented + letting some of the rest of the friends of these characters develop vs infantalizing the intern. (with his trauma and the details of it he shouldn't be reacting to kisses from a crush like a 15 year old)
They are also acting like he's going to disappear into the dust once the internship ends instead of continuing his classes, as a college aged adult, until he graduates lol.
tl;dr - either go fluffy and be silly or be serious, dancing between the two just ends up making the flaws show harder. It's a thai BL so I'm not expecting the Sopranos here or anything but the silliest parts feel so avoidable.
That shouldn't be rare with adult characters.
My thoughts (note everything here from the perspective of a non-white American gay man, expect at least pacing spoilers and one specific spoiler):
1- Adult Queer men don't need a random "gay is ok" ark, and Earth was too focused on. Yes he is a popular GMMTV actor. He was over focused on to the point where two character who had no reason to think of him as more than a nice guy who runs a noodle stand wanted forever relationships with him, vs a date. Adult queer men can form relationships that aren't permanent bonds or soul mate relationships. And we don't need those to justify queer romance. It doesn't help that Wen (mix) spent the entire series being nearly flawless as a character and just constantly throwing himself at a man who was unreasonably resistant, worse considering his story arc was ABOUT ONLY WANTING A RECIPROCAL LOVE. It felt like there was too much fan service around earth, (same exact issues I had with tale of a thousand stars, besides it's glacial pacing)
2- The ages of all characters were fucked. The 29 year old was in a double digit (11?) year relationship? The teens had a more emotionally mature relationship blossom? The 40 or nearly 40 year old reacts to every interpersonal relationship like a 17-21 year old, but is a (failing) business guru? The teens could have been 20's and the controlling parents trope could have easily simply been a mental health decision upon becoming deaf. Li Ming (fourth) spent the entire show being more emotionally mature than every adult that interacted with him aside from Wen, which is basically just a leftover from typical GMMTV writing.
3- Age constantly being alluded to as failure, or fault, or the end of dreams etc is boring. According to global capitalistic media, we basically have about 3 years of life and agency, the rest is child hood, being a worker drone that's given up on dreams or agency, and essentially waiting for death. It's ok to have adult characters be experienced but not sage like, its ok to have flawed adults that aren't just blockades on another characters relationships. Does someone at GMMTV need therapy?
4- Intersectionality handled with grace! (not a problem). Wow they did a very decent job with the deaf community (dunno how Capital D deaf is handled internationally) but Heart's story-line was handled alarmingly well with the other failings of the show. There was development, I could spot any specific episode and Li Ming and Heart were at different points of development. Episodes 1-7 were Wen throwing himself at a man who said "I am not your boyfriend, I am damaged." I don't really expect Thai shows in my life time to address the fact that Earth is the darkest Thai man to make regular appearances in Thai BL shows despite him being at most a light tan and Thailand being a tropical country with people of all shades. So this bone being thrown felt nice.
5- Ex storyline was overwrought. Didn't add anything. I am thankful to see Papang's pecs whenever possible but the corpse scene felt like one of the few times the story cues gave away enough that we didn't need to see a dead body lol. The show would have been stronger to just feature both adult main characters with a bunch of exes that didn't work out over "this is THE ONE" relationships that failed , one for cheating (wow innovative) and the other the end of love (without enough build up to be relatable). Kaipa didn't have enough on screen reason to be so distraught over not receiving affection from Jim. And they are both adults. It'd have been perfectly ok and better for them to just go on a few awful dates and figure out they aren't a match! We don't need his mother to die as a plot vehicle!
6- " You were already born poor, but now you're gay too?" - Says a character born gay and poor. The homophobia plotlines may have served a political purpose but were so clumsy they may as well not exist. Not me and Kinn Porsche handled it with more grace.
7- Final point, mainly a criticism. It's OK FOR CHARACTERS TO GET TOGETHER BEFORE THE FINAL EPISODE. It adds to plotlines. There is more to explore besides 8 episodes until a reciprocal kiss or cheating being the only post relationship plot-line. Especially for a show that tried so VERY hard to shoe horn in a larger focus on family, essentially surrogate parent hood, There was so much more to explore besides what was. One worked corporate and quit his job off screen. Their living situations, their leisure, their friends. There is so very much more to explore besides the same old wheel house of thai BL checklists!
It's a turn your head off show, that bit off way more than it could chew in it's short run, but features the most curiously popular thai BL star (earth), who is at this point nearly typecast into someone emotionally immature and needing to be over cracked like a hard egg due to past trauma.
The teens were the highlight which sucks because I'd love for these sorts of shows to leave the blue shorts and school behind.