Blkittykat

Give it a try

This review is a LONG time coming because I watched the show months ago, but I couldn't think of what to put in my review once I finished it. I thought giving it some time would help and then I promptly forgot to actually do it.

Since High Street (sequel to Senior High) just started airing, I decided to write it now.
Here's the review:

⚠️ CONTENT WARNINGS ⚠️
The show contains depictions of bullying, violence, SA, murder and much more. I found it pertinent to include this because the depictions are rather explicit, and caution may be exercised before watching.

I started watching this because I came across some clips on YouTube, but I decided I wasn't going to watch an 50 episodes (100+ with both seasons) just to catch a glimpse of two people who may or may not become a couple. I decided the clips were enough until I realised that I didn't really have the complete context of the story, plot wise or romance wise, since both seemed to be integral for my understanding.

I then caved and started watching it, deciding that if I didn't like it, I could just stop. And would you know it, I couldn't stop. The show is dramatic, a little cringey, and downright impossible at times (most of the time), but it keeps you invested.
It's the kind of series where the kids have more common sense, compassion and just plain humanity compared to the adults. It's more dramatic than it needs to be and that's probably what worked.

The story follows Sky Love Cruz, a recent transferee to Northford High, the school which her twin Luna Amore Cruz attends. Not long after, Luna dies of an apparent suicide, but Sky thinks otherwise and decides to investigate. As she rules out suspects and gains allies, she discovers the deep, dark secrets of the school and the people in it.

Without giving away much about the plot (which I won't either way because it's far more complicated than one would expect) the story manages to keep you on your toes the entire time. Yes, the scenes are drawn out, yes plot points could have been concluded much faster than they actually did, but there is a high chance that you'll be invested either way. It very much reminded me of the soap operas we get on television where I live, and maybe the familiarity made me like it a bit more.

Now, I will admit that both seasons have sort of become one in my mind because I watched them at a stretch, but I do vaguely remember where they made the cut, and season 1 provided quite the setup for an even more dramatic, over the top and traumatic viewing.

Give it a try and see if you like it. If I'm being completely objective, this is not everyone's cup of coffee, maybe even not mine but be what it may, it surprised me and maybe it'll surprise you as well.

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Unprecedented emotions

It feels like as the stories progress, the more risqué they get. The ending of this drama cleared things up well, but that's not to say that things weren't a little confusing all the way through.

The story is about fraternal twins Kun and Korn who are at a point in their lives where they're facing the prospect of not being the most important people in each other's lives for the first time. They're incredibly close, so much so that it takes a while to figure out that they're actually brothers, and when a new student named Tod, and an old friend named Pond are added to the mix, jealousy, possessiveness and the feeling of being unwanted flares up in the twins.

I feel like I need to clarify that this isn't romance (although they made it seem like it was, oof), it's more about the feelings of seemingly losing the person you love the most and them being unable to comprehend and adjust to the situation. The romantical inclination they showed may have been a small mistake in expression, they didn't quite nail the closeness of the siblings in the way they intended.

The ending kind of fell flat though, it was obvious that they would follow their own paths, but there was a better way to do it than have them just ghost each other for months. I would have preferred if they had written it to be a situation where the twins are still involved in each other's lives and still close, but realise that there are some things they're allowed to have that are just theirs. But I appreciate what they tried to do, and it's not the worst miniseries in this anthology.

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Childlike Antics and Stone Cold Superstar

Superstar may be a stretch.

Ja and First have so much potential, and Remember Me (which I'm still trying to forget) and this do literally nothing to showcase the chemistry they share.

Their apparent connection is then overshadowed by childish behaviour, talent managers performing criminal acts, and a second couple with only NC scenes. Really, their scenes together are mostly NC.

Most of the scenes are of them filming the drama within the drama, or Punn and his brother fighting like children, or Achi involved in a weird love triangle that doesn't include Punn, or the two managers throwing insults at each other that are frankly hard to watch. Or, it's filled by the cherry on top, the NC scenes. The scenes that Achi and Punn share are in turn filled with a weird sense that maybe these two shouldn't be a romantic couple. Their chemistry is great obviously, but the way their characters are written, it feels like both of them are in very different stages of life and the ability to be in a relationship.

Achi is definitely a grown up, he's seen life, he knows what he wants and that he definitely doesn't want a relationship. Punn on the other hand is a grown up child, and he's irrevocably in love with Achi or rather the idea of Achi he's got from idolising him. They go through a series of events in which Punn shows that he admires Achi, is capable of taking care of him, and even takes a couple of strides in showing that he's maturing as a person. And yet it feels like they go back to square one in every single episode, superstar and doting fan. It's kind of frustrating to see the same thing over and over, just on a loop.

Until the last episode, the character go around in this exact same circle, doing exactly what they did the last 11 episodes. This definitely had it's potential, but there's only so much chemistry can do.

I do need to watch the drama they're filming though, the acting is so over the top, the story seems like a mess, and yet it's the most popular thing out there, I just need to know what it's all about

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The blurred lines between law and attraction

The line between love and hate is barely visible, but the distinction between lawful good and chaotic good is clear as day. The very first scenes establish the characteristics of our main characters, Charn, a high profile lawyer who is ruthless and not above bending the law to further his will. One the other side is Tin, a martial arts coach who believes the law is just and the law will do it's job. These two are brought together on several occasions, the most notable being when they meet as plaintiff and defense in the case involving the death of Tin's niece.

The story moves along with Tin and Charn joining forces once Charn realises that something doesn't sit quite right with the case, and from here on out follows the adventures of the gang as they try to figure out the truth behind the accident.

The series is through and through a lakorn, from the gratuitous violence, terrible parents on one end, and incredibly supportive parents and guardians on the other, a villain who's not really a villain, and the plethora of other lakorn tropes that make it interesting (yet sometimes horrifying) to watch. Another great part is that this is also a character driven drama. The story and situation plays an important role in progressing the plot forward, but the involvement of the characters keeping in mind their personalities and allegiances make this a series where it is impossible to predict the next movement of any character. The story is fairly predictable, but the way the characters interact with each other in addition to the fact that you can never predict what exactly they're going to do next keeps it interesting on all fronts.

The best part though is the chemistry. Charn and Tin have this undeniable chemistry between each other, and they seem to have it with everyone else as well. The dialogue flows when they interact with each other and during those moments you almost forget how their relationship started out.

This is a genuinely good series, and while it does have its fair share of gruesome scenes (some of them were hard to watch), it's definitely worth a watch, especially for the romance.

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Well that deteriorated quickly..

Why is it that this happens every time some sort of plot is introduced?

For the initial half of the series, the entire plot was 'I have a toothache and my dentist is really cute', but when they decided to bring in the plot points they set up in these episodes into full force in the next seven, it felt incredibly forced and rushed.

Not developing those storylines would've been worse, I can admit to that, but cramming ten of them into seven episodes while also maintaining the romance between the leads is a difficult line to walk and this is proof. There was just way too much going on for any of them to have any real substance and it felt like the creators recognized that as well, because at one point they tried to revert back to the cute dentist and cute patient plot, but by then, they were in it too deep.

The biggest faux pas though, was this silly game of fill - in - the - blank the series played with the audience. We are left to our own devices to fill in dialogues, scenes and sometimes even storylines, which is okay if it's a series that's all romance. In fact, that requires some room for interpretation.
Doing it when the plot is plot heavy? You're just creating a recipe for chaos.

It's truly a pity though, because that first half was near perfection for me. It was reminiscent of so many other BLs like 2gether and Fish Upon The Sky, and I was just enjoying the banter, and the cuteness, the romance.
All of a sudden at the mid way point, plot came in and ruined the party. From that point it never really picked up for me.

I will say Ohm and Mark have good chemistry, they did manage to showcase it despite the glaring discrepancies in the way their characters behaved at times and that chemistry pretty much carried the plot that refused to plot. Their acting was good, their comedic timing was good for the most part.. or rather they did their best with the given story. I can appreciate their efforts.

The second couple/love triangle was completely unnecessary. I love Poon and View, but their characters added very little to the story and so did their strange and confusing arc.
And Captain.. my boy Jimmy deserved better writing for his character because what was that? Instigator of jealousy.. that's it.
Most of the supporting characters added no real substance to the story honestly and that is truly one of the most disappointing aspects of this.

Even with all that I thought they could've done better, this was a decent watch. I enjoyed it for the most part, but I can't help but think about just how much potential it had. To be a simple and sweet love story. It was just that, but also had so much more going on that it didn't need. And I would've gladly taken just a simple and sweet love story.

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A SHORT AND SWEET LOVE STORY

What do we expect when we start a series?
In accordance to the tags, or the trailer, or the review, we expect it to be a certain way.
So, in keeping with this theory, when you watch this series, you should swoon, feel the love and finish it in a small amount of time, and you will.
Honestly, you could finish the series in the time it takes you to read this review completely.
(Just kidding 😀. This will take 3 minutes at the most)

See You After Quarantine? may be an extremely short series, and I mean one that you could finish in one and a half hours short, but there is quite evidently no problem in the story telling or the acting. Even the production value seems high, considering the series was filmed entirely using a phone.

The series tells the story of Bo Chun and Itsuki Sato, who although from different countries, find common ground through an antique camera, leading them to form a friendship, that turns into a relationship.

This story of mistaken identities and love at first sight has been written in a way as to reflect not only the time of the pandemic, but in a way where it would be genuinely possible to happen at any and all times.

Ultimately, if you want to watch a series with literally no drama and just tons of cute moments, this is the one for you. So if you find yourself with a little time to spare, do give this a try.

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Humans are a lot of things.. most importantly, they are unpredictable

The entirety of season 3 was a big what if.
What if this character did that? Or what if they story went this way?
I guess all three seasons were that way in a sense, but we need to keep in mind that the clause of "what if" for this season held more stakes than before.

What tumbled out of the huge bundle of pressure created to live up to the hype while still delivering a good story, was somewhat of a mess.

Picking up on that very grim note they ended season 2 on, this season only gets grimmer, and it never stops. There was some sort of brutality to all the characters this time over, and I mean all of them. There's no room to debate if any of them had a reason to do all they did, because there will never be a good one. In displaying just how unpredictable, desperate and cruel humans can get, they did it, and how.

Episode by episode you watch the characters get more and more ruthless, balancing their own morals against their desires. There are heroes and villains in this story, but watching more and more you begin considering if your heroes are all that heroic.

It's.. yeah.. it's kind of depressing.

It was infuriating, sad and depressing, and these feelings only magnified after each episode. And the ending only helps to drive in that nail. It was truly one of the most unsatisfactory endings I've ever watched, but when I asked myself if any other ending would've made sense? It didn't. Didn't make me any less mad. It was such a depressing way to end something already on the decline, and the choice they made left me even more upset than I expected I would be.

I will say, the characters were written very well. The story may have been slightly unsatisfactory (a sentiment it shares with season 1), but the characters were amazing. The new set of characters, I somehow developed more of a connection with than the characters in the first season. I did think the characters in this arc did have more depth, even the returning characters were more fleshed out. Whether I liked all of them or not is a completely different story (see: you die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain), but they were more complex and deep than I expected them to be.

The acting, the cinematography, everything about it was amazing obviously, no doubts about that. Netflix should invest in writers though, because again, without spoiling anything, it just felt like a huge letdown after a half attempt at creating a buildup. And they did seem to be setting up for a sequel/spinoff/remake.. let's not. Let's finish the saga here.

I don't know if I like this, I'm having a huge quandary over that decision, and I genuinely do not know what the basis of my rating is, but I hope my review helped you decide whether or not you want to give this a try. If not, I'll try to sum it up in this sentence:
It's brutal, painful and depressing, but you can see a faint light at the end of the tunnel. Kinda.

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If silly.. also cute..?

I was floored the minute I realized the best excuse the super secret spy was going to come up with all series was "cockroach!"
But the best part? The guy he was trying to fool fell for it EVERY SINGLE TIME

There's no other way to put this, I love this series.
The plot is one of silliest, nonsensical and unserious one I've ever seen but every single time the two leads came onto screen I had forgotten all about the plot that never existed because, my goodness, are they wonderfully cute together.

The story is utter nonsense yeah - one guy is a secret spy investigating the other guy, and pretty much everyone but the guy being investigated knows that he's been spied on because the spy? He's not very good!
Between all this they somehow develop a fake relationship amongst a story riddled with plotholes.. but forget all that.

Don't dwell on the story when you watch. Ignore all your instincts that point out all the silly mistakes (there are so many).
And focus on Da Hei and Xiao Bai.
They are it. The chemistry is so off the charts that I willingly ignored every other aspect of the series and just giggled through it all.
The way their relationship started.. absolute nonsense. The way it progressed according to the plot, also nonsense but gaah! They were just so cute together.

This review makes it seem like this series is just a silly plot and an insane amount of chemistry.. and it is. That's all it is.
All the stuff involving the service house, the second couple(?), the investigation agency, the grandpa and the grandma, I cannot explain the extent of silly even if I tried.
But I also cannot explain just how good the romance was, you just have to see it to understand.

So a series about a spy and a hitman falling in love set against an action backdrop? Not really
A series about a fake spy and a supposed hitman who is scared of cockroaches falling in love and having the best chemistry? Yes, yes, YES!!

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The true meaning of Home

Let me just preface this review by saying if you're here for the comedy, obviously you're in for a treat. And even if you aren't, you're in for a treat. The amount of levels in this show is actually astounding because I came from hilarity and chaos, but somehow ended up crying into a packet of tissues every episode. An incredible story, amazing characters, good character development, this show had it all!

Where do I even start then? The story? Brilliance. I absolutely love the dynamics of unconventional team coming together due to "circumstances", it's one of my favorite friendship tropes, and you put together four distinctly unique characters in a comedy - horror setting, and it's like you've already struck gold. This was one step ahead, adding emotion to the anthologies and gradually building up the backstories of the leads until it gets to the point where all of it just makes sense. All the plot twists, even the one I predicted, managed to surprise me because of how they were executed, rather than relying on just the simple shock factor. This is the kind of story that gets better and better every episode and when you're done with the finale all you can think is wow.

Now add to this incredible characters you can't help but love from the minute they're on screen. They need their character development but it says something about the writing when you're able to root for the leads even when they're supposed to be horrible people. Watching them grow into themselves and become good, interesting people was a highlight in a show where even the supporting characters were charismatic.

Like I mentioned, most of the series was on an episodic format, and the backstories of the leads were slowly revealed, but anthologies within a structured series can be hit and miss. Might be the first time they all hit just right for me. Each story was equally exciting and emotional on it's own, but getting to watch the leads get closer as a team and become actual friends by helping these people was the cherry on top.

Another thing I loved: the friendships, relationships, all of it. In the anthologies, with Home and his family, Peach and Pang Pang, the ghost hunting gang, and literally everyone with Pi Suradech. I could write an essay on how incredible Pi Suradech is but that's for another time. Just the way they all stood by each other through everything (which I mean, it's a spoiler, but they way they did even when..), it's one of my absolute favorite things to watch in a drama. Strangers becoming family.

And finally, how can I not talk about them? Tay and New. You can see how well they actually gel together because even in the scenes where they're supposed to be sworn enemies, it feels like they've been friends for years. Which actually played well into the story because Home and Peach are honestly soulmates and you can't convince me otherwise. Even the characters knew it!

This is an endless list of positives, and as much as I would like to say there's something negative, I don't think there is one. Maybe I'm biased but I just loved it so much, I even love the OST! And that's what I categorise as.. a perfect 10.

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The summer of youth.. and the midsommer night's dream

Haaah..
I needed to let it just stew for a while after that finale because the feels.. all the feels I'm feeling.. haaah..

Between the poetic vibe and the bright lens they used to tell the story, there's a ton of whiplash on what you think you're supposed to experience, but none of that matters, because watching this is an experience in itself. I was left contemplating the meaning behind their actions as they left them in a sad and vulnerable state, while experiencing joy beyond explanation just by watching two people become the entire world to each other.

I love those bonds, just pure love. Where you know what the other person is thinking, can anticipate what they're feeling, when you know them better than they know themselves on every sort of level. The melancholy and excitement, and the growing pains of being a teenager who is suddenly thrust into unfamiliar and uncomfortable environments only to end up finding the one person who is going to be their entire life was so incredibly moving to watch.

A lot of my words until now have been vague and philosophical, so let me just say this, they perfectly managed to encapsulate the feelings of being in a new environment and then discovering that it's more home than anywhere else. Budding friendships, familial ties, first love, and all the confusion, happiness and pain that comes with it.. just perfect.

This was more than just a romance, not only because that wasn't the only focus of the story, or because they weren't the only couple in the story, no. It was because, more than a romance, this was a story of love. A love I can't quite explain, so it's best to watch and experience it firsthand.

Where's my season 2 though :(

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The Girl Next Room series strikes again, this time with a story about forbidden love. This was admittedly not one of the most popular parts, but it certainly holds up well against the rest and might I even say better than some. It’s modest and funny and seems very likeable, but all of these virtues do not hold a light to the way the leads are written. View Wiwa seems conceited and airy, but that’s just a character she portrays. Underneath all that, she is just a simple and down to earth girl, quite evident from the very first episode. Faigun. Man, Fai is honestly the best character I’ve ever encountered. He’s funny, smart, handsome, hardworking, truthful and so much more, but his most endearing quality is that he’s real. This is a couple you can honestly root for and rightfully so.

THE STORY:
So, View is an up and coming actress who moves into the dorm. Fai is this down on his luck character, who gets the security job at View’s dorm after saving P’Jam from a burglar. He also saves View from predators and she starts falling in love with him, but there is this evident gap between the two, causing cracks in what seemed like a smooth journey. Jealousy, a gap in financial income and societal status accredit to some of their issues. What will become of their love? That’s the main theme followed.

THE ACTING:
I’ve seen Gigi in a few other series ( Yes I’m talking about Pam ), but this is the first series of Kao’s I’ve watched and I can already say I love him. He just portrays Fai in a way that nobody else could. Also how cute was his intro?! Kao is one of those actors who just seems to thrive in every role. He has the acting chops to carry out those happy scenes as well as those serious scenes. Neo as usual is awesome.

THE PRODUCTION:
In my review of Richy Rich, I said that it had the best production, oh boy was I wrong. This one is right up there. I think it’s mostly because of Kao and the way he portrays Fai. Fai has been written as this sweet and innocent guy with an unwitting genuinity. Kao portrays him exactly as such. That’s what’s so endearing about this production. You can actually see the hard work that went into this. Also that reference to Kao himself in episode 4? Golden.

THE OST:
Still pretty standard stuff. Nothing different from the rest.

THE NEGATIVE:
The way View is treated by her manager and everyone around, no wonder the only person she is herself around is Fai. She’s being spoken for and one of the worst things you can do to a person is toy with their individuality. At this point she is being treated as a mere sexual figure and nothing more. Honestly, how disgusting do you have to be to demand sex from someone as a favour ? So frustrating!

THE ENDING:
What a cute ending! Remember the grilled fish shop Fai wanted to open? Well he did, and he set it up just like View asked him to, with the karaoke and gumball machine. ( Also well played GMMTV, with the Off Gun reference ). So now that she’s well established and so is he, they get back together and all is well. The rap at the end though. So cute! It gave us an update on all the couples after a year and spoiler, they’re all still together. A great ending to a great series.

I know this has been turned into a Faigun fan page, but don’t let that take away from the fact that this series is worth checking out. The story is cute and quite drawing. I hope everyone gives this a try because it’s worth the watch. Thank You!

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Legends and non - linear logic

If you want a recommendation for a BL that gives Indiana Jones × Avatar: The Last Airbender vibes, do I have the one for you! Let me point you to this. It's not as good though but it's there!

The lore is this - there was an ancient city called Tambralinga, founded by four element benders - Wind, Water, Fire and Earth, that has been lost for centuries now, ever since one of the four founders of the city declared a rebellion in order to gain full control of the city and its neighbouring regions and by an extent, just absolute power. Knowing this, the three other founders managed to lock the soul of the fourth in an enchanted box and hid the city in the mountains of Nakhon Si Thammarat.
In the present day, there are multiple people and groups looking for the city, because inside it is a lost treasure that could help each of them with their pursuits - personal gain, a longtime dream or fulfilling a prophecy.

The story basically picks up from zero, with no real context and we get three seperate timelines - one of the founders in the past, the second of a past where some secondary characters tried to find the city and finally, the present, where the leads themselves hope to find it.

I'm always an advocate for a well written story, honestly, consistency over innovation for me because the faux - pas with having complete originality is that you often lose track of what makes it so. Even then, I have to give some points for the story they came up with, it was truly innovative and had some semblance of originality to it - but in trying to make something exciting they completely messed up the execution.

The most coherent timeline of the lot is set in the ancient city, even though the actions and motivations are inexplicable nonsense, it makes sense as a timeline. We get the backstory behind the fall of the city - including details of all the romantic pasts of the leads and supporting characters and a glimpse into what went down between the four founders as the city fell. It's not the most fleshed out but yes it made sense.

The other two - not so much.

The present is the timeline that is most important, it is a culmination of all the actions undertaken by different characters landing upon the heads of the leads, leaving them to deal with the consequences. We have Siwat - who is looking for the city because it was his father Michael's lifelong goal, because he believed there was something in there that could help Siwat. There's Khun - who wants nothing to do with the city because it was in pursuit of it that his father died. So when Siwat shows up asking for his help, he immediately refused and asks him to leave. Because it was by helping Siwat's dad that his father died.

This past - with both their fathers - is the worst one. It has no fantasy elements, it is simply a means to provide more context to the inner conflicts and motivations of the leads and other characters. But it makes no sense. They say they found the city in one episode, they say they didn't in another. They say that Khun clearly remembers that it was during the mission to find Tambralinga that Siwat's father caused Khun's father's death, and in another we find that Michael was nowhere near the country when it happened and the mission was called off at that point?? None of it made sense.

The story is non - linear, jumping between the three timelines and incredibly confusing. There are over ten characters who seemingly play an important role in the story but from the beginning that it's just the plot that's convoluted, but neither it nor the characters have any real depth.

We have a bunch of villians - Siwat's step mother and her lover, and an evil tweed wearing professor Thakoon, who very clearly come off as cartoonish. The only thing the evil professor didn't do was twirl his faint mustache while deep in thought, otherwise they read as Looney Tunes characters.

Then the protagonists. With Siwat and Khun we have Thara and his mother (in the present), and both their fathers (in the past) who are all presented as the absolute good who can do no wrong, and though I was pleasantly surprised to see some cracks in the stereotype, all of the writing just felt very one - dimensional. Things happen because the script said so - there's no internal conflict (when there clearly should be) and they missed a massive chance to make a romance of epic proportions because Siwat and Khun? Yeah, they're reincarnations of Wind and Fire elementals, along with Thara, the Water elemental.
I know this was a soulmates kind of story but it's unacceptable that the plot moves along because they've recognised that fact. There needs to be depth there - pain, anguish, the push and pull between past and present feelings and events. Maybe it was because Thara was salty about being the third wheel in both timelines but we got a severely watered down version.

The character motivations are one - dimensional when they shouldn't be, the story is both extremely clear but the logic is not clear enough, it's all a very rich tapestry. There's no huge plot twists, it all moves along for the sake of it.

The romance too, most importantly, it moved along because it needed to be moved along. I love a good soulmates story but falling in love just because you were in love centuries ago doesn't work. The chemistry between the leads was decent but again, if you want me to believe they're in love, I need to see it develop, even just a bit.

That ending though, worst part of the series by the longest shot, it was laughable because you do not write endings like that that for stories like this. Maybe you do but with this particular kind of execution it was entirely unexpected and unnecessary, I mean I'm not even angry, I'm just.. well maybe I am. That should have been such a sad ending but ooh boy, it was just incredibly bad - so bad it actually made me bring down my rating.

But there's no way they manufactured this series intending for it to be as unintentionally hilarious as it was, it was mostly fun and a nice glimpse into what "could be", but there's still a long way to go as far it comes to blending myths and legends with fiction.

6.75/10

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Found family trope done well

I quite enjoyed this movie, between the found family dynamics and the well executed visuals of ice sculpting, it was a nice watch.

The show starts off in a juvenile detention centre where one of the instructors Chom, is dissatisfied with her job and wishes to go visit her father in Japan, the person she looks up to most. But the way to get there is through an ice sculpting competition for which she recruits four boys in the centre - Jab, Toom, Win and Jo - who along with another instructor, Boy, all try to gain a scholarship and fund to travel to Sapporo and participate in the competition.

Through the movie we get to see the group grow closer, and move forward from their pasts while training for and participating in the competition. It's got all the tropes you would expect of a found family story, and perhaps that's why it didn't make as much of an impact on me as I had hoped it would.

But I really enjoyed the bond between the six of them, it was light hearted yet deep, and despite stemming from a place of enmity or spite or selfishness, it grew into something incredibly beautiful.

It was a nice movie overall, a good one time watch.

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It's not bad

Yeah.. this was better than the original.
In terms of story atleast which seems like an outright outlandish claim, but hear me out.

The basic plot was exactly the same
Beach - NC scenes - City - Unnecessary drama.. and what would come here would be "rushed ending to the actual emotional core of the story". But here, as a pleasant surprise, it didn't feel quite so rushed.
I'm going to say that's because they managed to get a concise plot from the mess that was actually Love Sea.

This version was much better balanced, five episodes in an island setting and the rest in the city - and while I still carry the complaint that an abrupt tone and genre shift will bog things down, the reduced filler scenes actually helped make a more continuous plot. Again, it's the exact same story, just executed better.

The chemistry was not bad either - not better than Fort Peat though (their chemistry was pretty much the sole thing that saved Love Sea for me), but not bad I guess.

Even the side couple was much more palatable in this version, a lot of unnecessary scenes and characters were cut out or had reduced screentime.

Add to that the only constant in all possible version - beautiful beach and ocean cinematography, always a win in my book.

So yes story, okay chemistry, not a bad production after all.

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The kings of romantic chaos return

No one does chaotic comedy like Japan, and no one can seamlessly combine chaos, comedy and romance like I Became the Lead in a BL.

Now certainly this is not the show that is going to stick with you for a long time or anything of the sort, chances are, you watch it and it's almost forgotten in half an hour.
But this is the kind of show that can captivate you every single time you watch it, no matter how many times you do.

I was clutching at my sides laughing at Akafuji and Hajime return as their chaotic selves, and the comedy and romance were at a peak. It's kind of insane that the entire premise of season 2 was silly panic, but on brand, they made it work.

It's just good fun, you laugh, you kick your feet in pure bliss because they're a joy to witness on screen and you revel in the happiness that this quirky chaos has brought, of course I loved it and I hope you do too.

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