1
This review may contain spoilers
When you think about all of the clues we are given about Yuma, the ending doesn't seem so open ended, after all. Throughout the series we are given a glimpse of his abilities. Bringing on a rain storm. Sending lightening to strike his adversary's water supply. Suspending a bottle in mid air. Not dying after taking a euthanasia pill (right there we are shown that he can perform the impossible). And...Yuma's happy go lucky parting with Ritsu and Masumi, promising that he will see them again. The bond that developed between Meguru and Yuma, gave Yuma a future to look forward to. He found his dead idol in her look alike sibling....almost as though she were resurrected from the dead. The series followed the manga almost exactly. Happy ending in the manga. Yuma sent the meteor away.There is a strong message to this series (and manga). When our own individual world is collapsing around us...when we feel as though there is no longer a reason to live...the entire world could end for all we care. But then...when our lives get back on track...and things look hopeful again...we want the world to go on. And...so it was...with Yuma.
Ritsu and Masumi also had no hope for living....until they reunited and rekindled their love. Ritsu says in the last episode that there was no reason for him to live any longer...but when he found Masumi again, the desire to live was renewed.
This is a lesson for all of us....about despair...and the renewal of hope.
Was this review helpful to you?
This review may contain spoilers
Hang In There....It's a fun series.
At first, I was ready to drop this series after the first episode. I felt as though I was watching a handsome young CEO falling in love with a toddler. I found Cher's personality annoying at first. But...everyone here at MDL urged me to give it chance before I threw in the towel to move on. By the 3rd episode, I found the series charming, warm, and endearing.After the 11th episode, I notice a lot of grumbling in the comments about how the story line was disappointing because of all of the on and off again break ups caused by Cher. The final straw was the Boss's meddling mother which caused Cher to leave the Boss once again. Unfortunately, these situations do occur, where parents meddle in the lives of their children to the point of causing disruption and heartaches. Yes...I know that we've all seen this before in BL's....and yes....I know that Cher has distanced himself one time too many from the Boss. But these types of breakups do occur...on and off again...especially when an interfering parent perceives there to be a class distinction between their child and the boyfriend/girlfriend. The reality of this is disturbing...but it's there...it's real. In this series fortunately, there is a happy ending...but all to often in real life that happy ending never happens because of outside pressures.
I give this series a thumbs up. Watch it. You will enjoy it.
Was this review helpful to you?
An Intriquing Journey
This series is surprisingly underrated. You need to scratch below the surface...and watch not only the episodes but the prologue scenes as well...to fully appreciate how realistically constructed this series is.What might seem as a disjointed and confusing story is actually a skillful creation that opens up a doorway to look inside the mind of an emotionally challenged man. As the story unfolds, the pieces start to come together beautifully, creating a vivid picture of his world. The acting is superb.
I'm in awe of how realistically terrifying this series is. At first glance we would guess that Raccoon has it all...good looks, great build, charming personality, incredible smile, and a wild imagination. But as the series evolves...as we delve deeper into his world...the shadows elongate...the foreboding cloud cover darkens the bright skies....And we slowly walk, step by step, into that place where delusion and reality become diffused...entangled together...difficult to separate. This series is just..........incredible.
Bad to Bed is not just a series. It is a journey.
Was this review helpful to you?
This series addresses real life issues. An unexpected and possibly unwanted pregnancy. Discussion of abortion. Parents unable to accept their child's disability. Mother leaving her young son to be raised by someone else. The fallout effect of a husband leading a double life. The anguish of losing a business that you built from the start. Class distinctions. Financial struggles. Loss of a beloved mother. Letting go of the past to move forward into the future. The emotions associated with the razing of a historic district to make room for a parking lot for a developer's project. The integrity of not taking advantage of someone's kindness for your own self interest. And the list will go on.
Was this review helpful to you?
Fun, Romantic, and Charming
It was a fun ride. Each actor contributed a special charm to the series. Cartz Udal as the vibrant and unusually interesting friend, Aning. Mac Alonzo as the alluring and handsome Magic, brimming with sex appeal. Larence Brenches as Jack, who emanated the aura of a charmingly handsome young prince. And Leilani Kate Yalung who portrayed so well both the gruesomely terrifying Gina and the innocently beautiful Gina.In the last scene together...of Jack and Magic...when they are standing by the piano, the music was hypnotizingly ethereal. It was so beautiful that when the episode ended I went back to that scene and replayed it over and over again.
Although it would be nice to have a Series 2 with Wizard and Jack, I think that it would only detract from the original love story of Jack and Magic. Sometimes it's best to leave a beautiful piece of art be as it is...without trying to replicate it or add to it. It shines brilliantly in and of itself.
As an avid BL fan of Thai, Chinese, Korean, Japanese and Taiwanese BL series, would I recommend this one? Although it lacked the sophistication of the more recent continental Asian BL's , it made up for this lack of an unlimited budget sophistication by exuding fun, romance, and charm in an offbeat and sometimes campy fashion.
So...my answer is Yes. Absolutely yes
Was this review helpful to you?
This review may contain spoilers
A beautiful story...but...and there's a big BUT here...the time loop concept is flawed. Once Jae Woo goes back in time to 2017 and returns again to 2022, from that point onward he will move forward with his life and live it to its fullest...just as he promised to do at the end of the final episode. He is 25 years old in 2022. In 2037 (15 years later), a 40 year old Jae Woo will not be returning to 2022 as a 25 year old in order to travel back to 2017 to revisit Ji Hoon.In order for the cycle of traveling back in time to keep repeating itself, then alternate timelines must exist...like the parallel universes as postulated by the string theory. Evidently, Ji Hoon's must have believed in alternate timelines. He believed that he will continually meet Jae Woo and spend 3 wonderful weeks with the 25 year old Jae Woo over and over again. Ji Hoon is willing to sacrifice his own life and die to protect the child Jae Woo...and by doing so, he believes that his self sacrifice will continue a cycle where Jae Woo will visit him for 3 weeks every 15 years. For this to occur, alternate timelines must exist. Without ascribing to the the concept of parallel universes, the time loop concept of this series is seriously flawed.
Despite the questionable time loop ending, it's a beautiful series...and I highly recommend it.
Was this review helpful to you?
From the retro atmosphere…to the enchanting garden grove restaurant…to the reverence at the Buddhist Temple…to the innocent romance….I was enthralled with every moment of it.
What I found especially intriguing..and encouraging..about this production were the numerous scenes showing the unfailing respect and reverence that the trouble making gang showed towards the monks and the Buddhist temple.
I hope to see the two main actors together again in another comedy BL series. I rated it a 9 out of 10.
Was this review helpful to you?
This review may contain spoilers
Deep, thought provoking, and performed with passion
This is a deep...thought provoking series performed with an artistic passion not often seen in BL series.The cinematography from the first scene sets the stage for a dark and foreboding story.
It seems that many of the viewers found the end to be confusing. To be truthful, it was a mind bender but after connecting many hints that are given throughout the series, the ending is clear...and happy.
The first thing to establish is that the word Kyu (or the letter Q) is interchangeable with the word reaper in this series. The second thing to establish is that time is not linear...as we have been taught. The past and the future can be fluid...they can even exist at the same time.
It was Sunshine who was Sky's reaper. So...how did Sunshine become a reaper in a past time? When Sunshine started to erase people from the universe he became a killer. There is a scene in the flower shop where Tete tells Sky Kyu that Sunshine determined his own destiny by becoming a killer. Sunshine then wished to erase himself from THIS universe, that was almost like a suicide...and his existence as Sunshine the man ended and his life force became a reaper. Several times throughout the series Sky Kyu tells Sunshine that the past and the future are fluid. So it was entirely possible for the future Sunshine of the present to become Sky's reaper in the past.
On the night when Sky as a man had to choose between his father's death and the death of an anonymous person...and the wind blew out the candle of the anonymous person before Sky could choose...that candle represented Sunshine as a man from the future. And when the wind blew it out, that was the moment when Sunshine from the future had wished for the erasure of his own existence. Past and Future were fluid.
Immediately after the wind extinguished the flame of Sunshine's candle, Sky re-lit the candle, thereby undoing Sunshine's erasure of himself from this universe and setting him back on course with his human life. Sky didn't know Sunshine at that moment. At that moment in time, he didn't know who the candle represented. For him, it represented just another anonymous person whose fate was in his hands.
Sky later chooses to end his life in the river. His past actions of ending the lives of others by blowing out their candles along with his own suicide caused him to become a reaper. He didn't knowingly choose to become a reaper. After his death he was transformed into a reaper by a force of power...a power higher up in a chain of command of the forces that control the universe.
When it was apparent that a reaper would be sent to Sunshine (and we are never told why a reaper was sent to him), Sky Kyu requested to be assigned to Sunshine because he remembered Sunshine as his own reaper.
There were rules, to follow, though. And Sky Kyu could not overtly break those rules. He couldn't directly tell Sunshine about the events of the past...so he told them as a story. But he held firm in not telling Sunshine that in the past he was Sky's reaper. He also could not tell Sunshine that he was the one who brought Sunshine back from human erasure. There were rules...and he could only stretch them so far.
Moving forward.
By the 7th evening when Sunshine still had the opportunity to erase one more person, he knew already knew Sky Kyu's past. Sunshine had been witnessing Sky Kyu's endless suffering as a reaper and wanted to bring him peace. He loved Sky Kyu..and was actually falling in love him. He wanted to erase Sky Kyu's present existence as a reaper. He understood that Sky had died from suicide and that Sky's actions had caused him to become a reaper. Sunshine needed to know that Sky would never forget him no matter what. Once Sky Kyu promised that he would never forget Sunshine...no matter what...Sunshine was then hopeful that by erasing Sky Kyu as a reaper he might return Sky to some type of existence that did not have pain and suffering. He would miss Sky...but he was content with just knowing that he would not be forgotten.
And that brings us to Sunshine and Sky meeting on the airplane while boarding. Sky's existence as a reaper in the present is erased because his acts of killing and suicide were erased. Sky remembers everything except when he was Sunshine's reaper. The only place where Sky's existence as a reaper remains is in Sunshine's memory.
As for Sunshine, even though Sky Kyu's existence as a reaper was erased, Sunshine was still able to remember Sky as his own reaper because of the power of Love. Love conquers all. Sunshine remembers the man that he loves....Sky. Sunshine, though, had no recollection of himself as a reaper.
But...each remembers the other as a reaper. And that is why they both called each other Kyu when they recognized each other in the airplane.
Moving to the final ending. There are enough details known by each of them that together they will be able to place the pieces together...make sense of all that has happened... and move forward with their lives together as couple.
Although it was mind bending to connect the dots in order to understand the final episode, the ending itself was joyous...happy...incredible. And as seen in Sunshine's face...it was ecstatic.
What a plot...what a story. What a mind bender. I have never seen anything like it before. It was absolutely beautiful in every aspect from the cinematography to the lighting to the music to the interesting characters...and finally to the two incredibly handsome main leads.
Was this review helpful to you?
A Breath of Fresh Air
It's refreshing to see a series like this one.... a hidden gem that was written, directed, and acted by imaginative minds who've implemented extraordinary creative skills.It's like a breath of fresh air rushing through an industry (BL series industry) that has started to become hyper-sexed with adult content that's no longer suitable for general audiences.
I give a big thanks and a rating of 10 to all who have been involved in the production of this series.
Was this review helpful to you?
