FreshKicks

Right. At the beginning of the first episode it says it's set in March 2006.

Yes, very.

Maybe he had his nose done? It was the first thing I thought when he first appeared in the series. His nose is "too perfect" (if that makes sense) and, as handsome as he is, it doesn't look like it quite belongs with the rest of his features.

I actually visited this page with that thought in mind. Imagine my surprise to find that the only comment here is on the same topic! Glad I'm not an oddball for thinking that.

Nothing overtly gay in this movie but you have to wonder about swimming stud Nan presenting himself as an expert on women and giving Zhe all sorts of advice about getting a gf, while he himself never dates anyone.

Yup. I just didn’t want to editorialize. ;)

I think you nailed it: people want to ship the co-stars together and get upset when they can't. It results in the weeks between episodes having less of a fan frenzy than with, say, Why R U.

Based on interviews it seems clear to me that both Bright and Win are straight, and they way they interact as "bros" off-screen only goes to confirm it. I think it would be dumb for them to pretend otherwise.

I hope it will go up, otherwise my faith in MDL will be severely damaged.

I love your review.

Thank you for mentioning the music score. With each new project I think Boy Sompob's songs get better and better, and the ones he wrote for this production are my favorites from him so far. His vocals have a yearning quality that is so expressive.

I really liked how the music underscoring the opening credits varied from week to week. There was one rendition by a female vocalist (was it Sammy?) that was especially tender and beautiful, and I've been hoping it will be released as a single.

The version of "Luckiest Boy" sung by the cast members is also incredibly sweet. The MV is really cute too.

I'm much the same, that's why I empathized and tried to answer the best I could. :)

I read somewhere that the more children that a mother has, the more likely that a newly born son will turn out gay. The mother here is the common factor among the Yuan boys, so ....

And the brothers kept those fingercuffs on him for such a long time!

No rivals or triangles. So far, the conflict is between the guys overcoming issues in their relationships.

Now that I've seen the pics, I wish MDL would keep the original size too!

None of the biological brothers fall for each other -- they're all gay and they're all dating non-relations.

We need a support group for gay guys who like BL lol. You make a great point about gay men having a different perspective on these dramas. For instance, on one hand I like the fictitious settings where everyone is cool with you being into other guys, and just about every other guy around you is *also* into other guys lol, but on the other hand, that's just not what being gay is like.

I think that over time the consensus on this series will be overwhelmingly positive. There were a lot of people venting in the comments section yesterday and hopefully they've gotten it out of their systems now and can move on to their more conventional BL dramas. (If instead they keep coming back to heap on more criticism I think it will say more about them than the series.)

This one definitely wasn't for everyone, but I think some people really wanted it to be a flawless masterpiece and resented that it didn't come through. Personally, when I realize that a series isn't for me, I drop it and move on. For some reason the people who didn't like this one (a) kept watching, and (b) got more and more salty the longer they watched. It's like dating someone who you're not attracted to but staying with them anyway, then hating them for what they make you (not) feel about them. When someone tortures themselves like that, who wants to hear them whine about it later?

"She will now stay in another lie with the Chairman."

Exactly. She comes to so many crucial moments of decision and opts for what's safest for her. And now she'll go along with another of the Chairman's lies. I'd think that by now, with her position and salary, she would have started to feel she could make decisions that weren't based solely on her own best interests. Maybe even look for a job elsewhere.

Compare this to Yi Seo, who despite her dislike for Soo Ah admitted to Sae Ro Yi that it wasn't Soo Ah who called the cops to report the underaged drinking.

One reason that I think that Yi Seo will ultimately end up with Sae Ro Yi is that the series seems to have established a moral universe where those who live by positive, unwavering values always prevail over those who don't. Yi Seo has her flaws, but her loyalty to Sae Ro Yi never falters. If she were to finally lose out to Soo Ah it would feel off to me.

True! Early on I expected him to pay someone to set fire to DanBam and I was glad that the writers didn't go there.

Buying the building wasn't nice but it fits within the "rules" of the cat-and-mouse game they're playing.

I don't see many series with more than a 9 rating on here. It's so different from Viki, where I think there's a lot of grade inflation. So I think 8.6 on MDL is actually pretty good. :)

Says she who was "entertained" while writing her negative review. You have an interesting way of being constructive. You're "literally" all over this comment board haha-ing and cheering on the people who didn't like the series. Now you want to say you're oh so misunderstood.

When I see people constantly chirping at something to get their digs in, to me that is trashing.

Something about the reincarnation theme of this series really REALLY touched me. I'm forever grateful to the producers, director, actors, screenwriters, composers, and singers for putting together what, for me, was an almost operatic story. It wasn't perfect, but as the saying from Confucius goes, it is better to be a flawed diamond than a pebble without.

UWMA was an ambitious undertaking, and I hope it will inspire other studios to try something other than the usual "haters to lovers" or "contract relationship" tropes in future series. Those story lines have a necessary place in providing safe and enjoyable entertainment, and I wouldn't want to be without them, but I deeply appreciate the risks that this production took.

I also appreciate the haters who stayed with the series to the bitter end, if only because they added to the number of viewings of each episode. Ironically, I think the fact that so many people rushed to this page to trash the series today, after the final episode, is just more evidence of how important and groundbreaking it was. In the history of art, music, and film, many great works that dared to break with convention have been similarly reviled. I think that over time, UWMA will be recognized as a significant milestone in BL, while the negativism and sarcasm dumped here today will be long forgotten.

It takes courage to do something different, and I can't wait to see what Studio Wabi Sabi brings us next!

P.S. I'm also grateful for the prompt arrival of subtitles every weekend without fail. ^_^