In Episode 5, when Yiwon is walking away from Jioh, Jioh calls after him and adds "ah" at the end of his name: "Yi-won-AH".
Yiwon then stops in his tracks and says to himself, "Did he always call me that?"
In Korean, the particle "ah" is added to the end of someone's name when trying to get their attention, but more importantly it also signifies closeness, like when you're calling out to a family member or close friend.
(A person in authority can also use it, so the professor in the acting class addresses Yiwon as "Yiwon-ah".)
Before that moment with Jioh in Episode 5, however, in regular conversation Jioh would almost always call Yiwon simply by his name "Yiwon".
There were a couple other times Jioh used "Yiwon-ah", but they were more in a taunting mode, like when he interrupted while Yiwon was begging their professor to let him switch partners in acting class.
Jioh said, "Let's go, Yiwon-ah. You know I'm taking the class because of you, right?" This was for the professor's benefit, to make her think they were closer than they were.
He would also do it to mock him in a way, like when he said, "Yiwon-ah, you're not curious about me anymore?"
Otherwise, most of the time when they were alone and having one of their confrontations Jioh would simply use "Yiwon": "Jung Yiwon, just act at your own pace."
Or when Jioh was pissed because Yiwon got the stuffed animal that he wanted from the claw game.
In that moment in Episode 5, Jioh is using "ah" sincerely for the first time.
(I noticed that Max and Nat also speak to Yiwon using "Yiwon-ah".)
I'm still dying at Kim Ji Oh putting on glasses WITH NO LENS, to see. One thing I'll give the first couple, they're…
In Sunwoo's defense, I think at the end of Episode Six he wasn't drunk, he was sleepy.
As for the convos that go nowhere, make sure you're not watching on Viki. The subs there are terrible. iQIYI's are much better and in that regard are often very different from the translations that the Viki subbers provide.
but doesnt Yoo Kyeom have a girlfriend? 🤨 or did they break up (off-screen lol) already? 🤨 or not? 🤨…
Right. Another question is why would Sunwoo be saying "I like you" to the very guy that his close friend Doyeon wants to date. Twice now, Doyeon has confided to Sunwoo about how troubled she is over Yugyeom and their true status as a couple.
Is she simply deluding herself? We hardly ever see them together, and in Episode One when Yugyeom told that other classmate that he and Doyeon were dating, I got the sense that Doyeon had put him up to it as a way to get the classmate to stop flirting with her.
This love triangle needs to be resolved before the end of the series, otherwise any victory putting Yugyeom and Sunwoo together will seem hollow.
I'm hoping that Doyeon will end up liking the Student Council President who's going with her to scout film locations. (That guy's reaction to them was pretty funny in itself. You could practically hear him wondering if those two could possibly be dating for real.)
I think Yiwon is hiding a buff bod under those t-shirts. In Episode Six the rolled-up sleeves of his yellow tee deserve special mention for giving us a good look at those beefy biceps.
That's a long "movie" for them to Netflix and Chill to. (Although I know they didn't Netflix and Chill. That will come later!)
Maybe they were watching the Saifah-Zon BL Cut, which it happens YouTube suggested to me just yesterday. It's five hours long, so it would be feasible to watch the whole thing in one evening.
He's so good with looking hostile and sinister for the first few episodes that I started to wonder how a viewer could start to identify with this guy. But then there's the period where he looks hurt after realizing Yiwon's interest in Yoori, then the period where he's a bit smitten as Yiwon takes Sunwoo's advice and starts acting sweet with him.
Finally there's that freezeframe at the end of in Episode 4 after he comments about accidentally falling in love. He's clearly done for, and you're right, from there on he's very attractive in his puppy mode. That smile after Yiwon followed him on Instagram just killed me.
The subs on iQIYI are solid while the ones on Viki are TERRIBLE.
Furthermore, Viki's version of the episodes omits on-screen graphics such as text messages. In a couple of instances this apparently led the Viki subtitle team to not realize there was anything there to translate -- like when there was on-screen text saying: "One Year Ago - Freshman Orientation".
The difference between the translations is sometimes crazy. All too often the Viki subbers have the characters speaking dialog that is completely different than what the iQIYI subbers do.
Which version is right? Well, the iQIYI subs go along with the on-screen action much better.
I have no idea what the issue is with the Viki team who's working on the series. I've never seen such a difference between two sub sources.
If you think the story is confusing and you're watching on Viki, this could be the main reason.
Hiring Perth and Chimon for this series is like buying a Pagani to be an Uber driver. What a complete waste of…
The childhood connection was one pile-on too many. I laughed out loud.
As you have probably noticed, that trope is also common in Asian boy-girl romances, along with "step-siblings that fall in love". I wish some aspiring social anthropologist would do a thesis on why these two tropes occur so often in Asian dramas.
I can overlook that the "gangsters" resemble middleclass teenagers who bought their trendy bad-boy clothes at…
The idea that these are "good" gangsters who are against drugs makes me wonder what exactly their gangster business involves. (Best guess at this point would be that it's baked goods.)
Wayne Song's overacting is another detractor factor, but we haven't had to suffer too much of that yet.
I can understand dropping this. I dropped "Minato's Laundromat Season 2" despite its many BL-based charms. Sometimes a series will have a certain element that makes it insufferable. With this series I'm still entranced enough by the handsome men to keep watching, but I know we all have our own breaking point.
I enjoyed the first episode. As usual I'm in a minority, but that's okay.
The script is lively and the actors seem to be truly enjoying themselves. I laughed at all the right places (as opposed to all the wrong ones in "Dangerous Romance"), and the couples have genuine chemistry.
I sense there will be more to this than just the doc's attempts to win back Vee's heart, and I'm happy to go along to find out.
Tod (who plays Sky) reminds me so much of Bhu from "Manner of Death", "Nitiman", and "Luminous Solution" that I had to check the cast list to make sure it isn't him. There's not much resemblance when you look at Tod's MDL profile pic, but Sky as a character has a lot of Jack's mannerisms in "Nitiman", and when he grins mischievously there's a definite Jack factor.
With the complete and absurd transformation of Kang, this series officially became fan service and nothing more.
And, his co-bullies don't bat an eye. "You're hanging out with Sailom again? You brought him home with you? Gosh, you rascal!"
One of my favorite tropes is when a bully falls in love with his prey. This script was too lazy to bother with anything believable. It's a good thing the two leads have a strong fanbase, otherwise this would be laughed off the screen.
OK, I do really like this series. But two things - WRONG TYPE OF MICROPHONE for the kissing scene. That was revolting.…
It's really great, isn't it. To me it feels like a milestone of some sort -- a great script, beautiful cast, avoiding (for the most part) the usual tropes, and featuring men who kiss with abandon -- the way two men would really kiss after years of holding back.
And it's from ... South Korea?? Another pleasant surprise. The evolution of KBL these past two years has been wonderful.
The writing is tight and the characters talk like real people. And I really appreciate the moments when it veers completely away from expectations, like when it DOESN'T having Lee Hyun burst onto the rooftop just as the psycho ex is threatening to kill Kim An.
I too love Maru, and have enjoyed that couple the most. The student/TA couple is my least favorite. Hyuk has seemed just a little too much like a creeper. You're right that they resorted to a tired trope there but I must admit that I enjoy watching Hyuk getting knocked off his game. He's a bit of a manipulative little shit so he deserved it.
I don't understand what you're trying to imply. Just because we like sexy scenes doesn't mean we don't like character…
Maybe it's just me, but for every episode so far this page and the boylove subreddit have been wall to wall comments about how hot the sex is, how people can't sleep at night thinking about it, etc.
I'm glad to know people are interested in more. It means the series won't lose viewers. 😉
I've been on the sidelines from all the hoopla and was waiting for this series to justify itself as more than just soft porn, and I think Episode 4 finally did that for me. Maybe, just maybe, "Only Friends" will prove to be a worthy successor of the two "Friend Zone" series after all.
At the same time I wonder if any of the viewers who've been its biggest fans so far will be disappointed now that real character development is coming into play, since this could mean fewer hookups per episode.
"This becomes an even bigger concern with underage actors. What do their parents have to say about how and why…
I think you're confusing two different kinds of "fan service".
The fan service in "Exo Next Door" was the very premise of the series itself: an everyday girl gets to bond with one of the biggest k-pop groups in the world. And you're right, I have no problem with that.
The fan service I was referring to in BL fandom is the purposeful blurring of the lines between real life couples and the coupling that happens in the series, resulting in fan meetings that seem to be centered around the premise that the actors might be an actual couple.
My review said that I'm curious about whether that blurring of the lines is intentional or even contractual.
My question about underage BL actors comes from consideration of the impact that "blurred lines" fan service could have on someone so young. Thus, I'm curious how their parents approach the idea of having their young sons cast in a BL series, and how the interests of those actors are protected.
You make some good points about similar issues in straight media and seem to take me to task for not acknowledging them, but that wasn't the subject of my review.
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In Episode 5, when Yiwon is walking away from Jioh, Jioh calls after him and adds "ah" at the end of his name: "Yi-won-AH".
Yiwon then stops in his tracks and says to himself, "Did he always call me that?"
In Korean, the particle "ah" is added to the end of someone's name when trying to get their attention, but more importantly it also signifies closeness, like when you're calling out to a family member or close friend.
(A person in authority can also use it, so the professor in the acting class addresses Yiwon as "Yiwon-ah".)
Before that moment with Jioh in Episode 5, however, in regular conversation Jioh would almost always call Yiwon simply by his name "Yiwon".
There were a couple other times Jioh used "Yiwon-ah", but they were more in a taunting mode, like when he interrupted while Yiwon was begging their professor to let him switch partners in acting class.
Jioh said, "Let's go, Yiwon-ah. You know I'm taking the class because of you, right?" This was for the professor's benefit, to make her think they were closer than they were.
He would also do it to mock him in a way, like when he said, "Yiwon-ah, you're not curious about me anymore?"
Otherwise, most of the time when they were alone and having one of their confrontations Jioh would simply use "Yiwon": "Jung Yiwon, just act at your own pace."
Or when Jioh was pissed because Yiwon got the stuffed animal that he wanted from the claw game.
In that moment in Episode 5, Jioh is using "ah" sincerely for the first time.
(I noticed that Max and Nat also speak to Yiwon using "Yiwon-ah".)
As for the convos that go nowhere, make sure you're not watching on Viki. The subs there are terrible. iQIYI's are much better and in that regard are often very different from the translations that the Viki subbers provide.
Is she simply deluding herself? We hardly ever see them together, and in Episode One when Yugyeom told that other classmate that he and Doyeon were dating, I got the sense that Doyeon had put him up to it as a way to get the classmate to stop flirting with her.
This love triangle needs to be resolved before the end of the series, otherwise any victory putting Yugyeom and Sunwoo together will seem hollow.
I'm hoping that Doyeon will end up liking the Student Council President who's going with her to scout film locations. (That guy's reaction to them was pretty funny in itself. You could practically hear him wondering if those two could possibly be dating for real.)
Maybe they were watching the Saifah-Zon BL Cut, which it happens YouTube suggested to me just yesterday. It's five hours long, so it would be feasible to watch the whole thing in one evening.
He's so good with looking hostile and sinister for the first few episodes that I started to wonder how a viewer could start to identify with this guy. But then there's the period where he looks hurt after realizing Yiwon's interest in Yoori, then the period where he's a bit smitten as Yiwon takes Sunwoo's advice and starts acting sweet with him.
Finally there's that freezeframe at the end of in Episode 4 after he comments about accidentally falling in love. He's clearly done for, and you're right, from there on he's very attractive in his puppy mode. That smile after Yiwon followed him on Instagram just killed me.
Although I think a "2.0" might be a little generous. :)
The subs on iQIYI are solid while the ones on Viki are TERRIBLE.
Furthermore, Viki's version of the episodes omits on-screen graphics such as text messages. In a couple of instances this apparently led the Viki subtitle team to not realize there was anything there to translate -- like when there was on-screen text saying: "One Year Ago - Freshman Orientation".
The difference between the translations is sometimes crazy. All too often the Viki subbers have the characters speaking dialog that is completely different than what the iQIYI subbers do.
Which version is right? Well, the iQIYI subs go along with the on-screen action much better.
I have no idea what the issue is with the Viki team who's working on the series. I've never seen such a difference between two sub sources.
If you think the story is confusing and you're watching on Viki, this could be the main reason.
As you have probably noticed, that trope is also common in Asian boy-girl romances, along with "step-siblings that fall in love". I wish some aspiring social anthropologist would do a thesis on why these two tropes occur so often in Asian dramas.
Wayne Song's overacting is another detractor factor, but we haven't had to suffer too much of that yet.
I can understand dropping this. I dropped "Minato's Laundromat Season 2" despite its many BL-based charms. Sometimes a series will have a certain element that makes it insufferable. With this series I'm still entranced enough by the handsome men to keep watching, but I know we all have our own breaking point.
The script is lively and the actors seem to be truly enjoying themselves. I laughed at all the right places (as opposed to all the wrong ones in "Dangerous Romance"), and the couples have genuine chemistry.
I sense there will be more to this than just the doc's attempts to win back Vee's heart, and I'm happy to go along to find out.
Tod (who plays Sky) reminds me so much of Bhu from "Manner of Death", "Nitiman", and "Luminous Solution" that I had to check the cast list to make sure it isn't him. There's not much resemblance when you look at Tod's MDL profile pic, but Sky as a character has a lot of Jack's mannerisms in "Nitiman", and when he grins mischievously there's a definite Jack factor.
And, his co-bullies don't bat an eye. "You're hanging out with Sailom again? You brought him home with you? Gosh, you rascal!"
One of my favorite tropes is when a bully falls in love with his prey. This script was too lazy to bother with anything believable. It's a good thing the two leads have a strong fanbase, otherwise this would be laughed off the screen.
And it's from ... South Korea?? Another pleasant surprise. The evolution of KBL these past two years has been wonderful.
The writing is tight and the characters talk like real people. And I really appreciate the moments when it veers completely away from expectations, like when it DOESN'T having Lee Hyun burst onto the rooftop just as the psycho ex is threatening to kill Kim An.
I too love Maru, and have enjoyed that couple the most. The student/TA couple is my least favorite. Hyuk has seemed just a little too much like a creeper. You're right that they resorted to a tired trope there but I must admit that I enjoy watching Hyuk getting knocked off his game. He's a bit of a manipulative little shit so he deserved it.
I'm glad to know people are interested in more. It means the series won't lose viewers. 😉
At the same time I wonder if any of the viewers who've been its biggest fans so far will be disappointed now that real character development is coming into play, since this could mean fewer hookups per episode.
The fan service in "Exo Next Door" was the very premise of the series itself: an everyday girl gets to bond with one of the biggest k-pop groups in the world. And you're right, I have no problem with that.
The fan service I was referring to in BL fandom is the purposeful blurring of the lines between real life couples and the coupling that happens in the series, resulting in fan meetings that seem to be centered around the premise that the actors might be an actual couple.
My review said that I'm curious about whether that blurring of the lines is intentional or even contractual.
My question about underage BL actors comes from consideration of the impact that "blurred lines" fan service could have on someone so young. Thus, I'm curious how their parents approach the idea of having their young sons cast in a BL series, and how the interests of those actors are protected.
You make some good points about similar issues in straight media and seem to take me to task for not acknowledging them, but that wasn't the subject of my review.
https://www.iq.com/play/love-in-translation-episode-3-24ivbguav5k?lang=en_us