KHarganne

Me too! It's 'cause the trailer opens with White and Lune having a meetcute and accidentally kissing, but then the trailer ends with Lune and Star dancing together. I was leaning towards it being a straight drama but checked in on the comments here throughout airing to double check as the show went on

The novel was initially released online in individual chapters which were loosely grouped together into 5 "books." There is a total of 112 chapters plus a few short bonus bits and bobs. This show covered up to around chapter 60 (a little over halfway through the full story). The mains kiss for the first time (with romantic intent, that is) in chp 70, begin dating in 75, later have some conflict, and then they begin their happily ever after around chp 95. I think these remaining 50 chapters of the novel could be feasibly covered in a second season, especially as the director has indicated he may fiddle with the timeframe of some of the later chapters to better present the story he wishes to tell (a more realistic look at the current state of LGBT rights and romance in Taiwan).

Edit: Oh, I think I misunderstood your question. You were saying “out of the five books, why didn’t the director finish this show with the end of the third book (ie chp 70, when they first kiss) rather than end the drama halfway through book three (chp 60, where Wang changes classes)? If the director had chosen to complete book three at least this season would have ended with a kiss rather than a cliffhanger.” Well, that choice was up to the director and his artistic vision. In my opinion this choice was made for two main reasons: 1) the director said that from the beginning he planned to make two seasons and needed both seasons to tell the full story he wanted to, and 2) the full story the director wants to tell is grounded in realism, in the Taiwanese lgbt reform of recent years. If this season was to end in a kiss and no second season was made, that kiss would suggest that the boys live happily ever after without any hardship, and that isn’t the kind of story the director wanted to show. If this season ended in a kiss and season two was made, the kiss would kind of lead fans astray when it came to what to expect from season 2. Instead, the choice of ending this series on a cliffhanger both encourages viewers to keep watching to find out what happens next and it sets the tone: things aren’t easy for the boys and their story plays out slowly over many years with many ups and downs. By ending the show where he did, the director covered his bases: if season 2 is not made then he makes his point that growing up is hard and that being gay in Taiwan is not easy, and if season 2 is made then the story gets to continue and this season’s “ending” is more of just a waypoint in the boys’ story rather than the actual conclusion.

Edit edit: Check this comment too! The director directly addressed peoples's response to the ending and is like "if I gave you sweetness in season 1, what new would you have to look forward to in season 2? I have to keep some things up my sleeve ehe" https://kisskh.at/68995-mou-mou#comment-18963510

Is the link not loading or is the document not viewable? You should be able to download without previewing the file.

This show does not end with everything wrapped up into a nice bow. Several plot lines are left open/unfinished, including our main “couple” who do not get together. However, this show only covers the first half of the source novel. The director wants to continue the story in a season 2 which, if that follows the source novel, will eventually tie the story up with a happy ending.

I read this great english translation: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1AF1_kipv0vs5HESkCh6pWJw8zl20fXw9/view (epub)

That is what happens in the source novel: large time skip and then they meet again. The director said he planned for season 2 when making season 1, but --as you will quickly see if you read through various other comments-- season 2 is still up in the air at the moment.

The recent trailer says release on October 16 2024.
Trailer: https://youtu.be/RRQIw1jDbcM

not me immediately rewatching because I couldn't sleep last night for thoughts of this show

What a great thread!!! Thank you so much to the translator. It seems like the producer definitely planned for and wants to make a season two, but there are some budget concerns and some distribution concerns which may affect whether or not it is made. There are other interesting notes like how the story was adapted from mainland-China danmei aimed at female readers into a more grounded, realism-oriented Taiwanese story aimed at a wider audience that I found interesting. Thank you for sharing!

I really enjoyed this show. It is a bit quieter, slower, and more mature than most generic Thai bls these days, and it really takes its time to flesh out each character and relationship. I liked the variety of relationships shown and that most of them could talk things out. This feels like a show where they put quality of story and character growth first, and it just happens to also be bl. Ya know? I think the biggest flaw in the show is unfortunately main character Pat: he is a bit wimpy and I don't know if I disliked how he was written or how the actor portrayed him, but the character was not very interesting to me either way.

Theory of Happiness was the original movie adaptation of the manga from 2017! The mdl link is here: https://kisskh.at/21122-hidamari-ga-kikoeru

Alas the mains have had not one but two other shows together: Ai Long Nhai and My Dear Gangster Oppa. They have both acted in quite a few shows separately as well.

Well hmm! I was initially put off by the mature themes in the first few eps (drinking, drugs, gambling, nudity, orgies, bullying, gang violence, and more!) but I ended up really enjoying this series. I do wish this had been set in college at least because I had a difficult time seeing the main characters as anything other than kids and that made me less sympathetic to their tragic year apart and so on. I think the main couple of Ryu and Zen was a bit boring and they really should have been a throuple with Atom (when will we get a throuple bl? *stares wistfully into the distance*). It is the side characters that make this show memorable to me, especially Q and Tos’s twisted relationship and their motives, as well as Coach Ton trying to give the kids the second chance he never did, as well as some hidden crushes amongst the side characters. There are some tonal conflicts throughout the show and some annoyingly repetitive plot points but overall yeah, by the end of this series this grew into a kind of trashy-favorite.

What on earth?? Did we watch the same series? Why all the poor reviews? I feel like most complaints about this series are due to comparisons between other shows. It is fine to compare and contrast, but you also need to be able to enjoy something as its own unique thing. And when taken on its own this series is cute, simple, laid back and fun. The production quality was good, the music was singable, the characters felt young and hopeful and energetic. There are a lot of product placement scenes but they were fairly well integrated into the show and could be skipped with a 5-sec click if you wanted to. All in all a very pleasant watch!

The overall plot is the same but so so so many angles and shots are different. You might not notice the changes though if you haven't recently seen the original version. I was shocked at how different the two movie cuts were.

My first reaction to this cut was “no! Ack! I want the same thing that I have known and loved!” but the director’s cut grew on me as I kept watching. There are a LOT of changes between the original movie cut and this director’s movie cut and, when taken individually, each change is subtle. However, those many minute changes add up to a drastically changed tone and overall different interpretation of the relationship between Taejoo and Guk. I scrubbed through both movie versions scene by scene and found that almost every single scene was cut differently: it took me nearly 4 hours to get through because there were that many changes to note. I would say that easily 75% of the shots in the director's cut were different than in the og series. It was almost uncanny valley how same-same-but-different the director's cut is. The same scenes play out, however the director's cut frequently changes the camera angle and distance: for example a full body shot is edited to just be a shoulders-up shot, or what was a close-up shot is shown from further away, or a side shot was changed to be a face-forward shot, and so on. In several instances the pov is swapped so we see moments play out from the other character’s perspective. Edits sometimes involved the cutting out or adding in of several seconds of dialogue (such as Taejoo saying “why not join me? we used to shower together all the time. … are you shy? going through puberty again?”) or of action (such as Taejoo’s eyes more frequently lingering on Guk, the entirety of the second taekwondo match, or them leaning back in for a second kiss in the final shot of the film). Most of these edits I do like as they often are used to show more of the character’s body language and expressions, however there were several occasions where the director’s cut removes transition shots from one scene to the next which made scene progression feel choppy. The director’s cut adds back in some of the internal dialogue from the original episodic series (which had been removed in the first movie cut). Perhaps the most obvious differences are the color editing —og is pale and somewhat cold and distant, director’s cut is more saturated but also has deeper shadows— and the musical choices. In general I think this director’s cut made Taejoo and Guk feel more like normal teenage boys who were youthful and playful and attracted to each other (are more intimate and reciprocal); compared to the original which had them in a slightly twisted darker relationship and where they felt older than their years.

There also are several lines of dialogue that are translated differently in the subtitles between the Viki og movie cut and the Viki director’s cut. I know that Viki subs are handled independently by teams of volunteer subbers, but I wish that the two movie teams had consulted each other when subbing choices were made so that subbing was more identical between the two cuts, in turn so that international audiences could feel the changes in the film via atmosphere and imagery rather than questioning “wait, is this an actual change to the story or is this just a difference in subtitling?”

TLDR: If you are a film nerd or are in general interested in the tiny artistic details of how stories are portrayed, you will love comparing this director's cut to the original movie cut. Watching this side by side with the og movie was a masterclass in understanding how those little details affect tone and character growth both from scene to scene and as the film as a whole. Really great cut, would recommend.

I loved the side couple at the orange orchard! Mame frequently does spinoff/same universe shows... orchard show please!!

I stumbled over the pilot randomly on youtube and am glad I clicked through to watch! A penguin shapeshifter bl was not on my radar but yeah, the pilot looked great!!

Woah, Japan is remaking Love In The Air? Awesome!! Do you know what the adaption is called? I couldn't find it on mdl yet.

In the genre of human/android sci fi this story is pretty generic and covers many of the same basic questions over what it means to be human and whether or not ai can really form its own opinions and feelings. In the genre of bl the android element of this story is somewhat unique and fresh, but the core conflict of "does this person really love me or are they being motivated to do so by some external force?" is a fairly common scenario in any romance genre and so it will be familiar to bl viewers.

I really enjoyed Yiping's side of the story: watching him struggle with being touch starved and wanting 9's hands on him but not wanting to coerce what he saw to be a partner who could not give consent was a really interesting angle. 9's side of the story was less riveting to me because I wasn't convinced he ever gained true autonomy and I always questioned whether he was just going along with his programing.

All in all a good watch.