Maggi64

The funniest excuse for a boy to take off his shirt was in "Senpai this must be Love" where a colleague tells the lead he needs him to take some pix for him as a favor and just happens to need one pix to be shirtless. Naturally, the lead happens to be with his crush at the time, so he takes a pix of his crush, yes, shirtless. It was as if the script said "insert shirtless scene here." LOL.

QUESTION

How does one burn their upper back while making soup? Answer: they don't. The show just wanted to get that boy's shirt off, lol.

A lot of people on this thread are asking where it's subbed, because apparently it was not subbed last year. However, it's now subbed in English on Blparadise.

Oh, I know there are very beautiful women in K-dramas. But the joke in the show "The Man Who Defied Boys Love" was about the specific K-dramas called "noonas" which area about older women and younger men. In America we call an older woman with a younger guy a "cougar" or a "MILF" (ie, mother I'd like to fuck), lol. Apparently, there are a lot of Korean shows with cougars and MILFS but they call them noonas.

You know, President Macron of France is 25 years younger than his wife. It is highly unusual for the man to be younger. Ordinarily, it is a rich older man and a younger "trophy wife." But in this case, it's the man who is younger and powerful. He has it all, but he still married an older woman. I suppose he just loves her. Prince Charles of England also married an older woman, but Camilla Parker Bowles is not that much older than him.

Well, I hardly know what to say because I agree down the line. I'll just add that yes, I am a writer. I've published some short nonfiction but I have not published my novel yet. I have an agent and she's pretty famous but, alas, she has not done much for me. I am actually very annoyed with her. I have put down my novel for some time to give it some space in order to have more objectivity when I go back and make revisions. In the meantime I've been spending a lot of time here, watching movies and hanging out with pals in what I regard as our Asian Movie Club. But I'll tell you, the greatest single compliment a person can give me is that they like my writing. The fact that you said as much before you even knew that I was working on a novel was thrilling to me. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

I love that you are Asian! I am a flat out Asiaphile. To be specific, I am a Japanophile, because the Japanese are so wonderfully weird. I adore how their culture is at once polite, tentative, and sexually fearless and perverse. Look at their BL's such as "Double Mints" and "Dangerous Drugs of Sex."

Funny, I love a dark sensibility such as what's found in dramas like those while, like you, I am also fond of the straight-laced Victorians. In fact, I concentrated on the Victorians. I was all about the Bronte sisters! My favorite novel is Wuthering Heights. Naturally, I am all about dear old Oscar Wilde too. In fact, if you like BL's, then you must check out the movie from 1996 with Jude Law and Stephen Fry . It's the best biopic on Wilde ever done.

Incidentally, I became pen-pals with a guy from MDL named Tim and we share our opinions on shows and movies. He has a list of favorite Asian films. I have seen all the BL's already, but I love Asian film in general so if you have some Asian flicks to recommend by all means let me know! Just send me a list in a message.

My rule for dating is no more than 10 yrs older or 10 yrs younger (give or take in that range). I am 55 and I am grossed out by men my age who chase girls in their 20's. They think that dating girls that young makes them look young when, in fact, it makes them look old by comparison. So, ok, I am not down with age gaps of 25 to 30 years. But a 10 year age gap is perfectly healthy. Also, you gotta understand that from where I sit at the age of 55 I look at a characters like Minato who's 29 and Shin who's 18 and I see then BOTH as very young. See what I mean?

I know. And the instant I see it I know it does not bode well for the rest of the season, because a show that has original ideas would never fall back on the old "SAC" (ie, that's what I call "Slip-And-Catch")

I was expecting better from this show because it's the same director as "HIStory Crossing the Line" which I adored. But the acting is a tad stiff and the instant I saw that SAC, I groaned. Especially as this SAC came so early in the show that the boys barely knew each other and, hence, their looking into each other's eyes did not resonate.

Nevertheless, I'll keep watching it because it's not bad. It's just that it's not great. It's also the only decent BL airing right now other than Minato's Laundry.

I know you said elsewhere that you are only 24, and I think your youth accounts for your feeling that 29 is old when, in fact, it's quite young. I also suspect you are from a Western country, such as America, where we are very hung up on jailing people for sex with those who are 17, even if the culprit is only 18 himself (yes, it often happens that 18-20 year olds are arrested for sex with 17 year olds, despite it only being a 2-3 year age gap). I myself am a 55 year old female American, and I think my country's laws about minors can be a tad severe.

After all, if we think it's ok for 18 yr olds to join the military and live and die in foreign lands, then surely teenagers can make up their own minds about consensual sex. Also, the age of consent different state to state in America, with it being as low as 16 in some states and as high as 18 in others. The fact that it differs state to state in the very same country indicates how arbitrary these cut off ages are.

May I ask if you are American as well? Are you male or female? I ask because I think a person's demographics informs their opinions. For example, the fact that I am 55 makes me more inclined to regard a 29 year old such as Minato to be very young.

Ephebophilia is the attraction to teenagers, while ephebiphobia is the fear of teenagers. I always remember the difference by the suffixes (ie "philia" is Latin for love while "phobia" is Latin for fear).

Wow, thank you so much for remembering that review! And may I say, in turn, that I love your username, "Solipsism." I saw that I thought, "Oh, this woman is witty and smart." I know one is not supposed to judge others on such small things, but the fact is, I do it all the time lol. It's also extraordinary how often my first impressions turn out to be correct. I am an Eng Prof and I can pick up if kids are smart by little things they say in the first week of class, well before I've assigned or graded anything.


Speaking of my field, English, I gotta say that before discovering the world of BL's (which are largely Asian), I had only read novels and short stories. But with so many BL's based on mangas and manhwas, I decided I would find out what they are all about. To be clear, I still don't really get the appeal and prefer prose novels to graphic novels. But I respect mangas/manwhas more than I used to (eg, I used to think they were glorified comics for adults).

The 1st manga I ever read was "The Pornographer." Then I read "Double Mints." I could not believe just how fastidiously faithful the Japanese are to source material! Indeed, the live actions of "The Pornographer" and "Doublemints" are the same frame by frame. The only thing they cut out was teenaged Matsuda the Masochist going down on that girl after Matsuda the Punk had sex with her, cuz he wanted to taste Matsuda on her. Otherwise, the adaptation is 100% the same. Likewise with "Pornographer."

I also read the manwha "Cherry Blossoms After Winter" and if that's any indication , it seems the Koreans are less fanatical about sticking to source material. It only changed couple things, but the Japanese don't change anything at all. Thus, I was surprised by your comment that they changed a lot in Minato's Laundry. Fans of mangas complain about changes but, frankly, sometimes a change would improve upon the manga. For instance, I did not like how "Old Fashioned Cupcake" was fanatically faithful to the manga, because that resulted in there being no kiss at the end.

Speaking of which, something tells me that we won't be seeing a kiss between Akira and Shin either. The writer portrayed Akira as so hung up on the age gap, that I can't help feeling that the writer, personally, thinks it's unethical too. Meaning, they'll shy away from showing the boys getting physical. I hope I am wrong, because while I don't need a kiss in certain BL's (eg, Cherry Magic worked just fine without one), this one has had Akira and Shin come close to kissing so many times that the audience has been seriously primed to see it finally happen. Besides, hetero romances always end with a kiss, so why not give us a gay kiss too? Dammit, I wanna see those boys kiss! lol

Precisely. I had thought the same back when "My Beautiful Man" had aired and everyone was calling it toxic. There were a lot people taking issue with Hira's fantasy about shooting bullies with a machine gun. I had to point out that:

(a). There are countless shows/movies with splattering, bloody violence galore, but people took issue with this scene merely because the fantasy shooting took place in a school setting.

(b) Japan has gun control and, hence, they have no gun massacres and school shootings like we Americans do. Thus, a Japanese audience would never respond to such a scene by shooting up a school the way we Americans would.

(c) If we remove all so-called "toxicity" from shows, there is no damned drama left! I loved how Hira's and Kiyoi's relationship was so messed up, because it gave the show tons of dramatic conflict to be resolved as the show progressed. I also loved the dramatic conflict in "The Pornographer" while many others thought that the novelist was "toxic" for lying to the student. But that dramatic conflict was all the fun in watching the show!

But hey, at least there was something genuinely unhealthy in the novelist's behavior when those viewers called him "toxic." I was shocked, however, that people found anything toxic in "Minato's Laundry." I mean, this show is the purest, pinkest, fluffy cotton candy!

Nah, I wasn't being defensive. It's hard to capture tone here, so that's why I added a LOL at the end of my comment. I was trying to indicate a certain friendliness.

Moreover, I had not yet read the thread on this page until I scrolled further down, and saw all the arguing. So I did not know what you were referring to at the time. But now that I've read it all, I think you specifically meant the angry long comments, and not long comments in general. But I was talking about long comments in general.

Oh, I saw that girl who said any 29 yr old guy attracted to an 18 year old is a "psychopath." In fact, I replied rather at length to you following one of her comments. It is further below where she accused you of "fantasizing about fucking minors." Christ.

Wait, what magic towel sponge bath? Do you mean when Shin was smelling the freshly laundered sheet that fell on Akira? But that was a bedsheet not a towel. I can't recall any sponge bath except the one for Ep 1, and that wasn't particularly sexy. Or do you mean a scene from the manga?

I'll repeat what I'd said to someone else in this thread, which is that I think you might be missing out on a good show by dropping it at Ep 1. If you continue to watch, then you shall see that it's actually the 18 year old who pursues the 29 year old. Meanwhile, the 29 year old puts up a strong -- strong! -- resistance.

The show has not ended yet, but based on how carefully the writers have been avoiding a hook up between the 18 year old and the 29 year old, I suspect there's going to be a time jump, such that the 18 year old finishes college before the 29 year old will date him. College would be 4 years later, such that Shin would then be 23 and Akira would be 32 year old, which is an age combo most people are ok with.

To be clear, I am also ok with the age combo of an 18 year old and a 29 year old. I regard it as ethically, morally and legally legit. But if you are not ok with it, I think you should continue to watch the show because the main character is also not ok with it. Indeed, his resistance to dating the 18 year old is the ENTIRE foundation of the plot. The plot follows the 29 yr old's refusal to succumb to the advances of the 18 yr old because he thinks 18 is too young for him. The irony is that people who are upset by the age gap in the show are dropping it when the main character shares your exact views on this matter.

I just want to chime in from the Peanut Gallery, as you called it, because I think you might be missing out on a good show by dropping it at Ep 1. If you continue to watch, then you shall see that it's the 18 year old who pursues the 29 year old. Meanwhile, the 29 year old puts up a strong -- strong! -- resistance. The show has not ended yet, but based on how carefully the writers have been avoiding a hook up between the 18 year old and the 29 year old, I suspect there's going to be a time jump, such that the 18 year old finishes college before the 29 year old will date him. College would be 4 years later, making Shin 23 year old and Akira 32 years old, which is an age combo most people are perfectly ok with.

I was not going to enter this fray because I make it policy to ignore anyone who uses the term "toxic," such as people have done in this thread. It's such a tiresome, uncreative word choice that usually says more about the speaker than the subject at hand (ie, it tells us that the speaker is a puritan overreacting to a subject that's likely quite harmless) But I am sorry Tim, I had to enter the fray at this point because that girl just accused You, Yourself, of being a pedophile when she wrote:

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"Just admit it, you have been fantasizing about fucking minors yourself and that's why you got triggered over people saying it's gross and wrong, right?"

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Let's forget that she used the term "triggered" which is just as much a bete noir for me as the term "toxic" (and for all the same reasons), but she's assuming you must have a personal investment in something in order to argue its merits. Well, I am a 55 year old hetero female with no interest in teenage boys, and yet I can still argue the case that a relationship between an 18 year old guy and a 29 year old guy is ethically, morally and legally legit.

After all, one need not have a personal investment in a particular phenomena (eg, the phenomena of teens dating older men), in order to have strong opinions about it. Indeed, having strong opinions about things outside of our personal realm is the sign of a sound, intellectual mind. It's only stupid people who require personal experience before they can grasp a situation. Intelligent people, conversely, are capable of understanding a phenomena in the abstract.

At any rate, I am amused that she called you a pedophile and you did not threaten to report her to MDL. As you know, that is the default response of most of these people when someone insults them. And they report insults that are far -- far! -- less offensive than what she'd said about you "fantasizing about fucking minors."

Lastly, few of these people grasp the true meaning of the term "pedophile," which is an attraction to prepubescent children who lack any adult sexual characteristics, such as facial hair and an Adam's apple for boys; breasts and menstruation for girls; and pubic hair for both boys and girls. In fact, it is precisely the absence of pubic hair, facial hair and breasts that attracts the pedophile. Now, let us consider that the average age of onset puberty is 11, and we'll see how absurd it is for people to apply the term "pedophile" to a 29 year old's attraction toward an 18 year.

Worse, when the person making this case was informed that "pedophile" was the wrong term, she tried to walk it back by instead using the term "ephebophilia" -- a term coined in antiquity and having an utterly positive connotation (eg, Plato's assertion that a relationship between a wiser, older man and a teenage boy is the ideal). If she wants to use a term with a negative connotation, she'd best stick with the legal diagnosis, "sex with a minor." That better serves her point than tossing about the term "ephebophilia" as if it were, like "pedophilia," a psychiatric diagnosis, which it is not (eg, the DSM IV includes pedophilia as a diagnostic category, but does not include ephebophilia). In short, pedophilia and ephebophilia are not, contextually, comparable terms. Meanwhile, this commenter is treating them in the same context, as if "ephebophilia" means "pedophilia," but with just a couple of years tacked onto the kid.

At any rate, I could go on all day with what's wrong about the thinking in this thread, but I'll cut to the chase. Here it is: sexual puritans have no business watching BL's. Because when BL creators pander to their hysteria by making BL's less "toxic," and less "triggering" they're also making BL's blander. Consider how it's the BL's with the most uniqueness and most vision (eg, "The Pornographer," "My Beautiful Man") that are most often called "toxic" and "triggering." Hell, at this point if I hear one accuse a show of being toxic or triggering, I think, "Oh, ok, so that means this is actually going to be a good show."

As ever Tim, I agree with you down the line. Oh, and as an aside, can you imagine how the sexual puritans accusing this show of "pedophilia" would react to that movie "Soldier's Story?" I am not sure if that's the exact title, but it's the film about the 13 year old Dutch boy who's in love with a twenty-something American G.I.