Maggi64

But without the ex there is no drama. It's just a cute cook who likes a plain, boring salaryman. The ex is the only dramatic element, even if he is a jerk. In fact, his being a jerk is exactly what makes him interesting. The show needs his character.

Well, it's supposed to be about Sakae and Soga, but it SHOULD be about Sakae and Mizuki because they have all the heat. Those 2 actors look better together and have that inexplicable thing called chemistry. The casting director utterly misfired on this one.

I agree with you that this has become a workplace drama more than a BL. And don't let those other commenters shame you for daring to expect the same genre that a drama was advertised to be. If one tunes into a movie advertised as a "Horror Movie" then there is nothing wrong with expecting a horror movie. The whole reason producers put dramas/movies into genre categories in the first place is so we can choose accordingly -- horror, workplace, thriller, family, psychological, fantasy, love story, BL, etc. And you had chosen to watch a BL, not a workplace drama.

Besides, the show is not that interesting even as a workplace drama. It only has 6 eps of 22 minutes and needs to find a focus between one or the other and keep it. It started off strong (that hand job in ep 1 was terrific!) but has been losing steam by moving away from the guys and spending more and more time at the office. Some say, oh, that's what happens in the manga. Yes, I know the Japanese are fanatically faithful to mangas. But that is not necessarily a good thing.

I am 100% with you on this one. I think that if they amped it up to be comedic we wouldn't even be asking such questions. We would just have fun with it. And the seeds of comedy were there. For instance, when the professor dropped the soap, the robot dude knelt down to pick it up and the professor fantasized he was getting a blowjob. That bit was funny. Later, the professor has a hardon and has to take a cold shower. The show should've given lots more of that amusing stuff. And a lot less explaining robot "science" which made no sense anyway.

The tone of the ghost story, Stand By My Side, was over the top silly and goofy and that was its charm. If the tone of this show were ramped up a bit more to be funny then it would be charming too. As is, it asks the audience to take the explanations seriously so, well, we do. I think the serious tone is a mistake.

Otherwise, the guys are cute and their chemistry is good. I am just curious as to how they are going to end this. I mean, the couple has a shelf life of about 10 years because the human will age and the android won't, which will become apparent in about 10 years. That's the sort of thing I'd never think about if the show had a silly, goofy, fun tone like Stand By My Side. Alas, the show goes out of its way to explain so many things that it sets up the audience to ask questions about other things -- eg, things like aging.

Blade Runner is based on a novel called "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" by Philip K. Dick." Dick is a well regarded sci-fi writer who works out his plots. Now, I am not an expert on sci-fi (my degree is in Victorian Lit), but I respect all forms of literature and you can tell when a writer has worked out the kinks such that his genre has its own inner logic. The androids in Blade Runner, for instance, self destructed after a limited time, instead of living forever. In Spielberg's "AI" the kid never aged and lived for thousands of years, waiting for the Blue Fairy from Pinnochio to turn him into a "real boy" who could love and be loved. Never aging or dying was a real problem.

"Anti-Reset" will likely never address the fact that the professor will age while the android won't. I wouldn't be a scold and mention such things if the show weren't taking itself so seriously. It should have taken the tone of a charming little joke the way Stand By My Side did. You know, the one where the guy hears ghosts. That show never asked us to take it seriously so it worked.

Thanks, that's what I thought. In fact, I even put the show on pause at that point because I thought, "Wait, if they gave Ever 9 dopamine, then it means that Ever 9's brain is composed of organic matter. Which means, umm, he is not a robot."

Have you ever seen Blade Runner? At the end Harrison Ford is in love with the android played by Sean Young. He represents what you said about how a human is able to love an android, but the android cannot love him back. Harrison Ford takes off with the android anyway, because his one sided love is enough for him. After all, she is kind, gentle and mimics human love so perfectly that it might a well be the real thing. Now that's a cool movie about androids.

I liked the one where the guy heard ghosts unless his beloved was nearby, but that was merely cute and not stellar. Taiwan has not put out a stellar BL since the HIStory franchise and We Best Love. They've all been really bad since then. Like that recent one where a school principal allowed gangsters to pose as teachers in his school to oppose their enemy gangsters -- as if a principal would break a dozen laws against colluding with organized crime to help out gangsters.

Plus/Minus was also pretty bad. That dry cleaning guy was gross and I didn't buy for a second that a hot bartender wanted him. I dropped that, and dropped My Tooth Your Love, as well as About Youth, which had a Slip-And-Catch (SAC) in the 1st ten minutes. The T-BL's have as many SACs as the Th-BL's, and that means a lot, since the Thais seem to have a rule that you cannot make a BL without at least one SAC per show.

I am giving this show the benefit of the doubt, but I am not sure how to get behind the couple's love when I'm not sure if one guy's love is even real. I mean, the show's writers have taken pains to prove it was "virtual" and he's only been "programmed" to mimic human emotions. The writers pushed themselves into a corner with that, and I don't know how they are going to wiggle out. But I hope they do, because the guys have some heat.

My subs must be different cuz I never heard the technician say it was virtual dopamine. They just said to give him dopamine cuz that's what the boss ordered. Besides, you can't create a "virtual" experience of love with dopamine anymore than you can create real love. The screenwriter thinks that if they toss in a computer term like "virtual" then the robot's falling in love becomes, ipso facto, logical. Nope. A computer cannot love whether you call it virtual or not.

I just watched it and the technician said, "Give him some dopamine. If the boss asked for it, then give it to him." I thought that was illogical because you can only give dopamine if you're dealing with organic matter, which a robot would not have. But if it's as you said, and the technicians programmed him to experience love as a virtual dopamine rush to mimic the human experience, then that's still a problem. Because we can't get behind a love story when one of the guy's love may not even be real.

I agree that the 2 guys have chemistry, but I think the show pushed itself into a corner by telling us that the robot had to be programmed to mimic human love. How is it going to wiggle its way out of that corner?

I guess it could go the way Blade Runner did when Harrison Ford decided to be with Sean Young at the end even though he knew she was not a real human. He knew that robots could not love, but he loved her and that was enough.

Wait a minute, Ever 9 had to be programmed to say loving words and experience a kiss, so he's got a computer for a brain, right? But then they give him dopamine which presumes his brain is made of organic matter. Which is it? When a show cannot possibly have the love story make sense without taking liberties with logic, then it should not take itself so seriously. You know, it should be funny and cute like Stay By My Side where they guy heard ghosts unless he was near his beloved. But the tone of this asks us to take it seriously, so I end up catching illogical things such as that dopamine is only received by organic matter.

Also, a robot cannot be programmed to experience "virtual love." The screenwriter seems to think that if he tosses in the term "virtual" then it will suddenly be possible for a robot to do. Nope. Man made things such as robots cannot love. That's why the entire premise of the show is off. As I'd said, it should have been made with a self consciously cute and funny tone and then the audience wouldn't question the impossible premise.

I noticed that immediately. But it was only addressed once when Hiro was on his front porch with Kai and napping. Hiro's mom said to him, "You're the older one and look at you, falling asleep." It could be only 2 years but looks like 5-6 years to you because boys change A LOT between 12 and 14. But I am not sure what the writers gained by having even just a 2 year age difference.

Maybe there's a reason for it that's in the manga and, as we know, the Japanese are fanatically faithful to mangas. Does anyone who's read the manga know?

I know! I caught that too. And he also asked Hiro about him when they got home. He is definitely the jealous, possessive type.

BTW, You had asked last week why it took Kai 10 years to find Hiro and he addressed that question in this episode. He said he always thought Hiro was "cool" and was afraid that he'd find him too much changed and it would ruin his image of him. It's a decent reason, but not the strongest. I get why the writers needed a 10 year absence between the guys for the plot, but they could've explained why Kai didn't come around sooner by saying he lived far away and only recently moved back or something.

I also like Kaneko. He's like glasses guy in that one with Toki and Sensei. Cuties in glasses!

As for the one hand job, I wondered how the show was going to progress if they were already going at it in Ep 1. But it looks like the writers pulled back and had the guys start again from scratch in Ep 2. Of course, the straight one was kidding himself because there's no way he could start from scratch when he'd already gotten his chain pulled by his gay BFF. But it works for the drama for him to kid himself because we get to see him go through the steps of shedding his denial. Things have been heating up between the two them progressively over Eps 1 to 4. I am surprised there are only 2 eps left. I imagine things are going to happen fast in the last 2 eps, such as him quitting his job and confessing to and kissing Kai.

LOL, Secret Crush on You. You should read my review on that one. The uke keeps so many trophies of his beloved in his bedroom that it's not merely creepy, it's serial killer creepy.

This one isn't as bad as that because at least I've hung in there till ep 6. But I'm only staying to see the hot blond. The chemistry and heat is all between Sakae and the hot blonde. I don't even care if the writers end up making the hot blonde a bad guy with some kind of shifty motive up his sleeve because at least he's making the show interesting. Otherwise, it's got nothing going for it.

I am very surprised The Pornographer is not on this list. I'm pretty sure it was on it when I first read your list 8 months ago. Did you replace it with something else?

I, for one, would replace the insufferable Light on Me with The Pornographer. It is on my Top 10 List. In fact, The Pornographer is the only BL that's on my Top 10 List but not among your Top 30 BL's.

Yep, there is a huge difference between no kissing because a homophobic actor refuses to do it, and no kissing because it's just not in the story. For example, the first His was fine with no kissing because they were just 16 year old boys who would've hugged instead instead of kissed for a confession in real life too.

I think perhaps a lot of viewers were like you insofar as they did not know that the "Cherry Magic" actor refused to do a gay kiss. And let me tell you, he REALLY benefitted from that role because "Cherry Magic," ended up being a break-out BL that (like "Ossan's Love"), was even a hit with non-BL fans. You'd think that after he got famous off the 1st "Cherry Magic" he'd at least relent and do a kiss for the sequel. Nope, he was still a homophobic ass.

As I'd said above, I boycotted the sequel once I knew the actor was a homophobe, but I read comments by people who'd seen it. So I saw a lot of comments about how they did a weird angle shot for a kiss, which was worse than season one's elevator door closing on the non-kiss. You know, a good actor inhabits the skin of the character he plays, so if he's playing a gay man, that means 100% commitment to doing whatever a true gay man does. And true gay men do not kiss at bizarre angles that would strain their necks and make it impossible for their lips to touch. Ugh.

I haven't been on MDL in a while because I have not really loved a BL in a while. I loved "My Beautiful Man" and the movie version came out in the fall, but then it's been a dry winter. I've liked some, but I haven't LOVED any. And all the ones that I've liked, but not loved, have been Japanese.

The Japanese are good at BL's. They just are. They originated the genre, so it makes sense. They originated it and they control their product by only making about a dozen a year. Compare that to Thailand, who puts out a dozen a month. No kidding, I googled stats and they made over 100 BL's last year. They make so much money exporting BL's overseas that it's one of their Gross National Products. The result of making so many is that they suck. Quantity over Quality. Or, as our friend likes to call a Thai BL, "TOOT." lol.

But you can always count on the Japanese. Even if I don't love a J-BL, I can at least finish them. Hell, I can't even begin a Thai BL. And what the heck is happening to Taiwan? They've gotten really bad as well. If I had to break it down, I'd say the following countries have these percentages of BL's that are good.

J-BL = 75%

K-BL = 50%

T-BL = 25%

V-BL = 5%

Th-BL = 0%

I like this one too. And the leads have chemistry. You can especially feel Kai's attraction. Unlike Sukiyanen Kedo Do Yaro ka, where the cook has more chemistry with his ex than he does with the salaryman, whom he's supposed love. The ex is hot and charismatic while the salaryman is plain and soooo boring. But both guys in this show are interesting and I can see why each of them would be attracted to the other.

I know! I see bullying the most in Korean dramas. But I see it a whole helluva lot in Chinese and Japanese dramas too.

I won't deny that America has bullies as well. But since the 1970's parents and teachers created an infrastructure to prevent bullying by punishing it severely. Kids might still do it, but they certainly don't do it as much as they do in Asian schools.

In China so many kids throw themselves off the school roof as a result of bullying that they had to build fences around the roofs.