Maggi64

Both of your comments here make total sense and I agree down the line. What annoyed me most was that the film editor could not even get the flashback scenes from high school in proper order. Those were not out of sequence to add something to the narrative (as is the case in some stories). Rather, it looks like it was just a sloppy mistake. The director, film editor and producer just did not care. They knew fans would eat it up anyway and, judging by this rating of 8.3, they were right.

Once producers realize that all they need is 2 cute boys + one deep kiss to get an audience they'll build the BL factory. In fact, I fear Korea has already started to roll out BL's on a factory assembly line. It's not as bad as Thailand's BL factory, but if it stays on this track, it'll get there. Korea put out about 35 BL's this year, out of which only 2 were quality: Blueming and Semantic Error.

I get that DongWook can only sleep next to Do Hyun, but I thought they had not met yet cuz they introduce themselves to each other in the next flashback. Then I found out that the flashbacks are out of order, so they might have already met. Sometimes a skewered chronology helps the narrative, but there was no point to this being out of order. It just felt sloppy in this regard.

As for the hurtful thing Dong Wook said, do you mean that he told some friend that he only wants to "sleep with " Do Hyun? I am still on Ep 7 and that's the most I can make of it. If that's the reason, shouldn't Do Hyun be flattered the guy can only sleep when he's around, cuz that means he's special. It's like the way the guy in Stay By My Side no longer heard ghosts when his beloved was around. It meant he was special. So why get angry about this?

I noticed eventually that the flashbacks are not in order. But that's another thing that makes this show feel messy.

Thailand BL's are such big business money-makers that they employ marketing companies and bots to boost ratings on sites like this. So I disregard the ratings for Thai BL's.

They hadn't met yet because right after that sleeping episode they meet for the first time and Do Hyun asks Dong Wook how he knows his name and Dong Wook says it's on his name tag. Right after that Do Hyun says, "Why did you sleep next to me?" Well, yea, I'm also wondering why he'd slept next to him and put his arm around him when they did not even know each other's names yet. But Dong Wook does not answer so who knows.

As for why he was pissed, I'm on ep 4 and it hasn't been explained yet. He just went from being pissed off to moving in together.

Thank you! I was wondering why I was the only one who saw plot holes. There are things that simply make no sense, such as Dong Wook sleeping with Do Hyun and holding him in the first high school flashback when it turned out the had not even met yet. And we never find out why Do Hyun was pissed at him when they first met at college. Dong Wook joins the team and next thing we know he's no longer pissed off and they are moving in together. Why was he pissed off in the first place and then what happened to make him not pissed off anymore? Such things are simply left as blanks. It's not a bad show, but there is nothing special about it, and the boys are cute, but have no charisma.

There are also things that make no sense, such as Dong Wook sleeping with Do Hyun and holding him in the first high school flashback when it turned out the had not even met yet. And we never find out why Do Hyun was pissed at him when they first met at college. Dong Wook joins the team and next thing we know he's no longer pissed off and they are moving in together.

Questions

Why did Dong Wook sleep with his arm around Do Hyun in the high school gym storage room when they had not even met yet?

Why was Do Hyun angry at Dong Wook when they first met at college and calling him a dog?

And why oh why is the chronology of the high school flashbacks skewered? Dong Wook says he's transferring, and Do Hyun is pissed about it, but in the next flashback they're still at the same school and acting as if nothing happened, so I presume this is from before he said he was transferring.

I just rewatched it. The first time I'd watched it I thought he was sitting ON TOP of the railing, not in front of it. So it made no sense for him to have leaned backwards as he did because there would have been no support to lean against. But there was support, so I get it now.

It makes sense for Takashina to reject the kiss, but the word "pervert" is still homophobic when applied to a gay person. "Pervert" means something is unusual and abnormal. And it's connotation is nearly always sexual.

Didn't the manga leave this open to debate? I had the impression that it could've been either suicide or an accident. I thought it was the former because A-Kun had leaned back, which means he had intentionally positioned himself to fall backward. I mean, you know that if you lean back you're going to fall back, so why do that unless you want to fall? Then again, it might have been a body movement of the actor's that was only manifest in the show, but not in the manga.

Wasn't Takashina a bit homophobic as well? After all, he called A-Kun a "pervert." I feel like I'm the only one who was troubled by this because nobody else has mentioned it.

He had clearly liked Takashina romantically, but Takashina was not only oblivious to his feelings, but went off and befriended a bunch of new people as well. That made A-kun jealous which, in turn, made him act out and become vindictive. I actually can't blame him for feeling like shit when Takashina even invited all the other guys to his house to play video game but did not invite A-Kun.

I'm often stunned by the lack of attention on MDL for movies that have won major awards. Red Dust won all the following at the 1990 Golden Horse Awards (ie, the Chinese Oscars):

Best Picture
Best Director (Yim Ho)
Best Actress (Brigitte Lin)
Best Supporting Actress (Maggie Cheung)
Best Cinematography (Poon Hang-sang)
Best Costume & Make-up Design (Edith Cheung)
Best Art Direction (Edith Cheung & Jessinta Liu)
Best Original Film Score (Shut Git-Wing)

Oddsare's cultural explanations for this show have been so good each week that we need to anoint her the Japanese Ambassador of "One Room Angel" for Westerners, lol.

I feel so sorry for A. He was clearly into Takashina right from the start. He was even happy about that totally crappy gift of an orange washrag despite the fact that he'd given Takashina a nicer, more thoughtful gift related to his love of rakugo. It's not like Takashina was obligated to return A's feelings, but it's kind of shitty for him to not notice those feelings at all. Which is what happened when Takashina invited all the guys to his house to play video games but excluded A. Of course A was hurt when he found out the next day that they'd all gotten together without him. I would be too.

It also made sense to me that he'd begin picking on Takashina because it's common for boys to harass someone they're secretly crushing on. Even 5 year old boys will pull a girl's pigtails when they like them. When I was in the 4th grade a boy would follow me home from school throwing pebbles at me, snatching my bookbag and generally terrorizing me until I cried. But even through my tears I knew the boy liked me because, heck, even a 4th grader can tell.

So it's strange that the writer's depicting Takashina as utterly oblivious. Even if he can't tell A's feelings are romantic, wouldn't he at least be able to tell that this guy doesn't want to be just another member of the gang, but his BFF? Then, when Takashina finally gets that A likes him, he responds by calling him a "pervert." If A was already terrified of being gay, then being called a pervert would make it infinitely more painful.

Lastly, the story switched from building sympathy for A as a closeted gay kid, to building sympathy for Takashina as a victim of online rumors so fast I got whiplash. There were 2 deaths in a space of 5 minutes! If a writer is going to include plot-points this serious then she needs to slow down and develop them.

"Undocumented" is not somehow a nicer word than "illegal." Remember, in the 1920's to 1970's they used to call Europeans "wop" Guess what it stood for? With Out Papers. That means the exact same thing as undocumented, doesn't it?

And "wop" was so derogatory that they came up with "illegal" instead. And now it's "undocumented." You can change the terms however you like but everyone knows what it means and it's only a matter of time before "undocumented" also has a severely negative connotation

wop. illegal. undocumented.

They all mean the same thing and playing semantics does not change it.

There is a version in English, but it's not the official translation. It's some free fan-subbed version. I just read ch 6 to compare it to yours and it's not nearly as eloquent. I really respect people who can do literary translations, as I know that it is an art in its own right. I went to graduate school at Columbia University and they had masters and doctoral programs in the Art of Translation. As you said, many people assume that translating is simply converting words from one language with words from another when, in fact, it's a highly creative act . A translator must find the essence of meaning, and then express that meaning with their own style. So a translator is a creative writer, not just some word-converter.

Thank you, because the passages you just provided have convinced me that it's absolutely a BL. I was not clear on this before because I read a number of comments from people who'd read the manga saying it was not a BL, and they specifically cited the Angel's youth as the reason it was not. One person even said it was Harada's only non-BL. But after reading the above passages it's clearly a BL -- even if there is no kissing or sex scenes.

I really want to read it now. I specifically need to read it because I was not clear on "A" being a negative character. I had misinterpreted his character to be a sympathetic, closeted gay kid who'd taken a chance on kissing his crush, then got rejected. This is clearly a case where I'd need to see the character in the context of the complete manga in order to understand him.

However, I am concerned that the manga translation I found was poor. I assume that you translated the above passages on your own, and that is why the language is so beautiful. At any rate, the translation I found is not nearly as graceful and elegantly worded as what you wrote above. If you translated that, then you are very good at translation.

And thank you for clarifying that when the Angel said, "I like you the most!" it was a confession steeped in the essence of Japanese culture. I know that the Japanese don't say "I love you" the way English speakers do. Instead, they say, "I like you" to signify romantic love. It took me a long time to get used to this because "I like you" is a weak phrase in English and, thus, we'd never say it to someone with whom we are passionately in love. But I have also noticed that it means something special if the Japanese say, "I like you the MOST." In "The Pornographer" the writer had said, "You are the person I like the most." I got the feeling that the word "most" was very significant. Is it?

Wow, thank you for generously taking the time to lay out all the plotpoints for me. You are just the coolest person! I also appreciate your character analysis and thematic interpretation. Indeed, it's enticed me to read the manga for myself.

As for the BL element, it looked like I was right to have picked up on a vibe between the angel, Takashina, and "A." However, when I saw the scene of the 2 of them in next week's preview, I thought it was a mutual attraction when, in fact, it's only "A" who was attracted to Takashina. Even worse, Takashina had a homophobic reaction when "A" kissed him and called him a "pervert." Perhaps I'm misunderstanding something, but I find it odd for a writer who specializes in BL's to have made her hero homophobic and, as such, unsympathetic to the reader.

Based on your description, it's actually "A" who comes off as sympathetic. After all, he'd been exposed as gay, rejected by his beloved, and called a pervert all at once. That would've left him so mortified that he may not have fallen by accident but, rather, as an act of suicide. I suppose I will just have to read the manga to figure all this out, huh? Because right now I am interpreting "A" to be a sympathetic character, which is somewhat at odds with how you described him taunting and bullying Takashina. Of course, he could be one of those complex characters who's ostensibly a bully, but turns out to be sensitive once the reader knows more.

As it stands, the takeaway for me is that "A" is the only gay one in the story and he's a minor character at that (a pivotal character, yes, but still minor). The leads are Takashina, who's not gay and even a tad homophobic, and Koki who's not gay and slept with "delivery" prostitutes before the angel came. I think it's a terrific story about the spiritual kinship of two fractured souls and, thus, I don't need for it to be a BL. Nevertheless, I wonder why the producers packaged and promoted it as a BL.