Maggi64

Exactly. That's why I was satisfied with it. I also thought the blue lighting at the end of season 1 was intended to be romantic and aesthetically beautiful rather than to hide the kiss as the other person asserted.

At any rate, the actors in MBM did a terrific job with kissing scenes and really went for it by season 3 in that final scene of the movie with them under the blue gauze. Wow! I loved how blue lighting and blue gauze became a recurring motif for their intimate scenes.

I grant you that I may be missing something in translation due to bad subs. These shows are all fan-subbed, even on paid sites like Viki, so that could be why I'm failing to appreciate this show.

However, I do not grant your assertion that if people analyze a show's dialogue it means, ipso facto, that the show is great. It does not. Rather, it simply means that some fans are, well, analyzing the show. After all, I analyze shows I watch all the time. Indeed, I analyzed the plot momentum of this show in my original post. Does this mean that my analysis is 100% legit simply because it exists? Of course not.

In fact, you disagreed with my analysis of the show's plot momentum. Hence, you have inadvertently proven that a viewer's analysis is open to interpretation and criticism. This, by extension, proves that the existence of people analyzing a show means nothing more than that they found it worth their time to do so.

Also, there is a REASON for the miscommunication in MBM. Kiyoi was a typical high school kid who wanted to appear cool and, thus, hid his feelings. But the real problem was that Hira is a tad aspergers. The show never uses that exact word, but they clearly portray him as a neurodivergent individual who has trouble understanding social cues. Kiyoi even says in season 2 that if he wants to be with Hira, he simply must accept this part of Hira's personality.

Yet we have not been given any legit reason for why the two guys in Taikan Yoho simply Will Not Talk To Each Other. They are portrayed as being pretty normal when engaging with others, so they don't have Hira's excuse for miscommunication. Frankly, the writer has not given us any good reason for their inability to talk openly to each other -- let alone for stalking by placing a tracking device on their boyfriend rather than just ASK where he's going. It's one of the reasons that I find the character motivations in this show so unsatisfying.

Actually, even hetero actors have to get comfortable with each other for intimate scenes. Hetero actors commonly take "intimacy workshops" with a director and also often request a "closed set" for intimate scenes so the crew can't watch. And directors try not to shoot the intimate scenes until the actors have been on set for awhile and know each other well.

Besides, the actors in MBM did kiss at the end; it just wasn't as passionate as the kissing scenes they gave in the 2 sequels. I was more disgusted by the tall guy in Cherry Magic who refused to do even a closed mouth kiss. There was no kiss at all in season 1, and in season 2 there was a fake kiss shot at a weird angle that hid how their lips were not truly touching. I thought that was offensive. I see these fake angle kisses a lot in K-BL's too -- especially when it's some famous Korean idol. But this was not the case with the actors in MBM. So, again, I don't think those 2 actors were being homophobic.

But, hey, that's just my opinion. It's cool if you see it differently. :)

Yep, that's what saves it from being aggressive workplace sexual harassment and keeps the show in the realm of fluffy. The tone of the whole show is just goofy, silly fun. Of course, this stuff would not fly at the workplace in real life, but nothing in this show is meant to be realistic, so I'm cool with it.

Yea, it's just a matter of individual taste. You like one show better, while I like another show better. So there's no argument . I was just trying to back up my opinion as to why I happened to like MBM so much because, as you'd said in your comment, people keep comparing the two shows. :)

They are not showing all the sex scenes, but based on the number that they did show in a brief 7 eps, it's been implied that the guys have a healthy, active sex life. However, they don't have healthy, active communication outside of bed. Forget never talking to each other, these 2 can't even have a nice feisty fight where it all comes out.

For example, the weatherman is pissed and frustrated about the relationship at the end of ep 7. Instead of talking or fighting it out, he takes his boyfriend to bed. It's been this way for 7 eps, so I'm a tad bored by it. I know it's just a matter of individual taste, but I've grown bored by all the mumbling, lethargic interior monologues with no outside action to give this show forward momentum. Now, I certainly don't hate it. It's just that I am not loving it as many others are.

I suppose it's a matter of taste. I am simply not feeling Taikan Yoho. I am trying to like it better week after week, but just don't feel any energy to this story. But hey, we all have different taste, right?

As for MBM, many who were not keen on season 1 liked seasons 2 and 3 much better, and those seasons got higher ratings on MBL. The relationship is more "normal" in those seasons. Well, as normal as it can be with Hira being totally aspergers, lol. But Kiyoi's much, much nicer in the sequels.

I did not think the kissing scene was homophobic with the blurred lighting at the end of season one, but I agree that it was a lame kiss. I read that this was one of the 1st scenes they filmed cuz it was the only time they could get the school, so the actors were not yet comfortable with each other since they barely knew each other at that point. However, they were clearly comfortable with each other by the end of season 3 and gave a realistic, passionate kiss.

But in general, I agree that it's homophobic for actors to give fake kisses in BL's -- especially those kisses that are hidden or at a weird angle, eg, Cherry Magic. I don't care if they are hetero in real life -- if they are playing gay characters, then they should be professionals and act like gay men. And that includes kissing.

Well, we see this very differently. I thought MBM was terrific because the plot had forward moving momentum, while the plot of Taikan Yoho is utterly stagnant. The switch in the character's point of view in MBM also provided a genuine surprise, whereas the switch in p.o.v. in Taikan Yoho showed us nothing new about either character whatsoever. In fact, we've learned nothing about these guys in 7 eps except that they can't communicate.

At any rate, when it comes to MBM, I agree with the Japanese fans, with whom it was so enormously popular that it spawned not one, but 2 sequels. If you haven't seen the sequels, I recommend you do because the "toxicity" to which you object is gone.

I know what you're saying. But it's not just about the person's attractive or unattractive looks. I think it becomes creepy when the object of attention is clearly horrified and rejecting the attention -- as was the case with the women harassed by Harvey Weinstein. But with Shun Yu we are seeing a character who's not rejecting the attention so much as confused by it. That's the crucial difference.

BTW, one woman secretly taped her meeting with Weinstein and it was so clear that she was rejecting his advances, while he kept touching her and telling her how sexy she was. Any fool could see by her facial expressions and body language that she was grossed out, but he just kept touching her anyway. What's interesting is how one does not need words to know you're harassing somebody; it's evident in their facial expressions and body language. Even though Weinstien did not flat-out assault this particular woman (ie, it was sexual harassment, but not technical assault), seeing this video made it 100% believable to me that he did assault the other women.

When your boss puts you in his silk pajamas, feeds you cookies and cocoa, offers to tell you a bedtime story, and then holds you while you sleep together. Yep, just another day at the office!

If you mean to stop comparing it to MBM because MBM is vastly superior, then I agree. In fact, I just compared it to MBM in my comment above, but only to illustrate how & why the miscommunication trope worked in MBM while in this show it's been dragging on much too long.

Two beautiful men. Hot chemistry in the intimate scenes. Actors who are fearless about male-on-male kissing. Given all this, I should love the show, right? But I feel somehow blase about it.

Many compared it to "My Beautiful Man" because there is a communication gap and a lot of internal monologues. However, the internal monologues in MBM escalated as we went episode to episode, such that there was a terrific climax by the end of ep 4 when we got Kiyoi's point of view. It was a brilliant climax because Kiyoi's true feelings were super surprising. Then we had a compelling denouement in eps 5 and 6, with a satisfying conclusion. If you were to draw the plot you'd see a triangle with an intro, rising action, climax (ie, the tip of the triangle), denouement and conclusion -- just like they taught us a good story should have when we were in grade school .

The problem with Taikan Yoho is that if you were to draw its narrative progress it would not be a triangle. It would be, instead, a flat line. After 7 of its 8 episodes we still have not seen any real rising action, just a lot of sex scenes. The characters are similarly flat. They have no charisma or inner force driving them. Indeed, they both seem as if they are half asleep. The actors may be fearless with gay kissing but, otherwise, they both put in bland, lethargic performances. And that's a problem when they are playing characters who never TALK to each other and, rather, just mumble internally, wondering why their partner does not smile at them the way they smile at others.

Well, yea, I am also wondering why these 2 men who've been together for 3 years do not smile at each other the way they smile at others. The fact that we have a love story where the guys never smile happily at each other makes it a rather flat love story. Hell, that's my primary descriptive term for this entire show: flat. You know, like soda that lacks proper carbonation and fizz. As much as I want to like this show, there just ain't no fizz.

"Spaz" is simply a descriptive term for someone who is overreacting, or behaving in a clumsy or unaccountable manner. As you said, real people often overreact, or act in a clumsy or unaccountable manner. That is also why real people often tell other real people, "Ok, don't spaz out now." It is a commonly used term and not on the list of the PC Police's "offensive terms." At least not yet.

Your comment has me concerned that, increasingly, all human language is being censored by the PC Police. Because I regard your comment as an attempt at censoring my language. I do not believe in censorship and, thus, I shall not change the perfectly harmless wording in my review.

I thought the exact same thing about the ending. In fact, I had just finished typing this in my own comment above, when I scrolled down and saw your similar comment. And I also loved this movie, even though it was heart wrenching.

About that ending with him strangling the woman he loves.....

I think he did that because he heard the police sirens, knew cops were coming, and he did not want her to be charged with aiding and abetting a wanted fugitive. This way, it looked like she was a hostage, rather than an accomplice. Then he told her, "I'm not the man you think I am," because he wanted her to give up on him, stop loving him, and not waste her future visiting him in prison and waiting for his release. After all, he loved her, as we saw by how he reached his fingers out to touch hers for one last time as the cops were dragging him off. He never intended on truly killing her.

Ok, so I get all this. Nevertheless, I wish the screenwriter had not made this particular choice. Because I wanted to think that the girl would visit him in prison and wait for him. Now he will have nobody. It's just heart wrenching.

lol, looks like we all thought the same thing. The tough guy gangster was the bottom!

You mean the parents know? But if so, then who is setting him up on these hetero blind dates when he's gay?

OMG, I thought so too! The Crossing the Line actor's name is Fandy Fan, and I adore him so much that I watch anything he's in. He's in a charming little movie called Mamma's Boy with the actor from Moneyboys. The guy from Moneyboys plays a 20 year old guy in love with a 50 year old woman. Her son is played by Fandy Fan.