Maggi64

Thank you! Some people liked my comment, but most are afraid to comment publicly because the show is so popular. And accusations get meanspirited, so I understand why they won't comment. For instance, I have already been accused of "just wanting see boys kiss" and "wanting sex scenes." That accusation comes out whenever somebody critiques a show for failing to develop a relationship. The irony is that it proves that the one making the accusation is thinking of kisses and sex, not me.

Post coital scenes are used to DISCUSS a relationship. They are NOT sex scenes. You do know what "post" means, don't you? It means the sex scene is over. And if I wanted to watch boys having sex I'd just pull up gay porn online. So your accusation is entirely illogical and unfounded. Give me an example of the "storytelling" that interests you so much? What exactly IS the story of these two boys? The got together in ep 6 and broke up in ep 7 . That's your story?


And yes, I am wasting my time. I can tell from the level of discourse an rhetorical choices on a sentence level that none here know how to critique a show or book and to give EXAMPLES to support their argument. For instance, you say it's strong "storytelling" but then give no example of storytelling.

That's fair. If you're into the dead brother, and the therapist and his ex girlfriend, that's a reason to like the show. Alas, I am not. I liked that Ji Hyun, the younger "country mouse" is actually the braver one of these two. That's interesting. Let's see the 2 boys hash that out more. But we got little to no time of them together hashing anything out.

These boys JUST got together. Now, Ji Hyun's coming out of the closet to his BFF was nice. That is a focus on issues attendant to a relationship. I wanted to see Jae Won come out of the closet with his bitch ex girlfriend. Instead, he dates her again! That gives only ep 9 to undo this, and then only ep 10 to get the boys together again. And we know they'll be together cuz 99.99% of BL's end that way (MODC is the exception).

You guys don't know how to read critical reviews. You can disagree with them, but calling something mere personal opinion does not apply when one cites specific examples to support their claim. You should give examples from the show to support your claim. That's how a rebuttal works. Give examples of the main characters' relationship being developed. You can't, because it hasn't been developed. They hooked up last week and they are already split up. These are good actors with terrific chemistry. So it's wasted opportunity.

Fair enough. But I wish they chosen one trauma and stayed with it. The brother's death would've worked because it can be use to explore Jae Won's fear of abandonment. Fear of abandonment worked for Kiyoi's character in MBM because his mother ignored him for his step-siblings. But this show is stacking up the traumas. And now a break up! They just got together last week and they're breaking up already?

Please don't give us To My Star 2. Most of us are still traumatized from that one, lol. Come to think of it, WhyRU also had a breakup directly after hot and heavy trip to the beach. I really dislike this trope.

Um, this show DID have kissing scenes -- 3 of them in fact. So how would that be my criticism when the show had so many of them? Please watch the show again. Moreover, one of my fave BL's is His with the teenagers. No kissing at all. They only hugged. I also loved the Chinese censored "Precise Shot." Those shows focused on the relationships. It's called FOCUS. A romance is about 2 people after all. This is giving us the old break-up trope, which is usually saved for a sequel. It reminds of To My Star 2.

Moreover, a critical review is just that: a critiquing. I've done what these sort of reviews should do. I write academic papers for a living so it's my trade, and perhaps I'm harsh, but come on, you can handle some dissent, can't you?

That is not at all the point. The point is that this show has barely shown the two boys together. Surely you've noticed this, haven't you? It's a romance which barely shows any, um, romance. And no, dead brothers and drownings are not "real life" -- they are extreme and uncommon occurrences.

Yep, it feels just as cliched as it does in the second acts of other BL's that rely on this plot point for faux dramatic tension.

I said the same thing weeks ago and people here all disagreed. They contended that she showed her good sides to Jae Won. What good sides? She has not even smiled once and isn't shown being nice to other characters either. He simply showed poor character judgement in choosing her.

You're all gonna hate me for saying this cuz the love is so ardent for this show, but I have felt it losing steam after its stellar first 2 eps (spoilers below).

To begin, ep 3 had Jae Won go from ghosting Ji Hyun to suddenly smiling at him on a subway. There was no incremental development showing us why he changed. Then when the sex scene came in ep 6, they were being playful, not intense as before, and it was all done in quick cuts and only one minute long. They needed to slow down and show the boys talking either before or afterward. The show's gonna clock in at 6+ hours so there is certainly time for such things. Blueming had a terrific post coital scene where they discussed their relationship and that show was only 1 hr and a half. But The Eighth Sense's episode 6 wasted time giving us a shopping expedition with Ji Hyun's girl-pal rather than spending more time on a discussion after the hookupscene with his boyfriend.

And then, after finally getting the consummation scene, the show distracts from the relationship with a drowning -- so there's still no portrayal of how these 2 get along when together as a real couple. In short, no sooner did they show the relationship consummated than they pulled away from it. The 2 boys were not shown together even once for the entirety of ep 7. Then we got more of the dead brother that therapist instead. Oy, and then the cringe-inducing touchy-feely speech by Ji Hyun at the disciplinary hearing in ep 8.

Dead brother, therapist, drowning, disciplinary hearing. All these are distractions external to the relationship at hand. It's as if the writer did not know how to develop drama around a relationship and, hence, started tossing in multiple external plot points (choose one, and then focus, but don't just keep adding more). And then -- for God's sake --they have Jae Won ghosting Ji Hyun again and hooking up with the evil ex-girlfriend. Sorry, that does not constitute dramatic tension. That's just plain sloppy plotting.

To be clear, it's still the best BL out right now, but based on the stellar first 2 eps, I am verily disappointed. Oh, and please don't reply in hate, I know you all ardently love this show, but it's interesting to mix things up a bit too, right?

Good point about how what plays ok in erotica would not work in live action. That's why Kinn/Porsche stayed the hell away from Vegas raping Pete and Pete falling in love with him. I know that rape is a common fantasy and while I never had a rape fantasy, I do not judge those who do. Indeed, I recall that a soap opera became a massive hit in the late 80's when an obsessed character raped his beloved. The show got so much fan mail that they had to expand the characters' roles and eventually made them a couple. Which meant they had to make the woman's husband into a bad guy when he'd formerly been a good guy.

But soap operas were always changing characters' personalities like that. Or giving them amnesia. lol. At any rate, the rape fantasy is not my thing, and while I don't judge those who have that erotic fantasy, I also get why others are disgusted by the plotline of characters falling in love with their rapist.

LOL, I also loved that GH offered to bottom. Now, while women don't enjoy anal sex (ie, no prostate), I have had it and it was not massively painful like this author contends (I know, t.m.i. lol). In the book "Addicted" they don't have typical seme/uke cliched roles, and are both masculine and play sports. They also switch bottom/top at 1st, with GH eventually topping. That was midway in the book, after which I stopped reading.

I'd only read it to begin with because I also read academic papers on BL that PhD's write for Queer Studies. It's fascinating how & why this whole genre grew in the past 20 yrs. But academics tend to write about the shows. I think they'd be horrified if they read the actual books, because I read 3 -- "Uncontrolled Love" "Kinn/Porsche" and "Addicted" and all 3 had rape. These are WOMEN writing about victims falling in love with their rapists. It's not that I'm some snowflake, but at the same time, I just don't get it.

Bingo. I find it impossible to feel any heat between two guys when one of the guys is so unsexy. Hell, I don't get how this kid keeps getting such big roles. He must be connected in the industry. Consider how in "Cherry Magic" he played a break dancer who could not dance At All! He'd just bend over to slap the pavement, lol.

The author of Addicted is just whack in general. I mean, Gu Ha kidnaps By Lu Yin not once, but twice! And rapes him the 2nd time -- in front of the ex girlfriend! Then she has this notion that the guys need a doctor to visit daily for a week after even consensual anal sex. As if anyone would have anal sex if that were true. Humm..... it's occurred to me that while books are usually better than movies, when it comes to BL the books are always worse, lol

Judy Garland is a perfect example! The studios gave her speed to make her lose weight. But then the speed caused insomnia, so they gave her downers to sleep. The suits at the studio were literally pushing uppers and downers on her when she was just an adolescent. The old studio system, however, ended in the late 1950's. But Korea's talent agencies still function this way in so far as they control the celebrities every move.

Yea, Shiny Smile and Minato's Laundry both disappointed on that score. And the crazy thing about Minato's Laundry was that it started off with a lot of sexual heat between Minato and Shin. But then there was no physical contact for 12 eps, and quick peck kiss at the very end. That's probably what it'll be like with this show too.

When I consider the very real possibility that this was suicide, I can't help thinking of Yoo Ah In. After all, he's been stigmatized and treated like a criminal rather than offered treatment for addiction and depression. You'd think that the sheer number of celebrity suicides in Korea would create a national conversation about depression to raise awareness. Instead, every time one of these celebs dies or experiences a mental health crisis, their agency rushes to silence everyone.

Agreed. Plus the agencies keep silent because they know that all these celebrity suicides make them look bad. In other words, their silence is to protect themselves, not to protect the deceased's family.

Those talent agencies always ask us "not to speculate" because it looks bad for them when these poor kids keep killing themselves. The agencies pluck these kids from their homes as teenagers, put them in dorms where they're isolated from the world, and work them like horses to train to become actors, singers, dancers. Some adjust to this grueling lifestyle, while a shocking number grow depressed and kill themselves. I'm going to go ahead and assume this was suicide, despite what her self-serving agency says.