Maggi64

Well, we know Blondie knows how to do a male-on-male kiss because he did it in "Jack O Frost," so the problem is clearly the actor playing the husband. Look at how that actor had no problem giving his female co-star a sensual, open mouthed kiss, but pressed his lips shut like a vault when it came time to kiss his male co-star. I don't know why this actor took the role if he was not committed to playing a real gay man -- which includes, yes, kissing a male actor on the set while cameras are rolling.

Where can I find "Two and One"??? I googled it and other Asian dramas come up, but not a BL.

I just googled it. Over 60% of the traffic on MDL comes from people under the age of 30. And most comes from the USA. Over 25% are from the USA, while about 5 other countries represented were under 10%, and the rest under 5%.

So MDL is a lot of Americans under the age of 30, and that means a culture which is heavily infected by the puritanical social justice ideology that kissing someone without a written contract is "non consensual kissing." I constantly see comments complaining about something in a show being "non con" touching or kissing when the Asians themselves clearly don't see it this way, else they would not have included a scene portraying it as harmless. For instance, a character in "Old Fashioned Cupcake" kissed a guy's cheek while he was asleep and the director portrayed it as harmless (because, um, it WAS harmless). People howled that it was a non-con kiss. Yet I'm sure the Japanese viewers did not see it this way. I'm sure most of the comments complaining about the non-con kissing came from Americans. I'm guessing the same thing about the people complaining about this show too.

OMG, the acting in Ameiro Paradox was so bad I had to drop it. The acting was also terrible in the J-BL "Takara-kun to Amagi-kun". I dropped that as well . So yes, Japan puts out a number of cringe-inducing BL's, but they make enough good ones to compensate for it.

I have seen a half dozen great J-BL's this year (my fave is "Old Fashioned Cupcake), whereas I have only seen 1 new Thai BL this year that I enjoyed -- "Moonlight Chicken." I watched that because someone recommended it. Otherwise I don't even bother beginning a Thai BL anymore. They are all so cookie-cutter the same and feel like they are mass produced off a factory assembly line.

As for idols, yes, the uptight guy in Semantic Error is an idol. He's an example of how an idol can sometimes do a great job. I am also impressed by the idol who's in "My Beautiful Man." So I don't mind seeing idols in these shows, but god, make sure they can actually act before hiring them.

Bingo. You put it perfectly. If they cannot do a proper gay kiss then simply do not take the role.

BTW, I also agree with your other comments above sympathizing with the wife. It must feel like a horrible betrayal to discover that a man married you while knowing the whole time that he could never sexually fulfill you. But I am still only on ep 2 and must watch more to see how this all develops. I hope they portray the husband showing proper remorse for this, and somehow helping his wife deal with it all. I think all the episodes are already out so I gotta finish the show to see where this goes.

Thank you for your reply, because it will help me understand the character better as the show progresses.

Yes, an Asian person below also replied and explained how table manners are a bigger deal in Asia than in America. In America a mother would reprimand her kid for slurping soup or putting his elbows on the table, but it would not be a big deal and the kid would just shrug it off. That's why I wondered why the character in this show was so wounded about his dad reprimanding his table manners.

Tane had the most authentic little kid dialogue I've ever heard when he asked Minoru, "Would you rather have poop flavored curry or curry flavored poop?" I loved how Minoru was reclining on the floor during this scene, and Tane climbed on his back to ask the question because it showed how comfortable and physically affectionate the two brothers are. In short, the director and actors are doing an excellent job portraying the closeness of the 2 brothers.

That's a good point about him refusing to go out with his co-workers. The co-workers even expressed surprise when they saw him on the phone at the end smiling and making plans with the other guy. So I agree that the eating phobia is a manifestation of his overall introverted personality. From now on I will just see this character as an extreme introvert who needs to be taken out of his shell. And since this is a BL, we all know already WHO is going to take him out of that shell!

Wow, thank you so much for your reply. I appreciate that you're Asian yourself and, thus, have special insights into this particular plot point. Your insight makes it easier for me to grasp why the character would be so wounded over criticism about his table manners. In America a mother might tell her kid, "Don't eat with your elbows on the table," but it would not be a big deal, and the kid would just shrug and say, "Ok mom," and that's that. And most Americans eat with their elbows on the table anyway, lol. But I can see now why it would be a bigger deal for a middle class to upper class Asian family . Thank you again for your reply. :)

I don't mind spoilers, so can you tell me what this "eating phobia" is all about?

Ok, so he has a social phobia in general. That makes sense. Will this social phobia be presented as an overall part of his personality, or is it just manifest in his inability to eat in front of others?

QUESTION

What's up with his inability to eat in front of people? It's being played as a potential conflict in the show, and there was even a flashback scene of him as a kid with his dad saying, "You don't know how to eat." Ok, so he's shy about eating in front of people, but how is being shy about this going to be a plot point? It's such an odd thing for the writers to have presented as a character's conflict. Does anyone have a theory for how this is going to progress and why? I don't mind spoilers, so if you've read the manga you can reveal the upcoming plot to me.

The Bible Belt and the Morman enclaves are the only places in America where gays have a hard time. But our culture at large criticizes the Bible Belt and Mormons for this. As I said, even when homophobia exists in America, the larger, overall culture slams it. Just look at how many movies and shows make fun of homophobic bible-beaters. They are objects of ridicule in our society. So yea, homophobes exist in America. But the overall, larger culture is 100% accepting of gays. I don't like a lot of things about my country, but I must say that I am proud of America for its movement on gay culture. When we legalized Gay Marriage we were saying to the world, "Gay people are just as much a part of American society as anyone else."

Yep, you got it. The Entertainment Industry has a HUGE impact on society, so very soon homophobia will become something their society criticizes and punishes. Alas, they still allow casual homophobia to exist in their culture. We see a reflection of what's going on in their society in BL's where the parents don't accept their gay kids. You could never have homophobic parents in an American gay show because it would be unrealistic. Everyone in America now accepts gays and, thus, our movies and shows portray the acceptance. If somebody doesn't accept gays we slam them to pieces. So even if some person has a problem with gays, they will shut the hell up about it for fear of being squashed by the rest of us. Hopefully, the same thing will soon happen in East Asia. Judging by the popularity of BL's, it is on its way!

I agree with you entirely about the acting in this show. If an idol is going to use BL's to break into acting, then he needs to take it seriously and take some acting classes. I think some idols do a good job acting, because they must've studied it and take acting seriously. For instance, the kid playing Kiyoi in "My Beautiful Man" is an idol and he did a great job. Also, the kid playing Haeboom in Cherry Blossoms After Winter" is an idol who did a good job. He even cried real tears, which NONE of the actors in Thai BL's can do.

The acting in Thai BL's is so bad that when they are called upon to cry they just twist up their faces and look like grimacing monkeys rather than people in genuine sorrow who cry. So, as you said, the bad acting here reminds us of Thai BL's. Though I must say that I disagree with you that we see bad acting in J-BL's because they are often excellent -- eg, the guys in "The End of the World With You," "The Pornographer" "My Beautiful Man" "Old Fashioned Cupcake." We only see bad acting occasionally in a J-BL, whereas we ALWAYS see bad acting in Thai BL's. The Thais crank out too many and go for quantity over quality. They make over 50 a year, which means one a week. The Japanese and the Koreans make far less BL's, but they are getting better and better. Especially the Korean BL's. They advanced enormously this year. Have you checked out "The Eighth Sense"? That one is miraculously good.

I think that gays in the entertainment business is far more important to gay acceptance in the culture than we realize. In America the show "Ellen" from 20 years ago was a big milestone because it was the first sitcom to feature a gay kiss on TV. That episode soared in ratings and signified that gay people are in our world so much that they new appear in ordinary, prime time sitcoms. Then "Will and Grace" came on and showed how gay people live day to day, and allowed us to normalize gay people. It was a massive hit and by now it's so common to see gays on tv that we barely notice it. In short, the same thing should happen in East Asia now that BL's are such a hit. They are behind the West by about 20 years because shows in our culture already normalized gays 20 years ago. But at least it's happening, and that's good.

Yes, and I'm just happy that BL's are so popular now that even Idols want to be in them in order to break into acting. That shows how the Asian culture is now accepting gay people as part of their world.

Good points. I think that perhaps instead of the problem being "chemistry" it's that the guy playing Spy Kid is such a poor actor that the guy playing the Potter is just stuck having to carry a lot of those scenes himself. You cannot have chemistry when only one person in the couple knows how to act.

To be clear, I don't think the idol playing Spy Kid is terrible, but you can see him "acting" is some scenes, as if he's aware of the fact that he's putting on a performance. Good actors, however, totally submerge themselves in a character and inhabit the character as if it were themselves. When you look at the actor playing Spy Kid, you can see that he's conscious of not being the person he's pretending to be. He has not inhabited that identity seamlessly and it shows.

So the problem might be acting skills more than chemistry, and we're all just misidentifying the problem.

I tell my students that they use the skill of writing more than any other they pick up at school, but they just don't realize it. Indeed, young people write even more nowadays than in my generation (I am 50), because they write all the time on social media. Their writing is constantly out there for the world to see. A good writer is able to convey meaning in concise, punchy prose in just a couple of paragraphs, which is why good writers always win the debates I see happening in threads.

I also tell them that being a good writer will expand to influence even how they speak, because they'll subconsciously be using the skills of organizing the topic about which they are about to speak the same way they organize a topic to write about it. Thus, writing skills are something we take with us for life and use everywhere. Tell them that!