Maggi64

I did not particularly like the swallowing sound, but you make an excellent point. I will try to view it this way when I re-watch the show. And I will definitely be re-watching! lol

BTW, it's not their first time having sex. They had sex the night before when the show starts in Ep 1 and Hira is apologizing for being so "persistent" the night before. :)

Yep, I heard it twice too. I actually think they should have cut this sound effect out, but hey, I guess it's realistic to have a swallow sound if you just ate chocolate.

Ok, so I'm halfway through this show, and while I am invested in the leads, Jim and Wen, god damn, Li Ming and Heart have stolen the show!

Thx. But why did they cut out such a great kissing scene?

Ah, the chocolate! I didn't think of that. Thanks!

At the end of ep 4, did anyone else notice gulping, swallowing sound right before Hira kisses Kiyoi? Or is it just the sound on the streaming site where I watched?

I sent a message asking about Vietnam, but MDL has nobody responding to messages and does not have any real way of communicating with its members. So I guess we'll just have to accept that they, for some reason, do not consider Vietnam to be Asian.

I noticed you included some V-BL's in your notes. How come MDL does not include Vietnam when it has all the other Asian countries?

Good explanation. It really helps, so thank you!

Ok, that makes sense. They were not dating yet, and that's why the kiss they had later in bed on that vacation was the first kiss. Fumiya said, "Wait, you like me too?" And Ritsu says, "I would not have come if I didn't like you." So, ok, I now understand that they were not dating until that point. However, it still does not make sense that they'd have gone to a villa and slept in the same bed if they were not a couple yet. That's odd.

Seriously, why didn't Ritsu figure out something just based on that fact alone? lol

I agree. I think the Thai BL's get higher ratings cuz they get more viewers overall based on the fact that they do massive marketing and promotion internationally. Thailand considers its BL's to be one of the country's Gross National Products and, hence, makes massive money on exporting them internationally. So they advertise and market them even in American magazines (ie, Kinn/Porsche was promoted in Rolling Stone and Vogue), whereas Japan does not market anywhere outside of its own borders. The irony is that Japan's BL's are wonderful while Thailand's are crap that's manufactured off a factory assembly line. They make over 50 a year, which comes out to about one a week. That's why there are so many bad ones.

I am confused about a scene that comes about 5 minutes into it where Fumiya has a flashback memory of both of them at the villa when they were dating. Fumiya puts his arm around Ritsu while Ritsu is sitting on the sofa reading, but then suddenly apologizes and removes his arm. Now, they were dating then and it's before Ritsu's amnesia, so why did Fumiya suddenly remove his arm? Isn't it normal to put your arm around your boyfriend when he's sitting on the sofa?

What about Blueming? Blueming and Where Your Eyes Linger are 2 of the best ones from Korea. I agree that Korea's been putting out a lot of bad BL's just to jump on the bandwagon with the increasing BL craze in East Asia, but many are still quite good. Otherwise, I must agree with you that Japan is definitely the best in this genre.

Thanks, because MyAsianTv is actually the best place to watch it as they did not censor it. Billibi and Youtube censored the sex scene. They simply chopped out about 4 minutes of the movie at the beginning. Ugh.

I am an addict of East Asian film in general and watch tons of films from Japan and Korea, because their film industries are the best. A lot of good stuff also comes out of Taiwan and Hong Kong, but Japan and Korea are really the most productive and seem to have film industries almost as big as Hollywood's in terms of volume and quality of films. Chinese films are mostly action/adventure stuff and things designed to make China look more macho, because that's their thing. And then, of course, their film industry is highly censored by the govt, so not much good comes out of China.

But man, tons of good stuff comes out of Japan and Korea, so it makes sense that their BL's are also the best ones. If you are new to the BL genre and want to explore it, start with the Japanese and Korean ones. Avoid the ones from Thailand because they manufacture BL's off a factory assembly line and they are uniformly terrible.

Some people think he never said "I love you" because they don't realize that the subtitles often mistranslate the word "love" to be "like." Thus, they see characters saying "I like you" when the characters are actually saying, "I love you." This is because the Japanese say "I like you" (sukida) to actually mean "I love you" and the word will mean "love" depending on the intonation and context.

Viki always translates "sukida" correctly as "love," while GagaOOlala always mistranslates it as "like." I watch so many Japanese movies/shows that at this point when I see characters who are obviously declaring love based on the context, and I see the subtitle say "I like you," I mentally re-translate it as "I love you" because I know that this is what the Japanese truly mean when they say the word "sukida."

Excellent point about this show packing a punch in such little time. In fact, the eps are not even 25 min as you said, but more like 22 or 23 min. In all, season one was 2 hours, and season two is about 85 min, or 1 hour and 25 min. When you consider such short lengths, this show's screenwriter and director should be commended for making the most of it.

I've noticed that all J-BL's are under 25 min an ep, and only 6-8 eps in total, so the directors must be beholden to some kind of time restriction (maybe the sites where they air in Japan restricts the time?) When you consider that so many Japanese BL's knock it out of the park with these time restrictions (eg, My Beautiful Man, Old Fashioned Cupcake, Eternal Yesterday, and right now Jack O'Frost and End of the World With You), it really puts those Thai BL's to shame because they are all 45 min an ep, and 14-16 eps in total. And they nearly all suck, and are packed with product placement.

That's right! In season two we even see pretty models and actresses at that party chasing Hira! That was so surprising considering the prior image we all had of him in high school fetching sandwiches and ginger ale for the gang of popular boys. He was just an errand boy in high school but, as Kiyoi said, he's really attractive once you dress him up and get his hair off his face. That side part he had at the party made him so cute. Of course, Kiyoi thought it was TOO cute and, thus, made Hira go back to his old style, lol.

A STARTLING LOVE TRIANGLE

Does anyone else love how it's Hira, and not Kiyoi, who has 2 guys chasing him? It's so startling that it is Hira -- the stuttering kid at the "bottom of the pyramid" -- who has ignited a love triangle, and not the beautiful class king. Another more predictable type of show would have had 2 guys chasing the beautiful class king. But this show is so unique, that it has 2 guys (Kiyoi and Koyama), chasing a stuttering weirdo who talks to a picture of a little yellow duck!