Momijii

"Otousan."

Shots fired! ZSY's dad took 1 000 000 points of damage!

"Otousan" is how you adress your father-in-law in Japanese btw. I love seeing GSD switch to Japanese! And I love how GSD only does this when he wants to say something either super romantic or super antagonistic. I almost jumped out of my chair this time! :D

Welcome back, Gao Shi De! Where have you been these past episodes? It's so nice to see him acting like the shrewd "will do anything for love" semi-morally-grey character I fell in love with in the first season! GSD's actor truly shines in these moments!

I liked this episode a lot more than episode 3–4 that imo undermined the whole idea of what season 2 was supposed to be all about. If I instead headcanon a more interesting scenario in those previous episodes that plays up the antagonism, the "forbidden office romance" and delves into the hurt feelings between GSD and ZSY, plus a different backstory where they spend at the most 2–3 years instead of 5, then I feel like I can kind of see what the production team and writers were going for.

They dropped the ball completely on this season, but I can see how what they wanted to create had potential. GSD's scene with ZSY's dad was perfect! Finger's crossed that they can pull off a good finale.

I'm a bit curious about why some users call the acting cringey in this show? As someone who with no personal insight of the language spoken, I've still tried as best I can to listen to line delivery, intonation, physical presence and non-verbal acting cues and found the experience quite satisfying.

After watching some of the main actor's older dramas (Together With Me and Bad Romance), and then returning to rewatch Manner of Death, I think both of them seem to have grown immensely. And based on the admittedly small sample of Thai dramas that I've seen so far, they are among the better actors I've come across. I wouldn't exactly consider them award worthy or anything, I mean clearly they're still a bit rough in some moments, but think both their performances stand up well.

Could it perhaps be the fact that MoD is intended to be a "serious" mainstream story that's making their acting seem cringey in contrast? The actors both seem to come from a model/influencer background and don't seem to have done any formal acting training (just guessing here, sorry if I'm incorrect). I did check out some of their interviews and they both mentioned that MoD was a challenge but also a positive experience.

I can also see how the initial episodes where the mood on screen (as well as music choices) varies between tentative flirting and mutual distrust might seem a bit weird compared with the rest of the drama, but I consider that a directional or producer decision that's unlikely to be a decision on part of the actors. And it does add to the story imo, since the story clearly intended the balance between attraction and suspicion to be a main part of the character's relationship.

Anyways, curious about what viewers who actually have knowledge of Thai or have insight into Thai actors/acting etc think about the acting. :)

Oh, putting both those other shows you mention on my watchlist right now.

It's always unfortunate when it becomes a taboo to criticise or not enjoy a particular drama/movie/etc, because taste varies. That's one of my least parts of fandom. I personally love critical discussion as long as it doesn't become hostile to anyone. I mean, this very message board had that intense bout of fandom drama after episode 2 which almost made me leave as soon as I got here because of some hostile comments... That was so off putting because I thought the discussion here was making a lot of interesting points before the personal attacks started.

I personally think that the first part of Game Boys is some of the best depictions of social media, Covid and social distancing dilemma I've seen, and the acting is top notch imo, but I did actually take a break somewhere around episode 10 because of how the story is dragging on a bit too long for my taste. If 8 was the original intended length, that explains a lot to me. I'm planning on watching the rest eventually though.

I see your point about the characters in Game Boys being mostly reactive to circumstances, but I feel like that was the point: that they are out of control of their lives and are trying to live their lives in a way that makes them happy, despite the tough circumstances. I'll see what I think once I finish the last few episodes though. :)

I laughed out loud at your comment about falling into an accidental kiss! :D

Interesting to hear that SOTUS was the origin of the engineer cliché! I've read somewhere that while it wasn't the first Thai BL, it was the first popular one.

About Filipino BL, I've watched some of Game Boys, but that one didn't feel like BL to me. I think of it as a LGBT story about two gay guys, because it doesn't feel like it's mostly aimed at (mainly) straight female viewers/BL fans the way, say, Fighting Mr 2nd does. Though I haven't checked out what Game Boy's creators have said about their intentions or anything.

The formulaic nature of BL is unfortunate, and a lot of those repetitive elements feel really stale. At least some dramas seem to want to explore new topics and push the storytelling in interesting ways so I'm trying to find those when I look for something new.

Though speaking of clichés, it was kind of fun for me when I started watching BL dramas last year, to see what kind of clichés had emerged outside of Japanese BL. And it took me watching a bunch of dramas in order to realise what was a genre cliché and what was just cultural differences. The engineer thing in particular really surprised me. :D Some clichés are the same though.

I'm aware of what "lazy writing" means colloquially, though I personally think it's a harmful expression to use against skilled work like professional writing! Not only is it hurtful towards the hardworking professionals who do the actual writing, it also in reality has the unfortunate consequence of making a lot of people believe that writers are actually lazy. And many times, manuscripts end up being butchered by directors, producers or even actors, but the writers usually end up bearing the blame for all kinds of narrative problems. I think "bad writing" is a better critique, because it doesn't carry the unfortunate implication of someone actually being lazy.

So I always stubbornly point this out when I see someone use the expression. ;) Just food for thought I hope!

Anyways, I really hope the writers of Fighting mr 2nd are done with all their exposition by now. Finger's crossed! ;)

Agree, characters being too well-groomed at unreasonable hours and situations are one of my pet peeves! I always love when a character has tousled bed hair or a 5-o'clock shadow. Or sagging mascara/eyeliner at the end of the day. :)

I agree that the writers have obviously taken a non-linear approach to the storytelling this season, though my main reasons for not being happy with this season is that this is unfortunately not well-executed.

Non-linear storytelling can be so powerful when the writer and directing team/editors etc pull it off well, but it's a difficult narrative style and easy to mess up. I think Nolan's Memento (and most of his movies to be honest) are some of the best executed examples of non-linear storytelling.

I'm not expecting the same quality from this show, but I at least expect the story to make sense whenever it adds a new piece to the puzzle. As you said, the story ends up feeling convoluted and I never get that feeling of catharsis when something new is revealed.

Sometimes when a production needs a prop, they just grab something that seems vaguely right. So perhaps they needed to show a hospital bill with English writing, and the got a real one from someone, or a fake one from another tv/movie production. They probably didn't even give us English speaking viewers being able to read the bill and start to wonder about the name a thought. I actually googled the drugs on the bill and they were fairly generic drugs.

In my opinion, that bill is supposed to represent GSD's mom's hospital bill.

I was so surprised at the end of s1 with the whole 5 years time-skip reveal, and maaaan, did my fears all come true or what... That's a huge deal to explain properly storywise, and so far, the story has completely failed to properly explain this 5 year gap in a reasonable way that stays true to the characterisation in s1. The production team should have just gone for a 2 year break up/ghosting: 1 year for GSD helping his mother, and 1 year for the deal with ZSY's dad.

I agree, you could drive a truck through the plot holes in this drama. I was holding out hope that some of the bad writing would be redeemed eventually, but nah. If a writer has to rely on their characters being stupid/forget that they have mutual friends/etc, then that's a writer that has to go read a book about narrative structure and character development. So frustrating!

This point that you and others have made is spot on. Did ZSY and GSD simply cut off all contact with their old uni friends? I get that both GSD and ZSY thought the other was ghosting them, but surely they could have asked one of the straight couple from s1 to reach out and ask?

Me too! They should wrap this series up and then do something completely different with the same cast, like maybe switch all the personalities around. Love is More Than a Word and Till Death Do Us Part did this and it worked really well! Actors who played mild-mannered characters in the first one played really driven, fierce characters in the second one, and some who played serious characters in the first played total goofballs in the latter. :D

It'd be so cool to have Yu play a sweet guy or maybe have him be the character who works his butt off to win Sam's character's heart.

I could go for a detective story or sports competition story perhaps... Preferably a non-school based story, because there's too many of those in BL imo.

I'd love to see them in a sports-themed series where they actually do sports! I was so disappointed that talented swimmers ZSY and his high-school rival GSD never did more than fall/dive into the pool... /sincerely, a huge fan of the anime Free! ;)

I see what you mean, though I would never use the word "lazy" about difficult work like professional writing and production. Personally, I think the endless exposition is the consequence of all the other problems we've pointed out. Like, "Oh no, we had to cut this scene, so now this other thing makes no sense! Quick, give actor X a couple of lines to explain what happened!" Emergency solutions...

I've more or less come to accept that this season won't ever be what it was advertised as.

Some scenes were pretty neat, like when GSD and ZSY finally had a heart-to-heart, with ZSY now being back to dere-dere instead of tsundere (meaning he now actually listens to GSD). And I liked most of the goofy scene on the bridge. The actors are doing a lot of heavy lifting to try to salvage this show, which is why I'm still watching even though I've been so disappointed by the writing and direction.

I can't help but think about what this season might have been with better story structure and writing. The writer/writers and director seem to have been trying to use a more difficult story structure for this current season, with most of the reveals of what happened during those 5 years apart being non-linear. But as some of us have been pointing out, the result has been so, so messy.

I'm also a bit annoyed that we're getting a lot of story exposition now, to fill in the many, many logical gaps in the story. GSD's cousin explaining to GSD (though in reality he's actually explaining to us viewers) how his long-lost-crush/stalker found him is the most obvious example so far, but it's been happening in all episodes of s2 so far. That's...not great. Show, don't tell!

I still really wish GSD and ZSY had adressed GSD's behaviour in episode 2, instead of just joking about it while on the bridge. But it's obvious now, just as I had worried, that the writers/director didn't realise what kind of scene they were actually filming (assault). So they'll never adress how awful GSD's behaviour towards ZSY was that night. Ugh.

Yeah, they really messed up the structure of the story for s2.

I have to say that I wouldn't call what they're doing "lazy storytelling" like you do, because it's actually opposite: they were trying to utilise a more difficult story structure for s2, but based on the messy result, they've obviously bitten off more than they can chew.

So I can see what they were trying to do, but using unconventional story structures is REALLY hard and it's so easy to mess up – which unfortunately they did. A lot.

Another problem is that they've had to either cut or simply overlooked the need for scenes that bridge other scenes together. So suddenly we have GSD's cousin tell us viewers how the other dude found him, instead of actually showing how that happened in episode 2. Someone should have put post-it notes with "show don't tell" written on the writer's and director's computers. :/

I can't believe I didn't know they made a movie based on this manga! I used to hunt down the magazine it was published in every time a new chapter was released in Japan back in the days! It's hands down the best BL manga I ever read! It was published in a ladies comics anthology called "Nighty Judy", a magazine with steamy hetero "ladies comics", and that magazine didn't usually publish BL. The manga author/artist (same person) had made BL before, but she was/is much more famous for working in other genres. I remember her musing on her blog that she was a bit surprised that her editor kept encouraging her to make the story as steamy as possible, even though BL-fans wasn't actually the target group of the magazine. I think it's because it was such a rare story published in a non-standard way that it became such a unique BL story.

Here's hoping that the movie will live up to my expectations, because...well, I've been loving and re-reading this manga since the mid-2000's. I've read a review by a reviewer that also liked the manga, and that review wasn't super encouraging, but I guess I'll just have to see for myself.

Oh, and apparently the manga was recently translated and released in English, so I absolutely recommend reading the original. It was unique at it's time and although the world has changed a lot since then, the story still holds up fairly well imo.

I'm thinking of the notebook where ZSY writes about GSD in one of the earlier episodes, when he's just become GSD's errand boy. He's been writing GSD's name as well as different variations of "like?" in Japanese, and then he's scratched the words out lightly with his pen. I just assumed that he liked to draw as well.

If your interpretation is correct, and it sounds like it, I wish they'd shown GSD painting/drawing at least once. And I would have loved a callback to that when ZSY's dad brags to GSD about all the exquisite (?) art he's bought.

Oh well... I'm glad you took the time to explain to me about the drawings! :)

Well, I'll chalk that one up to bad translations then. I would never ever have connected the word "painting" to the scribbles on ZSY's wall. ;)