Skibelo

I agree with you completely about the attraction of an actual plot and a satisfying character arc. Korean BLs are good at this, as you say, but lately I've found Japanese BLs even better. Have you seen any of "Our Dining Table" (Bokura no Shokutaku), "My Personal Weatherman", or (the film) "Restart After Come Back Home"? I thought all of these beautifully crafted (and acted) stories.

When I go to this link I don't see any of the iQIYI links you mention. Are they still there? (I don't have a Twitter account, and wonder if that is the reason I can't see anything – maybe I have to have a Twitter account to see the contents of the post?). Thanks in advance for any help you can give.

...to the point of insanity. In episode 5 Won Young comes for his first lesson at the potter's wheel wearing a beautiful loose-fitting CREAM angora sweater! Maybe they're trying to show what a sweet and clueless child he is.

Thanks for your review, which as usual expresses all my own thoughts more coherently than I could myself. That simile about "stick[ing] two magnets together by the same pole" is inspired. One thing you didn't mention was the lavish wardrobe. Of course there are plenty of things in BL that require us to suspend disbelief, but Won Young, Don Hee and Ho Tae are all on the edge of poverty, and yet are never seen in the same clothes twice, and in fact seem to have wardrobes that would bankrupt a prince.
I might just quibble slightly with your "not as emotionally touching as I wished". Did you sit there stony-faced when Won Young collapsed weeping on his hands and knees after being repulsed by Tae Joon? I was in floods myself.

Try this link:
https://www.tumblr.com/notfreetoday/730371208573534208/the-importance-of-amae-in-my-personal-weatherman?source=share
This blog has a lot of other valuable commentary on My Personal Weatherman.

Many thanks! I've spent most of the day reading notfreetoday's excellent commentaries on this drama. His/her attention to translation accuracy is a godsend, exactly what the world of BL needs. If only there were more of it.

Thank you, very perceptive review and a welcome antidote to the uncomprehending reviews by confused snowflakes that I had to jump across to get to yours. People who enjoyed this series, and the things you say in your review, might like to also look at the review by Ariel, where there is a link to an article on Tumblr which provides a really interesting analysis of amae, one of the threads of Japanese psychology which is foreign to Western ways of thinking but is a driving force in this drama.

Thanks for a really interesting (and tantalising) review. I'd very much like to learn more about the aspects of Japanese culture that you mention in your first two paragraphs. Could you please post a link to that article on Tumblr that you mentioned? Thanks.

You've perfectly captured the lesson of this perfect drama: Yutaka and Minoru learn to "accept the past, not fear the future, and live in the present".

Brava. Good reply to Strawhat. (Though I liked the film more than you did.)

For anyone who's wondering, the actor who plays senpai Sagara Takahiro is Yusuke Hirose. This actor is missing from the cast list here because he is not yet known to kisskh. Can anyone tell me how this can be fixed?

Helpful review, thanks. Though I just spot-checked a few episodes and I think you're too kind to the acting: what I saw was awful. To add insult to injury, the English subtitles are more than usually incompetent for Thai BL, and that's saying something. Perhaps I just didn't happen on enough of Tae and Pluem.

I just watched it on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e96Dnwa_8nw) and it was 720p.

Wow. That was very acute of you. I don't understand Korean at all, so I fail to pick up a lot of the nuances in tightly written scripts like this one.
Thanks for explaining.

Thanks for a really great review. It crystallised for me all the things I liked about this series but couldn't explain to myself as clearly as you do.
Since you have thought so carefully about every minute of this show, perhaps you could tell me how you recognised that from about 1:44 onwards in ep.11 what we are seeing is Da Un dreaming and not reality. Like a few other reviewers I didn't pick this up at all and wondered why ep.11 had two different scenes of forgiveness and reconciliation. Rewatching, the first part of the dream, where he wakes up and finds his parents have come home, still doesn't seem readily recognisable as a dream to me. Perhaps later, where we see the two boys together but can't hear their speech, I should have twigged. What's your take on this? What cues did you pick up that enabled you to recognise it as a dream sequence right from the start?

I'm not sure where you got 80 minutes from. The version on Gaga is only 48 minutes.

Thanks for warning me off. I sampled a couple of episodes. The English subtitles are insultingly bad. I suppose since the cast are all 16-year-old amateurs they thought it only right to get an illiterate juvenile to do the subtitles too.

Good review, thanks. In your third paragraph, have you perhaps got the two main characters transposed? For me, Shu Yi was the curious cat and Shi De the patient dog. (But also a smart and devious dog. The way he sabotaged the infirmary to make sure they got locked in for the night was extremely cunning.)
PS. Do you know how they did those underwater scenes at the start of ep.1? Were they real, could those actors really do all that underwater for so long?

Just what I wanted to hear, and would have written if I could. I especially like what you say about the story All the Korean BLs I've seen show imagination in their stories, and I like the way the red thread is woven into this one.

I wonder, did you mean to write that the story is "wholly original"? Most other reviewers say the reverse. I'm also not sure if "bark of the band" is what you meant to write.

I wish you had liked the second half more. The twists and turns of the story held my interest throughout, even though the no-dating rule was just a little silly. You're right about Gun's outfit at the prom, crowned by artfully messy hair that we hadn't seen before (nice that Tinn had it too).