Okay, I like this so far. I liked that it treated nerdy gamers (like me) quite respectfully - this is a group way too easy to use as a comedic material, and they didn't take that route. (Minus points for equally cheap route of portraying unhappy past Hill as being overweight. Because of course he would have been handsome and popular if he had been slim, right? But this is my personal pet peeves and I digress) The premise itself is interesting and topical and I like the actors. Superhappy about Japanese as I just got back to studying that after years of separation.
I understand and can read Thai, so subs being ... um, not very good , did not affect me.
I'm usually super forgiving. I understand that low budget often shows somehow. I've thoroughly enjoyed really low budget series. I can also forgive a bit stiff acting and clunky dialogue. I'm fine with series showing effed up things as long as it is not just for the cheap shock value, but it serves the character development. If story is good and it's well told, I'm happy.
But here we have bad storytelling. It's sad, really, because story itself is quite okay. Turning it into live action just requires changes. Especially when the series is short. Can't have it all - but alas, they try. Time is wasted on totally unnecessary side plot, there are also way too many plot twists for the short time they have. Instead of one well established and resolved problem there are half a dozen flimsily handled ones. For me NC scenes are pretty meh if I don't care about the characters, so they could have been cut by half at least. By pruning the story they could have used time to develop characters, so that viewer might actually grow to care about them and/or understand the motivation behind their actions.
I feel sorry for the professionals who worked hard for this. I wish they will get better gigs in the future and will not suffer for having this in their CV because some people just couldn't leave anything out.
Note: There are good moments. I for example liked GL pair a lot and there is some clever dialogue (I watch Thai BL without subs so idk how it worked in translation)
I understand and can read Thai, so subs being ... um, not very good , did not affect me.
But here we have bad storytelling. It's sad, really, because story itself is quite okay. Turning it into live action just requires changes. Especially when the series is short. Can't have it all - but alas, they try.
Time is wasted on totally unnecessary side plot, there are also way too many plot twists for the short time they have. Instead of one well established and resolved problem there are half a dozen flimsily handled ones. For me NC scenes are pretty meh if I don't care about the characters, so they could have been cut by half at least. By pruning the story they could have used time to develop characters, so that viewer might actually grow to care about them and/or understand the motivation behind their actions.
I feel sorry for the professionals who worked hard for this. I wish they will get better gigs in the future and will not suffer for having this in their CV because some people just couldn't leave anything out.
Note: There are good moments. I for example liked GL pair a lot and there is some clever dialogue (I watch Thai BL without subs so idk how it worked in translation)