Beatrice

Has both fun and substance.

I appreciate the range both the writing and acting has from lighthearted humor, sweet love, to nuanced, raw, tragic devastating emotional gut punches. Aside from the very cool stylized use of solid colors to code characters and their inner minds, that the color grading of the other scenes are not afraid of color even while illustrating this world where the characters live in the grey area of morality. The costuming is also very well done. Modern drama costuming looks so deceptively simple, but it's really not. They designed looks that fit naturally without being distracting, as well as reflecting the emotional state of the characters in the scene. All the artistic and technical aspects are done and oversaw with care from the directors/producers, the labor of love from from every cast and crew is felt from the overall quality of the work.

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Another exploitative teen drama

This drama has explicit, gratuitous, graphic sex scenes of characters that are supposed to be minors, so it exploits the image of school girls in the guise of illuminating issues that the oppressed students face. Similar to Euphoria, it's pretty unnecessary to show so much, especially what the teacher does to that student. Also, that relationship only ends when the student finds out he has a fiancé rather than because he's a 30 year old teacher and she's a high schooler. The show doesn't draw the line between sexualizing minors and championing the youths be allowed to explore their sexuality. I do find it interesting that the main character challenges the rules of a private school that are not beholden to the government oversight that public schools are. It's basically instituting abstinence only, specifically for cis hetero students under the language of "no dating." The issue is that students will do it any way without any knowledge of contraception or protection against STDs. The ban only makes sex seem even more important in the kid's minds as the ultimate thing they can do to show how they feel about each other, like what happens to the main characters. As well as turning it into a police state making students report each other, even when they are outside of school grounds. Expulsions won't protect the girls. It was unpleasant to see some of the narcs just get away with ruining another classmate's life. The lesbian character should have apologized to both of the gay students she outed just because they weren't expelled due to homophobia excluding them from the abstinence no dating ban. Stalker incel Kanda doesn't even apologize to Ichika. It's not clear if she knows he narced on her as LK. Ryogo knows he narced and that he likes Ichika. Dude just ignores all the red flags of that guy obsessed with his girlfriend. Ms. Shinoda is really, borderline indulging the affections of the high schooler infatuated with her. It's unclear if she quit or got fired for testifying, but it's probably good she left that kid's orbit though she was the best faculty member on that campus. The school is such a messed up situation that Ichika's extortion scheme in a twisted way undermines the narcs that turned people in, and is helpful to the students reported a chance to buy their way out of being reported since Ichicka actually deletes the photos from the report site. Her mom is indeed trying her best and she is also a victim of her ex-husband, but still her daughter is totally also being harassed daily by loansharks, she can't really say she's not raising her daughter in this kind of desperate situation and at least she realizes that she's also a bit part of the problem having her daughter go to a private school when it's difficult to pull together the funds for it to begin with. The loanshark issue kind of just randomly disappeared with the ex popping up to take care of it. Ichika carried so much of it. It's also weird that all the high schoolers would turn over their phone to the faculty to look through. These kids need to learn to put passwords on their phone and passwords that are not fingerprint or face recognition and turn off the phone to be safe too. Also don't admit to anything. The rich kids should have lawyered up.

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Vibe killed by overlong episodes and inflated runtime

Bae Seok Ryu and Choi Seung Hyo are played by very pretty people, but attractiveness alone is not enough to keep the sizzle going for these characters. Their lack of romance had been drawn out for decades already up to the point the show starts and continued to drag on for weeks and weeks of the 80 something minute episodes. They don't have the type of relationship with any kind of spice or sweetness to sustain interest for them as potential couple for that long. In the meanwhile, it's the family and family friendship lives that are explored in depth and the emotions of those storylines overshadows and engulfs all the screen time. It's relatable, but still ill balanced to the detriment of what should be the core relationship of the show. I do give the show props for the very believable reason to hide their relationship being their loving, but suffocatingly nosy collective family that will keep them on such a close watch and infantilized that they can't actually function as a couple of consenting adults. The second couple didn't take that long to get together, but they suffer from the very odd decision the show made to introduce them in a weird scene where the hot, amazing, adventurous, confident paramedic Jung Mo Eum grabs a drink from the shop freezer like a normal person only to have it yanked in her hand by the reporter guy who felt entirely entitled to take a drink out of a woman's hand when she already took it first fair and square. It's nonsensical and the show builds him up as a amazing guy that would help divert traffic for the ambulance and raises his niece who is the sole survivor of his entire family dying in an accident, but that kind of rude behavior is just too off putting to over look and I want Mo Eum to just keep going on her adventures rather than to obsess about that weirdo no matter how otherwise virtuous he seems. Let her be free.

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Sworn sisters

The drama goes through any and all the romance drama contract marriage tropes that doesn't require falling and bumping mouths with each other or lips touching in any manner between Jin Yu and Yun Xi. I do like Jin Yu's personality and creative business venture ideas. She's a jack of all trades despite being forced to train as a military leader all her life. The deserts she creates looks delicious.

Making Yun Xi's friend bro fall in love with Jin Yu was really unnecessary. The between this character and the main one was more interesting before the unfunny scenes of him being obsessing over her being just plain annoying.

The drama makes sure to tie things up platonically with Jin Yu and Yun Xi being solidly sisters forever once Jin Yu is able to return to being a woman with her father no longer forcing her to take over the family military business. Jin Yu gets to live and work together with Yun Xi with her second leader status remaining intact. Their interactions totally change once Jin Yu gets to live as a woman and as a sister to Yun Xi and vice versa. Friends forever. There's nothing inventive or interesting going on plot wise or any clever ambiguity at the end as to how the women feel for each other. Yun Xi's father's 180 turn was really rushed.

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Dignity of self determination vs the Law

A very competently made thriller with an interesting topic and romance that builds as the mystery unravels with great experienced acting, chemistry, and production all around. It was fascinating how at the beginning of the series Dr. Kan was a bit ambiguous as to what his intentions are, very well played by the actor, then through Kan the audience learns about euthanasia and what that means as a consenting act that enables people to end their pain in a dignified way as the very last resort. The show makes sure to show how exactly it differs from murder. His love interest Captain Thiu has a very black and white view of the law, which is very ironic being a gay man without a more nuanced view that just because something is against the law, doesn't mean it's necessarily wrong, and it could be something that law needs to be changed for.

Kan's ultimate weakness was that he goes above and beyond for his patients, leaving evidence that could be traced back to him around despite his mentor's advice to be careful. The featured queer relationships all end in tragedy with lesbian couple that the doctor met with the terminally ill partner making a do not resuscitate order, but her fiancé keeps destroying them, refusing to let her dying partner make that decision for herself. The partner ultimately getting murdered by pharmacist Boss who also killed his his sugar daddy lover Dr. Som who wanted to expose Kan with Boss delusionally thinks he's helping Kan.

After finally kissing and implied consummating their relationship, Kan was tracked and followed by Thiu to the conversation he has with the coroner that turns out to be his mentor's estranged daughter leaves his fate up to Thiu who chooses to hug and arrest Kan while also professing his love to him for the first time. Kan can only cry in silence. Merry Christmas to the viewers who watched the finally on 12/25/24. This is a very competently done thought provoking drama. The ending leaves room for a continuation, but can also be left finalized as a doomed romance and starter for the conversation for euthanasia, the right to determine with dignity and standardized painless procedures on how to end one's journey on earth.

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Light Coming of Age

I love Kieta Hatsukoi, it's one of my top favorite shows ever, but it ends really soon into the story of the main couple. My Love Mix Up gets to explore the relationship in full and with differences that makes it stand out on it's own as an adaptation. This is in reference just to the two shows, not to do with the manga at all. Both Atom and Kongthap learn to grow as people through their relationship with each other. Their mile stones of physical intimacy like holding hands and kissing are so sweet. The parts that I dreaded the most, but turned out to be a very memorable subversions was the classmates doing the play and especially the teacher. In the Japanese version it was a homophobic teacher, but in the Thai version, the teacher turned out to be also gay and both he and his boyfriend become mentor figures. It's so moving to see an elder queer mentors help Atom and Kongthap how to navigate being queer in a world that's definitely not always friendly. The mothers being so supportive and loving to their sons is so heartening as well.

I didn't like Mudmee's storyline. It's the same in both the Japanese and Thai versions. I don't think violence is funny or warranted in the context of any of the situations shown. Her strength is a funny gag, but not when it's to physically assault someone who did not do anything to deserve it.

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Boring Cubed

Normally I would be all for all three characters just dating each other, but both Misaki and Yuki are the blandest people and Shuhei is annoying. There's no romantic spark or tension between the three of them. Misaki shows more spark and happiness with her friends and even her frenemy, until that guy she also has no chemistry with hits on her anyways. The show has a short runtime, but the 10 episodes feels like it drags on forever until they FINALLY divorce and cut to black with Yuki still having zero attraction to Misaki even though she's interested in joining what Yuki wants to do with Shuhei.

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A bit discordant

The production looks nice, the cast is okay. The blue hair character Do Yoon is the funniest, I had to rewatch when he pushed Tae Yi off to the side to hug Se Heon, the comic timing was great. The edit pace overall is really slow. Since this is from the same screenwriter/director from a previous drama that totally failed in the romance department, the main couple's romance here is an improvement, but there is still room for more. The characters kissing people without consent is not good, but at least they apologized I guess. I've seen complaints, but the light kissing during the high school times are both age appropriate for these characters and kudos to the actors didn't look jpeg. They also showed their grown up kissing three years later after high school, it's fine ya'll lol.

There is a concerning amount of bullying consisting both of beatings and of a sexual assault nature that are forgiven way too easily. Especially concerning when Tae Yi falls into this category. He deserved to be kicked between the legs for what he did to Se Heon. I get what they were going for in the second couple, but that reconciliation, even just as friendship was way rushed. Joo Ha needed to do way more to make amends for being the violent terror that he was toward everyone. Do Yoon deserves so much better. The reveal about Se Heon and Tae Yi's brother was sad and the conclusion to that felt a bit abrupt as well. The storylines weren't spaced out very well. They should have given a bunch of the time dedicated to bullying to develop the interpersonal storylines instead.

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