This review may contain spoilers
This was good, overall. Depressing all the way until the finale and special episode though, so you’ve got to be in the right mood.
The beginning of the story was very much about high schoolers being in situations bigger than themselves and making high schooler level decisions as a result. Haruki had so much going on with his abusive father and his head was a mess, so he kept disappearing and then re-appearing at his convenience. The separation, with Haruki pushing Jin away and leaving because he felt like he wasn’t good enough, and Jin letting him go without a fight, was very much high school-level thinking and frustrating, because it was a situation that could have been dealt with as partners with some communication.
I think Jin initially let Haruki go because he was a kid, Haruki dumped him, and he felt like he didn’t have the power to make anything better. But I didn’t really understand why he never reached out during their years of separation, especially once he found Haruki’s letter. They showed that Haruki tried to find Jin again, but Jin’s number wasn’t working and he had moved, so why didn’t Jin ever do the same?
The beginning of their relationship was a lot of dub con/non con and sexual harassment. The first three kisses were all dub con or non con, and the fourth started dub con and became consensual. It frustrated me that Haruki kept non consensually kissing Jin, even after promising that he wouldn’t anymore. He also did a bunch of other things that made Jin uncomfortable, like making him feed him water, hugging him from behind while Jin was washing his hands, smelling him, licking ice cream off his hand, sending kissing emojis, asking if Jin was trying to seduce him after Haruki pulled him and Jin fell on top of him, and the list goes on. I don’t understand why boy love dramas as a whole think this whole non-consent thing is a romantic way to showcase a developing relationship. It’s not sweet, it’s not cute. It’s sexual harassment and sexual assault and it shouldn’t be romanticized. Once they got together though, everything was consensual, both before and after the separation.
As typical for JBLs, the kissing is very chaste. Mostly pecks and dead fish lip presses. Even the shirtless make out scene had pretty much no lip movement. I thought the beginning half of the story was fine with those types of kisses. After all, they were inexperienced and awkward high schoolers. But when they reunited in college in the finale after being separated for so many years, a single lip peck was absolutely unacceptable. Even a passionate hug would have been better. It totally took the passion out of the situation. There was a proper kissing scene in the special episode, but if they were going to include a proper kiss, it should have been when they reunited.
The special episode was realistic, but disappointing to me as a romantic. Gay marriage isn’t legal in Japan and homophobia is a realistic reason not to want to come out. But all the same, I wish they had ultimately told their friends and at least had a symbolic non-legal marriage, especially given that Haruki was on board for that. It was just Jin that stopped them, although for fully realistic reasons. All the same, they did promise to be together forever, married or not, and I think a full epilogue-type episode like that was really needed to wrap the series up.
The beginning of the story was very much about high schoolers being in situations bigger than themselves and making high schooler level decisions as a result. Haruki had so much going on with his abusive father and his head was a mess, so he kept disappearing and then re-appearing at his convenience. The separation, with Haruki pushing Jin away and leaving because he felt like he wasn’t good enough, and Jin letting him go without a fight, was very much high school-level thinking and frustrating, because it was a situation that could have been dealt with as partners with some communication.
I think Jin initially let Haruki go because he was a kid, Haruki dumped him, and he felt like he didn’t have the power to make anything better. But I didn’t really understand why he never reached out during their years of separation, especially once he found Haruki’s letter. They showed that Haruki tried to find Jin again, but Jin’s number wasn’t working and he had moved, so why didn’t Jin ever do the same?
The beginning of their relationship was a lot of dub con/non con and sexual harassment. The first three kisses were all dub con or non con, and the fourth started dub con and became consensual. It frustrated me that Haruki kept non consensually kissing Jin, even after promising that he wouldn’t anymore. He also did a bunch of other things that made Jin uncomfortable, like making him feed him water, hugging him from behind while Jin was washing his hands, smelling him, licking ice cream off his hand, sending kissing emojis, asking if Jin was trying to seduce him after Haruki pulled him and Jin fell on top of him, and the list goes on. I don’t understand why boy love dramas as a whole think this whole non-consent thing is a romantic way to showcase a developing relationship. It’s not sweet, it’s not cute. It’s sexual harassment and sexual assault and it shouldn’t be romanticized. Once they got together though, everything was consensual, both before and after the separation.
As typical for JBLs, the kissing is very chaste. Mostly pecks and dead fish lip presses. Even the shirtless make out scene had pretty much no lip movement. I thought the beginning half of the story was fine with those types of kisses. After all, they were inexperienced and awkward high schoolers. But when they reunited in college in the finale after being separated for so many years, a single lip peck was absolutely unacceptable. Even a passionate hug would have been better. It totally took the passion out of the situation. There was a proper kissing scene in the special episode, but if they were going to include a proper kiss, it should have been when they reunited.
The special episode was realistic, but disappointing to me as a romantic. Gay marriage isn’t legal in Japan and homophobia is a realistic reason not to want to come out. But all the same, I wish they had ultimately told their friends and at least had a symbolic non-legal marriage, especially given that Haruki was on board for that. It was just Jin that stopped them, although for fully realistic reasons. All the same, they did promise to be together forever, married or not, and I think a full epilogue-type episode like that was really needed to wrap the series up.
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