denryion

This series was good in a lot of ways but also felt kind of lacking as well.

The main thing is that I was so much more invested in the past life than the present. The past life was a more compelling story — forbidden love and family drama and running away and a tragic end. In the present, there’s pretty much no obstacles to their love. They’re both into each other, there’s no cliched jealousy arcs, all their family approves…the only “conflict”, if you can even call it that, is them remembering their past lives, rediscovering the people from those lives, and coming to terms with that trauma and their identities in relation to and separate from those lives. I would have so much preferred a full series dedicated to the past life, with an episode or two at the end showing their reincarnation and reunion to give them a happy ending.

Also, the past life actors were so much better, in my opinion. Earth and Fluke were both constantly crying, but I thought Earth was more believable. Particularly in the climax scenes for both pairs, Earth was much more believable when he was grieving Korn and then killing himself, than when Pharm was breaking down and threatening to kill himself. Kao and Ohm were both supposed to be cold and stoic, but Kao did a great job of letting actual emotions and affection peek through, whereas Ohm was really straight-faced even when he was crying or head over heels in love. It would have been great if they had switched the actor pairs that played the past / present versions, or even had the past life actors play both versions.

Also, I liked relationship dynamic of the past life couple more. In the past, although there’s a clear division where Korn is meant to be the “dominant” one and In is meant the be the “submissive” one (and I say that in relation to traditional BL roles, because in reality there shouldn’t be dom / sub dynamics in a relationship unless they’re explicitly negotiated), In is strong and assertive within himself. In actually makes the first move and pursues Korn. He protects and takes care of Korn, he initiates and doesn’t shy away from physical affection, and he’s confident and assertive. He gives Korn gifts, explicitly says he wants to take care of him, tells him he wants to pursue him and asks him to be his boyfriend. Meanwhile, Dean pretty much always takes the lead and makes the first move — Dean drives, Dean pays, Dean opens the doors, Dean plans the dates, Dean initiates affection. Dean is responsible for protecting and caring for Pharm. Pharm is shy, delicate, docile, struggles to say no, and is constantly shying away from physical affection. I wanted him to be stronger and more assertive at least some of the time. The past life version of the couple felt more equal in relationship dynamics as a result.

Also, Pharm was so overly chaste and shy, scolding Dean for even kissing his cheek well into their relationship, and constantly hiding his face and unable to maintain eye contact. In wasn’t like that — he initiated physical affection himself. The past life couple properly kisses, while the present life couple’s kisses were often short, stilted, awkward, or chaste, because Pharm was always dodging or pulling away. There’s one scene in the past life where In pecks Korn on the lips and Korn says, “You call that a kiss?”, and proceeds to kiss him properly. Except that shitty peck is the standard for the type of kisses Pharm allows.

In typical BL fashion, there are of course consent / boundary issues. Dean comes off pretty strong, Pharm always looks extremely uncomfortable with any level of physical affection, Pharm struggles to give an explicit no, and Dean doesn’t back off until he gets an explicit no. So that’s the primary root of the problem.

For example, Dean kept insisting that he pick Pharm up in the mornings until Pharm gave in, because Pharm was trying to softly reject and soft rejections don’t work on Dean. When Pharm explicitly tells him to stop picking up in the morning though, Dean listens. Or their first kiss, where Pharm keeps backing up until he can’t anymore because he was uncomfortable, but Dean kept advancing. The kiss itself was consensual, and Dean confirms if he’s okay afterward, but why did he keep advancing when Pharm was clearly uncomfortable? There’s another scene where once again, Dean keeps leaning in as Pharm keeps leaning away until he can’t anymore and then just scrunches his eyes shut. Dean ultimately kisses his forehead because he sees he’s uncomfortable, but was it necessary to keep advancing for so long when he was already backing away? Or yet another scene where Pharm is leaning way, says Dean’s name in protest right before the kiss, and is semi-pushing Dean away during the kiss. Dean doesn’t back off until he’s properly pushed away, after which he stops and apologizes. But there were so many signs to stop before that point. Or another scene where Dean asks to stay over, and starts kissing down Pharm’s body, and Pharm looks so viscerally uncomfortable the whole time until Dean decides to just lie down and cuddle him.

There are two “NC” scenes (in quotes because it’s just chaste kissing and fade to black). Both were questionable due to Pharm’s uncomfortable demeanor. During the first, Dean says he wants a “reward”. Pharm is hiding under the covers and looks really uncomfortable, and voices hesitation due to not wanting others to hear them. Dean kind of talks him into it, and while it was ultimately consensual, it wasn’t really enthusiastic consent. Given it was their first sexual encounter and Pharm is so overly innocent, it really should have been a situation where he was 100% on board mentally, emotionally, and physically before proceeding. They don’t go all the way in that first scene, and the morning after, Pharm is STILL shy about even kissing Dean.

In the second scene, Dean TELLS (doesn’t ask) Pharm that they’ll be having a sleepover in a week, that it won’t be just a sleepover over, that he’s giving Pharm a week to prepare himself and that he’s been waiting so long and can’t want any longer. I can’t tell you how viscerally angry that made me. Pharm is clearly anxious in the lead up, especially when he sees the condoms. He keeps backing way, protesting, dodging kisses and making excuses, and while he ultimately gives in and they proceed consensually, it still made me uncomfortable. Pharm was so overly innocent and uncomfortable with physical affection. He should have been given the time and opportunity to explicitly verbalize if he was truly mentally and emotionally ready, because it was clear to me that he wasn’t. Dean should have asked, not told, and he shouldn’t have pressured Pharm. In the aftermath, the neighbor says he overhead them and that he was planning to intervene if Pharm “kept crying and Dean didn’t stop”. And he gives Pharm medicine for the pain. I’m sorry, but sex is supposed to feel good for both parties, and if it’s actively bad for one person, then it needs to stop immediately. You don’t just keep going because it feels good for you, like wtf?

When Pharm has a panic attack, Dean forces him to go to the hospital, saying, “I wasn’t asking,” and “Do you want to walk or do I have to carry you?” I find that type of controlling care really disturbing, personally. It’s not really caring for someone if you remove their personal agency and right to choose. People are allowed to make their own decisions, even if you don’t perceive them to be in their best interest. It was hypocritical too, because when Dean almost crashes the car while having a flashback, he doesn’t let his siblings take him to the hospital. And when Pharm is having nightmares, Dean wants to move in and says he’ll only go home if Pharm comes with him, again removing his choice in the matter.

Also, Dean introduces himself to Pharm’s brother and ends up somewhat forcing Pharm into introducing him as his boyfriend coming out to his family. And he comes on really strong about moving in together and getting married when Pharm is clearly not there yet.

In the past life, In pursues Korn for almost a month while Korn repeatedly rejects him. He even says, “You didn’t say no so that means yes,” a few times. There’s a character in the present life that continuously pursues Pharm for the first few episodes, and he’s painted as (and is) the bad guy for not accepting no for an answer, but In did the exact same thing to Korn and that was never acknowledged. Also, the guy pursuing Pharm ends up with Dean’s sister, and I have no clue why they paired the sexual harasser with the lead’s sister. So unnecessary.

I had an issue with Win / Team in Between Us because Win was really domineering and Team always looked uncomfortable with him. I liked them better in this series, because Team was more confident and assertive and seemed less uncomfortable. In terms of consent issues, there was one scene where Win pulls off Team’s towel thinking he’s naked underneath, and another where he pins down Team and tries to kiss him so Team knees him in the nuts. Also there’s a dub con / non con scene where Team is drunk and Win kisses him while Team is protesting and trying to push him off.

And side note, but choosing to have Pharm reincarnate as part of Korn’s family and Dean reincarnate as part of In’s family was some kind of weird semi-incestuous choice. The line is kind of blurry about whether Pharm and Dean see themselves as reincarnated versions of In and Korn or if they see themselves as vessels for their souls and memories. Or whether they love Korn and In themselves because they see them as the same people as their current personas, or if they see them as different people and are just connected to the memories of their past personas loving them. Either way, it’s weird that Dean is kind of in love with his grand uncle and Pharm is kind of in love with his uncle.

Aside from all that, there was just a big pacing issue. Everything was so slow, with long silences and extended periods of crying or staring into each other’s eyes. In the first couple episodes, I felt there was too much time spent introducing side characters that didn’t play a super significant role in the rest of the series. Watching on 2x speed felt like watching on 1x speed most of the time. There was absolutely no need for this to be 17 episodes long, especially considering that like I said, there wasn’t much actual conflict in the present timeline that the couple had to face. And the random break up in the finale, followed by an abrupt 3 month time skip, to see whether “their love is real” (or just a result of their past life connection), was so utterly unnecessary.

There were a couple things mentioned in the series that I personally felt were problematic. One is the idea that because Pharm is a small delicate guy that cooks, that he’s inherently the type of person that people like to ship with other guys. Or referring to him as a “housewife” instead of a “househusband” for liking to cook, as if cooking is an inherently wifely duty. There was one scene where Dean wouldn’t allow his college-aged sister to stay home alone because she’s a girl and it’s “dangerous”, which is plain sexist. Also, Team body-shamed the female friend multiple times — telling her to “look at your body” when she says she’ll wear a swim suit to eat swim-team-exclusive desserts, saying “that’s why your body looks like that” when she’s talking about eating all the desserts, and even calling her “fatty” — all in a humorous light.

And as a more minor issue, there was a lot of non con photo taking. Pharm takes a photo of Dean sleeping before they’ve even spoken. Dean takes photos of Pharm on their date after Pharm explicitly states not to and then posts one online. Their friends and random strangers are constantly taking photos of them and posting them online for shipping / gossip purposes.

Also as a side note, I know this was made in 2019 but the swoop hair and skinny pants were a real choice.

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This started strong, but kind of fell flat as it went on. There’s a lot of things that didn’t really work for me in terms of relationship development for all the characters involved.

For the main couple, we know that Minwoo likes Yooha and we can see the progression of his feelings developing. It makes sense that Minwoo likes Yooha. He’s this clean, pristine, closed-off person, and Yooha brings something new and dynamic to his life. He cares and shows an interest in Minwoo that no one else ever has. But what exactly does Minwoo provide to Yooha? There’s not a lot of character development for Minwoo - he’s clean, pristine, and closed-off all the way to the end, except for maybe giving a few more closed-lip smiles. He’s not emotionally forthcoming, and we never see him do anything genuinely nice or caring for Yooha. The only thing he ever did was go looking for Yooha’s brother when he went missing, but after he found him, he didn’t even tell Yooha that he did. Instead, Yooha found out where he was when his brother’s co-conspirator came clean of her own volition. It’s a small thing, but that scene where Minwoo accidentally makes a coffee for Yooha with salt instead of sugar but then doubles down that it was on purpose and Yooha feels pressured into drinking the whole thing…I can’t help but feel like that could have been a pivotal scene where Minwoo could have shown a caring side by admitting he was wrong and fixing it. As it is, I don’t feel we ever got a pivotal moment. I never really got when Yooha fell for Minwoo or why.

The relationship build up started off well, though. The fake dating and Minwoo falling for Yooha were good. When Minwoo kisses Yooha and freaks out, apologizing and telling Yooha that he should have maintained the contractual terms of their relationship, that conflict should have been the focal turning point of their relationship. Instead, they don’t talk for days, Yooha terminates the contract to fake date someone else offering more money to save his brother’s bar, and they don’t really talk again until the end of the show. Minwoo turns up drunk, finds out Yooha’s brother is missing, locates said brother but does nothing with that information, then the brother returns home by himself, Minwoo confesses, and they live happily ever after. They don’t get together until midway through the final episode. The pacing just felt off. With all that time apart, I didn’t feel a proper emotional connection between them, and with them getting together so late, I felt the relationship was too new to feel stable enough for a true HEA.

Yooha and Taeha’s relationship didn’t make sense to me, from start to end. We’re told they’re “brothers,” but they’re not biologically related. And the way that Taeha acts, I can’t help but feel he has feelings for Yooha. He was so obsessively dependent on Yooha. He wanted Yooha with him by his side forever, and when Yooha wanted independence and left home, he went as far as faking his disappearance and the threat of the bar being auctioned off because he wanted Yooha to come running to him for help. Instead, Yooha was able to manage on his own, and Taeha fell apart even more. I don’t think it’s normal to be so emotionally dependent on your brother, or to have such a volatile reaction to the idea of him fake dating someone. Or to touch him, or caress his face, hair, or hand in that way. It was genuinely weird. Yooha and Taeha have matching “family” rings, except their family is just the two of them so it came across more like couple rings. I wanted Yooha to take his off already, but the show was going with the premise that these two have a normal brotherly relationship, so the rings stayed.

And the side couple should not have happened at all. Jaemin had feelings for Taeha for the entire show, but Taeha never once even noticed him beyond a bar employee. In the final episode, Taeha is crying over Yooha and saying he doesn’t know how he can live without him and Jaemin is comforting him, and then Taeha suddenly kisses Jaemin. It didn’t feel like a couple getting together or finally revealing feelings for each other. It was a man hopelessly in love with someone who would never love him back (in my mind anyways, the show thinks they’re brothers), crying over him, and then he kisses the closest person he can latch onto. All he’s doing there, brotherly feelings or not, is shifting his obsession to someone else. He never even noticed Jaemin before, let alone developed genuine feelings for him. He kisses Jaemin, pulls away and apologizes, and after Jaemin processes, he kisses Taeha. Except Taeha looked like he massively regretted that first kiss and didn’t want the second. So all in all, a messy, non-romantic situation and they would have been better off leaving both of them single.

Also, Suyeon made zero sense to me. I don’t know why she was let off scot free like she did nothing wrong at the end. She was Minwoo’s boss and she was in a relationship with a man that didn’t want to marry her. She finds out Yooha is only fake dating Minwoo and decides to hire him herself so that she can make her boyfriend jealous. Except I don’t know what she was trying to accomplish, because she breaks it off with him and when he shows up at the same cafe she’s at with Yooha, Yooha is confrontational, saying that he’s her boyfriend and he needs to leave her alone. I thought the goal was to make him jealous, not to get him to leave her alone, so that made no sense to me.

And then she claims that her ex is harassing her so she wants to hire Yooha longterm. I don’t know if that claim was true or not, but we never hear of it again and she turns out to be a serial liar, so I’m assuming it wasn’t. But to get Yooha to agree to that, she first lies to Yooha’s brother saying she’s Minwoo’s fiancee under the premise that both of them have been wronged and Yooha / Minwoo need to return back to where they belong. So they decide that the brother will disappear and they’ll fake the bar being put up for auction. The brother wanted Yooha to run to him when he’s in trouble, and Suyeon wanted to offer financial support for the bar to convince Yooha to fake date her. So Yooha agrees and ends the contract with Minwoo to fake date her.

Except she changes the terms, saying that she likes him and since she’s offering so much financial support, he should give some of himself to her too. That was really messed up, given the financial power dynamic and the fact that she made the money conditional on his reciprocation. Eventually Yooha breaks the contract with her, but then she’s suddenly portrayed as the good guy, because she lets him keep the money, tells him the truth about his brother’s whereabouts, and lets him cleanly cut ties, no drama. And in the end, but Minwoo and Yooha end up working under her. Like what? No consequences whatsoever?

Consent / boundary issues: Suyeon essentially coerces Yooha into putting forth something real even though their relationship is supposed to be entirely fake by making the money he needs to save his brother’s bar conditional on it. While it’s not necessarily romanticized, it’s also not properly acknowledged either, and Suyeon never faces any consequences. In the finale, Taeha surprise kisses Jaemin without giving him the opportunity to consent. Then when Jaemin processes, he kisses Taeha except Taeha looks like he regretted kissing Jaemin and didn’t want that second kiss.

Kisses: For the main couple, there’s a lip press kiss midway through the series, and 2 LONG intense kisses in the finale. For the side couple, there’s two wide-eyed lip presses in the finale (one kisses the other while they’re staring wide-eyed, and then that one kisses the first while they’re staring wide-eyed).

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I actually really enjoyed this. Of course, it would always be better in landscape format and in longer increments, but the overall story was enjoyable, the acting was decent, and the pacing was good. I especially liked that after the climax, there were still a couple episodes to wrap up loose ends and give us time to actually see a HEA. Most shorts series tend to wrap up immediately so we don’t get to see the payoff after the conflict.

In terms of the actual production, there were a couple running scenes that looked absolutely ludicrous, and there were inconsistencies in where the actors were positioned between cuts sometimes. It was decent overall though. And in terms of the story, it had your typical bandaid magic solution that fixes everything — Doyun’s uncle was the chairman of Siwoo's company and fired the CEO. As usual with K-dramas, nepotism comes to the rescue.

Also, I know it was just so they could add a jealousy arc, but it was really weird that Wonchan and Siwoo had a completely platonic relationship but would cuddle in a single bed, lie in each other’s lap, touch each other’s hair, hug to greet each other, etc. The last two I guess could be written off as friendly, but what kind of friends cuddle to sleep?

In terms of consent / boundary issues, the overall plot is that a sasaeng is stalking Siwoo, but it isn’t romanticized. Between the leads, there’s a scene where Doyun watches Siwoo while he’s sleeping and touches his hair and cheek. And less problematic because she didn’t play a large role in the series, but the professor drinks with her students multiple times and asks Siwoo for his personal number.

There are 3 kisses in this series. Two are very chaste, with a small amount of mouth movement but not that much better than a lip press. And one is a peck.

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This was a campy, over-the-top, soap-opera level, over-dramatic series. Don’t take it too seriously, and don’t expect too much. The dialogue is bad, the acting is terrible, the editing is inconsistent, there are plot holes and inconsistencies galore, and the entire premise is ridiculous. Don’t try to make logical sense of anything, because you won’t be able to. But all the same, it was still fun to watch.

Given that the show is meant to be ridiculous, I’m not going to criticize all the ridiculous things that happened. But I will say that I wish it hadn’t been executed as a rich people dick measuring contest. Natee’s family kept calling him “poor” when he’s probably still in the top 1%, and Phakin would respond by buying something way more expensive than the family could afford. So it turned into one upping each other’s richness instead of a love-over-money thing, which is what I would have preferred. They invited a bunch of rich CEOs they had no personal connection with to the wedding, and wow those wedding rings were UGLY. Rich people need to learn big diamonds don’t make pretty rings.

Consent / boundary issues: Irene (arranged fiancé) attempted to rape Natee via spiked drink. Phakin had his employees keep tabs on Natee, which is how he knew he was at the club and in trouble. While drugged, Natee was inappropriately touching himself and Phakin, and I felt Phakin took a touch too long to step away. He also helped Natee shower apparently, because Natee woke up naked. Not sure why that was necessary. Phakin also made a joke about showering together immediately after they got married that made Natee uncomfortable. When Natee walks in on Phakin in the shower, he stares for way too long before exiting. When Natee is upset with Phakin after discovering his true identity, Phakin hugs him without checking for consent but gets pushed away and doesn’t persist further. When they’re having fake sex to fool the family, Phakin grabs / chokes Natee’s neck and that did not appear to be pre-negotiated. Natee hugs Phakin from behind, saying that’s how his mom used to hold him, but really it’s just an excuse to touch him, because he starts feeling up his abs and moves his hands down towards his crotch before Phakin stops him.

There’s one kiss at the end after they get married, and one NC scene where they’re pretending to have sex to fool Natee’s family. There’s no actual lip-to-body contact in that scene (Phakin kisses his finger instead of Natee’s mouth and only hovers his lips over the rest of his body), but it was fairly steamy for a shorts series. Phakin ties up Natee’s hands with a belt (pre-negotiated) and also grabs / chokes his neck (not pre-negotiated).

I’m not sure if it was a subtitle translation issue or them being heteronormative, but they referred to Natee with feminine words such as “wife” and “madam” even though he didn’t identify as a fem gender. They also used “her” to describe a fem male character that wasn’t indicated to be transfeminine.

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This started mediocre, and only got worse as it went on. The finale was genuinely terrible.

Zen sucked. He was just generally unlikable, like when he blamed the journalist girl for exposing the basketball team for doing drugs instead of blaming the players doing drugs. Or when he was opposed to the autistic kid joining the team because he assumed he’d be untalented and slow to pick things up. And maybe it was because the actor that played him sucks at basketball, but every time they showed him playing, he looked really bad at basketball. Except they kept saying he was supposed to be good. Plus, I don’t think he ever gave back to Ryu what Ryu was giving to him in their relationship.

First of all, he never once drew boundaries with Atom. Atom liked him and Zen knew it, but not once in the entire series did he actually tell Atom that he and Ryu were together, not even when Atom confessed his feelings. Atom only knew because he saw / overheard them, and he went on flirting even after that. Like there were times where Zen would seem uncomfortable, like when Atom was holding his hand and flirting, or when Atom agreed to take photos with him for a BL shipping website. But he never said no or stopped him. And he would let Atom towel dry his hair instead of doing it himself, let Atom stay over and sleep in the same bed, touch Atom’s shoulder, and say Atom was looking handsome now that his wounds healed. He should have drawn strict platonic boundaries from the get go.

And Ryu would always be the one initiating physical affection while Zen would always be protesting and dodging. Both physical and also verbally. Like Ryu would always be the one initiating statements like, “I miss you.” There’s a scene where Zen tries to save Ryu from the gang boss but gets caught and they’re both beaten. Ryu tells Zen not to risk his life again because he worries, and Zen kind of just nods and says okay. Like why is he not reciprocating that sentiment? Saying that he also worries and can’t stand by while Ryu gets beat? And when the two of them are on a team with Atom, I wanted Zen to give some level of preferential treatment to Ryu, but he always treated him completely equal to Atom. He didn’t look at, touch, or pay any more attention to Ryu than he did to Atom.

And the fact that Zen chose to transfer to another school at the end pissed me off. Because Ryu was literally trying to run away from his mom so he could stay with Zen and play with him like he promised. And Zen not only left voluntarily, but he left to go to a different school with Atom. I get it, it’s high school and your dreams and career need to come before a relationship that probably won’t realistically last. But this is a BL, and I’m not looking for realism; I’m looking for romance. And Ryu offered an alternative so that Zen could stay where his mom could pay, but Zen turned it down because of his pride. But he was sitting there talking about, “it’s life and some things are out of our control,” when this was quite literally a decision entirely in his control. Also, the fact that when he left, he didn’t even hug or kiss Ryu goodbye and walked out with Atom’s arm around his shoulder was the worst. And Zen didn’t even bother to tell Ryu that this was something he was thinking about doing, or tell him before he told everyone else.

The finale was a mess for a number of reasons. First of all, Ryu was only upset about Zen leaving for 0.2 seconds before suddenly he was able to get his head back in the game and also wasn’t at all angry anymore, just sad. Their separation takes place 11 minutes from the end of the show and then there’s a 3 month time skip and they’re reunited with 5 minutes left in the show. Nothing was explained about why Zen came back, and although they said the basketball club disbanding was postponed, they didn’t say whether it would be around the next year. And the whole reason Zen left was because the club was disbanding and he needed to play to be eligible for a college scholarship. And when they reunite, they don’t even kiss. Just hug and get on with it - no emotions, no surprise, no nothing. They didn’t even explain whether they broke up or were in contact for that period of separation.

Atom and Q were super annoying. Atom was a nice, kind dude. The story could have easily been written to have him as the main lead instead of Ryu. But why would you make the love triangle be with someone that’s so nice and never does anything wrong? I as a viewer don’t want to see him as a viable option. Especially since he’s ALWAYS around and Zen never draws boundaries. And I don’t get Q at all…he slept with the gang boss a number of times to protect Ryu and then ultimately killed him to protect Ryu and is now living life on the run. Even in the finale, he’s on the run. Is he going to do that forever? Are we supposed to believe he’ll never be caught? And how old is Q anyways, because I thought he was an adult but he has a crush on a 16/17 year old and that was never addressed. Are these two ever going to take a hint and move on or are they just going to be pining around forever?

Also, Ryu’s back story made zero sense. We’re told he disappeared in middle school, missing the final basketball game, and ended up on the streets. Why exactly did he disappear, what happened right before the basketball game final, and how did he end up on the streets when his mom was so rich and controlling? Like you’re telling me she just let him runaway? He never even explained any of that to Zen. And what happened between Zen and Ryu in middle school? It’s implied that they may have had some level of feelings for each other, and Ryu says he treated Zen badly in middle school. But how deep and how far did the romance back then go and what happened between them after? And after disappearing for so many years, why does he keep bumping into Zen every 5 minutes now?

Also, Ryu was hellbent on not speaking to or interacting with his mom. He refused to go to her for money even after the basketball club was about to disband due to having no budget. But when the coach was implicated for past drug use, he was suddenly willing to speak to her to get her to vouch for the coach. And not only that, but he agreed to move back home AND study abroad in the UK. Like what? Why was he suddenly willing to do all that? And why didn’t Ryu just leave after getting what he wanted from his mom and having the coach keep his job? Why didn’t he just leave to avoid having to study abroad and live at home with her controlling nonsense? And why did the mom, after literally physically restraining him to force him to go to the UK, suddenly do a complete 180 and decide that he could stay after all? I would have so much preferred it if this series took place in college and Ryu gave a massive “fuck you” to his mom and stayed living with Zen.

The physical intimacy / NC scenes in this were a complete shit show. For the first few episodes, there’s so much naked ass from random extras and side characters. It served zero purpose. It wasn’t like they were even part of NC scenes or anything. And then suddenly the show gets super chaste, because all the ass disappears, the kissing slowly dwindles from proper but closed mouth kisses to hugs and cheek kisses and the occasional peck. Even the finale just had hugs and cheek kisses and pecks. The finale has the worst NC scene of all time where they trash around completely under the covers while the grandma sits downstairs with headphones. It was like a comedic scene in a crack show - it wasn’t intimate or emotional or sensual and they don’t kiss. There’s also a scene where they talk about “taking their relationship to the next level,” but only a peck is shown, so I’m not sure if that was supposed to allude to sex. And there’s one other scene with them in a shower and a hand job is alluded to…but at least there’s a proper kiss in this one. Plus one scene (face only) where Atom masturbates. The contrast of the naked asses and explicit concepts, like alluding to a handjob and having Atom masturbate, just didn’t make sense given how chaste the actual physical interactions were as the series went on. Like them just fist bumping when Ryu moves out or just doing a friendly hug when they reunite after 3 months…what even is that?

In terms of consent issues, Zen plays the BL “reluctant, shy, blushing virgin” role, so there are a few scenes where Ryu initiates and Zen is protesting and dodging. I hate that trope because why are you making it dub con when it could so easily be consensual? Also the scene where Atom masturbates to either photos or texts from Zen was creepy. Because why are you masturbating to photos of your literal friend without their consent, especially knowing he’s interested in someone else and likely wouldn’t consent if you did ask? Atom also almost kisses Zen in his sleep, but instead pulls back at the last minute and kisses his forehead (still non-consensually) instead. There’s one shorter scene at the beginning, where the gang boss forces Q to interact with a naked dude at an ongoing orgy after Q refuses. Also, Lin (journalist girl turned team manager) has the idea to have a bunch of minors objectify themselves by putting them in dunk tanks and posting pictures of them shirtless, sweaty, and wet online. Everyone is hesitant about this, but after Zen agrees, everyone else gets on board, but it felt like no one really had the option to say no after Zen said yes. Also, Zen and Ryu are both hesitant to actually be the ones shirtless and in the tanks, but people offer to pay “anything”, and then Lin and the crowd peer pressure them to do it.

There were a couple overly possessive moments on Ryu’s part as well. Saying things like, “Don’t let anyone get close unless it’s necessarily. Don’t serve Atom food. Don’t smile at Atom. Don’t let Atom get within 3 feet of you.” But he does calm down and at one point says that he’s jealous of Atom but doesn’t want to overreact, and Zen assures him that he’s already chosen him. Ryu is never controlling though, and never demands that Zen stop being friends with Atom, even when Zen completely fails to establish appropriate boundaries.

The pacing and writing weren’t great either. By episode 3, pretty much nothing much had progressed from where things stood in episode 1. It was slow and boring. The whole concept of having adult actors play both high schooler and middle schoolers (in flashbacks) did not work because they looked like college students, at minimum. Like why does a middle schooler have tattoos? The basketball shop talk was kept to the bare minimum, most likely because I don’t think the writers knew anything about basketball. There was zero coaching aside from drills, and the coach only gave the most surface-level nonsense “strategies” once a while mid-game. Atom was initially written as a swimmer, but then suddenly they made him a basketball player and the switch was never acknowledged. The entire series is spent trashing street basketball because the money comes from shady places, but when Zen’s grandma gets sick, everyone including the adult coach is completely onboard with them playing for prize money. The coach was an alcoholic, drinking on the job around a bunch of minors, but somehow this was never acknowledged, even when his past narcotic use was brought up and they were contemplating removing him as a coach. And as much as they showed his drinking, they never showed him addressing it, so the show ends with him still an alcoholic.

It was also hard for me to see these characters as high schoolers. They all look like adults, and there’s no real adult supervision at any point in time. The only thing “high school” about any of it was that they had terrible communication and made high school level decisions…stupid and not thought out. I think this would have worked better in a college setting.

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Objectively, this was very good. The writing, pacing, and overall production were all impressive. All the actors did an amazing job. But it’s a dark and somewhat depressing story about sexual harassment and assault, and while the romance is at the forefront, that overarching plot takes a front seat. So you have to know what you’re in for and be in the right headspace for it or it can catch you off guard.

In terms of consent issues, Su Yi is raped by Fang Runzhi and Pei Jia was also sexually harassed by him. Fang Runzhi is the leader of the management agency that both of them are under and is the villain of the show, so this is not something that is romanticized or normalized. There’s also an unfortunate scene where in the aftermath of the rape, Su Yi breaks things off with Pei Jia and Pei Jia non-consensually kisses him to try to prove that Su Yi is lying about not feeling anything for Pei Jia. It ends when Su Yi breaks a glass after pushing him off doesn’t work. This was so tone deaf, especially in the aftermath of Su Yi being raped (especially since Pei Jia suspected) and in the context of a series actively criticizing sexual assault. And it was never acknowledged, criticized, or apologized for.

I appreciated the criticism of gay censorship included in this series. From what I understand, this is a Chinese production distributed through Singapore to avoid Chinese censorship, so I guess the message hits close to home for the production team. The characters are definitively in a romantic relationship, as opposed to a bromance. They actually kiss - not dead fish lip presses, but closed mouth with minimal lip movement and camera angles / cuts that somewhat limit the view. But there was plenty of physical intimacy conveyed just through the actors’ body language and casual touches. I don’t think the lack of a deep or steamy kiss took away from the series, in this case.

I felt that the romance took a bit of a backseat in the second half of the series as a result of the whole sexual assault plot line. It was well done, and I think they showed just enough of the romance to prevent it from taking away from the story they were trying to tell. The ending speech from Pei Jia brought the romance back to the forefront, and that helped. But it definitely felt more like a drama than a BL for a while.

I wanted more closure in the end though. The show ends right after Pei Jia exposes Fang Runzhi in a press conference. First and foremost, I was really missing a proper ending interaction between Pei Jia and Su Yi. They hadn’t seen each other in 10 days in the lead up to the press conference to avoid Fang Runzhi’s attention, and were arguing for a few days because Su Yi was hesitant about revealing his story publicly. They needed a kiss, a hug, a conversation…something other than Pei Jia grabbing Su Yi’s arm as he left the room and the show immediately ending. Also, Su Yi had a tumor that made him blind, and I wanted at least an indication of whether he would have surgery or what he was planning to do. Because left untreated, he was going to die. It would have been nice to see Fang Runzhi’s fate too, but I’m less bothered by that because we saw his reaction to being exposed and the implication is that he will see consequences.

There were a couple of small plot things that bothered me. One was that Pei Jia was sexually harassed by Fang Runzhi initially, but Fang Runzhi seems to have come to the conclusion that he “can’t have” him. It was never explained how Pei Jia got Fang Runzhi to leave him alone while still working under him. Second is that the story starts because Pei Jia joins a low budget production that Fang Runzhi invested in, but it was never explained why Fang Runzhi invested or put Pei Jia in it, especially given that the film is referred to as an “embarrassment” to the company. There’s also the absolute ridiculousness of contractually stipulating that actors share the same bed for the sake of “chemistry”.

I also couldn’t really click with the second couple. I just didn’t get Su Bai at all. They were together for 9 YEARS, and he threw it all away for what? Because his boyfriend gave into censorship demands? What else was he supposed to do? If he didn’t, the whole film would have been shut down. He couldn’t properly verbalize why he was leaving, and he was reluctant to work things out even when the director was fighting for him and telling him he was willing to change, if he could just tell him what he did wrong. He just walked away for no real reason.

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I went into this with low expectations due to the poor reviews, but I ended up enjoying it more than expected. For the first 6 episodes, anyways. The last two episodes were a mess and really annoyed me.

My biggest issue was that Nawa was either too stupid or naive to understand Phraphai’s intentions, or he understood perfectly well and was playing dumb and refusing to establish proper boundaries for literally the entire series. Phraphai had feelings for Nawa and Nawa didn’t reciprocate, and that’s fine. But why was Nawa CONSTANTLY letting Phraphai touch him, pet his hair, and hold his hand? (And what’s with the hair petting? He’s not a damn dog.) Half the time, he was the one initiating the hand-holding. He’s not stupid — he understood that Phu was hitting on him right away.

Nawa takes off the necklace Phraphai gave him the morning after he and Phu officially get together. But if he understood that the significance of that necklace was non-platonic, why did he wear it for so long after he already had feelings for and was involved with Phu? There’s a scene where Phraphai says that he wants to care for and protect Nawa, and Nawa definitively catches on then if he didn’t before, because he makes a pointed comment about caring for Phraphai as a brother. But after that, during the same scene and for the rest of the series, why is there still hand-holding and hair petting going on? Even in the scene where he finally tells Phraphai that he and Phu are in a relationship, he’s STILL HOLDING HANDS WITH HIM. He’s still letting him touch his hair and hug him. He says that he’ll swim alone that night, so that means he must have understood the non-platonic significance of spending every full moon with Phraphai, but yet he’s been continuing to do it this entire time while involved with Phu. When Phraphai insists that he “protect” Nawa by driving him to and from work and having someone stay at his house every night, Nawa goes along with it for literal WEEKS. Why did those measures mean that Phu couldn’t come stay over? Why couldn’t they still act like a couple just because Phraphai was insisting on acting like a bodyguard? Why was Nawa so willing to sacrifice his relationship instead of just telling Phraphai the truth about him and Phu?

And when Phu finds out the truth by witnessing Nawa’s transformation, Phraphai lies and says he ran terrified and that humans can never love mermen. Not only does Nawa accept that as fact without even talking to Phu, he agrees to go live with Phraphai for “protection” BEFORE even hearing about Phu’s reaction. He spent the last 3 weeks ruining his relationship, finally stands up to Phraphai and tells him about his relationship and that he wants to be with Phu, only to immediately agree to move in with Phraphai and ruin his relationship again. He’s so quick to give up on his relationship without even talking to Phu. They’re holding hands again during this conversation by the way, because of course they are. And when Phraphai later says he wants Nawa by his side forever while he leads the merman, Nawa just agrees (while holding his hand). I know he knows Phraphai isn’t talking platonically at this point, so at what point is he going to shut him down?

The answer is never, because Phraphai proceeds to attempt to kill Phu, and when Nawa tries to sacrifice himself to save Phu with his merman blood, Phraphai chooses to sacrifice himself instead. During the sacrificial scene, Phraphai has Nawa tied up so he can’t interfere, and he kisses Nawa through the duct tape on his mouth. And Nawa allows it. And Nawa is more devastated about Phraphai than Phu, because he definitively cries much harder than when Phu was dying, and when he’s untied, he goes to Phraphai instead of Phu, who is also lying unconscious. He goes to Phraphai’s funeral while Phu is still unconscious instead of staying by his side. And when Phu wakes up, Nawa barely seems happy. He seems more upset about Phraphai’s death than happy about Phu being alive.

And why was Phraphai given a redemption arc? Man was manipulative as fuck. The whole time, he was lying to Nawa about “protecting” him and about there being humans out there hunting merman. His own father orchestrated the merman killings, and he continued the lie after finding out the truth. His only motive was to make Nawa hate humans and Phu so that he could have Nawa to himself. But at his funeral, he and his father were both being praised as martyrs. For what? The only good thing Phraphai did was sacrifice himself to save Phu, and he wouldn’t have had to do that if he didn’t try to kill Phu in the first place.

The last two episodes are all about that Phraphai arc, so that’s why they pissed me off so much. The plot in those two episodes was also weak. Like why does Nawa collapse because of not transforming when both Ping and Phraphai are fine? How does Nawa know that Phu fell in the water and needed to be saved exactly when and where it happened? Why did he kiss Phu underwater before pulling him up when he’s literally drowning? Why does someone have to die to get blood from a merman heart? Isn’t all blood from your heart anyways? Can’t you just extract some? Phu was about to die and about 12 hours must have passed while Nawa and Phraphai were monologuing about nonsense. The whole Phu-almost-dying arc ended up being mostly about Phraphai when he’s not even the main character. It totally took away from the Nawa-Phu romance. And why did they have to have 500 million flashback scenes? Plus after all that, we didn’t get any sweet moments with Nawa and Phu. The side couple (Phana and Ping) had a sweeter ending moment and kiss than the main couple did and that was disappointing.

Also, I was annoyed that Nawa wasn’t ultimately the one to tell Phu about mermen. He was about to, before he almost collapsed and Phraphai took him to the ocean to transform. So he ends up finding out by witnessing the transformation. I was kind of okay with that because Phu was about to tell him himself. But after that, it’s Phana who explains the whole merman history and lore to Phu, not Nawa. And after Phu finds out about the merman thing, he for some reason needs time to process and starts questioning the relationship. He ultimately comes to the conclusion that he still wants to be with Nawa no matter what, but I don’t understand what there was to question in the first place. It’s not like he was upset about the lying part, it was the merman part that he didn’t know how to handle.

There were some weaker points in the earlier episodes as well. There were often random montages (like swimming and making drinks) as well as flashback scenes of things that we just saw 5 minutes ago within the same episode. And there were too many extended periods of just staring and smiling at each other. The dialogue was often awkward. The background music was often reminiscent of bad porn music, and not just in the NC scenes. The sound mixing was off sometimes, with the music louder than the dialogue, and sometimes the foley background sounds didn’t match (for examples, the footsteps when Ping’s mother is walking were totally off). The leads were the weakest actors in the entire series. I’d say Ping and Than were the only ones that delivered convincing performances. The underwater scenes weren’t great. Even if you excuse the bad effects as budget restrictions, the costumes were also awful and the actors were doing a very bad job of not looking like they were holding their breath when they were supposed to be able to breathe underwater. And their swimming very much looked like what humans look like when they’re trying to awkwardly swim underwater without floating up. The first episode in particular was pretty weak, with a 4 minute drink making competition that added nothing of value and 25 seconds of staring during their first meeting.

But I enjoyed the romance in episodes 2-6. It was problematic in that Nawa explicitly rejected Phu multiple times, but Phu refused to stop pursuing him. I’m not excusing that as acceptable behavior, but of all the BLs I’ve seen with this problematic trope, I think this one executed it in the least disturbing way. Because Phu was never controlling, never violated Nawa’s boundaries (at least not in a way that was romanticized or excused as acceptable), and never violated his consent. Even when Nawa was going off with Phraphai on a daily basis and not explaining anything to Phu, Phu never stopped him. The one time he violated Nawa’s boundaries, by following him and Phraphai, Nawa calls him out for violating his privacy and Phu agrees to never do it again. And he sticks to that. The only physical interaction between Nawa and Phu that had questionable consent was their first kiss / sexual encounter, during which Phu was drunk. He was an active participant though, and had made his interest known in advance, which made the scene less disturbing to watch than other similar dub con scenes. Every other interaction was fully consensual. Even when they were deep into it, when Nawa stopped them and said he was tired and didn’t want to continue, Phu stopped and didn’t pressure him to keep going.

There was also good consent in the NC scene with Than and Yu. Although they were both drunk, when Yu stops Than from unbuckling his belt, Than immediately stops and they discuss what’s wrong. When Yu leaves the room to sleep elsewhere, Than tries to convince him to stay but doesn’t force him to. Consent as a whole was good. There were dub con drunk scenes, but I found them less disturbing (although not acceptable) because everyone was an active participant.

The NC scenes as a whole were also more explicit than you usually see. There were several scenes with stimulated blow jobs. But the camera work and editing weren’t the greatest in some scenes. And sometimes the facial expressions didn’t match what was actually going on. Like sometimes the actors’ faces were looking like they were mid-sex, but all that was happening was their partner kissing down their back, and their pants were still on. Also there was one scene where one of the side couples answers the phone mid-blowjob, and wtf? Who does that?

Also, everyone was an equal in all the couples! No dom / sub dynamics to be found, which I really, really appreciated. The one couple where there stereotypically would be dom / sub dynamics was Phana / Ping due to the boss / employee relationship, age difference, and size difference. But they were also equals, and Ping took the lead in and out of the bedroom just as much as Phana did.

The one thing I thought was lacking was casual physical intimacy. You could tell that every physical touch was explicitly scripted. So when it wasn’t scripted, things felt awkward. For example, the morning after they officially get together, they’re standing 5 feet apart and don’t touch each other aside from the scripted kisses, which were just pecks. It was oddly awkward and chaste considering they’d already had sex and were officially in a relationship. I also wanted Nawa to initiate and pursue Phu more as opposed to just accepting his affection, but I think he reciprocated more as the series went on. Also, I thought it was weird that Nawa called Phu “Khun” instead of “P” for the entire series.

For the side couples - I really liked Than / Yu. I wanted to see more of them and was disappointed we didn’t get a real conclusion on if their relationship worked out after they left the island. Than’s ride or die mentality when it came to Yu was cute. It had the same unhealthy “I’m going to chase you even if you say no” dynamic that Phu / Nawa had, but it similarly wasn’t controlling or violating of boundaries / consent. I liked the whole forbidden romance aspect of their relationship and would 100% be invested in a full series on them. The actors (particularly Than) were really good at conveying emotions in emotionally charged scenes.

I was less invested in Phana / Ping. Phana was a good boyfriend to his ex-girlfriend. He loved her and he worked hard to make things work with her, even when the relationship was unhappy. I appreciated that he had no interest in Ping while he was with his girlfriend. He was committed, fought for the relationship, and was a good guy. But his dedication to his ex meant that I didn’t really want to see him with anyone else. He was hung up on her for most of the series, and unsure if he actually felt something for Ping or was just lonely and looking for a rebound or replacement. Also, I didn’t like that the show made the girlfriend look like the bad guy when she didn’t do anything wrong other than end a failing relationship.

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This was okay, as far as shorts series go. You’ve got the typical shorts issues, in that the runtime is inherently short so the romance is relatively shallow, and the vertical format sucks as per usual. The acting was fairly decent compared to other shorts series, though. The pacing and overall production quality was pretty decent too.

My main issue is that the story didn’t make much cohesive sense. I don’t know if maybe the subtitle translations weren’t completely accurate and that was the issue, but I couldn’t really make sense of the character motivations or why they would suddenly go from mad to forgiving.

After Jinwoo and Eunhyeok kiss in Jinwoo’s room, Jinwoo seems fine until his roommate finds Eunhyeok’s watch in the room. Maybe he freaked out about getting caught (it wasn’t clear to me), but he tells Eunhyeok that they should be strangers from then on. But he tells Eunhyeok that the reason is because he doesn’t want to be distracted from his studies and that Eunhyeok is a bad student. So Eunhyeok proves him wrong and gets his grades up, and when they happen to meet for drinks as part of the same friend group during break, they’re suddenly acting friendly again. Jinwoo never apologizes for what he said about Eunhyeok being a bad student, and Eunhyeok doesn’t seem upset about it. And whatever concerns Jinwoo had seemingly disappear because they start acting like friends again like nothing happened.

After Eunhyeok non-consensually kisses Jinwoo and they both get expelled, I really didn’t understand either of their reactions. Jinwoo was actually the first to reach out to Eunhyeok, watching his Instagram story (so Eunhyeok would see he viewed it) and calling him. Eunhyeok ignored his call, I guess because he had just fought with his mom, but he still liked Jinwoo and it didn’t make sense to me that he was ignoring him instead of groveling. And it didn’t make sense to me that Jinwoo wasn’t angry. When Eunhyeok shows up at his house, Jinwoo is happy to see him until Eunhyeok pretends he was just using Jinwoo to get expelled on purpose. Forget the fact that Jinwoo got expelled…why isn’t he mad that he was sexually assaulted? Eunhyeok apologizes for getting him expelled, but not once is the sexual assault acknowledged or apologized for by a single character. Even when the teacher saw the video of Eunhyeok forcibly kissing Jinwoo, they’re both expelled for dating when it was so clear in the video that Jinwoo wasn’t a willing participant. I don’t know why he was expelled too and not treated as a victim of sexual assault.

And Jinwoo immediately sees through Eunhyeok’s act and knows that he actually likes him and is lying when he said that he was just using him to get expelled. So why does he go off on him and tell him that he wasn’t going to like him anymore and that he’d find someone better in college? Why does he cut ties and block him? Meanwhile Eunhyeok had only said all that because he promised Jinwoo’s sister to stay away so Jinwoo wouldn’t get hurt again. But when they run into each other again, they’re both completely friendly. Jinwoo doesn’t act at all angry. And Eunhyeok seems to have forgotten all about his promise to stay away, because he immediately asks Jinwoo out and Jinwoo immediately agrees. So what was that giant period of ignoring each other about?

Also, in the end Eunhyeok does what he’s always wanted to do, and drops out of college to make music. It’s not particularly good music, and he’s most definitely not making any money from it. And he’s not working a part time job to make money either. So I don’t really understand his character arc. He went from repeatedly failing the college prep school on purpose to rebel against his parents, to studying for and passing the college entrance exam, presumably due to Jinwoo’s good influence, to dropping out to rebel against his parents. What was the point?

Consent / boundary issues: Eunhyeok nonconsensually kisses Jinwoo the first time they meet. Eunhyeok is drunk and kisses him as "revenge" because Jinwoo put something in his mouth (a mint to mask the alcohol). It's a peck and Jinwoo immediately pulls away and leaves. Also, during the whole jealousy arc, Jinwoo threatens to tell the teacher that Eunhyeok is dating, and Eunhyeok responds by saying something along the lines of, "Go ahead and tell them. And tell them about this too." Then he forcibly kisses Jinwoo even as he's struggling and actively trying to push him away. When they're arguing outside of Jinwoo's house, Eunhyeok tries to leave and Jinwoo forcibly grabs his sleeve to prevent him from walking away.

There are two consensual kisses, and neither are dead fish lip presses. But physical affection was fairly lacking as a whole. There's no casual physical intimacy, and although they alluded to a kiss in the finale, they didn't actually show one (Jinwoo stops Eunhyeok when he leans in for a kiss, saying there are cameras, and then pulls him out of shot).

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Short, enjoyable watch. Watched the re-edited 6 episode version.

Sweet romance. No consent issues, boundary-crossing, or stalking/harassment.

They don’t get together until the very end of the final episode and they plan to keep it a secret. I’d be invested in a longer show where they deal with the public fall out. Also, they keep talking about Doha not getting along with his idol group members, but they never explain why and in the final episode they just say they made up with no further explanation. So not sure what the point of even including that conflict was.

Very chaste, which is probably to be expected. One lip press where one character is wide-eyed in shock (but I would consider it most likely consensual). One post-credits kiss with a tiny bit of mouth movement.

The problem was, you couldn’t convince me that these guys have any romantic feelings for each other whatsoever. They were very friend-coded in their facial expressions, body language, and tone. Doha was the one pursuing Jaeyeon, who was meant to be unsure about his feelings, but he played into that so well that even by the end I felt like he wasn’t really that into Doha. The post-credits scene where Doha tells Jaeyeon to call him and says he’s doesn’t want to be the one always calling first didn’t help with that. I think it would have been way more enjoyable if Jaeyeon was really into Doha the whole time too and there was a whole forbidden romance yearning / longing thing going on, but that wasn’t at all present.

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This was a good story with a lot of potential, but the romance never developed to where it should have been to be compelling. It had all the potential with the build up of their relationship and feelings, but the climax, where Yoon Je kills Jin Hyeok’s father and they finally kiss, was just lacking. The emotional intensity just wasn’t there, and I think the actors must have been uncomfortable. It didn’t help that while it wasn’t a dead fish press, it was mostly blocked by shots of their shoulders and backs. It was kind of downhill from there. We pretty much get a two minute montage of them being a happy couple, then Yoon Je goes after his father’s killer, the police come, he disappears for a full year, then appears again. Their reunion was so lackluster. No emotional desperation or excitement whatsoever. They don’t even hug, just hold hands. Then it’s revealed that Jin Hyeok has started killing too, and then it’s over. If the actors had been more comfortable with casual physical intimacy, and if they’d really played into emotionally intense scenes, it would have been so much better. The actors were good though. Much better than I’ve seen in any other shorts series, outside of the actual romance aspects.

No consent issues. Boundary issues: touching his face while he’s sleeping, going to his workplace during the separation after he explicitly said not to.

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The first 9 episodes of this are just a depiction of textbook workplace sexual harassment. The finale and special episode were better.

The boss in this is domineering, controlling, and repeatedly sexually harasses the employee despite continued verbal and non-verbal rejections and visible discomfort on the employee’s part.

There are many times that the boss watches and touches the employee when he is sleeping, even once almost kissing him. He brings his face really close to the employee’s and repeatedly violates his personal space while he is both awake and asleep. He’s constantly non-consensually touching the employee. He asks the employee to do unprofessional tasks, such as giving him massages and cooking for him, and gets offended when the employee complains about the unprofessional duties. He asks the employee if he’s a virgin or has ever been in love before. He proposes that the employee move in with him to help him sleep in exchange for food, accommodation, and transportation, essentially trying to be his sugar daddy. Not once did the employee look at all comfortable in any of these situations.

After the employee gets kidnapped, the boss takes him to his home and essentially forces him to stay there and sleep in the same bed. He says that it’s too late and he’d be causing trouble if he called for the driver now. He insists on sleeping in his own bed and won’t let the employee sleep in the living room when he wants to. He hugs the employee while the employee is sleeping, and the employee wakes up with his lips essentially touching the boss’.

From there on outwards, the sexual harassment got so egregious that I really struggled to not drop the show. There were times that it made me feel a bit sick.

The employee tells the boss that he thinks he’s acting too close and cites rumors as one potential issue. It’s clear that rumors are not his only concern, and that he’s not personally comfortable with the closeness either, but can’t say that due to the power dynamic in play. The boss says he’s fine with rumors and goes in for a kiss, while the employee is leaning away in discomfort, but doesn’t stop until the employee jerks away. But it doesn’t even end here. The employee hides in the bathroom, and when he opens the door, the boss backs him into the wall and kisses his ear. The employee is wide-eyed, looks completely grossed out, and pushes the boss away, telling him that just because he’s an employee, that doesn’t give the boss to right to demand just anything.

The boss had invited himself to the employee’s home, and even after all that, he doesn’t leave. Instead, he just thinks he needs to take it slower. He grabs the employee’s hand (once again noncon touching him) and apologizes. The employee shakes off his hand and tells him to eat quickly and leave, still trying to appease him due to the power dynamic. And the boss? He straight up lies and guilt trips, saying the driver had to leave, and, “You wouldn’t make me take a cab, right? What if I get kidnapped again?” And so he forces the employee to let him spend another night sleeping in the same bed. The next morning, he demands that the employee wash his shirt for when he comes over the next time. Both treating him like some kind of maid, but also presuming that there will be a next time when the employee wasn’t even comfortable with the first time.

During their company trip - the boss reserves the seat next to the employee’s on the bus, then blocks him in and doesn’t let him sit with his coworkers when he wants to. He leans in until the employee is backed against the window and buckles his seatbelt. He tells the employee that he’s not “allowed” to date anyone. He also changes the rooming arrangements so that they share a room, again not giving him a choice. When the boss asks if he’s reluctant to room together, he says no (despite saying yes to coworkers previously), because he can’t possibly say yes due to the power dynamic.

The boss wants to show him what it means to be “cherished”, so he's booked a honeymoon suite with rose petals and one bed. He noncon hugs the employee, backs him up while in just a towel, then drops the towel and goes into the hot spring and wants the employee to join him. The employee is extremely uncomfortable during all this. He manages to escape and join his coworkers in the public pool, where he actually looks happy and comfortable for once. When the boss notices this, instead of realizing that he’s making the employee uncomfortable and that he needs to back off, he says to give him time to be better.

When the employee gets drunk, the boss picks him up over his shoulders, refusing to let him down even when he bites him in protest, and instead smacks the employee in retaliation. While drunk, the employee pins the boss down and collapses on top of him, and the boss starts groping at him on top of and under his shirt. The employee wakes up and stops him, and then the boss pins him down and kisses him while the employee is struggling the whole time. It was completely non-consensual, even if the employee hadn’t been drunk.

They have a conversation where the employee asks if the boss is trying to have fun with him or if he genuinely likes him. The employee essentially says that he has no experience, that the boss is the boss, and that he can just do whatever because he no choice anyways. He comes to the misunderstood conclusion that the boss is just playing with him and then passes out. In the morning, he’s naked in bed (went into the hot springs the night before), being cuddled by the boss. The boss says he has to “take responsibility” for what he did last night, and won’t let him get up. He tells the employee that he’s not “allowed” to drink anymore, and to wait and he’ll “deal with him properly” in a minute. The employee finally does the smart thing and runs while the boss is in the bathroom.

From here on out, the conflict is made out to be that the boss wants a genuine relationship while the employee thinks he’s just playing around. No one is acknowledging that there have been zero interactions between them that haven’t been complete and utter sexual harassment / assault. I was shocked when the employee admitted he had feelings for the boss because he was not welcoming or comfortable in a single interaction with him.

The boss goes real “nice guy”, like a Tinder date after you reject them. When the employee is ignoring the boss, he starts getting all insulting: “What do you think you’re doing disappearing? You think you’re that important? Answer the phone. Don’t take this too far.” Then backtracks and begs: “I’m sorry for my bad attitude. Can we talk in person? Just text me back.” Followed by guilt tripping: “Don’t make me worry. I miss you.” He sends a million texts and when he gets no response and the employee resigns, he shows up at his house. He yanks his arm a million times during the conversation, forcibly preventing him from entering his own house. Still non-consensually touching the employee as the employee repeatedly pushes him away. The employee says, “I know you want me but I don’t necessarily want you. You’re the general manager and this is really not okay.” So what does the boss do? Forces the employee to come back based on a 1-year minimum term stipulation in the contract that he forged. His reasoning is that this is the only way to make him give him the chance to earn his forgiveness.

So the employee comes back, but the boss continues to sexually harass him. The employee says that if the boss is going to ask for things beyond his secretarial duties (like massages), that he needs to pay extra. So the boss forcibly grabs the employee’s arms, hugs him, runs his nose along his face, and asks him how much this would cost, while the employee is standing there stiff and almost crying. And after that, the employee is for some reason defending this despicable behavior, saying that he made the boss upset and not the other way around.

The boss realizes that even though he’s forced the employee to come back, it’s never going to be the same, so he accepts the resignation. Meanwhile, the employee finds out that the contract was forged. And instead of recognizing this as the manipulative, malicious act that it was, he takes it as a revelation that the boss has real feelings for him, so he goes running after him and they finally get together.

Throughout all of this, there’s a very strict power dynamic. The boss is the boss and the employee is the employee. The employee calls the boss “general manager”. The boss expects the employee to follow his orders and the employee does. The employee has to act subservient and appeasing to prevent upsetting the boss. He is not in a position where he can comfortably say no to anything the boss demands he do, or where he can express his own desires and opinions. And the boss exclusively demands — never asks.

None of the things the boss does to show he cares are ever presented as an option. They’re all forced upon the employee. When the employee gets hurt, the boss insists on giving him a piggy back ride, even when he prefers to walk. When the employee is limping while making tea, he commands (not asks) him to “go sit down”. When the boss has extra food, the employee wants to share with the other workers, but the boss commands that he sit and eat with him instead. When the employee is kidnapped, he ignores his wishes to let the kidnapper go. He later lets him go as a kind of demonstration to win the employee over…but the point is, it was never the employee’s choice. It was always ultimately up to the boss.

A workplace relationship between a boss and an employee is pretty much exclusively in the realm of sexual harassment in the real world. But in a fictional world, it CAN be depicted as consensual. The power dynamics have to be toppled early on. They have to be equals where both have the power to say “no” and it will be listened to. There can’t be one ordering the other around, and both have to be comfortably able to express their desires and opinions without fear. There can’t be sexual harassment, dub con, or non con that would be recognized as such even without the power dynamics in play. A Boss and a Babe, for example, while having some consent / boundary issues of its own, did an infinitively better job of not making the entire boss / employee relationship seem predatory and disgusting.

There’s sexism worked into the script too, for no good reason. Things like, “I know he doesn’t mean any harm but you know us women are more sensitive,” and “We should hire a man. Boys are tougher.” And in the special episode, “I’m not a girl. Why would I want a wedding?” in reference to grand romantic gestures.

The only reason I’m giving this 2.5 stars instead of 1 is because of the finale and special episode. They were cheesy as all hell, but very sweet and cute and fluffy if you suspend logic for a minute.

The employee stands up to the boss’ mom, saying he won’t leave for any amount of money, that he’ll take care of the boss if she disowns him. They’re not even properly together yet, but they both just quit right there on the spot. Does it make any logical sense that they’d both blow up their lives with zero backup plan after being together for negative 5 minutes? Absolutely not, but it was the kind of “give up everything for love” that I like, and they were finally equals, with the employee and boss both supporting each other financially. They move in together in the employee’s cheaper place. There’s mutual love and affection - no shying away, no consent issues, no power dynamics. Many good, proper kisses. They go on a vacation to an island despite being unemployed for a month and with no job prospects in sight. They get engaged in the special episode. And everything magically fixes itself, of course. The mom realizes the company needs her son and tries to get him to come back. It’s sweet and cheesy and doesn’t make any logical sense, but it gave me some happy, loving moments after 9 episodes of pure discomfort.

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This was a hard watch for me to get through. The first two episodes in particular were a real slog to make it through.

The series as a whole is really obnoxious with the editing, sound effects, and gag jokes. It’s a very cringy slapstick-style comedy. The humor is immature garbage, and so are all the comedic characters. Mek is super annoying at the beginning, but he gets better. The chancellor is the worst out of all the characters though. The whole prank channel concept was horrible, but thankfully it was acknowledged to be problematic and the characters stop doing it. Every character’s content creation persona was ultra obnoxious.

The concept of a university chancellor shipping two students and forcing them to pretend to be in a BL relationship under the threat of not letting them graduate is so messed up that I can’t even begin to comment. She’s not even painted as a villain. She’s meant to be a comedic character. But it’s the whole basis of the plot so I just went with it.

Also, the whole obsession with followers and online validation that all the characters have is probably not the healthiest. Bear in particular is the worst. He only even likes Bomb initially because he was the only fan that paid attention to him specifically…their whole dynamic is a fan that idolizes someone and the idolized person who loves to be idolized. Mek even starts to like the idea of doing BL content because it gets him lots of followers.

Also, I know it’s just the norm in Thailand with BL content…but I can’t help but feel that the whole concept of people who are not actually romantically involved playing into BL relationships for the purpose of fan service, marketing, and ultimately money, is pretty messed up. Let’s stop encouraging parasocial relationships and shipping complete strangers. And let’s stop encouraging the need for online validation from complete strangers. People shouldn’t delude themselves into thinking these people are anything but actors and the industry as a whole should stop encouraging people to play into relationships for marketing purposes.

This was an ensemble romance, and the result was that there was inevitably not enough time spent on the couples I cared about and too much time spent on couples I didn’t care about. The main couple didn’t get that much more screen time than any other couple.

The only couple I truly liked was the established couple (Lee / Park). They’d been together for 7 years, and I love that there was a truly long term relationship showcased. Aside from nonsense miscommunication tropes resulting from bad writing, they were very supportive and loving to each other. They were equals, took turns leading, and had good consent, always backing off when the other pulled away or seemed uncomfortable or said they weren’t in the mood.

The Bomb / Bear pairing wasn’t compelling because like I said, it was just a fan that idolizes a creator and a creator that loves to be idolized. Bear is obsessed with having fans even in the finale, after a two year time skip. And Bomb is still obsessed with Bear, forgiving him for forgetting their anniversary for the sake of working on his YouTube channel.

The Tim / Mai pairing was the worst and the series would have been better without it. It was a big love square mess. Mai has been in love with Tim forever, but Tim rejects him because he wants to maintain the current friendship dynamic. The problem is that the current friendship dynamic is the result of Mai always hanging around Tim and catering to his every need because he likes him. And Mai lets this go on for years, even after getting rejected.

At the beginning of the series, Tim asks Mai to be his boyfriend and Mai says no…but I think Tim was just making a messed up joke there (considering he knew Mai’s feelings). He goes on to say he likes Kimhan and pursues / flirts with him, even wanting to do BL content with him. Mai finally has enough and says he’s tired of being taken for granted and that he should be able to live his life too…so Tim kisses him. Mai has been sticking around all this time because Tim keeps telling him he needs him in his life and wants him around forever, but he’s saying this with a friendship dynamic in mind. So when he kisses Mai, I think he was doing it purely because he thought it would be the only way to keep Mai in his life.

Mai walks away, but then he comes back the next day and says they can just be friends forever and it’s fine. He then starts to marginally pull away, though, and starts to stand up for himself and tells Tim that he has his own business and can make his own decisions. He starts flirting with Pete, but it seemed petty and not genuine because it seemed like he enjoyed when Tim would get jealous and be annoyed when Tim wouldn’t get jealous. And meanwhile Tim goes back to saying he likes Kimhan and flirting with him. When Tim finally asks Mai to be with him, I can’t tell if it’s because he truly genuinely wanted him, or because Mai kept pulling away and he felt this would be the only way to restore their dynamic. Also, when they get together, Tim comes and punches Pete for trying to kiss Mai. Mai was drunk, so maybe that’s valid, but then Tim kisses Mai himself. So either Mai was drunk and Tim took advantage of him just like Pete was trying to, or he was sober enough the whole time and was capable of making his own decisions with Pete.

And the main couple wasn’t that great either. First of all, the sisters (and parents) shipping and watching / posting BL content of their own brothers was weird. Kimhan had a semi-crush on Tim. More like a fan-crush, but he does visibly check out Tim shirtless after he and Mek are already romantically involved. He does always choose to spend time with Mek over Tim though, and doesn’t eagerly respond to Tim flirting with him. There an unnecessary ex-girlfriend jealousy arc thrown in, although it was thankfully much shorter than the Tim jealousy arc. I don’t know why the friends had to be involved and meddling in every aspect of their relationship. They were all present at their initial confession-gone-wrong scene, and Mek proposes at Lee/Park’s wedding (which is messed up but that’s another problem), and their friends are interjecting with their commentary there too. There were a couple consent issues too: Mek kisses Kimhan when he’s passed out sick, Kimhan kisses Mek when he’s passed out drunk, and there was one scene presented as comedic where Mek is trying to touch and kiss Kimhan but he’s running away and verbally / physically protesting. And neither are good actors…Kimhan’s crying scene was particularly bad.

There was all the miscommunication and self-sacrificing bullshit tropes left in. Mek gets a scholarship to study abroad, but then Kimhan confesses to him, so instead of responding, he says nothing. So Kimhan gets upset, and Mek proceeds to ignore him for the next week instead of communicating because he doesn’t know what to choose. He gets drunk and tells Kimhan the truth but doesn’t remember. Then he apologizes and tells Kimhan he likes him, and Kimhan accepts and they spend the next day on an extended date, and then Kimhan dumps Mek that night, telling him he doesn’t like him anymore, so that Mek will be free to study abroad. First of all, if Kimhan was planning that self-sacrificial bullshit, why did he accept Mek’s apology flowers and spend the whole day doing romantic things with him, and then dump him after the fact? Why didn’t he tell the truth about why he was dumping him? Why was long distance never an option even considered by either of them? And then we get a two year time skip, after which they reunite pretty much immediately, and Mek immediately moves back to Thailand and moves in with Kimhan. They get engaged pretty soon after too, all within the last episode-and-a-half.

I will say, all the couples had mutual affection without shying away once they got together, which I appreciated. There are a few NC scenes between Lee/Park and one between Bear/Bomb, but they were relatively short and chaste (shirtless kissing and implied sex only). None between the main couple or Tim/Mai.

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I have mixed feelings on this series.

On one hand, there are two healthy relationships with zero stalking, harassment, crossed boundaries, or consent issues. On the other hand, I felt the actual romance was disappointing.

The main couple doesn’t get together until literally the last 90 seconds of the series. They had a lot of sweet moments in the build up, but that conclusion was a disappointment because it meant they didn’t build any true foundation and I can’t have faith that they’ll actually last.

Xu Qi Zhang has been admiring Ye Guang from afar for so long. He takes kindness to an unhealthy degree, like gifting the expensive headphones he saved up for to him, buying him a drink and going without when he only had money for one, and giving him a vest and tie and going without when he had to share his school uniform. And all this despite Ye Guang coming from a wealthy background and having money to treat himself to all that anyways. He’s got some kind of idol worship going and is willing to sacrifice himself to an unhealthy degree.

Additionally, Ye Guang’s parents are emotionally, verbally, and physically abusive (from a western perspective), but everyone including Xu Qi Zhang and his mother encourages him to reconcile with them because they must just be looking out for his best interests. If they found out about the relationship, I’m sure there would be a massive fallout. I have a separate gripe about them randomly doing a 180 in the finale and easing up on the academic pressure, but I’ll chalk that up to bad writing.

Also, Xu Qi Zhang was running for class president in order to get a scholarship to Berkeley. They never address if he wins, and if he does, that would mean him going to the US for college, which would probably also end their relationship.

They barely got together and there were so many obstacles left unaddressed.

The second couple got together a bit earlier and had a lot of sweet moments. But it was a high schooler dating a presumably grown man (his age wasn’t given), and that itself was creepy. I also took issue with the fact that when Ah Jian said he needed time after they kissed, Ray immediately walked away and completely ghosted Ah Jian. Meanwhile Ah Jian chases after Ray trying to talk to him, and when he finally gets Ray to give him a minute, Ray says he needs to think about it. Like what?? Why does Ray get time to process but Ah Jian doesn’t? I didn’t think it was fair that Ah Jian was chasing after Ray and apologizing as if he did something wrong, when it looked like he didn’t even process for a full 24 hours before he was chasing after Ray.

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This was pretty short, as typical of KBLs. Atypical of KBLs though, there were two actual proper non-fish press kisses in this, which was much appreciated.

But overall, the story felt really shallow and so did the romance. They worked together for 3 months and in the end, the company goes under and they’ll be working separate jobs. They get to the point of “like” but not “love” and to be honest, I don’t trust that their relationship will last long term.

First of all, the vast majority of the beginning of their relationship read like sexual harassment. The continuous teasing about the gay comic, massaging and touching him despite efforts to tell him no, refusing to take no as answer to hanging out after work, and so on. There’s a point where the employee tells the boss off for making him uncomfortable, and the boss apologizes, so I’m glad it was at least acknowledged.

But once they kiss for the first time, the boss goes all in - kissing his cheek, putting an arm around his shoulders, talking about spending the night together, pulling him down on the bed - but the employee still looks uncomfortable all the time. Even after they officially start dating, the employee is always looking uncomfortable and shying away from affection.

It was so weird to see his college sunbae show up, and employee is laughing and smiling and allowing him to touch and flirt with him. He doesn’t shy away and he doesn’t shut down the flirting and he looked a lot happier around him than he ever did with the boss. It was a weird acting decision to make, because it made their relationship look even more uncomfortable because it showed an alternative. It annoyed me that the employee didn’t shut down the flirting, and the boss’ jealous “you can’t drink with anyone but me” nonsense was also annoying.

Also, these guys drink way too much. They were getting shitfaced every single work night.

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