ughWhy would Chihira stand still there on the sidewalk with the sweet but clueless schoolgirl/coworker when Maya…
Hey, thanks for writing all this out. It doesn't change any of my feelings about the way the drama was handled in those last two episodes. In fact, it sort of makes it even more frustrating because everything you and I have mentioned could easily have been corrected with minor adjustments or additions to the script.
The oddest moment to me was how, in that video forwarded by Maya to Chihira but which Haoran saw, where he was blowing the old man, he looked completely relaxed and just sucking away with relish. lol Didn't appear stressed or reluctant at all. Bad directing. In fact, for a moment after Haoran saw the video of Chihira sucking away so enthusiastically, I thought he might be about to go into a rage and attack Chihira, not Maya, with that knife.
Had I been the director, I would have shown Maya or that other loser holding a knife to Chihira's neck to make him blow the old guy. I think I almost laughed at that video because the blowjob looked so real and Chihira looked very dedicated to what he was doing. It was also weird that he spit violently at one point, which seemed to indicate the older guy came in his mouth, but then Maya berates the dude for not getting hard. lol So which is it? :D
Which leads me to another point. In episode 7/8 haoran was shown to be having these voice hallucinations in which he thought he heard Chihira speaking in Mayas voice things that no one said. But the entire "Haoran is losing his mind" thing was simply dropped and disappeared.
Interesting. I found the last two episodes so badly written I couldn't take any of it seriously, including Maya's rantings which during 1-6 hit me hard. So much bogusness going on in 7&8, even Maya began to feel like a joke.
ughWhy would Chihira stand still there on the sidewalk with the sweet but clueless schoolgirl/coworker when Maya…
1. No viewer should have to have read/seen/heard the source material for an adaptation in order to understand what goes down. An adaptation should/must stand on its own as a work of fiction/art.
2. No, Chihira did not act in the slightest like someone "caught in the headlights." He did not freeze, go silent, look dazed, or do/say anything else that would explain his behavior. He simply did what the script told him to do. Yours is a good example of what I see a lot of on BL pages: Viewers making up excuses/reasons/rationales in their heads that are not anywhere on the screen. I do not mean this as a personal slam on you. It's just a fact.
3. You're making stuff up again. Where was this "indirect threat," other than a mild suggestion the girl should get in the van too? Which is win the the Chihiro we know by now would have grabbed her hand and ran for it to the nearest police station or up to a group of strangers to witness what was happening. His behavior is inexplicable.
4. No, this is Maya the worthless scumbag who for years forced him and other children to prostitute themselves to sadists and pedophiles. This is Maya who had just supposedly forced his BF Chihira to give an old dude a blow job (although in the video of this incident, Chihira seemed to be going at it enthusiastically and with no sign of fear or revulsion).
This is Maya who wrecked Haoran's life and will wreck the lives of many more children. This is Haoran who at the end of episode 6 seemed to have his shit together, was rational and making a plan to be rid of Maya, even asking his former John, the one who was in love with him, to assist. Nothing became of that either.
This is the Maya from who Haoran has heard all this "you're just like me" bullshit a hundred times before. What became of his stealy resolve to be done with Maya. He had the perfect opportunity and there was no rational reason to hold back or feel remorse. But, all of a sudden, he feels bad about ridding the earth of this scumbag?
OK fine. Even if I go there with you, then SHOW this line of reasoning to be taking place in Haoran's characterization somehow. Show him coming to this conclusion, show him being afraid of becoming what Maya is, which is of course absurd. Maya runs a child prostitute/trafficking operation, is a heroin addict, and has murdered countless people. Haoran has done none of these things, yet feels remorse for the stabbing, and turns himself in. Please.
IF he needed to do that, SHOW me how he got to that conclusion. Don't just have him turn on a dime, dump his beloved, say goodbye forever, and go to the cops.
Also, Chihira meekly getting on the train and then pretending like he didn't know what Haoran was about to do...hell, he had plenty of time before the doors closed to get back OFF the train before it started moving. The entire episode was just badly done and utterly unconvincing. He even had time to jump out the train window onto the platform or into the grass, it was moving so slowly. lol
ughWhy would Chihira stand still there on the sidewalk with the sweet but clueless schoolgirl/coworker when Maya…
I just finished episode 8 and could not agree more. After all that Maya did to Haoran in the years leading up to the stabbing came to light in a trial, Haoran would have gotten probation at most, an award and prize money at best.
Going emo and feeling guilt over Maggot Maya is one of the dumbest character twists I've seen in a long time. I could see turning yourself in so you wouldn't have to be on the run forever, and to get the legal proceedings over with, but no way would he have been convicted. He might not have even been charged.
The most painfully bad BLs are the ones that fly high for almost their entire run, then crash and burn in the final act. Perhaps later I'll take time to explain my feelings, but right now I'm too dispirited and bummed. WTF happened to this great show? It's truly hard to believe episodes 7 and 8 are from the same series as 1-6.
Episode 7:I'm a big fan of this series to this point but the first half of ep. 7 is an embarrassing mess of bad…
ugh Why would Chihira stand still there on the sidewalk with the sweet but clueless schoolgirl/coworker when Maya the Malevolent showed up in the van and starts making threats and ordering him around? At this point, Chihira is not some helpless, dumb waif as he was in the beginning. Why didn't he grab the girl and run, or at least order her to run while he distracted Maya? Why, instead, did he stand there like a clueless dumbass when Maya ordered him into the van? Worse, why did he GET INTO the van instead of running away? He's a hell of a lot quicker than Maya the drug addict. But no, he OPENS THE DOOR FOR HIMSELF, under no immediate physical threat to do so (Maya didn't even brandish his stupid pocket knife) and gets in! Even upon seeing a beaten-up, old man sitting there, a vision of what's about to happen to him, he just climbs right in...why? Why did Chihira, apparently, get out of the van at the destination, calmly walk to where ordered, allow himself to be tied by the wrists, and then kneel to await whatever psycho Maya has to dish out to him, none of which could be good, and lots of which could be lethal? Why, even after kneeling, did he not stand up and run? Why did he so passively acquiesce to suck the dick of that poor old man? He wasn't even threatened with additional violence or the knife. He just did it. Why did he passively await being struck in the face and having his arm stomped on? He didn't even really wiggle around and resist. It was absurd.
Then, all of a sudden, it's the next day and Chihira is in a hospital bed with his arm in a sling. Pressing charges against Maya is mentioned. WHY did he not press charges?! Because he "doesn't really know about that stuff...?" Come on, that's what police detectives are for. THEY know about that stuff. Why was Maya released by the cops? Why did Chihira and Haoran go back to their hangout, knowing that Maya the Malevolent is out there somewhere on the loose? Why did Haoran not let Kaji see Chihiro when he dropped off the food? Why was Kaji so passive in not insisting on seeing Chihiro, especially since Haoran was acting weird? Kaji has made it clear he cares about the welfare of both.
So Haoran goes to murder Maya...FINALLY SOMEONE THINKS OF THIS...but he sticks the blade in once and then FUCKING RUNS AWAY, even though he had plenty of time, and no one around to see him, finish that vile fucker off once and for all?
I'll tell you, up until episode 7 I have been soaking in the excellence and daring of this series. But this episode went all to shit. Is it that the same group of Thai writers that took over writing Taiwan's The On1y One and ruined it, were also contracted to destroy HOTE? Because, I gotta tell you, this episode SUCKS.
Please don't reply unless you have believable, concrete, rational answers for at least one of the above questions. And "...because it's being faithful to the Manga..." does not count! A Manga can get away with a lot that an adaptation cannot, because so much of what we see there relies on heavily dramatic, intense illustrations to fill in the blanks. Maybe Chihira before the blowjob was wild-eyed and drooling blood as if he'd been beaten, perhaps we see Maya flashing a knife or gun at Chihira to force him into the van or threatening to harm the girl if he didn't (neither of which would explain why he didn't just run away). And if that's what the adaptation-makers sought to imply, they failed.
I found the show I was thinking of: WHAT DID YOU EAT YESTERDAY (IT CERTAINLY WASN'T DICK OR ASS)? - JAPAN https://kisskh.at/33088-what-did-you-eat-yesterday There are TWO seasons of this trash, and it has an 8/10 MDL rating.
Worst of all, one-half of the MC is a favorite actor of mine. I may have to remove him from my 30 Best actors list just for agreeing to be in this homophobic, gay-hating POS. Notice how, in the poster, this supposed long-term couple is seated 24 inches apart. God, what are these people thinking? Is this deliberately hateful and mocking of gay men?
You watched this thing? The review is hysterical and genius at the same time, equal proportions of course, folded, not stirred.
I kept thinking of that one nasty food-porn "BL" in which two 40-ish queens lived together as lovers but never touched, let alone kissed. One went off to spend all holidays with his family right there in Tokyo, leaving his lover at home alone, during which times the left-behind would cook and the Julia Child portion of the show would commence.
This leaving his lover behind to attend family events such as Christmas, NY, I mean BIG events, was portrayed as no biggie, and the cook/bottom was coded as being reasonable and un-clingy in acquiescing to this arrangement. I think this POS has a high MDL rating of course. The LGs adore a show in which the gay lovers don't touch. The less they touch, the more passionate their love is presumed to be. :) Seriously.
Yo, good to see you here! This movie got a good review at Korean.org so I want to check it out, but I cannot find…
omg, I cannot abide the ads on Tubi. It doesn't even give one the courtesy of a five-second countdown so you know an ad is coming and can mentally prepare to be interrupted. Nope, sometimes, mid-sentence an ad will blow up a scene.
I decided I'd rather not see a film at all than see it blown to bits like that.
Exactly why would you spoil the entire plot with this comment?Use the spoiler button please.
Nice use of a spoiler button. In my opinion however, saying something as vague as "romance is very much there," which does not mention characters or what kind of romance, does not require use of a spoiler button.
Never hurts to err on the side of caution though. :)
Giving a show a low rating because of bias towards an actor's actions in their personal life is one of the strangest…
Oh god, I couldn't care less about the lame actor Timotheeeeeeeeeeee Chalamet, so no, I don't even know about his "cheating" thing. Which is saying something right there: If it had really been that big of a story, there is little chance I would not have heard or read something about it. I don't seek out celebrity "news," but often come across it because I follow general news, politics, opinion, sports, and the arts.
Timothee Chalamet is, in my estimation, a transparent closet case. His is one of the silly situations in which the Western media STILL plays along if an actor presents as straight despite all evidence to the contrary, only because the actor has not specifically announced their gayness to the public. Reporting the obvious is considered out of bounds until the actor themselves does the "outing." lol Silliness.
So we have Timotheeeeeeeeeeee Chalamet, a performer of average talent, a nepo-baby, a closet case using a young woman as his beard, and an Audrey Hepburn look-alike, being rammed down our collective throat whether we want it or not.
1 
1 
1. Because he is extremely talented and charismatic with a great voice.
2. To piss off idiot netizens like you.
The oddest moment to me was how, in that video forwarded by Maya to Chihira but which Haoran saw, where he was blowing the old man, he looked completely relaxed and just sucking away with relish. lol Didn't appear stressed or reluctant at all. Bad directing. In fact, for a moment after Haoran saw the video of Chihira sucking away so enthusiastically, I thought he might be about to go into a rage and attack Chihira, not Maya, with that knife.
Had I been the director, I would have shown Maya or that other loser holding a knife to Chihira's neck to make him blow the old guy. I think I almost laughed at that video because the blowjob looked so real and Chihira looked very dedicated to what he was doing. It was also weird that he spit violently at one point, which seemed to indicate the older guy came in his mouth, but then Maya berates the dude for not getting hard. lol So which is it? :D
Which leads me to another point. In episode 7/8 haoran was shown to be having these voice hallucinations in which he thought he heard Chihira speaking in Mayas voice things that no one said. But the entire "Haoran is losing his mind" thing was simply dropped and disappeared.
2. No, Chihira did not act in the slightest like someone "caught in the headlights." He did not freeze, go silent, look dazed, or do/say anything else that would explain his behavior. He simply did what the script told him to do. Yours is a good example of what I see a lot of on BL pages: Viewers making up excuses/reasons/rationales in their heads that are not anywhere on the screen. I do not mean this as a personal slam on you. It's just a fact.
3. You're making stuff up again. Where was this "indirect threat," other than a mild suggestion the girl should get in the van too? Which is win the the Chihiro we know by now would have grabbed her hand and ran for it to the nearest police station or up to a group of strangers to witness what was happening. His behavior is inexplicable.
4. No, this is Maya the worthless scumbag who for years forced him and other children to prostitute themselves to sadists and pedophiles. This is Maya who had just supposedly forced his BF Chihira to give an old dude a blow job (although in the video of this incident, Chihira seemed to be going at it enthusiastically and with no sign of fear or revulsion).
This is Maya who wrecked Haoran's life and will wreck the lives of many more children. This is Haoran who at the end of episode 6 seemed to have his shit together, was rational and making a plan to be rid of Maya, even asking his former John, the one who was in love with him, to assist. Nothing became of that either.
This is the Maya from who Haoran has heard all this "you're just like me" bullshit a hundred times before. What became of his stealy resolve to be done with Maya. He had the perfect opportunity and there was no rational reason to hold back or feel remorse. But, all of a sudden, he feels bad about ridding the earth of this scumbag?
OK fine. Even if I go there with you, then SHOW this line of reasoning to be taking place in Haoran's characterization somehow. Show him coming to this conclusion, show him being afraid of becoming what Maya is, which is of course absurd. Maya runs a child prostitute/trafficking operation, is a heroin addict, and has murdered countless people. Haoran has done none of these things, yet feels remorse for the stabbing, and turns himself in. Please.
IF he needed to do that, SHOW me how he got to that conclusion. Don't just have him turn on a dime, dump his beloved, say goodbye forever, and go to the cops.
Also, Chihira meekly getting on the train and then pretending like he didn't know what Haoran was about to do...hell, he had plenty of time before the doors closed to get back OFF the train before it started moving. The entire episode was just badly done and utterly unconvincing. He even had time to jump out the train window onto the platform or into the grass, it was moving so slowly. lol
what a mess.
Going emo and feeling guilt over Maggot Maya is one of the dumbest character twists I've seen in a long time. I could see turning yourself in so you wouldn't have to be on the run forever, and to get the legal proceedings over with, but no way would he have been convicted. He might not have even been charged.
ugh
New, alternate series titles:
Happy the End Has Arrived
Horrible of the End
Please Kill Me Now
Anticlimactic.
Disappointing.
Cliche.
Trope.
Lame.
Lamest.
Boring.
Nonsensical.
Worst of all...Predictable.
The most painfully bad BLs are the ones that fly high for almost their entire run, then crash and burn in the final act. Perhaps later I'll take time to explain my feelings, but right now I'm too dispirited and bummed. WTF happened to this great show? It's truly hard to believe episodes 7 and 8 are from the same series as 1-6.
5/10
Why would Chihira stand still there on the sidewalk with the sweet but clueless schoolgirl/coworker when Maya the Malevolent showed up in the van and starts making threats and ordering him around?
At this point, Chihira is not some helpless, dumb waif as he was in the beginning.
Why didn't he grab the girl and run, or at least order her to run while he distracted Maya?
Why, instead, did he stand there like a clueless dumbass when Maya ordered him into the van?
Worse, why did he GET INTO the van instead of running away? He's a hell of a lot quicker than Maya the drug addict.
But no, he OPENS THE DOOR FOR HIMSELF, under no immediate physical threat to do so (Maya didn't even brandish his stupid pocket knife) and gets in!
Even upon seeing a beaten-up, old man sitting there, a vision of what's about to happen to him, he just climbs right in...why?
Why did Chihira, apparently, get out of the van at the destination, calmly walk to where ordered, allow himself to be tied by the wrists, and then kneel to await whatever psycho Maya has to dish out to him, none of which could be good, and lots of which could be lethal?
Why, even after kneeling, did he not stand up and run?
Why did he so passively acquiesce to suck the dick of that poor old man? He wasn't even threatened with additional violence or the knife. He just did it.
Why did he passively await being struck in the face and having his arm stomped on? He didn't even really wiggle around and resist. It was absurd.
Then, all of a sudden, it's the next day and Chihira is in a hospital bed with his arm in a sling. Pressing charges against Maya is mentioned.
WHY did he not press charges?! Because he "doesn't really know about that stuff...?" Come on, that's what police detectives are for. THEY know about that stuff.
Why was Maya released by the cops?
Why did Chihira and Haoran go back to their hangout, knowing that Maya the Malevolent is out there somewhere on the loose?
Why did Haoran not let Kaji see Chihiro when he dropped off the food?
Why was Kaji so passive in not insisting on seeing Chihiro, especially since Haoran was acting weird? Kaji has made it clear he cares about the welfare of both.
So Haoran goes to murder Maya...FINALLY SOMEONE THINKS OF THIS...but he sticks the blade in once and then FUCKING RUNS AWAY, even though he had plenty of time, and no one around to see him, finish that vile fucker off once and for all?
I'll tell you, up until episode 7 I have been soaking in the excellence and daring of this series. But this episode went all to shit. Is it that the same group of Thai writers that took over writing Taiwan's The On1y One and ruined it, were also contracted to destroy HOTE?
Because, I gotta tell you, this episode SUCKS.
Please don't reply unless you have believable, concrete, rational answers for at least one of the above questions. And "...because it's being faithful to the Manga..." does not count! A Manga can get away with a lot that an adaptation cannot, because so much of what we see there relies on heavily dramatic, intense illustrations to fill in the blanks. Maybe Chihira before the blowjob was wild-eyed and drooling blood as if he'd been beaten, perhaps we see Maya flashing a knife or gun at Chihira to force him into the van or threatening to harm the girl if he didn't (neither of which would explain why he didn't just run away). And if that's what the adaptation-makers sought to imply, they failed.
God, this was awful.
I'm a big fan of this series to this point but the first half of ep. 7 is an embarrassing mess of bad writing. See spoiler button below:
I found the show I was thinking of:
WHAT DID YOU EAT YESTERDAY (IT CERTAINLY WASN'T DICK OR ASS)? - JAPAN
https://kisskh.at/33088-what-did-you-eat-yesterday
There are TWO seasons of this trash, and it has an 8/10 MDL rating.
Worst of all, one-half of the MC is a favorite actor of mine. I may have to remove him from my 30 Best actors list just for agreeing to be in this homophobic, gay-hating POS. Notice how, in the poster, this supposed long-term couple is seated 24 inches apart. God, what are these people thinking? Is this deliberately hateful and mocking of gay men?
https://kisskh.at/people/1680-nishijima-hidetoshi
The review is hysterical and genius at the same time, equal proportions of course, folded, not stirred.
I kept thinking of that one nasty food-porn "BL" in which two 40-ish queens lived together as lovers but never touched, let alone kissed. One went off to spend all holidays with his family right there in Tokyo, leaving his lover at home alone, during which times the left-behind would cook and the Julia Child portion of the show would commence.
This leaving his lover behind to attend family events such as Christmas, NY, I mean BIG events, was portrayed as no biggie, and the cook/bottom was coded as being reasonable and un-clingy in acquiescing to this arrangement. I think this POS has a high MDL rating of course. The LGs adore a show in which the gay lovers don't touch. The less they touch, the more passionate their love is presumed to be. :) Seriously.
I decided I'd rather not see a film at all than see it blown to bits like that.
Never hurts to err on the side of caution though. :)
Timothee Chalamet is, in my estimation, a transparent closet case. His is one of the silly situations in which the Western media STILL plays along if an actor presents as straight despite all evidence to the contrary, only because the actor has not specifically announced their gayness to the public. Reporting the obvious is considered out of bounds until the actor themselves does the "outing." lol Silliness.
So we have Timotheeeeeeeeeeee Chalamet, a performer of average talent, a nepo-baby, a closet case using a young woman as his beard, and an Audrey Hepburn look-alike, being rammed down our collective throat whether we want it or not.