immoralq

I'm going to open this by saying that if I had to choose one word to describe this series, it would be 'disappointing'.

It was truly awful, and not even in the good way, where the angst abounds and you want to cry but it's all so well done that you don't mind.

The acting was pretty good, especially by War (Mark) but the story and plot were just a mess of scenes thrown together that contradicted each other and made no sense.

Let's start with what passes for a plot, shall we? Mark is pining over his fellow student, Bar, and goes on a bender to drown his feelings in alcohol. Mistaking another student, Vee, for Bar, Mark demands to know why he's so unlikeable.
Instead of taking Mark home, Vee kisses him and they have sex.

The problem is, Vee is already in a relationship and he's caught his girlfriend cheating, so he's only sleeping with Mark to get back at her. But Mark starts to have feelings for Vee, and Vee seems to reciprocate but can't let go of his girlfriend.

Deciding to break up with her, he leaves Mark to tell her it's over. And then doesn't come back, leaving Mark waiting for hours. Mark phones Vee who says he's told his girlfriend that it's over, but that he still wants to be friends and they're going to a bar for a farewell drink. He invites Mark to come along. Mark does. Then he catches Vee kissing his ex.

Mark leaves and cuts off all contact with Vee for a month, then comes back to school with a new boyfriend? (it's not made clear) and ignores Vee, who's spent the whole time trying to call Mark to sort things out. They eventually talk and get together in one of the worst finales I've ever seen.

My problems with this show are numerous, but I'm going to stick to the two biggest ones.

1. War's acting is great. He expresses so much with his eyes, you're just drawn in. The same cannot be said for the majority of the cast, especially Yin (Vee) who just comes off as lacklustre. Next to War, he shows no depth of emotion and I didn't connect with him.

2. I'm so over the love triangle trope, and this story just made it ten times worse. Vee is horrible person. His self-awareness levels are lower than Khai's from 'Theory of Love', and that's saying something. He's selfish, cruel, manipulative and thoughtless. He abandoned Mark to go to a bar with his ex-girlfriend, and then kissed her knowing full well Mark could walk in and see them because he'd invited him! Then, we he finally gets a chance to talk to Mark, the words 'I'm sorry' never cross his lips. He makes excuses for his behaviour and then thinks he can solve everything by saying "I love you" to Mark. Since this is BL, it works - which just ended up making me angry.

Are there any bright spots in this show? Well, yes actually, and their names are Yiwaa and James, who are great friends and stick up for Mark and are on his side and I love them.

Rewatch value? This show has none. it's a dumpster fire from start to finish, and one could argue that's mostly due to 'Rona' but, from the little I could glean from the comments, the source material isn't exactly wonderful and this is an improvement. Too bad it wasn't enough ofone.

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I didn't have high expectations going into this, having read a lot of the comments and the reviews about it. I was mostly watching it for New, as i really liked his performances in Kiss Me Again and Dark Blue Kiss. He was as good in this as he has been in everything else I've seen in him. His emotional range is excellent, especially in the later episodes.

My problem is that this series goes for too long. They could have cut the episode number down to 10, or even 8, and still told the same story. Most of the scenes feel like filler. And tedious filler at that. So much of it is unnecessary.

I thought the conflict between Waii and his father was very well done. It was something I could relate to. I liked the portrayal of Coach Tee and Kan's relationship. Despite their 20 year age difference, there were no hints of abuse or manipulation (unlike the godawful relationship between Bright and Farm in Together With Me) and their relationship seemed more focused on supporting each other and honest communication, which was refreshing to see.

I liked the slow build of Waii and Apo's relationship, and how Apo always supported Waii whilst not hesitating to tell him the truth and giving him solid and well thought out advice.

I also liked the relationships between Kluay and Achi, and Wan and Min.

If the show had just stuck to the relationships between these characters and left the swimming club as more of a backdrop, it would have improved things considerably.

As it is, we get a terrible lesbian-meets-the-right-guy-and-turns-straight-for-him storyline (which wouldn't nominally be problem, but the show never says she's bi or pan, and we get so little of the 'L' representation in LBGTQ+ stories, especially in Thailand that it really annoys me when this happens.) We get a half-assed plot about a play to raise money to save the club, which goes nowhere; a plot involving Min and his ex which also goes nowhere; and a lot of scenes of fit young men lounging around in tiny swim shorts - lovely eye-candy, but pretty much pointless.

And, of course, the ever-present love triangle, because a male character with a girlfriend can't fall for another man and then just do the right thing and break it off with her, because where's the drama in that? Maybe if this had been the first BL-ish series I'd ever watched, I might have let it go. Unfortunately, I've watched quite a few now and it's really, really over-used. I'm bored by it.

And here it's not even done right, because it's made clear that Waii wants Apo (he literally asks him to stay forever) and then, when his girlfriend tries to break up with him because she knows something is going on, he refuses to let her go and promises to stop being with Apo.

Refusing to break up before you're sure of your own feelings for another person is one thing. Refusing to break up after you've already kissed another person and told them you want to be with them forever? And entirely different thing altogether. It's just another plot device to up the melodrama and drag the story out some more.

I've heard the movie is better, so that's what I'm going to go watch next.

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I may have possibly watched this with my expectations too high, after having watched and loved Mork & Tee's 'Our Skyy' episode, so my feelings of 'meh' are possibly my own fault.

Having said that, 'meh' is about what sums this series up.

The soundtrack is good, the acting is good (leaning towards great at times, especially from Drake) but the plot is a mess. The characterisation was inconsistent and the the tone kept shifting.

My biggest problem with this is the plot. It starts out light-hearted and kind of funny, with Mork handing Tee a bag of gay porn DVD's in front of his girlfriend and their subsequent little prank war and that's all well and good. Then it gets all heavy and serious - which I'd have no problem with if I could actually follow it along and it made sense in terms of what had already been set up.

Mork keeps getting nosebleeds - does it mean something? Yes, apparently, but it's never made clear what. How did Tee and Mork first meet? At the school or at the internet cafe? I'm not sure. How long did they know each other before they were separated again? A couple of day? A week? Dunno.

The way the series is structured, it seems like the first six episodes were going to be one season, and the next six were going to be the second, and then the production team just decided to jam the both together. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of my confusion stems from what was cut out of the episodes.

Is this worth watching? If you have nothing else to watch, sure. Is it worth re-watching? I don't believe so. Once is quite enough.

Like I said, it's just 'meh.'

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Let's start with the plot, such as it is.

That was a little too sarcastic, really, because this plot has some differences and I rather enjoyed them. First of all, unusually for BL, this drama starts at a beach instead of ending up at one (or going to one for the honeymoon period) and we see how this plays out over several flashbacks.

Flashbacks themselves are an overused plot device, but they work here because they're inserted at just the right moment, don't go on long enough to become annoying, and connect with the ending. So, no complaints from me about those.

So, Tozaki is sitting on the railing at the top of a set of steps that lead down to a beach, where he's not-so-subtly ogling his first love, another student named Kurata.

In the present day Tozaki, now a freelance writer, meets Kurata whilst working on a job and they begin a relationship.

They begin by having sex, and then Kurata leaves and Tozaki thinks it's just a one night stand. Until Kurata comes back and Tozaki begins to fall in love with him all over again, this time with a clear picture of who he is.

Kurata obviously feels the same, but doesn't say anything. Neither does Tozaki and things just start to unravel slightly from there, with each thinking the other is only in the relationship for the sex and each trying to show, not tell, the other how they feel.

Tozaki's ex, who is also his boss, still has feelings for Tozaki, which throws another spanner into the works.

I enjoyed watching this, and it was quite well done. The production values were better than I expected and the acting was fairly good by the three leads, especially Tochihara Rakuto. There was one particular scene where the range of emotions that he showed on his face in the space of about a minute was impressive.

My one gripe with this was with whomever it was that did the costuming. Everyone was fine, except for poor Takahashi Yuta. For scenes where he was wearing a suit (and there were a few) he looked like a child dressed up in his Dad's clothes. I don't know that happened, because I could see the clothes fitted him, but somehow the proportions were all wrong and it was so odd it was distracting. I found it hard to take him seriously as an adult.

Would I rewatch this? Yes, I think so. It wasn't exactly a chore and it was a lovely little movie.

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This is a very sweet and soft film, and I enjoyed watching it, it just feels contradictory.

One the one hand, it's a very slow-paced movie, yet what happens in the context of the movie happens remarkably fast. We see the two characters go from having sex for the first time, to apparently being in a relationship, to breaking up and making up all the space of less than a hour. (The first twenty minutes are just setting the scene, as with all movies.)

The acting, at least by the two leads, feels very genuine and I connected with them, but it was very difficult because the film lacked the close-ups necessary to make that easy. Intimate moments where you would expect a close-up are shot from middle or even long distance.

This is possibly to disguise the fact that the characters weren't really kissing. Another problem that detracts from the portrayal of the emotional intimacy of the couple, and which I noticed anyway despite the lack of close-ups.

All in all, this is a nice movie and it's worth a watch if you want a break from the melodrama and angst of harder BL.

Rewatch value? Yeah, I'd probably watch this again. It's a keeper.

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What is this, and how do I get back the time I wasted on it?

After watching 'Tossara', and being generally happy with it, I was looking forward to 'Love Mechanics'.

'Love Mechanics' turned out to be a huge disappointment, but I thought, I'll give 'This Is Love Story' a go. It can't be worse, right?

It wasn't, but it wasn't great either.

THE STORY:
Nuea, a uni student in the faculty of engineering (because, where else?) falls in love with Praram, one of the twin younger brothers of Gun (Bar's love interest from Tossara.) Despite having never even spoken to the younger man (he's 19 turning 20, so he is properly described as a young man) he declares to his friends he's going to start a relationship with him. What follows are his attempts to get to know, and court, Praram.

ACTING:
The same actor plays both twins (Praram and Prarak) so they're not often in the same scene together, but Benz does a great job distinguishing the two characters.

Prom doesn't do a bad job as Nuea. It helps that all the cast has been in all three series, so they've improved since Tossara. Yin (Vee) is actually watchable now, though he still lacks chemistry with War (Mark.)

THE BAD:
We see too much of everyone else, and not enough of the main couple. I'm biased, obviously, because my palms itch every time I see Vee. He's not so much of an asshole in this, because it isn't his story, but that doesn't stop me wanting to slap his face anytime he appears on screen.

Most of this series is Nuea sitting around typing on his phone or laptop. This may have something to do with C-19, but that's still not an excuse. I'd rather have waited for this to be released than suffered through it as is. One character sitting around for 10 minutes typing on a laptop is boring.

The costume dept. is still struggling, apparently, because Mark is missing his engineering shirt (they didn't have enough to go around?) and they've still got Win (Gun) in those godawful glasses that do absolutely nothing for his facial structure. No, really, he's wearing a different pair in his MDL bio pic and they work much better.

And we're missing an episode. There were supposed to be four, just like 'Tossara' and 'Love Mechanics', but we only got three. So, the story (what there is of it) is rushed. Oh, and apparently "congratulations" are an acceptable birthday greeting and, despite the brothers being identical twins, only Praram was turning twenty.....

Yeah.

THE GOOD:
Not much. The OST was pretty good, and the one scene with Nuea and Praram talking on the bed was actually great. Normally, in these kinds of BL's, the older male lead is all over the younger one being pushy and forceful and demanding and jealous.

Nuea had one brief moment of jealously, apologised for it, was genuinely sorry for it and told Praram that he wanted to be 'good enough' for him. It was lovely seeing an honest, mature declaration of feelings and intentions from Nuea, giving Praram the choice to say no, and not just a lot of demands.

REWATCH VALUE?:
Nope, none. I could barely get through it the first time, I was so bored. Studio Wabi Sabi needs to up their game and know when not to release something. Quality over quantity or quickness, please.

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