jpny01

I worked at Samsung for a while, and (at least there) Korean men really do talk like that (although not in dialect) when they get excited. Americans are very reserved in the workplace, so at first I was always afraid someone was having some sort of meltdown.

Was Yechan's actual behavior childish, or just some of his self-expression? The only time he was OTT was when he thought Seonyul had run away, which was brought on by the Village Chief. To me that was part of the theme of honesty vs. manipulation. The chief was advocating manipulation to help Yechan, but it had only destructive results. His response that he saw nothing to be gained by pretending to feel differently than he really did was admirable to me.

I think he was merely unguarded, not immature. Well, except in love, but it was established he'd never experienced it before.

OK, but not untill we've all recovered from our Chuckchuck PTSD.

There are two directions that could go - either the the drama generated by a long-distance relationship, but I'm not too keen on that if they degenerate into dependence on jealousy, which is way, way, way too prominent a plot device in BL (along with drunkenness), or both of the them in Seoul with the fish-out-of-water element for Yechan, which could be dramatic and comedic at the same time.

I'm always worried when a title is grammatically wrong in an obvious way like 180 Degree Longitude - if they can't even get the title right, how lazy is the rest of it? Fortunately, not even a teeny bit in the case of that series. Also, A Tale of Thousand Stars, which unfortunately was quite lazy in the later episodes.

Got it. I do vaguely remember feeling that way myself.

You should not be expected to know or remember the term "harmonium" - I only do because I was a music major. In any case, it would have been clearer what you meant if there hadn't also been an actual piano in the story.

I loved this series, and I rarely like anything in BL these days. I really appreciated how this integrated some BL cliches into the story rather than just throwing them in to check boxes on a list, like the ridiculous warping of the plot of La Pluie just to have the required piggy-back ride scene.

This starts with a typical enemies to lovers-type situation, but both characters almost immediately realize they were wrong about each other and move on.

It also has central unifying themes, like how you can find happiness in doing what you love and being honest with yourself and others instead of being cynical and manipulative, like when the village chief tells Yechan to play hard-to-get, and Yechan sees nothing to be gained in pretending to feel a way he doesn't.

I know he annoys a lot of people, but his behavior is not immature, it's just completely unguarded. He has nothing to hide, so he doesn't hide anything. That's actually quite admirable. I would also make him leave the house when I needed to concentrate on something, but I would still appreciate that he doesnt play games.

He's OTT at times, but he's also self-aware and confident without being cocky, which is very sexy.

I would like these to be a little bit longer - like I thought the Yul's music storyline was way too compressed for something that important.

But not as long as a Thai BL. The two Thai BLs I love most are I Told Sunset About You and 360 Degrees - both of which were less than half the length of a typical Thai series, and very effectively used their runtime.

But Step By Step is and endless, pointless, meandering mess that would have been much better if it had only five episodes. And if Pat died in the first episode.

I'd say this series would have been greatly improved with two more episodes. That would still be only 2.5 hours of runtime compared to 9 for the typical Thai BL. Or rather 6 hours plus 3 hours of people drinking refreshing tea or munching on tasty snacks.

I also think Bruce was great in step-by-step - it was refreshing to see an effeminate character who's also intelligent, gives good advice, and has integrity. Usually they're just pathetic comic characters.

That and his constipation face.

Have youy ever lived in a village? Everyone in this series was downright standoffish compared to how they'd really be. There's no concept of privacy.

I was the opposite. I found Yul dull and unpleasant, and I liked Yechan's honesty. I'll admit that I'd probably prefer a little less honesty, but better someone like him than the jaded and cynical people that make up Western society in general.

I'm not sure I would have phrased it quite that strongly, but I agree with the sentiment - If Seonyul had told Yechan to stop and he didn't, that would be one thing - but he didn't, not even when Yechan announced his intention to not give up.

Yul was afraid of making himself vulnerable again after being hurt by his ex and he phrased his initial rejection as not being in a place to start something, not that he wasn't attracted to Yechan.

Lately I've seen everywhere the idea that you should never pursue someone romantically because it's transgressive and creepy. If people adhered to that, then nobody would ever get together. The chances of both of you feeling the same way at the same time are very, very small - if one person isn't willing to show a bit of persistance, nothing will ever happen and the human race will go extinct.

Once I was part of a search party in the Lower East Side for a tiresome friend who always got ridiculously drunk and ran off somewhere - I poked into a bar to see if he was there, but he wasn't so I intended to leave, but a cute guy approached me and asked me to to stay - I noticed he was cute, but was preoccupied with the search and brushed him off with "I'm looking for someone."

He replied "You found someone" grabbed my hand, and pulled me inside and we ended up dating. I wasn't interested when I first met him, but he made me interested - sometimes you don't pause to see who someone really is unless they are persistent and make you shift some attention to them. That happened in this story - Seonyul was preoccupied and brushed Yechan off, but once Yechan began pursuing him he saw everything that he liked about him, portrayed as a montage of flashback scenes. It would have been better if it been given more time to breathe, but the budget is what it is and you make the best of it.

He didn't say that - he said he doesn't currently have the emotional energy to engage in anything. That's not the same, and he never tells Yechan to cease and desist - because he really didn't want him to stop.

If he had told him to stop it, then it would be problemmatic, but if everyone gave up at the first negative signal, the human race would have died out a long time ago.

If they'd followed the webtoon more closely their endless bickering would have gotten tiresome, and while I get your point about the foreigner, his purpose was to contrast guile and cynicism against being honest with yourself and your feelings, like when he advised Yechan to play hard to get and he Yechan saw no point in pretending to feel differently than he did.

It would have benefitted from being longer, like I thought the music angle was jammed into a single episode, but if you only have a budget for a 2 hours of runtime, you do what you can. While I agree with you, I'd much prefer a condensed and efficient shorter series to a long meandering disaster like 4 out of 5 Thai BL series. The ideal would be somewhere in the middle.

I read Semantic Error and I really enjoyed the series. I thought it captured the essence of the webtoon quite well, even if some elements were a bit truncated.

I have read the manwha, and the series is a wonderful adaptation. My only complaint is that they desexualized Sang Woo's attraction to Jae Young - that was a source of humor, as Sang Woo couldn't be anywhere near Jae Young without... you know, physiological changes.

That's more or less inevitable in a live-action BL, and I did appreciate that they at least paid homage to it when Sang Woo was researching "deviant desires" and other sexual topics.

It sounds like Italian when he speaks English, too.

There are some fairly serious and affirming themes in this that I tihnk took it above merely cute.

I don't understand the point about the piano on the ground. Do you mean the harmonium Ye Chan bought? He did notice it on the ground and retrieved it, which is why Ye Chan found it in his room later.

Or if you mean the actual piano, it was Yul's childhood piano which was put in storage.

I didn't see the country people portrayed as stupid, they are just honest (which I suppose is a form of stupidity) and uncynical. It's like when the village chief wanted him to play hard to get and his reaction was "why would I pretend to feel a different way than I really do?"

I saw it as cutting through the BS. I think we tend to be jaded and cynical, partly as a defense mechanism, and people that aren't like that can seem stupid to us - maybe it's actually the other way around.

My first exposure to Millenials in the workplace was a woman who asked to see me in private - the minute the door closed she burst into tears and cried "WHY DO YOU HATE ME SO MUCH?"

"I didn't, until just now."

Apparently I wasn't giving her enough positive feedback. She was the receptionist, so I'm not sure what I would say. "You did a great job answering the phone when it rang!" Gen X & above don't need positive feedback. We prefer money.

Anyway, Pat reminded me of that because his crying is also pointless and unmotivated by anything that would make an adult cry.

I mentally added to Jeng's line "And I like you more and more every day. Until just now."

I can forgive the first time. People shelter their kids too much these days and that's probably the first time he had to deal with adversity like that, so I can kind of get it. But that last crying scene was so long and it's not clear why he was even crying.

Ep 11? A few people have mentioned it - I have a subscription but I don't see an Ep 11.