jpny01

Oh - you know, I might have totally misunderstood that scene - for some reason I thought it was Uea's friend who came to the table when King was hitting on him. I think I might have been bored and not paying enough attention.

But that does change the dynamic quite a bit and gives motivation to Uea - thank you for pointing that out. I need to go rewatch that so that I don't hate Uea antymore.

Fortunately the rape thing has not showed up much lately, unless you count the mutual attempted rape in Big Dragon. As for drunk sex, it's hard to judge because alcohol isn't very realistic in BL. If you're really drunk, it's not so easy to "peform", if you know what I mean, and I doubt Uea could have unbuttoned his shirt so easily - but on the other hand BL writers are obsessed with semes carrying ukes, so that gets thrown in which suggests serious drunkenness. Then there's the old memory erasure and obligatory vomiting, even after one beer, and I'm grateful they did neither of those.

But in short, it does get old, although this is one of the least objectionable examples. But there is so much that is really, really old at this point in BL that it doesn't bother me that much. Just as long as there's no accidental kiss...

What I don't like here is that their encounter doesn't seem to have had any effect whatsoever on the plot - it was purely gratuitous. Uea is treating King exacly the same after the sex as he was before.

That I agree with. Sometimes it feels like BL scripts are spit out by a machine that assembles tropes off a checklist.

But I get tired of comments suggesting that mixing sex with alcohol is rape or evil - that's way too judgmental. If a person doesn't like to do that, perfectly fine. But many or most people do, and calling most of the human race rapists is ridiculous and immature. There are of course grey areas, and that's what a drama is. Who wants to watch a bunch of saints farting rainbows and unicorns? You can't have a character arc for someone who starts from perfection,

When did they jump around? Wasn't it linear except for the flashback to his childhood?

Even so, what's wrong with that? He's a single man and if he wants to sleep around, that's perfectly fine. If Uea is not interested, then he can just say so. Instead he's just rude and a dick.

Besides, and I cannot stress this enough, this is not the novel. What happens in the novel is irrelevant - what matters is what is in this adaptation.

THAT I definitely agree with. I do get what @victoria is saying - it can be morally complex - but in this case, Uea is not a minor, and he started drinking alone in a room with King, which to me means he wanted to sleep with him, or at least knew he would. If he were drunk and passed out on a street corner and King came across him and took him home, then yes, that would be bad.

But beyond that I can't see any reason for Uea to be such a total dick to King, who has been very nice to him. King approached him at a gay bar - he didn't proposition him on the subway or something. What on earth are you doing at a gay bar if you think it's unacceptable or sleazy for someone to approach you? And who on earth would be upset that someone like King would find them attractive?

This is part of that ridiciulous homophobic attitude that a man shouldn't seek to bottom and so he has to resist unless something forces him or otherwise removes his agency from the equation. It's ridiculous. King is hot and nice - either say "I'm sorry, I'm not interested" or date him, or sleep with him or whatever. Being an asshole isn't justifed, and it makes me strongly dislike Uea.

The problem with this is they're painting King as some sort of "bad boy", when in reality he's sweet and merely interested in Uea, for reasons I can't understand. Uea, on the other hand, is a narcissistic little twit who's hanging around a gay bar then acting like it's perverse that someone approached him. He comes off as an arrogant, stuck-up ass and I instantly disliked him and am having trouble shaking that. There is just absolutely no reason for him to be such a dick to King.

I am glad they didn't do the memory erasure drinking thing, but even there, but it was selfish to use King like that and there's just nothing that makes me want to see them as a couple.

Net is really hot, though - hard to look away.

Can we not do this again? People drink and have sex all the time It's fine unless someone is unresponsive. Most adults do it all the time. That's what bars are for.

Well, if people are drawing the line as kiss = romantic, no kiss = not romantic, then I agree with you. But if there's no physical aspect at all, then it's a bromance and possibly homophobic in some cases. And I definitely agree that "why put them in if you aren't going to have them in a romance" is wrong (but on the other hand I'm not too fond of tokenism, either, i.e. if a gay character is thrown in just to be "inclusive" and having no real role in the story other than to be gay).

Fourth & Gemini don't kiss in Moonlight Chicken, but their relationship is clearly romantic - just the way they slightly lean into each other when they're sitting at the pool. That's enough to generate the romantic chemistry that they have there and used to have in this series.

I think the general objection here from what I can see below from most complaints is the constant slow lean-in with Gun putting up a barrier at the last minute - that evokes queer-baiting, although it's not the same thing. I know it's to put off the climactic kiss or hug or high-five until the end, but it's artificial and frustrating, and it's caused their relationship to cease to develop - and if they're not progressing, then the energy drains away. as it is, I've lost interest.

I still think this is better than most BLs, but it doesn't blow me away like the first few episodes did - like that dance scene, which was one of the great BL moments.

I think the problem with this series is that's it's a mess that's trying to be too many things, and it causes tonal whiplash. I'm thinking of the Filipino BL Cheat, which was absolutely bonkers from beginning to end and is one of the most enjoyable watches out there - but this veers too much between things like the very sweet Burger King romance and truly vicious behavior.

Of all the characters, the one I keep hoping will be the dead one is Shogun, who has no agency and just stands around staring at his feet with a tiresome kicked puppy dog look. The other thing is that if you have a lot of promiscuity going on but are incredibly judgmental about it, it just comes off as prurient and immature. It feels like whoever wrote this has a lot of issues about sex and maybe needs counseling.

What is the purpose of the BDSM? What are they trying to say? It's coming off as kind of rapey, which is a 1950s depiction, something depraved and unhealthy. I suppose it's unhealthy if you're doing it and really don't want to, but so is just about anything.

I feel like this either needed to focus on Burger & King and Hida & his brother, or it needed to be about the OTT parts, but not both.

Can someone please explain basketball? Why is this just about the only sport in BL? It's not all that popular in Thailand, especially compared to football - so why? is it trying to be American or something? Ukes can get hit in the head by footballs and tennis balls, so it's not just for that.

Yes, but it's connected to an important underlying emotion - if you mix that with slapstick humor you undermine that.

I know it's a novel - but it's consciously aping manga, like the scene with the gingerale or how they pretty much painted Kiyoi's face with red blush when he'd had alcohol. At least that was funny and subtle enough not to distrupt the scene - if the humor were all mroe like that I'd appreciate this more.

I don't think you could turn it around like that at all. A BL is fundamentally a romance, and every single one of them focuses almost entirely on the emotional connection between the couples - even in ones like Midnight Chicken where the main pair meet by having a one-night stand. And again, nobody is demanding kiss scenes - we're saying fake-out kiss scenes are cheap and borderline homophobic, and that it's better to have no kiss scene than a bad one.

Can you name one single BL that minimizes a queer relationship as just physical? And again, physical intimacy for most people is not separable from emotional intimacy within the context of a relationship. There are - rare - romantic relationships that don't include any, but certainly not nearly in the proportion that this is the case in BLs..

And asked yourself if this comes up at all in straight romances - why is there a double standard?

For me Hira is just too over the top and cartoonish, and it takes me out of the story. I have no problem with his strangeness or crippling insecurity, but when the show is obviously trying to recreate manga panels, like when Kiyoi says he's thirsty and Hira loses his mind because he's out of gingerale, it takes me completely out of the story and ruins the emotion for me.

I just don't enjoy watching this - if they toned it down a little so that Hira is a person instead of a cartoon, it would work for me. Hira's reaction with the gingerale needed to be way more severe than an average person, but he needed to be a person. - he could have overreacted in an emotionally authentic way instead and it would have had far more impact.

The way he's portrayed obscures the complex and well-written dynamic between them, and I don't know why they have to do this. For some reason Japanese BL doesn't seem to want to adapt stories, but rather recreate what's on the page in live action.

Really? That's really odd to me - but I thought the reference above was specific to BL as it mentioned a photo of them together. I don't get it - they were in one mediocre series together, but if people like them, people like them.

I totally got what you meant - I love Fourth & Gemini, I want to do unspeakable things to Mark Pakin (Thiw), and I like Win & Sound more than I was expecting to.

Amen! It feels a little like fetishization of m/m love into wanting to see cute boys being cute to each other while having a problem with actual male sexuality, even when it's sublimated and unconsummated, as it universally is in BLs set in high school (although it didn't used to be). Almost everyone here is complaining not about the lack of kissing, it's the constant and repetitive fakeouts and false kisses. If they just hugged it would be fine - and yet, even here, we have the inevitable commentary about how we don't need smut for something to be romantic.

No, you don't need smut, but love for almost everyone has a physical element to it, and people who are in love want to touch each other, even if it's only leaning into each other while standing or sitting, or holding hands. In fact, the very same actors are playing roles that portray first love with almost painful authenticity in another series currently airing.

LOL, yes!

That makes sense.

Sometimes for me, the main couple is too stuck on the story's "gimmick" - for example, in Oxygen, it was "a boy who lost his smile", which might have worked in the novel, but in live action is weird and dull. But there was an excellent side couple that was far more interesting. That happens often - there's even a term for it - second couple syndrome.

In this case i wish they'd continue to develop the main couple, because they've gone nowhere for many episodes now, and they didn't really do anything with the side couples this ep either. I was kind of disappointed today as this has been one of my favorite series.

Hmm. I did not enjoy that. This has been one of my favorite series, but after about ep 4 or 5 it got uneven, with every other ep or so being great. To me, this was the typical Ep 11 drama where people acted out of character and it stretched on too long. It felt like an hour of people yelling at each other - and bouncing back and forth by being awful to each other and apoligizing, rinse, repeat.

The kiss cock-block is just stupid and tiresome. I don't care if they don't kiss, but then just have them not kiss, like 90% of high school BLs. But this fakeout thing is weird and off-putting. Just have them hug. I'm feeling zero chemistry between them, and to be honest, I don't even care anymore. Their interaction has been purely as friends, and I like them as friends, but in that case, make it a bromance and don't pretend it's a BL.

I'm a musician - I even have a (totally useless) degree. Do you know how much effort it takes to play a Beethoven sonata in a competition? About four hours of practice a day for 10 years. I never won, and, despite being a depressive introvert that found public performance a form of torture, I can't recall ever being that down on myself for losing - most of the time you know the other competitors, you can tell they did better than you did, and you're happy for them - musicians are generally like that. Everyone is different, but in the case of tonight's ep, everyone wasn't different, they were all immature and hostile. It was really unpleasant.

Also, that was some seriously intrusive product placement - I'm so over these weird drinks they're always shoving down our throats.

Anyway, on the positive site, the writing doesn't lean as heavily on tropes as BL usually does, and in a few cases, actively lampooned them, like a boy realistically throwing out his back trying to give someone the obligatory piggy-back ride, and Por and Thiw both trip, and instead of being caught, Por falls down the stairs and breaks his leg - that I liked. It's like saying "you don't need stupid cliches to tell a story".

The only thing that really did it for me this episode was, surprisingly, Tinn's parents, who more or less openly acknowledged Tinn is gay and his mom was concerend it would lead to unhappiness - and what his father said can't help but bring a tear to your eye - that was a beautiful and real scene.

Really? This is probably the first BL where I've liked the main pairing. I'm usually all about the side couples, which are usually better.