jpny01

I haven't seen the preview - but why did Fukuhara look up "what does kissing another man mean?" and then react negatively? I think a lot of people are putting a positive spin on this - there are a lot of fundamentally homophobic elements to this genre. In general Japanese BL has made more progress in that regard than anywhere else except possibly Taiwan, but at it's basis BL is about straight guys who fall in love.

Even in the case where someone is not overtly homophobic, they still don't want to be gay and resist it. Fukuhara is obviously attracted to everything about Shinomiya. If he were a girl, there would be no story, because they would just get togther. Since Shinomiya cancels his bad luck, his luck-related concerns should be canceled too. If he's unsure about a relationship with Shinomiya, then he should just tell him they need to take is slowly (not that it's possible to take it any more slowly than they are), not punch Shinomiya in the face and go screaming into the night when they share an accidental intimate moment.

Maybe there'a cultural element here - if you look at Western-equivalents to BL, they are Heartstopper or Young Royals. If these were written like an Asian BL, there would be protests about the heteronormativity and femphobia.

But as I said, the main prob;em for me was the regression in Ep 4. We went from their perfect date in Ep 3 right back to where we were in Ep 2.

Fukuhara is certainly not a bad person. Bad people never worry about being bad - that's why they're bad.

Yes, but if he's developing feelings for Shinomiya, why would that be a problem? If he would rather be a liar and take advantage of Shinomiya's love for him just for his luck, then Fukuhara is a terrible person. If he does have feelings, then it justifies his being in a relationship with him. So why would he resist those feelings? A woman wouldn't. Therefore, it's homophobic.

Watch the scene in ep 3 right fter his date with Shinomiya, when he's at home and googles m/m kiss - it's as explicit as you can be without actually saying it. Why exactly does he not want to fall for Shinomiya's charms? He feels guity for using him, so if he's in love with him he's not using him, so problem solved.

Can you think of a straight romance where the woman behaves like Fukuhara in resisting the incredibly handsome tall hardbodied wealthy sweet guy who respects all her boundaries, not to mention canceling her bad luck? If anything, she would be turned off by his lack of aggression. At the end of Ep 4, touching Shinomiya with his shirt off literally sends him screaming into the night. How can that be interpreted? He's not 12. His behavior is classic repressed gay.

In a way it's worse that he does't say it explicitly - it's cynically trying to have it both ways. Fighting the gay while not saying anything politically incorrect.

But more than that, going from the sweet and beautiful date in Ep 3 to this weird panic in Ep 4 is retrogressive and repetitive. There are only 8 episodes - there's not enough time for this.

The previous episodes, besides being really funny, had subtle depth, like the examination of how Shinomiya's good luck is a burden to him - but this ep was just all slaptick panic, so it didn't advance the plot, had nothing to say, and didn't develop their relationship.

I didn't hate it or anything, but it was a step down from the superlative first 3 eps. A 5% step down of this series is much greater than a 50% drop off in That's My Candy (Formula: 100 - 5% = 95, a drop-off of 5. A 50% reduction from a 1 to a .5 is a reduction of .5, which is only a 10th of the 5 above - so a small drop in a great show is 10 times more disappointing than a 50% drop in a terrrible series, if that makes sense.

I didn't hate it, but it feels like the same recycled plot again. College students, guy likes girl, gay panic, rinse, repeat. Everything about this production is better than Ocean Likes Me, but at least Ocean is attempting to be different.

Roa is a little atypical as a character, so there's at least that, and he's right, Ji Woo is kind of adorable. I hope we don't have the "But we're both guys!"/girl pursuit thing for 75% of the series.

Shinomiya laughing was so cute. But I'm starting to find Fukuhara tiresome - his gay panic is carried away and he's coming off as a real homophobe. I'd kind of like Shinomiya to find someone better - someone as wonderful as he deserves not to be punched in the face for trying to be a good boyfriend. It's half over already - their relationship is going backwards, not fowards.

We should get this updated.

Daryll was great in Ep 4. I think he's at his best when not speaking English. I really like that this group are always trying new things and to push the boundries of the genre. This is technically improved over previous series, so that's great too.

When you look at the scoring, it's interesting how dramatic the difference is by age. Some of that is just chance due to the low sample size, but it's clear that the youngest and oldest like it, and the middle don't care for it.

TBH, it was badly written. Nobody would act like that. I don't even think Mehta would be that harsh. It took me out of the story.

We're starting to stray into silliness. I think it's correct to try to prevent someone from making rash life-changing decisions in the place Prakan is in, but wow, that had to be the worst delivery of support I've ever seen. If they were trying to get him to kill himself, then I retract my comment and replace it with "well done!" These people really need to work on their social skills.

I don't believe for a minute that what appears to have happened really happened, or at least not irrevocably.

Anyway, almost all the acting was again solid, but whenever Prakan was onscreen it just took me out of the story. There's something really lacking - I think maybe it's that not-great actors in BL are usually directed to give understated performances so they can just stand around and look pretty and not do much damage (like Karn - although I don't think he's bad). But here we have a not-great actor who is chewing the scenery and it really sticks out, epecially when you have nuanced and authentic performances from Yacht, Tae, and Pat.

I think what they did was correct, but almost unbelievably horrible in the delivery. You should try to stop people who are grieving from making rash decisions, but there are ways to say things!

Wow, good eye!

They are - I meant to say that above. What I liked in the sound is it included the waves while making the dialog sound natural - that can be hard on a low budget.

What bothrs m about it, besides it's impossibility and laziness, it's that it's imposing an extermnal circumstance to push the boys togther, because it would be too gay if they simply met and were attracted to each other. I guess I should be happy that nobody's raping each other anymore, although ukes still act like they're about to be whenever their bf tries to show them physical affecttion.

I think maybe the lack of chemistry is because they act like people who have ben married for 10 years rather the with the passion of a new relationship where you can't keep your hands off each other. There was never any sexual tension between them either - it was more of a light switch being flipped. To a very, very dull outdoor light in the daytime.

Also, Holland's character is a bit all over the place. He encouraged Bada to enter the contest, but then gets surly when Bada prepares for the contest in a fairly childish way - and if his behavior was supposed to be seductive, he probably needs to work on that. What is his character? We really don't get a sense of it, and with the series 75% complete it's a bit late to develop it.

The food looks great, and the sound is good.

The guy standing behind Holland in that scene looked familiar to me. Maybe it's because he resembles Pavel Naret.

On a more minor point, and yet not insignificant because this is a about a guy who wants to have a successful business, how many times can you randomly close the restaurant during peak hours before everyone gives up and you go out of business?

Maybe Saint will move to Korea. But then he would just be turned down for an inferior choice.

If something is a satire, it needs to satirize something, or it's just stupid. Are we meant to feel sorry for Jing, or hate him for being a malignant narcissistic monster? Who would tie up medical resources in the middle of a pandemic (or any other time) to vomit passive-aggression on a loving boyfriend? Yes, guess what? When there's an emergency and the stakes are life and death, your bf's job is more important than feeding your codependency.

Other than when Dr. Pak was onscreen, I couldn't hit the +10 seconds fast enough. Actually, I did get fascinated by Ohm's arms. I watched that whole scene where he was wearing the red muscle shirt.

Anyway, this is terrible. Kimmon & Copter must have expensive vices or something, because apparently they'll do anything for a paycheck.

Can they, though? They've been in so many horrible productions that I'm starting to wonder if we like the idea of Kimmon & Copter rather than the actual Kimmon & Copter. Or maybe my tolerance for couples that never touch each other and behave like pre-teens has declined.

Evan took a shower, which I liked. Gap looks really good in that tub in the scenes from next week. The rest was too boring to watch even on 2x. I do like Evan and Faiyen. I did find myself watching their scenes. Has having a plot gone out of fashion or something?