jpny01

Or in this case, instead of filling the space with lots of words, it does it with staring and taking a fifteen-minute break between each spoken phrase.

We might note the end result of the romance in GSP, yet it was still compelling. I didn't even really love 1000 Stars, but the boys were committed and played people in love with each other, and it showed, even though Earth was playing a very stoic character. Here, Zung can't help but be smoldering with those huge dark eyes, and he'd probably have chemistry with a soggy cardboard box, but if you told me this was a bromance, I'd 100% believe it. In fact this would be a better story if it were a bromance and focused on the mentor-protege chef relationship instead of spending so much time on staring at each other.

It feels to me sometimes like some viewers want to fetishize boys liking boys while stripping them of their sexuality. Boys (and girls!) have sexual attractions, and that's a big part of what romance is for most people. Whether or not they're acted upon is irrelevant to how successful a story is - it's the longing and anticipation that holds our interest, not the sex itself. Although I wouldn't say no to seeing Aue in a love scene. :)

What Araron Newman said. Sorry, I shouldn't have used abbreviations. GSP is "Gaya Sa Pelikula, which is IMO one of the two top BLs of all time and the best Filipino BL by a wide margin, athough I'm sure there are Gameboys fans that would disagree.

I Told Sunset About You is only 5 eps, but is just sublime in its storytelling, cinematography, and acting. It's a coming of age story, but the characters are unique and different - for example, one of them is really weird, but in a charming way. I think it would probably win a vote for Best BL.

Top Secret was actually awful. If they'd just focused on the main four guys it would have been a cute show, but it's like they realized they had no high school kids or engineers in the story so they stapled them on for no apparent reason.

I much prefer a glacial plot where nothing happens to a bag of tropes - I don't think there have been any in Bite Me. Nobody's even tripped and been caught yet! How can anyone be in love if they don't trip and fall into someone's arms?

I like all that too - I'm only disappointed because it has 100 times more potential than the average BL and I was so excited at first. You'll get no argument from me about Don't Say No and Lovely Writer (to be fair, Top Secret got totally derailed by COVID). At least this has characters and situations that make sense! And the acting is much better and the production is top-rate. There are still 5 eps for this to get somewhere.

I found with today's episode that I still have "BL character with knife" PTSD - I cringe whenever anyone is chopping anything. I'm always expecting that someone will have to get out the gross brown q-tip.

I didn't get past ep 4 of TT2 - but I'm tempted to watch it now.

I don't think Mark is a bad actor - I just think he's miscast. I don't think he's a great actor, but he's competent enough for a BL.

The cinematographer is very talented - the director/screenwriter I'm not sure about. We'll see. The acting overall is quite good.

Your point 5 I can't agree with. The plot development is no slower than some BLs, but not most BLs. Sure, it's better paced than Make It Right 2 or Love Sick 2 (or almost anything 2), but we're on ep 7 and nothing has really happened. I loved the first episode, liked the second, and now it's sort of a habit I hold onto in the hope it will get moving with the comptetition.

I think it was a mistake to market it as a BL - it really isn't. I'm not sure what it is, really. Maybe that's the problem - I'm not sure anyone thought this through. This ep we finally heard it explicitily stated that Aue like Aek, but why? We have no insight into that. How does Aek make him feel? Does he like Aek for who he is, or does he like the idea of Aek? The only details we get are the lyrics of that sappy ballad they play over and over. This ep, we got the same fakeout we've had several times now - "Everything's great with you forever by my side. Um, As an employee." Sigh.

Slow pacing is fine - but not if it's moving in a circle. The only thing in this episode that I didn't feel deja vu over was the new hot evil chef and the desert that camera-boy was photographing. But even Hot Evil Chef is symptomatic of a problem. Instead of developing the relationship with the other evil chef, we've introduced an entirely new one out of the blue, so now we've hit reset again. And I'm sure the bag of evil chefs hasn't been exhausted yet.

I was sure this would be in my top three BLs after the first ep - as it is, I forgot it was even on today - I was checking WorldofBL for something else and this was at the top of the feed. I think I said before that this is is all style over substance, and I haven't seen anything to change my opinion. The style is beautiful, but that's not enough to keep this high on my list.

One thing I'll say for this: it isn't full of flashbacks to scenes we've already seen a dozen times, like a certain other slow-burn BL. Like a lot of people have said, the problem isn't the slow burn - it's the total lack of anything happening, except to minor background characters, all of which had way more story movement this ep than Aek and Aue have had for the entire series so far.

I like the food porn, I like setting the scene, showing us where Aek is from and what has made him who he is. That's all great. But this is Ep 7. I don't like all the unnatural dialog unnatrually delivered. I guess I should be grateful that I got to write the opera I've been meaning to get to in the pauses between every phrase everyone speaks.

At this point I'm here to look at pretty things - like that desert at 30:14, Aue in general, and now the new hot evil chef character. The casting director of this series is the best casting director.

But this is giving a lot of people an opportunity to feel smug and superior if they like it, so it's pproviding some service, I guess. Solipsism5 is the only person who's managed a defense of this without being a condescending jerk.

I was thinking that too. The new villain is really hot though. Whoever the casting director is for this show should get an award of some kind.

I disagree. ITSAY and GSP are the way to do slow burn romances. I love slow-burn romances. This is a no-burn romance. Think about it - if I asked you to describe the plot of ITSAY, it would take you several paragraphs. What is it for this show? Nothing has happened. Was the plot advanced at all this ep? Your post is incredibly condescending. People who find this non-moving don't want "steamy sex scenes" - that's making a lot of smug assumptions.

The camera work was really good in this. The sound was not really good in this. The dialog is not very natural and the transitions are strange, If you're tipsy and there's an especially hot shirtless man on top of you kissing and grinding, the chances are not great you'll stop him to discuss your emotional vulnerability. Speaking of which, Jill is too pathetic to be sympathetic. Jack should find someone who isn't such a wreck.

I personally know the reason, as I worked for a Korean company and now I don't, and not voluntarily. But piracy is a major loss of revenue for all streaming - it doesn't matter if it's international or not, it's still wrong.

Daily Motion will just steal it from Viki when the subtitles are done. It never takes more than a day for them to finish. It's a lot of work!

If more people would watch it legally instead of pirated versions, Korean BLs would make money and people would make more and longer ones.

It would be hard to be more onboard than I am for this.

Oh - there's a typo in there. I meant "what's with the new boy?" and I wrote "what's with the new body?" Which makes no sense.

I don't think it's bad, but it's not good either. The lead is really cute and a good actor - his mild terror when the cab driver asked him if he was bi was really cute and funny.

But there are scenes that are almost excruciatingly long. When he's picking clothing, his friend is set on "angry black diva" X 10 for the entire scene and it was just tiring. The shower scene was fine though. They can do that for as long as they want.

The technical quality is also much higher than typical low-budget Filipino productions.

I feel like this has potential, but it needs to reach some of it soon.

I hope this doesn't turn out to be yet another series where Ron Angeles is rejected by the lead even though he's 10,000 times more appealing than the love interest. Why is everyone so mean to Ron Angeles? Doesn't he deserve the man every once in a while?

I'm not sure. Check back next week. The main character is really adorable, and there are some nice things about it, but there are scenes that are too long and tiring. I feel like it has some potential.

A friend said this latest episode was better than the others. My friend needs to get his head checked. The quality of the production was pretty good, but the dialog is all really unnatural. Who sits around talking about love that way?

Also, what kind of bar is that? Is there such a thing as an Omukase bar? They both said "on the rocks" for their drink. WHAT on the rocks? They got whisky. And then when Vlad said "one more round", the waitress pulled out a bottle of white wine. And it had a screw cap so you know it's quality stuff.

Anyway, at least things happened this ep, but the editing still needs to be a lot sharper. I will say that ths ep was at least watchable.

I think the overall problem with the series is that it isn't really saying anything. Maybe it's a critique of Protestant hypocrisy? There are a lot of potential issues set up, like class difference, religion, and sexual harassment, but the writing is fairly shallow. Without any sort of underlying theme, this isn't very compelling and doesn't overcome its shortcomings. I think Kaleb Ong is one of the best actors in BL, but this production isn't pulling the usual stellar performance out of him. To be fair, there's only so much anyone can do with that dialog. Axl is usually made out of sex, but here he just seems like a naughty boy.

That was really great. The first part could have been paced faster, but otherwise it's charming and sexy. Ryu... yikes. I take it from their names that Mix & Match are the end couple, but that's just a guess.

I liked avoidance of tropes. Match didn't act surprised at how late it is when the alarm that he set went off, not one, but TWO people were in a kitchen and nobody cut himself, and nobody tripped was caught, and all three appear to be openly gay, so no "I'm not gay, I only like______"

I loved the phallic cooking scene - that was cute.

One thing, though. In the entire history of the human species, three hot young gay men getting into a bed together has resulted in a threesome within 15 seconds. But we can't ask for 100% realism in a fantasy romance.