kruppe92

Sooo good

The first half of this show up until ep 12 or something was a solid 9/10. It was light-hearted, funny, well acted. Sure some scenes were cheesy as hell but it was great fun. Then the mystery plot started. It wasn't bad and I was invested in it since it affected our characters and the comedy, which is the show's true strength still existed, albeit muted due to the gravity of the murder investigation plot.

Once the killer was revealed, which was so predictable, because there was literally no other character who it could have been, things went downhill really fast. It was as if the show was written by completely different person, nothing made sense, it was suddenly so full of illogical plotholes. I didnt understand how our FL could see his blackscreen once he was revealed, but not before when she kept touching his bum at multiple junctures. The fact that she can now hear sounds during that blackscreen is also a convenient new development. Why do they see the blackscreen because of the sunglasses? Its supposed to be darker, not completely black, especially when he was out there attacking people in the streets where there was street lights. If the logic is that the FL can see whatever the person whose bum she's touching sees, then logically she should have been able to see through the sunglasses as well.

Why was the killer killing people? It seems like he said he wanted revenge initially, but then he liked the act itself. That sounds like a cop out because there wasnt much motive for him to go from never having killed for 40 or so years of his life but suddenly he can read minds and he felt like he needed to go on a killing spree. Whatever happened to his young son?

Honestly the last few episodes were so bad that I couldnt even find any motivation to watch ep 16, but it was something I had to do, to finish. I docked 2 points from my earlier rating and lament the fall of what was prob one of my most enjoyed show so far.

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Something feels off

I would like to start off by acknowledging how all the actors acted their parts so well in this drama. But something feels off about the plot.

I can't take the show too seriously. The bullies seem aggressive, but only because the victims are freaking doormats. We later learn about the greater bully, Ha Rin who psychs you out by manipulating and playing with power. Her motivations are:
1. Force everyone to play the pyramid game where she emerges as the very top of the structure.
2. Make her childhood friend turned foe the permanent victim.

What is insane is the way she wields power to set all the things in motion to play the pyramid game like getting adopted conveniently by the Baeks to deciding who joins her class in school to influencing literally everything she can in her power with whose help idk, definitely the principal because of her chairman grandma, but outside, how? She has dirt on her "father", knows her "mother" is a doormat to the grandma, and holds favor in the eyes of her "grandma", but none of them seem to be actively helping her other than ignoring the things she does but how does she get them done to be begin with is not shown. And this is kind of important because she is just an adopted freaking highschooler. Why do all these girls participate in the pyramid game barring the elite few? Do they all not care that one of them will be victimized by being a participant and a bystander? This kinda feels dumb considering the show shows how some of the girls are manipulative and strategic but most of these girls just look dumber than rocks for going with Ha Rin's games. It takes Su Ji for these girls to understand how democracy works.
The whole motivation for Ha Rin to play the game also feels very weak and is mysterious to us until the very last episode where the reveal falls very flat. I guess psychopaths dont need strong motivations. The first victim and her brother don't really need to be interwoven into the plot, and the brother being a genius coder is also not super necessary since he really didnt do any high level tech stuff: just installed a camera and uploaded the videos to social media; these things dont really need a genius in this day and age.

All in all, the show seems to present the story as a high stake, psychological game, but honestly feels like teenage shit that could be solved by just by the girls using brains and communication. There is power and corruption but the victims had plenty of proof to bring them down easily. There are a lot of similar shows that showcases bullying in high school like The Glory, Weak Hero, etc, but they all felt more serious and believable or as in Study Group, presents itself like a live action comic.

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Unique BL, but not the best BL

The storyline was interesting in the beginning and then fell off the handle.

Takeaways:
1. Love timeloop + medical drama
2. BL with a plot
3. Decent actors, some were better than others, especially the actors who played Rit, Sing, Jinta stood out. The leads were kinda stiff in emotional scenes and stared at each other creepily; wasnt the strongest chemistry, but wasnt the worst. Part of it could be because of the script. Some actors don't really have any real roles like the female doc, ex-gf of Tin's, the evil friend duo of Tol's or the mutual friend winggirl.
4. Plot.
I was going to give up on the series because it took me forever to finish ep 1. There was a lot of medical info dump and stiff acting from Tin (maybe because he was exhausted?) and repetitive time loop scenes, but I powered through. From ep 2 to 11, the story telling was quite compelling, albeit with a lot of loopholes. Like the convenient family friend/savior or tutor-student relationships , handing over the book to get Tol up to speed in ep 12, or change of rules wrt timeloop didnt make sense. The way Tin and Tol switched personalities was also questionable. Tin was not friendly towards Tol in the beginning because he thought he was responsible for drunk driving, but then did a whole 360 and started falling in love with Tol for no real reason because imo Tol was so unlikeable. When the POV switched to Tol, Tin was kinda emulating Tol's earlier behavior which feels so out of character for Tin, especially as a Doctor, where is his empathy when he decided to leave Tol at the hospital knowing how frantically he was searching and waiting for Tin for hours. The characters conveniently remember the past or forget it atleast in the later episodes its shown that Tin starts remembering Tol from the kiss. Anyway, the mystery was more of less solved by episode 4, the rest of the episodes was about romance and learning small new information about the characters/loop and getting out of it. Despite that the middle episodes were entertaining up until the POV change to Tol. While I don't hate the idea, the plot fell even flatter after that and there was a lot of scene repetition. Finale felt predictable more or less though I dont know why Tin has to be in a coma for an unknown length of time and how he suddenly wakes up to find Tol at the clocktower. I feel like I could go on and on about the problems I had with the plot.
5. Music was okay, nothing outstanding, not terrible.
6. Wish the cast had a slightly diverse wardrobe when they are outside the hospital/uni setting. Like Tol could have worn more casual clothes instead of his uni uniform. Thats a side-effect of a story set in time-loop, but I feel like this show had more scenes to work around to change wardrobe as opposed to shows like Reset (Chinese).

I think I'm being quite generous with my rating here. I would rate it 7-7.5 since there wasnt anything especially outstanding about it. But I love how the show has more plot than a typical BL, but also not quite well-written for it to be a Thriller and would love to see more such attempts from the BL industry. Despite the awkward romance, I feel like it had the right amount of romance and I enjoyed how there were good kisses but no explicit NC scenes and the narrative was mostly focused on developing and resolving the plot. In comparison to Manner of Death that I rated slightly higher at 8.5, I feel like while that had less romance, it was more gripping whodunit mystery that was more compelling until the very end.

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Average Series, don't see the HYPE

I can't see anything that particularly stood out, other than Kang Seo Joon. He was kind, loveable and genuine, I don't understand how or why he would fall for someone like Han Ji Woo who is almost his polar opposite. I would get the relationship if more time was spent establishing the connection, but due to the short run-time of the series, the characters were simply too complex to fall in love that quickly. I wanted more romance, I wanted more backstory for the leads. The narrative was needlessly confusing, not sure if its a direction choice or bad editing, but the screenplay looked disjointed at times and some characters or plot threads that appear random. Lots of Chekov's Gun but none be smoking. Nothing was developed- neither romance nor their backstory, definitely not any of the sub-plots, everything was half-baked. I heard there is another season, maybe that fills in some of the plot holes, but I am not vested in any of this to go watch it yet.

I might have have rated it higher if I went it blind without all the hype about 4 years ago, but its 2025 now and these days there are so many BLs with better fleshed out and unique plots, heck even Chinese BLs are back with a bang that I just couldn't get the appeal for this one.

For other KBL recs that uses the shorter run-time wisely (imo): The Eighth Sense, Love For Love's Sake, Our Dating Sim, Semantic Error.

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Boom, Boom, Boom

10 stars for Boom, 7 stars for Smart & rest of the cast. Boom's the best Thai BL actor I've seen. Smart's character was very one dimensional and not in a good way. I guess he did okay given the script he had to work with. Its just "unfortunate" that he was paired up with Boom, who had a better script and shone every frame, every scene, every goddamn second of this show. Plot was boring, direction & cinematography choice was not my favorite. I didnt feel the connection between the main leads, they just went from rivals to lovers within 1 episode. I don't get Jin's obsession with Kin in ep 1 nor Kin's reciprocation in ep 3 just because Jin keeps giving him rides and chocolate milk. Jin kept private videos of Kin and its too weird that Kin still falls for him soon after. A top actor like Kin has definitely seen more handsome, non-wooden, newbie/young/experienced/obsessive actors given his tenure in this industry, but nah, he still falls for Jin, whose personality is just to follow him around like a puppy, whose eyes we cant even see in some of the scenes. I just don't like to watch intimacy without depth. Please give Boom a better script & more main lead roles and hopefully with a better costar.

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Short and fun live action Cartoon

Things I liked:

- a drama that appeals to all ages despite being set in high school
- ML's emphasis on studying is so refreshing and honestly sets up a good precedence to most school based shows. There was also a fair bit of heartwarming and motivational quotes that aims to teach the viewers a good lesson about the importance of being motivated, studying in schools, friendship and loyalty despite violence being the main theme.
- light-hearted comedy with some mysterious tone
- excellent acting, there was no weak link, everyone played their roles perfectly
- some great background stories + redemption
- mind-blowing action choreography. The mysterious uncle and his forbidden techniques were things I was looking for during every episode. The action sequences were surreal in a good way
- perfect hip OST
- sets up nicely for another season, while giving a good resolution to this season without any cliffhangers

Things that could have been better:

- more episodes for a better fleshed out plot
- some character's backgrounds were not developed well, some were developed well but went nowhere. Some characters looked important with good background story that took a lot of screentime in an episode(s), but were completely absent from other episodes. Eg: the blonde thug had one of the most interesting character development, but he showed up too late, while Ji U's twin brother went missing for 90% of the season (understandably so) after the first episode. The main antagonist didnt play a significant part until much later and even then we hardly get to see what motivates him to act the way he does. There is also a bit of contradictory emotions I got when I see him: is he truly evil? did he kill the previous teacher? he confessed to hating his father, who seems much worse than him, so does that mean he is doing this to attain power to dethrone his more evil father? He showed glimpses of humanity when he spoke to his teachers (both former and current homeroom teacher) and I have a feeling he had plenty of chances to hurt Ms. Lee (he confessed it in the final episode) but didnt go through it. I would have loved to see him have more screentime so we can get a better sense of his character, alas maybe we see something in Season 2. The other character that bothered me was the dead teacher's son who mysteriously showed up to save Ms. Lee in the first episode and doesn't really have a huge screentime despite a good character build-up. Hopefully we see more of him in the next season too.
- Finale needed at least another 10 minutes to wrap nicely. Pacing was odd, it ended too abruptly. This was the first time the ML and antagonist fight seriously. I wished they fought a little bit throughout the show so the tension between them is more palpable and the fight in the climax becomes even more noteworthy.

Overall, I really enjoyed it and 100% recommend for those who enjoy comedy and action with wholesome characters. This is one of those shows that should have gotten hour long 16 episode season, alas, hopefully there is another season. For an action packed drama, the story had a lot of heart.

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Just watch it

I can't believe I am rating this quite high. Why? Because I randomly stumbled across this one and Ive never heard anyone talk about this in the BL community. I don't even know any of the actors in this drama.

I promised I wont watch a show set in a Thai university again. I hate undeveloped NC scenes or love at first sight kinda romance. I dont watch love triangles or polyamory, im more of a soulmate kinda girl. This drama had ALL my peeves and I still loved it. I didn't even skip anything. Go watch it, it was that perfect.

Shout out to the actors for doing aerial acrobatics! I am hoping to see these guys again someday!

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Love is an Armor

These boys suffered a lot. They've loved, and lost and loved again.
I enjoyed it, episodes were short ranging from 17-32 mins. There are trigger warnings specifically rape (off-screen) & blackmail. But there is a payout at the end, thought I would have preferred a more violent justice for that mofo.

Things I didnt enjoy that docked the rating:

1. lackluster plot: nothing new here and for a short series, there were a lot of subplots and some were unresolved.
2. editing and other production issues that screams low budget.
3. slow pace. I didnt quite get a lot of backstory and character development from the 2 couples. They just "fell in love". For example: Pei Jia relatively warmed up to Su Yi on the set, but he somehow only realized it after the shoot ended. He also conveniently forgot Su Yi confessed he was terminally sick in one of his fan letters.
4. Poor kisses. Chinese BLs Achilles Heel basically. The one thing we can count on Thai BLs to deliver.
5. I didnt like the second couple, don't see how these two can be in love. The Director guy seems stressed and a doormat, the scriptwriter was more genuine and blunt. There were couple of instances were he made me question his love for Su Bai with the way he treated his love's brother. The Director sort of redeemed himself in the end, but he wasnt all that likeable.

Overall there is a lot to like, and some that could have been done better. Nevertheless the acting really stood out from the whole cast and I wish them all the success. I will definitely check out their future work!

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Cringefest

This drama was enjoyable in parts.

Positives:
1. A supportive, kind Captain, played by an excellent actor.
2. Funny if you ignore the second hand embarrassment you get from to the ridiculous storyline.
3. Second couple was adorable together.
4. Tang Yi's back story was interesting and tragic.

Negatives:
1. Lot of second hand embarrassment and cringe, specifically from the main character, Shao Fei.
2. Ridiculous plot in the first half that doesnt take itself seriously. There isnt really a plot: Shao Fei harasses Tang Yi for years based on a hunch because he can't let go of his past. And thats basically it.
3. Shao Fei is a policeman who acts like a 14 yo at best. None of his actions resembles anything an actual Police Officer would do, its really frustrating, but I moved on from hating him hoping this is a show that is an attempt at cringe comedy. On that note, none of the police officers on this show barring the Captain had 2 brain cells. The Mafia guys were slightly better.
4. But no, it wasn't a comedy. The show got serious on the second half and the characters just don't match the tone it set in the beginning of the story. But because I didnt take the show seriously, I couldnt give flying ducks on the emotional scenes either. I didnt feel bad when Shao Fei kept ending up in hospital because of his own stupidity, but I did feel slightly bad for Tang Yi and his biological father a little bit. That plot still stayed ridiculous, but atleast it wasnt cringe.
5. The story telling was inconsistent. The first half was slow burn workplace comedy, while the second half was drama, romance. Unfortunately, most of the comedy in the first half was character driven, instead of situational, so it was extra unbelievable for the characters to do a complete 360 and act seriously.
6. Poor romance build-up. I don't understand why Tang Yi likes Shao Fei other than the fact that he took a bullet for his sister. Shao Fei harassed him for years and seems childish, while Tang Yi is definitely smarter and a more serious type. I don't feel the chemistry at all.

I had to constantly pause and do something else when I felt second hand embarrassment from the way these characters acted, which was constant. Took me a week to finish this when I was able to finish MODC within half a day.

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Disappointing season

Some things were done better than the first like the prison games, but most things made the season worse.

1. The players were divided early on where half the members were sent to the prison to face death. Not only are these low piece players who can be easily targeted during main games, but they also have to face a second elimination during the prison game. So the living room players more or less remained the same throughout the season and the people who went to prison never came out other than Choi Hyun joon who didnt even want to attempt the secret room game.

2. The huge divide after the main game created early alliances where people with strong alliances kept winning games and weaker players are sent to prison and have no hope of getting out of there. There was no room for people like Lee Sedol or Justin Min who were interested to play their own game. The whole season depending on alliance where weak players like So hui and Tinno (they were both very smart and played the games with strong strategy, but had weak nerves and therefore easy to manipulate) held on to strong players to survive until the end (no comments on what happens later because that's ridiculous).

4. What's the point of having a secret room in the living area? The game is already heavily favored towards high piece players and this doesn't help. This secret room game also came with no consequences aka no elimination, like wtf??? This game also came no surprise to the player vs the prison side secret game was more innovative with elimination risks that gave the exact same reward for winning i.e. 10 pieces except with a major advantage i.e. the winner can claim the 10 pieces at any point even when he is just about to get eliminated. Like why do we even need to watch 12 episodes when everything was decided on the very first episode? Did the producers think the secret room wont be unveiled until much later? These are extremely smart people on the show, especially after the first season, everyone is going to be on the look out for this stuff in this season. The secret rooms were solved in the very first episode. This was too easy as opposed to the first season where the clue was super hard to find and can be solved by the living room player (the one with more pieces) to unlock the secret room on the prison side.

5. Lots of manipulation by few players. In the first season I loved watching people get along with each other despite differing alliances. Except of Dong Jae and See Won who were aggressively competitive and had strong alliance opinions, most people were friendly and mixed well with everyone. In this season the prison divide just ensured alliances were fixed and the cast itself seem to play to that game play. I liked a few players, those who were strong strategically but also competitive and straightforward and played well with everyone: Sedol, Justin, 7high were my favorites. the others who were not terrible, but somewhat strategically selfish that I could root for was eun yu, har in, je yeong. I absolutely disliked Hyun gyu, so hui and later Tinno when he backstabbed 7high.

6. Why were there so many auction/betting games? Why were the final games so simple? Why were so many of the main games to be played in teams or easy to form team and play? Prison games were more fun since we got to see the player's real skill while playing it. They also need high reward for people playing the death games so they can recover from their poor fates. I personally think the people in the prison should be fed better to be able to have the energy to play multiple games in a day. If anything this season shows how stupid the producers unbalanced the prison side of the game sort of a mimic to represent society where rich gets richer and the poor have no hopes to improve their fates. But game shows are fun only if events are unpredictable and when everyone has an equal opportunity to win.

7. Poor casting. I wont say the first season cast was absolutely perfect. There were a few weaker players even if their IQ was supposed to be high like Yu Min, Hye Sung or the Go player who hung on to some stronger players for longer than they deserved. But the strong players played their game fair for the most part like Orbit or Dong Jae or Seok Jin. Some people though Dong Jae doesnt deserve to leave soon, while I agree to some extent, he does deserve to be eliminated because he didnt have a back-up plan to maximize his points or the vision to stick with his original alliance that would guarantee he prob wont get betrayed by forming teams with newer players who were part of a major alliance.
Anyway, the casting this season also has a few weak players, but most of them were very strong strategically but its frustrating to see them get so blatantly manipulated by not so strong, cunning players like hyun gyu. He didnt find the clocks, kyuhyun did. He didnt find the secret room, So hui found the birds and trees. He didnt solve the puzzle, So hui did by finding "Insert". He just "accidentally" drops his piece after they solve the puzzle and enters the room without discussing with the other living room people if any of them wanted to go esp So hui or kyun hyun. The prison room people on the other hand actually decided fairly on who wanted to enter and everyone played a part in solving the puzzle. hyun gyu is smart in the sense where he knows how to play the people (like a sociopath) but has no real skills in playing the game. He wins by forming strong living room alliances with strategically strong players like So hui, Tinno and 7High and later Hyun Joon. When he realized he was betrayed by hyun joon in the mancala game and he now had to play alone, he desperately manipulates his older alliances like So hui and Kyuhyun to betray their new group so he "doesnt feel alone". And they agree....they dont have a backbone and kyuhyun deserves to be eliminated because of this poor decision (Remember he doesnt even know hyun gyu had the 10 piece advantage when he decided to help him because of fake tears). So hui is even worse than hyun gyu imo. She is so smart, yet so easily manipulated by hyun gyu every moment is just so unbelievable. She wanted to take pieces from the living room players after winning her game because they had tons of pieces but instead didnt question once when hyun gyu suggested she take from prison players instead because that would ensure they remain weak. Then she cries on how she feels bad to do this. She sends Tinno to the prison because hyun gyu tells her he has the best chance of coming back to the living room (but not him ofc) and she just agrees and then cries and feels bad when he gets eliminated that day. Hyun gyu just keeps evading prison because no one has the spine to send him to prison and he had an unfairly acquired secret room advantage. Send him to prison and we would have seen how much he truly was capable to strategically winning solo games. But we already know he isnt that smart and purely relies on manipulating others to cover for him. Did he play devil's game well? Sure, he kind of did and he did play a huge part in securing that lucky advantage that the producers screw up. But was it fun to watch? No, its not fun to watch the Devil win an unfair game. When he said things like "Are you scared (derogatory)?", "Do you know how to math?" to hyun joon who he knows goes to top tier school in S. Korea for mathematics, and that sealed the deal for me. He is arrogant, not even the smartest in the room but calculative, unemotional, selfish i.e. completely unlikeable and undeserved winner. I would not have hated him as much as I did if he had to play the game in alliance with smarter players like 7high, eun yu, harin or hyun joon who are not afraid of playing the game or betraying him, aka people with courage and strategy to take risks. Unfortunately most of these people were in the prison away from him for the most part and he instead ended up forming alliance with lucky loyal doormats like kyuhyun, Tinno and the pick-me girl So hui. They should really stop casting celebs like So hui and kyuhyun who are afraid to play the game like it should be because they are worried about societal backlash if they are found playing dirty but instead actual smart non-celebs who care about winning the final pot and ruthless enough to do whatever it takes for maximum entertainment. If

Anyway once my favorite players got eliminated playing the game, I just fastforwarded to see who the winner was, though I already know but still hoped it was hyun joon. In my opinion, hyun gyu is a sociopath without finesse and So hui is a high IQ coward. I want justice for 7high, Justin Min, SeDol, Eun Yu who played courageously and strategically but in unfair conditions. I hope season 3 cast, game design is better than this one, at least please revert back to season 1 prison rules at the minimum. If you are going to cast a sociopath, please cast more than one.

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Strong start, weak end

First 6 episodes was easily a 9/10. Next 6 unfortunately was a 5/10.

First 6 epi:
+ establishes chemistry between the couples
+ shows character motivations
+ shows cute scenes with cuter plushies
+ warm and cozy like my favorite JBLs: Old Fashioned Cup-cake and Cherry Magic

Last 6 epi:
- random insecurities shows up with one of the leads. basically stunts character development
- the main characters don't even interact with each other in 2 full episodes
- Divorce era before even establishing a relationship
- whats the title of this show? 10 things... yeah they completely forgot about that
- after 5 episodes of gloominess they make up in the last 5 minutes of the last episode. needed more cohabitation scenes
- better kiss than KBL, but you won't notice because its over before you're done blinking

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BL? This is hard-core Romance

This was damn good. Initially I found myself getting bored because this felt like another young, shy, puppy type guy falling for a tall, cold, athletic hunky. But then, we see the athletic hunk making all the moves towards the introverted shy guy and his resistance, boy was that resistance so sexy, heated and intense. Which shows. In those kisses. Nothing more electrifying than those passionate kisses, THAI BLs please take notes, you don't need to see the couple having sex, just something simple like a kiss is magical if the chemistry is chemistrifying.

Simple plot, doesn't meander, excellent chemistry, KBL magic. Hoped for a longer series because the side couple was interesting as well but their story wasn't fleshed out. Alas, perhaps a spin-off is in works??

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