mina

the sweetest romcom!

It all started with an eraser… and a misunderstanding. Or two.

Aoki likes sweet and kind Hashimoto, the girl who gave him a cake last spring. One day he borrows an eraser from her and he realizes that she wrote another classmate’s name, Ida, on the eraser followed by a heart. While Aoki despairs about his crush liking someone else, he doesn’t realize that Ida sees the eraser too. Ida thinks that the eraser is Aoki’s and by proxy assumes that Aoki is the one that likes him.

Aoki tries to keep Hashimoto’s crush a secret by going along with the misunderstanding and saying that he likes Ida.. fully expecting the other boy to reject him. However, kind and considerate Ida sees how heartbroken Aoki is because of his unrequited crush, and instead of rejecting him asks for a bit more time to think over his answer.

As they spend some time together the boys realize that the two of them get along pretty well actually and Aoki starts to see why it would be so easy to like Ida.. and soon finds himself confused on who he should be jealous of in their little love triangle.

The show has a really funny set up and a lot of jokes and funny scenes. Aoki is a dramatic creature by nature so his reactions and inner monologues are priceless. Ida lives in a state of perpetual confusion and it is utterly funny to see how Aoki’s chaotic antics mix with his straight laced personality.

The story has a slow and relaxed pace where the main cast ponders a lot on who they like, what it even means to like someone and what dating means for them. They also have a few realistic conversations about prejudices that same sex couples can face but the show's message always remains clear: people who judge others for their orientation are in the wrong.

The story also offers some surprising twists at the beginning regarding the love interests, as not everything is as it seems. It is super fluffy and funny. I am so happy to finally find such a sweet, wholesome romance story in the genre. I love this new generation of slow burn boys love romances where the characters just genuinely like each other and get along well and the love interest’s main appeal is just being a kind person.

The only other show that showed so much care and heart was Cherry Mahou, albeit that is about adult characters at the workplace.

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I will be real with you, I was a bit confused

MC reunites with his tutor from back when he was still in high school and the LI was already in university. It is really unclear what the age gap is here, just a few years or sometimes steeper? It never really gets mentioned.

MC does some experiments with the LI at his new workplace and has to answer a bunch of personal questions. during these he confesses to LI and we see some flashbacks, where we learn that after LI threated him to study better, MC actually turned around his life, and fell for LI

now we get to the confusing part - apparently, LI was only tutoring him as part of a school experiment about at-risk kids, which involved making the MC get attached to him. however, MC found out about this back then and still was in love with LI and was greatful to him about helping his sht get together, even if it was through lowkey manipulation and for selfish reasons

and apparently at their reunion LI fell for him too, and only did this new experiment to make MC fall for him?

idk, but they were both into the whole manipulative experiment thing, so I guess they do belong together

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the previous seasons were extremely fun, and I was okay with the Author pulling a story reset on us after the very finale-like ending of season 2 and I was curious about what kind of new hijinks Mob will get into and to, see his character growth continue from season 2, and see what clever twists the Author will pull now but.. this season seemed to revert back to one-episode stories which were not that exciting anymore and the jokes didn't land with me as much either. however my main beef with the story was the introduction of the love rival or to be more specific.. the trope of the love rival, which was AGE GAP ROMANCE WITH A MINOR. at the very least Mob continued to try to avoid the flags, but I hated how the story kept going back to this trope and even showed another age gap couple where one of them was a minor......
there were some good bits among the brothers, and some indications that Mob's brother is aware of Mob's power to some extent (which I hope will be explored later..) but yeah, that whole high school love rival thing put a damper on the whole show.. I just want Kikuchi back to fix this storyline.

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not the healthiest relationship..

I have read the manga and reluctantly watched the series as well, hoping the story would be improved upon. Unfortunately, it wasn't. The story and characters struggle with the same things as the source material.

Given are two coworkers who absolutely cannot stand each other, always end up having really awful arguments and never communicate. As they are placed on more projects together they slowly learn a bit more about each other, and realize that they make a really good team even if their morals and the things they are willing to do for a story do not match. Through sheer guessing - since once again, they barely talk properly - Kaburagi figures out that Onoe finds him attractive and the two start sleeping together. One of the worst BL tropes is the one where one of the characters acts like they hate their love interest but "secrectly" likes it when the love interest manhandles them - which seems to be the entire personality of Onoe.

Realistically there is no way for Kaburagi to know that Onoe is just "pretending" to dislike him (unless this was a supernatural story and he was a mind reader, which is unfortunately, not the case here) or if he actually just hates his guts. Like he has already said so, several times. Yet, he keeps making advances and pursues him. Later, there is a scene where they confess their feelings to each other, but since this is during another one of their agressive shouting matches, it doesn't really make up for the terrible communication they have.

The setting, characters, actors would have been interesting enough if only just the relationship was better handled.

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could have been great, but has the same toxic tropes as the manga

Unfortunately, the story suffers from the same issues as the original anime and manga. So many of the main couple's intimate scenes contain non-consensual kisses, touching, and borderline r*pe attempts. I don't understand why the mangaka thought this was necessary when the characters and story would be incredibly good without these elements. Ryoma is constantly ignoring Izumi's boundaries. The family and their agent turns a blind eye to this and worse, actively allow Ryoma to meet Izumi at home, at school, etc. Sexual harassment is not funny and should not be the baseline for a future romantic relationship. I was hoping they'd change these things for the live action drama, especially since they seemed to have no problem updating the wedding ad to show a same sex couple, but disappontingly the rest of the show was not updated.

The base plot would work so well, if they simply just allowed for Izumi to fall in love with Ryoma organically. Ryoma having a crush on Izumi first and wanting to get to know him would have been perfectly okay if he had even an ounce of self-control.

The actors played the characters well, and I immediately recognized Shougo's actor who also voiced the character in the anime. Ryoma's actor is yes, very over the top, but that is literally how the character is in the source material.

I am really sad about this one, because the writing and comedic scenes are otherwise great. The screenplay seems to be written by the mangaka too and they did a great job with transitioning the story into a live action drama and it flows really well. The actor really look like their characters, I love how their hair was styled to match the original designs.

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masterpiece

It is beyond me, how they managed to make this story with only 15 minutes episodes? I guess this is prime example of how well a story can work even with such a limited runtime if the writing and directing is good. Lots of series with over 10 episodes and 45 minutes don't show the quality and depth this one managed to deliver.

We have two high school friends, who had to part ways as the mc's family moved out of town right after his graduation. As a hopeless, last ditch effort the mc uses their last talk with his best friend to tell him that he likes him. The best friend misunderstands at first, and says that he likes him too so mc clarifies that he means romantically and impulsively kisses him. Seeing his friend's bewildered reaction he apologizes and runs away - quite literally as afterwards the friend is unable to reach him ever again.

After, I believe it was seven? years, due to pure random luck the mc runs into him again at a job interview. MC is obviously shaken by the most awkward reunion and even worse, his old friends seems to pick on him at work as he keeps pestering him. Except, when he confronts him about it, the friend confesses his feelings to him and tells him that he actually tried looking for him all these years..

I liked that the characters' reactions were believable and they talked out their past grievences and actively discussed what they want from each other. At the end of every episode there are cute segment of the supposed game they are working on together - but it is essentially flashbacks about the mc and his friend from when they were in school together. These snippets reveal a lot about their relationship in school and makes you understand why they liked each other and why mc had some hopes that their feelings might be mutual. I really loved the actors chemistry and that consent was clear all along. The directors clearly did a really great job and their kisses were phenomenal.

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WAY TOO SHORT

This story was so cute and funny! I need 10 more seasons!

Hajime is a former child actor, who struggles to get people take him seriously in the industry. So he's really happy to hear when he gets cast as a lead actor for an upcoming BL drama. His co-star and love interest is the popular actor, Akafuji.

Hajime is generally a very sweet, kind person and he is happy to meet Akafuji on set, but no matter what he does the other seems to ignore him. This is a serious blow to Hajime's already fragile self-esteem, and accepts the fact that Akafuji is just too popular to ever think of him as his equal. However, as they both seem a bit stiff and have trouble with portraying the chemistry between their characters on set, the director jokingly suggests that they should move in together. Maybe even sleep in the same bed, just like the characters they play. Hajime who has been trying to befriend Akafuji is very much open to the idea but to everyone's surprise Akafuji is even more into it. So they end up moving in together for a little while, and get to know each other better. The real shocker comes, when the story introduces us Akafuji's POV as well and we learn, that he hasn't been avoiding Hajime because he looks down on him.. quite the opposite.. he has been a fan of Hajime's acting for a while now. "Fan" as in: he has a shrine dedicated to Hajime with all his merch...

As they start to get used to living together Akafuji realizes that Hajime is a real person, not just some unreachable idol, and that he also maybe started to have real feelings for him.

There were many really sweet and funny scenes, and some 4th wall breaking scenes that involved the drama shoot where these two work. Like, coming with excuses about how they can practice lines their characters would say only so they can flirt with each other, and Akafuji asking Hajime to "practice" for their kissing scene and Hajime being really disappointed when the kissing scene gets cut..

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weak writing but otherwise OK

I finished this in the end, despite the weak start. The story was OK but didn't really show much originality. It felt like most of the issues could have been resolved within 5 minutes if the MC and LI just sat down and talked, instead we got each of their issues drawn out into full episodes. It felt like the writing wanted to make this story really wholesome, but for that the characters were acting out too much. And they shyed away from making the characters truly problematic.. so in the end we got these rather meandering fights and conversations which did resolve their issue but didn't really hit that emotional reaction they were going for.

The LI started out with some red flags: lowkey threatening the MC with blackmail - which he never followed up upon, nonconsensual touching at the workplace, a noncon first kiss.. and acting as if he could emotionally manipulate the MC to date him. Yet, somehow he turned into the most vanilla and loving bf once the MC gave him a chance, and followed MC's every whim as if his life depended on it.

MC was incredible passive and barely did anything by his own volition for the first few episodes, then actually started to grow into his own and make his own choices. I have really appreciated this, however, he quickly turned into one of those guys who wants to make his partner's decisions for them once they got together. I honestly didn't understand most of the time how he came to certain decisions, as it wasn't explained by the narration. And then he tried to force his own views onto the LI - eg. the LI was low contact with his neglectful family and MC kept pushing him to keep in touch with them and insisted that this was the right way, instead of trying to listen to the LI and accept his choices.

Overall, the story often felt boring, and a bit frustrating but it had a few cute scenes and they had surprisingly good kisses - especially for a J-BL. The characters could have used more depth and personality, instead of relying so much on the narration.

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as a long time fan of Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun, I am in love with this series

the casting is great - the actors really look the part, and perfectly embody the manga characters' little quirks and even their clothes showcases their indiviual styles

the setting is a bit different - since the original story was set in Japan, at a Japanese high school and the show is localized to China, there are obvious differences. everyone got a Chinese name:
Nozaki is now Lu Yeqi
Mikorin is Chai Ziyu
Sakura is Zuo Qiandai
Mayu is Lu Yezhen
Seo is Zhou Jieyue
Wakamatsu is Jiang Ruosong
Hori is Gu Zhengxing
Kashima is Lu Dao

and ofc the broader supporting cast (Ken-san, Miyako, and even Maeno) makes their appearance as well

due to the localization there are local customs eg. Mayu does some kind of other martial art, not judo. for some reason the high school setting was changed to university as well, which I don't mind as much as I thought I would. everyone's major fits their character well and they characters still hang out and do their usual shenanigans together thanks to their majors/clubs. since they are in uni, most of the time they are out of uniform - except Sakura, which seemed to have turned into a visual gag for each episode

I was kinda scared that with so many changes the humor would be lost as well, but the writers really managed to make the best use of the characters and the script. the first few eps loosely follow the manga's gags but there are plenty of original material in there too and so far it all has been incredibly funny

the biggest change however is that unlike the OG GSNK - where every tiny steps towards a canon ship is followed up by an immediate joke and yet another shoujo trope parody, the show actually seems to try and gives us legit romantic set up. a lot of the things that are adapted are from much later volumes and by the way things are going it seems the show might make the couples canon before the manga ever does. the biggest (and most welcome) surprise was that even Mayu and Mikorin - who get treated as a crack!ship in the manga mostly - got a few, genuinely romantic scenes for them. now I'm not gonna hold out hope that they end up together officially by the end of this show but the fact that the show treats them with the same kind of romantic set up as any of the other couples made my delusional MayuMiko shipper heart incredibly happy

one thing I am torn about is that as much as I am happy about progress between Nozaki and Sakura, Sakura seems a bit too mean at times. as I am not up to date with the manga I am not sure if all of these plotlines are entirely original or if they came from later volumes, but sometimes it gets grating that she avoids Nozaki without giving him a clear explanation. in the manga Sakura is completely aware of the fact that Nozaki CANNOT read social cues for the life of him, so expecting anything romantic from him is hopeless.. but show!Sakura seems a bit less understanding of how Nozaki's mind works. and the fact that show!Nozaki tries so hard to make her happy (and it is implied much heavier here that he does indeed like Sakura) makes it so much harder to watch Sakura act all cold and snappy with him.

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pushy love interest

I liked the premise- childhood friends who don't realize they are in love with each other, until both of them starts dating. The main character asks his friend to coach him in dating so they can ask out their crush. Said friend uses this opportunity to seduce the mc under the guise of going on practice dates.

I feel like this could have been such a good story, to show their already existing chemistry and use the "fake dating" excuse so they can make out.. but the problem is that the friend is extremely inpatient and keeps pushing the mc's boundaries at every given chance. He kisses the mc forcefully and keeps touching him, even after the mc asks him to stop several times. It is clear to the audience that they both like each other, but the mc never gives him the green light to go ahead in the first ep. In the next the friend started to get even worse with acting jealous of mc's crush and getting in between them. I will be dropping this bc I don't like redflag love interests and noncon.

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