Eight years ago, he was at the peak of his career, bright, confident, and full of promise. Then, all of a sudden, he resigned. Everyone thought he was leaving to start his own company, that he was about to build something even bigger. His coworkers were even looking forward to taking photos with the future boss. No one knew he was not chasing success anymore. He was quietly walking away from it.
He did not go into business. He became a translator and started working from home. Now he looks thin, unkempt, with tired eyes and a kind of quiet emptiness that is hard to ignore. Whenever he is asked why he chose this work, he always avoids the question. Clearly, there is something he has never said out loud.
The clues were there all along. The wheelchair that keeps showing up. The way he cooks such a beautiful meal, yet instinctively mixes sweet potato into the rice. That is not just a habit. That is what life looks like when you have spent years caring for an elderly father. So his choice to work from home was never about freedom. It was about duty. It was about survival.
And on the day he was about to leave, both the job and the man he had loved in silence, he finally stopped him. He thought that if he did not confess then, he would never get another chance. So he spoke, just to give his long, hidden feelings a proper ending.
But he never expected the other person to feel the same. It should have been a happy moment, but the timing was cruel. The man he loved was standing in a brighter future, while he himself had no clear path ahead. It was happiness, yes, but happiness at the wrong moment. And so he ran.
Maybe that is why he chose translation. Maybe with medical books and careful words, he could fool himself into thinking he still had some small connection to that person.
That day, he left too quickly and forgot a flower behind. No one understood what it meant, but the other man remembered it for a long time, holding onto the regret.
Wrong time, right person. Even after all these years, nothing has really disappeared.
And now they meet again. When asked whether he lives alone, he looks away. His father is gone, and the grief is still fresh. He does not know if this is the right time, but after losing one chance already, he cannot bear to give up another.
Episode 6 really stayed with me, but not because of the kiss. What caught me was the cigarette. It’s such a small detail, and yet it ends up carrying the emotional weight of the whole scene.
The first time, inside the KTV room, it already feels like a quiet gesture of attention. The second time is the one that really hits: Liuyi is outside at Qinglong’s front door, lighting one cigarette for Qinglong and his sister as an offering, then another for himself. One for the dead, one for the self. In that moment, the cigarette stops being just a prop and becomes a ritual, a way of mourning, and a way of keeping himself together at the same time.
What makes the scene even stronger is that Chu-san sees all of it from the car. Liuyi asks him to stay behind, so he does, and that distance matters. He is not stumbling into the moment blindly. He watches Liuyi grieve, crouch down, and start slipping out of himself before he ever gets out of the car. So when he finally steps out, takes the cigarette away, carries Liuyi back, and kisses him, it doesn’t feel like a random romantic beat. It feels like he has been witnessing Liuyi all along.
I’m not trying to excuse the consent issue here. That part is real. But what I keep coming back to is how the scene frames care, grief, and restraint through these tiny physical actions. Chu-san doesn’t begin with desire. He begins with noticing. And that, to me, is what makes the whole sequence so affecting.
The cigarette matters more than the kiss because it tells us what kind of intimacy this is. Not loud, not declarative, not clean. Just someone seeing another person at their most fragile and reaching for them in the only way he knows how.
Wishing Upon the Shooting Star has this quiet thing going on where it doesn’t grab you right away, but then suddenly you’re four episodes deep and emotionally compromised. It sneaks up on you in the best way.
Episode four really got me. Both couples finally stopped dancing around their feelings and just went there. And it landed because it felt honest, not dramatic for the sake of being dramatic. Just two people figuring out what they actually mean to each other in real time.
The moment that wrecked me was LWZ spiraling after Hama-chan went quiet for a few days. He didn’t confess, he didn’t do anything grand, he just worried. And that said everything. Affection disguised as concern is the most devastating kind of love language, and this show knows that.
Up until now LWZ felt like a man carrying too much weight. The career disappointment, the tension with his father, the walls built around CHW. But this episode cracked him open a little. He cares. He just trips over himself every time he tries to show it, and honestly that makes him more real to me, not less.
Also, can we talk about how gorgeous Taiwan looks in this series? The seaside scenes have this calm, layered quality, and the styling actually makes sense for the setting. People dress like they’re really living in a coastal town, light fabrics, relaxed cuts, clothes that move with the wind instead of fighting it. It feels lived in, and I’m so tired of BLs that ignore the climate just to look glossy. This feels grounded in the best way.
The humor does lose a little something in the subtitles. Some jokes clearly hit different in the original Chinese, and that’s not really anyone’s fault. Puns are almost impossible to translate when they depend on the rhythm of a specific language. It’s a small thing in the grand scheme of how much this show gets right.
After four episodes, I feel pretty confident saying this one deserves more attention than it’s getting. Wishing Upon the Shooting Star has a softness and an authenticity that stay with you. It’s not trying to shock or impress. It’s asking you to pay attention and fall in love with the quiet honesty between these characters. And if you let it, you absolutely will.
What stayed with me most in episodes 6 and 7 is not just that Arthit wants Daotok so badly, but that the whole thing feels so charged with feeling, awkwardness, and restraint. A woman Arthit had hooked up with shows up, and when she notices how cold he seems, she starts pressing Daotok for answers. That moment felt uncomfortable in a way that was emotionally revealing, because suddenly everyone’s feelings are exposed, and not very gracefully.
But honestly, what I keep returning to is Daotok. He never stops being himself. He does not dilute his personality, and he does not twist himself into someone easier to manage. If he says he is not tired, then he is not tired. If he says something is bothering him, then it is bothering him. I find that kind of honesty incredibly attractive, because it means he belongs fully to himself. He is not waiting to be defined by anyone else’s desire.
The gym scene is one of the reasons I like him so much. He stops that woman from harassing him. He does not look for rescue, and he does not shrink. He protects himself, clearly and immediately, and when he tells Arthit, “I will protect myself,” it feels deeply personal. It is not just a line. It is the whole shape of who he is. He lets Arthit pursue him, but only within a space that he himself has made safe.
That is also why I do not read the ending of episode 7 as overly dramatic. To me, Daotok realizing that love is making him vulnerable again feels quiet and real. It is not a collapse. It is a soft reopening. There is fear there, but it is the kind of fear that comes when your heart is starting to trust again. That is what makes it meaningful. He is not losing himself to love. He is letting love reach him without giving himself away.
What stayed with me most in episodes 6 and 7 is not just that Arthit wants Daotok so badly, but that the whole thing feels so charged with feeling, awkwardness, and restraint. A woman Arthit had hooked up with shows up, and when she notices how cold he seems, she starts pressing Daotok for answers. That moment felt uncomfortable in a way that was emotionally revealing, because suddenly everyone’s feelings are exposed, and not very gracefully.
But honestly, what I keep returning to is Daotok. He never stops being himself. He does not dilute his personality, and he does not twist himself into someone easier to manage. If he says he is not tired, then he is not tired. If he says something is bothering him, then it is bothering him. I find that kind of honesty incredibly attractive, because it means he belongs fully to himself. He is not waiting to be defined by anyone else’s desire.
The gym scene is one of the reasons I like him so much. He stops that woman from harassing him. He does not look for rescue, and he does not shrink. He protects himself, clearly and immediately, and when he tells Arthit, “I will protect myself,” it feels deeply personal. It is not just a line. It is the whole shape of who he is. He lets Arthit pursue him, but only within a space that he himself has made safe.
That is also why I do not read the ending of episode 7 as overly dramatic. To me, Daotok realizing that love is making him vulnerable again feels quiet and real. It is not a collapse. It is a soft reopening. There is fear there, but it is the kind of fear that comes when your heart is starting to trust again. That is what makes it meaningful. He is not losing himself to love. He is letting love reach him without giving himself away.
This BL doesn’t try to win you over with noise. It doesn’t ride in on a trending CP, and it doesn’t need the usual flash to make its case. It just moves with quiet confidence and lets the story do the work.
What really stands out is how grounded it feels. The romance is there, but so is the weight of inheritance, duty, and the kind of longing that takes its time to fully reveal itself. The story carries memory in one hand and consequence in the other, and that balance gives it an ease that never feels empty.
By episode 7, it’s already made one thing clear: this show has backbone. It’s not chasing attention. It’s earning it. And in a landscape full of titles built to blow up fast and disappear just as quickly, that makes it feel especially worth noticing.
I knew within minutes of episode one that this was going to be the kind of BL I’d fall hard for because everything about it, the camerawork, the pacing, the way it stays inside a character’s head, feels so deliberately restrained.
What I love most is how the show lets feeling exist outside of dialogue. Azuma’s inner monologue pulls you straight into his headspace.
And Kuji being a translator is such a smart choice. Translation has never just been about swapping words, especially between English and Japanese, where so much meaning lives in implication. In this story, that role feels especially fitting, because the show is all about things that cannot be said directly and have to be understood in quieter, more indirect ways.
The title, Smoke Blue no Ame Nochi Hare, isn’t just pretty for the sake of it either. “Smoke blue” has that muted, hazy quality of something not fully surfaced yet, while “rain then clear skies” reads less like weather and more like an emotional arc. It isn’t simple sunshine. It’s the kind of brightness that only matters because of what came before it.
I also can’t help reading the title a little more romantically. In Japanese, weather and light imagery often carry romantic subtext, so “rain clearing, the moon appearing” naturally suggests a shift from what’s hidden to what can finally be seen. So to me, the title isn’t just saying the weather changed. It’s hinting that whatever’s been buried between these two might finally have room to surface.
And that’s what makes the show work so well. It isn’t loud about any of this. The most powerful moments are the ones where contact is almost made but not quite. Episode one already makes it clear that this isn’t just a reunion story. It’s about two people trying to make sense of what happened, and what it still means now.
If I had to put episode one into one line, it’s not asking whether these two will end up together. It’s showing what it looks like when two people have to slowly relearn how to be close again. And that kind of quiet, careful emotional build is exactly the BL sweet spot for me.
So I actually dropped this one for a couple of weeks, then came back and binge-watched straight through episode 5 in one go. And honestly? It felt like a totally different show the second time around. It really feels like things start clicking once the story gets going.
If you were thinking about dropping it or haven’t started yet, I’d say give it a bit more time. It really does build in a way that pays off if you stick with it. Episode 5 hit harder than I expected, and episode 6 gives all three couples some really nice progress without rushing things.
Also, Danny as Sky is seriously so good. That camping scene by the sea with Nawa? The way Sky’s eyes just filled up — yeah, that really got to me. I wasn’t even expecting it to land that hard, but it did.
This is definitely one of those slow-burn BLs that sneaks up on you. It might not grab you right away, but once it does, it really has you. Definitely worth the patience.
I’m a white woman who didn’t grow up in Asia, but I’ve spent enough time there that family and romance don’t look purely “Western” to me anymore. Watching My Romance Scammer and then falling into the kisskh comments left me feeling oddly split.
Part of me totally gets those posts. Pai’s family does feel cruel. Tim doesn’t pay nearly enough for what he did. Everyone gets forgiven way too fast. If I lean on the storytelling instincts I grew up with, the satisfying version is simple: you cut people off and let the consequences actually breathe for a while.
But there’s also the part of me that lived in Asia long enough to watch clean breaks and perfect punishment arcs start to look kind of idealized. I kept meeting people who didn’t have the option of walking away or holding out for some textbook apology. They picked the least damaging compromise and kept going. From that angle, yes, Pai’s rushed forgiveness and Tim’s clingy attempts to “make it better” still bother me. But they also feel weirdly familiar, like the messy, half-finished resolutions real families quietly learn to live with.
Shakespeare said life is a stage, but Love You Teacher takes it further: let your inner child direct the whole thing. Don’t be scared — sometimes the part of you that’s playful and creative is actually the smartest one in the room.
Knowing it made you cry is the most convincing endorsement and the scariest warning at the same time. I’ll just sit here with my Klao theories and a box of tissues ready.
Every now and then a BL episode sneaks up on you pretending to be all sweetness and ends up drawing blood instead. This one had me laughing through tears, questioning my own feelings, and replaying every scene just to put myself through it again.
I was not ready for this episode. Like, at all. And yes, I cried. Again. At this point I’ve stopped trying to figure out whether it’s hormones or just really good writing, because honestly, it’s probably both.
The second Duang and Qin got together, it was over for me. They became that couple. You know the type. Living in their own little world, always touching, always grinning, glowing so hard you almost need sunglasses. Qin even started showing up to Duang’s lectures, and I genuinely need someone to tell me, do Thai universities actually allow that? Or is it just one of those BL-world perks nobody questions? Whatever the rule is, they were so annoyingly happy I couldn’t even be bothered to complain.
Then Duang went and bought Qin a camera worth 55,000 baht behind his back. And Qin immediately was like, no, return it, sell it, I don’t care, just undo this. Because that’s a lot of money and he knows Duang probably emptied everything he had. But Duang is Duang. He loves big and loud and with his whole chest. That camera wasn’t impulse shopping. It was him saying, I’m here and I’m not going anywhere. So of course he wouldn’t take it back.
Then Jamie showed up and honestly, I love Jamie, but he went too hard this time. He’s the kind of friend who always tells you the truth even when you’re begging him not to, and usually that’s his best quality. But he pushed it. And Duang? He can sit there and let Qin scold him for hours, but the second someone else tries? Walls up. Done. Don’t talk to me.
Meanwhile Qin was a mess at band rehearsal. Completely checked out, not even pretending to focus. The rest of the band called him out and one of them basically told Duang to back off because he was ruining Qin’s concentration. Which, okay, fair, but also could you maybe say it nicely? Just once? Nobody in this friend group has any chill when it comes to delivering feedback, and it is both frustrating and weirdly endearing.
Because here’s the thing. They all mess up. They all say the wrong thing at the wrong time. But then they deal with it and move on. Nobody ghosts anyone for a week. Nobody starts a group chat without the other person. Even when Duang accidentally hits Jamie with that “you’ve never been in love” line, it hurts, but it also makes him think. And honestly, I think it’s pushing him closer to Marvis, but that’s a whole other conversation I’m not ready to have yet.
The part of this episode that really stayed with me is how it handles the conflict between Duang and Qin without blowing it up into something huge. It just lets them talk. And Qin’s fix for the camera thing was so good. He said let’s split the cost so it’s ours, not yours or mine. That’s it. That was the answer. And it said everything about how he sees them together. Equals. Partners. Not one person saving the other.
And right after that, Duang says something so quiet and so perfect. He tells Qin that he’s glad they officially became a couple while Qin was staying at his house, because now when he thinks of that place he thinks of something good.
Then Qin starts talking about his childhood, and that’s where I lost it. The parents who were never there. The loneliness. The nanny who was supposed to take care of him but abused him. And what really got me was that he wasn’t just telling a sad story. He was saying, please don’t love me because you feel bad for me. I want to be chosen. Not pitied. Not rescued. Chosen.
The ending destroyed me. Qin gives Duang this little dog keychain and says it reminds him of how Duang always protects him. I literally had to pause. Because that is exactly what Duang is. He’s the one who stays. He’s the one standing between Qin and everything that could hurt him. Dogs are loyal like that. Fierce and soft at the same time. And so is he.
I laughed, I cried in a very undignified way, and then I replayed the whole thing because apparently I’m fully invested in this show ruining my life. Someone last week accused me of letting ChatGPT ghostwrite my reviews, which honestly made me laugh, so clearly I’m doing something right. Whatever. I’ll take it as a compliment. Whatever this show throws at me next, I’ll still be here.
Maybe that’s what Duang With You keeps getting right. It doesn’t avoid the painful stuff, but it never leaves you sitting in it alone either. It always gives you something warm to hold onto after the cut. And somehow that makes the whole thing even more devastating.
I know some viewers are waiting for the tension and drama to really start cooking, but episode two has already handed me plenty to chew on...
Nakhun, under Chuay’s care, slowly starts adjusting to life in the old days. Over dinner, he even learns that Chuay got married young, which naturally makes him curious about Klao and Phop’s love lives. Apparently, both of them are old enough to marry but still single. Which, in drama language, usually means one of two things: either they are tragically unavailable, or they are already emotionally ruining each other in private.
And let’s be honest, if I were asking a random man whether he was married, that would not be a question born of innocent small talk.
Meanwhile, Phop thinks Jom still hasn’t properly healed Nakhun, so he goes back to ask for help again. He even wants Jom to come back to the residence with him and sort it out. Jom, naturally, wastes no time pointing out that whenever it comes to Klao, Phop turns into the most persistent man alive. Honestly, the second Klao is mentioned, this guy acts like someone has switched on his entire personality.
Then there’s Phop’s father, who, out of old friendship, insists that Klao, the son of a family friend, should be well taken care of. So he orders Nakhun, who has been staying in the side room, to move into the main house so he can be looked after more closely. Phop is absolutely delighted by this. While serving Nakhun rice, he even thinks to himself that now he can keep an eye on him properly. A very subtle, very normal thing to think. Nothing suspicious at all. At this point, I am fully convinced the pre-disappearance relationship between Klao and Phop was absolutely not “just friends.”
PS: I haven’t read the original novel, but my instincts are screaming that Klao is already dead.
What I enjoy most about this BL series is the camera work. It is subtle, thoughtful, and never feels like it is trying too hard. The director knows exactly when to move in, when to hold back, and when to let a moment sit quietly on screen. That kind of restraint gives the story a very particular emotional pull.
One of the best examples is the rooftop celebration after Chusan’s college graduation. The scene is full of life: Auntie Fei prepares a feast, Chusan’s father brings medicinal wine, and Liuyi proudly shows off the “official” VCD he has prepared. The movie playing in the background is The Godfather, which feels oddly perfect for the setting. There is something so Hong Kong about the whole scene, with its rooftop space, its noisy warmth, and its unspoken intimacy. In the middle of all that, Chusan and Liuyi begin to drift toward each other, and the attraction between them feels both natural and carefully observed.
The camera does a lot of quiet storytelling here. When Liuyi leans back with one hand behind him, the angle feels just intimate enough to suggest the pull between them. Chusan is shy, but he is also obviously moved, and his body language gives him away even when he is not saying much. Even the bouquet matters. Liuyi’s sunflowers are bright and cheerful, and once Chusan plants them, they become part of the scene’s emotional background. Then comes the moment when Chusan and Liuyi fall together while reaching for the lollipop in Liuyi’s mouth. The warm projector light makes the whole image look soft and unreal, almost dreamlike. It is one of those scenes that feels too beautiful to be ordinary, which is exactly why it works.
I also really like the overhead rooftop shot. As the camera rises and looks down, the rooftop starts to feel like a tiny world suspended above the city. It becomes a kind of hidden refuge, a space where love can quietly begin without the noise of the outside world getting in.
The morning after is handled just as well. Chusan wakes up first and immediately remembers the closeness of the night before. He knows it was a spring dream, but it was vivid enough to leave a real mark on him. The bedsheet scene is another lovely touch. After his father makes a casual joke, Chusan suddenly has to face Liuyi again, and the awkwardness is almost painful in how believable it is. By then, Chusan already knows he is falling for him, so he starts trying to create distance. Liuyi, of course, has no idea what is going on, which makes the moment he steps through the hanging sheet even better. It is a simple shot, but it is staged so well that it really stays with you.
That is what makes the series so satisfying overall. The rooftop dream sequence, the flowers on the car hood, the street fight, and the moment Liuyi is shoved against the car all feel carefully placed. Nothing seems accidental. Even the action scenes are doing emotional work.
The side couple has a very different energy, but it is just as interesting. If Chusan and Liuyi are driven by visual chemistry and slow-burning attraction, then Xie Jiahua and Lu Guangming are all about money, power, and tension.
After Xie Jiahua gets recognition for his work, a group of senior police figures arrive to congratulate him, including his father, the Deputy Commissioner of Police. Inspector Hua, who is clearly shady, is also there. Then Lu Guangming, the ICAC investigator whom Jiahua spent the night with, casually approaches him and starts a conversation. But that encounter has not really gone away. It is still there, quite literally, in the kiss marks on Jiahua’s neck. He comes across as closeted, not in a dramatic or villainous way, but in a very human way, where desire is something he cannot fully control.
After their encounter, Jiahua leaves in a hurry and leaves money behind, assuming Lu Guangming is a sex worker. That misunderstanding becomes the starting point for everything else. Once Lu Guangming realizes who he is, he begins guiding Jiahua toward helping him investigate the bribery case surrounding Inspector Hua. From Jiahua’s side, that can feel like pressure. What follows is a tense mix of attraction, suspicion, and power play.
That is also what makes this subplot feel so distinctly Hong Kong. It draws on the familiar atmosphere of 1980s and 1990s Hong Kong cinema, with its corrupt cops, ICAC investigations, and the uneasy relationship between money, power, and morality. The series makes good use of that framework, giving the side couple’s story a stylish and slightly dangerous edge.
Omg, I really thought I was the only one who felt this way. This season is nothing like the chaotic first season.…
Right?? Season 1 felt like “anything goes” storytelling and season 2 feels like everyone’s on probation. We went from thruple pool chaos to “please sign here for one (1) safe kiss.”
23 
35 
2 
2 
3 
2 
2 
1 
2 
12 
Eight years ago, he was at the peak of his career, bright, confident, and full of promise. Then, all of a sudden, he resigned. Everyone thought he was leaving to start his own company, that he was about to build something even bigger. His coworkers were even looking forward to taking photos with the future boss. No one knew he was not chasing success anymore. He was quietly walking away from it.
He did not go into business. He became a translator and started working from home. Now he looks thin, unkempt, with tired eyes and a kind of quiet emptiness that is hard to ignore. Whenever he is asked why he chose this work, he always avoids the question. Clearly, there is something he has never said out loud.
The clues were there all along. The wheelchair that keeps showing up. The way he cooks such a beautiful meal, yet instinctively mixes sweet potato into the rice. That is not just a habit. That is what life looks like when you have spent years caring for an elderly father. So his choice to work from home was never about freedom. It was about duty. It was about survival.
And on the day he was about to leave, both the job and the man he had loved in silence, he finally stopped him. He thought that if he did not confess then, he would never get another chance. So he spoke, just to give his long, hidden feelings a proper ending.
But he never expected the other person to feel the same. It should have been a happy moment, but the timing was cruel. The man he loved was standing in a brighter future, while he himself had no clear path ahead. It was happiness, yes, but happiness at the wrong moment. And so he ran.
Maybe that is why he chose translation. Maybe with medical books and careful words, he could fool himself into thinking he still had some small connection to that person.
That day, he left too quickly and forgot a flower behind. No one understood what it meant, but the other man remembered it for a long time, holding onto the regret.
Wrong time, right person. Even after all these years, nothing has really disappeared.
And now they meet again. When asked whether he lives alone, he looks away. His father is gone, and the grief is still fresh. He does not know if this is the right time, but after losing one chance already, he cannot bear to give up another.
The first time, inside the KTV room, it already feels like a quiet gesture of attention. The second time is the one that really hits: Liuyi is outside at Qinglong’s front door, lighting one cigarette for Qinglong and his sister as an offering, then another for himself. One for the dead, one for the self. In that moment, the cigarette stops being just a prop and becomes a ritual, a way of mourning, and a way of keeping himself together at the same time.
What makes the scene even stronger is that Chu-san sees all of it from the car. Liuyi asks him to stay behind, so he does, and that distance matters. He is not stumbling into the moment blindly. He watches Liuyi grieve, crouch down, and start slipping out of himself before he ever gets out of the car. So when he finally steps out, takes the cigarette away, carries Liuyi back, and kisses him, it doesn’t feel like a random romantic beat. It feels like he has been witnessing Liuyi all along.
I’m not trying to excuse the consent issue here. That part is real. But what I keep coming back to is how the scene frames care, grief, and restraint through these tiny physical actions. Chu-san doesn’t begin with desire. He begins with noticing. And that, to me, is what makes the whole sequence so affecting.
The cigarette matters more than the kiss because it tells us what kind of intimacy this is. Not loud, not declarative, not clean. Just someone seeing another person at their most fragile and reaching for them in the only way he knows how.
Episode four really got me. Both couples finally stopped dancing around their feelings and just went there. And it landed because it felt honest, not dramatic for the sake of being dramatic. Just two people figuring out what they actually mean to each other in real time.
The moment that wrecked me was LWZ spiraling after Hama-chan went quiet for a few days. He didn’t confess, he didn’t do anything grand, he just worried. And that said everything. Affection disguised as concern is the most devastating kind of love language, and this show knows that.
Up until now LWZ felt like a man carrying too much weight. The career disappointment, the tension with his father, the walls built around CHW. But this episode cracked him open a little. He cares. He just trips over himself every time he tries to show it, and honestly that makes him more real to me, not less.
Also, can we talk about how gorgeous Taiwan looks in this series? The seaside scenes have this calm, layered quality, and the styling actually makes sense for the setting. People dress like they’re really living in a coastal town, light fabrics, relaxed cuts, clothes that move with the wind instead of fighting it. It feels lived in, and I’m so tired of BLs that ignore the climate just to look glossy. This feels grounded in the best way.
The humor does lose a little something in the subtitles. Some jokes clearly hit different in the original Chinese, and that’s not really anyone’s fault. Puns are almost impossible to translate when they depend on the rhythm of a specific language. It’s a small thing in the grand scheme of how much this show gets right.
After four episodes, I feel pretty confident saying this one deserves more attention than it’s getting. Wishing Upon the Shooting Star has a softness and an authenticity that stay with you. It’s not trying to shock or impress. It’s asking you to pay attention and fall in love with the quiet honesty between these characters. And if you let it, you absolutely will.
But honestly, what I keep returning to is Daotok. He never stops being himself. He does not dilute his personality, and he does not twist himself into someone easier to manage. If he says he is not tired, then he is not tired. If he says something is bothering him, then it is bothering him. I find that kind of honesty incredibly attractive, because it means he belongs fully to himself. He is not waiting to be defined by anyone else’s desire.
The gym scene is one of the reasons I like him so much. He stops that woman from harassing him. He does not look for rescue, and he does not shrink. He protects himself, clearly and immediately, and when he tells Arthit, “I will protect myself,” it feels deeply personal. It is not just a line. It is the whole shape of who he is. He lets Arthit pursue him, but only within a space that he himself has made safe.
That is also why I do not read the ending of episode 7 as overly dramatic. To me, Daotok realizing that love is making him vulnerable again feels quiet and real. It is not a collapse. It is a soft reopening. There is fear there, but it is the kind of fear that comes when your heart is starting to trust again. That is what makes it meaningful. He is not losing himself to love. He is letting love reach him without giving himself away.
But honestly, what I keep returning to is Daotok. He never stops being himself. He does not dilute his personality, and he does not twist himself into someone easier to manage. If he says he is not tired, then he is not tired. If he says something is bothering him, then it is bothering him. I find that kind of honesty incredibly attractive, because it means he belongs fully to himself. He is not waiting to be defined by anyone else’s desire.
The gym scene is one of the reasons I like him so much. He stops that woman from harassing him. He does not look for rescue, and he does not shrink. He protects himself, clearly and immediately, and when he tells Arthit, “I will protect myself,” it feels deeply personal. It is not just a line. It is the whole shape of who he is. He lets Arthit pursue him, but only within a space that he himself has made safe.
That is also why I do not read the ending of episode 7 as overly dramatic. To me, Daotok realizing that love is making him vulnerable again feels quiet and real. It is not a collapse. It is a soft reopening. There is fear there, but it is the kind of fear that comes when your heart is starting to trust again. That is what makes it meaningful. He is not losing himself to love. He is letting love reach him without giving himself away.
What really stands out is how grounded it feels. The romance is there, but so is the weight of inheritance, duty, and the kind of longing that takes its time to fully reveal itself. The story carries memory in one hand and consequence in the other, and that balance gives it an ease that never feels empty.
By episode 7, it’s already made one thing clear: this show has backbone. It’s not chasing attention. It’s earning it. And in a landscape full of titles built to blow up fast and disappear just as quickly, that makes it feel especially worth noticing.
What I love most is how the show lets feeling exist outside of dialogue. Azuma’s inner monologue pulls you straight into his headspace.
And Kuji being a translator is such a smart choice. Translation has never just been about swapping words, especially between English and Japanese, where so much meaning lives in implication. In this story, that role feels especially fitting, because the show is all about things that cannot be said directly and have to be understood in quieter, more indirect ways.
The title, Smoke Blue no Ame Nochi Hare, isn’t just pretty for the sake of it either. “Smoke blue” has that muted, hazy quality of something not fully surfaced yet, while “rain then clear skies” reads less like weather and more like an emotional arc. It isn’t simple sunshine. It’s the kind of brightness that only matters because of what came before it.
I also can’t help reading the title a little more romantically. In Japanese, weather and light imagery often carry romantic subtext, so “rain clearing, the moon appearing” naturally suggests a shift from what’s hidden to what can finally be seen. So to me, the title isn’t just saying the weather changed. It’s hinting that whatever’s been buried between these two might finally have room to surface.
And that’s what makes the show work so well. It isn’t loud about any of this. The most powerful moments are the ones where contact is almost made but not quite. Episode one already makes it clear that this isn’t just a reunion story. It’s about two people trying to make sense of what happened, and what it still means now.
If I had to put episode one into one line, it’s not asking whether these two will end up together. It’s showing what it looks like when two people have to slowly relearn how to be close again. And that kind of quiet, careful emotional build is exactly the BL sweet spot for me.
If you were thinking about dropping it or haven’t started yet, I’d say give it a bit more time. It really does build in a way that pays off if you stick with it. Episode 5 hit harder than I expected, and episode 6 gives all three couples some really nice progress without rushing things.
Also, Danny as Sky is seriously so good. That camping scene by the sea with Nawa? The way Sky’s eyes just filled up — yeah, that really got to me. I wasn’t even expecting it to land that hard, but it did.
This is definitely one of those slow-burn BLs that sneaks up on you. It might not grab you right away, but once it does, it really has you. Definitely worth the patience.
Sailom’s touch issues, Tawan’s crash guilt, Dindin’s debt/family stress, Sky’s heartbreak, Nava’s mystery pain — why is everyone suffering so prettily
Not mad though. Just emotionally unprepared.
Part of me totally gets those posts. Pai’s family does feel cruel. Tim doesn’t pay nearly enough for what he did. Everyone gets forgiven way too fast. If I lean on the storytelling instincts I grew up with, the satisfying version is simple: you cut people off and let the consequences actually breathe for a while.
But there’s also the part of me that lived in Asia long enough to watch clean breaks and perfect punishment arcs start to look kind of idealized. I kept meeting people who didn’t have the option of walking away or holding out for some textbook apology. They picked the least damaging compromise and kept going. From that angle, yes, Pai’s rushed forgiveness and Tim’s clingy attempts to “make it better” still bother me. But they also feel weirdly familiar, like the messy, half-finished resolutions real families quietly learn to live with.
I was not ready for this episode. Like, at all. And yes, I cried. Again. At this point I’ve stopped trying to figure out whether it’s hormones or just really good writing, because honestly, it’s probably both.
The second Duang and Qin got together, it was over for me. They became that couple. You know the type. Living in their own little world, always touching, always grinning, glowing so hard you almost need sunglasses. Qin even started showing up to Duang’s lectures, and I genuinely need someone to tell me, do Thai universities actually allow that? Or is it just one of those BL-world perks nobody questions? Whatever the rule is, they were so annoyingly happy I couldn’t even be bothered to complain.
Then Duang went and bought Qin a camera worth 55,000 baht behind his back. And Qin immediately was like, no, return it, sell it, I don’t care, just undo this. Because that’s a lot of money and he knows Duang probably emptied everything he had. But Duang is Duang. He loves big and loud and with his whole chest. That camera wasn’t impulse shopping. It was him saying, I’m here and I’m not going anywhere. So of course he wouldn’t take it back.
Then Jamie showed up and honestly, I love Jamie, but he went too hard this time. He’s the kind of friend who always tells you the truth even when you’re begging him not to, and usually that’s his best quality. But he pushed it. And Duang? He can sit there and let Qin scold him for hours, but the second someone else tries? Walls up. Done. Don’t talk to me.
Meanwhile Qin was a mess at band rehearsal. Completely checked out, not even pretending to focus. The rest of the band called him out and one of them basically told Duang to back off because he was ruining Qin’s concentration. Which, okay, fair, but also could you maybe say it nicely? Just once? Nobody in this friend group has any chill when it comes to delivering feedback, and it is both frustrating and weirdly endearing.
Because here’s the thing. They all mess up. They all say the wrong thing at the wrong time. But then they deal with it and move on. Nobody ghosts anyone for a week. Nobody starts a group chat without the other person. Even when Duang accidentally hits Jamie with that “you’ve never been in love” line, it hurts, but it also makes him think. And honestly, I think it’s pushing him closer to Marvis, but that’s a whole other conversation I’m not ready to have yet.
The part of this episode that really stayed with me is how it handles the conflict between Duang and Qin without blowing it up into something huge. It just lets them talk. And Qin’s fix for the camera thing was so good. He said let’s split the cost so it’s ours, not yours or mine. That’s it. That was the answer. And it said everything about how he sees them together. Equals. Partners. Not one person saving the other.
And right after that, Duang says something so quiet and so perfect. He tells Qin that he’s glad they officially became a couple while Qin was staying at his house, because now when he thinks of that place he thinks of something good.
Then Qin starts talking about his childhood, and that’s where I lost it. The parents who were never there. The loneliness. The nanny who was supposed to take care of him but abused him. And what really got me was that he wasn’t just telling a sad story. He was saying, please don’t love me because you feel bad for me. I want to be chosen. Not pitied. Not rescued. Chosen.
The ending destroyed me. Qin gives Duang this little dog keychain and says it reminds him of how Duang always protects him. I literally had to pause. Because that is exactly what Duang is. He’s the one who stays. He’s the one standing between Qin and everything that could hurt him. Dogs are loyal like that. Fierce and soft at the same time. And so is he.
I laughed, I cried in a very undignified way, and then I replayed the whole thing because apparently I’m fully invested in this show ruining my life. Someone last week accused me of letting ChatGPT ghostwrite my reviews, which honestly made me laugh, so clearly I’m doing something right. Whatever. I’ll take it as a compliment. Whatever this show throws at me next, I’ll still be here.
Maybe that’s what Duang With You keeps getting right. It doesn’t avoid the painful stuff, but it never leaves you sitting in it alone either. It always gives you something warm to hold onto after the cut. And somehow that makes the whole thing even more devastating.
Nakhun, under Chuay’s care, slowly starts adjusting to life in the old days. Over dinner, he even learns that Chuay got married young, which naturally makes him curious about Klao and Phop’s love lives. Apparently, both of them are old enough to marry but still single. Which, in drama language, usually means one of two things: either they are tragically unavailable, or they are already emotionally ruining each other in private.
And let’s be honest, if I were asking a random man whether he was married, that would not be a question born of innocent small talk.
Meanwhile, Phop thinks Jom still hasn’t properly healed Nakhun, so he goes back to ask for help again. He even wants Jom to come back to the residence with him and sort it out. Jom, naturally, wastes no time pointing out that whenever it comes to Klao, Phop turns into the most persistent man alive. Honestly, the second Klao is mentioned, this guy acts like someone has switched on his entire personality.
Then there’s Phop’s father, who, out of old friendship, insists that Klao, the son of a family friend, should be well taken care of. So he orders Nakhun, who has been staying in the side room, to move into the main house so he can be looked after more closely. Phop is absolutely delighted by this. While serving Nakhun rice, he even thinks to himself that now he can keep an eye on him properly. A very subtle, very normal thing to think. Nothing suspicious at all. At this point, I am fully convinced the pre-disappearance relationship between Klao and Phop was absolutely not “just friends.”
PS: I haven’t read the original novel, but my instincts are screaming that Klao is already dead.
If they’re gonna water him down this much, at least give us a refund in chaos and bad decisions.
One of the best examples is the rooftop celebration after Chusan’s college graduation. The scene is full of life: Auntie Fei prepares a feast, Chusan’s father brings medicinal wine, and Liuyi proudly shows off the “official” VCD he has prepared. The movie playing in the background is The Godfather, which feels oddly perfect for the setting. There is something so Hong Kong about the whole scene, with its rooftop space, its noisy warmth, and its unspoken intimacy. In the middle of all that, Chusan and Liuyi begin to drift toward each other, and the attraction between them feels both natural and carefully observed.
The camera does a lot of quiet storytelling here. When Liuyi leans back with one hand behind him, the angle feels just intimate enough to suggest the pull between them. Chusan is shy, but he is also obviously moved, and his body language gives him away even when he is not saying much. Even the bouquet matters. Liuyi’s sunflowers are bright and cheerful, and once Chusan plants them, they become part of the scene’s emotional background. Then comes the moment when Chusan and Liuyi fall together while reaching for the lollipop in Liuyi’s mouth. The warm projector light makes the whole image look soft and unreal, almost dreamlike. It is one of those scenes that feels too beautiful to be ordinary, which is exactly why it works.
I also really like the overhead rooftop shot. As the camera rises and looks down, the rooftop starts to feel like a tiny world suspended above the city. It becomes a kind of hidden refuge, a space where love can quietly begin without the noise of the outside world getting in.
The morning after is handled just as well. Chusan wakes up first and immediately remembers the closeness of the night before. He knows it was a spring dream, but it was vivid enough to leave a real mark on him. The bedsheet scene is another lovely touch. After his father makes a casual joke, Chusan suddenly has to face Liuyi again, and the awkwardness is almost painful in how believable it is. By then, Chusan already knows he is falling for him, so he starts trying to create distance. Liuyi, of course, has no idea what is going on, which makes the moment he steps through the hanging sheet even better. It is a simple shot, but it is staged so well that it really stays with you.
That is what makes the series so satisfying overall. The rooftop dream sequence, the flowers on the car hood, the street fight, and the moment Liuyi is shoved against the car all feel carefully placed. Nothing seems accidental. Even the action scenes are doing emotional work.
The side couple has a very different energy, but it is just as interesting. If Chusan and Liuyi are driven by visual chemistry and slow-burning attraction, then Xie Jiahua and Lu Guangming are all about money, power, and tension.
After Xie Jiahua gets recognition for his work, a group of senior police figures arrive to congratulate him, including his father, the Deputy Commissioner of Police. Inspector Hua, who is clearly shady, is also there. Then Lu Guangming, the ICAC investigator whom Jiahua spent the night with, casually approaches him and starts a conversation. But that encounter has not really gone away. It is still there, quite literally, in the kiss marks on Jiahua’s neck. He comes across as closeted, not in a dramatic or villainous way, but in a very human way, where desire is something he cannot fully control.
After their encounter, Jiahua leaves in a hurry and leaves money behind, assuming Lu Guangming is a sex worker. That misunderstanding becomes the starting point for everything else. Once Lu Guangming realizes who he is, he begins guiding Jiahua toward helping him investigate the bribery case surrounding Inspector Hua. From Jiahua’s side, that can feel like pressure. What follows is a tense mix of attraction, suspicion, and power play.
That is also what makes this subplot feel so distinctly Hong Kong. It draws on the familiar atmosphere of 1980s and 1990s Hong Kong cinema, with its corrupt cops, ICAC investigations, and the uneasy relationship between money, power, and morality. The series makes good use of that framework, giving the side couple’s story a stylish and slightly dangerous edge.