Skip it and go clean out the refrigerator.... No, really; it's that bad.
This is the second dumbest GL I have watched this year. (That honor still goes to Unlimited Love.)Nine is a one-dimensional character played woodenly. No depth or personality, and he behaves like he's one step away from being a crazy stalker. Na and Leemaih almost have the tiniest flicker of chemistry, but the terrible writing overshadows it. And short of framing Na as a sex crazed nympho or serial killer, I have a difficult time imagining worse bisexual representation.
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Ten minutes of campy drag
Let's be honest, this is a 10-minute campy drag short, and 300 characters is probably longer than the dialogue.If you like campy drag, waste 10 minutes on Tank Fairy. It's sure to make you laugh and groan, and laugh again.
Drag is art.
Drag is art.
Drag is art.
Drag is art.
Drag is art.
Drag is art.
Drag is art.
Drag is art.
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This review may contain spoilers
Blank: An exploration of everything wrong with early Thai GL. Watch with caution, if at all.
When I first started watching Thai girl love stories, one of the thoughts I had was, “Why are they speed-running everything the West got wrong with queer fiction?” The short answer is Chao Planoy. There is no shortage of criticism for her as a writer and as a person, so I won’t rehash those general complaints. Each season is only six episodes, so I will discuss the series as a whole.Red Flags
Age gap – 16 years
Power imbalance
Secret Keeping
Kitchen sink - every possible horrible thing – the Planoy playbook
Green flags- None.
Blank, like GAP, holds an important place in Thai GL history. These were early stories that really showcased the financial viability of the genre, which is necessary for companies to continue investing in the genre. That said, it does not excuse the significant problems with this series, nor does it excuse the industry that saw the money but didn’t take the time to consider how they were portraying these characters and how that can affect viewers and the fandom.
Age gap romance has been a long-standing problem in sapphic fiction. I can overlook 5 years, maybe ten, as long as everything else in the relationship is healthy and the younger one is ethically and legally old enough to consent. Neung is 36, Aneung is 20, and that’s a 16-year age gap. At 50 and 66, this would be less of a problem, but at 20 and 36, there is no possibility of this being a healthy relationship. The difference in social experience creates a significant power imbalance in the relationship.
Making matters worse, if you missed the explicit declaration of Aneung’s age in Season 1, you could reasonably believe she is closer to 14 based on her behavior. I’ve seen people write this off as part of “cute culture,” which can make the characters and actresses of the GL world seem younger than they are, but I think that is a fragile argument in this case. The character appears to be infantilized to exaggerate the already disturbing age gap intentionally. These were choices made by the author, the screenwriter who adapted it, and the production staff. It’s just gross. I’ve had multiple conversations with friends about how icky the age gap is in this.
Continuing the power imbalance, we have Neung M.L. Sipakorn, who is literally royalty. Even though she is on the edges of the royal family, and Aneung, who is sufficiently well off that she attends a private school, but of a much lower social class than Neung. Taken as a whole, the power imbalance is fraught with problems.
Secret keeping in queer romances can be OK, but not this time. Keeping a relationship a secret because someone’s family is homophobic is reasonable and standard in genuine LGBTQ+ relationships. Keeping it a secret because the other family sees Neung as a step-mother figure and will assume she is taking advantage of Aneung is an admission that, while not technically pedophilia, the story is leaning really heavily into it.
Spoilers below.
Everything, and the kitchen sink.” This one is just tired and annoying, not actually disturbing. Part of the Planoy playbook is throwing every possible traumatic event at the leads. Blank is no exception. Looking at both seasons we have a disturbing age gap, an even larger maturity gap, a power imbalance, Neung nearly being responsible for the abortion of Aneung, Aneung’s mother being hung up on Neung, Neung once being engaged to Aneung’s father, who tries to get back with her, disaproving family on both sides, homophobic family, threats of forcing adult Aneung to go to college in the U.S. aganst her will, and then the car accident that puts Aneung in a coma for months so Neung can have a mini redemption arc. This is only 12 episodes when both seasons are included, and I probably missed at least one unnecessary hurdle thrown in their way.
All in all, this is one of the worst GLs I’ve watched. Sure, it has some cute scenes, but they just are not worth the mental damage of watching this mess of a show. For the folks who do like this show, I would ask, are you really comfortable with these things, or is it simply that it was early in Thai GLs, and there wasn’t much GL representation in Thai/Asian video series, combined with a bit of nostalgia and a rose-colored rearview mirror?
I'm annoyed the I was not allowed to rate any category at 0 stars. I could understand wanting to verify I didn't miss it, but I wouldn't rate this series at a 1.
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Kept me laughing out loud – its a winner.
“AYAKA is in LOVE with HIROKO” makes good on it’s promises.Let’s get the things I didn’t like out of the way. First is the 13-year age gap, which is fully in my ick-zone; I am not a fan of age gap romances. I’m good with five years, after ten I tend to get squigged out. Second is the boss/subordinate trope. The two together create a severe power imbalance, which is a problem in romantic relationships. I know they are very popular and hear the “its just fiction” defense, but fiction has the power to normalize behaviors. OK, I’ll step off my soapbox because, all in all, I enjoyed this show.
Official Synopsis: “Ayaka has no problem with getting attention from men, but she has a deep crush on Hiroko, her senior at her company. She tries charming Hiroko, but it doesn’t seem to have much effect. However, Hiroko is trying to keep cool because she has a crush on Ayaka too...”
Ayaka pulls out all the stops as she tries to catch Hiroko’s eye, but Hiroko thinks Ayaka is just a clueless and dangerous straight girl, and she has sworn off dating straight girls. I hear you, girl. Straight girls can be so clueless, sending signals they don’t mean or even know they are sending. The assumption that Ayaka is straight led to so many comedic moments as Hiroko misread her words and actions, keeping me laughing — full, out-loud belly laughs. If you like a good, uncomplicated romcom, this story just might be for you.
Ayaka’s determination to win over Hiroko is something to behold. For someone who is —let’s be nice and call her naive — she certainly has great intuition about some things.
I’m going to go out on a limb and say Ayaka is most likely demisexual since she made it to 23 years old without being attracted to anyone. Feel free to argue the point, but most folks have crushes as teens.
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Queendom: a refreshinly cute enemies-to-lovers story with a Freaky Friday twist.
Print and Rey have been competitors from a very young age and come together in a very cute version of the age-old enemies-to-lovers plot.Queendom executes beautifully on the promises made in the trailer, leaving plenty of room for twists and turns to keep it interesting. It's a romantic comedy that doesn't take itself too seriously. High production values and good writing make it easy to gloss over the occasional less-than-believable moments.
The body swap twist to this story forces the girls to live in each other's worlds as they interact not only with acquaintances but also with each other's families. This plot device is used to excellent results as Print and Rey both find significant personal growth while living each other's lives and providing the opportunity to see the pressures and downsides to others' lives as well as the enviable parts. Setting them up as mirrors for each other so they can see themselves and each other more clearly, ultimately leading to them resolving the misunderstandings that underlie their rivalry. At the same time, it provided plenty of comedic moments that kept me giggling.
It's a rare thing for a gl to avoid the Yuri trap. You won't find cringy overdone tropes of internaized homophobia, "I didn't know I liked girls," etc. It's not full of all the red flags found in so many early GLs either. The challenges the girls face are mainly about learning to trust and communicate, and to recognize the struggles they each have experienced. Let's have more stories like this, please!
The supporting characters of Fon and Mai were very good, while I don't know if there is potential to spin them off in their own series, the actresses should be paired in another series.
If you can suspend disbelief for the body swap and enjoy a heartwarming feel-good romance, Queendom might be for you. It has definitely made its way into my list of re-watchable stories, and I sometimes find myself searching out specific scenes when I need a little emotional lift.
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This review may contain spoilers
Wasted talent
Only You was very disappointing. We know that LingOrm can deliver; we’ve seen their acting in The Secret of Us. They routinely show better chemistry at fan events than they did in this, and that’s not on them, that is bad directing. Channel 3 has the resources to make amazing GL stories, and yet they seem to be trading on the star power of the actresses instead of producing quality content.None of the body guards were believable. Body guards in stilettos? At the very least they should be in flat shoes, probably athletic shoes. Body guards need to be ready to run, fight, or manage a crowd, not ready for a night out or a fashion runway. I realize that Thai TV leans into a specific aesthetic for gl actresses, and even ignoring all the problems with that, if you are unwilling to forgo the aesthetic to build a believable character, then perhaps stick to characters for whom the aesthetic is believable. The one and only positive I can say here is that the gun handling was better than most shows; at least they didn't run around with their fingers on the trigger just itching for a negligent discharge to kill some random innocent bystander. With the hype around the gun training they did, I still expected more, but I liked seeing all those fingers straight down the frame of the gun exactly where they belong.
The plot is lacking and the writing terrible. It’s obvious from the two main scenes from the trailer that they hadn’t finished, or perhaps even started, the script when the pilot was created. Major plot points shifted between pilot and production. In the pilot Tawan says Ayla is “just a girl” so I believed the story was going to be another age-gap romance. While I’m relieved that this wasn’t another example of Thailand speed running all the worst LGBTQ+ tropes the west had to get past, it was jarring to have a major change like this. Then when Tawan confesses to Ayla in the pilot there is an attempt on Ayla’s life, so understandably I was ready for an action scene that never came in the production, once again pulling me out of the story. There are ways to create pilots that subvert expectations in order to keep the viewer guessing and engaged as the story unfolds, but this came across as poor continuity and a lack of care about the story.
I kept waiting for it to get better and pull me in, but sadly it never happened.
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A waste of time and tallent.
Unlimited love is another case of a company trading on star power and not bothering with substance.I had hope for Unlimited Love because I enjoyed Engfa and Charlotte in Show Me Love and Petrichor.
Show Me Love was a fun romantic comedy where I found the characters interesting and engaging. It was an amusing diversion if not a cinematic masterpiece. Petrichor was excellent. It had a good plot with plenty of twists and turns to keep me engaged. I found I genuinely cared about many of the characters, not just the main couple. So we have proof of what Englot can do with good stories and direction. Sadly Unlimited Love was very limited by bad writing and bad directing.
I really enjoy excellent sapphic romance, but I don’t demand that every story is amazing. It needs to have a happy ending and I need to care about the main characters. I also prefer they avoid the terrible tropes that plague queer fiction.
I found myself four episodes in and still not caring about any of the characters. I couldn’t find any threads of a plot. There was nothing at all to hang on to, and I’ve slogged through some truly bad sapphic content. While I have no doubt there will be people who enjoy this, I don’t understand who the target audience is and I’m certainly not it.
Unlimited Love failed to meet my bare minimum to keep watching. I’ve seen a few comments saying the last couple of episodes were better, and maybe if there is nothing better to watch someday when I’m stuck in a waiting room or airport terminal, but I doubt it. MGI put in almost no effort and the product isn’t even worth a few hours of my time while I drink my coffee. Other companies are putting out quality work, if you want to get viewers you need more than beautiful women and a few kisses.
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