Honglou Meng

If I hadn't already started a different review for this show, I'd write a love letter instead. But then, this is Boss, and he might well end up annoying, frustrating, and infuriating me. So it's probably for the best I didn't.

People have complained here a lot about lack of plot -- which is fair enough. But that's precisely what attracts me to it. A lot of a teenager's time is spent doing nothing: it's one of the pleasures (and sorrows) of being young. And if, as a teenager, you are (un)fortunate enough to fall in love, that obsession takes over: you devote all hours of your day thinking about your beloved, wondering how you might get in touch with them, wondering when they'll write back, hoping they'd like you too, and terrified they wouldn't. And now, with social media, which allows you to stalk your beloved (and tease him) in the most creative of ways and all the time, I cannot even imagine wanting to sleep or eat, as Fou4Mod finds that he can't.

Apart from the Norwegian SKAM, I haven't seen any other series capture the rhythm and the wastefulness of this life so well. My teenage years were, I'm sad to say, just awful. How I wish I had been allowed to grow up in a country and at a time where this langour, this lassitude, this longing, was possible!

I... know! One of the reasons I watch TBLs is that, unlike KBLs, and most JBLs, we get proper kisses. These kisses are just... cringe.

It's okay. Just say it. It's not the fucking plague. And we are not in Florida. So say it. Yu Xing is gay. Say it with me: "gay". See? The world didn't fall apart.

(He could be 'bi' or 'pan', I know, but Xi Lu Xi's little speech, as well as the 'shock' of his friend -- who apparently doesn't know gay men exist in a country where gay marriage is legal -- heavily implies otherwise.)

Also, a new female character introduced in the ante-penultimate episode, just for a non-conflict, and to fall in love with Yu Xing? Why, if not to use the poor woman to show that he prefers men? And are we still doing this to female characters in 2025?

I've already said this elsewhere: but what on earth is happening with Taiwanese BLs of late? Is there a budgetary crisis or a writer's strike in Taiwan that I don't know about?

Just when I thought this show couldn't get any sillier, it does. Had I not written a review for it, I might drop it. But then, there is just one more episode. I might as well finish it.

What in ChatGPT's name is going on with Taiwanese BLs of late? Is there a budget crisis or a writers' strike in Taiwan that I don't know about?

While I do appreciate the lingering shots of Parker Mao's incredible body, and the 70s-gay-porn style background music to go with it, what the hell's been going on with Taiwanese BLs of late? Is there a budget crisis or a writers' strike in Taiwan that I don't know about?

Oh, jpny01 and are very good friends. He was just teasing me. Don't worry!

It’s from a Japanese anthology series called Kiss x Kiss x Kiss.

This particular segment is called ‘Atelier Kiss’, one of my two favourites. :)

Lol. I’ve been told.

I disagree, my friend. I am hooked. This is how it was for me in my 20s, and I felt it captured the rhythms of those years — the long hours of boredom and frustration, waiting for a message from someone you like, refreshing the page hoping for some kind of notification — astonishingly well. I am only still half way through the episode — but I have regressed to that part of me which loves falling in love — in all its pain and glory, boredom and ecstasy — for its own sake, and still would in a heartbeat.

This show will be the end of me.

The episode is an hour long, and I do not mind.
There are guitars and I do not mind.
I want to be as cool as Chian, I am not, and I do not mind.
I want to have the self-control and charisma of Fou4Mod, I do not, and I do not mind.
I’m most likely a Baabin, and I do not mind.
It makes me want to be a teenager again, and I hated my teenage years, and I do not mind.

Gosh, is there anything more exhilarating in this world, and anything more frightening, than falling in love?

The last line… perfect summary of how I feel too.

Just when I thought I needed to quit BL for a while, along comes this show, which I can’t get enough of. I love it so much! I love it so much that the right arrow button on my laptop keyboard has started protesting…

Fou4Mod, you better not be using Baabin just to get into Chian’s knickers… You know the poor boy will end up falling for you and have his heart broken!

Oh, good to know. Or rather, “det er en skam”! ;)

P. S. I’ve never been ashamed of being gay either. Odd, because I’m ashamed enough of almost everything else in my life. :) But of being gay, never.

Hmmm. I fall somewhere in the middle of the attitudes you have set out above.

I have no expectations that TV shows should reflect life, or otherwise. Realism is not the scale on which I weigh the worth of any film or series.

That said, while I’m British, I did spend my childhood in a country where it was illegal to be gay, and my coming out was protracted, painful, and at very great cost. But precisely for that reason, I, like you, have no patience for painful coming out stories, and am sick of seeing gay men suffer in general — which, alas, much of the BL audience, especially here, has a tendency to romanticise. It is why I can’t stand shows like ITSAY. I have suffered enough as a gay man, and I have seen enough gay men suffer. So, I rather welcome the magical landscape of no-homophobia in most BLs, unless they introduce it cynically to manufacture a last minute conflict to keep the boys apart, which makes me very, very mad. Homophobia is too serious a thing to be used as a mere plot device.

Believe it or not, I mainly started watching SKAM for the first and second seasons, but when the third ‘came out’, it struck a nice balance for me between the realism of coming out, and the fantasy of it being so easy —where everyone reacts as they ought, and Isak falls in love with the most gorgeous boy in school.

Lastly, only because I’m a language nerd: I do know German and Swedish, so I worried about the title at first too, but then both languages also use the same word for guilt and debt, so, I presumed it must more ‘disgrace’ than ‘shame’ in the context. Fortunately, that turned out to be the case in the first two seasons.

It’s an anthology series called Kiss x Kiss x Kiss, where each episode is 5-10 mins. long, and tells an entire story only through a kiss.

This one’s called “Atelier Kiss”, one of my two favourites segments from the show.

Except when the body is beautiful enough to have to pause, or, dare I say it, go slow motion… Helpfully, most BLs have 70s style soft-core porn music ever at hand to alert us when this is about to happen… Not that I’ve been keeping tabs. :)

😂