Honglou Meng

If you don't mind a Western one, watch SKAM. The original Norwegian version. The first three seasons are all brilliant, but the third is the BL/gay one. It is the inspiration for everything from Young Royals to Eighth Sense, though far superior to most. Just avoid the fourth season at all costs.

Indeed! So much so that I suspect the Thai tourism board is footing at least some of the bill — as it has been doing of late with other BLs.

Not that I’m complaining. What a refreshing contrast to those alcohol-soaked, whitewashed apartments with mid-century “modern” aesthetic, floor-to-ceiling glasses, and a perfect view of the Bangkok skyline! Also, are people allowed to take trains in a Thai BL? I thought the 18-year old seme was supposed to drive a Beemer to school, and that the hopeless little uke picked up from home, lest he catch a towel-bath-requiring cold from a drop of (acid) rain?

lol. There is a small, not insignificant group of us. But it’s best to stay under the parapet, otherwise, the guns will come for us. :)

I won’t enter into a debate about Kaori’s homophobia here, because MDL has a long and troubling history of straight people telling gay men like me what is or isn’t homophobia — which, I hasten to add, is not what I’m saying you are doing. (I make no assumptions as to your gender or sexuality.) But I will assert my opinion that the way she questioned Hagiwara is deeply homophobic. (She quite clearly says, at least in Japanese, “I can forgive you if you slept with a girl. But with a guy, I can never get over that.” With the implication that she finds it unpalatable, if not disgusting. If that isn’t homophobia, I don’t know what is.)

That said, I do agree with you that she’s not half the monster people make her out to be. She did let Hagiwara go. And her problems with sex evidently has deep roots, which it is the fault of the show not to explore.

Did he? Where? I confess, I didn’t get that at all from the Japanese. (I didn’t rely much on the subtitles.) Are you going off of the original too, or the novel? Either way, I’ll go check.

It’s less a BL than a Japanese anthology series called Kiss x Kiss x Kiss. Each series has several 5-10 minute stand-alone segments where the protagonists’ stories are told through a kiss — just a long kiss. This is from a segment called ‘Atelier Kiss’, one of my two favourites.

I’m going to go ask ChatGPT if rabbits do fuck all that much… Or maybe DeepSeek would be more appropriate?

It’s called Gelboys. Only one episode is out, but the best opening episode I’ve seen in ages.

You see, I feel the opposite. This is only one of two BLs that I am genuinely excited about at the moment, and look forward to each week. So I do not want it to end.

Plus, that accursed opening song is stuck in my head — and I need a justification for it:

kimi to boku to wa mirror mirror…
yosoku fukanouna error error…

As psychological explanations for a woman’s desire not to have sex go, this feels quite regressive and contradictory. (I’m talking about the novel, by the way, not your thoughts.) On the one hand, positing that children would be the only reason a woman — even with oedipal issues — would want sex feels like it belongs to 19th century. On the other hand, if Kaori indeed resists sex because her father stopped having sex with her mother after having her, and then cheated, wouldn’t she want to have sex only for non-child-bearing purposes? Wouldn’t she in fact avoid sex for pregnancy because her man would then lose interest?

None of this makes sense to me. But at least it is an explanation, you know? The show offers fuck all.

Anyway, thank you for these valuable insights.

Okay, this at least answers some of my questions. The screenwriters did a really bad job in leaving out essential plot details as to why Fujisawa cannot have sex with Sei.

Mind you, I still don’t understand what blaming Hagiwara accomplishes — since that feeds into the idea that the abuse had its justification in Sei and Hagiwara having sex, rather than Fujisawa’s behaviour. But so it must be.

Oh my god, absolutely! (Except maybe India — but then, its population number speaks for itself.)

The Good:
The opening scene between Fujisawa and Sei: it was well written, and Matsumoto is a good actor. The complexity of his inner world was well brought out.
The break-up scene: finally, the white smoke! Mature, mutual, and without the woman being a revenge-seeking Gila monster.
Hagiwara’s clear articulation of his own feelings. Though younger, and new to his gay side, he’s the more confident and mature one. “I’m not your pet dog.” Yes!

The Bad:
“With a man?” Again? 75% of people in Japan support gay marriage. People there do know of the existence of gays and bisexuals. BL writers: please join the class of 2025!
The translation: it’s infuriatingly bad. Too many instances to even give an example.

The Ugly:
The girlfriend’s homophobia. Yuck.
The refusal to answer certain fundamental questions, to which the audience is entitled: Why is Fujisawa so jealous? Did they have sex at all? Or did he just inflict violence? If the first, why just now? Internalised homophobia? Something related to Sei’s parents? If the second, why? Where does his possessiveness and abusiveness come from? And what about the girlfriend? I suppose she could be described as somewhere along the asexual spectrum. And I suppose she does not have the wherewithal to identify herself as such, if she doesn’t even know that gays exist, the poor pilgrim. But surely, she ought to say more than that to someone who, by her own admission, has been nothing but kind to her?

I suppose many of the problems with the show stem from adapting a novel into a 7-episode show. But a good screenwriter should be able to do just that.

At least we should have our happy ending next week. Let’s hope the boys go at it again “like rabbits”.

Ep. 6 was both revealing & frustrating, satisfying & disappointing.

On the good, the bad, and the ugly, more below:

I must say, I'm one of about two people in the world who did not like ITSAY -- please don't dox me! -- so I was a bit nervous about this. Fortunately, he seems a very versatile and talented director, and so far, this is bloody brilliant!

Thank you!!! It is perfectly fine to feel that the episode or the series itself feels rushed. But it is quite another to condemn the characters for having sex, or for the writer for writing a sex scene. (While we are at it, why are sex scenes alone considered 'gratuitous', when apparently we can't have enough of people falling over each other in the name of romance?) The tone of moral opprobrium here is quite offensive. Esp. considering what gay men have lived through and continue to live through.

Lol. It was certainly one of the many clues that I was a gay man. (The fact that I loved both Verdi's Aida and Madonna's Ray of Light should have been another.)

The thing is, even setting aside the question of gender -- because I don't want to discount women who don't play by these antediluvian rules about sex and sexuality, nor men who set more store by romance than others (and I am romantic enough to want to be in bed with a beautiful man within hours of meeting him) -- the boys have established enough romance already. Even taking into account cultural differences across continents, I'm not sure what more they need to do!

Maybe it's a generational thing, but I find all this verbiage about careful dating and future planning supremely boring... But to each her own. It's when a tone of moral opprobrium creeps in, about gay sex, that I get angry.

I have seen some strange comments here and elsewhere about the speed with which Xing and Lu Hui fall in love, confess it, and end up in bed. I don't know how it goes in the heterosexual world -- of which my information is indeed limited -- but it is, for me, one of the few realistic aspects of the series.

You like each other, you find each other insanely attractive, you have already established common interests and mutual care, what else do you need to do in order to physically express that love? Sit down and go through each other's savings account and come up with a five year plan? Let the boys be in love and have at it. Heaven knows the world is keen enough to tear gay men apart.

Now, if only the actors playing them knew how to kiss.

Ignore this person. He or she also left a tediously earnest, entirely po-faced, anal-retentive comment underneath my review of My Damn Business. Anyone with an ounce of humour in their veins would know that the review is meant to make you laugh and that it's satirical, and there are 50 comments beneath to prove it. But no... some people are this tiresome.

What offends me most is this insistence that they have the monopoly on 'gayness', 'the gay experience', and what it means to suffer from homophobia. They also seem to think that anyone who disagrees with them must be straight and/or homophobic. (As you know, I don't even share your desire for realism in a BL and am more than happy to have a fictional world be entirely gay, but apparently, I'm still homophobic.) The fact that we are gay men, or that we might have experienced homophobia too -- in my case, I got beaten up no less -- does not enter into the equation. Couching this sort of comment in the tone of a pseudo-academic discourse -- with a few incongruous four-syllable words thrown in for good effect -- does not mask the shallowness of the sentiment, nor its egotism.

We too can speculate as to the 'demographic' identities of such a person -- and would likely be right. But to what profit?

You know, you are so young! You can take your time discovering things, and discovering yourself! I don't know where you live -- but if you are in the US or Western Europe, much of South America and increasing number of countries in Asia, you have no shortage of resources. When I grew up, I didn't even have the vocabulary to process my attraction to other people.

I would say don't worry about labels, unless they actively help you, politically or personally. The word 'gay' was important to me in the past because it defined my attraction, and remains important to me in fighting for equal rights. For some people asexual/aromantic are empowering where they feel they don't 'get'/'understand' love -- neither of which is an obligation. There is no wrong or right answer here. You just need to live. So go out there and live!