Shasha

Date jitters!

I wish it were longer. Here with eng subs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3uT_r4dZP_s

I have never watched Dilraba in anything (I am not a c drama fan! lol) but I was looking for a short movie for the alphabet challenge and this one came out on top. And boy, aren't I glad i found this!

The story is simple: we see a girl getting ready for a date. She is annoyed when her hair clip breaks, so orders one on line and is again annoyed, when the delivery guy is late. She takes out her frustration on him but is immediately sorry when she finds out that he is deaf. Just like her!

This is a cute short film: and the actress is perfectly portraying a person, nervous and anxious before a date. I wish we could have seen more of the delivery guy: he had such a lovely smile and the sparks flew when their eyes touched. I was secretly hoping he would be her blind date. But unfortunately for me, the date was not blind, she met someone she's known for a long time.

It is a cute short watch. Silent but with a great big number of text messages which are translated in english!

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What a drag!

After Something Crunchy Crunchy (BL cookies in love musical! go watch it it is so weird!), this must be the weirdest, the quirkiest and the strangest thing I have ever watched. I am still trying to figure out what I just finished watching! Was it a cartoon for kids so it is not serious? Was it an adult cartoon so there is some hidden, higher, more complicated meaning behind it? Was it just what it was, a silly little story to pass time while thinking of nothing? I don't know.

Gudetama is a raw egg, who is pulled into adventure by a chick wanting to find his mother. Gudetama is only interested in soy sauce and lazing about and the quest is not his thing. On the chick's egg there was a QR traceability code while they try to find the farm and the mother (Julia) they meet different people who may or may not see them: kid in a restaurant, journalists, politician, other kinds of egg...

Even though the story was funny to begin with, eventually it became repetitive and boring and even 10min episodes got to be too long. The animation is excellent and the interactions with real actors convincing. The raw egg, Gudetama is a fascinating character with his laziness and lack of care about the future: he only perks up in the last episode!

While watching this I kept thinking of children's films like Chicken Little and Chicken Run: the story skeleton is the same just it is much more weird here! The raw egg and the chick here go through numerous adventure and eventually they find their mothers and the raw egg gets eaten (in spite of starting to rot a few episodes earlier but was cured by soy sauce and silica gel packets! That scene was rather disgusting!).

So if you are in the mood for something extremely weird japanese way, go for it! It is only about 100min long!

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The triumph of the underdog

Needing a drama from the year 2016 for my Back To The Past Challenge, I set my eyes on this one found in an editorial article a few months ago (https://kisskh.at/article/check-out-these-sports-themed-web-series). What a discovery this drama was! It is a short web drama so I did not expect much from it but it is actually gripping, interesting, well written, filmed and acted. And it is just the right side! I think that if it had been a normal length K drama it would not have been just as good!

The plot is basic and familiar: our leads meet and clash, only to find out later that they need to work together to achieve the same goal. A classical enemies to lovers drama. The drama takes place in high school: the volley ball team is the last in the country and the FL, a star volleyball player, has to coach them as penance. From the reluctant star to a full-fledged coach only interested in the well-being of the team, is the journey the FL has to take. But, it would not be interesting if everything was smooth sailing. Her manager/agent gets his say in the affair and he apparently does everything to ruin her nascent coaching career. Does he want to exploit the goose who lays golden eggs or is there sincerity behind his concerns?

The cast of characters is perfect: varied and quirky. There is a love triangle but it is resolved to the satisfaction of everyone. One of the players has issues with his father, just like every teenager in the world: my parents don't really understand me, are not supportive enough, are too strict etc.etc. A girl has a crush on a player so she is willing to do anything but eventually she comes to her senses.

And of course, there is a lot of volleyball: training and matches which are expertly filmed. But the drama touches also upon sports' management agencies and the lengths they are willing to go in order to keep the sportsmen in check. The toxic and manipulative atmosphere is well presented, even though it peters out in the end and the agents are finally turn out to be not as evil as suspected.

The acting is skilful, the chemistry is there and the writing is solid. This is a good short watch, fun and fluffy enough. Sometimes we all need this kind of drama, optimistic and uplifting!

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Photos and memories

Once in a blue moon, a miracle happens and a second season of a series turns out to be better than the first one! This is an example!

The drama starts exactly where the previous one ended: Yeesa has woken up from a coma but is completely lost. People know her, she recognizes them but the things are not as she remembers them to have been, something is slightly off. So she goes to the esoteric club who helped her during time travel and finds out that the man who sacrificed himself to save her life was never in it, they have never heard about him. But when she bumps into him in a bookshop, he does not recognize her. A few days later they meet again: he is a writer and ever since they met, he'd been having dreams about another version of himself. They conclude that he'd been getting images from the parallel universe Yeesa is from. In that universe, he reconnects with his childhood friend and discovers that the photos they took with an instant camera let you travel to the moment those photos had benn taken for 15min (i.e. the time it takes for a instant photo to be developped).

Basically we have two stories developing at the same time. In the one, Yeesa is helping the writer with his novel in order to figure out how to go back to her original universe. The other story is the plot of the novel taking place in that other universe.

Fortunately, in this season, the FL is different and Yeesa is just a guest character having no more than a couple of scenes in every episode so the drama is so much better for it! The story focuses on Ka Chung and his childhood friend Cu Ning. The drama follows them as they slowly figure out how the time travel through photos work and we see them as they regretfully realize they cannot change the past no matter how hard they tried. There is a scene where FL goes through a big number of photos in order to try to save her grandfather and is miserable when she fails! But they eventually realize, just like in the first season, that changing destiny needs the ultimate sacrifice.

The running theme of this season are memories!Memories hidden in photos that both main characters are trying to find and keep the important photos in their life.The grandfather's memories he is slowly losing but not only. The story is much more complicated because it keeps going back and forth between past and present in both universes. The director found a good solution for us not to be lost: the ML looks completely different in different timelines, if I did not know better, I'd think they were two different actors! That was very helpful in order to follow the story!

There is even a bad guy: someone so steeped in grief and guilt after his wife's death that he manages to find a way to time travel and provoke as much pain in the lead's lives holding them responsible for his own unhappiness. This was so frustrating! The guy turns out to be practically a caricature of evil: why do bad guys hum and whistle while doing evil deeds? Always! Just look at any crime thriller out there, every serial killer moves around humming or whistling! This whole subplot brought nothing because the main leads did not manage to save anyone with their actions and the final solution came from literally wishing upon a star. So just like in the first season, time travel depends on the whims of Gods!

The writing is excellent, without obvious plotholes but without time travel explanation either. Why is this particular instant camera creating time travel photos? The reason some people can do it is explained but not the means of transportation! On the other hand, the connection between the two seasons is established perfectly as the story of this season circles back to the beginning of the first one: the events of this season happened before the event of the Leap day and the conclusion to both series is the last episode here! This is headache inducing but time travel always is so....

940920 is a top tier time travel drama. The characters are interesting, the plot is tightly woven and manages to retain some logic but it is not very optimistic even though there is a happy ending for everyone involved. The cinematography is just as beautiful

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Life reboot

I am a sucker for time slip tropes so as soon as this finished airing and after checking that the ending is probably to my liking, I went for it. I won't lie to you, I binged it in three days but eventually I did not like it so much. There are a lot of issues I have with it.

The story is quite straightforward: two people leading boring unhappy lives are given a chance for a redo of the last ten years. How are they going to deal with the knowledge? Are they going to use it to correct past errors? Spoiler alert: they do of course! Otherwise what's the point of this drama?!? And so the doormat FL stands up for herself and comes up victorious!

The drama is fun to watch. There are a few tropes that do not go the usual revenge, makjang mode so that was rather refreshing. The chaebol grandfather and his lawyer are not the usual evil heads out to ruin our FL. They turn out to be kind and reasonable. But they could not do away with this cliché completely with the appearance with the psycho ex girlfriend. Mostly, the support characters were the usual clichés: jealous, greedy, bullying... And the glasses issue: ugly with them, drop dead gorgeous without them. We are still doing that? Of course they are kitted out with the most ugly and the least becoming models of glasses otherwise, the change is not obvious enough!

The change in the main characters' personalities is just as obvious: they both went from doormats to smart people who stand up for themselves and won't be beaten down. And even though the FL becomes cocky and looses her newly acquired smarts towards the ending, making idiotic mistakes, she comes back rather quickly!

The main support characters were more interesting: the joyful sister, the unassuming boss, the regretful cook (with a beautiful smile) and the quiet but powerful lawyer.

The first major issue I have with the plot is the time travel aspect: it was never explained who the mysterious taxi driver was? Are there any other cases like theirs? How are they chosen? Probably, the person needs to hit rock bottom and die in order to be offered a reboot! What is the significance of the heart? Was the time travel offered by her dead father (who was the taxi driver for ML)? I guess, one should not think too much about the logic when talking about time manipulation! I hoped to get an even cursory explanation at the end. Nothing! I was also surprised that the leads never wondered about the hows and the whys of their reboot! The aspect of the reboot I liked was the way their fate was transferred onto others and how they fought to save their friends from that fate!

The second major issue I have is the cast: Park Min Young looks too sleek and smooth to be true. People say she abuses of plastic surgery. I hope not but she has changed a lot over years and here she looks so artificial and even older than her age. Her face is pretty much expressionless: she can smile and cry but nothing else moves. Na In Woo looks like a very tall kid next to her. There is supposed to be an age gap (3-4 years tops!) between them but it looks much more!

Everything considered, this is a fun and a very forgettable watch. Things happened, but I cannot think of much now and I actually wonder what did they fill these 16h with? It went by and it was not too boring, so I guess something must have happened! This was Park Min Young's show from the first to the last minute. Unfortunately! LOL

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Little BL lost....

I wanted to drop it but I did not: it was strangely addictive in the beginning and since the episodes are short, I finished it. But I can see why it has such a bad rating: it does not know what it wants to be: 2gether or Bed Friend! So it tries to be both but it is eventually neither!

>It is a story of two university students, promiscuous men, notorious for their one night stands who bump into each other and it is love at first sight though neither is aware of it! But everithing takes place at the university so we are served the complete list of tropes: fujoshi friend posting about them on line, trans busybodies, screaming fans, stupid misunderstandings, nosy best friends etc. etc.

The first few episodes they navigated between the interesting plot with unusual characters and cringy uni scenes. Unfortunately, they continued like this till the end when they sunk into the depths of cringy dialogue of two people in love... The main characters went from cheeky, arrogant Fah and prickly charming Sher to soft sickly sweet marshmallows: it the last episode, Sher scratches his ankle, Fah carries him in his arms (not piggyback!) and then Sher walks around with a crutch. This was the ultimate scratch wound. Sher who was confident and cocky turned into a damsel in distress! And Fah turns from a popularity king into a jealous shrew!

Everything was like this is this drama: every originality was abandoned along the way for the usual university fare! There were two side couples. One of them, best friends to lovers: when they realized they had feelings for each other, they slept together. Few days later, they are sitting in the bed, one kisses the cheek of the other who screams like a virgin! Ridiculous! All the characters had zero development, if not for the worst: they all seemed to become wimps when they fell in love!

I don't know how accurate the translation is, but the vocabulary they used was really vulgar very often when they talked to each other. The bed scenes were frequent, especially during the first few episodes. What surprised me was the choice of music: drums, only drums and it was hot and new. But that happened only once and afterwards they went with the usual soft song etc....boring!

It definitely does not deserve such bad rating, it is watchable, James is excellent in a double role but, all in all, this is kind of missed opportunity!

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Stress and colours but no love

Monochrome is being sold as "boys love, lgbtq+, yaoi, gay" on WayuFilms Production youtube channel. I have not seen any of it unless you count a long fixed look between the leads until one of them turns the head around. That is the only moment in the film which could make the audience think that this is a romance, though there might be a whiff of unrequited love in the air!

The story:
White is a graphic designer who, after being scolded at work, loses his confidence and the ability to see colours. His best friend Shield tries to help him adjust to the new situation but White is too frustrated to make a real effort. Until one day they meet a blind girl painting in the park and White realized that his deficiency is not the end of the world and that he can do his job in spite of it.

The story deals with the pressure: the one we put on ourselves thinking we can do anything and the one put on us by the world, the employers and the society at large. We need to learn how to deal with this kind of stress, and the film shows it to us: there are people worse off than ourselves who are doing much better just because they accept themselves as they are and have found a way to make the most of it by taking an alternative path. In this film, the bling girl teaches White to distinguish colours by smell.

The production is, as usual, on a shoe string budget. The best was actually the actress playing the blind girl: I really believed she was blind. The film also has the main character working on a poster for a film/web drama starring the same actress and from the same producers. (On n'est jamais mieux servi que par soi même!!) The actors are rookies who act better when they are not speaking: there is a long montage without dialogue, which I found the most interesting. It seems to me that WayuFilm Productions are rarely going outside these days, filming their short movies in the office. They have lost a bit of its charm: I remember when I first discovered them, the cinematography was stunning and the stories were original. The last few short films have been a slight disappointment: actors learning the trade, boring stories and bad production values.

So, there is no romance here just some wishful thinking from the audience used to better fleshed out stories (Mon & Oak period!) from this director .

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Pretty paintings and crime

DISCLAIMER: My opinion, that's all!

The concept of this drama reminded me very much of many US shows, police procedurals in which they usually pair up a gruff but extremely honest policeman and a quirky highly intelligent civilian (mostly mathematicians or psychology professors or some such profession) who comes up with the right remark/discovery at a crucial moment thereby solving the case gaining admiration by everyone!
It is the same here: this time an art history professor and highly skilled painter is brought in to help with investigations. At first there is animosity between him and the detective but that quickly vanished when the painter skilfully solves the case in the nick of time, impressing the detective who becomes his main fan.
I was actually a bit disappointed that the conflict was resolved so quickly: I hoped for the tension to last a bit longer. From episode three onwards, we were on the full bromance(not chines censors' one though which it could have been seeing the physical differences between two characters who looked like they just came out of a shounen ai manhua!LOL).
Once their relationship was firmly established, we were treated to a series of "case of the week" episodes featuring different stories: murders, scams, suicides (the slightly GL overtone one did not sit well with me: it sent the very wrong message!)
Over these 20 episodes we did not find much about the main characters: their past and their families are barely mentioned.
And this is where the plot holes come in: the detective comes from a well off family but was caught being a delinquent in a gang fight. Painter looks like he was a homeless kid, taken in by a kind art teacher but still living as a rebel? He was nearly drowned to death (who saved him the first time?) and forgot the face of the woman who asked him for a sketch (that too: why did she have a photo of a 3yr old to find someone easily found 30 years later?I must have missed the explanation!LOL). A psychologist told him he needed to have another near death experience to jog his memory but he had had another such event just a few days previously and nothing happened to his memory. As the plot progressed, the painter got to have many new capabilities: highly observant, highly knowledgable in anatomy, highly competent in psychology (the way he manipulated the computer baron was amazing and of course chess master and extremely talented painter.Makes you wonder how the police managed to catch anyone before he joined with his drawing skills.
Last but not least, the police is painted in such a positive light; everyone is nice, honest, competent, trustworthy and cheerfull, supporting each other for the greater good! Amazing!

The paintings and the drawings were beautiful: in the last scene we are shown sketches of characters from the cases they solved and each sketch is in a different style! There are some really pretty pictures! The painter who did these for the drama production is a very talented individual!

I must admit that as much as I enjoyed this at start, I was getting bored with it by the end. It is not half bad, a fun watch but I just have trouble getting used to c dramas. Again I had the impression they first filmed everything, edited everything in a block then chopped it up into 40min pieces: sometimes the episode would end mid-sentence. They should really learn how to make a cliffhanger cliffhangy!

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Misunderstandings and missed chances

This drama had two halves for me: a rant inducing first half and the butterflies inducing second. It is a story of teens, full of insecurities, behaving like teens i.e. immaturely and without the courage to ask for what they really want! Fast-forward 10 years later, those teens are adults now and are well aware of the chances they are given so they take them albeit reluctantly but they still do!

What I liked:
- two stories told in parallel: past and present. In the past we see how they go from best friends to lovers to enemies and in the present from enemies to lovers. The pacing was excellent!
- Ji's character in the present and Achi's in the past timeline
- Ji's parents, especially father in the end
- Junior's singing voice (if that's him singing!)
- Achi's manager and Ji's friend
- absolutely zero PPLs (incredible but true)
- good chemistry and excellent NC scenes

What I did not like:
- unnecessary second couple (Ki and the farmer)
- Achi's behaviour in the first half
- too much lipstick on Achi
- sound effects (even a little bit of those is too much!)
- lack of communication causing a 10 year rift between them
- lack of communication
- lack of communication

The rest is here:

PERSONAL RANT: pay no attention to my lucubrations! Thank you!
1. I have started this only 10 min ago and want to drop it already. Why? Those awful unnecessary sound effects! Really? Still doing those? Please producers, give some credit to your public that they will know when a scene is supposed to be funny! And, OMG! the lipstick on that dude!😱 But Fluke is so pretty without looking weak. Makes me think of James of Bed Friend fame!...Fortunately, no shiny lipstick on him! He's making it worth the watch! 🥰
2. So, I haven't dropped it yet but again was very close to it in ep 2. That actor is annoying, apparently has never heard the word NO, has no boundaries and he thinks himself cute. So not cute and even less romantic! This is turning into a hate watch accompanied by rants. It sounds fun! Go Ji, stay strong!
3. I was hoping that the sound effects have just been an accident at the beginning of the first episode. No way! They are back with vengeance at the beginning of the third!😭😭This drama has all the tropes from three years ago. I had thought they had moved on. No such luck! Moreover, the actor is being creepy, using a kid and not cute at all! And now he wants to be friends! I think I have definitely seen too many bls!🤣🤣Pushy ml, disregarding other people is definitely to my liking. What is the most infuriating is that the doctor is going to let him do everything he wants and since he's had a crush on him for ten years it is not going to take long. I noticed one item of progress in this dramas: everyone is wearing a helmet nowdays when they are riding a motorcycle: it was not the case a couple of years ago so the new law must have been implemented in Thailand? I love that "doctors saving lives" mission dramatic music, slow motion walking through a long corridor with hands in the air: I could not stop laughing: they look like kids playing doctors! The flashbacks a spaced nicely and giving just bits and pieces of the backstory which correspond to present events. Nicely done! But why does Ji carry a tote bag? This is just another infuriating bl trope: ukes carry totes and semes backpacks, even though they gave him a backpack in the present too but it is colour coordinated with his t-shirt!🤣 Fluke looks so much like a typical bl actor from three years ago (he's the spitting image of the guy from UWMA!) That bridge in Chiang Mai is always empty when they are crossing it together: but you can see in the background that the production stopped the traffic at the entrance to it!
One HUGE positive point so far: not one single PPL! Amazing! Incredible for a thai bl! At least two points gained on my final rate for sure! If they manage it until the end!
4. So I went and got myself a pot of ice cream (B&J Cookie Dough) convinced that it would calm my ranting mood down. I am sorry to say, it did not! I am getting angry with Ji now: I thought he was strong but he is buckling so fast under pressure from the Achi that it is quite disturbing and disappointing. Achi is a charming and selfish man who thinks his pushy behaviour is cute but I thought Ji was better....I guess when you've been in unrequited love for ten years, you admit defeat quickly. And then, they threw us a curveball: Achi has had feelings for Ji forever, he never wanted to be his friend! The whole story gets turned upside down! What happened between them 10 years earlier? Why did Ji pretend to be interested in Pear, a girl from Achi's school? The plot thickens!!!
5. Achi telling a bedtime story with puppets was the cutest ever, in the flashback. Poor guy, he keeps confessing to apparently completely clueless Ji. This is getting better! Yey! So much cuteness in this episode. They have both calmed down and are going slowly...Nice! Nothing to rant about!
6. Some very long scenes with a patient in hospital: his cancer made Ji think about his own mother and yada yada yada....They wasted over half an episode on it. But then they went to flashbacks and to ten years earlier: cute and fluffy! More please, I want more! And I was given more! Junior, the actor playing Achi, sings a song: he has such a lovely warm unusual voice....Fingers crossed they finally start talking to each other and not skirting around the most important questions in their minds!
7. I wonder which gay arthouse film did they watch that made them all hot and bothered like this? The lovemaking scene was beautiful and the aftermath of teens not talking probably typical, separating because of a misunderstanding.... While trying to save some face, they ruin everything! Actually, now I am getting angry with the young Ji. I know, teens explore, do not understand and all that but it's been months that Achi has been giving him hints and signs that Ji keeps ignoring. He is a smart kid so...Why? Poor Achi....Poor me! My rant has made a 180° turn and now I am not happy with Ji, the one in the past not in the present!🤣🤣🤣Yes, finally they talked! It only took them ten years. Better late than never!
8. Well, nothing runs smoothly in heaven, apparently. They are together, but things are not all cleared up and Ji is hesitating. Again. So his best friend tells him the simple truth: "Stop playing games and just be together!" It falls on deaf ears? I hope not! One thing has been bothering me since the start: why does Ji constantly wear his doctor's coat outside hospital? He doesn't have time to change before going home? Ever? I am not a medical professional but isn't reattaching a finger a more sensitive operation than placing a hip screw? I'd say yes! So he was an expert surgeon in the first episodes (and that was already hard to believe) but now in the last episode he needs to be supervised? [Microsurgery: Reattaching a finger and restoring blood flow is delicate work, since each digital artery is a millimeter in diameter, decreasing in size (as it moves from the top of the finger to the bottom) to fractions of a millimeter before branching into capillaries. ] Of course they had to ruin the last minutes with Achi's concert and his awful hair and too much lipstick. Who finds that quantity of lipstick on a man attractive?

This turned out to be a great watch after an iffy start.

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Game of life....

Apparently, I completely misunderstood this drama. To my defence, I never read the webtoon so I judged it upon watching. I don't know if the plot is clearer there but I was quite confused with the ending.



First of all, I loved it: it was beautifully filmed and skilfully acted. The director loves original angles, ceilings and shadow contrast shots: excellent camera work! Actors are just as amazing: rarely have I seen such emotional, true acting in one of these web series. Music was nice and not intrusive, so we could really enjoy the plot and try to figure out what is what! LOL

Secondly, the plot was original, a device seldom used in k drama: transmigration. I said seldom, not never, and not as much as in c dramas. A 29 yr old sad and depressed man criticizes his friend's novel which is about to be turned into a game. After drinking too much, he wakes up inside the game as a 19yr old high school student, but with the life experiences of a 29yr old, and if he wants to live, he has to complete different tasks. When he leaves the game he is deleted from it but a couple of characters still vaguely remember him; How? Why? Then he kills himself (apparently he never learned anything!) and he is sent back into the game.
The biggest part of the series takes part inside the game. That's the problem I had with it: is the game real or is it an allegory for afterlife (since at one point, the ML comes out of the game and promptly kills himself! Or does he?) or is it that his friend based a character in the game on him....I don't know!
I was expecting a different ending. Something along these lines: ML learning to know himself through the game and finally realize that his novelist friend was in love with him (the vibe was of stratospheric proportion in the first episode, the chemistry hot and therefore I suffered from second lead syndrome!LOL That never turns out well in K dramas!).

Finally, in spite of the lack of straight explanation, as I see it, and after being told off, I am just going to take it literally, in the sequence and do not think about it logically! I was told that the game is the afterlife and that the ML was dead from the beginning. That's not what I saw. I'd like to say it is open to interpretation but...forget it!

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Kinou Nani Tabeta? GL

Finally finished it!The only thing I liked about it were the subs so thank you very much Furritsubs: if anyone else had made the subs, I would have dropped this snoozefest immediately.

I started work after a long holiday, so I was looking for something short and easy to watch. This came highly recommended. Still, I was reluctant to watch it since I did not like the first season at all. The relationship between the two women was so hetero cliché ridden that it was uncomfortable to watch. This is true of many BLs as well. This drama is the GL version of those norms: a smaller, finer woman taking on the "wife" part i.e. cooking while the stockier and bigger woman ("butch" type) is the husband here, working hard and eating a lot under the adoring wife's gaze who has the appetite of a bird. Their behaviour and attitudes align perfectly with the heteronorms.

This drama is smooth sailing: nothing happens! They do touch upon, fleetingly, on the rigidities and the too demanding japanese society: the pressure the traditions and families exert on women by the all powerful males. But there are no male characters in this drama: a father we hear on the phone, a coworker who has a couple of lines and a real estate agent. This is a fully female centered drama. We were introduced to a few new characters, representative of japanese society's struggles: a girl bullied in school by teachers, a women rejected because of being ACE and a wife getting a divorce because fed up with her husband's parents demands. I found each case interesting but I was at the same time disappointed by the lack of real drama: "these problems exist in the society and it is on each person to find the solution" seems to be the message.

What do we have here then?
A couple of women becoming friends and more through cooking and eating.
Fluff, fluff, fluff and more fluff.
Slow formal speech and extreme politeness by everyone: people seem to be perfect in an almost ideal society. Everything is monotone, no one raises the voice, there is no passion, no drama, no contrary feelings. They don't seem human but as I understand it, that is the way the japanese society works mostly?
The misunderstandings are resolved immediately, thank heavens!
Zero chemistry between the women. The reminded me of the couple from Kinou Nani Tabeta?: two men brought together by their mutual love of good food.
Do couples in Japan sleep in separate rooms? The two women, once they started dating, went house hunting for an flat with two bedrooms!
The cook was not very modest about her own cooking skills: she'd barely taste a spoonful of her dish before starting raving about it (oishii!!!)... Everything she ate was oishii and yukata: must have heard it a million times throughout this short drama. So, if I never hear it again ,it will be too soon!!!
Nishino Emi definitely stole the show! She was amazing as a woman whose growth was stunted by toxic masculinity. So much so that she almost became one herself: tough, strong and hard.

For a westerner like me, this representation of japanese society is rather scary. I do not know if it is true or not but according to this drama, it seems to be chock-full of traumatized and repressed individuals. Wrapped in fluff. Go figure....

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Adorable and endearing: a hidden gem!

Believe it or not, I dropped this drama twice! I tried watching it but could not get past 20min of the first episode. Twice.

Then, a couple of days ago, I decided to fish it out of my dropped list and give it another go! Kind of scraping the bottom of the barrel. I thought! I was so wrong! This drama does not belong in the bottom of the barrel. No way! It is sweet and cute, a normal romance!

The story about straight laced, rigid ad executive's repetitive clashes with his complete opposite, a messy painter were sweet, charming and adorable.
Singto is so hot as an adult in well tailored suits. Tae as the painter, is perfect: a big child lacking maturity and seriousness but brimming with talent and charm, is a fitting opposite. To my enormous surprise, I found myself enjoying this childish character: for once in my drama watching career, I was not annoyed by such a character! He was endearing. I wanted to grab him and hold onto him and cuddle him and tell him "well done"! I mean, look how cute he is collecting animals amongst which a cockroach named Steven! Too cute!
Singto and Tae had great chemistry together. So their characters' relationship was credible: both are in love but both suffer from a ton of insecurities which keep them closed off. They are attracted to each other so much so they sleep together. But what they do not do is really talk to each other. Add to the mix some, unavoidable for a romcom, misunderstandings and you have the makings of an excellent romcom.

While the romcom part stayed on rails and followed its natural development through every possible romance trope (misunderstandings, drunken confessions, break up, time jumps -only three months, but still....) some other plotlines were abandoned quickly (a series of suspicious accidents which led to believe someone was behind it but it turned to nothing) or just skimmed (cute office romance, the CEO's friends: how, why?). It was nice seeing the actor who played Techno in TharnType again...

I simply loved the music: they managed to do away almost completely, with the usual thai funky songs which are all similar and they used some nice arrangements of classical music. The animated opening credits were my favourite and I never skipped them (which I usually do when watching a drama!)

But of course, they had to almost ruin everything with an unconvincing second couple and the creepy manager. The second couple had zero chemistry and ...does Yacht EVER close his mouth? His mouth is always slightly open and when I noticed that early on, every time when he was on the screen, I was watching his mouth and wondering if he was ever going to be sitting still and listening to others with his mouth closed? No, NEVER! Sorry to say but Yacht is not a main lead actor: a comic relief support actor? Oh, yes, any time! But main roles in romcoms? Please, don't!
The other problem this drama suffers from, at least for me, are the characters of actors' managers. I still have to find a Thai drama where the manager/agent is NOT a trans or femgay character, overacting and screeching. Here the trans character was particularly caricatural. Maybe, they are like that in real life? I don't know. I would like to know! Does anyone know?
Or another thing I noticed which looked off: when the painter decides to paint wearing a white spotless shirt and when he is finished with the painting, his shirt is still spotless!His hands as well! Try simply drawing something with a felt tip pen and your hands will be dirty within five minutes.

In conclusion: I loved it. It is not the masterpiece in storytelling but it is a solid enemies to lovers drama oozing chemistry, charm and fun while giving me butterflies. There is character development: Maze becomes less stiff and the painter more serious in each other's company: their relationship is mutually beneficial.

I am only surprised at myself: why did I drop it twice in two years? I remember finding their initial relationship too cringy. Twice. Not this time! Maybe, just maybe, a string of highly hyped dramas which I did not like at all, are to blame? My taste has been honed and learned to appreciate a simple love story to its true value! Which is 9/10 with points being taken off for annoying managers.

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Hosts & Princesses

While slowly sliding into a period of slump and dropping many dramas as if they were hot potatoes, I started watching this with the same mindset. And I almost dropped it during episode 3 but I kept on watching since the episodes are really short. Moreover, the ending was surprising for someone well versed in the immutable laws of drama tropes. But more about it later...

The synopsis made me think of thai drama Mama Gogo. The plot: a woman, unsatisfied at her dead end job, unexpectedly inherits a debt ridden club where handsome men entertain bored women they call princesses and treat as such. The clash between two universes is fun, though a bit cringy, to watch. Eventually they end up changing each other.

The cast was excellent and the writing did them all justice by highlighting the lives of a few of them, their backstories and how they view their lives: they are all vulnerable human beings. That made them all the more lovable and still be complex characters which show growth.

Truth be told, I wanted to drop it very quickly: the childhood connection/first love was almost to much to bear and I watched the 3rd episode with my eyes closed: too cringy when she dresses up (unconvincingly!) as a man and tries to work as a host. But I soldiered on and it ended up being worthy the time spent.

I would like to thank the subbers who explained all the details of the host terminology in their notes on screen since the majority of watchers here are not really familiar with host clubs and the way they work. This was indeed a fascinating cultural aspect of japanese society.

Still, that is not the reason why I gave this drama a higher note then I wanted to. When I discovered the childhood connection in episode 2, I literally groaned "Oh, nooo!". But they managed to surprise me in the end by not making them a couple as we were all taught to expect: "first love is forever". This drama trope is so omnipresent in romcoms. I am glad they went with a more realistic approach and therefore I gave them one point more because dramas upending the expected solution are few and far between. The problem is that the happy couple has no chemistry to speak of. Unfortunately the first love couple had more chemistry, maybe because they were of the same age? Don't get me wrong, I love noona romances but I need to see the spark between them. Yagi Yusei is as pretty as an angel but his acting skills are lacking: every time he was on screen I thought I was watching Utsukushii Kare, the same laid back "cool, don't care about anyone" type of character pouting and busy looking handsome.

In conclusion, a nice light summer watch which will not task your brain too much! Just fun!

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Unconvincing romance.

Everything about this drama screams fake and forced romance, starting with the title!

One of the tropes I hate the most in BLs is "gay for you only!" and here it starts with the title: If It Is With You...

The plot follows the story of Amane and Ryoji, a couple of high school kids who meet accidentally and become friends. The whole romance is based on their characters and they are just not in synch! Amane is gay, has been sleeping around with older men and hiding his insecurities behind forced joviality. He is willing to tone it down but only if it is with Ryoji! Ryoji, on the other hand is serious and mature beyond his age due to the death of his father and the obligations towards his family restaurant business. He is also excessively kind which breaks Amane's protective walls who falls hook line and sinker for the sweet and non-judgemental Ryoji. When Amane confesses to him, Ryoji is surprised and ends up accepting even though he never considered the possibility of Amane being ever anything more than a friend but if it is with him...

The whole romance felt forced, they tried to make a sweet simple friendship into a love story and that is when the whole drama crashed in my eyes. The sets are pretty, the actors are cute but they have zero romantic chemistry. They are good friends who understand each other but the transition to lovers did not feel natural: Ryuji somehow seemed to be obligated by his own excessive kindness to accept Amane's confession. That felt very wrong. The friendship was great, the romance was awful!

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Wrong title, right drama....

...if you are in the mood for some IT start up shenanigans! The title is so misleading making you think that this is a makjangy sort of tropes filled drama. It definitely is not! A man who cannot remember faces meets a woman who is unforgettable and she changes him.

Just like amnesia, prosopagnosia is an extremely rare condition which is overused in dramas. Here it is taken as a comedy factor, as he seems not to remember the faces of a grand total of two people, apparently. The rest is just laziness and lack of attention, which she helps him with. The ML's behaviour and the lack of empathy and of the understanding of emotions, is almost autistic. In contact with the FL, he grows and matures emotionally. She, on the other hand lacks self confidence. Both of them together is a fertile ground for misunderstandings which we end up getting a lot of!

ML's best friend and associate turns evil when his frustration and the lack of talent gets the better of him. He foments evil
conspiracies, and when he wins he laughs like the worst of James Bond villains. But it does not last long and his redemption is speedy. I still have to find a j drama where the evil character is not evil only for about 5min. Maybe it is a good thing that they insist on redemption but it does not make for a gripping viewing experience.

The plot was interesting. The music excellent. The main actress has a beautiful smile, just stunning. The main actor (excellent acting skills!) has a terrible haircut, just awful which almost ruined the overall cuteness!

It was an excellent watch!

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