solipsism5

Yes, it is up to the screenwriter to make it clear. That’s the issue. Otherwise we wonder why won’t he molest his daughter. Not a savory topic I know, but it really is not explained well and for a touchy topic they should really try harder

I must be the odd one out but I don’t see why the father would make that distinction. If I was with child protective services I would not be like, oh she’s the biological daughter so no need to worry. It might be true what you’re saying but it’s not obvious or apparently true. I think that the screenplay writers should have worked on making this clearer.

A flaw in the plot I wanted to point out is that the stepdad would probably have gone after Uea's sister, especially if he goes after women like he seems to do in the next episode. I thought the only reason he didn't go after the sister was that he was only into boys. I don't understand how Uea's mom has sexual relations with that man, either. She must at least suspect that what Uea is telling her might be true. So he's kind of a pansexual predator that goes after anyone that he somehow finds attractive, and Uea's sister somehow didn't fit the bill. That's a weird plot and probably something no one really thought through.

Thank goodness they've turned the corner with this drama. On a positive note, this series has dealt with trauma better than virtually any other despite its flaws. Uea is able to have some closure with his sexual assaulter in the work place and is supported by the whole staff. He confesses his mental health issue to someone, and it's finally revealed that he takes medications for his depression/PTSD. This is a big advance over other series where love and one's boyfriend are supposed to solve all their problems. Now the story is much more unified, but it took too long to get here, and they've lost most of their audience. I think this series might be viewed more favorably by people who binge watch this as long as they know that after 7 hours of Uea being a punching bag for every evil character in the series, he will finally overcome their depredations.

Uea also gets to have an adult family member that finally accepts him and provides him some emotional support. This drama has completely turned around, and has become a BL again. It's not a bad idea introducing a lot of angst into a BL, and the happy ending will feel more fulfilling when that happens. I feel like most BL's don't resolve that angst very well, and this one actually does. You will see that this series actually even goes beyond the novel because Uea will get some resolution with his step dad that he didn't have in the original story.

I'm still not saying this is a great BL. It's a little too amateurish with the editing, and those extended long pauses all over the place, but it's not at all as bad as most people at first thought [including myself]. I still like the chemistry of NetJames, and the story actually makes sense, except that Uea needs a lot more therapy, probably. Everyone is different, though. Uea is taking meds and now has a supportive network of friends and family and that might be enough.

In the novel the aunt hasn’t been seen by Uea since he was a young boy. Uea’s mom and his aunt stopped talking to each other because of some argument. Uea hardly knows where his aunt lives and is only going there because he has no other possibilities. His aunt runs a popular restaurant in town and that’s how he finds her. She and her husband started the business and she runs it by herself after he passed away.

I believe it’s based in Singapore. It’s weird how the Thai BL’s, especially GMMTV ones, will start very high and just stay there. There are many anomalies I point out in their rating system that just occur all the time. It’s not just that the Korean and Japanese BL’s always get lower ratings but that other strange things happen like no one rating a given show for weeks ( Never Let Me Go).

MDL might not be influential but I’m sure they believe they are. They might manipulate ratings thinking they can influence the market in some way.

This rating is offensively low. I almost feel Thai companies pay someone to reduce all the ratings for Korean and Japanese BL’s. Why is this not a 9.0? I wish I could work with a group of investors and buy MDL so we could bring fairness back into its ridiculous rating system.

Don't get greedy now, this budget is like 10-50 times more than what I would expect previous Korean BL's to have. We can't just go light years into the future. The length of this series as well as its enhanced cinematography is really unexpected and is a big leap forward. I hope to see even more in the future, but I almost wonder how they would ever get a return on their investment in homophobic South Korea.

This is really is the "most complete" kbl, as you've said, and I agree with everything else you mentioned here.

This is outrageously good. Someone take my temperature, I'm feeling faint. What a game changer this BL is. I know some people are saying it's like a gay drama, but I think it's more of a Bl with LGBTQ+ sensibility. I think adding this element makes this more a pure BL than those artificial Thai BL's in their cloistered high school, and college campuses. This BL has a sense of real authenticity. I think the characters are almost palpably real - I feel I can reach through my screen and touch them. The best fantasy is the one that is the most realistic, like with Tolkein who created a multitude of languages for every sentient species in his fantasy world, as well as ornate and detailed histories for them. I really love the natural feel of all the characters here and their spontaneous seeming interactions. This is the best BL for me, and brings together great acting, cinematography, directing, and a really tasteful music score. Not much is happening, but it's still the best, and just the liveliness of the characters, the vividness of their portrayal, and the quiet tension between the leads and their "antagonists" has somehow provided all the entertainment. It's amazing that it's so good with nothing even happening. It's got an entertaining way of telling a story without a lot of fanfare, and I'm just totally appreciative of that.

I never watch reaction videos, but I just noticed this one because James looks spectral in this as it came across my youtube feed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeoBI5Bo7kA&ab_channel=MandeeChannel. I think the show must have drained all the blood out of him.

The mom is a monster. I'm Asian myself but raised in the West. No matter what kind of deep respect you are supposed to show your parents in Asian culture, I can't respect a mom that let's her son be sexually molested by her own husband, and who tells him he's completely worthless, and yet scavenges off of him. This woman is pure evil, and deserves no parental respect. There are cultural differences between West and East, but let's get real - hating this woman [especially as a parent] should be universal. Uea should have no obligation to her whatsoever.

It is not a happy ending at all. The whole plot is that the Teddy Bear comes to life and changes everyone's life for the better, and he's the main character - he's the total focus of the series. He then commits suicide at the end. He does this so that the other lover who never even paid attention to Nut for years can come back and they can live together again. Then the Teddy Bear is trapped forever as a stuffed animal watching his lover make love to another man for decades. I don't know why people think that's a happy ending - you've got to be kidding me.

How is this series so long? I'm just not used to this, and the quality is just off the charts. Did someone die and leave a fortune for some gay director? Not only are the episodes long, but they are beautifully shot. The cinematography is wonderful, and even the opening credits are really classy. I feel like everything is on another level than what I'm used to. This might be the best Korean BL ever, and it's just way beyond anything out of Thailand. The acting is just superb and the chemistry of the mains is just totally beyond realistic [hyperbole] - it's some of the best I've ever seen. I'm dying to see more of this. This is a treasure-trove of BL magic, and it's like beyond anything that I had even thought would be possible in the near term. It reminds me of the major leap for BL's when ITSAY came out. I feel very spoiled right now, but I deserved this and so did you. Thanks to whoever for making this possible.

I agree with your points. Just wanted to clarify a few things, though. The mother is a parasite but she does have a job - it’s a struggling laundromat business, and her husband is atravelling salesman. She just wants extra money from Uea for little luxuries - again, a terrible mom but I just wanted to fill you in on the details. Uea’s real father is a policeman that cheated on his wife and married a wealthy woman. He seems to have completely abandoned his family. I believe Uea is just struggling to get rid of his mom and is just clinging on to a tiny hope that she will show him some love one day. It’s a little complex. He knows how bad she is but can’t make up his mind to completely get rid of her. Even in the novel he still sends her money even after he seems to completely repudiate her. The only difference, at the end, is he minimizes what he sends her, and doesn’t read anything she texts him.

I keep thinking this show had the wrong formula for a BL. The ratings for this show have crashed and I believe it’s because they have just had unrelenting depressing scenes involving Uea. The book is really much better but it also has the same level of trauma for Uea although it is structured much better so you understand the reason behind Uea’s issues, and every person that harasses him is integral to the story rather than seeming like another random sexual predator.

Unfortunately, most BL’s need a lot of fluff to keep people interested, and it’s the reason most of us watch them- for light entertainment. I think it’s possible to present traumatic events but they need to have a quicker resolution than in this series or some movement forward against the antagonists would probably be good enough - like Uea at least fighting back a little bit against his sexual assaulters, or against his mom. That this series has been sort of bleak for seven episodes is just not a good idea to keep people engaged. You’ll see that this drama will end on a positive note but it’s just probably too late for most people. It’s not really a bad story for a BL but it would probably have been better as a gay drama, and everyone would be ready for the incredible negativity and continuously depressive atmosphere.

I recommend the novel which is much more unified and where Uea actually takes meds for his PTSD. There are a lot of subtle differences between the novel and the screenplay of this series but they make all the difference. For one, none of Uea’s assaulters ever really attack him like in this series. The series seems to want to create a lot of extra drama and I think it really didn’t work. I think the only thing I really like in the series is NetJames and their chemistry. James especially did a great job this episode depicting all the psychological scars of his character.

This was an extraordinary BL, and one of the best I’ve ever seen. It was just so introspective, and subtle with a unique screenplay that featured an almost dream-like narrative. I thought the love story was one of the most inspired because it was so restrained, and one felt the emotions that were forgotten were part of this intense undercurrent that made every scene feel breathless, full of anticipation. I think the actors were truly inspired and brought such depth to the bare, and simple narrative by filling it with all their ever-changing, and multi-faceted emotions.

I think that the love that was always there from the first moment they met was always going to come back, and it was like the Jack O’Frost moment was the mischief that would always be ephemeral. The story is that this love would always return because it was so strong, and the time that was forgotten would be recovered because the emotions never changed. The loss of memory was a thing both Ritsu and Fumiya used to hide from each other. It was like Ritsu said, they both forgot things, and hid things from each other relying on the fog of unreliable memories. Ritsu absolves Fumiya from his deception claiming to have been no better than him, but even if it’s not true that he was as culpable as Fumiya, he knows that he can not claim to be without fault. His resolve to not forgive Fumiya was always weak, and his neighbor related as much to Fumiya, and so Fumiya could breach the tentative, and ambiguous separation between them. I think they make it clear that it wasn’t that hard when they meet at the café and Ritsu just assumes they will get back together, just relating how he loved Fumiya at first sight.

The music was particularly beautiful in the last minutes of this drama. They returned to playing Prelude to Afternoon with a Faun, just to remind everyone that this music is related to the first scene at the café, as part of the cyclical nature of this whole series, like when Ritsu redraws the picture of Jack Frost at this café after he has his amnesia. This is really a drama that has been just one of the most elevated and unique BL’s ever. It was thoughtfully crafted and made with some real inspiration and dedication.

Hooray! We need to hear more about treatment for mental health issues in BL’s. Uea is the poster child for someone who needs a therapist. I really believe there is a stigma in Thai media for presenting counseling as a way of dealing with trauma, even more than psychiatry. It’s probably because there’s a stigma to it in Thai society in general. People don’t really see therapists out there especially in the rural areas.

Nonetheless BL’s could offer modeling for therapy in their dramas just like they do for LGBTQ+ rights. I just hope to see more of this in the future. I’ve only seen two to three characters get treatment in any BL. I know it’s too expensive for a lot of Thai people, and I’m not certain what cheap or free options they have there, but people have to sacrifice some material goods for their mental well-being. Everyone will have to realize, someday, that their mental health is worth the expense. Hopefully it’s not a matter of starving or getting treatment, but I think most people could get therapy in some form if they make it a priority.

I think this as well. The character motivations will become clear by the end, and the drama is really making a serious point about how to confront sexual harrassers and even spiteful, homophobic parents. Uea's mom is really the worst I've ever seen in a BL and how he deals with her is really a valuable lesson for a lot of gay teens, and even just normal teens because there are many people that have been brought up by terrible parents.

Oh that's good to know for the future. I've bought other BL's on Amazon in the past because I like to keep them, and its easy to reference them when the whole book is in one spot. I'll keep an eye out for other platforms in the future though. I have to look for the apps you're talking about, because I just jumped the gun and couldn't find one. They looked like they went to these Thai stores, but there must have been others I missed.

But even in the novel King doesn't reveal why the arranged marriage date was really not important, hence the confusion that leads to Uea thinking that King no longer cares for him. There is no inconsistency with the novel here. This scene is not padding. It's actually a necessary part of the plot leading to the point where Uea runs out of town hoping to start a new life without King.