wworms

i want shi woon to win over da on who's incredibly uninteresting

mr perfect is so boring

yeah i do think it's a better series but the ending is actually just that bad. real shame

yeah it's good

I'm waiting for the day Japan goes all out and has an unapologetically gay drama. More romantic situations, more unambiguous statuses and feelings, less "straight padding" for the sake of avoiding alienation, etc. Taiwan is probably the best for gay dramas now and I hope other Asian places follow suit.
As critical as people were of "In the Sky", it was significantly more gay than the original, having more gay characters, more love triangles, a way less confused mc, and way less of a focus on the straights. I kinda hated its ending though, but that's what happens when your ship doesn't go through lol.

I think Tonari's alright. The straight storylines were alright and the gay relationship was generally handled well. A simple coming out story that felt more believably because the one in the closet was old. I saw it around when it came out so my memory's a bit fuzzy but it's very gay-friendly, with only two characters disapproving and the show toying with their expectations and no harsh melodramatic nonsense.

I think the original Ossan's Love was really important for making bl more mainstream, even if I think the execution in the second half of it was really flimsy. I respect it for it.

(spoilers for the rest of the original if you haven't seen it)

The show, especially the original, does a pretty poor job contextualizing the relationship as nothing more than a "if it's you it's okay" type of relationship. I've always read it as a very strong platonic relationship until the very last two scenes of the series. it comes off way more as friendship bonding than a romantic relationship budding a lot of the time. They should've gone harder on the romance.
I agree that the character isn't 100% straight though. I put "presumed" in quotes because Darren and Sui even assume he is, and I've always read Sui Muk's confliction as his not believing that he is being truly loved in return. A mix of "you don't really love me" and "it's easier just dating a woman" in my eyes.

I can totally relate to SM though. As a disabled gay man I'm hella scared to have kids for many reasons and don't think I'm good enough, but it feels like a dumb conflict that's just there to give the second pairing (which honestly had no chance of ever happening and the show never even frames it as a realistic option) screentime. Insecurities can make good conflict but a lack of communication just brings frustration.

I think Tonari no Kazoku wa Aoku Mieru (light spoils incoming), a show released the same year as the original, actually did the kids angle in a much better way. There's even a joke where Hirose's mom goes from totally against to totally in favor of the relationship as soon as they bring up adoption, like it's no big deal at all. If I had to choose between forced melodrama and sappy endings, I'd go sappy 100% of the time. I don't think the kids angle really has a place in 2021 but I think SM's low self-esteem still has value, even if I think the final few episodes feel like complete padding.

to be fair, the final episodes in the original were about the same and they were similarly criticized. as a remake of the original, they'd probably be criticized for deviating even if it was the more interesting thing to do in this specific part of the show.

the show is a bit more gay-affirming, with siu and darren's sexualities already being known in the office and darren's personal life being more explored, but they probably didn't want to drastically change the final parts of the story. it's unfortunate that with all the slight deviations and extra side stories they bothered to expand on they didn't change the main criticism of the original besides having the episode count making it feel a bit less sudden.

also while i do find the lack of communication frustrating, sui's inferiority complex is something i find believable. if i was in a relationship with a (presumed) straight man i'd also have doubts in the relationship having any staying power. i still think misconmunication/lack of communication as the most frustrating plot device though. at least say something as simple as "i love you but i don't feel like i'll ever be able to make you truly happy" or something, though haruta actually calls maki out on his thinking in the original but only in the penultimate scene.

love or dead? i'll be honest i saw it and don't remember any of it lol

while they do have a moment in the ending of the original, they didn't make it particularly clear that they end up together as they just laugh it off

in general i feel the higher episode count is being used to give the secondary character the screentime and development they sorely lacked in the original at times

the fact that the side characters actually have screentime in this version is pretty nice

bls are still mostly just overdramatized fetishizing of male-to-male relationships and most don't try to be anything more than that

don't expect them to be more than that

i'm not disappointed with the crossover, but did anyone in the world actually expect a crossover with a taiwanese bl?

Yeah, it's lame how females are often villains, bl-obsessed, or just jokes. BLs do a lot to make gay characters play like any other type of character (though some bls still have all the camp traits shoved into their side characters) but females are rarely ever portrayed in a good light. A lot of the time the male leads drag them along because they're too afraid to confess or something which isn't good either.

finale felt overlydramatic at parts (like every bl ever p much) but the lbc connection was nice and cute

initially i guess but the last episode made it way too obvious with so many obvious tellings for me, like haru's multiple blank stares

i do too but naruse is too obviously the answer that the creators will choose

Although the show isn't afraid to show the name of the airline several times, i never felt like it was an aggressive advertisement. I do feel that the story is kinda messy with the expanded love interest count.

I can see why the whole concept of making a "sequel" of a super popular drama and changing all its setting and pressing "RESET" on the entire cast could annoy people. Considering this is basically a repainting of the original (so far), I imagine the viewer count will tank simply because people have already seen the same exact thing before.

Even if I enjoy it I can't be entertained when I can basically predict everything that's going to happen because this entire thing was done before. I'll probably watch it because I'm bored and lonely and need something to look forward on Saturday, but I can't say I'm not disappointing after how stellar the original was. I hope the series ends up getting better as it goes (I felt the middle was where the original was really strong).

By the way, what was the public opinion of "LOVE or DEAD"? I wonder if there's a reason why the writers wanted to basically reset everything after the attachment the audience had of the original cast.

thanks this worked for me on my phone, though for some reason the videos don't show up on my much stronger pc so i have to watch the videos with significant lag (my phone is a toaster) even though i use the same vpn on my pc

i guess if i have to deal with a laggy video once a week it's no issue

is there no way to get rid of the parental block without premium? i seeno age settings

if not, i'll just wait for a reupload

I never assumed anything. I'm just speakin as "a gay person like me." In hindsight that wasn't good wording.


The joke of Ossan's Love, in the movie, the original series, and the current series is that everyone's an idiot. The series as a whole is goofy, with Kurosawa's wife going through some comedic detective work to find who this "Haru-tan" woman her husband is dating is, or the office gossip who is loud and quickly falls in love with the strange restaurant manager.

I don't see how this approach is cynical at all. It's a humorous approach yes, but when all characters and romances are treated lightly I don't see how this is a negative approach. The gay characters aren't mocked because they're gay. They're laughed at because they're put in comedic situations and act in dumb ways like literally every other character. The original series had to of the best endings of subplots of any BL I've seen, with Kurosawa divorcing with their wife and remaining best friends and Haruta's female friend bonding with Maki over their shared crush on Haruta and telling him to chase after him.

If anything, Ossan's Love manages to be more progressive than other jdramas by having many happy messages and prolgbt support without all of the garbage melodrama that plagues many of them. Gay romance is never treated as a joke in this series, and the gay characters (of which there are a whopping 4 in the original) are portrayed no more comically or negatively than any of the straights males and females. Only character that you can even argue that is Haruta and that's mostly because he naturally gets way more screentime than the rest,

I can understand the desire to have more serious dramas (I honestly want more BLs with adults) but I don't think this is a series worth complaining over.

oh so in other words you're arbitrarily giving them standards because you think that gay people like me are somehow offended by things that aren't offensive

You're giving them higher standards because it's a BL which is kinda dumb. Gay characters have gotten more and more common in Japanese media (with "bury your gays" dying as a trope). I don't understand why people want gays to be treated differently when the entire point of putting gays (and other races) is to normalize them. Treating them differently isn't doing anybody any favors.