Following in We Best Love: Fighting Mr Second and HIStory 4: Close to You’s footsteps this was Taiwan’s 3rd office-set BL in as many months. They’re horning in on Japan’s territory and I’m DELIGHTED, it’s not like Japan is doing anything with it. (Can you tell I’m STILL bitter over Docchi mo Docchi? Seriously it’s been 7 years! I gotta let this go.)

This one was super soft, and Taiwan doesn’t normally do soft which made it slightly awkward for everyone concerned, but lovely and sweet in the end. The plot felt quite contrived, but that was really its only flaw. Everything else was pitch perfect.

By far BLINID’s best quality was that the tsundere uke’s tsundere-ness was entirely sympathetic, he was utterly likable from the start. As the narrative progressed the seme’s grumpiness becomes more sympathetic too (as we and the uke learn more about him).

This meant that audience and tsundere were on the same journey, softening towards the seme at the same time. Taiwan isn’t usually this clever about BL (that’s Korea’s jam) but this one was smart, and leaned on some great acting and beautiful trope execution to carry it. (There was a LOT of crash into me, though.) Grumpy/tsundere is a HARD pairing to execute well, so I was impressed.

A cute classy little BL with a few plot raised eyebrows, but no other concerns. It gets high marks from me, I loved it.