I was excited to see a new BL jump up to the top of the MDL BL rankings. This drama currently holds an 8.5 rating and is in the all-time top-ten of BL dramas. I think the problem may the growing popularity of BL dramas and viewers that may not have see many of the BL dramas from the past get excited overly excited about a new show, without the perspective of what some better dramas may be. So before I get into my review, I would ask viewers that love this show, if they really think it's better than other realism style dramas such as Like in the Movies, I Told Sunset about You, The Eighth Sense, Moonlight Chicken or even the unfairly low-rated Kimi no Koto Dake Mite Itai?

[Spoiler's ahead!] The biggest problem isn't the tired trope of the step-brother's falling in love -- although if you want more of that, feel free to watch Stay with Me, Addicted, History 4: Close to You, Gray Shelter, History 2: Crossing the Line, History 1: Stay away from Me, My Bromance or Cherry Blossoms after winter. The biggest problem also isn't the glacial pacing of the series, with way too many dialogue-free montages of the past, or of a character "acting" to demonstrate their emotions. The biggest problem isn't the convoluted story of the gang - particularly when they come back towards the end of the series -- didn't Wei Qian already clear his debt in the the fighting matches years ago? The biggest problem isn't the stalker-ish behavior of the younger step-brother who won't take no for an answer -- over and over and over. The biggest problem isn't the absolutely terrible acting of the Xiao Yuan's teacher who visits Wei Qian (episode 2) who apparently learned that furrowing one's brow and repeating touching and taking on and off your glasses constitutes acting. And the biggest problem also wasn't the over-the-top melodrama of it all -- the trials and tribulations of this family could have been portrayed much more realistically if the director had just pulled back a little bit on a number of creative choices.

No, none of those. The biggest problem with this series is the music. Instead of working harder to find some more unobtrusive music cues to gently support and accentuate the drama that unfolds within this small family, the producers, director and editor chose to use a very limited number of songs over and over too many times throughout the series. The instrumental music with the piano and strings that they used multiple times in every episode got repetitive very quickly. It felt like the acting and the story wasn't creating the desired emotional weight that the producers wanted, so they thought that by playing swelling music that it would lift the scene, but it felt just the opposite like they were forcing the scene to have emotion, instead of just letting the story and actors propel the emotions. It felt overly-manipulated, instead of just supporting. However, the most distracting uses of music were the repeated vocal tracks that they would play under scenes of dialogue. The music was too loud and took me out of the scene every time. Maybe they could have used instrumental versions of the OST pop songs for the show or something. It might have helped, but the bottom line is whoever had the final say on music for this series, shouldn't be allowed to sign off on music in the future.

Now, just in case you think I hated this show, I didn't. I just don't think it deserves the score it currently has on MDL. There were a number of great things about this show. The main actors did a good job, the cinematography was better than many other BLs out there, the leads were quite attractive, and the sex scene, although not explicit, was quite hot. I just think as viewers we should turn the page on the step-brother trope (or at least find a more interesting way to present it), and I think the viewers should start being a little more discerning when it comes to things like logical plots, music aesthetics and melodrama.