I was so hyped when this adaptation was announced, having watched Kieta Hatsukoi and Gemini x Fourth's past series, and I was not disappointed. Their acting is amazing, especially Fourth, who has the best expressions and shows nuanced emotions so well. His internal conflicts can be deeply felt without the need for any words; he's so good, my son T-T. Gemini also did a great job with his quiet and clueless character. I feel like they're both really similar to the Atom and Kongthap in real life too.
I also really liked the secondary couple; they are so pretty, and they have amazing chemistry. Mudmee is so sweet, and Half is such a saint. Much better than the Japanese adaptation, where they were kind of bland and not very remarkable. The story also felt very natural and real, like actual teenagers' first love.
The things I liked the most about this version are that they erased the homophobia from the original work and the inclusion of mothers. No words can express how happy I was when we discovered that teacher was not homophobic like the Japanese version; I was tearing up for real.I have conflicting feelings about the amount of homophobia scares, though. I think it was maybe more than 5 times where they made us believe that a character was going to be homophobic for a long time before reveiling it was just a misunderstanding or something. It felt bad, and for me, a queer watcher, I really felt the fear Atom felt every time, because that's how it feels to have to come out; it's always scary, and especially for a teen, it's so nervewracking to feel like you're going to lose someone you love every time you come out, no matter how much you know they love you.
The other thing I have to criticize about this is how much Mudmee is influenced by her (very sucky, might I add) "friends". They never had a good thing to say and gave the worst advice, and Mudmee, despite questioning them, always ended up following what they said only to rediscover that Half is a very patient saint.Atom also got carried away by his own bad thoughts, but at least he has the axcuse of the very real fear of being rejected by homophobia, and Kongthap was also a patient saint throughout their process.
Overall, I think this was very well written. I loved the cast and the OSTs. I cried a little at the end, and it was great.