When I judge by the very low bar of Thai boys love dramas, this is one of the best I've seen and that's why I've rated it well. It's very well acted and filmed. The plot antics aren't nearly as cringe worthy as they could be. For once the lead couple actually has chemistry with each other as opposed to the many rookie actors, who's awkwardness at acting in intimate moments comes across on screen. Win and Gulf clearly got along well off screen, and this translated well once they were acting in character.

If I judge with a more critical eye from a western viewpoint, my main criticism of TharnType, a criticism I often have of Thai BL dramas in general, is the continued display of unhealthy and toxic relationships as romance. Tharn constantly ignores the physical boundaries set by Gulf who often tells him to stop. Gulf is verbally abusive, constantly in a loop of berating and gas-lighting Tharn, and then following up with weak apologies to smooth things back over. Tharn and Gulf's friend constantly make excuses for Gulf's aggressive and abusive behavior, but trauma or not, the last thing Gulf should have been given was a pass for his actions as he often crossed the line. Lots of characters were rooting for TharnType to stay/ get back together while completely ignoring that their relationship was full of red flags. But for a saving grace, TharnType did try to redeemed themselves by the end.

Leia Mais

Major Whiplash

I wonder if my opinion of this drama would change if I had read the comic prior to watching. Coming into it blind the series suffers from major issues in pacing, character development and plot holes. They don't do an adequate job of providing context and showing a transition between being enemies and being lovers, and the natural tension of the leads having underlying chemistry even when they hate each other. This left me feeling major whiplash as the characters transitions between being cold and hot and cold and hot again. The characters were out there having 180 personality changes every 30 second and everything they do feels random and out of the blue.

Taeyi being so physically aggressive really turned me off of the character. Nor did I understand Seheon's motivation for putting up with him, much less why he even liked him as I felt no chemistry between the actors. Jooha's stunts gave the major ick, leaving Doyoon the only likeable character for me. At least he was self aware that he has bad tastes in men. The twist at the end, also felt majorly rushed, and Seheon's reaction to it didn't make any sense to me.

I do like the premise and overall plot of the series. Could have been a winner for me with a better script, editing and directional choices. This may be one of those series you need to supplement with the source material to fill in the gaps, because it didn't work for me as a standalone.

Leia Mais

A Mess with good intimate scenes

The writing on this show was a hot mess.

And my biggest sticking point: Why was Zol writing BL fanfic about her own freaking brother and like not even doing it under the radar, like publishing it under her own name for the whole school to read? Well that and all the plot threads the show left dangling. Why did the show never loop back to the fact that Zon wanted to be a writer and give him his writer moment? And like did Zon's grades ever get better? Or were the parents just gonna be like, you can't have a writing hobby if you have bad grades, but a having a boyfriend hobby and bad grades is totally cool with us. Why did Tutors debt plot just fizzle into nothing? And why did they never explain what happened to his family to cause this crushing debt in the first place?

Why do none of the character's motivations make sense? Like Fighter's father established a*hole, has his I won't allow this relationship, but then pretty much immediately having a change of heart. Why can Fighter and Tutor never use their words so they don't have to be as dramatic as possible? Why does Tutor have such a close friendship with Hwahwa as they never establish her redeeming qualities?

What was the point of including the 3rd and 4th tier boy parings? Should have just spend more time with the two main couples.

So many questions.

But I didn't rate it even lower, because Fighter and Tutor do have great bed scenes and I enjoy the enemies to lovers troupe.

Leia Mais

Trasnsitions are for chumps.

It's like the editors and writers of this have never heard of a transition in their life. So many time jumps, so many story changes. All of which had little to no lead up, transition, logic or prior context to them. So many times while watching it I thought I accidentally missed a section on youtube, but nope, apparently they just changed the period of time and changed and dropped plot points seemingly at a whim.

The various plots were mostly interesting as stand concepts, and the acting was super cute in this. So I suppose if you are watching for the seeing these actors first/early work, there's still things to like about it.

Leia Mais