I’ll start with the obvious that most people will bring up, this is not groundbreaking storytelling. It’s not particularly deep even though the themes in it should be treated with depth. This is mostly passable writing and inoffensive acting by much of the cast (some are much better).

Despte all this, I really enjoyed the series up through episode ten.

- Solo is a very awkward, reserved character. You see glimpses of him open up but then he shuts back down. that makes sense to me. However sometimes he’s downright wooden with how inexpressive he is. (note: Nut who plays Solo is a much better actor currently in Pit Babe so I’m not sure how much was him being inexperienced as an actor versus writing & direction).

- Gui is kind to a fault, to the point where it’s difficult to know when he’s genuinely giving someone attention or just being kind like he is to everyone. From the synopsis I expected this to be much more of a sunshine character than he turned out to be. This is NOT a sunshine x closed off pairing. I liked the actor’s portrayal, but I had the same issue I had with Solo of him coming off too rigid and awkward.

- Solo & Gui as a pair are cute. I really did like them and that’s not entirely my high key fanboying of Nut as an adorable human. However I have complaints below.

- Kao is easily my favorite (and likely objectively best) character in the serious. He manages to be persistent and doggedly chase the guy he wants without the constant boundary violating that you usually see in these types of characters. He is sweet and expressive, continually testing the limits to see how much Phu will let him get away with without ever pushing it to territory that makes Phu genuinely uncomfortable or unhappy.

- Phu is cold. He’s distant. He’s got Fort Knox levels of security on his emotions. This is the guy you study to learn what stoic is. But you get these little glimpses (not just when he smiles, which Kao excitedly points out every time) of affectionate reactions to things Kao does or says. He says Kao is annoying but it’s like he’s using “annoying” as a stand in for what he really means because he’s clearly never annoyed with him. Given what an unrmotive, quiet character this is, you never wonder how he really feels.

- Phu & Kao … let’s face it, they kind of steal the spotlight. Their relationship moves much more slowly but feels more solid and intimate than Solo and Gui’s, if I’m being honest. It’s almost impossible to not root for them.

- Kao, Jedi and Beer: the best wingmen and friends ever! This show has some High Level friending going on with these three!

Beer often tells Gui what he needs to hear, not what he wants to hear. and When Gui doesn’t really listen and Beer thinks he needs to he is not afraid of, uh, making a more illustrative point.

Kao & Jedi are always backup and support. Hello, locking the rival in the bathroom so your friend can sneak around to get time with his crush? A+ effort and execution! I wish we saw more of Jedi in the series, honestly. The trio of Solo, Kao and Jedi is great and I adore this friendship dynamic.

- The Fujoshi mess. This was basically, what, like a love rhombus? We start with Perth liking Petch but he clearly gets fed up and hurt enough that he gets over that crush during the series. Petch winds up liking Khim (while Perth likes him and he’s oblivious). Khim’s little brother Khem winds up liking Petch while he sneaks around using Perth and Khem as photos for a fake crush so he can fuel his real crush, Khim’s, fujoshi dreams.

This whole situation was right on track to be a complete mess. It wound up as a blip of a mess and then sort of just got swept up and set off to the side. Khim forgave Petch way too easily for lying to get and using her brother, who she is fiercely protective of. Khem got over being indirectly led on super quickly. Petch wasn’t very likable once he got into using people. I would have preferred this whole storyline not exist, honestly. I also wish we could have followed Perth, an actual gay character in a BL series, rather than Petch, a fake gay character.

And then we get to the train wreck of the last three episodes. (the fujoshi rhombus also came to its messy and anticlimactic conclusion during these episodes)

- Did we really need Linda, the bitchy fake fiancé who was determined to land herself a man who clearly didn’t want her? I’m so over this trope.

- We NEVER get any explanation why the head of the admin dept, Pat, took it upon himself to transfer an ENGINEERING major to his department. Who does this? To our knowledge he didn’t know Gui was dating Solo when this switch was made but maybe he supposedly did. Even if he did know, the guy isn’t majoring in any related field. Why would you set him up for failure like that? He wanted to train Gui himself? What training?!

- Gui’s lack of backbone infuriated me. You don’t wanna tell Solo someone fucked with you and transferred your dept for your internship when you are there for your future CAREER not because of stupid family politics with your boyfriend? Okay, fine, but stand up for yourself. Don’t just constantly say sorry and take shitth criticism when no one is showing you how to do a job you have zero training for. Grow a fucking pair!

The things I marked my raising down for:

- Solo’s literally, and very obviously abusive father. The abusive father in and of itself wouldn’t get points docked, it’s the sweep it under the rug treatment that did. He locked his adult son in his apartment without food for WEEKS? How did Solo not pass out and need medical attention?

His son was pissed that his father (he assumed) was fucking with the only person he felt loved him and his answer wasn’t to point out he hadn’t done it or state that Gui would be transferred if he requested it but hadn’t (I like to assume this would be the case since they are literally messing with the guy’s career). No, he told his son to suck it up bc Gui was. Then he locked him up.

I think Solo’s reaction both to finding out what was done to Gui and to being locked up was pretty in line with his character. He specifically told Gui neither of his parents ever loved him (which makes me wonder what his attachment to his deceased mother is). He was being kept from the only person that seemed to love him beyond friendship and that person was being set up to fail which could have cascading negative effects on Gui’s future. Solo was isolated, treated with a callousness that only served to emphasize how much his father didn’t love him or care about him. Solo being a complete wreck and reaching such a state of despondency made sense.

But in the end Solo bows to his father’s desires, goes back to work as his father wants and even says he will be a better son?!

- Gui being a complete fucking dick to Solo when he is an emotional wreck after Kao sneaks him out of his apartment and they subsequently run away together. I get the sense of what Gui was going for when he said Solo was not behaving like the person he knew and was sacrificing things for, but the delivery was tactless, insensitive and callous enough to have come from daddy rather than the boyfriend who had been caring and concerned about Solo throughout the series.

This made me so angry I thought it was going to be a hallucination but it wasn’t. Gui saw the stage Solo was in, KNOWING how love starved he was before meeting Gui, KNOWING how deep the emotional wounds he carries are and told him to suck it up because he was being a little bitch? Are you kidding me? He was IN TEARS telling you he didn’t want to be under his father’s control/manipulation anymore and you ultimately told him to go back and do what daddy says.

This is NOT the Gui I knew or that Solo loved. There were so many other ways to go about that which would have been more compassionate. I also cannot reconcile Gui simply being okay with the blatant abuse being served upon Solo for ANY reason.

- Moon’s adoption. WHAT?! You gave that horrible man another child to raise? I don’t care if it was on the basis that Moon would eventually become Solo and Gui’s son. After what we watched his father do to Solo in thr last few episodes, never mind what he likely did the rest of Solo’s life, and Solo was just happy and content to let the kid that his bf cared so much about (and that he cared about) be brought under his control?

- Jay justifying the abuse form Solo’s father by chalking it all up to how he loved Solo but is bad at expressing himself. Not to mention him dismissing all the horrible treatment as “if he really wanted to keep you two apart he would have been WAY WORSE and you’d never see Gui again.” What? I get that love makes you blind and Jay is clearly drawn to red flags, but as someone who claimed to care about Solo that was unforgivable. Justifying the abuse was just another layer of abuse.

In conclusion: Watch through episode ten and then make your own ending in your mind. It’s cute and fun until then.