My Esports Genius Brother (2021)

It's like watching a movie recap that could hold potential.

Keep in mind the episodes are only 5 minutes long and subjected to China censorship. Imagine you're watching a movie recap, and don't hope for more.

The premise is interesting. There's 2 kind of rare people: Deluded, who can get feral and violent and have a hard time keeping their feelings in check, and who are consequently hated by the society. And Zhen-Yuan, who are deprived of sensory feelings: they don't see colors, they don't have a sense of smell, taste or touch, and don't have emotions, so they're able to focus better on things and have a better intuition.
If a Zhen-Yuan is in a Deluded vicinity, they'll be able to feel emotions and their senses will be restored. And the Deluded will be able to calm down his own violent feelings.

We're here to see how the cold and rational Jiang Yi Feng, who never felt anything in his life, will react to the hot headed Lu Lin, and if they're going to balance out each other or not.
If you like enemy to lover trope and a main character who's like a big lost puppy learning about his feelings, you'll get that :)

They had to literally jam everything they could in each episodes to get from start to finish, and still tell something. So it does feel rushed most of the time, and even gag-y at times, bc they literally didn't have room to develop things. But you still get all of the essential scenes (conflicts and cute ones) and the story still makes sense - despite the subs being sometimes uneven. Which is impressive from my point of view, because it's not always something you get, even with full episodes.

The actor playing Lu Lin still need to improve on his acting skills, the background music is sometimes questionable, the editing is what it can seeing it's only 5 min episodes, but the scenery is pretty nice.

I found myself enthralled enough to watch from start to finish, but don't feel bad for dropping it, the rushed feeling and the fact it's quite uneven at times in the acting can be hard to overcome.
I wasn't expecting to see such a frank display of romantic affection between two guys since the series is from China, and I was pleasantly surprised!

If the episodes had a longer runtime and if they had the means to put more into it, it could be really promising.

They did not too bad with what they could.

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soulmates, enemies to lovers, cohabitation, obsession, magical realism

A strangely cute somewhat incomprehensible censored magical realism BL micro series about fated mates who balance each other out and must find the courage to stay together.

Firstly, look, it has nothing to do with esports or being a genius or bothers.

Suggested corrected title ?

My Esports Genius Brother Endearingly Gay Boyfriend

What to say about this weird af BL?

It’s actually really cute.

Yifeng is a Zhan-yan who feels nothing at all except when in the presence of a Deluded. Lu Lin is a Deluded, who feels everything too much, overreacts and is a violent drama queen, and societally disenfranchised as a result. However being around Yifeng calms him down.

Obviously the Deluded are queer coded, and so is Lu Lin. The character is set up to be the uke: he is more emotional, wears more feminized clothing, engages in (mostly) uke tropes, and is shorter than Yifeng. But he is also much more aggressive about the relationship, makes the first moves, and is more physically violent. So I believe this BL is actually intentionally subverting seme/uke, which is a first (in my experience) from China.

“How come your name comes first?” ~ oh they KNOW what they're doing

I would call this censored BL and not a bromance. Literally you can see the parts where they were told to delete the touching bits because “too gay.” So there are some very abrupt cuts and truncated scenes, but there is no doubt what-so-ever that these two are gay. There’s even a full on love confession, it’s just that anything remotely sexy can’t be depicted.

Honestly, I still enjoyed it and I think I’ll like it better on a rewatch.

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