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.

Lire davantage

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.

Lire davantage

It's not complete...

It's entertaining at times, but it's also frustrating because of the editing.

It's just not finished.

While watching it, I found it entertaining at first. Unfortunately, due to editing, especially in the latter episodes, this charm has been lost.

But even without the confusing editing, it's not a complete drama. Green computer monitors without inserted graphics and, in some places, surprisingly bad sound design.

The actors gave it their all (I think). It's not their fault. Post-production is to blame.


~ Sorry if my English reads strangely. English is not my first language.

Lire davantage

Sooo much potential! Similar to Color Rush. The title doesn't do it justice- it's really cute!

Man this mini series has more plot smashed into it's tiny runtime length (12 x 4min episodes so around 48mins all up) than 80% of 12-14 ep full length Thai BLs. I'm not kidding! I'm glad I finally watched this despite being turned off by the random name of the series. Yes one character plays Esports but he's not really a genius and neither are brothers as I expected (guessing this was a mainland China censorship choice though?).

Given the weird title, I was surprised to find when I started watching this that it has very similar, unique concept to Color Rush (which I also loved). I'm shocked they even tried to tackle a complex world building component in such a short series- so I give them props for that!
Keep in mind going into this one that like other reviews pointed out, this series very much feels like you're watching just episode recaps rather than the actual show. Because of it's tiny runtime, the cuts between scenes are pretty abrupt and you often feel like you're missing something. Despite that I still loved this. I just love the concept, the actors are super cute and still manage to have chemistry and cute scenes. Man this storyline has so much potential to make a really interesting full length series.

The subs on Gagaoolala are a bit off at times too where you feel like something is lost in translation. And of course being censored, the kisses and a lot of touching are cut rather abruptly. Although I like that despite the censorship, the director made it clear throughout the series that this is BL and not a bromance- which I appreciate a lot. The romance and clear declaration of love are there, the moment of kissing is just cut.

Despite all the above, I really enjoyed this series for what it is. Just don't expect more from it and you'll enjoy it. I will quietly hope for a full length series to be made and the Chinese censorship laws to end one day!

Lire davantage

Wasted Screen time

This was not I was expecting, a whole lot of wasted time, of 12 episodes of 5 minutes long each.

Why the hell could we not have put all of this into 1 series and possibly make it a mini series or something?

It could have been really good, if it was a little longer and more in-depth story line, 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.

Overall : its a real waste to watch this

Lire davantage

How is a BL series from China possible in 2021 ?

What? A series from China with unambiguous BL? Watching this makes me feel like I have taken a time machine back to the time before BL series were banned in China. In fact, even the production quality seems to be something from the past.

It is unfortunate that this is a miniseries. It feels more like a summary edit of a longer series than an actual series, not just because the episodes are short but also because of abrupt jumps that causes the viewer to have to infer what has happened in between. The good thing is, considering the constraints, the telling of the story is still acceptably competent. It's not a bad story at all; it's just that we become painfully aware that we are not watching the entire story and won't get to watch it.

Another flaw of the series is that, except for the acting of Zhou Jun Yu (who plays Jiang Yi Feng) and a couple of older actors, the acting is sometimes a little too awkward and would have benefited from retakes. Thankfully, the scenes with the two leads clearly being in love are at least okay. They stop short of an on-screen kiss, but at least an off-screen one is implied. And their relationship is not ambiguous (you can't explain it as bromance), e.g. when Jiang Yi Feng gets jealous when Lu Lin innocuously says something comparing him to another person he has dated, and Lu Lin tries to clarify it.

If nothing else, it's worth watching this series for how impossible it seems. (I'm not sure if it could be an unreleased series that ran into the BL ban in China before it could be released and recently got acquired by Gagaoolala.)

Lire davantage

very strange but cute?

i honestly genuinely had trouble understanding what was going on like 80% of the time but regardless, the leads are surprisingly...cute? the story is strange and VERY hard to comprehend on a first watch, (especially with lackluster subs), but it's still so clear that the leads like each other romantically.

it seems that they mostly had to cut out kissing/almost kiss scenes? which is so wild to me because idk how they were able to get away with some of the stuff they DID get away with lmao. the dick size AND eat me convo had me pausing and rewinding to make sure i read that correctly.

this is less of an actual series and more of like a slapped together mess of vaguely connected scenes tbh, but somehow i found myself not really minding because it's so obviously Gay instead of a bromance....idk this whole thing is a mess but the leads had some cute scenes.

Yifeng in particular comes off more like an awkward overgrown puppy more than anything at times and it's.....cute. I wish they could've done more with the series but this was....an okay effort ngl.

Lire davantage

For a Chinese production, I'm happy enough it wasn't downplayed as bromance

I think it's the first time in a long time that we get an actual BL genre series from the mainland. And there are some interesting plots and... slightly disappointing adjustments, to accomodate China's media censorship.

Parts where the main leads hug in bed, or kiss would be cut off and skipped, and not too subtly either. The frame would just randomly cut, no tranaition whatsoever, as if the director wanted to purposefully tell the viewers "we filmed it, they acted it, but the censorship took out the fun parts"

STORY = 7.5
Only because it felt like a rip off concept to Color Rush Season 1 that was produced a year before this. But in this series' defense, they created more interesting characters for the mono and chrome roles. Although, I think they made the characters of monos and chromes as superficial and a "beneficial" relationship rather than romantic and it felt confusing and probably not as relatable for the viewers. And it was too short and there was not enough time for character build up and progress. It felt rushed and didn't get to highlight the actor's ability to immerse in their roles

ACTING/CAST = 7
Zhou Jun Yu who plays Jiang Yifeng, and his partner who plays Lu Lin (who for some reason I can't find information on) had a cute chemistry. They would've trended had they been allowed with a lot of skinship and intimate scenes.
They were quite good for rookie actors. Especially the one who played Lu Lin. He had so much confidence touching Jun Yu and staring at him with adoring eyes, his sad eyes will pull on your heartstring like puppy eyes... he makes you want to pet him, hug him and take him home, protect him him from the baddies.
Also how can a man be manly handsome and prettier than a girl both at the same time? Isn't that cheating? Must be those pretty eyes hehe...

MUSIC = 7.5
The soundtrack, it wasn't phenomenal, but it was easy to listen on... The sound engineering though felt ancient... some sound effects felt misplaced and unnatural and the voice over dubbing felt dull and probably muted a lot of the original emotion in the actor's actual voices.

REWATCH VALUE = 6
It's an adorable series, but I probably would not rewatch it again...


Apart from the short duration per clip and those randomly cut romantic scenes (supposedly) it wasn't a very frustrating series, just a tad bit disappointing... but considering thus is a mainland China production, I'm not the least bit surprised.

Lire davantage

Only worth if you can watch the uncut version

This series is not good, but it's a short show. The acting is OK in most moments. The protagonists have chemistry. The story makes zero sense, but it had potential. The main plot might have worked if it was scaled down, the evil company takes up too much time and the story goes nowhere. I can see it working out in a 15 minutes per episode, 8 episode series. Color Rush worked with a similar concept.

The main issue with this show is that you should only watch the uncut version. It’s not that it makes less sense with the cuts, but with the uncut version the central relationship works way better. Besides, the cuts are very obvious and you can kinda see that they simply chopped off the almost kisses and the final kiss in episode 12. It’s a Chinese BL with an actual kiss.

Lire davantage

It's not captivating enough...

1 - 1.5 - 2 - 2.5 ⭐️
3 - 3.5 - 4 - 4.5 ⭐️
5 - 5.5 - 6 - 6.5 ⭐️
7 - 7.5 - 8 - 8.5 ⭐️
9 - 9.5 - 10 ⭐️

-------------------

Reason why I picked this drama was because of the E-sports, otherwise, I would have not picked it at all.

Sure enough you would enjoy some moments of the drama, but a lot of it just makes no sense at all. It's not realistic nor dramatic. Yes, dramas aren't actually realistic, but some of them can be.

Nonetheless, story line was either too rushed ot not finished. Not blaming the actors. I believe they gave their best to making it better, but it lacked emotions in the script.

Overall, could have been better.

Lire davantage

Okay

I am mostly shocked that this short drama passed censorship!
Did the laws change while I wasn't paying attention? Otherwise, was the reviewer drunk when they approved this show?
The drama doesn't even bother to beat around the bush about the relationship between the two leads. For that alone, this drama is worth watching.
Objectively speaking, the story's world setting is very interesting but the drama is too short to truly explore it. Basically, the entire drama is a collection of snippets without a lot of depth. It's truly unfortunate since the plot has a lot of potential.
The acting especially Lu Ling is bad.
The production is also bad (I don't want to think about the terrible fight scene in the tunnel).
The music is good.
Overall, watch when there is nothing else and rewatch because the censorship is a bit generous.

Lire davantage

It's good

I'd like to show for the most part, it was nice to watch. I found the story to resemble that of Colour Rush. there was a minimum of a storyline here. but because of what I'm only assuming, of the fact that it's limited down to roughly 5 minutes long with 12 episodes in total (minus opening and ending credits, roughly 3 1/2 - 4 minutes long) is they had to cut the story down to its basics.

It did not have much of any character development and had a quite a few potholes. it would have been nice if the explained the two conditions that the main characters had a little bit more, but seeing that this in a way of resembles Color Rush. I would have had problems understanding the conditions that the two main characters had. they did have a minimum explanation of at least one of the conditions.

the acting was okay but again with the limited amount of time that each episode was. For that, I would say that they're acting was okay and that there would be able to flush out more of their characters in the future (with their other projects).

overall I like the show I just would have liked it a little longer and more of a backstory and character development.

Lire davantage