A Fiery BL Romance between Lawyers

Overall, I thought this show was quite creative and I quite enjoyed it (in spite of the crappy writing near the end of the show starting from episode 8).

Positives
- The co-stars did a great job conveying the feelings of their characters.
- The first and second episodes were hilarious. I enjoyed Zheng's plan for rejecting blind dates.
- Episode 12 was well-written from the dialogue to the story to the setting, etc. It was likely the series' best episode by far (aside from Episode 13 (the special/extra)).
- Episode 13 was very enjoyable. I especially appreciated Zheng's character growth in the episode. It was funny and added a comical aspect to the show that bumped my rating from 7.0 to 7.5.
- Lots of skinship/kissing/contact. You see this a lot in Taiwanese BL but it is always more enjoyable compared to JBLs and KBLs as they tend to do away with much of the skinship.
- Great acting from the fathers of the co-stars. Especially appreciated the supportive nature of Fu's Dad.
- The story was good, made sense and was decently enjoyable.
- The music was catchy and well-suited to many scenes in the series. Opening theme was quite good too.

Areas for Improvement
- Chemistry was weak for the side couple (Kato Yuki and Jian Yingze). Did not enjoy their relationship as much as the main co-stars. Did not like that it felt like Yuki forced Jian into a relationship either; seemed forced and was too fast. Yuki was far too aggressive. This was unrealistic writing.
- As others have pointed out, the lighting in the camping episode was very off. It made it hard to watch.
- The owner of the bar was a bad character cliche. Did not enjoy her character though I thought she did a good job partly getting Zheng and Fu to realise they ought to be together.
- The sister did not have much of a role to play in anything besides the first few episodes. She deserved more as a female character in the show.
- I think the flashbacks were good for adding context to the show especially when it comes to how Fu's love for Zheng started but I think it lacked a lot of development. It was not developed well enough for us to see how Fu actually came to love him.

Suggestions?
- The side couple was unnecessary. It felt like they did it to only increase the show's screen time (same goes for the break-up).
- The break-up felt unnecessary because it was based off of a cliche and did nothing to make the show more enjoyable; another fight/argument between the two would've been better if they were looking to implement conflict.
- The support characters could've played more important roles in the story, they were largely quite 2-dimensional.
- Could have added more flashbacks that focused on Fu's growing love for Zheng; perhaps the 18th birthday was the largest contributor but it was not good enough for me.

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Heartfelt Romance between Childhood Friends

Overall, I thought this show was quite good in relation to other JBLs that we have been seeing over the years.

I thought the story was well-written and really wholesome as I could feel the sparks of love between the two co-stars. The flashbacks of their past really helped to add to the context of show and made it very enjoyable as we got to see how Tanaka's love for Ryota all began. Though, I do think that the flashback we saw in Episode 7 could've been featured earlier just so that not a lot of time was wasted scenes leading up to the confession.

I do not know if this was in the manga but one part of the story that, I think, really needed some tweaking was Episode 7 where we had the running scene and the episode ending with Ryota going home. It would have been a lot better if they decided to extend episode 7 so that there could have been a confession there instead of in episode 8. It would have felt a lot more natural and the last episode would have spent time entirely on the two being together. Moreover, the pacing of the show was far too slow, making it seem more like a story of two best friends than one of a romance (I am sure many will argue with me here but I'd say that this show spent too much time establishing that they were very close (even though this could have easily been done via flashbacks)).

As others have pointed out, Ryota's character was a little irritating but I think keeping in mind that he was written to be a relatively low self-esteem character, it was okay. I wouldn't say it was amazing but it was not bad. It's clear that the actor playing Ryota (Sho Sakai) is talented and did a great job embodying the modest Ryota. The same goes for the actor playing Tanaka though I'd wish that some scenes would be less awkward (e.g., Tanaka's slowed reaction to Haruna in the last episode).

Contrary to what others have said, I do not think the open-endedness of the show was bothersome at all. While some questions were left unanswered (e.g., how Ryota and Tanaka choose to spend the rest of their lives together, whether the girl knows that they are together, how Ryota's sisters would handle their relationship, etc), there were some that were tacitly answered at the end of the show. For instance, the yukata scene in episode 8 where Kazuhito's mom already knew that they were for them was good enough for me to know that Kazuhito's mom supports their relationship. I think the gazes from Ryota's mom also speak volumes on this. Dialogue on that was unnecessary, the audience just knew it.

The music was great, it was catchy and made for an enjoyable OST. The opening theme song is especially catchy and well-suited to the theme of the show.

Given how slice of life it was, I may rewatch the show just because it was fun. It was adorable seeing them together at the end.

In the future, I will likely use bullet-points instead to write my reviews.

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