This is more LGBTQ+ focused than the majority of BLs, which have a focus on boys being cute together - and that's perfectly fine. I love those too. But this series may not resonate as much with audiences who are looking for that type of romance. There are many cute and heart-warming moments here, but this is a coming-of-age story, so the arc is about Mico being unable to attain love until he's able to attain self-acceptance.

Anyway, a lot of the criticism is over the lack of communication between the leads, which is odd, as most BLs heavily lean on implausible failures of communication to generate the final dramatic hump of the series. Here, I thought the communication problem was entirely authentic, and its resolution equally true to life, requiring outside help, whereas often in a story I'm thinking "you know, these two have mutual friends who know both sides of the story and can easily fix this..."

The acting is very good. JC is great, suffusing his character with confidence in his intellect, bold nerdiness, and insecurity about everything else. Tony is underrated - playing someone emotionally and verbally reserved, he has to pack a lot of emotion into subtle moments. His nervous giggling as he's gearing up to sing is masterful and authentic - and at the end of Ep 5, during a pause before an important moment, he worldessly radiates with an understated stare so much vulnerability and longing that I audibly gasped and started crying, and I'm tearing up just thinking about it now. And his desolation in Ep 7 may crush you. The support characters are all well-cast for their roles - I loved that everyone in the friend group (the Padawans) is clueless except Junjun, who sees everything. It was nice to see a minor character play a crucial role - that he was called was the best possible decision that could have been made and he was the only path to a happy ending.

The script is tightly written, with many layers of meaning, the central poem of their school project woven through the story, so that you can pick up new things with each viewing. (Note if you're watching with subtitles that lines that sound clunky are often from the poem.) Even the t-shirts reflect feelings and internal conflicts, and the heart on Mico's wall represents where he is, etc. The project performance in Ep 7 was a little too on-the-nose, but it was well-setup throughout the series so it worked. Or notice the color of Xavier's backwards baseball cap in Ep 6 and think about what that symbolizes. Both characters have an arc, and the resolution depends on a powerful statement of the importance of self-acceptance.

The cinematography and set design were artful, with delightful color coordination (e.g. Ep 8 with Mico's pink accessory in the closed tea shop), the music was beautifully integrated, e.g. he final music cue in Ep 5 was perfect to maximize the impact of the final line. The editing is stunning - there are scenes where you'll gasp at the way they managed to overcome safe distancing to give you real intimacy.

All of this was accomplished within the tight constraints of the COVID/social media setting - and I wonder if maybe that inspired a higher level of creativity.

There are a couple of issues. The side couple is adorable, but they didn't really serve much purpose in the story. Kookai's importance ended with her declaration towards the beginning, and Seph never had one - only Junjun was needed throughout, and the time would have been better spent developing Xavier's context, or more time establishing Mico's character at the beginning - or just making the series an episode shorter.

There are also a couple of important scenes that are non-linear but it's very unclear and confusing about where they fall in the story. I like that the production respects the intelligence of the audience, but we needed a "two weeks ago" or something in a couple of cases, or some other means of context. If you're reading this before watching, the most important is a conversation in Ep 8 involving the teacher, which occurs between Ep 1 & Ep 2.

The second one is a 1:1 conversation in Ep 8 with JunJun that occurs prior to a group chat the Padawans have at the end of Ep 7 and explains the strange things they say to Mico and advise him to do.

I've rewatched much of this several times, and this is is one of my favorite BLs of all time. I highly recommend it - just be forewarned it may take 1.5 episodes to get into it.