Truly Awful

This is not just bad, it's offensive. About 75% of the story is Trans & queer shaming, with anyone not masculine depicted as awful, predatory, ridiculous, or otherwise pathetic and bad. There is no romance between the main couple - they're barely in it, and they have obligatory sex at the end that only one of them appears to be into - there is zero chemistry.

There is no reason for anyone to watch this - even though Jennie is in it. Just awful and regressive in every way. Seriously, I feel like someone needs to be charged with a crime it's so bad. I gave it a 3 for Jennie and several of the actors who did their best.

It really deserves a negative 10, but I feel bad for the poor cast.

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Kind of bad.

Maybe I'll edit this after the special episode [I did below], but I'm not sure if that means the story continues or it will be a "making of".

I was enjoying the series, not passionately, but it was watchable. But then the 4th episode happened. It was almost all with the 2 silly girls and there was virtually no interaction between the leads, which is inexcusable in the final episode. I don't know if that was supposed to be a cliffhanger, but it was kind of silly. Everyone keeps saying James raped Sky, which is ridiculous. James fantasized about kissing Sky in his sleep but he didn't do it.

The acting was acceptable, the production was fine, the couple was cute. Nothing special, but I did appreciate the passion the makers put into the project. But the 4th episode was so bad it canceled all that out for me. I would watch the first three and stop - nothing is really added by th 4th episode, but plenty is subtracted.

EDIT: The Special Episode partially redeemed this series for me, but again way too much time for silly girl antics. A substantial female character would have been welcome and could have had a role in the plot. All 5 episodes together are about 100 minutes - you can save yourself half of that by fast-forwarding through all the scenes with only girls. You will miss absolutely nothing as none of it has anything to do with the story.

Anyway, there was at least an ending, and a nice one, but you never really got much of a sense of how Sky felt about James other than being into his body (can't blame him) since the only interest he showed was going bug-eyed and staring at him whenever he was naked. I'll up James to "good" from "acceptable".

I imagine the production was extremely low-budget and had to operate with the limitations of COVID, so I'll cut them some slack, because they accomplished a lot with limited resources - I will definitely watch any future productions from this company. IF they cut out the silly girl thing. Thai BLs can learn from the Philippines on this issue.

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Cute and forgettable

I enjoyed this, and I would recommend it, but it's a bit of a missed opportunity. There is no character work at all - and before anyone says it, it had the same run-time as The Godfather, so don't tell me there wasn't time for character arcs.

Its started off brilliantly, with the tsundere character actually being an insane fanboy barely repressing himself, which was genuinely funny - I even laughed out loud, which is unusual for me. The main character is surly, but in an interestingly masculine way even inside his cute boyish body.

But the entire plot is driven by misunderstanding, including implausible easily cleared up ones. A misunderstanding needs to be driven by the nature of the character, not just thrown in and not explained or dealt with, and the resolution also needs to be consistent with the characters. None of that is the case - the ending is just... the end. It happens suddenly and without any character progression or processing of anything, including the state of someone's apartment.

The chemistry between the leads was so-so - it wasn't unbelievable, but it also wasn't palpable.

This was cute and enjoyable, but I don't think I'll remember any of it in a month except for how delightfully weird Akafuji is and how it did things to me whenever Aoyanagi was angry.

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What a disappointment.

The good: Jang Eui Soo's eyes. Jang Eui Soo shirtless. That's about it.

The bad: The writing is terrible. The "plot" makes no sense, the villain has no motivation and suffers no consquences at all - in fact she's thanked by her victim for her perfidy. I can't even really sum up what the story is because there wasn't any.

There were a few cute moments, but I didn't really feel the commitment of the actors, or any real chemistry. Everything was flat and it was an actual chore to get through the last episode. Example: why was the music box playing "O Tannenbaum", a German Christmas carol? I realize there are probably not a lot of music boxes shaped like ferris wheels (incidentally, how did they operate the real one in that spooky-ass abandoned amusement park?), but just dub in something that makes more sense, like the Bach prelude they played a couple of times.

Korea came in strong with Where Your Eyes Linger, and each successive BL has been a step weaker. After this I'm afraid to watch the next...

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A master class in bad writing

This series had so much potential - a talented cast, good cinematography, scenic locations, and everyone involved was giving it their all. This is all wasted on a terribly written story. It's as if they were about to start filming and realized they forgot to get a script, so they sent an intern to go grab the first thing they could find on Wattpad.

The story leans heavily on the implausible-misunderstanding-caused-by-showing-up-at-just-the-right-second-to-misinterpret-something-causing-them-to-drop-the-token-of-affection-they-were-bringing-and-walking-away-sadly trope. If they were to show up one second sooner or one second later there wouldn't have been a misunderstanding. This happens many times, in every case a simple conversation would have cleared it up, and characters never learn from it and make the same mistake over and over.

Everyone behaves wildly out of character to suit plot points. Tai becomes a lying cheater, and the gentle veterinarian exhibits horrific violence. The discussion forum didn't seem to have a problem with this, presumably because Lomfon deserved to be savagely beaten for being a confused teenager. That there were absolutely no consequences to the violence is astonishing and disturbing, and Lomfon neither presses charges nor has even so much as a scuff mark after being the target of what can only be described as attempted murder. Again, lazy writing.

Lomfon, who is so emotionally constipated that he can't tell Tien how he feels, suddenly bursts into a long monologue, while Tien has just stormed off from seeing Lomfon's film, which explicitly and unmistakably showed him how Lomfon feels about him, yet he says he doesn't understand what Lomfon was trying to say with his film. Seriously?

People in general don't act like people. Patts doesn't seem at all surprised to see Tai in Chiang Mai and stands there expressionless for the entirety of Tai's long soliloquy.

There is an enormous number of extraneous characters that materialize out of nowhere, have no effect on anything, then are never seen again. In the finale, the friend who gives advice to Lomfon claims to be a close friend to both him and Tien, but we've never seen him before, or at least I can't remember him. He and most of these characters pontificate about love and life with the profundity of a motivational poster.

In the last episode, in a long and completely pointless sequence, Tai runs out of gas in front of a nice man's house. The man tells him it's very difficult to find gas in the area and that he should spend the night. His girlfriend shows up then they have a long conversation where the couple tell Tai the story of their love. In which THEY HAVE A FLASHBACK. Almost the whole flashback is a random character giving a long expository dump to a friend. The next morning Tai drives off, presumably having filled the tank with his overflowing love. None of this has the slightest effect on the story.

Perhaps most confounding of all, you can just sever your soulmate connection, which negates the entire story, the plot of which is based on destiny - without that, this is just a pile of stupid coincidences, like Tai's grandmother living next door to Patts since his childhood, and he and Tai even communicate by notes and kind acts to each other, but never meet. Really? Tai shows up at the precise moment to misunderstand Patts being kissed by his ex, but never ran into his actual soulmate for 20 years despite his living next door?

That's how awful and frustrating the writing is.

I loved the cast. Title is much improved, Pee is as good as ever, Suar is charming, and Copter is the MVP with a fantastic performance as the repressed Lomfon. I hope to see them in something better than this series.

I can't recommend this. I gave it a 5 because the cast was great, but unfortunately there was only enough material for three episodes and the rest is a jumbled mess that will cause you to dislike all the characters. Except, apparently, Patts, who is consistently called a big green flag - I guess becoming so enraged by jealousy as to try to beat someone to death isn't the red flag I thought it was.

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Adorble and clever

This is a story about a man's dog and cat coming back from the afterlife as humans - I don't think so much reincarnated as incarnated.

The casting and acting are wonderful - although human now, the pets still act like a dog and cat - Choco (dog) follows his former master everywhere, even at home, and escapes to follow Jung Woo when he goes out (especially if he's on a date), and Milk plays the "love me. Stop touching me" game of a cat.

There's no particularly important message to this, other than perhaps Carpe Diem, but it's relentlessly pleasant and fluffy without ever being cloying.

My only criticisms are, and the first is specific to me, the guitarist on the soundtrack kept sliding his fingers down the fret, which sets my teeth on edge and I often had to watch on mute.

More substantially, this is overly sanitized from the source material, being a hard G-rated. Choco is just plain sexy, but other than that, there was no heat between the leads - they had decent "hug" chemistry, but it felt like a primary school romance rather than an adult one, and that limited chemistry made it hard to invest as much as I would have liked to in the romance.

Still, this is one of the better series that aired this year, and is one you can go back to over and over.

The finale clearly set things up for a S2, which would be welcome.

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A nice suprise

There is an inevitable comparison with Gameboys, but the similarities are only superficial - this is a totally different story with different themes.

This is well-done for what it is - and a rare examination of the disconnect between who we seem to be online and who we really are. I can't say too much about the story without spoiling, but the buildup of the plot and the main theme of the story is quite well-done.

However, the resolution was too easy and simplistic and let down the series overall by being unearned. It really needed 2-4 more episodes so that what happens can be processed - in a way that makes sense for teens.

The simple fact is that there is an element to attraction that is physical. There is nothing wrong with that. It can be problemmatic if ALL your criteria are physical, but there are just certain looks that appeal to us more than others. For example, I have a little trouble finding really tall men attractive, and I find Asian men more attractive than any others. That doesn't mean I'm never attracted to men of other races, and I'm sure there are cultural elements involved in my associations, and there's much more to any attractions I have than just physical.

The other thing that was a little off-putting was that there was a large personality difference between fantasy and reality as well. There is a power element to love relationships, and that is also OK and natural. In this case, Boss has an easy, cocky confidence and a sexual confidence that Tono doesn't have - I would find that exciting, and if that balance were suddenly reversed, it would be an issue. Also, there are limits to how different a person can look from what you expected - for example if they're 40 years older or a different gender. Small superficial differences are much easier to integrate than major, categorical ones (e.g. he's really a woman instead of a man vs. his hair is dark brown, not light brown or he looks a little heavier or lighter in person than on camera, etc.)

What I would have liked is some processing on the part of Tono - like his initial reaction is a bit shallow and he needs a little time to think about how that makes him feel and how important it is or isn't to how he feels about Boss, maybe talks it through with his friend, rather than the isntantaneous shrugging it off.

Anyway, I still liked it and it's worth watching. The pacing is good (except at the end), the actors work well togther even in the videochat format, and both are charming and have wll-drawn characters given the short length of the series. I hope we get a chance to see more of them both.

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It's very good, but that ending...

The acting in this is superb - all the actors did an excellent job, even all the minor parts. Some of that is good directing - there are actors in this that have been mediocre elsewhere that were fantastic in this. Standouts for me were Off, who had way more star power than he has in the past (and he's gotten mighty fine, I must say). There's a scene with Gawin that's an 11/10 - you won't be able to breathe (although some of that is beauty). Gunn has always been good, so no surprises there.

The Music is pretty good. It didn't really stand out to me very much, but it avoided tired cliches, never got in the way, and supported the story.

The story... this is a tough one. With the number of plot threads introduced, I kind of expected some of them to be dropped, but not ALL of them. The ending of this wasn't an ending - it just stopped, and it was way, way too happy for the story. It even ends with the tired cliche that this series had avoided up to that point, the triple-take kiss, which made me LOL it was so silly. I don't like sad endings, but come on. The only thing it was missing was a rainbow and unicorn. What was the point of Todd's character? He never did anything that was important to the plot, except for one thing before the series starts, and we never find out why he did it. He never does anything of consequence again (except look sexy).

The 2 BL romances were good, the straight ones just chewed up time and had nothing to do with the story. There's a lot of violence in this - a lot of it is necessary, but there's a lot that's just eye-rolling machismo and wasn't needed at all. For example there's a scene where someone hurts someone emotionally - it would have been a lot stronger if it was all words and not lots of punching. In another, a decision is made by an actual physical fight between the two viewpoints. This is never done again despte there being a huge number of times there was no consensus, so why that one time? There's another case where a character deliberately beats someone into a coma. How on earth do you calculate how much beating to administer that leads to worse than unconsciousness, but not quite death? Dumb and unnecessary.

All-in-all, this was a refreshingly different series - I just wish it could have been more nuanced than rich=bad and poor=good. Evil powerful people tend to be wealthy because evil poor people don't have the means to gain power (except in revolutions), not because rich people are inherently evil. Although to be fair the ending was so abrupt that it's not entirely clear even the main villain was a villain. In any case, you don't get points for including social issues if you having nothing to say.

I guess the secret to enjoying this is to not take it very seriously. Let's face it - this is a story about a law student who replaces his evil twin in a marxist motorcycle gang. (I know Black isn't evil, but he's definitely not the good twin). In the end, it contains some really good romance with great chemistry in both couples, and that's what saves it from it's total lack of plot. (Before anyone says it - consider a rope ladder. If you use excellent materials and fashion it with skill and artistry, but you never hang it up, is it a ladder, or an expensive pile of rope?)

I don't think I would rewatch this, but there are scenes I might go back to - there were several that were in the top handful in all of BL.

Overall: 8. It would have been a 9 or 9.5 if it had an ending.

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Beautiful and powerful

This story is so authentic that it hurled me back to that age in a way that I haven't felt in a long time. This is what you can get when you put together good writing, directing, and acting.

In an hour a more complete story was told than you get in most 12-episode series - testament to the power of the image, and how a facial expression can convey more than 20 minutes of voiceover or exposition.

Oak is better in this than anything he's done before, conveying an innocent loneliness, insecurity, and longing in a way that you usually don't see as he's tended to be in more comical roles. Mon is shattering, and I was amazed at his first-rate performance in the last scene. That was very difficult material to pull off, and would have been dull with an off-the-shelf actor, but it's clear he put a lot of work and thought into the scene and received able guidance from the director, for whom this is clearly a very personal story.

Highly recommended.

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Dull and Disappointing

Sometimes a total disaster of a series, like Unforgotten Night or So Much In Love, can be more entertaining to watch than a thorougly mediocre one. Coffee Melody aspires to be the most mediocre it possibly can without falling over the line into being bad. There are many things that can be individually critiqued, but the quality of this series that most stands out is its dullness.

Part of this is the limp script. Nothing really happens. The main pair meet and like each other and enter into an unearned relationship, there are a couple of minor bumps, all externally driven, and everyone lives happily ever after.

But even then, a featureless script can still create a series that's entertaining - but this production lacks any passion. Was Benz even playing a character, or just being himself? Pavel Naret was apparently neutered, given bad hair, and then directed to be as blandly nice as he could possibly be. The style department couldn't even be bothered to make Titnuea's hair a consistent color - one moment it's deep red, the next it's light pink. That's almost certainly because of the filming schedule, which is based on location, not the story's chronology, but that's the sort of sloppiness that's endemic to this series.

It's largely about musicians and music, but there isn't any until past he halfway mark, and it was underwhelming when it appeared. The sound editing is poor - sometimes the music drowns out the dialog, and other times you can barely hear it. Nobody could be bothered to write or obtain decent background music, so the just played easy-jazz piano Christmas carols.

In the end, this story has nothing to say. Even the difficulties of maintaining a long-distance relationship is papered over by having someone move abroad, and then move right back 5 seconds later. Presumably time has passed, but it was so poorly set up that it came off as unintentionally funny, and his boyfriend reacted as if he'd merely been on an overnight business trip.

There were a few positives: whoever wrote this has a love of coffee that came through, Palm Veerapat who plays Jean was adorable and engaging, and some of the ad-libbed scenes, mostly with Duean Yi's parents, were quite charming.

This isn't terrible. But it's so-so in the most boring way possible. I can't recommend it, and it saddens me, because I was excited Pavel got a role, and I hope this doesn't damage his chances of geting another one.

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Tries to be too many things

The novel from which this series was adapted was apparently porn, and fairly transgressive at that. I can't help but ask if that was really the most suitable material.

This starts of as an Enemies to Lovers story on steroids, with the two being so awful to each other that it's hard to imagine coming back from it. Later on it emerges that Mangkorn has liked Yai for years. You mean like when you drugged and raped him, filmed it and used the footage to blackmail him? I might have started out by asking him on a date, but I guess we all have our playbooks.

Do note that Mangkorn discovered that Yai planned to do that to him and turned the tables, so It's not like Yai is some innocent victim.

Anyway, they fall in love, of course, and have all the typical BL problems from demanding fathers, arranged marraiges, inapporpriate jealousy, and implausible lack of communication, before the most inexplicably dull finale imaginable. One commenter called them "matured". Yes, matured if you mean married for 40 years and no longer have any passion left between them. There's a large chunk of their conversation that revolved around who was ordering flowers. There's even a flashback to provide the backstory to who was ordering flowers. Do we watch dramas to listen to people have a conversation like our elderly parents might have, or do we watch it for, I don't know, drama?

I don't necessarily need a realistic portrayal of what would happen if two 20-something men who are passionately in love and haven't seen each other for a year came together (hint: tons and tons of sex), but I do want to see the joy and passion and chemistry, not discussions of who ordered the flowers and career goals.

The transition from mutual attempted rape/blackmail to Disney princess is non existent - we really don't see the progression in their relationship, they just go from firey hatred and a desire to destroy each other to waiting up for the sunrise when they've been apart for a year (note: airliners have WCs and people have been brushing their teeth on them since the dawn of flight. Airports also have WCs, and if you're rich and flew Business, the lounge even has invidual fully-stocked private bathrooms).

There's apparently a Season 2. Joy.

The acting is quite good in this - I didn't notice at first, but both leads are considerably above average. There is good cinematograpy, but there are times when a shot is so obviously set up that it takes you out of the moment.

My intial reaction to this series was quite negative, and then it steadily grew on me, before taking a downswing with the finale where everyone started talking like greeting cards. It's not the worst series - I'm not sure I'd recomment it, but if you can get past the first three episodes it starts to get better. If not for the finale, I would have given this a 7.5.

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Diabetes-inducing.

Here's representative dialogue:

Kluen: Can you not be any more lovable?
Daonuea: I'm a lovable person. I can't quit being lovable, can I?
Kluen: Continue being lovable. And I'll keep loving you. Love you with all my heart.

Vomit. That was corrected for a mistranslation - it's clear they were saying "lovable" and not "lovely", but it's terrible either way. That of course was followed by Kluen trying to kiss him and getting repeatedly pushed away, because gay sex, ick. The last thing I want a brand-new boyfriend to do is touch me.

That, incidentally, was followed by a scene featuring the late-20s couple, wherein a kiss on the cheek is treated like it's a huge deal. At least in this case Fah announced he planned to escalate their chaste slumber:

Fah: "I've changed my mind. I don't just want your company in bed. I want my boyfriend in bed." To me that means "crack out the lube and fire up the DoorDash - we're not leaving bed until Monday." To them it means cuddling while they sleep while fully dressed.

At least that didn't make me vomit. Just roll my eyes and sigh wearily. However, the extremely long product-placement scene where everyone force-fed each other fast-food fried chicken made me plenty queasy.

Every line is so predictable that you actually groan before it's even spoken. Here's a quiz:

Fah asks Prince: "Which do you like bettter - the mountains or the beach?"

Is the answer:

a) The mountains.
b) The beach.
c) Who cares? Take off your shirt so I can hump your abs.
d)

I don't need to fill in d), because you know exactly what it will be. And it's delivered with unsmiling gravitas as if it's the most meaningful and important thing anyone has ever said.

Physical Therapy is frequently held up as the worst BL of the year, but at least there was no possible way to predict what would happen (since it was randomly generated). Star & Sky is so formulaic and predictable that it's just insulting.

Do yourself a favor and skip it.

Story: 1. There is no story - just people being sickening. You can have cuteness without it sounding like it was written by a nine year old girl. Actually, that's really unfair to nine year old girls. There would at least be a cute bunny or a unicorn to distract me from the awful dialogue.

Acting: 3. Mek Jirakit is by far the best actor in this. Much like Mussolini was the least awful dictator in WW2.

Music: 3. The same two bars of synthesizer music played over and over.

Rewatch value: 1. Only if you promise to lobotomize me afterwards. Actually, scratch that. Make that only if you lobotomize me before.

Overall: 2. Sometimes a series is so bad that it's good. Not this one.

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Cute but pointless

I didn't really get the point of this - it was fluffy but static. There was more than enough time to explore an element of their relationship, like what it's like for one of them to grow old and the other to stay young forever, or how annoying someone who is too neat and tidy can be - anything. The actor playing Ever 9 has an amazing body - I would have liked to see Yi Ping feeling awkward about being sexually attracted to him shirtless or something. I'm sure we've all thought about what sex with a robot would feel like emotionally - and since that's a very likely future for many or most people, it could stand to be explored.

Ever 9 looked hotter with his hair like that.

The bumper car scene and the competition after that were the highlight of the episode for me.

Anyway, if you liked Anti-Reset, you'll probably like this, but nothing happens and the kissing is so-so at best.

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Well, that happened.

I'm not sure I've watched as series that's had such a reversal in my opinion of it. I was excited after the first episode - I like Meen & Ping, and I had hoped for a better vehicle for them than Ai Long Nhai, and here it was! But it was just a trick.

The first couple of episodes were good and engaging, with an odd and silly intersection of gaming and gangsters - I thought it would be campy fun, but instead, we got an endless stream of people making inexplicably bad decisions - solely to get the plot to progress from step to step. In order for there to be final drama, Tew has to spare the life of someone totally psychotic and evil when doing so put himself, Guy, the Boss, and everyone else associated with them in mortal danger - in fact it was double suicide, because he disobeyed the Boss to do this. It was so completely stupid and out of character that it pulled me completely out of the story. Maybe if the villain had been compelling instead of the offspring of a non-binary clown and John Lennon it could have worked, but Kenji is such an awful actor that his scenes gave me secondhand embarassment. (Tommy has a day job as a model, so he'll be fine - and he is fine, underneath the clown suit they make him wear.)

The rest of the series is a meandering mess, with an intriguing secondary couple that doesn't go anywhere, and a ton of side characters that could have been integrated into the story - like what if instead of being a sneering Beetle the villain had been sophisticated and smart, and it took the whole crew to take him down using their individual skills? But nope, all we got was Elton John on a bad hair day chewing up the scenery and also making insanely stupid decisions.

In the final episode there were lots of time jumps, over the types of things that it would have been interesting to watch, like the secondary couple getting together, but it was apparently necessary to cut all that out to include lots of scenes of Tew cooking boring dishes and having the same conversation with Ping on an endless loop.

OK, the positives - Meen is hot. I'm not even sure that's subjective. In fact the whole cast is attractive to the point that it made me watch the whole series (with judicious fast-fowarding).

Winner Tanatat is wasted on a side role, but he absolutely nails it and makes Wal a fully-realized character rather than just a villain-esque dick. He managed to play Wal as a loyal and loving friend while still giving him an unpleasantly domineering edge, but never so much as to send him over the line into villainy.

The fight scenes were not exactly cinematic in quality, but there were impressive for a small production like this.

I can't recommend this. Meen takes off his shirt a couple of times, which is worth seeing, but he probably does that on social media somewhere and you can stare at the glory that is his body all you want.

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Fluffy, but for once not in a bad way.

Normally I would loathe a series like this becaus I find fluff tedious - but not when it's interspersed with an actual story with consistent characters that have development arcs, which is a rarity in BL. Even the uke had character development.

Hong Wei Zhe does a good job of making a bratty character likeable, and there's a certain convoluted structure to his whining that is always entertaining.

Yang I Hsuan is really sexy and does one of the best jobs of acting like he's really into someone I've ever seen. He's the kind of guy everyone would want as a bf. The boys are not afraid to show phyiscal affection - they are always touching, rubbing noses, kissing, or even wrestling around - the latter of which I appreciated because it felt like two guys instead of a man and an uke. Jiang Chi is sweet and takes care of Bu Xia, but he's not above laughing at him when he's being ridiculous or teasing him - he feels like a real person, and his interaction with Bu Xia feels genuine and unrehearsed.

There are a few funny take-downs of BL tropes - for example, Jiang Chi has a fiancee that drops out of the sky as it typical in a BL - he basically just says "I'm gay, get lost". and that's the end of that.

The plot is a little thin, but there is one, it is thought out and flows nicely. And best of all, there's a setup for another season, which I hope happens.

The cinematography is very good, with some lovely shots of Taiwan, and in general it's well-produced.

I highly recommend this series - it's relentlessly pleasant, there is drama but not caused by awful people - it's mostly character-driven, although ghosts also play a role in moving the story foraward.

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