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Unforgotten Bite
Alright, hear me out. I quite enjoyed this. Well, half of it. Well, maybe a third of it.There was a period when chaste, homophobic KBLs were getting on my last nerve, and I decided I won't watch any BLs without at least a bit of tongue-lashing, and so, I stumbled upon this. With generous skipping, I thought of it as a Thai Pinku Eiga, which made it a lot more fun.
Don't be under any illusion: this is very, very, very, very, very, very bad. Very.
But... was I amused to see a virgin twin(k) ride a hot stud like an acrobatic rodeo two minutes after saying, "I've never done this before"? Yes.
Was I also amused to see the other twin(k) be railed by another hot dude (my fave) on the kitchen table... twice? Also yes.
Did I hate that horrible loincloth on one of the twinks during that stairway two-way? Absolutely.
Was I also left with an idiotic smile at the end of it all, with a welcome reminder that characters in a BL can unapologetically enjoy sex -- something a lot of supposedly "good" BLs still have on their to-do list? Believe it.
***
Notes:
1. The score for acting/cast is based purely on the hotness of the actors, which, I know, is very deep of me.
2. The score for "rewatch value" is also based on hotness, but of the sex scenes, which, to be fair, ought to be deep.
3. I don't know that there was any *music*, but I remember seeing guitars -- this being a Thai BL, after all -- and promptly muted my computer.
4. As for story, it is as good as you get in any soft porn. Which is to say, non-existent. It did convince me to go to Japan, though!
***
Reader's Digest:
DO SAY: Don't you ever tell me... Love isn't true... It's just something that we do.
DON'T SAY: Let's ride this train... coming around the bend... I know it's coming again.
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Ten short sermons on how (not) to write (a BL)
1. If you're going to write a show wherein music is an important theme, the characters' fingers must at least touch the instruments convincingly. A few piano lessons (or guitar lessons) will go a long way.2. A show about musicians must, well, be musical. No amount of autotuning, nor a liberal sprinkling of English words, can conceal a fundamental want of talent.
3. A rock star -- even a grieving washed-up rock star -- is allowed to age without unkempt unshampooed undeloused hair. It is unforgiveable to make Charles Tu look that ugly. Even more unforgivable to use a wig that looks like it was the sole survivor of a tornado that ripped through a FujoCon.
4. Bowl cuts are not markers of youth. Anymore than manbuns are markers of midlife crises.
5. Still on the subject of hair, are blonde mullets a thing now? Does anyone find them attractive? Orca, if you want to know why Reese resists, just look in the mirror.
6. Don't be a prick tease. If you're going to keep our lovers apart in the name of building up tension, you had better give us a good reason for doing so. Poor Reese. I still don't understand why he couldn't shag that idiot for so long, the one who thought it fit to add blonde extensions to his otherwise perfect hair, a stray strand of which, for the billionth time in BL, Reese felt the need to tenderly push away while he was asleep. (Sea did this too! In the same episode!) I know that blindness caused by a lock of hair is endemic to BL, and often fatal. But Reese, if you can tolerate that mullet, you must truly be in love. You do you.
7. If you're going to have more than a few supporting characters in a story, give them more individuality than a side-couple with no dramatic interest, a straight pair who are just supportive friends, and a dead brother whose main purpose is to be dead.
8. People don't need loud background music to tell them how they should feel. People know how to feel -- assuming that the actors and the script are any good. In a show where music is the main theme, it's just self-defeating.
9. Sassy secretaries are awesome. Use them more.
10. Don't worry about age-gaps or height-gaps. They are beloved for a reason. However, be subversive. Make the short twink the top, and the tall washed-up rock star the bottom. Then get a bowl of popcorn and enjoy the pandaemonium that follows. (But please don't save that bowl for another haircut.)
Reader's Digest:
DO SAY: If music be the food of love...
DON'T SAY: Play on.
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Good Guy, My Loss
A Review in Two LettersLetter 1. From James/Elyes to Me:
Dear Meng,
Forgive me for not writing sooner, but, something strange is going on. As you know, I left Auckland to take up a new position in Bangkok, and I was really looking forward to it. However, since coming here, my world has turned upside down. Completely. I fear I may have left the real world behind, and might now be the lead in a Thai BL. Is this a good thing? Or bad? Help!
Since I stepped foot in this beautiful country, people keep calling me handsome. It has never happened before. Men, women, children, pigeons... they all call me handsome. That was the first clue. I have also lost most of my body fat. You can now see muscles in my body that I did not know existed. Then there is my skin. You’d think that, even with sunscreen, my translucent skin would become more and more tanned, being this close to the equator. But, if you can believe it, I’ve become paler. I suspect someone has been applying a thick coat of make-up on me when I'm asleep, all over my body, and it refuses to come off when I shower. You’d also think that the humidity of Bangkok would mess up my hair into unmanageable frizz. But no, every strand perfectly falls into place, even when it's wet with lube or shampoo.
I am the head of a company whose name I do not know, and whose business I do not understand. I wear suits. It is 35 C outside and I wear suits. I do not sweat. For some reason, I also cannot button up my shirt. Every time I try, it keeps unbuttoning itself, sometimes down to my waist. I go up to my colleagues showing my nipples and navel. Is this sexual harrassment?
I have an assistant. His name is Pat. At this time, I’m pretty sure we have an abusive relationship. I think I’m still gay in this world, or at least bi, but I’m not allowed to say it. Everytime I try to, someone chokes my throat. Not sure who. (Also, all the men in this world seem to be gay, except for one friend of Pat’s. Who would have thought it? Gay friends are no longer the side-kicks, but straight men are. Progress?) Anyway, this assistant does not to do any company work. He just manages my sex life. Which, I think, takes up a good chunk of my waking hours. I know he’s in love with me, and I like him too, so it is only fitting that I treat him horribly, and make him cater to my every whim. I am obsessive, possessive, and controlling, and I'm pretty sure I'm gaslighting him too. I suspect I'll be stalking him soon, then abduct him, and keep him under house arrest. All very romantic. But he loves it... I think. Weirdly, I have this other fuckbuddy named Kim who’s much hotter, and way better in bed. Pat, by comparison, is stiff as a board, and resists me like a Victorian virgin. Yet, the BL gods have willed it that I must lust after this wet blanket.
I keep falling ill. Pat keeps falling ill. We both keep fainting, often from a cold, often caught from a single drop of rain. But we don’t go to the doctors. Oh no. We unbutton our shirts instead (in my case, there's just one button left), and we gently rub each other’s white-as-chalk chests -- and, weirdly, our knee-pits, which is apparently an erogenous zone here -- with wet towels. I suppose leeches and blood-letting are no longer sexy.
Am I the arsehole here? You don’t need to ask Reddit. I am. Yet I’m sure there’s a reason for it, and a past will be revealed which will perfectly justify my present behaviour. Until then, I’ll have to put up with everyone calling me a “red flag”. Which is fine, because I hate "green flags". Only, I’m not sure I want to stay here. I know, it’s a pretty cushy life I have right now. I'm rich, hot, immensely fuckable, and answerable to no one. Who’d want to give all that up? But it sits so oddly with the world of today, and the person I was, that my conscience might not permit it. We shall see.
I’ll write if I have any updates. Pray for me.
Love,
J./E.
*****
Letter 2. From me to Elyes
Dear Elyes,
You will notice that I'm no longer calling you by your birth name, because I've been waiting for a reply to my last three letters, and have received none. I must presume therefore that you have now embraced your new identity, and are completely of the BL world, with no access to reality whatsoever.
You lucky bastard. Couldn't you have taken me with you? I hate it here. You get to live in a world where homophobia does not exist, where the majority of men are gay, and where straight people exist just to support you. A photographic negative, in other words, of the real world. Worse, in your world, you are also apparently rich, handsome, and attractive to anything that can breathe, all of which makes me want to run to my GP and ask for a prescription for Ozempic and Rogaine. Only, I can't afford either, because, in this world, I don't even have a pot to piss in.
Admittedly, there is a Mephistophelean bargain here: you've been reduced to a mere stick figure without any psychological depth or complexity, upon whom is foisted the most boring of lives, and the most nauseating language. But who cares? I just want a happy ending -- in every sense of that word. So do you, and so, certainly, does the audience, most of whom will eat this up no matter how horrible you are, and no matter how "toxic" they find you. And when the show "redeems" you, which it doubtless will, all the people who once screamed "red flag" at their screens would now cheer for you and Pat. Where's the incentive then to be good or have a personality? Sod it. You do you, girlfriend!
I was, for a moment, sad for you, because you are now trapped within the confines of this world, and must live out the same segments of your new life over and over again. But I soon realised that's jealousy talking. You get to be perpetually young, perpetually rich, and perpetually happy, while others around you, including the man you supposedly love, get perpetually abused, insulted, or shoved aside. I suppose that that, at least, is a faithful enough reflection of the real world. But then, we *know* the real world is horrible. Otherwise, none of us would be watching Thai BLs now, would we?
That said, a large part of me is also quite angry. Not with you, necessarily, but with the writers. On the one hand, I have lost you as a friend, and that makes me sad. On the other, I'm angry that the writers have written you into this cheap, derivative, lifeless world, instead of creating for you, and for us, a fantasy that is more worthy of you, less demeaning to others, and had greater ambitions. But then the gods of Thai BL have decided that stories such as yours, which they keep churning out at the rate of one a week, is all that its audience deserves. And why not? We keep coming back, because, evidently, we are all masochists here, and we will put up with any amount of suffering to see an imaginary glimpse of happily-ever-after.
I don't want to end on a wistful note. I shall miss you, and I miss the best days of Thai BL. But I want you to be happy. Do us a favour though, will you? When you do get together with Pat, for the tenth time no doubt, have the decency to dick him down properly. I mean, dick him down so properly that he will never have cause to complain again -- except perhaps of having to limp to work. The poor lad deserves at least that, don’t you think?
Take care, my friend.
Love,
Meng.
Reader's Digest:
DO SAY: Blame it on the Bossa Nova
DON'T SAY: What's HR?
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Love In the Air: Koi no Yokan
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WikiHow: How (Not) To Do A Remake
Step 1. Think hard. When was the last time people thought a remake was better than the original? If you are going to remake a show that is justly (or unjustly) famous (or notorious), know that people will always compare your show to the original. If it falls short, you have only yourself to blame.Step 2. Know your audience. BL is a niche community, even in Japan. Many of us have heard of and seen the original LITA. We may love it, we may hate it, but we know of it. A lot of us will watch the remake just in order to see how it compares. If you forget this, again, you have only yourself to blame.
Step 3. Ask yourself why. I mean, why? For god’s sake, why? Why can’t you leave well enough — or bad enough — alone? What possible reason might you have, apart from a presumed reluctance on the part of the Japanese -- a reluctance that I don't think exists -- to read subtitles? Or if that isn’t the problem, what have you to offer us that’s different? If nothing, why waste time and money on this, when you could have given us something better?
Step 4. Consider the source material. Here, you potentially have two. The (cough) novel. And the TV show. If you did read... the novel… more power to you. If you just watched the TV show, welcome to our world. But don't forget. This is Mame. Storytelling isn’t her strength. Sexual… ummm… proclivities, I guess? are what gets her off. As, of course, does calling your dom top “Daddy”. Well done, Noeul.
Step 5. Rip the bodices. Isn’t that what got you into it in the first place? If you’re going to be coy around it, leave it alone. Some of us return to LITA not for the… story… but for something else. And that something else was *hot*. If you can’t handle the heat, stay out of the kitchen. Which, given the number of gastronomic BLs Japan puts out each year, is perhaps impossible.
Step 6. Speaking of cooking, test for chemistry. People who cared for LITA fall into two camps. They were either in it for the dom-bottom pair, or for the peat-bog -- I mean, peat-fort -- pair. Either way, it is the chemistry between them that sold the show. This one has all the chemistry of mildew on a damp cloth.
Step 7. Cast the right actors. In a bodice-ripper, they must be game, and willing to go all the way. The actors in the original did. That’s why we bought it — even those who hated it. You did well enough with Shoma here, and there is a reason why he did two segments of Kiss x Kiss x Kiss in one season. The man is hot, and he's comfortable lashing his tongue against another's. But you really oughtn’t have cast the rest of the gang here. Hamaya was certainly a bad choice. When one of the actors refuses to open his lips, while the other one licks them like a cat does the last drop of milk from a bowl, it is not sexy. It looks non-consensual, and makes us cringe. (While I’m not staying for the other couple, what I have seen so far hasn’t been encouraging. I doubt they’d even kiss.)
Step 8. Find the right size. For the series as a whole and for each episode. Here, the length and duration do not feel right. Sometimes, less is not more. Compression is not always a virtue. Size matters. The original… story… was narratively "challenged" as it was. Don’t make it incomprehensible. Remember: length contraction is the same as time dilation. Einstein taught us that.
Step 9. Identify areas for improvement. The "story" and the "writing" in the original weren’t exactly stellar. You could have made the story tighter (or, you know, exist), more coherent, and more integrated, especially given the limitations on time and length you have imposed upon yourself. Isn’t this what JBLs are supposed to be good at?
Step 10. Or, you know, just stop. The “market”, unlike colour in Japanese cinematography, is saturated enough as it is. We have the Thai BL meat factory releasing a bodice-ripper every other week, but at least there the actors know how to kiss. Taiwan releases a step-brother storyline once a month to titillate us, and KBL is ever at hand to give us the white-and-blue-jacket no-kiss-guaranteed school lunch once a season. We have enough to keep us going. If you have nothing original to offer, why bother?
This review is dedicated to Selbee, who had love enough to ask me for one.
Reader’s Digest:
DO SAY: There’s a new Love in the Air.
DON’T SAY: It's a hole in the ozone layer.
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Hidamari ga Kikoeru
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Hearing Gayed. Broken.
The following conversation took place this week between me (a gay man) and a friend of mine (a straight woman who’s hard of hearing). We sometimes watch BLs together. (Note: This conversation was first posted on Reddit, but felt more appropriate here.)ME: So, what do you think (of Hidamari)?
SHE: What do *I* think? With all this praise from everyone, everywhere, all at once, you’d think this was the second coming of Christ!
ME: Tell me about it. I think there has been a sprinkling of healthy scepticism on Reddit, but it’s out and out war on the pages of MDL.
SHE: Let me guess. Between those who think it’s a disability drama, and those who think it’s BL?
ME: Bingo!
SHE: Are there any who think it’s bad at both?
ME: Ummm… you?
SHE: Bingo!
ME: There is also that other, internecine war on MDL: between that group of mostly young, mostly female population who want a chaste, aching BL, and the older gays who, understandably, don’t want the sex erased from homosexuality.
SHE: Well, you know whose side I am on.
ME: Mine, I hope. Anyway, do spill.
SHE: As you know, I don’t think art needs to be representational at all. It is not anyone’s duty to represent anything. But, insofar as people think that this show ‘represents’ disability, it is a miserable failure. Not least because it is primarily a plot device, whose purpose is to sow misunderstanding and miscommunication between our boys. As if Japanese characters don’t do enough of that to themselves already. Apparently, deaf people can’t communicate because… well… they can’t hear well. Get it? How original! Have you ever known me to be non-communicative?
ME: If only.
SHE: Might I remind you that you gave me your number? Anyway, I know I'm oversimplifying matters... but not that much. The idea that people hard of hearing cannot reach out, or do not reach out, out of fear, failure of confidence, or low self-esteem, is just so old and tired, I'm quite sick of it. Our lives are richer than that. There is nothing we want more than be part of the world, and we are often better communicators for it. I don't know if Kohei's syndrome was more cultural or physiological, but either way, he made me quite angry with all that self-pity. A highly unattractive trait in a man. At least Taichi brought a measure of joy and innocence into the drama -- and Kobayashi is an amazing actor -- but soon I grew weary of his naïveté too. He's so dense that even light would bend around him. I was patient enough of all this for the first few episodes, but then they brought in Maya...
ME: Who, by the way, has a lot of defenders.
SHE: Of course she does. Another straight, evil woman who comes in between the boys in a BL? It's revolutionary, I tell you.
ME: She transcends that trope, apparently...
SHE: By, let me guess, being deaf and having a sad past? Yay! Deaf people can be evil too! I feel seen! That’s true representation! Trope? What trope?
ME: I get it. I get it. Also, it's not as if either of us are against tropes, when done well. I seem to remember you did love Heart and Li Ming in Moonlight Chicken.
SHE: Oh, that was wonderful. I was swooning over them, and wondering where the fuck was my Li Ming. Was it good “representation”? No. (Let's face it, nor is Hidamari.) Was it “realistic”? No. (Again, nor is Hidamari.) But was it full of joy? Yes! Was it full of chemistry and sensuality and longing? Yes. Did it show that deaf people can be fun and joyous too and want rampant sex and can make fun of ourselves? Yes, yes, yes. It didn’t even have a proper kiss, and yet managed to be so full of physicality. Which emotionally starved fuck-up wrote this script?
ME: I’d rather not go into it.
SHE: Was the person who wrote the manga hard-of-hearing?
ME: I don’t know. I didn't think it mattered.
SHE: Good. Better that way. Because if I found out that they were, I might be tempted to cut them some slack, and I don't want to. I want to preserve my unrighteous indignation.
ME: When did you first become suspicious that the show was going to be a damp squib?
SHE: Shall we say it together?
BOTH: The kiss!
ME: Yes!
SHE: What a cop off!
ME: People tried to justify it, you know. Everywhere. The pearl-clutchers came up with all sorts of explanations. I just couldn’t accept it. At all. This is 20-fucking-24! It smelt too much of cowardice to me. If not institutional homophobia.
SHE: Thank god I can still smell.
ME: Indeed, and my tastebuds are thankful for it. But yes, it was a symbol, a symbol of oncoming failure of imagination, a lack of daring. I knew at that point that they were going to take the easy way out. I mean, the show had so many good things at the beginning. The set-up, the acting, the natural fluidity of presence between Kohei and Taichi. What happened?
SHE: Multitasking never works. Trust me. Not even for women. The show was vacillating from theme to theme, character to character, without knowing what it wanted to say, or show. In other words, the definition of a bad script, which no acting, however good, can redeem. It had no focus.
ME: And the focus should have been on love.
SHE: Yes. Why else are we here?
ME: You mean on earth, or in the BL world?
SHE: What’s the difference?
ME: I’m going to block you now.
SHE: Don’t. Then I have to talk to my husband. I'm just saying that if they wanted to marry the idea of love and hardness-of-hearing, they shouldn't have resorted to such cheap tricks as introducing Maya, or just make misunderstanding the whole machinery of the show. I could practically hear the plot creaking. Ironically...
ME: No wonder you bought me lube for my last birthday. When did you throw in the towel then?
SHE: An episode or two after Maya came in. You?
ME: The episode where Maya came in.
SHE: You quit sooner? That almost never happens!
ME: Yes, but I have been keeping up with discussions on MDL — you know I’m a masochist — and Reddit, and it has been going exactly where I thought it would go. I knew the romance would disappear, I knew that there would be no further intimacy, I knew that Maya would occupy too much time… it all came true. I have developed a sixth sense for turgid BLs.
SHE: And you call me harsh.
ME: I'll do one better and call the ending now. There will be a time-jump, there will be another almost near-miss, there will be an “I’ve loved you all along” realisation, and then the worst bad-angle, fish-eyed kiss imaginable. You know, with the kind of chemistry that causes asphyxiation? Or death by proptosis? That is, of course, if there is a kiss at all. Maybe they'll end it with a low-five.
SHE: What is a low-five?
ME: Where they just hug, or briefly hold hands, and as soon as their hands move downwards, they go: Ewww... gay.
SHE: I've taught you well. And I bet they’ll try to redeem Maya too.
ME: Like Tong in whatchamacallit.
SHE: My Stand-in?
ME: Sorry, I’m too busy.
SHE: What are you watching now?
ME: Happy of the End. Terrible title, but it is sooo good! I'm hoping it will redeem JBL for me this year. You?
SHE: 4Minutes, mainly to see Fuaiz being a power-bottom. I'm hoping that, in the finale, he'll be railed to death by Win and Korn, and maybe have a Great Tyme too.
ME: I’m still waiting for a Thai power couple named Gang & Bang.
SHE: One can only hope. On which note…
Reader's Digest:
DO SAY: What's your love language?
DON'T SAY: What's love in sign language?
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Miseinen: Mijukuna Oretachi wa Bukiyo ni Shinkochu
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A JBL Bingo: School Edition
I have created, for your pleasure and displeasure, a bingo card for Japanese school BLs. I wrote these down before I started watching Miseinen (I promise!), and I’m going to see at which episode I yell “Bingo!”. Feel free to play along: shuffle the table, make it your own, and then tell me at which point you win. (For more on the show itself, and my rating, see below.)Column B:
(Psychology 101)
1. Overbearing mother
2. Absent or abusive father
3. Inability to communicate (except through inner monologues)
4. Panic attacks at the very thought of intimacy
5. Noble idiot
Column I:
(Tropefest)
1. Time jump, usually for trips abroad
2. Trips to the beach
3. Random and wildly inaccurate equations on blackboard
4. Corridor crossings in slow motion
5. Roof-tops, usually fenced-in, against a hilly background: ideal for unrequited confessions
[Bonus point: Bangs for girls, bowlcut for boys, both to make 25 year old actors look like teenagers.]
Column N:
(Love Languages)
1. A wide-eyed "kiss" that reminds you of the girl from The Ring
2. Kabedon, because... door banging is sexy?
3. Free Space
4. Wound tending... with a q-tip.
5. Standing in the rain, kissing in the rain, getting cold & fever from the rain... just a lot of rain.
Column G:
(Lines of dialogue)
1. “But we’re both men…”
2. “Kawaii!” or “Kakkoii!”
3. “Ikemen ne.”
4. “Hendayo!" (usually after the first non-kiss)
5. “Suki da.” “Eh?”
Column O:
(War of the Positions)
1. Seme: Nipple-revealing bleach-white shirt. Uke: Buttoned-up black coat.
2. Seme: No real friends. Uke: Really bad friends.
3. Seme: PTSD survivor. Uke: Florence Shitingayle
4. Seme: Rebel with(out) a cause. Uke: Mathlete.
5. Seme: Six feet, tops. Uke: Five feet under.
Verdict:
I'm afraid I have decided to drop the show. A lot of people whom I respect love it: so doubtless the fault is mine. At another time, or perhaps earlier in my BL journey, I might have gushed about it as a teenager would about his or her first love. But now, I see little in it beyond a story I have seen and heard a thousand times before, cobbled together from the same old tired tropes listed above. Which is not to say that it can't be told again, and told anew: the idea of someone inhibited and stuck-up falling for the school bad boy is an inherently exciting premise. Yet here, it felt neither exciting nor subversive. What's more, the show suffers from an excess of JBL's worst tendencies -- and I say this as someone who loves all things Japanese -- such as a general joylessness of tone, a darkness of mood, an emphasis on suffering, and a disdain for levity or charm. (Charm! How rare it is in JBL and KBL!) The atmosphere became simply too oppressive. Two men falling headlong in love -- even if they come from traumatic circumstances -- should feel exhilarating, not exhausting. But by Ep. 5, exhausted is all I felt.
Notes (written down before I quit):
1. Gang, it happened! At the end of Ep. 5, Bingo!!
2. "Infect me!" has to be the sexiest and most romantic thing anyone has ever said in a BL.
3. If my sampling of JBLs is correct, at least a third of all Japanese fathers must be in jail for child abuse.
4. I really wish they would stop casting idols in JBLs and KBLs. They can't all act, and evidently they have a problem with filming intimate scenes. I don't know about you all, but everytime they "kissed", I cringed. They barely opened their mouths, and it never felt natural.
5. "But we're both men." Really? In a show set in 2019? The writers should watch Smells Like Green Spirit.
This review is dedicated to jpny01, the final word and authority on all things BL.
Reader's Digest:
DO SAY: Sweet Bird of Youth
DON'T SAY: The Young and the Restless
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Ossan's Lost: A Dissent
The following is a FaceTime conversation between me and my friend Apichatpong, who prefers to go by Chat, because he believes in nominative determinism. We often watch BLs together.CHAT: Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!
ME: So you gave it a go then?
CHAT: Yes.
ME: And?
CHAT: I threw my laptop out of the window.
ME: That would have been impressive if you didn’t live on the ground floor.
CHAT: Well, you know me. This laptop means more to me than my own mother.
ME: Okay, let's pivot. You sound upset, my dear.
CHAT: I’m livid. So livid, in fact, that I want to go home to Bangkok and shut down GMMTV.
ME: Do you want to get us murdered? People have been doxxed for less.
CHAT: I don’t care any more. There’s no meaning to life.
ME (laughing): It wasn’t that bad, come on.
CHAT: I suppose you've forgotten the original. But then, you also have no taste. I don’t know which is more to blame.
ME: Well, I can see what sort of mood you’re in. What are you so angry about?
CHAT: What is there to be happy about? This show is an absolute trainwreck, one that leaves mutilated corpses in its wake. Just... why??????? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?
(CHAT opens the door to his garden dramatically and declaims.)
People of Thailand… Listen to me. Don’t let them get away with this. You are better than this. You are better than this abomination of a show.
ME (laughing): Melodramatic? You? Never!
CHAT (coming back in): Lou, you know how much I love the original. I resisted it for a long time, but I was so glad I watched it in the end. It was a wonderful, if uneven show, genuinely funny, full of heart, and it had a huge impact on me. Hell, it had a huge impact in Japan. Haruko and Maki’s wedding was broadcast on the public squares of Shinjiku, and…
ME: Why are you talking like you host a podcast with a weeb?
CHAT: At least it’s not a true crime podcast. But mate, this show... this show is the opposite. It is regressive, it is stupid, and it is not funny.
ME: Yes, you famously love your country's sense of humour.
CHAT: But I do! I watched all of RakDiao. Do I not deserve a fucking medal for that?
ME: You’re not making the compelling case you think you are.
CHAT: I don't care… This show takes everything that made the original tick, and jettisons it. And in its place has added a host of things that has already made it, for me, unwatchable.
ME: I know I shouldn't, but go on.
CHAT: Okay, TED Talk mode activated. Soz babe. (Clearing his throat.) The original worked because of three things. One, it is primarily about an old man’s love. But the fact that he is old, or Haruta’s boss, is not the source of the humour. Nor is his attractiveness. Unlike in this atrocity, Kurosawa is distinctly unattractive, something he is blissfully unaware of. In the end, the show was about what it means to start again, in middle age, as an Ossan, after being married to a woman for decades. Only this time he has to begin again with a man. Kurosawa was starting over twice, and he was clueless and hapless and hopeless at it. That’s what makes it funny, and poignant. But what do we have here? A very attractive older man, whose wife has already died, which removes all that inward conflict, and which leaves his character toothless by default. And a satire has no bite when its protagonists have no teeth.
ME: Wait. Two points before you continue. One, a lot of people on MDL say that the last premise no longer works because Thailand has equal marriage…
CHAT: Oh bollocks. As if older gay men in Britain and America are not still trapped in unhappy marriages or do not come out in their 50s. When did Phillip Schofield come out?
ME: True. But tell me this, why should the original OL should be the point of comparison here? After all, we adapt from books, remake shows and films, all with little fidelity to the original, so why should you base your opinion now on the Japanese version?
CHAT: I don’t claim that one *ought* to compare it to the original. I’m merely using the original as a point of departure to say why this version is insubstantial and, so to speak, po-faced, in a way that the original wasn't. And no, it doesn't come down to cultural differences either. That's a lazy, and frankly objectionable argument. You found Rak Diao funny, didn't you? Of what hindrance was “your” culture to its appreciation? To say something is enjoyable or not because of cultural relativism is as much an insult to your intelligence as it is to that culture on behalf of which these people purport to argue. Besides, your objection would be justified if I expected viewers to know the plot from the original. I don't. But comparing one adaptation with another is a legitimate enterprise, and I think it enriches our understanding of a show, not detract from it.
ME: Hmmm. Go on, Prof Dumbledore. On to your second point.
CHAT: Yes. But before that, what I said about Ossan also applies to Haruta/Momo. Look at Earth. I know you don’t fancy him…
ME: Not with a bargepole.
CHAT: But I do. Most normal people do. He is very attractive. But Tanaka isn’t, you see. Not in the same sense. You do end up finding him attractive in the show, but he's not out there as a thirst trap from the first scene.
ME: Well, at least they cast Mix, who is as unattractive as they get… You ought to be happy about that.
CHAT: Is that a SWAT team I see outside your room? Anyway, I’m even crosser about how the women are portrayed in the show. In the original, the women were not mere fujoshis. They were not just there to scream ‘awww’ and ‘kawaiiiiiiii’. Nor were they the cock-blocking monsters that they are in most BLs. No, they were fully realised characters. Kurosawa’s wife is allowed to grieve her marriage and find her own man, and Uchida and Haruta are given the chance to explore their feelings for each other… Half the humour and half the subversiveness of the original derived from this depiction of womanhood and female sexuality. And yes, the original *was* subversive. This one has all the subversiveness of a heterosexual wedding on a beach in Bali.
ME: But how do you know that the episodes to come in the Thai version won't have anything subversive, or a fuller exploration of its female characters?
CHAT: Mate? Be serious. The first three episodes are each an hour long. Guess how many minutes were devoted to the female characters in total? Less than 5.
ME: Hmmm.
CHAT: But worry not. Instead of giving the women their due, this version has more BL bloatware than any you get with a Same-sung phone. Including, in this instance, the appearance of First and Khaotung. With whom, for the record, I'm absolutely done.
ME: As am I with Earth and Mix. Sorry.
CHAT: I mean, I don’t disagree. I think both couples need to be retired and paired with other people for their own good.
ME: Yes. Thai BL really needs to stop with this whole tradition of pairing actors for life. They are not pink flamingos, you know.
CHAT: Which brings me to the third reason. The dynamics of the love triangle. In the original, you want to root for Maki, but, for all his flaws — and he is a deeply annoying, wonderfully flawed character — it is hard not to want Kurosawa to be happy. The triangle held together because it was, if not equilateral, at least isosceles.
ME: Nerd.
CHAT: Said Dr Pot to Dr Kettle.
ME (laughing): Touché.
CHAT: How can there be the space or scope for a true love triangle here, when there is already a pre-determined ship that has fixed the outcome in the viewer's mind, and when those of us who are tired of that coupling actively don’t want Earth to be Mix-ed.
ME: Yuck.
CHAT: Thank you. Earth does do his best with his gesticulations, and Krit, having pedigree, has clearly studied the original. (For the record, I do like Krit.) But then, there’s Marble Face, who's proof positive that botulinum is as toxic to acting as it is to the face. And then the damp cloth of a script. Which no amount of good acting can ignite.
ME: All fair enough. But to quote my nephew, “Why so salty, bruh?”
CHAT: Well, can I quote your own words?
ME: I wish you wouldn’t.
CHAT (imitating me): “Or, you know, just stop. The “market”, unlike colour in Japanese cinematography, is saturated enough as it is. We have the Thai BL meat factory releasing a bodice-ripper every other week, but at least there the actors know how to kiss. Taiwan releases a step-brother storyline once a month to titillate us, and KBL is ever at hand to give us the white-and-blue-jacket no-kiss-guaranteed school lunch once a season. We have enough to keep us going. If you have nothing original to offer, why bother?”
ME: I see your point.
CHAT: I’m angry, because it is another product of the meat factory, as you call it. I’m angry, because it is an insult to the original. I’m angry, because all the things that were good about it are gone. I’m angry, because Thailand — even GMMTV, which is in desperate need of a hostile takeover — can do so much better. I'm angry, because time and energy and resources have been spent on this when there are better scripts and stories out there -- funnier, and richer, and livelier, and above all, about us -- that could have been told instead. Need I go on?
ME: No, but I’m absolutely certain that you have not endeared yourself to anyone on MDL. And I’m also certain that you’re going to bring me down with you. But I made a promise, and I have to keep it.
CHAT: Do. Can I just say one more thing?
ME: Yes.
CHAT: Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!
ME (laughing): By the by, I worked out what the name of your Thai BL ship would be!
CHAT: What's that?
ME: ChatBot.
CHAT: Oh, fuck off!
Reader’s Digest:
DO SAY: Earth, Wind and Fire
DON’T SAY: Lost in Translation
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