Middle Love (2023)

Disappointing

Let’s start by saying that I read the book and loved it. my impression of the show began off with how disappointing the adaptation is. Imagine my shock when episode one they changed the entire timeline from the book. Which meant everyone’s motivations now had to be completely rewritten. Mai stayed pretty much the same but now he has a fellow intern magically show up to handle the plotline where Jade thinks Mai should pair up with Ae. and because Ae and King are no longer an integral part of the main plot they’re shunted to the side and all the friendship chemistry goes sideways.

Ae is supposed to be a quiet smart influence on Mai. Helping him along with wooing Jade. but since Jade no longer needs to misunderstand that relationship that meaning is lost.

Jade is supposed to be a “mid” character. quietly helping everyone around him yet he’s rewritten and (surely coached) to be loud and, let’s be honest, slightly annoying, instead of kind and self defeating. you get more incite into his character through his brothers conversation with Mai in the last episode than you do in the enitre series.

Honestly, I could go on for pages and pages so instead I’ll try to keep it short. I know this series suffered from a lot of changes and recasting in the beginning but instead of getting better due to the delays is seems like they ended up having too much time to make too many changes and they got lost somewhere in the middle and ended up lost out in the wilderness of story land.

in short, my suggestion is to go read the book, I enjoyed it. the adaptation should be enjoyed for purely seeing Tutor and Yim interactions. I’d suggest skipping episodes 2-4 though. Yim isn’t really allowed to have emotional range until that episode.

gosh. I’m still suffering from the disappointment.

if you want to see how adaptations should be done go watch the Thai adaptation of the Japanese BL manga Cherry Magic.

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Mosly unwatchable but with some nice moments

Perhaps there are viewers who enjoy this sort of romantic comedy/farce, but I find the main character just too pastiche in rather annoying sort of way. I couldn't take him seriously, couldn't empathize with him, and eventually just fast forwarded through a lot of his screen time. If only the character arcs had been as well defined as the abdomens on show the basic storyline might have yielded a decent series at this length, but instead we get a very jerky and episodic stream of comedic set pieces and mostly stiff dramatic acting from the support cast.
Mostly Jade needs to be more loveable. The basic story is reasonable: an otaku who is resigned to experiencing love vicariously through the friends he tries to mediate between finds someone who sees beneath the surface to find him much more attractive than he seems at first blush. But for that to work we need to see more of what actually makes Jade loveable, and we just don't see enough of that to empathize with them.
There are some nice moments and some decent acting here and there, e.g. some of the emotions shown as interactions are Rashomoned are well acted and work to some extent; or the moments Jade and Mai spend looking through Jade's sketch notebook of Jade's time with his new intern.

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PAINFUL

Absolutely terrible. This made me wanna poke my eyes out.
I was so excited to watch this. I was a fan of this couple in Cutie Pie and was hoping they would be SOMEWHAT similar to that in Middleman's Love. I really liked Jade in Bed Friend and I have no idea what happened to his character. He was the most annoying person on the planet and I hate to say that, because I like Yim very much. Tutor's character was nice as always, but I think this ship was ruined. I'm telling y'all, every minute of this was painful and cringy LOL I think I only watched till the end because I really love James. Everything about the show was poorly done. The script was terrible, the story didn't make sense, the side couple was very weak and I didn't like anyone but Uea. I like King but even he was annoying.

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Perfect series to relax and have a good time

What can I say ?
I was super excited to see this serie from the trailer and because of the previous one Bed friend, who have watched know ?.

For those that were bothered as me, because of the inner voices that we are able to hear almost all the time, in my opinion it smoothened throughout the episode.

Now about the serie... I think is mainly good and nice to watch, please keep on mind that it won't be the same as BF, as they try to explore and enlight different aspects.

I liked the performance of the character's pair portrayed by NetJames, TutorYim and LeoTai because it's presented a vision of both introverted and extroverted persons, their strugglings, behaviours and actions;

Also it's a challenge produce a serie with 8 episodes only and 3 couples, but I have to say that they made a good work, I doesn't feel like they were rushing the events ( I have seen the uncut version?) .

I got the feeling that this year Thai BL are taking to another level, challenging themselves more and more ... for the point I mentioned earlier they made a good job.

With this serie I had a really good time, a chill serie that leave a taste of happiness.

Hope that my review would be helpful?

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a little better as it went on (watch suggestions)

Overall: unless you enjoy over the top humor with a ton of comedy sound effects follow my watch suggestions. 8 episodes about 45 minutes each. Aired on Mandee Channel's YouTube (cut), GagaOOLala (cut), iQIYI (uncut) and Viki (I assume cut). Mandee Channel/Domundi also produced Naughty Babe, Bed Friend, Cutie Pie and Why R U.

Watch Suggestion (watch the cut version & play at a faster speed unless noted)
- skip episodes 1, 2 & 3 (though shirtless Mai in ep 3 is nice)
- watch ep 4
- watch ep 5 to 48min/standing on the podium
- watch the uncut version of ep 6 15-18 minutes which includes a brief kiss with the side couple (this scene was totally removed from the cut versions for some bizarre reason)
- watch the uncut version of ep 7, can start at 27 minutes with Gus/Tong or to skip over something sad that happened in the past and start at 37 minutes and end at 43 minutes, then you can watch thru to the end with Mai/Jade or skip to 1hr 4min to see their final scene
- watch the uncut version of ep 8 which has a lot of sweet moments and NSFW scenes with Mai & Jade

Content Warnings: hits played as comedy, vomiting (in uncut ep 2), molestation off screen, past death/grief

What I Liked
- enjoyed some of Uea/King's moments (like in episode 5)
- Mai's flirting (wished they had shown why he liked Jade earlier than ep 5)
- Jade's and Mai's supportive family
- cute moments
- how Jade did have agency in episode 8 and initiated things
- good consent/communication in episode 8
- that it has a wide release on 4 different platforms

Room For Improvement
- the three minutes of cringey animation didn't hook me
- Jade's exaggerated/yelling was irritating especially in the beginning episodes
- cringey editing, voice overs and comedy sound effects that didn't make anything funny
- the side couple was oddly hot and cold (note, apparently the cut version removed several of their scenes which is contributing to their confusing interactions with each other)
- not happy with the Uea/King reluctant/violent dynamic, how King was jealous/retaliatory at Uea in ep 6 for just talking to another guy
- slow pacing/repetitive, in episode 6 as an example Mai had almost a duplicate conversation with his mom
- bad decisions with what they cut, I was happy they cut the vomiting scene in episode 2 but why on earth cut an entire scene including a kiss with the side couple in episode 6??? I normally would expect a cut version to reduce a NSFW scene but there wasn't anything to cut up to episode 7 (and then they did cut the NSFW scenes in ep 7 and 8)
- the NSFW scenes were kind of choppy, one of them oddly stopped and then re-started

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trash

jade acts like a 5 year old girl in this whole series. how in hell he cannot figure out mai is the one falling for him. even a blind person can tell mai is in love with jade. we wasted 5 to 6 episodes and jade please stop screaming like a girl in your next series. we don't like it. to be honest the side couples should be in the main roles cause they act like they are in their age range like a grown adult. and of course I love to see king and uea together. and production team, stop playing the ost every 5 seconds I hate the song cause I listened the ost for a billion times.
and for the family of mai, mai's mother is so fake. I can tell she does not want mai to be gay. I can see in her eyes. I love jade's family at least they can act they are supportive to jade.
and finally this series is trash

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How sad

IQIYI and Mandee should be ashamed of themselves and the CEO's & script writers should have to give personal apologies to both Tutor & Yim. This was horrible!!!! I 1,000% percent watched it to the end because of Tutor and Yim. For fans to wait so long to be handed this pile of crap is aggravating. It has potential, especially if they hadn't made Yim's character and total freaking clueless idiot!! Had they left him the way he was in Bed Friends I feel like it would have been so much better. I'm hoping the novel isn't this bad. Anyway..
. It sucked and hopefully Tutor and Yim can bounce back because I freaking love them in everything else.

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Don't judge a book by its cover

Middleman's love is exactly like a lot of people described it. A typical office romance with a predictable storyline, obnoxious Thai humour, ridiculous characters and circumstances and a main character so extra it borders on annoying.

Or at least that's what I thought for the first 4 episodes but, DAMN.

Jade starts out as a very outgoing, meddling and to some maybe even annoying character. He's high energy and his face and voice are all over the place. He very much feels like Thai humour was just poured into a character. That is what it seemed like and that's how I expected it to stay. I didn’t think this show would ever turn into anything more than just something I could laugh at. So colour me surprised when episode 5 rolls around and they actually get into Jade's backstory.

Without spoiling anything, this show spends 4 episodes focussing on humour and the crush Mai has on Jade. But when episode 5 rolls around it actually gives all of the characters much more depth than I initially expected.

Jade isn't just obnoxious and annoying, he's hurt, self conscious and afraid of getting hurt again. Mai isn't just an emotionless man that's endlessly chasing after his crush but a guy who's trying to stay determined and both do the right thing while still honouring his own feelings.

This show doesn't deal with the endless layers of trauma that Bed Friend does, but that's not the point. It's a show about Jade, the middleman, finally getting noticed by someone and how his past and own mind desperately try to deal with the attention.

So if you're a TutorYim fan, like (or don't get angered by) Thai humour and you're looking for an easy to watch bl that still has some depth but doesn't deal with the endless layers of angst that every bl seems to have nowadays. Than Middleman's love might be for you.

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QUANDO FOI QUE O JADE FICOU TÃO CHATO?

Essa série vem logo após "Bed Friend" que é uma das minhas séries favoritas de todos os tempos mas nessa aqui a qualidade caiu muito.
Em "Bed Friend" o Jade era engraçado e inocente na medida (era até mesmo fofo), mas aqui eles exageraram demais no quesito comédia e ficou parecendo uma série infantil, você sente muita vergonha alheia em várias cenas.
Jade e Mai não funcionam pra mim, a química é baixa e eles são bem sem graça, eu estava muito mais interessada em tudo que estava acontecendo ao redor com todos os outros personagens do escritório.
Eu gostaria muito de ter visto mais do Bas, ele e seus problemas pareciam muito mais interessantes que todo o resto, e é claro que eu estava obcecada por cada migalha de King e Uea porque eu sou apaixonada por eles.
Enfim, o que segurou minha nota na média foi a comedia paralela que estava acontecendo no escritório, os personagens coadjuvantes e o carinho que eu tenho por "Bed Friend".

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Trying to put unnecessary comedy ruined the series

Sorry not sorry!!!
It was a disaster and here are some facts I think were fuel to it:

1. I couldn't concentrate in most of the episode with Jade's continuous shouting through the episode. GOD!!! It just made me super exhausted just by looking at him
2. Why make Jade's character so dumb and annoying just to introduce a comedic angle to the story(which i didn't even found funny). I haven't read the novel but wasn't Jade's character meant to be Kind and Naive. Not dumb and annoying.
3. Trying to stretch the story, by letting Jade not ignoring all the obvious flirting by Mai and still Jade trying to match him up with someone else..
4. Why KingUea are soo different here than they were in Bedfriend and had so little screentime
5. Jade character should have been given more influence of how he was the middleman and also exploring his backstory more.


I think the whole blame for this is to be given to the writers and directors. I will explain why:
It's said that an actor is a directors product. So in general there are high chances of having bad perfomance of the actors ,if the direction is bad. Well in some cases the actors are equally bad in acting as well. But this was not the case here. We have seen Tutor and Yim before, they are decent actors. I personally was cheering for them when they were given their own series as leads. They have good chemistry and are visually appealing as well.
I was left utterly disappointed .

Anyway the second couple were cute and were the only thing that made me watch the series through the end.

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