Cityboy_Log (2023)

Volume 3 rant...

This review is just for volume 3.

Needless to say, everyone is giving them a lot of "strong feedbacks" after volume 3. But I don't want them to take the wrong message. Instead of jumping to thinking about "what BL fans like/dislike", I think there are some fundamental storytelling and character building issues that they need to sort out first. Hence, I wrote this review to rant and list out my grievances about volume 3.

1. The lack of explanations. They could get away with not explaining the bathroom thing back then because, in the grand scheme of things, it was just a small part of volume 1&2. But here, Jaejun-Yunje relationship is THE plot. Not explaining it is like a detective story that doesn't explain how the murder was done.

2. Related but slightly different to point #1. Jaejun's behaviors, frankly speaking, don't make sense. And in order to make sense of it, we need him to explain what he's thinking. But he doesn't. We know very little about his intention. Is he willfully cheating, or is he just that naive/dumb? Who knows?

Even if he's conflicted about his own thoughts, he could've said something like, "I know I love Jihan, but then, why does my heart skip a beat when Yunje got close?". See, that'd be an understandable confusion for someone new to love (though not necessarily justify what he did). When he did and said all that contradictory things, we need to know his state-of-mind, so that at least we could understand his humanness. Right now, all we could do is make assumptions about his character, without learning his perspective.

This is probably the biggest problem in this volume, and the one that makes me wonder whether the writer actually understood the characters, or just made them do whatever the drama needed them to do regardless of common sense.

3. Looking back, that forest not-kiss was... "clickbait-y", for a lack of better word. Not only unexplained, it was unnecessary too. We could tell that Yunje is attracted to Jaejun even without that. So what was that for?

4. Pacing issue. Things escalated and de-escalated way too quickly. Though I think that forest not-kiss shares the most blame for the quick escalation. That's the moment everyone went on high alert, and by then it was still episode 2. If Jaejun had just fallen asleep on Yunje's shoulder, for example, it would've been a smoother escalation toward the ice cream almost-kiss. As for the quick de-escalation, the not explaining things is to blame for that.

5. And finally, all that just to end up where they started. We don't know if Jaejun actually learned anything, because, again, he didn't explain anything. Some people think/wish that they would continue this storyline in vol 4, but I'm skeptical. It seems that Jaejun has moved on completely, and if he hasn't, it'd make his refusal to explain things even worse.


That's about everything. On the bright side, the sweet scenes are as good as ever. If you can ignore the newly-founded suspicion on Jaejun's state-of-mind, that is.

I still root for them and hope that the next volume will be better. I really want this project to be successful and long-lasting.

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"it is so bad I want to give you a 0, but that's not possible so I give you a 1"

volume 1 and 2 of this were great, minimal problems and issues with it. it got me excited and the wait for volume 3 was so long that I was so excited and full of expectations for how good it could have been...

only for volume 3 to feel like I had wasted those hours I spent watching it. it's honestly such a shame and I cannot understand how it went downhill so fast.

The cast completely changed, for seemingly no reason, so I can't even rank that high. the concept and idea for having it themed as a vlog is good, however it seems all the braincells went into that because the plot and storyline is non-existent.

the only reason the rewatch rating is a 1 is because MDL literally wouldn't let me put a 0. the first two volumes aren't exactly rewatchable in my opinion, but they are good. volume 3? absolutely not. 0. all the way.

I used to be such a big advocate for this series, and I usually like to preach about finishing a series all the way through before rating it (all seasons etc etc), but this is just ridiculous, especially the final episode of volume three. I truly cannot fathom how this has crumbled so badly. it makes sense that the writers aren't listed here otherwise they'd be getting so much backlash for this dumpster fire of a series. (MDL also doesn't have the full cast listed, no director, no nothing. honestly what is even going on?)

watch volume 1 and 2, but 3? absolutely not. dropping this because I see absolutely no future for this show. if volume 4/5 do come to fruition, and somehow manage to improve on volume 3, I may return to change my overall rating. but right now? with what we have seen? ridiculous.

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