Acquaintances to friends through panic

Kota has always had bad luck. At the university he notices Naoya who seems to have extraordinarily good luck. Moreover when Kota is next to him his bad luck disappears. So one day he approaches Naoya with an offer of friendship but it is badly phrased and Naoya accepts to be his boyfriend. From that moment on, Kota is in eternal panic mode, jumpy and incapable to deal with the consequences.

I usually drop manga adaptation when they look too much like an anime and not enough like a live drama. I dropped this one halfway through the second episode (when he got all wrapped in yarn!!) but chose to pick it up in order to complete a challenge.

And let me tell you what a challenge it's been to finish this drama.

Kota is a very unlikable character. Immature and silly. He was formed by his relentless bad luck from childhood so he avoids having friends. Pretending to be interested in Naoya is too much for his feeble character: he misunderstands Naoya's every word and action. We are privy to his innermost thoughts as he is narrating it but what we get is panic. His every reaction is panic. His every thought is panic. He is jumpy, hugging the walls and trying to keep low profile. (though his very attempts to be invisible are so conspicuous! go figure!). He is afraid of contact and he does not know or want to respond to Naoya's affections. He's a typical victorian virgin. In 21st century! I found Kota extremely annoying. Even his evolution towards the end, is not really convincing: I think he cares for Naoya but more like a friend than a lover.
Naoya, on the other hand, had been blessed with good luck he decided to use for good, be nice to people but, just like Kota, he never really got close to someone. Until one day he sees Kota smiling and falls for him. I could believe that. Someone's sunny smile can make a person happy. Is it love? Probably on Naoya's part since he already knew he was attracted to men. He was so deeply taken that he chose to ignore Kota strange 'manga anime) behaviour.

Their relationship is more of a bromance than a bl romance. Kota is never, not even in the end, at ease with physical closeness.

So the romance is really not good. What is good here are some side characters: group of gossiping girls Kota listens into, psychology classes in an open circular classroom (well done stage manager!), Naoya's friends who are underused. What is surprisingly missing here are a number of tropes (childhood relationship, crazy ex etc.) which makes this a rather refreshing watch.

I was right to drop this initially and only the actor laying Naoya made me go through this annoying show. Sato Yusuke is a very talented actor who managed to portray the happy exterieur and the sad interior feelings of Naoya with a smile and a look. Amazing acting skills! The other actors are not worth mentioning because they do very little acting just by standing there and I do not want to talk about Sota Ryosuke. Actually I should, because he brought to life the most annoying character in BL since Kieta Hatsukoi. If he was supposed to be so annoying, then well done Sota. If not, well, it is a problem!

The story centers on these two characters and nothing exists outside of them: family or the society in general it is a moment in time in a microcosme where there is no prejudice!

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Butterfly inducing attraction

Well, I loved it! For the first time in a very long time, I felt butterflies while watching the interactions between the leads.

A Familiar Stranger is first and foremost a romance having as the backdrop a power fight for throne with a touch of fantasy. The main character is Shi Qi, a painter looking for her long lost sister. The prime minister's daughter, who is soon to be married, asks her to come and paint for her in exchange for information on her sister's whereabouts. But she uses this occasion to change faces with the painter (important: not bodies!) who marries the general in pm daughter's stead. The general turns out to be the painter's first love and he finds her oddly familiar even though he'd never met the pm's daughter before.

This sounds a bit complicated: it is simpler when you watch it!

The story flows seamlessly for this type of drama: which is usually a bit rushed and stilted. No such problems here! The story take the time it needs to develop, and since it is short, there are no unnecessary side characters (the blessing of short c dramas!). The characters are mostly down to earth, human if you like! The painter is a smart, strong woman. The general is a good man who thinks, the prince is evil enough not to be a caricature, the pm's daughter is just someone trying to be happy. No one is perfect, they all have flaws which makes them real.

The two main actresses were amazing: going from one character to another smoothly and managing to show their character traits with the minute facial expressions. The actors playing the villains excelled as well at portraying the human side behind the evil deeds so one just can't help but feel sorry for them in spite of all the horrible things they do.

The love story is the center of this drama. The general and the painter recognize each other but one finds it hard to believe his eyes and the other is blackmailed into keeping it a secret. So they dance around each other succumbing to attraction and falling deeper and deeper in love. As I said, this was really butterfly inducing chemistry.....

The production was lush and rich and windy, mostly white: all those drapes floating in the wind artistically hiding the characters. The shots of rain and the final scene in the snow were just beautiful. The music was nice. The only thing that bothered me was the way they spoke most of the time: whispering, soundless and breathless voices.

I cannot recommend this enough! Go watch it! I haven't seen many short c dramas, but this one is definitely one of the best considering high production values, talented actors and a screenplay that makes sense within the genre!

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Lift the veil

Veils is a short movie about two women in a relationship who would like to have proof of their commitment to each other in a form of wedding photos. They have trouble finding LGBT friendly photo studio and those they do find offer single photos. While one of the women would like to drop it , the other one is fed up with the sort the japanese society leaves to them and decides to complain. And it works and they have their wedding photos taken.

This was a nice short movie about ordinary people facing daily challenges because of who they are. They are both more or less closeted: one does not dare come out to her parents and the other is reluctant to talk in public about her partner. But that is the result of deeply rooted cultural prejudices, as far as I know. Even though marketing yourself as LGBT friendly commerce (photo studio) is good selling point in today's more tolerant and open societies, there is usually nothing behind it, as the women find out. To bring the change about in a society, one needs to be willing to fight for one's convictions. And that's what they end up doing. By taking photos in wedding dresses, the women wanted to lift the veil off of their own relationship.

The movie is a slice of life kind, where we find out a lot about the characters through conversation and simple remarks and glances. It was well produces, though toned down colours and shaky cameras are things y=they could have done without.

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Timeless

TRIGGER WARNING: People smoking a lot. And inside!

I loved this. In spite of it being 15 years old, it still looks fresh.

This is a kind of omnibus drama, stories about different people loosely connected. And in this case, the connection is the restaurant that is open from midnight to dawn! The restaurant owner just sits there smoking when he is not cooking and listens to his customers lives without interfering. We do not know anything about him. Not even his name: everyone just calls him Master!

Each episode deals with a customer's problem: love, parents, friendship, children, jobs. Master is there to give them their comfort food and listen.

I love this kind of dramas so I enjoyed it a lot. The stories are told in short 25min episodes but are completed, sometimes there are even time skips (months, weeks) but this is not an artificial passing of time (for the dramatic effect) but it is life: the characters needed that time to show us how their stories were going to finally turn out (an actress needed to complete the movie for example!).

The cinematography is amazing: shots of Tokyo at night, the bustling streets give way to a small alley. The music is amazing: I do not know anything about japanese music but in any case this is not pop music.

People are lovely and what every one of us needs is a plate of comfort food and a friendly non judgemental ear. And that is what this Midnight diner provides for its customers. Warm and welcoming.

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Cinderella....again?!?!?

Yes it is a timeless story! No matter how many times they remake it, how many different variations they manage to come up with, I am going to lap it all up and ask for more!
Actually, I dropped this after the first episode: I really did not like the female lead actress. No, I really did not like any of the actors because they look too old as teenagers. But eventually, since ALL of the actors looked too old, I got used it and did not mind it at all.Still I took me about a month to pick this up again. And I binge watched it overnight: episodes are short so it is an easy watch.
Ugly duckling in school, Hagino adult has become a beautiful woman and a make up expert thanks to being cruelly rejected by her highschool crush. Angry, after a fight with her best friend, she tears a photograph of them together and is transported to time when the photo is taken. She realizes she had become a teen again but kept her adult knowledge which she uses to become a swan and have her crush fall for her.
Time slip is one of my favourite tropes. The reason for the time slip was a curse put on her by a jealous other best freind of her best friend.
Here it is used to show the FL that her extreme shyness is not wrong and that people can actually SEE her behind the mask she wears. Beauty is only skin deep and real friends and lovers see beyond that. In the beginning she wanted to hold on to her newfound high school popularity but eventually came to understand that she was cheating and that all her life experiences had made her the person she's showing to her high school friends. And even though her friends and her crush did not want her to leave, she explained her reasoning to them.
The pace of the drama was changing all the time: sometimes very slow and repetitive then too rushed towards the ending. I felt like there were two episodes too many in the first helf and an episode missing in the end.
The main couple had decent chemistry and they were quite cute together. The best friend was a bit disconcerting: she wore a happy go lucky face at all occasion but it was obvious she had deep wounds she was hiding and did not know how to deal with them but avoid them!
This turned out to be a decent watch, not too complicated and charming with lovely music.

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Attraction and....

....temptation. This is the term missing from the title. They are two sides of the same coin as this short movie shows.

There are two parallel stories in this shor movie that join in the end.
The first one is about an army sergeant who has a crush on his kind superior and even though he wants to tell him, he is confused by that kindness ,not knowing how to interpret it, so he loses his courage and says nothing.
The other story is about a female office worker who is having a fling with her married coworker.

Attraction is an amazingly well told and filmed story describing how difficult it is to reveal one's feelings or resist the temptation of acting on attraction. They also point out the difference in straight and gay attractions, because and in spite of our societies making huge advances, the straight relationship is still the norm and it is easier to act upon it and succumb to temptation. The soldier, in addition to being a man is in the Army where the hierarchy and obeissance are the rule so coming out to his superior has added difficulties. He was brave enough to approach him at the train station but was eventually made speechless but the superior's kindness and invisible barriers.

I would love to see this develop into a longer movie. Why was he attracted to his superior? Was he having hard time in the army and grabbed onto a little bit of kindness and understanding he could find? Why was she attracted to the married man? Bored but not wanting a serious relationship? Or something else...

Maybe I am reading too much into this or maybe not enough!

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Too much romance, not enough ghosts!

I love me a good ghost story and this one had everything going on for it. So why did it turn out so bad?

Kevin, born and raised in the US comes to visit his aunt and cousins in Thailand and do some ghost hunting while there. He falls for her aunts handyman. Lots of fluss ensues. And a little bit of angst. But then they reconcile...

It starts really well, with a minor mystery but it is unfortunately abandoned by the episode 4 and after that we only get the usual romance with the usual problems and misunderstandings.

The title is a bit cryptic but everything is explained by the end of the first episode: the aunt and her family have been ghosts for about a month before Kevin arrived but nobody seems to know that (how come!). The unfinished business kept them from passing on. They were the most interesting characters of the lot.

Kevin and Pleum, the handyman, got together fairly quickly for a drama: they were sleeping together from the ep.4. I have to give it to the actors, their chemistry was good and they were really at ease with each other. The skinship scenes were some of the best I have ever seen in a BL; filmed in soft light and well choreographed. After they got together the focus of the story shifted to the couple and the ghosts were left far in the background serving as means (the cousins wasting their merit points on them!) of making the lovers' relationship stronger.

As I was watching this, I kept wondering if there was anything more to this story. I was waiting for a big twist, something along the lines: one of the boys is a ghost but does not know it. But no, no such surprise so the story chugged along those well known romance lines including a break up and a time skip! I did not like how they dressed Kevin: through his costumes they showed him become softer as he was getting to be more and more in love: large flowy blouses, shorts, purses while Pleum was always dressed in black. Is it really necessary to shove it in our faces top/bottom distribution of roles, in case we did not understand. At least we do not hear wife/husband in Thai bls anymore, so I guess we should thank god for small mercies!!!

And lastly, I did appreciate the fact that this was a ghost story where the ghost was not the love interest. But I would have prefered this to be more mystery than fluff orientated ghost story!

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Filmed manhua

Starting from the ridiculous and incomprehensible title,to the fortunately short episodes and the storyline adding one clishé after another ending with corny love speech, this is a mercifully short and a really fun watch!

It is the usual setting of rich CEOs and hairesses going through family dramas and fights over money and for power.

This story's only originality is the main male character who is it the wheelchair! And for once it is not presented as an ultimate tragedy. He happens to be handicapped (until the last minute when he miraculously regains his ability to walk!) but that does not mask the fact that he is smart and competent and always there when she is in a pickle! Female lead was also better than usual, not too much of a damsel in distress batting her eyelids and waiting to be saved, she was proactive and at least knew when someone was trying to take advantage of her.

Ah, the magic of manhua, the cold CEO with a hidden heart of gold wearing the ubiquitous pin striped suit (so ugly!) and the sweet cooky girl not letting anyone walk all over her and using the feminine wiles to give the bad guys their comeuppance! Every short episode seemed to be literally filmed episode of a manhua, without any special rewrite or editing involved in order to make it more palatable. But, just like mangas, I prefer reading over watching them: the things that happen in a book should be toned down for screen. Just my take on this issue!

The acting was mostly over the top, cinematography looked cheap, and sets seemed vulgar and bling bling(as in: Let me show everyone how rich I am!). And the music was a bit weird and inaudible mostly(copyright issues on youtube?).

I usually never watch c dramas: I can't stand the number of episodes but I was pleasantly surprised when I discovered these micro episodes dramas. This is the fourth one I watch, the novelty has worn off and I think this is going to be my last one. I want to stick to my principles!

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Great idea & purses

What to say about this disaster that the other 105 reviewers haven't already said?

Sometimes you need more in a drama beside cute leads, fluffy moments (ads!!!) and an idea!

Vice Versa is a bit of a convoluted, not fully thought out story of parallel universes. I love these kinds of dramas, books, movies...but here it is all undercooked and mostly left to our imagination to fill out the blanks they could not be bothered to explain. It was also very quickly obvious that the whole idea was not really sci-fi but a way to talk about soulmates. Fine, that's OK with me. I like that! But....

What I liked:
- episode titles: colours
- the original idea
- the cinematography: colour coded episodes
- Jimmy, cute as a button, carrying his heart on his sleeve
- Friends Credits
- creative way to present PPLs
and that's it!

What I did not like:
- messy storytelling
- music, annoying
- Sea's awful acting and total lack of chemistry
- gratuitous partial nudity
- man purses
- quantity of PPLs
and so much more!

Frankly I could have enjoyed this as a piece of mindless fun, if the main couple had an ounce of chemistry between them but unfortunately there was none to speak of.

Sea can't act and it was so irritating seeing him pouting and looking sideways and not knowing what to do with himself! He was also terribly written which was maybe the reason for his bad acting: his character is all over the place and mostly going with the flow without ever taking the initiative! And, I do not know what the costume designer was thinking, making him wear those purses all the time: they were ugly, unbecoming and I was so annoyed by them to the point that I only looked at them!

I was dreading the PPLs since I heard there were too many of them but I was pleasantly surprised since they were not often out of context. Though they did not manage to find realistic moments to use NIVEA or the toothpaste but the rest was not too bad!

The producers know how to pander to their viewers' expectations, so there were some really ridiculous scenes where the actors show their bare chest (waking up in the bed in the morning without a T-shirt but with shoes on!Really?!?).

All in all, this was a great idea badly executed though pretty and completely ruined by the lack of chemistry and too many purses!

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To be frank, I almost dropped this during the first episode: not another bullying series, I thought! And >>I do not like stories about bullied kids in school. There is so much such tragedies in real life: why watch a drama which does not provide a real , practical answer to the problem not the idealistic one, like here. But more about that later. Even though I wanted to drop it, I decided to finish at least the first episode at the end of which I thought I saw a huge twist. Unfortunately, I saw wrong but it made me continue watching and I actually finished it in three days!

This is a story of a teacher who wants to let the world know why one of his students killed herself and in order to achieve this, he takes a whole class hostage. Over the course of 10 days (=10 episodes), the truth slowly comes out revealing the ugliness behind the "innocent faces of children" and the "teachers' sacred mission". Spoiler alert! The kids are extremely cruel to each other, and the teachers don't give a damn!

The drama is well plotted and paced: the characters' stories and their connections with the deceased girl are revealed slowly. The suspense is palpable and the story is believable. Unfortunately everything falls apart in the idealistic and completely improbable ending: trying to speak to people's soft and reasonable side when everyone knows it is just talking in the wind. It is really silly. And even though what he says is truth, the facts are obvious, we also know that you cannot change people's base feelings, primeval instincts and insecurities and incite them to be nice to each other.

The acting is amazing with the best being, of course Suda Masaki. The rest of the cast of kids, are all pretty awesome!

The production looked a bit cheap: the camera work was really cold and clinical (digital cameras?). They probably did not have a big budget therefore the number of extras is very limited (only look at the number of parents who are there pestering the police: about 10! for 29 students? Where are the others? Calmly going about their daily life waiting for the police to free their child and send them home? As you can see this bothered me very much!!!). Another issue I have with this drama is the music. I liked it a lot but most of the time it seemed like they did not know what to do with it: they played the wrong music at the wrong time: very disconcerting! This is something I noticed in a number of j dramas, the wrong kind of music....

Apart from the disappointing ending which still managed to wrap everything nicely up, I ended up loving this series after almost dropping it, the suspense, the complicated story, the intelligent plotting. A great ride!

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Down the memory lane

Recently, my rule of thumb when rating series was whether I play mobile games while watching the series on my laptop or not and, if yes, how much do I play! Some people fast forward, I multitask! With this series I managed to avoid games until episode 4, I played for 10min and then rewatched the episode and dropped the games till it was over! I do not remember the last time I did this! This drama is a short and easy watch so dropping games must be easy, some would say! No, no,no!!! I managed to play the games through a number of Thai short movies. So....

As the series was airing, I kept reading the comments and feeds which all generally started with a highly positive notes to end up disappointed with the last episode! I do not get it! Why didn't you like this? There is a couple with amazing chemistry, some serious skinship and a compelling adult(not school!) story! So why?

Jack O'Frost tells a story of a relationship going bust and how an accident provokes a reset for it. Lack of communication, the last drop, forgotten good times...accident makes them realize what is really important and how to deal with problems; talk, talk, talk!!!

This is a beautifully filmed series: all in beige sandy colours both interiors and exteriors. The writing is superb: the story is told in flashbacks, short and to the point. Music is really nice as well though not enough to put it on my playlist. It did fit the drama but it was forgettable!

I did not quite understand the reference to Jack O'Frost a cheeky winter elf playing pranks. The story does take place in the winter and when I saw Ritsu drawing it again in the same place like in the past, I thought that they were doing "he's only pretending to have amnesia". That was just a red herring, leading the viewers down the wrong path. The story is much simpler and so much better for it!

Anyway, this slice of life romance is definitely worth your time so give it a chance!

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I have only discovered these micro web dramas and apparently there are so many of them.

I chose to watch this one because I needed something starting with Q for my Alphabet Challenge.

It was short, and therefore rushed. The concept was interesting: a modern girl dies and is sent to game set in an ancient world where she has to complete tasks in order to go back home. But instead of only becoming the empress she falls for the emperor.

There is some average acting by the entire cast and some pretty scenery and sets for the ancient China. But it looks and feels limited budget and filmed with a single digital camera!

I kept thinking of Moon Lovers while I was watching it: time travel by body swapping and meet again in present!

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Awful, just awful acting.....

Thank you HPriest for subbing this special. Your work is highly valued and appreciated!

After two joyful seasons of I Will Do Better In My Next Life, we were given this New Year's special continuing the story. The five members of Delta find themselves stuck in the office over New Year's holidays due to an unexpected late minute order. The story in itself was coherent and showed character development regarding their love life or family matters.

What ruined this special was acting: the two characters were just over the top of the highest mountain as far as overacting is concerned. Momoe was constantly grimacing, squealing, using a baby voice, moving in weird ways and making strange gestures. Hayashi, the bodybuilder was on par with Momoe: did the actors have an internal competition as to who can be worst actor?

Characters in j dramas often have this kind of manga behaviour and when I come upon it, I drop the series immediately. I stuck with this one since I saw the two previous series and wanted to see what happens next. But it was literally painful to watch these two characters moving like puppets.

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Shall we eat some ramyon...later?

When I started watching Kdramas a few years ago (thank you covid!), I was struck by the place eating and drinking take in these series: the characters eat huge amounts of food and drink until they fall into a drunken stupor! And when they emerge from it, they continue eating and drinking late at night! What was even more surprising was that no one had anything to say about the unseemly behaviour of those drunk people: often they are considered cute and people promptly fall in love with such drunks!

All The Liquors is just the same but a BL, apparently. A cold and serious chef keeps bumping into the drunken JiYu and falls for his dubious charms. THE END

JiYu is a drunk, almost an alcoholic, barely functioning during the day because he spends nights drinking himself into oblivion in order to forget that he had been dumped by his boyfriend on Christmas. Ten months on, he is still drinking heavily every day, and drunk and hungry one afternoon he stumbles into the chef's restaurant where he loses consciousness. The chef, who is very rigid and prohibits alcohol in his restaurant, in contact with JiYu changes the tune and starts admitting alcoholic beverages in his restaurant and drinking quite a bit himself.

There is nothing I liked about this drama.
I do not like the message that is behind it: if you want to enjoy your life, you need to eat and drink heavily preferably with like minded friends. Otherwise you are a weirdo!
I do not like the lack of chemistry between the leads nor the character of JiYu who is a slovenly drunk; Though there is a bit of development where he is concerned: he drinks a little bit less towards the end! With a couple of dead fish kisses and talk about rameyon!
I do not like the music: it is boring and mostly played when not needed and vice versa. And the sound recording was atrocious: you could hear the empty space of a hangar they filmed in since the echo was really bad!
I do not like the clothes they wear: all those large high rise baggy trousers and oversize shirts are not nice!

The only thing I liked about this drama is its length and that's why I finished it!

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All bow before Great Kiyoi!!!

I loved the first season! It came out about the same time as Kieta Hatsuko and while I dropped KH after the first episode, I loved My Beautiful Man. It felt real. It was painful and emotional and full of life, real life.
So I was happy to see the sequel but was quickly reluctant to watch when I kept reading reviews and comments all saying same old same old.
This is the story of Hira and Kiyoi frome high school until university graduation. Hira is a shy, self conscious and servile boy/man completely devoted to adoration of his god, his schoolmate Kiyoi, a beautiful man and an actor.Kiyoi hides feeling of insecurity behind his beauty and popularity and accepts Hiras devotion gladly. But when Hira tells him that he will never have to meet his parents, Kiyoi is deeply hurt which starts to shake their weird relationship.

While the first season focused solely on Hira and his adoration of Kiyoi, in this one we get to see lore of Kiyoi's side while he explains that he is perfectly aware of the god/subject mechanics in their relationship but answering "Creepy!" every time Hira looks adoring at him or tries to be gentle. They are both aware the situation cannot continue for much longer, unhealthy as it is but it actually takes a comment by a famous photographer who reads him perfectly, for Hira to start changing very slowly and meeting Kiyoi as equal.
The story is beautifully filmed and told but I was also extremely annoyed with Hira and his doormat attitude. Still, Kiyoi loved him just as he is for four years but is now getting more and more upset with Hira and his adoration attitude.There are only four episodes in this season taking place about 4 years after high school and each covering one season (winter, spring etc.). The actors are perfect. I loved the music and the opening credits were cool with the main cast dancing with their arms: beautiful!
It is a good short watch that I probably should rewatch soon! Waiting for the movie!!!!

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