After hearing a lot about LITA I binge-watched the whole series + the special. Intrigued by how different the reactions and reviews are (most people either love or hate LITA), I decided to write a few words about the show myself. I didn’t read MAME’s novels the show’s based on nor do I think comparing the novels and the show would be useful – after all these are separate works and the show needs to stand on its own.

Plot, characters & message
The plot is basic and simple: hot faculty legend Payu seduces cute and naïve student Rain, while Payu’s rich and hot friend Prapai pursues cute and sassy student Sky. While this seems perfectly okay, the devil is in the details: Payu manipulates Rain from day one and Prapai is a stalker; neither Payu nor Prapai take no for an answer nor acknowledge any boundary or limit – they alone decide where those are and how far they will go pursuing their goals. Even when they offer support, protection, affection and love, it’s from a dominating position, exploiting Rain’s and Sky’s vulnerability and desires (in the special episode attempts are made to mask this imbalance: Rain and Sky go on a trip and “punish” their partners). There’s more disturbing behavior resulting from the above, like nonconsensual touches, kisses, spanking (although this isn’t sexual) or coercion. Many have criticized this aspect of the show, while others found it appealing and okay. In my opinion we need to separate two things: the show including characters like Payu and Prapai and their actions and the message the show sends along with it. The show has every right to include manipulative, calculating, even creepy characters, instead of clean cut, perfect human beings. I hate, however, the message sent by the show – that Payu’s and Prapai’s actions are okay and justified by their desires, feelings, (supposedly) good intentions or by how hot they are or, what’s even worse, by Rain’s and Sky’s actual feelings for the two pursuers. Take how Rain was portrayed: he starts as a closeted 19 y.o., meets Payu and is immediately smitten with him, gets aroused by Payu’s every touch and does everything to spend more time with him, doing his best to tease him and win him over. The show even disavows Rain’s objections to Payu’s forced sex attempt in episode 1 – Rain willingly climbs into Payu’s bed, falls soundly asleep and even hugs Payu lovingly. In my opinion stuff like that confused many watching the show, twisting their perception and making them color-blind to all the red flags risen by Payu’s and Prapai’s actions. Instead of punishment or at least failure the show rewards Payu and Prapai, making them the good guys; there isn’t a single line of actual, serious condemnation or disappointment uttered by Rain nor Sky towards Payu nor Prapai (even something light like “you hunted and cornered me, treated me like a trophy; you should be ashamed of yourself”), no need for forgiveness for their part misdoings – as if they did nothing wrong. That’s where the show fails completely. There’s one more issue with the Sky-Prapai storyline: Sky’s trauma. I was surprised to see a serious and heavy issue like that thrown into such a show. It wasn’t dealt with properly, sending another harmful message: that love can heal you from trauma. It can’t; therapy can.
My biggest complain regarding the plot is that the script could have avoided all of the above and still be hot and sexy. You can be seductive without being manipulative, you can pursue someone without turning into a stalker and you can definitely be strong and independent respecting boundaries set by others. The showrunners didn’t know that or didn’t care about what message they were sending.

Cast
I was impressed by how natural and laidback the performances of Boss, Noeul, Fort and Peat were – given that only the latter two had some, albeit very modest, acting experience. There’s so much banter and good chemistry between them (to no small degree thanks to both couples being very well matched) and their portrayals are very convincing. This was only helped by them not shying away from performing all the scenes filled with sexual tension or sex itself. Seems that Boss and Fort channeled a lot of their personal charm into their roles, making Payu and Prapai likeable and desirable (that’s another reason, I believe, why so many were okay with those characters and what they did). Noeul was very effective in creating a young, naïve, confused and relatable character – which was no small feat, as Noeul seems very different from Rain. Peat deserves highest praise from the principal cast, as Sky is the only somewhat developed and complicated character (compared to rather one-dimensional Payu, Rain and Prapai); also his scenes, including solo ones, were the best.
Shame that Boss, Noeul, Fort and Peat didn’t have a better script to work with. Seeing how they managed to elevate the mediocre material they got I can only say that they deserved better.

Editing, sound
The editing was at times confusing, with weird cuts and scenes disjointed, unconnected with the rest of the show and/or previous and/or next scene; order and succession of scenes seemed off a few times, as if the editing team had too little time to make an actual show out of the material shot by the crew (e.g. in episode 7 Rain is with his friends somewhere outdoors and Payu calls him to tell him he’ll pick him up; in the next scene Rain is surprised to see Payu show up there and hides from him – these two scenes contradict each other, maybe just one of them was meant to be used in the show).
Sound editing seems non-existent. No idea whether they recorded dialogues on set and didn’t redub them or what happened there but through most of the show music is to loud and distracting while dialogues are too quiet.

Impressions
I liked the show for all the right reasons: hot actors, cuteness and banter, unabashed intimacy. All of that was like sweet-sweet candy poured over everything wrong with the show; blinded by that I enjoyed myself.