Atmospheric and ambitious modern dark fairytale

Singto and Fiat are the acting standouts with Singto carrying the whole show wonderfully as Dan and Fiat as Trin who is Dan's opposite and parallel. It's so fascinating that they set the Catholic side as the scientific sceptic against the Buddhist side with the practical solutions to Dan's supernatural issues. There is also the shaman that takes no one's side. The Catholic boarding school lends to the gothic imagery and the color grading is nicely done with care, with skin tone and clothes popping over the gray instead of just a bland gray wash over everything. The music is also very good, the mdl credits list the actor who plays the murderous bully Anan doing double duty as the composer as well. The opening credits is stylish and fun to watch before every episode. The slow burn nature of the story works best when the editing is strong, with the ghosts shown in restraint, their ability to commune directly with Dan limited. I also like how Dan and Nai's ability to see the supernatural is different. It slips during the over long fun house segment that spans the end of one episode and the beginning of another. Other weak moments of the story is Nai never reporting the pedo teacher Yada who has been having sexual relations with Anan, merely using the photo evidence luring him into the funhouse that lead to nothing but him attacking Dan for the billionth time and the whole plot with brother Anurak being the one armed man. Brother Anurak's was innocent regarding the university student's deaths in the past but acting really shady and keeping the student's remains inside the statue pedestal. What was well done was hiding in plain sight that Brother Anurak had a hand cast the whole time.

The story is not a bl, but does have gay characters. The romance is limited to the messy crushes among the four friends. Both Nai and Chaaim likes Dan, but Dan rebuffs both. Nai is lucky to get a dance date from Dan though while Chaaim settles for shady Josh who will smack talk Dan at a drop of a hat. Dan meanwhile does like her, but as much as he likes the creepy shadow creature. Though fearing it for much of his life, the increasing power of the shadow to manipulate what he sees in dreams made Dan see it as more of a comforting presence. The scene where he decide to hug the shadow was a fascinating moment. Then soon after the shadow makes it really weird, taking advantage of Dan physically for the first time when he's high, then again in the middle of the school day when Dan is just not feeling well. It's mirrored by how teacher Yada takes advantage of Anan. At the very end it's revealed that his terrible father made a deal with the forest spirit who is the shadow to have Dan in order to keep his abused wife with him. The shadow seems want Dan to itself like Hades wants Persephone. The solid form of the shadow didn't really work, probably would have been better just as a shadow the whole time. As soon as Dan started speaking in a deeper voice, I knew that it was Trin in Dan's body, then doubly so at his joy to see teacher Joe drop by. Teacher Joe was the only authority figure he didn't have an issue with, but unfortunately was an adult he had a huge crush on. It's a low bar that it's commendable that Teacher Joe turned him down.

The open ending with Trin's body reappearing and having drowned for a few days makes it possible that either Dan is still trapped separately in the other realm or Dan had also returned in the wrong body in the middle of the lake and drowned to death, with Trin living on in Dan's visage. I felt sorry for Trin who didn't have people looking for him in the way that Dan has even though he's surrounded by the same people. Trin doesn't accept that status quo for what it is and looks beyond it and he tries befriend and defend people that are picked on. He managed to encourage fellow students to be curious in history and question the teachers on why they aren't teaching them something that is common in books and at other schools. I really like the scenes where Trin and Brother Anurak actually has productive conversations about what Trin is advocating for and why it doesn't work like the bathroom improvement issue. It shows Trin is still naive to things from his youth. He gets understandably overwhelmed by seeing the shadow in the second part of the ritual. Fiat played Trin's strength and vulnerable moments really well. The final scene of Trin smiling in the mirror reminds me of the Twin Peaks "How's Annie?" moment. He looks sad though in the final seconds. I hope Singto signed an excellent contract with his return to his former management company and a season 2 of Shadow can happen. There's is so much potential of Dan and Trin actually interacting in regards to their ideals and other things.

Overall a good watch and I hope there will be more to continue it. Otherwise the ending it still works as a dark fairytale, where the terror of the supernatural is but a symptom of the horror of what humans do to each other in life.

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The execution is not the scandalous nature the premise suggests

The way that Milk and Choco's respective cat and dog personalities are translated very well into their human forms. I really like how it's just the particular fixations like they way they stare at Jung Woo or like to play with strings that are kept rather than moving around on all fours, meowing, and barking like other stories do. They are in human bodies, grown adults, and fully articulate and understanding of the culture and has understandings of human social norms which Milk is way better at following than Choco in certain situations. The longer they are in the human realm and as they are more acclimated as individual human beings, only then do they start developing feelings towards their respective love interests other than what they had as pets.

It's really great to see Yeon Seung Ho appear as a guest star. He was one of the leads of Strongberry's Long Time No See, their action romance drama, their strongest and my favorite of their productions to date. It's one of the OG korean bl dramas with a positive ending as they are today, a huge turning point that deserves more recognition.

Though the episodes are short, the pacing of the scenes are a bit slow. The stakes could have been explained a bit better, like what exactly does "disappearing" consist of, does it mean their souls will disintegrate forever? How do they know they had 50 days on earth? At first I thought they were rounding up from 49 days, but then they come back for double the amount of days. I feel like the ending was fine as it is for this story, though if there's a season 2, it would be nice if they could elaborate clearer on for what the stakes that Milk and Choco are dealing with.

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Uneven quality but still interesting

It's really cool to see a story that utilizes Thai mythology, the action scenes are well done, the visual effects look good, the leads playing Phaya and Tharn are good, and the supporting role Yai is effective at both comic relief and serious scenes when needed. The Yai hand heart scene with him accidentally interrupting the two diver's conversation is the most hilarious scene of the series.

The pacing of the scenes are a bit slow and the writing introduces a lot of story beats but they disappear abruptly or is explained as something that happened off screen, like whole Montree storyline, Mayris disappears, Chart never getting mentioned after he ended up in the hospital after blowing his cover trying to help them, and the worst instance is the ending where instead of seeing Tharn and Chalothon's discussion, it's just quickly explained away by a Tharn who suddenly reappears. We don't get to see him reuniting with everyone else who has been looking for him and how the conversation went for the whole IDF to be on board with Tharn is missing because of being taken by supernatural forces. As elite officers, Phaya and Tharn aren't very professional a lot of the times. Phaya is also the worst at explaining why he finds someone shady, which is a crucial ability in his line of work. He was also cognizant when drunk Tharn mentioned the amulet, but he just totally forgets about it by the time he goes to the temple. Then there is an epilogue that seemed to be setting up for a 2nd season, but is actually for a special episode for a paywall live in person event.

I appreciate the ambition of the show. It would have been nice if the script was further polished and there was either more episodes or runtime to flesh out certain story points or shaved some off to film some important missing ones. Overall, it's still worth a one time watch.

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Excellent

For those unfamiliar with kdrama, 16 episodes is the typical episode order of Korea tv dramas, so both parts of The Glory is part of the same series/season and one continuous story arc rather than being two separate seasons. The writer is a veteran of addictive hits that are hits and misses in terms of quality for me personally, but The Glory is an objective masterpiece. I wouldn't call it a fun watch considering the painful subject matter, but it is a most cathartic one. The acting is wonderfully led by Song Hye Gyo in her best work to date along with the writer and wonderfully supported by Lee Do Hyun who is Netflix's Sweet Home alum, and all of the support cast on either sides of the revenge accomplice and bully spectrums.

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Watchable mixed-bag and signals

I enjoyed how the different focuses of each story flowed from one to the other, but the pacing was all over the place. I liked how certain actors in the main pov role were giving a chance to play against the their usual typecast parts and that the main characters being in the wrong is actually shown as being so, whether the respective actor was able to carry the screen time with their acting though is different per case. For a show that sets itself up to show the underbelly of the industry, it doesn't really do much of that aside from showing Pan being sold by his manager to creeps. Most of the storylines involve actors being ruthless to get their time in the limelight rather than the larger systemic issues. Even when the show mentions other issues in the industries like how it's reliant on nc scenes and "service", the show merely lampshades but doesn't have anything in particular to say about it since the show itself is complicit. It literally asks questions it doesn't really answer in form of their own gossip girl type social media account that's featured throughout. There were also fangirl inserts in the form of two characters. The writing for the live comments from both Thai and international fans were eerily spot on and added well to the tension of the scene as you tried to read the reactions and watch the scene at the same time. It was one of the most well done of this kind of storytelling device I've seen so far, so kudos to the show for that. Some of the twitter trends featured were pretty fun to see like how the changed up the names of real people and events that trended regularly in Thailand like dogexpo7 instead of catexpo9. The actor First again is the stand out of War of Y as he was in Y Destiny and props to Toru as well. Both of them carry zero ego when it comes to acting and are fully committed on top of being actually very good at it which made their storyline the most enjoyable to watch. All of the main pov characters are unlikeable though humanized and Achi was the one who got away with the least comeuppance, which is ironic considering how he complained about how Peek was getting that special treatment in Y Idol. Achi is also a rich kid with a nepo safety job waiting for him for insult on top of injury. First really did an amazing job to make Achi bearable to watch. I liked that none of the couples end up happily together. The ultimate winner and this series' gossip girl, ends up to be none of the featured pov characters, but P. Attichon who seems to have some weird unresolved negative tension between him and the actor he's shipped with, but it's never addressed and he unveals his new series about marriage equality as well showing how he uses his social media savvy to stay on the pulse of what audiences want. Overall I appreciated the effort to do something out of the norm even though the delivery didn't exactly come through, it's still more watchable than most other current Thai bl offerings around the time of it's airing.

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A mixed bag with a rewarding bright gem in the midst

Y Destiny varies wildly in quality like a lot of anthology type storytelling, there are many lows, but their high point is well executed artistry. The Kaeng and Puth storyline in Eps 9 & 10 that's wrapped up in ep 15 and their own special 10 minute epilogue is stunningly compelling. I would also suggest watching their scenes as supporting roles in episode 5 & 6 for a extra context of their state of minds as well as their Dear Friend cover music video done in character that's a beautifully aching encapsulation of the relationship.

Though I would rate the show at a 5 and the Kaeng Puth storyline separately at a 9, there are things I liked about the show such as the conceit of having the characters take turn being supporting characters does add additional dimension to them outside of what he see when they are in their romance plots and seeing events from a slightly different point of view as a when scenes from one story happens before or concurrently as a plot point from another story. The contrast of genre tones of the other couples worked well to compound to tragic reality at one point in the KaengPuth storyline in particular. I really enjoyed the styling, such as the creative take on the university uniform for both the general one everyone wears to the personalized takes the characters have and their personal wardrobe and color schemes also feel intentional and adds to the characterization. The use of flashbacks of new scenes to add additional information is also efficient to add more development in the limited episode time.

A review of each storyline on their own before the strongest one:

Tue Ake Ep 1 & 2 The key part of portraying them growing feelings for each other was a miss in all departments.

Nuea Sun EP 3 & 4 features actors Max and Nat switching up their dynamic with Nat playing the confident one and Max playing the cute one works really well.

Team Mon Ep 5 & 6 On it's own it's about a naïve freshman being having his emotions played with for a game by a older Scorer, which also sets up the complications for Kaeng and Puth later.

Thur Pao/Pae Ep 7 & 8 is where supernatural and magical elements are introduced as being real in this world. It almost gave Thur a bit more complexity as a character, but it didn't and the way he is both meeting and reuniting with Pae has no impact because he's a totally different person in life than he is in death, they didn't lay any connection to make it a meaningful story.

Sat Choke Eps 11 & 12 A magical realism episode with time travel through that's inspired by 13 going on 30 expect this is 11 going on 18, which gives very disturbing feelings while watching this 11 year old in a adult body doing adult things.

Masuk Tir & Jia Eps 13 & 14 The final story was a swing and a miss. I understand the intention of a moving portrayal of handling grief, the but the execution was atrociously done. It was also a missed opportunity they didn't bother continuing with or building on any of the set up about spirits and the spirit world that was introduced in Thur's story.

Kaeng Puth Eps 9 & 10 They have the heaviest relationship development despite the friends with benefits set up. The storyline is incredibly well acted by respective actors who are refreshingly committed to their characters without any personal ego and has the skills to to disappear into them on screen. 10 out of 10 score just for them. Extra shoutout to First who was just 18 or 19, not many actors his age has the capability. The storyline is intense, mature, and realistic, not just in terms of the sexuality that is depicted but the layered emotions and the complexities of the relationship . Their story has the most build up from the sidelines of the other stories, particularly Mon's where their appearances inform the history of their story. There are so many intricately placed meaningful details of the story that span from their support appearances, to their main episodes, show finale, and their epilogue that totally respects the audience's intelligence, which is good writing, well directed, and edited as well. The whole KaengPuth storyline is the very rewatchable and worth revisiting.

In a show with ghosts and time travel, the most compelling story is of the complexities of human relationships.

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Another exploitative teen drama

This drama has explicit, gratuitous, graphic sex scenes of characters that are supposed to be minors, so it exploits the image of school girls in the guise of illuminating issues that the oppressed students face. Similar to Euphoria, it's pretty unnecessary to show so much, especially what the teacher does to that student. Also, that relationship only ends when the student finds out he has a fiance rather than he's a 30 year old teacher and she's a high schooler. The show doesn't draw the line between sexualizing minors and championing the youths be allowed to explore their sexuality. I do find it interesting that the main character challenges the rules of a private school that are not beholden to the government oversight that public schools are. It's basically instituting abstinence only, specifically for cis hetero students under the language of "no dating." The issue is that students will do it any way without any knowledge of contraception or protection against STDs. The ban only makes sex seem even more important in the kid's minds as the ultimate thing they can do to show how they feel about each other, like what happens to the main characters. As well as turning it into a police state making students report each other, even when they are outside of school grounds. Expulsions won't protect the girls. It was unpleasant to see some of the narcs just get away with ruining another classmate's life. The lesbian character should have apologized to both of the gay students she outed just because they weren't expelled due to homophobia excluding them from the abstinence no dating ban. Stalker incel Kanda doesn't even apologize to Ichika. It's not clear if she knows he narced on her as LK. Ryogo knows he narced and that he likes Ichika. Dude just ignores all the red flags of that guy obsessed with his girlfriend. Ms. Shinoda is really, borderline indulging the affections of the high schooler infatuated with her. It's unclear if she quit or got fired for testifying, but it's probably good she left that kid's orbit though she was the best faculty member on that campus. The school is such a messed up situation that Ichika's extortion scheme in a twisted way undermines the narcs that turned people in, and is helpful to the students reported a chance to buy their way out of being reported since Ichicka actually deletes the photos from the report site. Her mom is indeed trying her best and she is also a victim of her ex-husband, but still her daughter is totally also being harassed daily by loansharks, she can't really say she's not raising her daughter in this kind of desperate situation and at least she realizes that she's also a bit part of the problem having her daughter go to a private school when it's difficult to pull together the funds for it to begin with. The loanshark issue kind of just randomly disappeared with the ex popping up to take care of it. Ichika carried so much of it. It's also weird that all the high schoolers would turn over their phone to the faculty to look through. These kids need to learn to put passwords on their phone and passwords that are not fingerprint or face recognition and turn off the phone to be safe too. Also don't admit to anything. The rich kids should have lawyered up.

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Vibe killed by overlong episodes and inflated runtime

Bae Seok Ryu and Choi Seung Hyo are played by very pretty people, but attractiveness alone is not enough to keep to sizzle going for these characters. Their lack of romance had been drawn out for decades already in their lives up to the point the story in the show starts and continues to drag on for weeks and weeks of the 80 something minute episodes. They don't have the type of relationship with any kind of spice or sweetness to sustain interest for them as a couple that long. In the meanwhile, it's the family and family friendship lives that are explored in depth and emotions of those overshadows and engulfs all the screen time. It's relatable, but still ill balanced to the detriment of what should be the core relationship of the show. I do give the show props for the very believable reason to hide their relationship being their loving, but suffocatingly nosy collective family that will keep them on such a close watch and infantilized that they can't actually function as a couple of consenting adults. The second couple didn't take that long, but it suffers from the very odd decision the show makes to make a really weird scene where the hot, amazing, adventurous, confident paramedic Jung Mo Eum grab a drink from the shop freezer like a normal person only to have it yanked by the reporter guy who felt so entitled to take a drink out of a woman's hand. She took it first fair and square. It's nonsensical and the show builds him up as a amazing guy that would help divert traffic for the ambulance and raises his niece who is the sole survivor of his entire family dying in an accident, but that kind of rude behavior is just too off putting to over look and I want Mo Eum to just keep going on her adventures rather than to obsess about that weirdo no matter how otherwise virtuous he seems. Let her be free.

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Has both fun and substance.

I appreciate the range both the writing and acting has from lighthearted humor, sweet love, to nuanced, raw, tragic devastating emotional gut punches. Aside from the very cool stylized use of solid colors to code characters and their inner minds, that the color grading of the other scenes are not afraid of color even while illustrating this world where the characters live in the grey area of morality. The costuming is also very well done. Modern drama costuming looks so deceptively simple, but it's really not. They designed looks that fit naturally without being distracting, as well as reflecting the emotional state of the characters in the scene. All the artistic and technical aspects are done and oversaw with care from the directors/producers, the labor of love from from every cast and crew is felt from the overall quality of the work.

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Light Coming of Age

I love Kieta Hatsukoi, it's one of my top favorite shows ever, but it ends really soon into the story of the main couple. My Love Mix Up gets to explore the relationship in full and with differences that makes it stand out on it's own as an adaptation. This is in reference just to the two shows, not to do with the manga at all. Both Atom and Kongthap learn to grow as people through their relationship with each other. Their mile stones of physical intimacy like holding hands and kissing are so sweet. The parts that I dreaded the most, but turned out to be a very memorable subversions was the classmates doing the play and especially the teacher. In the Japanese version it was a homophobic teacher, but in the Thai version, the teacher turned out to be also gay and both he and his boyfriend become mentor figures. It's so moving to see an elder queer mentors help Atom and Kongthap how to navigate being queer in a world that's definitely not always friendly. The mothers being so supportive and loving to their sons is so heartening as well.

I didn't like Mudmee's storyline. It's the same in both the Japanese and Thai versions. I don't think violence is funny or warranted in the context of any of the situations shown. Her strength is a funny gag, but not when it's to physically assault someone who did not do anything to deserve it.

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Boring Cubed

Normally I would be all for all three characters just dating each other, but both Misaki and Yuki are the blandest people and Shuhei is annoying. There's no romantic spark or tension between the three of them. Misaki shows more spark and happiness with her friends and even her frenemy, until that guy she also has no chemistry with hits on her anyways. The show has a short runtime, but the 10 episodes feels like it drags on forever until they FINALLY divorce and cut to black with Yuki still having zero attraction to Misaki even though she's interested in joining what Yuki wants to do with Shuhei.

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