The Middleman's Love (2023)

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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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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If you can handle cringe and full comedy it may be for you

Actually I find it disappointing... why? because the story have a potential, its actually unique a middleman who finally can have his own love life but suddenly it turns out boring, cringe and and not that good. Yim did a great acting in the cutie pie the series so I had an expectation here but yeah his acting was not giving... its to much actually that some of the scene was hard to watch. But if we'll talk about what is good in this series... probably the character of Tutor which really gives me a butterfly in stomach. He's so soft to Jade^^

The phasing of the story was to slow... I think the story got better in episode 6. I finished it because I really love tutoryim... but if you don't want to disappoint then maybe you can skip this series.

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If you liked Jade in the main story, you'll also warm to this series.

unfortunately, i could never really get on with jade and mai. both characters, like the story, are very flat in my opinion. king and uea's relationship is also different, more childish i would almost say, than in the main series. i think that's a shame, because i've always liked their energy a lot. But to mention a few positive aspects, I really liked the intimate conversations between king/mai and especially those between jade/uea, very believable with nice dialogue! The relationship between Tong and Gus is also great and I was surprised by the bed scenes at the end, beautifully staged, nice lighting.
to summarise, i didn't really like the show but it wasn't really bad either. unfortunately i could never really warm up to jade's character so the whole series was exhausting to watch

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The Middleman’s Love was a deal breaker

As a fan of ‘Bed Friend’ and the character Jade, I wanted to love this. In fact, I did for a little while.

Episode one was not a strong opener but I have a soft spot for cringy and slapstick comedy so it was bearable. I highly enjoyed episodes two to four, five started falling off but it was still tolerable. My biggest complaint would be the introduction of the second or even third couple if we count KingUea. This was a sequel/spin-off of the second couple from ‘Bed Friend’ so why introduce a new couple? It might be nitpicking and introducing new couples isn’t a crime but the new couple got so much screen time (I skipped most of their later parts because it was so repetitive and unattractive to watch). Their romantic relationship was also poorly developed and executed.

What the show did well:
- The comedy. It was my cup of tea and I enjoyed Yim as Jade. Some of the better execution would be when Jade was standing in front and middle while they were deciding what to eat as a group. He told everyone to come closer like he was ready to whisper, but he ended up shouting. I laughed so hard
- The consistency between Jade’s relationship with King and Uea. Jade and Uea being the lovey-dovey giggly besties is one of the better parts of the show. Jade’s constant butting heads with King was also great. I only wished his friendship with Gun was more apparent like in Bed Friends. They were inseparable at one point and in Middleman’s Love, they hardly hung out together unless it was a group/company hangout.
- Jade’s family is so precious. The introduction of his brother was funny and his sister is just a ray of sunshine.
- The shot of Jade’s family having dinner in episode 3. They shot it through the door to make it look like a live picture-perfect family. That was brilliant.
- Tutor covering Nunew’s song…OMG, can we get an official cover?

What the show didn’t do so well:
- As comedy was the baseline of this series, continuity errors and bad editing are bound to happen. But there’s only so much you can do before it becomes unforgivable. When Jade introduced the dog to Mai, there was a time when he was supposed to be squatting down beside the dog, but an editor decided to insert a blur, close up of the dog, and in the back, you can see Yim’s shoes as he walked by before they cut back to Jade still being next to the dog. That part stuck out like a sore thumb.
- I don’t know if perhaps Tutor can’t drive in real life or it was a lack of budget but every time Mai and Jade are in the car, they never move. Even when Tutor was ‘driving’ the scenery through the windows remained the same. That was awkward.
- The timeline wasn’t clear and the pacing didn’t seem to match it whatsoever
Jade’s fear of flickering lights in the daytime was never explained…
- Tong and Gus’ relationship shouldn’t have happened. Their amount of screen time didn’t contribute to the main storyline. Their personalities were also swapped halfway through the show. Gus went from a nice, friendly guy to a pouty kid who isn’t easily pleased. Tong wasn’t easily pleased or expressive but was all of a sudden very intimate and clingy. Gus’ relationship with his mother came out of nowhere and went nowhere.
- The NC scenes. Once Mai and Jade got together, they lost their spark and sweetness. The sexual tension heightened and the show attempted to become Bed Friend 2.0.
- Mai’s relationship with his family gave me mixed signals. Sometimes he'd be sweet on the phone with his mom. Other times, he seems annoyed with her. For some time it sounded like he had a falling out with his father and even brother but it was never clear. They also seemed like fine people by the finale episode.
- I'm not going to talk about Jade's uncalled-for, unexpected outburst at his family's lunch gathering because what was that? There was no build-up for that as far as I'm aware.

Though I’m happy to see Uea again, I’m glad this series only has eight episodes.
Unless you’re a fan of the actors, MaiJade, or clumsy comedy, I can’t imagine you’d enjoy this one very much.

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Just hop to episode 5

This is hard to review because I can see both what they were trying to do, and where they got lost along the way. Jade could be a bit of a buffoon who finds himself suddenly the leading man, but they went too broad and he's frequently clownish rather than a lovable fool. In the second half of the series you actually do get glimpses of what could have been - scenes where Jade is interacting with his family in particular. He's a lonely man who accepted his role as comic relief or a NPC in other people's stories. His struggle to start acknowledging he has needs and wants could be so much more. Yim did actually hit that emotional note several times, but quite late in the series.

I did like seeing King and Uea as an established couple. Uea seems like he finally feels safe with King. That makes me happy.

I'd recommend Zettai BL ni Naru Sekai VS Zettai BL ni Naritakunai Otoko instead if you want to see a NPC get a story of his own.

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Too over-the-top for my liking

While this sounds like a run-of-the-mill office romance, Middleman’s Love is, in fact, the most over-the-top show I’ve seen recently. Typical of Mandee BLs, expect off-kilter humour, absolutely ridiculous visuals and wonky sound effects all around.

I love Tutor and Yim’s cute dynamic (and great visuals!) but Mandee’s over-the-top scripting makes the story a little cringey. Some people see it as a way to evoke laughter, but this is just not really my thing.

The side couples, King and Uea (from Bed Friend) and Tong and Gus (new pairing) bring some variety but also predictability to the cadence of the show since Jade can get a little over-the-top as a character.

The censored YouTube cut, which is shorter, gives you the minimum info you would require to understand the story, but the quality of the story and the depth of the relationship development suffers quite a bit from the edit. Spicy scenes are left out (understandably so, since it’s a censored version) and some extended emotional scenes are truncated, which makes the show seem even more shallow than it actually is.

Speaking of which, the spicy scene between Mai and Jade was WACK. I wanted to bury my face in the ground from the secondhand embarrassment. Just, um, sorry, no.

Full review: https://asianblreviews.wordpress.com/2024/01/07/middlemans-love-2023-bl-review/

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"todos merecem um romance" (e os tutoryim merecem um BL melhor)

? história: o plot deseja passar a ideia de que o amor independe da maneira que um indivíduo é taxado socialmente, desde "desinteressante" a "esquisito", tendo como exemplar, jade, um homem de 28 anos com conduta extremamente infantil e imatura, o qual possui dificuldades em expressar e aceitar sentimentos, sejam próprios ou externos. mai, por outrora, é seu estagiário, a quem sempre lhe foi imposta a pressão de ser um homem "perfeito", sendo este o par romântico de jade.

os problemas dão início assim que a série abre diversas lacunas para, no final, corrê-las em meio a 8 episódios, que por sua vez, possuem diversas cenas sem agregamento com intuito humorístico, mas que somente geram uma enorme vergonha alheia vinda totalmente por parte das atitudes de jade.

assistir esse lakorn foi como aguentar uniformemente a vergonha dos episódios, para chegar no penúltimo e soltarem toda a carga com a famigerada "forte vontade de dropar" nos meus braços, junto a um drama sem sentido*, para aliviar no último episódio, com cenas fofas dos protagonistas, já como casal, e um leve amadurecimento no jade, na segunda metade do mesmo episódio (8)

sobre o "drama sem sentido", este deu a impressão de ter sido feito como qualquer clichê de romance pré adolescente, tirando o fato dos dois protagonistas terem até 28 anos de idade, sobretudo, sendo um casal homossexual dentro de uma empresa. é sem nexo quando aplicado à realidade, e poderia ter sido abordado diversos temas que preferiram somente irrelevar. porém esse é o ponto mais compreensível até então, por se tratar de um "lakorn de comédia" e irrealista.

por último, a indecisão de público alvo em faixa etária. algo comum que eu vejo acontecer em lakorns são temas tão simples sobre relacionamento e maturidade sendo tratados como tentativas de "lições de moral", nos causando a impressão de que é voltado para um público muito jovem que ainda tem dificuldade em compreender a dinâmica de relacionamentos e os sentimentos envolvidos, os quais estão embarcando nesse meio que é a adolescência. porém, logo em seguida, nos é mostrado cenas mais íntimas entre os protagonistas, trocando totalmente o foco juvenil para um público mais maduro, sem manter uma estabilidade de roteiro, ou falhando seriamente em tentar deixar lições de vidas implícitas de maneira mais sútil e "adulta".

? personagens: não me agradou a maneira que o personagem de jade foi construído, nos apresentando claros problemas de socialização, compreensão de sentimentos, autoestima, maturidade, comportamento, além de espécimes de "traumas" gerados pelo seu primeiro relacionamento, que por sua vez tenta justificar alguma de suas atitudes, sem buscar tratar de nenhum deles, ou sequer explorar o seu crescimento como indivíduo. o único feito de jade durante a série, que poderia acarretar em uma "melhora" em alguns de seus problemas, foi namorar e se abrir com o mai.

gus e tong foram um dos pontos positivos desse lakorn, possuindo um desenvolvimento decente para a quantidade de episódios, cativando o espectador sem ultrapassar o tempo de tela e profundidade do casal principal.

uea e king, por já terem tido seu desenvolvimento em "bed friend", cumpriram o papel de mentorear jade e mai em diversas questões sobre relacionamento. vale ressaltar que a maturidade de uea me impressionou, em meio a tanta dor de cabeça que eu estava passando devido ao jade.

? atuação: conheci o yim (jade) e o tutor (mai) por cutie pie, e desde então eu venho vendo um enorme potencial neles, o que não me decepcionou nessa série. a atuação de ambos foi ótima, e creio que eles se sairiam perfeitamente protagonizando um BL com a proposta mais séria. sobre o james (uea) e o net (king) eu não tenho nadica a reclamar, adoro o trabalho deles. e por último, fiquei feliz em conhecer o trabalho dos atores que fizeram os papéis do gus e tong (tai e leo), espero vê-los atuando juntos novamente!

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Lighthearted and fun, contrary to popular belief

I must say after watching the series I was surprised by how low the reviews were on the series.

First of all I mainly was interested in watching the series because of Tutoryim and honestly their performance was great, especially Yim really shocked me with how good he was on the role. It is mainly a comedic series and while people don't like it because of that I found it really fun and lighthearted.

Story wise, it's very basic, nothing that we haven't seen before but as someone that watched it without the knowledge of Bed Friend the series it might have been even better that way, as no expectations were set before hand. So if there's someone that hasn't watched Bed Friend, giving this series first a try might be a good idea!

Of course the series isn't perfect, I resonated a lot with Jade's story which might be why I also grew attached to the show and are biased to some extent, but the way in which some scenes are portrayed in order to make the audience understand the character more can honestly be not as effective as they might've thought. In this case seeing the feedback on the comment section of the episodes was a great help in understanding Jade better. Also the comedy in the series might seem unnecessary at first but I felt like it gave it more of a cheeky and fun vibe to it and unless you're someone that really doesn't like comedy, I don't see it as being that much of a big deal.

It's an overall entertaining show, and while it might not be everyone's cup of tea, I highly recommend anyone that's second guessing to give it a try!

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A missed opportunity?

Now as someone who partially watched this drama because of TutorYim, I won't hide the fact that I was disappointed from the get go.

The plot had everything to make a cutesy yet memorable drama, however the plot flow definitely did not deliver in any satisfying way (imo). I'm all for fan service with those little cute moments between the characters, but the story pacing was quite irregular which very much influenced my viewing experience and impression of the show as a whole. The resolution of the main issue felt very conveniently fixed and enabled a very rushed ending filled with fan service (which in my opinion was too much for one episode, let alone a finale). As I finished the show, I was left wondering what truly happened between episode 3 and 7 that was substantial to the development of the story or characters.

All in all, I have to say I was quite disappointed the way the show turned out and knowing it could have been something much better if a little more care was put in the writers room.

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too much

the first episode was one of the most difficult things I’ve ever made myself sit through. it was a constant fight to finish and I kept dropping the show.

it took about five episodes for me to see any appeal to tutoryim, though i found leotai a lot more interesting. the script was all kinds of bizarre, the comedy was laid on a bit too heavy for me, and the times I did enjoy anything, it was really just a quick scene and would be over before I knew it.

it may just be that I don’t enjoy this type of comedy, but it bugged me that it had the potential to be a lot better. I do hope to see more of Leo and tai though.

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womp womp....

i have been waiting for tutoryim to have their own series after they acted nuersyn on cutiepie and i waited for sooo long ever since it was announced that they will be playing the main characters, jade and mai. it honestly made me very happy because i am a very big fan of both actors, but i waited for what cost?

before i start reviewing, keep in mind that i watched the cutted version of this show. but that doesnt really matter. i think either way, i'd still rate it the same.

it isnt rewatch worthy and i wouldnt really recommend it to many people.

okay so, i could still handle the first few episodes, but after the release of ep.5, i got bored catching up with it. tbh, i kinda forgot that the series existed and it took me half a year to finally decide that i will try to finish the remaining episodes because i thought it would get better :P (but as i get into it, it got worse...)

the storyline is very nice but is also a bit confusing. my biggest icks were the acting and the lines, its either the actors did that on purpose or the directors did them dirty. i know they can do better than that. i like the workplace setting since it is very underrated. but, everything was going bad, what were they thinking? it was very repetitive.

moving on to the characters, i only liked how uea and king were there for maijade. jade is very stubborn, he made me very impatient. the more i watch the show, the more his character became annoying, i couldnt handle it. mai was fine, but i never felt the two's chemistry. tong and gus definitely deserved more screentime.

i am a very big tutoryim fan, and i want be honest, this was a waste of time. i honestly want to hear others' opinions about this show but for me, i'm disappointed, i waited for so long just for this. the overall outcome was meh.

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