Ants Without Umbrella is a short Japanese series where a writer is experiencing a writer’s block when he was told by his publisher to write a love story instead of his usual sci-fi. While having problems with his writing, he was visited surprisingly by a friend that he had not seen for a very long time. The story is conveyed in four different stories as the first two episodes were Jun’s attempt to create a love story but I feel like the last two is a love story that he had when he was younger. To be honest, I was able to finish the show and I am not completely sure if he did fell in love with his friend or not but I feel like he did especially when he said that he is not sad because his friend fell in love with another man but not him. I feel like their friendship is so much more than what we expected and this is the usual story of how these two grew apart without resolving the issues that they have with each other leading to them not talking about it at all so when the final twist is revealed and that Keisuke is already dead and that he saw just a ghost of his friend, there is something so sad about it especially with how he treated him quite badly. It is such a sad story and I was not expecting this kind of love story about friendship that really is not talked about a lot. I am torn with what I feel about the story because the LGBT aspect is the most interesting part of the story and I will have to give it to Jun for trying to understand his friend but I am a bit disappointed with how it is ultimately handled by him. I know he is young and he did not have guidance at all but he really went away from his friend and really did not do anything at all for him. I mean, he already knew all this when they met again but he still was a shitty friend to him. I would not say that this is a really strong story but it could have been so longer and they would have more time by then to explore more themes that they opened to further explore them in a much better way. It is not bad but it could have been so much better.