Amazing first half, just okay second half

The structure of the series is pretty much divided in the middle. So, we basically have 2 miniseries with 6 episodes each. One is a BL and the other a bromance. Like most BLs, the “first season” is great and the second has unnecessary dramas and new characters.
In the case of this series, the first half is an amazing sweet romance. But then comes episode 7 and basically everything is undone. The later half of the season is a continuous set of miscommunications and backpedaling. The main characters don’t talk, don’t see each other and act like acquaintances. It’s almost a bromance series by the end. The second half is also greatly impacted by how annoying Maya is for most of the time. The chemistry between the main actors shines in the first half, but gets waisted in the last few episodes.

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Only worth if you can watch the uncut version

This series is not good, but it's a short show. The acting is OK in most moments. The protagonists have chemistry. The story makes zero sense, but it had potential. The main plot might have worked if it was scaled down, the evil company takes up too much time and the story goes nowhere. I can see it working out in a 15 minutes per episode, 8 episode series. Color Rush worked with a similar concept.

The main issue with this show is that you should only watch the uncut version. It’s not that it makes less sense with the cuts, but with the uncut version the central relationship works way better. Besides, the cuts are very obvious and you can kinda see that they simply chopped off the almost kisses and the final kiss in episode 12. It’s a Chinese BL with an actual kiss.

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It's a good series, but the story went wrong somewhere

This show is entertaining and the premise is interesting, but it feels like the production didn’t know how to achieve the end goal they wanted. The entire organ trafficking plot was not handed well, in my opinion.

It’s clear that the story needed to separate the main couple in the end, which makes sense for the plot. They never manage to be together, even after trying several times. So, that’s not my issue with the show. My main problem is Dr. Doi. I don’t usually pinpoint performances that are bad, but in this case it’s important. Overall, the cast is quite good, everybody has chemistry, and the characters are interesting. But Dr. Doi is the exception. This is Boat’s first acting role, and it makes sense because from early on I could notice that I was not enjoying his perfomance. That’s usually OK, specially for a side character.

But Dr. Doi is a major player in the finale of the show. He has a lot of screen time in the last episode and it’s bad. I’m not saying it’s all the actor’s fault, because the plot is just messy. His portrayal of psycho mode Dr. Doi was not good, and the fact the entire plot depends on the fact that nobody managed to stop him, when there were 3 people in the room when he got thrown in the ground, really bugs me.

The show needed to put Tin in a coma and they chose the worst way of doing that. They could have him sacrifice himself for Tol or be shot by Dr. Sak (who was a better villain). But no, he got stabbed in the back by mega villain Dr. Doi, who comes out of nowhere and starts laughing maniacally.

Also, it feels like a huge missed opportunity to have Sing and Gap’s relationship not develop at all. It’s 11 episodes of nothing, besides Gap showing he has feelings for Sing, and then BOOM, they are together in the last loop and we get nothing.

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This fanfic story hangs by a weak thread

This series really confuses me. It honestly feels like I’m watching the serialized version of a BL fanfic. I wouldn’t be surprised if the writers just wrote a bunch of tropes in pieces of paper and developed a story around the one they pulled from a hat, at random. I’d guess they got: dead mom, late in the story secret girlfriend, protagonist traveling abroad in the last episode, family issues, evil stepmom, trauma, and misunderstood rich protagonist.

I honestly think that Chap and Green have chemistry, but the story simply doesn’t allow them to do much. The only truly good thing in The Tuxedo is the music, which is A+.

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Fun to watch

This will be a VERY quick review. I’ll start at the ending and say that there’s no good reason for the epilogue not being the ending of episode 36. Not that I’d believe that Word of Honor would kill either of the protagonists, but still. Besides that, I feel like the last episode was very rushed. All the villains are wiped out or disappear after the avalanche and the world is at peace.

I think the first third of the show had a good pace. But, towards the middle point, things started to slow down on the main plot to focus a lot on the side stories. It’s not that I don like to see Xiang and Wei Ning, but it’s a lot of time on their plot and on Scorpion. Thankfully, towards the last 10 episodes the show took better again.

The cast was great and most of the characters were fun to watch. It’s my second BL with Gong Jun, after watching Advance Bravely. I think him and Zhang Zhe Han worked very well together. I understand the constant comparisons with The Untamed, but I think the shows feel very different from the start.

PS: It’s more of a commentary, since it’s neither a good or bad thing, but I feel like this show is very light handed on the double meanings and “suggestions” about the relationship between the two main characters. Of course, the show says multiple times that they’re soulmates and from the epilogue it’s clear that they’ll live together “forever” in the mountain. But I think they didn't wanna risk much censorship.

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In one word: Disappointing

The first episode gave me strong YYY vibes, which was not a good sign. But the humor is very different in the two shows. While YYY is more full on comedy + fantastical elements, You Never Eat alone is more whimsical.

The special guests were a huge plus for the show, helping the weak plot to not fell as repetitive as it was. It was great to see cameos from Mii2, BounPrem and MaxNat. But, obviously, the highlight was having Boom appear and interact with Peak, while having a boyfriend named Fuse. The main cast as a strong point of this show. I feel like Zee and Peak worked very well together, and the supporting cast was great too. I was surprised that they didn’t try to create a love triangle with Maeung.

But, unfortunately, no cast can save the over dramatic mess that is the plot of this show. There’s no evolution at all. It looks like we can some development, be it about the earning problem or the potential relationship between Diew and Mix. But then, the next episode starts and we’re back to square one. The biggest example of that was episode 11 giving us ALL the signs that Diew and Mix have feelings for each other, and then we get back to light flirting for the finale. Same thing with the earring alone part, Diew would eat alone in one episode and then literally throw up when trying in the next one. Also, I don’t feel like Mix as a character was well developed. As Diew said, he only cares about himself and never really tried to learn more about Mix.

It’s quite obvious that the finale was developed with a second season in mind. I think it's doubt that season will not happen.

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This show doesn't know what it wants to be

I understand that a lot of people loved this show. I personally feel like it’s mainly because they like Singto. For me, this show was a mess and I can’t exactly say where things went wrong because not many things went right from the beginning. My best guess is that Baker Boys has too many side plots and the main story doesn’t work well.

The 4 boys taking care of a Café story would be enough as the basic plot of the show, throw in a little romance + fun situations and it would be a nice light series. But then we got the mystery aspect. A mystery by itself is not a major problem, although it always makes rewatches less fun. But this particular mystery is too heavy to go side by side with the fun café story. It’s literally a plot about people that kidnap and kill children. We actually get to see two dead kids in that fun show about the 4 guys trying to run a café. Those two things don’t fit together!

Then we have the other subplots. The boxer that could die if the continued competing. The guy that got kidnapped 20 years ago and cannot eat anything sweet ever since. The same guy opening a café just to try to find his first love (which does not ever happen). The guy that has phobia of women because he caught his mom cheating on his dad with his tutor, which was also his first love. We have the guy that kidnapped a boy and held him captive for 5 days, but he’s a nice person and didn’t mean any harm (WTF?!). The guy that has been a bad bodyguard since he was 14. We have a cooking competing where a contestant bribes the producer to win the show. Then we have a second competition created just because a guy wants to get back with his ex, which broke up with him after finding out the guy has a wife and children. We also have the boss that offered to sleep with his employee just so he would leave the café…

This show runs like a case of the week type of series. Each episode has a random plot that will be resolved quickly, so that the main overall plot can be dragged for 12 episodes. The cast is not bad, they are all amazing actors. But, honestly, don’t know if liked any of the characters. I only finished this show because I don’t like to keep shows unfinished and because I was curious about how many more weird plot they could come up with.

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I wasn’t expecting the ending to be this sad

Yeah, episode 0 should have prepared me since it mentions what would happen if the dreams made them go their separate ways. I was really expecting the last minute of the show to be a flash forward to them being together again. This is the show that needs a special to wrap everything.

I watched all the episodes in one go, so I can’t imagine how people might have experienced it while new episodes were coming out. Some episodes are certainly better than others. Besides the 2 last episodes, my favorites were the cat and the baby episode. Basically the happy family moments.

Jeff and Gameplay have amazing chemistry together and even before the romantic scenes, you could feel the characters falling in love.

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Too many characters, not enough good ones

Honestly, I don’t even know where to start. Gen Y has many problems in my opinion, but I’d say the biggest one is Gen Y 2. The fact that the series was planned with a follow up in mind creates a big issue of inflating the season with too many characters and side stories, with minimal payoff.

The first half of the series was focused on the university, which was ok. Mark and Kit are obviously the best part. But unfortunately they have to share much of the screen time with literally the human equivalent of watching paint dry, Wayu. Wayu’s whole personally is that he had a boyfriend and doesn’t have one anymore. There are 12 episodes of Gen Y and not once have we learned anything about Wayu’s interests or anything that would make him interesting. We just know that he likes to cry and that his dad is rich. The university portion had a few side characters that helped a bit, like Jew, Jack and Koh, and the people from the Communications Arts. Padbok was almost as one note as Wayu. He was angry all the time for no reason and I don’t understand why he has friends. He flirts and then tries to beat everybody. Sab was fun and during the first half of the show his friends didn’t bother me much.

On the other hand, the second half of Gen Y was a train wreck. It truly looks like a different show, even the characters look physically different. Simply looking as a character, Thanu was not the worse. The problem is that most of the things about him are unexplained during his time on the show, or are simply the worst part, aka the “destiny” portion of the show. While destiny was a concept we heard the high schoolers mentioning, when talking about love in the cafe, it was okay. It’s typical BL material. But, the fact that this show turned into premonitions and visions of the future because of destiny was the worst turn I could have imagined. To be far, the introduction of more high schoolers and, with that, the amount of screen time they got was already bad. Sandee joined Padbok in the group of characters with no apparent motivation for doing what they do. Is he the god of destiny? I would not put that as impossible at this point. Pok and Tong started as a potentially interesting jock/nerd dynamic but ended up just being the couple with the steamy scenes. Their love/hate + lust relationship really doesn’t work for me. Phai is very boring in my opinion and it doesn’t help him that his whole story if the destiny subplot.

Gen Y doesn’t work, in my opinion, because it cannot stand on it’s own as a complete show. It doesn’t even really delivers as a season 1. At this point, I don’t even care about the answer to the unanswered questions, like what happened between Padbok and Thanu or why did Pha leave/came back. The team behind this show was smart on focusing so much on Mark and Kit early on, so people would keep watching to at least know what happened to the couple.

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It started as a boring show, than it just got bad

I, honestly, don’t understand what was the idea for Be Loved in House. They had 12 medium sized episodes to develop a story and nothing really happens for 9 of those episodes. Then, from episode 10 - 12 the main couple has their first kiss and a never before seen ex comes back. This show could have easy been half the size.

Aaron and Hank clearly have chemistry and their more sweet scenes together worked well. But the shows didn’t give then much story. I feel like the mom staying at the house was a good way to make them closer by sleeping in the same room. But she stayed for too long, which got in the way of the relationship moving forward. The secondary couple was a bit bland for me, and that proposal at the end... just happened.

The fact that in a couple of episodes Yi Zitong managed to have more romantic scenes with both of the main characters proves how their story didn’t move much. That whole fake plot of Zitong returning after 7 to get Yu Zhen back, but then similarly going for Shi Lei out of nowhere makes no sense. The plan to make Yu Zhen forget his past and start to live life again only works if Zitong had known for sure that there was someone else on Yu Zhen’s life, and by Shi Lei agreeing to go along, after learning of the plan. We know from the Special that Mr. Mai is the one that told Zitong, so he just decided to meddle on Yu Zhen's life by contacting his ex.

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SO close

This show was SO close to being a hidden gem among the short BL format, but that ending....

The overall story was nice, the chemistry was amazing and the actors were good. But the "someone is going abroad for some time" is such a bad plot device, specially in a short show like this one. I understand the need to drive the couple apart as a way of making them prove how strong their love is. But, it's the 21st century, how can people stay 3 years without having any form of contact?!

It's impossible that Tae Joo's father could prevent all forms of communications (text messages, emails, phone calls, video calls...) for years. The last episode felt extremely rushed, and wastes a large portion of the time with the restaurant scene, which literally adds nothing to the series. The lake scene is sweet and has a nice callback to the promise between them. Overall the show is strong, but they really dropped the ball at the end. Maybe 1 extra episode could have helped.

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One of the best surprises of the year

I was very surprised with Light on Me. The 16 medium length episodes worked well to develop the plot in a way that wasn’t too rushed or too slow.

The main cast is amazing and all have fantastic chemistry with each other. I was onboard the wrong ship throwout pretty much the entire series, even though I knew from episode 1 that Shin Woo and and Tae Kyung would end up together. My favorite character was definitely NamGoong. Woo Jin was the best part of every scene he was in. I was surprised that the 2 year time jump didn’t show any hints of NamGoong pursuing So Hee, I’m not even sure she knows he likes her.

Regarding Mr. Seo’s last scene. I’m inclined to believe that his wish was to meet someone from his past. I by the looks to it, that happened in the hallway.

Light on Me proves that there’s no need to create a series full of twists and turns for it to be entertaining. The fact that the show is focused on the friendship between the main characters is more than enough. No need for many side characters or school related drama. As the beach scene at the end proves, we don’t need to know about their future, because we know they’re all still friends and part of each other’s lives.

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Better than season 1 in a few aspects, except there’s no plot

I find it hard to review and evaluate this series, because, if in one hand it did not drive me crazy like Tharntype, on the other it’s almost clickbait to call it Tharntype 2. Yes, we get Tharn and Type together, but it’s not like they really had something to do for most of the show, specially Tharn. This show almost feels like a series made just to introduce new couples that can get their own series later on, like it happened with LeoFiat and Don’t Say No.

I think it’s VERY unlikely that Than and Type haven’t fought because of jealousy over their years between the Season 1 Special and Season 2. But the fact that both of them jump to “he’s cheating” in a heartbeat show that there’re older but not necessarily more mature. I expected this a bit more from Type, if I’m being honest. But this is a BL season 2, so it’s obvious that the one messing up would be the “good guy” from the original season (see TWM 2 and IPYTM).

It’s interesting because when Type saw Tharn kissing two of his exes it was as if he was being unreasonable for getting furious. But when Tharn see’s Type kissing and then pushing someone they’ve known had a crush on Type, it’s a huge problem and there’s definitely cheating. Yes, there were a few weird things (the pics, the pen, the kissing), but Tharn really did not trust Type not did he wait to hear the explanation. I also don’t think Tharn’s apology was sufficient. He half apologized half blamed Type for letting his guard down and getting kissed. Are we blaming the victim for being harassed and stalked now?!

I liked Khunpol and older Thanya because both had things to do and helped the TharnType plot. No was a bit same note throughout the season, but he’s the comic relief, so I didn’t expect more. Thorn is there just to get married and create the marriage conflict between TharnType and Klui serves not purpose at all. Champ unfortunately was a let down for me, since he was one of my favorites in season 1, but so dull here.

I didn’t love any of the side characters, but if I had to choose a favorite it would be Phu and Cirrus. Phu annoyed me a bit at first, since his the classic stereotype of the Disney pjs wearing BL character. I expected a bit more development on the Doc and No story, but they were cute together. LeoFiat has potential, since they got their own series, but I didn’t particularly like or root for them.

Overall, this was a WAY less problematic season, but the story was lacking essence.

PS: The special makeup for monk Type looked really bad.

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I guess it’s cute, but it doesn’t add much

I wasn’t expecting these 3 episodes to add much, but I still believed we’d get something more. The only real thing this proves is that the Zol’s romance was not the factor for Saifah and Non to be together. So we know there’s no magic and it’s all real life. We get to see Son and Saifah right after their first kiss and then after they come back from the beach. Yet, they are still awkward even after the beach and it doesn’t look like the chemistry developed.

On that note, I’m not the type to say that couples have to kiss every 5 seconds in series, but doing kiss on the forehead after kiss on the forehead get’s boring. If you don’t want to include a kiss, just make it as a hug, it’s better than a kiss on the nose.

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It’s supposed to be a bunch of BL tropes

Overall I enjoyed Why R U. The series is supposed to feel like it’s a BL story come to life, in the world of the characters, so here’s A LOT of clichés. Like: enemies to lovers, homophobic dad, engineering students, rich guy falls in love with poor guy, the cool sister, the shippers…

I feel like those clichés are an integral that part of the show, so they have to exist for the story to move. It’s also interesting how the show shifts from cheesy romantic scenes to steamy hookup sequences, just like in an actual fanfiction story. I'd say that Why R U could be a good BL to recommend to someone that has never seen any BL, since it has so many of the popular tropes and styles in one place. So you get a taste of everything.

I liked the characters and the cast. But I feel like the amount of secondary couples and side characters takes up too much time. And in the end we don’t get much development from them. It just looks like everyone is paired up. There’s not much of a story to be honest, it’s basically just the process of the couples getting together.

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