Cherry Magic Memories

To say that this is a good BL is an understatement. I've been watching jdramas in 2020 and nothing captured my attention and love like this one. A late-night BL drama nobody should've noticed became an international hit.

Cherry Magic (CM) summed up:
-All characters are loveable
-Has comedy but can also get emotional
-No toxicity
-Great acting from main leads
-Great opening and ending song
-High rewatch value

STORY -9.5
''Don't you know? If you're a virgin when you turn 30, you'll become a magic user.'' -Urabe
If the synopsis is kinda offputting to you then that's normal but I guarantee you that it works. The subjects are handled with sensibility and while there is a lot of comedy it works out well. The show knows how to handle emotional scenes as well as comedy.

I think with the first episode you'll see that this drama handles its story very well. What started as a weird internet legend/joke about virginity somehow ended up becoming this cute show. This is a unique lovestory and a joy to see. It brought a lot of warmth to the winter of 2020. Teaching us all to reach out to others and to love ourselves.

ACTING/CAST -10
''Do you know what that means?'' -Kurosawa
First of all the main leads. Machida Keita, actor of Kurosawa, has had around 10 years of experience in acting and has been in many Japanese shows. He was a known name in Japan before CM happened. You can see he totally immerses himself in a character and has fun with it. A lot of later scenes in the drama have been influenced by him ad-libbing/freely acting. When his character is sad, genuinely happy or faking his emotions for the sake of others then you can see it in all his body movements. He's an intriguing character to watch on screen and definitely makes rewatching the show worth it.

Akaso Eiji is relatively new to acting in comparison to Machida Keita and was far less known in Japan. He has been in a few shows before CM, noteably as a Kamen Rider in Kamen Rider Build. Even the mangaka from CM wasn't sure he could pull off the shy, introverted character of Adachi. However, Akaso Eiji really plays Adachi perfectly. Completely adapting to the introverted and anxious character and creating some of the most fun panicked scenes. In comparison to Kurosawa, Adachi acts much more like a manga/anime-character by constantly panicking but it makes him very cute. I'm sure anyone can fall in love with such an adorable and shy main character.

Side-couple:
The character called Tsuge is extremely entertaining, even more panicked than his friend Adachi at times. His adventures have been a joy to see, the self-proclaimed romance master never disappoints. His love-interest Minato has little screentime but is very cute as well. Them both being catlovers was also great to see as the cat Udon-chan really was a joy to see on screen.

Extra characters:
Then there's Rokkaku. This guy really makes a name for himself but all characters in this show have a good heart. His overly energetic presence was always immediately visible on screen and he has been a fun addition to the show. Fujisaki is the beloved female character and likely the best female character in all of BL. An example of how to give female characters a positive presence in a BL show. Her knowing smile and caring character really makes scenes a lot better. There's not a lot to say about Urabe but he has some character growth as well, showing that all characters have some good in them.

MUSIC -10
''I scream the voice of my heart'' - Omoinotake
I never skipped the opening or the ending of this show. Both are very nice to listen to. The opening of the show (Ubugoe/Birth) being Adachis view of the situation and the ending of the show (Good Love your Love) being Kurosawas view.
The background music really knows how to make emotional scenes hit hard. Even listening to the emotional piano music brings me back to the scenes all over again. The fun background music does its job in making the scenes seem wholesome or just an enjoyable experience.

REWATCH -10
''My heart can't take it anymore'' -Adachi
I can't even count how many times I've rewatched this show during its airing time. That's not a joke, I've been part of CM watchparties and rewatched the show myself a lot of times. I think even now that the show has ended its definitely worth rewatching to watch the great acting of the main leads or just to enjoy the experience all over again. Because this show is just that, an enjoyable experience. You can also find many hidden details if you pay attention when watching the show.

In conclusion, give the show a chance and even if the first episodes don't work for you I can assure you that you will fall in love with Adachi and Kurosawa eventually. Something widely refered to as the Cherry Magic effect.

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Underrated comedy show with social commentary

Alright I loved this show a lot. Basically a fun way to explore gender roles in society with some cute romance. Ever wondered how it would look like if the female leads scenes were given to the male lead? Now you can find out!!

- Story 7
The story is fairly basic and has been done before but I liked this versions execution a lot. Male lead gets into a parallel universe where its a matriarchy instead of a patriarchy. They do have some ''scientific'' explanation for it but the main goal of the show is just to explore the whole gender role topic. The male lead gets to explore the parallel world and encounters situations that are normally encountered by women. He can see both the positive and negative parts of it.

What I liked the most was that the show does remain hopeful about gender equality while also acknowledging that the situation isn't easily changed. It covers topics ranging from assault to workplace discrimination but somehow keeps things really lighthearted. You may realize or be reminded how much gender (and its expectations) affects individuals.

-Acting/Cast 9
The show is strongest in showing subtle differences in the approach that is made towards female and male characters as typically shown in dramas. Filming in such a way that reverses the usual techniques used to film the male and female lead in dramas. Focussing on the male leads reactions much more and allowing him a much wider range of emotions than most romance dramas would show. Meanwhile the female lead has the typical ''cold guy'' look a lot of male leads in dramas have. Also of course the typical female lead scenes where she gets rescued or is desperate to get the cool guy... They all fall onto the male lead to perform and he does it well.

Of course most of the cast will act very comically since its a comedy but they do it well and both the male lead and female lead are likeable characters despite both not being great people. The romance is actually pretty cute between the main leads although very different from usual dramas. With the male lead being the one that's expected to be more cute and the female lead being the one that's expected to act cool. Really great acting from both of them.

Special mention for that one male friend of the male lead who had super energetic acting. Loved the guy.

-Music 7.5
The opening song always made me think I started the episode with 2x speed. It's very quick but alright. The music used in the drama overall is usually fitting for the comedic tone.

-Rewatch value 8.5
Personally I can rewatch it because I genuinely loved some of the unexpected jokes or character quotes. The episodes are super short and easy to get through because of that. Also Jacky looks cool and the male lead is cute so another reason to check it out again.

Overall 8/10

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A rainbow of colours that disappeared too soon.

Well. We finally reached the end of the rainbow.

~~Story~~:

- Issues originating from the episode/drama lenght
My main complaint with the story is that like many others I do see the missed potential because of its short lenght. The ''color rush'' novel has content which the drama-version completely skips which is unfortunate. Because of this, some of the seemingly important plotpoints never get resolved or get wrapped up very quickly. There was also the issue of strange scene transitions which made some viewers confused about the timeline of the story. Then there was also a plotline that consisted of a few sentences spread around episodes which a lot of casual viewers easily missed. This all would've likely been handled much better if the drama was given more episode lenght/more episodes.

-The rainbow CGI
Whether you liked or disliked the rainbow CGI, I thought it was an original addition. I would definitely recommend people with sensitivity to bright flashes to be careful during the first few episodes. We got a look into the world of YW/the main character and I appreciated that. I wouldn't have minded if they actually went full black/white for the whole show for full immersion but I understand that's not as appealing for the general audience.

-The universe of color rush
The addition of the ''colorverse'' with probes and monos was interesting to me. Monos essentially are very much like humans but their urges for colour (or love) are something that only rarily occurs in humans and reflects addiction. Probes and Monos are basically soulmates with a catch to it because if it doesn't work between them, bad things happen. That hidden darkness element remains with the story up till the end and provides some of the mystery element for the show. I do warn against watching the 7th episode if you're sensitive to darker subjects.

All in all, highly enjoyed the addition of such a unique plot to a BL webdrama and again unfortunate that it couldn't be fully explored due to time constraints.

~~Acting/Cast~~:
Both the actors of YW and YH (main couple) did a good job. There's not a sense of natural chemistry in the sense of being comfortable with physical touching but this drama chooses to focus on different things. The tension between both actors was very present in a lot of scenes by the way they look at each other or their small interactions. The characters treat each other like fragile goods and that has a charm to it too. Also, the YH character (mask-guy) really knows how to act cute and its a shame we didn't get to see more of that.

~~Music~~:
It was fun to listen to. I also liked the calming BGM during a Color Rush event. All in all it gave the drama a bit of a surreal yet calming vibe and that was perfect for it. Like you're in a different but beautiful universe.

~~Rewatch Value~~:
I would rewatch it for the cute moments between the main couple and I think if you are the type to skip through the first episodes a lot then you'll be rewatching it too cause again those plotlines can be 1 sentence or you miss it.

All in all its a 7.5/10 for me. Definitely not for everyone but it was a refreshing take on a Boy Love story to me.

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Story
Girl with nerdy appearance falls into water and goes to another universe (in ancient fantasy China) where she is the beautiful queen of 30 husbands. She tries to fulfill her role but can't really get into the reverse harem-life and starts to persue one of the guys. Her main friends at first are a doctor and her personal assistant. She slowely gets to know 4 of her husbands, mostly through getting drunk. Her job is to basically sleep with all of them in order to get them pregnant and they are very persistent about that sometimes. However, there is an evil plot waged against her to steal her husband(s) and drama occurs.
I don't know more than this since the subs cut off fairly early. The ending is not really an ending since there were supposed to be more episodes but it's still 20 episodes of content.

Acting
All the husbands are handsome and the acting is fairly ok for a drama like this. You'll find yourself mostly liking the male actors. The guy crying while eating a hamburger with musicians in the background is 10/10, that was some deep relatable stuff. Some of the temporary hairstyles in this drama are pretty wacky though.

Music
Chinese music, not much to say about it, its ok.

Rewatch
Episodes are short and it's easy to rewatch for certain fun scenes. For the BL/BR crowd, there are 2 scenes between husbands which are played for jokes but still pretty brave for China. They definitely still need to fix the subs though.

Overall
Liked the show, would recommend it if you want to see a different scenario for a period drama. I think most people will just watch it because they read ''she has to impregnate the husbands'' in the synopsis and get curious.

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The movie that started a franchise.

A very exclusive movie not many ever get to see in their lives. In fact, I had to puzzle the story together from tags.

The story:
The character testss is a very unique person as one can tell from the tags. After first her marriage to a banker she loses her entire family. She feels lost and initially tries to come to terms with it through religion but she feels instead she needs to escape her village and decides to quit her many part time jobs to join the army. Here she has a long career and she meets a mysterious man but things don't work out as he dreams of being an opera singer instead. She decides to quit the army after an undercover mission as a dermatologist goes wrong. She is sent to prison due to being framed for an accident by a hacker who was blackmailed by a crime boss. This hacker formely worked with her in the policeforce but he went down a dark path when his voice actor career didn't work out. Eventually after her time in prison she starts to live at a farm, here the soldier she met in the army meets with her again and tells her they should get into politics to make things better. So they both get jobs in congress and pass laws protecting the rights of undercover agents and intend to marry. However, it turns out all her family is still alive but was just taken hostage all those years. Her oldest child escaped, was deemed crazy by the local village and locked up in a mental hospital for years but got out and became a radio personality. They reunite and plan to free the rest of her family. Her husband plans to go undercover as a butler and she will use her medical knowledge to pretend to be a doctor. Meanwhile her oldest child meets the blackmailed hacker and gets him a job as a manga artist. They succeed in getting the family safe. The tension when she meets her banker husband again is high but it turns out he was an alien and has to leave earth anyway. Her other 4 children succeed in diverse careers.

Acting/Cast:
tesst is a wonderful actress who really knows how to portray a woman who has had a long life with many difficult jobs. Her husband is an undercover agent with a criminal past so his character is never given a name but his acting is really welldone as well. They both understand each others difficult position and respect their hidden pasts.

Music:
Pretty unique.

Rewatch Value:
I would rewatch (the tag section) again, although the army part of the story took a bit long it was still an enjoyable experience. testss is a unique character and I don't think I've ever seen a story like it.

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High level male BL fan shows his powerlevel

First of all a thanks to the fansubber Furritsu for doing English translation.

Story:
Not a BL but also has enough content to keep a BL fan very happy if you can manage to get over the super weird male lead. A male BL otaku (a fudanshi) works as a bartender. Here he ships his male customers and really any guys near him into pairs in his fantasy while he prepares their drinks. Meanwhile his co-workers kinda watch the insanity unfold. The bartender is commited to getting every guy into a couple in his fantasy so he can make new BL content at home. So different guys enter the bar and different fantasy stories unfold based on what they say. It's a super short story too so if that sounds interesting to you then definitely check it out!

Acting/Cast:
The ability of the actors to not laugh during the situations is next level. The main guy also acts like one of the most odd characters I've seen and I watch jdramas so that limits high at this point. He's super neutral until BL situations happen in which case he'll go wild. Also the BL fantasy scenes were nicely acted as well, I got invested in some of them lol.

Music:
Pretty calm music. Jazz stuff and all that, very fitting to the bar location where almost the entire drama takes place.

Rewatch value:
As a BL fan I could definitely rewatch this show a bunch to see the BL fantasy scenes again. One of them looked super pretty too. But I can imagine that for non-BL fans there's less reason to rewatch.

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One of the wildest gay romance stories

Whenever you think you know where the story is going it takes some wild turns. This show is and remains (as of 2024) the most daring gay romance drama to be put on Japanese tv. The enormous historical value of this show cannot be understated.

There's nudity, shower-scenes, gay love triangles, wild fantasies, a ton of drama and vague lowkey artistic imagery. If you're tired of the current formulaic BL shows this is the perfect change of pace into the more psychological and dark era of 90s Jdramas.

Do I understand the entire story? No it's pretty vague at some points. But I don't think 100% understanding it is the point. The point is to just have a wild journey with these characters and they certainly deliver on the drama. Rewatch value is very high due to me rediscovering every time just how wild this show was.

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Who thought this drama was a good idea? I just want to talk.

After reading such a synopsis most would wisen up and NOT watch this drama. Because clearly this whole concept would fit better as a pink film and is incredibly unsuited as a jdrama or any form of respectable story in general. In fact I found no subs for this drama, most understandable. I saw my favorite Da-Ice song somehow ended up being the opening of this garbage show so now I'm here to review it.

-Story 1/10
The main character is a perverted man who mainly looks at the breasts and behinds of women and he has the skill to fantasize about them in sexual situations. He also has occasional moments of lusting after highschool girls, it really helped in showing how much of a creep he is. He works in a toilet company which explains the amount of toilets featured in his fantasies with women.
Theres no greater plot, he literally just lusts after a lot of women and thats it. Why was this made into a jdrama?

-Acting/Cast 1/10
The female characters all act like actresses in the adult industry because that's the theme of all their scenes anyway. The male lead just has to act like he's shocked all the time or concentrating while sexualizing every woman around him which shows in him making weird faces. It wasn't funny, there was no point in any of it except to have fanservice for the viewers switching channels until they see erotic stuff I presume.

-Music 1.5/10
I liked the song they used for the opening (Da-Ice popgroup) which is why I'm willing to give a slightly higher point. I think for the rest of the OST they just opted to use classical music which played during his fantasies. I was not impressed.

-Rewatch Value 1/10
There is no story, you'd only be rewatching for the fantasies of the perverted guy. I'd honestly just recommend you watch mature movies instead of this if you're after fanservice.

-Overall 1/10
At the end of the day its literally just a perverted guys fantasies. The role of women in the show is severly limited and clearly from a male perspective. It's not progressive in showing sexuality, its just another show to sexualize young women for no reason. If you want a show that actually does the topic of sexuality with an actual plot then watch something like ''Raise de wa Chanto Shimasu''.
Did this show make me lose hope in humanity? By the fact that this was aired.. slightly yes.
So here's your extra warning not to watch it.

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Not what I expected but still fun

I went into this expecting a completely different type of story but still wasn't disappointed.

-STORY- 6.5
The story was definitely not on the level of plottwists that I expected from the first episodes onwards. The situation of the class wasn't very complicated, likely due to the limited episodes. It does have some unexpected moments but the way they are resolved feels more like lucky occurances. I guess this drama teaches that trying to be smart is a waste when luck determines most outcomes.

-ACTING/CAST- 8
If you're looking for a reason to watch this drama, this is it. The actors start off kinda quirky but when they have their moments they shine in sheer insane acting. Highly entertaining. At some point I started thinking some characters were underacting but they were really just being normal humans in comparison to some of the most insane ones.

Yoshizawa was honestly an amazing character and despite some of the more insane acting I could really feel his emotions shine through his performance when needed. The students are okay, ranging from interesting to just normal acting. Asahi certainly has a lot of energy and I enjoyed his performance, sometimes it was a bit too much but I mostly thought it was funny. The acting from these characters made the drama very fun to watch at times.

One thing to mention is that I could never take the scary moments serious. There are some scenes that are supposed to instill fear but thanks to the extreme expressions of some actors I never quite felt any real threat in the show. The scary moments became more like funny moments at times to me as unlikely events happen a lot. Sure there are some genuinely serious scenes but those aren't nearly as memorable.

-MUSIC- 8
Music fits the scenes very well at all times. One of the BGM tracks with violins was my favorite, it would always play when the teacher just made some impressive statement.

-REWATCH- 6
While I would rewatch some of the more iconic dramatic scenes, not much more than that. Especially episode 6 has some great scenes for rewatching.

-OVERALL- 7.5
Story kept me entertained throughout. Went differently than I expected but I don't mind the chaos of the last few episodes since the acting is so fun.

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A wildflower in a war

First of all, of course this show is quite dramatic in acting but I feel if you don't mind that then it's very entertaining and good. It's just a long family revenge drama but it has its iconic moments.

You follow the families of the kids Lily Cruz and Diego and get to learn something is not right in that town. While Lily's revenge-journey may seem extreme... I would compare it to like a comic superhero like Batman. She just wants justice in an unfair world and wants to do it herself yet also still stick to her moral code.

Best characters are definitely Lily Cruz(Ivy Aguaz), Lolo(Grandpa Ardiente), Emilia Ardiente, Mayor Arnaldo and Natalie. In my opinion they carry the scenes while other (more normal) characters kinda form an anchor-point to reality for the audience. There were some times when they would zoom in on the faces and Raul Ardiente would just be staring normal while everyone else was super wide-eyed and shocked. And somehow that contrast in itself is kinda funny too.

When the story had a very clear focus I was loving it, but the ''Red Dragon''-arc I'm less of a fan of as it kinda felt like a side-mission. All in all though, very memorable quotes and scenes in this show. Emilia & Lily could honestly carry any scenes together with their acting.

The romance I feel was way more of a focus in the beginning but I feel that bond created from that did quite nicely carry the characters through the rest of the story.

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Summer holidays gone wrong

Summary: The show was pure chaos, it started with a group of friends and went dark fast. This show does not condone the right morals, it will just push whatever narrative is necessary to advance the story. The actors are all fairly new when they went into this movie so don't expect too much from acting but they had fun with it. I would never rewatch except to fact-check if the story was actually that chaotic.

Story:
Male lead stays with his 4-5 friends in some house, here they either get traumatized or relive their past traumas. They spin this into some Peter Pan story of the guys being at some kind of Neverland where they never want to become adults due to their traumas. So thats the origin of the dramas name. It deals with way darker themes than usual summer holiday themed shows.

It does create some interest due to its dramatic nature. It makes you wonder how the characters will deal with things and usually they don't deal with things in the right way or even encourage the wrong things.The main guys plotline gets progressed very late in the story and feels rushed because of that. A lot of the show also feels disjointed since certain important past events are barely mentioned again.

Acting:
The acting was mainly just young teens so not much experience. The friendgroup was nice and the actors generally really seemed to get along.

Music:
Not that special but okay.

Rewatch value:
I wouldn't rewatch this personally.

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