Yaoi or Boys Love series may be very popular now, but it seems to be increasingly rare to see an actual gay-themed short film that doesn't pander to yaoi fans. We Are Both Grooms is special in this regard, and those who are thinking of watching it should know what to expect. There are no passionate sex scenes or even kissing scenes. There isn't dramatic sexual tension between the characters the moment they meet. The story is not set in a world in which any random straight man can suddenly become gay.

What we have is more of a gay-themed short film that deals with the issues faced by gay people. The leads are ordinary people (a teacher and a farmer) and certainly not the idealized characters we often see in BL. We don't even see that much about how they fall in love, but we can see that they are in love. The problem: Ryosuke is going through a wedding ceremony with Mizuki, but none of his guests (including his family) knows that he is marrying a man. The premise is somewhat implausible, but it perhaps does not matter so much because it is a comedy in which things like that can happen. There is empathy for the way the main characters behave, such as when Ryosuke plucks the courage to tell his parents that he is marrying a guy and shows them a photo, but they mistakenly think that he is marrying the girl in the group photo. Once that moment of courage is lost and his parents start commenting in relief that they had suspected that he was gay, it became so much harder for him to come out.

A non-linear structure is adopted to tell the story, and it can seem a little messy at first, but the story is competently and economically told. Appropriate details are revealed through flashbacks at the right times. It may not be the most interesting story ever, but it is engaging enough.

I wish there were more support for productions that portray gay people without making themselves, strictly speaking, BL. There's a certain risk taken because BL fans may not be really into them.