Still Holds Up!

I rewatched SOTUS for the first time in like 6 years or something recently, and this show really holds up!

(Apologies if this review feels all over the place, I was sleep-deprived while writing it).

SOTUS is a bit of a slow burn, but it kept me engaged all the way through. The romance between Kongpob and Arthit was pretty effective, even though they were super slow to get together, but I think that helped make it all the more exciting when it finally happened. Their relationship seemed pretty healthy towards the end of the show as well when it was really starting to get serious, so that was nice.

I like that Kong and Arthit are the only gay couple in the show. It's common in a lot of BLs to have multiple side-story relationships, but I like that this one focuses on just the main. I also love that there is a femme lesbian character. She never actually has any on-screen gay moments with any girls, but she is known throughout the whole series to be a lesbian. I can't think of too many other BL series i've watched that included any other LGBT's outside of just the G's, so this was a nice, albeit tiny, shift from that. I honestly really liked all the side characters, I don't think there was a single one that I hated.

I saw a lot of people in different comment sections saying that they didn't like the hazing and that it was a big problem for them while watching SOTUS. While I sort of agree (obviously this kind of hazing is bad and in the show it was getting out of hand at points), I do think that it ended up being fine, all the juniors seemed relatively unaffected when the hazing period was finally over, and they seemed to have found some community in it. That being said, I also don't think the show was trying to portray hazing in a super positive light or anything, but I definitely see where people are coming from.

Overall I wish I could say more about this show. It's a classic for a reason, and I definitely see how SOTUS really paved the way for future Thai BL's. I will say that it feels pretty tame, and other BL series' that came after this have certainly taken things to higher heights, but I think that SOTUS was a good original ground to stand on.

9/10.

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Semantic Error Review

A very cute show. Simple writing and plot, but it worked and never got boring. story was well paced and everything resolved pretty well and made sense. Easily rewatchable.

I really liked the real world tie-ins to the main characters' personalities changing over time (like how Sangwoo stops drinking the vending machine coffee to show that he is becoming a less "bitter" person). I love the acting, I thought the characters were portrayed really nicely. I really loved the side characters as well. The use of classic BL tropes were definitely there, but nothing ever felt too forced or cringey.

Overall very cute and enjoyable, and easy to digest!

8.5/10.

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Made Me Feel So Much in Only 5 Episodes

Kimi to Nara Koi wo Shite Mite mo is a BL miniseries that has had an absolute choke-hold on me since I first watched it.

The characters feel realistic—complex but not over-dramatized, and have some good development throughout the series. The casting was perfect, I loved both Takato Okura and Wataru Hyuga's honest and refreshing portrayals of the main characters, Amane and Ryuji. I think their chemistry was incredibly well-developed and maintained throughout the show.

The story was just straight up slice of life story-telling that had wasted no time getting it's point across, leaving little room for fluff and filler. It was a captivating and very easily binge-able show from the get-go.

After rewatching this series for like, the third time, I read the first few volumes of the manga that it was originally adapted from, and I can confirm that the show is very much faithful to the book, with only some minor changes here and there; And I honestly think that I like the show adaptation better overall.

Overall, for as simple as this series is, for some reason I have grown so fond of it that it has become my current #1 comfort drama! I just wish it was longer TT

9/10.

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Creepy Stalker Fantasy Garbage

(Apologies in advance for my language in this review lol)

What the hell did I just watch lmao.
This show is supposed to be...uh....romantic? I guess?

It follows the two main characters Hira and Kiyoi. Kiyoi is an insecure pretty boy who wants nothing more than to become an idol one day, but has way too much pride to ever tell anyone. On top of that, he's also a huge d*ckhead who bullies Hira like crazy, basically making him be his servant throughout their final year of high school.
Hira is a delusional psychopath who thinks of Kiyoi as a god and takes (masochistic) pleasure in being Kiyoi's personal servant. we can especially see how crazy he really is in the few short imagination sequences that happen throughout the series, in which Hira has fantasies about shooting everyone in his school whenever they make him upset. (Yes, that is a real thing that happens). Hira makes this show incredibly frustrating to watch just by his sheer absurdity as a character. He has absolutley devoted his entire life to just being a stalker to Kiyoi, even after graduating high school, and meeting a much better friend (Kazuki), who ends up being a wayyy better love interest for him. But Hira, of course, f*cks it up and rejects Kazuki because he for some reason still loves Kiyoi for some reason. And this "love" isn't even romantic, it's stalkerish and devoid of any real idea that they could be equals. He just wants to serve Kiyoi. In the final few episodes where Kiyoi's pov begins and we can see that he has been secretly falling in love with Hira, we can see that Hira's view of Kiyoi as a god really f*cks with his head. But the series concludes with Hira supposedly becoming normal all of a sudden and them falling in love and living happily ever after.

*Deep sigh*
Anyway, idk why I felt the need to write so much about this, but I know I could have written even more. This show was frustrating, creepy at times. The main characters were clearly unstable and pretty unlikeable, never really changing or developing in any way (until the last minute of the final episode I guess).
The only saving grace this show really had for me was Kazuki, who deserved so much better.
Overall, I mean...I watched it all, that's gotta count for something (even though it was only 6 episodes). Definitely will never watch this again, nothing made me feel any classic BL butterflies, just classic BL icks.

1.5/10

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Nothing New

Pretty basic BL story—two childhood best friends fall in love in high school.

Was a little bit annoyed at the overuse of tropes in this—mainly the thing where someone's about to confess something or say something important, and then all of a sudden they get interrupted. At first it was fine, but then it felt like it was happening almost every episode lol.

The romance was cute, although it was a little plain and once again, very tropey. This show is just really formulaic, and I can't really find anything particularly special about it when compared to other BL's (or romance dramas in general).

The production was pretty alright, but not quite as good as I was hoping from a show that was hosted on Netflix. I really liked all the actors—the main characters were great, but I also really liked the one blondish wingman guy, and Yamato's sister.

Overall, it was alright, but brought nothing new to the table for me—fine, but pretty forgettable.

The Hi-Fi Un!corn song was good though.

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Kuudere Final Boss

Discovered this series after seeing a clip of it in a YouTube short, where I thought to myself "that wig looks pretty funny", and happily added it to my planned to watch list.

I didn't know much about this show ahead of time, but I thought it was going to at least be a little more enjoyable than this.
Takara-Kun to Amagi-Kun is presented as a cute series about an innocent romance between two high school boys who are trying to keep their relationship secret. However, upon watching it, I didn't quite get that same sweet impression.

The story felt very sparse, with no serious structure—a lot of moments felt kind of randomly placed. I felt like a lot of the things that happened throughout just kind of ended up meaning next to nothing for the development of the story, and I couldn't really pinpoint whenever a scene was major to the plot or not.

The main characters, Takara and Amagi, are a super awkward and angsty couple who I felt had barely any chemistry the entire time—and it never really got better as the season went on. The acting was okay I guess, but both Takara and Amagi were characterized in ways that made them just sort of unlikeable to me. Amagi is a hyper-cute character that feels really fake and one dimensional (which his shoehorned-in traumatic childhood backstory fails to help with at all). He felt more like a person pretending to be an anime character more than a real teenager. As for Takara, he was a little more bareable, but not by much. He is a mega kuudere type who fails to show any emotion throughout the entire show, except for a couple tiny smiles towards Amagi as time goes on. I will say, I think the actor played him a decently as he could of, but the character is just so strange that I don't really care. Takara could have been a really good opportunity for the show-runners to write in some good character development, but Takara basically never changes. Towards the end, he starts to say more bold things, but he still keeps the same lifeless demeanour. The only character I genuinely liked in the show was Katori (the glasses guy). He was pretty funny and was very refreshing to see amidst the blunders of every other character.

Overall, this was a little below average mid-levels, and I honestly was getting bored in the second half. At least the ending was happy I guess, but still. Very cringey and jam-packed with lame tropes.

3.5/10.

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