the sweetest romcom!

It all started with an eraser… and a misunderstanding. Or two.

Aoki likes sweet and kind Hashimoto, the girl who gave him a cake last spring. One day he borrows an eraser from her and he realizes that she wrote another classmate’s name, Ida, on the eraser followed by a heart. While Aoki despairs about his crush liking someone else, he doesn’t realize that Ida sees the eraser too. Ida thinks that the eraser is Aoki’s and by proxy assumes that Aoki is the one that likes him.

Aoki tries to keep Hashimoto’s crush a secret by going along with the misunderstanding and saying that he likes Ida.. fully expecting the other boy to reject him. However, kind and considerate Ida sees how heartbroken Aoki is because of his unrequited crush, and instead of rejecting him asks for a bit more time to think over his answer.

As they spend some time together the boys realize that the two of them get along pretty well actually and Aoki starts to see why it would be so easy to like Ida.. and soon finds himself confused on who he should be jealous of in their little love triangle.

The show has a really funny set up and a lot of jokes and funny scenes. Aoki is a dramatic creature by nature so his reactions and inner monologues are priceless. Ida lives in a state of perpetual confusion and it is utterly funny to see how Aoki’s chaotic antics mix with his straight laced personality.

The story has a slow and relaxed pace where the main cast ponders a lot on who they like, what it even means to like someone and what dating means for them. They also have a few realistic conversations about prejudices that same sex couples can face but the show's message always remains clear: people who judge others for their orientation are in the wrong.

The story also offers some surprising twists at the beginning regarding the love interests, as not everything is as it seems. It is super fluffy and funny. I am so happy to finally find such a sweet, wholesome romance story in the genre. I love this new generation of slow burn boys love romances where the characters just genuinely like each other and get along well and the love interest’s main appeal is just being a kind person.

The only other show that showed so much care and heart was Cherry Mahou, albeit that is about adult characters at the workplace.

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not the healthiest relationship..

I have read the manga and reluctantly watched the series as well, hoping the story would be improved upon. Unfortunately, it wasn't. The story and characters struggle with the same things as the source material.

Given are two coworkers who absolutely cannot stand each other, always end up having really awful arguments and never communicate. As they are placed on more projects together they slowly learn a bit more about each other, and realize that they make a really good team even if their morals and the things they are willing to do for a story do not match. Through sheer guessing - since once again, they barely talk properly - Kaburagi figures out that Onoe finds him attractive and the two start sleeping together. One of the worst BL tropes is the one where one of the characters acts like they hate their love interest but "secrectly" likes it when the love interest manhandles them - which seems to be the entire personality of Onoe.

Realistically there is no way for Kaburagi to know that Onoe is just "pretending" to dislike him (unless this was a supernatural story and he was a mind reader, which is unfortunately, not the case here) or if he actually just hates his guts. Like he has already said so, several times. Yet, he keeps making advances and pursues him. Later, there is a scene where they confess their feelings to each other, but since this is during another one of their agressive shouting matches, it doesn't really make up for the terrible communication they have.

The setting, characters, actors would have been interesting enough if only just the relationship was better handled.

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could have been great, but has the same toxic tropes as the manga

Unfortunately, the story suffers from the same issues as the original anime and manga. So many of the main couple's intimate scenes contain non-consensual kisses, touching, and borderline r*pe attempts. I don't understand why the mangaka thought this was necessary when the characters and story would be incredibly good without these elements. Ryoma is constantly ignoring Izumi's boundaries. The family and their agent turns a blind eye to this and worse, actively allow Ryoma to meet Izumi at home, at school, etc. Sexual harassment is not funny and should not be the baseline for a future romantic relationship. I was hoping they'd change these things for the live action drama, especially since they seemed to have no problem updating the wedding ad to show a same sex couple, but disappontingly the rest of the show was not updated.

The base plot would work so well, if they simply just allowed for Izumi to fall in love with Ryoma organically. Ryoma having a crush on Izumi first and wanting to get to know him would have been perfectly okay if he had even an ounce of self-control.

The actors played the characters well, and I immediately recognized Shougo's actor who also voiced the character in the anime. Ryoma's actor is yes, very over the top, but that is literally how the character is in the source material.

I am really sad about this one, because the writing and comedic scenes are otherwise great. The screenplay seems to be written by the mangaka too and they did a great job with transitioning the story into a live action drama and it flows really well. The actor really look like their characters, I love how their hair was styled to match the original designs.

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WAY TOO SHORT

This story was so cute and funny! I need 10 more seasons!

Hajime is a former child actor, who struggles to get people take him seriously in the industry. So he's really happy to hear when he gets cast as a lead actor for an upcoming BL drama. His co-star and love interest is the popular actor, Akafuji.

Hajime is generally a very sweet, kind person and he is happy to meet Akafuji on set, but no matter what he does the other seems to ignore him. This is a serious blow to Hajime's already fragile self-esteem, and accepts the fact that Akafuji is just too popular to ever think of him as his equal. However, as they both seem a bit stiff and have trouble with portraying the chemistry between their characters on set, the director jokingly suggests that they should move in together. Maybe even sleep in the same bed, just like the characters they play. Hajime who has been trying to befriend Akafuji is very much open to the idea but to everyone's surprise Akafuji is even more into it. So they end up moving in together for a little while, and get to know each other better. The real shocker comes, when the story introduces us Akafuji's POV as well and we learn, that he hasn't been avoiding Hajime because he looks down on him.. quite the opposite.. he has been a fan of Hajime's acting for a while now. "Fan" as in: he has a shrine dedicated to Hajime with all his merch...

As they start to get used to living together Akafuji realizes that Hajime is a real person, not just some unreachable idol, and that he also maybe started to have real feelings for him.

There were many really sweet and funny scenes, and some 4th wall breaking scenes that involved the drama shoot where these two work. Like, coming with excuses about how they can practice lines their characters would say only so they can flirt with each other, and Akafuji asking Hajime to "practice" for their kissing scene and Hajime being really disappointed when the kissing scene gets cut..

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