Before getting into SOTUS, you should know that it puts its BL plot in the backseat for most of its run. For maybe 80% of the show, the main couple: Arthit and Kongpob, are mostly lite-enemies with only a couple of tender moments sprinkled throughout up until the final few episodes. If you want more than that, you're better off skipping the show. I argue that the slow build up definitely pays off, though. Arthit and Kongpob have believable tension that grows throughout the show and you eventually start rooting for their characters to get together instead of simply wanting two cute guys to get together just because they're cute.

With the BL plot in the background, much of SOTUS revolves around the SOTUS hazing system. From episode one, the hazing system seems ridiculous and begs for suspension of disbelief. It's hard to watch, but bear with it. It's a plo point that the system is as ridiculous as it is, and it gets critiqued and discussed in-series, with the show even edging even me to see the benefit of hazing. This was something that I was honestly impressed with since I expected the SOTUS hazing system to be nothing but a vehicle to explain the tension between the main couple.

Around the hazing plot and main couple, we have a fairly large group of supporting characters. Kongpob has his own group of freshman friends, and Arthit has his own group of senior friends. With such a large cast, outside of most of them being familiar, not much is really done with the couple's friends but they at least feel like a realistic, supportive group of college friends. Arthit's friends were treated more fairly than Kongpob's, with the former's friends having a lot more depth to them and even serving as counsel at times. Kongpob's friends on the other hand, don't really have much going on outside of being involved in a love triangle and serving as comic relief. One thing that stood out to me with Kongpob's friends is that one of them (Waad) flatout disappears from the show even though it seemed like he would be getting a subplot involving one of the seniors. I recognized him from other Thai media, so perhaps there was some scheduling issue with his character? After he's gone, focus shifts to the friends (May and M) involved in the love triangle, but because the characters again don't have much depth to them, I wasn't invested in this at all. M in particular is nothing but Kongpob's friend that likes May and my partner and I started to joke about him being a simp with just how shallow his character was. There's friendly M and then there's M that gives solemn expressions when someone else is talking to May. It's all very flat and it's too bad that that's all they gave the character. The one saving grace in the love triangle plot is that the resolution was surprisingly well handled.

The series' direction is mostly okay. Some scenes either feel like padding or feel padded for time. The most egregious are flashbacks that feel almost belittling to the viewer and scenes that serve their purpose and then overstay their welcome. There's also the occasional odd cut here and there. On the flipside, there's a lot of personality injected into scenes at times with the occasional funny background event or a character in the background paying notice to the foreground's characters.

SOTUS' music is unfortunately barely there. The series is a fan of having its opening and the ending themes play during its scenes for what feels like every other episode. The one variation is that you may get the instrumental version over the vocal version. It gets old, and annoying at worst, fast. Those tracks aside, the show relies on only one or two background tracks to break up silence. I's not something that really affected my enjoyment of the series outside of an eyeroll here and there, but it is something that I noticed.

The acting varies among the cast, but for the characters that matter the most: Krist (Arthit) is definitely one of (if not the) strongest actor of the bunch and his flustered moments are some of the most believable I've seen in any drama. Singto (Kongpob) on the other hand, I'm confused about. His character delivers deadpan lines 90% of the time and has an air of straightforward earnestness to him, so I'm not sure if what I took as flat acting should be interpreted as him being in-character or him just not being the best actor. In the more emotional scenes though, it certainly feels like there's a lack of sincerity behind his lines, especially when he's paired with Krist (Arthit) who really excels in those scenes.

As for the BL part of the show, when SOTUS finally gets around to it, it's still a bit restrained. Considering that both of the characters are """not gay""" though, SOTUS' restraint makes sense and the conflict in the latter episodes are believable. I do have to point out though, that there are two episodes that come after the BL plot starts getting focused on that are noticeably the weakest episodes of the series. These episodes are where the show's padding problems are at its worst and I was disappointed that when the show finally started to pay attention to Arthit and Kongpob that they started to waste time like they did on these two episodes. Of these episodes, only a couple scenes have any sort of meaningful plot progression, and I'm really trying to be lenient in my definition of "meaningful plot progression" here. Even IN one of the scenes that matter, where part of a character's backstory is explored, the focus is almost entirely on two characters that we've never met before and it's difficult to really care or be interested when you just want to see more of Kongpob and Arthit now that the show is finally delivering the goods (for a lack of better words).

All in all though, SOTUS is definitely a must watch if you're into slow burns and I definitely recommend it if you don't mind that fact. The first episode's hazing scenes will definitely be off-putting and taken a bit too seriously, but if you stick with SOTUS, the hazing system is eventually dissected.