maggie33

At 25:00 in Akasaka episode 1

First impression – I like it. A lot. Komagine Kiita is as excellent as I expected of him. He’s that kind of actor that can do a lot of acting with just his face and his eyes. And wow, he looks hot. 😊 His co-star Taisuke Niihara is fine, too, although for now I’m not as wowed by him as I instantly was by Kiita.

Spoilers behind the cut.

Yes, it really reminds me of My Personal Weatherman. In a good way. They met at the university, Hayama Asami was Shirasaki Yuki’s two years older senior. They were in the same club together, and what Yuki remembers is that they never spoke, and he thinks that Asami didn’t pay attention to him and doesn’t remember him. Of course Asami remembers him very well, and it’s obvious that he fell for Yuki then, just didn’t know how to tell him that. Or, who knows, maybe he did indicated that he was interested in Yuki, and Yuki just didn’t understand him. That boy has low self-esteem. Not as much as Yoh from MPW (because wow, Yoh was like a master at low self-esteem), but still. And it could be also that Yuki had a crush on Asami even then, but simply didn’t realize it (again, like Yoh).

Funny thing is I did finish reading the 1st volume of the manga a few weeks ago, and now I barely remember anything from it. Manga is just a really hard medium for me to get into. I keep missing a lot of things even during reading. And it was only exacerbated by me reading it on my laptop. I don’t like to read longer things on the computer screen. But the first two volumes of the manga (translated to English) will be published as paperbacks later this year, so I plan to buy it and read it again.

Speaking of Komagine Kiita and his acting talent – I have a drama rec for you.

Tengu no Daidokoro (Tengu’s Kitchen)



If you like slice of life dramas, but also magical realism, food as a love language, and complicated, but loving relationships between siblings then this is the drama for you. It’s slow, cozy, heart-warming, and relaxing.

It’s a story about 14-years old On, who was born and raised in the USA, and who is told by his parents that he is a descendant of the Tengu (a type of supernatural creature found in Shinto belief). There is a tradition that after his 14th birthday he must spend a year in seclusion in the Japanese countryside. He will live there with his older brother Motoi, whom he never met, because Motoi came to live in Japan right after On’s birth for his year of seclusion, and he never returned to America.

A bit more about the plot, with very minor spoilers behind the cut.

It’s a Tengu lineage trait that all descendants develop the ability to communicate with animals at 14, but that ability usually goes away when they turn 15. But Motoi is an exception; not only does he still has this skill as an adult, but he also grew small wings at 14 (which is very unusual even for a Tengu descendant) and he still has them now.

On is a typical teenager, who at first is bored with his new, unhurried life in the countryside, and awkward and cold with his brother whom he never talked to before. Especially since Motoi is a quiet and calm person, and he doesn’t really talk much. They have to learn how to be brothers together. With a lot of food porn (seriously, I often got so hungry watching this drama 😊) and a few talks with a cute doggie.

And it’s such a joy to observe this journey through 10 episodes of this drama. And it’s such a joy to admire Kiita’s excellent acting as Motoi.

This drama isn’t available officially with English subtitles. But there is a person on tumblr who has the project where they make fansubs for their favorite Japanese dramas, and they translated this drama too. Here is their post on tumblr with the information where you can download raw episodes and the subtitles.

RL is finally a bit easier. In short – my sister had serious health problems, and she had to have two operations. They were successful, and for now she’s ok. And after the last harrowing few weeks I finally feel like I can breathe.

I’m thinking about signing up for Bite-Sized Fandoms Exchange, because now I have mental space for exchange fic writing. Still have one more day to decide. We’ll see.

And now let’s talk about dramas and pretty men.


Wedding Impossible

I watched it to the end (with fast-forwarding a lot through the last four episodes), but damn it, did that show make me angry during the 11th episode. Not just disappointed, but genuinely angry.

Rant with minor spoilers here.

Do Han is a selfish coward if he doesn’t come out, and then he’s a selfish coward when he does want to come out. Just make up your mind, show, for fucks sake.

Forget what I said about Do Han being an interesting, complex character. All that disappeared completely in the second half of the drama. Do Han being gay was just a plot device in service of Ji Han and Ah Jeong’s boring romance. He wasn’t a person with valid feelings and worries, he was there just to be an obstacle. I mean, I know, I know – it’s a mainstream kdrama, but still I expected something just a little bit better than this disaster.

The last episode only made me yawn, instead of making me angry, so that was an improvement. At least Do Han was shown being happy and doing what he always wanted to do – being an artist in New York, far away from his stupid family.

I’ve never written a fic out of spite before, but now I’m so tempted. Now I want to write a fic about Do Han being happily in love, and give him a crossover boyfriend, but hmmm from what drama? Someone somewhere mentioned Boston from Only Friends, and you know what, I can see that. But rather like a one-time thing than a long-term boyfriend. Ohh, maybe Jason from Bump Up Business? They could be good together.


Jazz For Two

It’s a high school BL – cute and amusing at times, but in general rather mediocre. The script is weak, which is unfortunate, because the drama deals with a few heavy themes (school bullying and internalized homophobia amongst them), so a bit more nuance would be great. A bit more time, too. But since it’s a Korean BL drama it’s very short – just eight 30 minutes long episodes.

But the actors are pretty good with nice chemistry. And unusually for Korean BL it has a secondary couple (which is underdeveloped, but my favorite, despite small amount of screentime, because of course it is 😊), and even a third background sort of couple that only appears in flashbacks.

Here have a rec for two very good fanvids about my favorite secondary couple Song Joo Ha/Seo Do Yoon. A content warning: for most of the drama Joo Ha is an asshole and a bully (nothing too drastic, but still), and there wasn’t really much time in the drama to successfully show his redemption.

Only Fools

Super Psycho Love


I also posted my new fic a few days ago – for Bump Up Business fandom.

Something to give each other (3316 words)
Fandom: 범프 업 비즈니스 | Bump up Business (TV)
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Gong Jihoon/Kang Eden
Characters: Kang Eden, Gong Jihoon, Choi Dajung
Additional Tags: Post-Finale, Smut And A Lot Of Feelings, Kissing, Blow Jobs, Hand Jobs
Summary: Eden’s heart is pounding. He doesn’t know if it’s because of the Lion Heart performance they just finished. Or if it’s because every time he looks at Jihoon he hears Jihoon’s voice saying ‘I love you’ and he sees Jihoon’s eyes alight with feelings Eden had wanted to see in them for such a long time.


As for pretty boys I want to show you a few more pics of Higuchi Kouhei and Mashiko Atsuki, because they are still my current biggest fascination.

Eight pretty pics here.

RL is throwing more and more problems at me, and I wish it stopped. I solved one big problem, I quit my stupid job, stop being annoying RL, give me a little breathing room now, please.

But at least things are good on drama watching front.


Kdramas

I watched two more episodes of The King Loves and enjoyed them a lot. My favorite beautiful murderer is still beautiful and murdery, and now he’s also having slashy moments with his boss. ♥ OT3 is still OT3-ing. I’m satisfied. 😊


But I have mixed feelings about the last two episodes of Wedding Impossible. I am trying to keep my expectations low and not to expect miracles when it comes to kdrama’s treatment of its gay character. *sigh* Just four more episodes to go, we’ll see soon if it was worth watching.


Jdramas

Before I’ll tell you about the last two Japanese dramas I watched, let me start with a little story. 😊

I haven’t been in England for six years. Last time was in 2018 when I went to see Hamilton in London. I wasn’t really tempted to go again until I’ve heard about Spirited Away at London Coliseum. It’s a re-imagining of studio Ghibli’s movie for the stage, which will be performed (by Japanese actors, in Japanese with English subtitles) for a limited time in London this year – from April to July.

And one of the three performers for Haku is Mashiko Atsuki (Yoh from My Personal Weatherman). I so want to see him on stage. I won’t buy the ticket now, because there is no information available which performance on which days exactly he will take part in. But I’m so tempted to just go to London for a week or so in May or June in hope of getting lucky and catching the performance with him as Haku. We’ll see. For now RL makes it impossible for me to go. I hope May or June will be better in that regard.

And for now, since Toku to BL pipeline seems to be a real thing in Japan 😉, I decided to cheer myself up by watching Mashiko Atsuki in Kikai Sentai Zenkaiger and Higuchi Kouhei in Avataro Sentai Donbrothers. These are only other dramas, besides My Personal Weatherman, with those actors available to me with English subtitles.

Both dramas are from sentai genre. Sentai (戦隊 lit. "Task Force" or "Squadron") is a sub-genre of tokusatsu involving a team of superheroes.

I finished watching Kikai Sentai Zenkaiger a few days ago, and now I’m nine episodes in with Avataro Sentai Donbrothers.

I enjoyed Kikai Sentai Zenkaiger a lot. It was very funny and sweet, with a few touching, teary-eyed moments, too. I laughed a lot during each episode, and unsurprisingly, my absolute favorite character was Mashiko Atsuki’s dancing and singing space pirate Zox Goldtsuiker.

More with minor spoilers and two pics behind the cut.

In the beginning he’s a morally ambiguous character – he helps the good guys to defeat the bad guys, but he doesn’t care about civilian casualties. He mellows out a lot later, but he never really becomes a full-fledged member of the main superhero team, though he always helps them to defeat monsters of the week.

He’s devoted to his family. He has a younger sister and two younger brothers and he takes good care of them. He would do anything to protect his siblings.

And he’s played by Mashiko Atsuki, so he’s very, very, very beautiful. He looks like that:

And here is Zox with his siblings (his sister Flint is awesome, too, and yes, his brothers look like little robots for majority of the show for plot reasons 😊):

And here on Youtube is a short vid with his first entrance in the 8th episode, and it’s such a fantastic scene. How can you not fall in love with him after that? 😊

Avataro Sentai Donbrothers was a harder sell for me. At first my main problem with this season was like that - this show is deconstruction of sentai genre, so what I enjoyed about Zenkaiger is not there. I like found family aspect, the team members liking and respecting each other and knowing who they are, and that they chose to become a superhero instead of being forced into it.

And since I watched only one sentai show it’s not like I’m tired of typical genre beats. Like at this point I wanted more of the same, but with ASD I got deconstruction.

So that was my thought process for the first seven episodes and I even wondered if I should keep watching. Especially since I have very mixed feelings about the main lead Momoi Taro played by Higuchi Kouhei. I find his superhero persona so annoying.

But then I watched the 8th episode, and it was awesome. And damn, the ending of that episode shook me. Well ok, fine, I guess deconstruction actually works for me, too, despite watching only one other show in that genre. 😊

Major spoilers for episode 8 here.

Monsters in this show are just regular humans overcame by greed and rage, and that’s why they turn into monsters and start attacking other people. And usually our heroes defeat them in a way that saves a human trapped inside a monster, and lets them live. And in episode 8 one of those monsters kidnaps the wife of one of our reluctant heroes. She gets rescued, or rather she rescues herself, because she’s awesome. But despite that her husband, who’s one of the superheroes, one of our main characters, one of our good guys, deliberately lets that MOTW be killed in a way that also killed a human trapped inside it, in revenge for kidnapping his wife. There is a voiceover with his thoughts where he says that this person deserved to be killed, and the world is safer without them. And wow, that was dark. For a silly show like that it was very dark. And I loved it.

I don’t have a cold anymore. Yay, yay, yay!!! 😊


The last episode of Thai Cherry Magic – it was so lovely and pretty and heartwarming.

Spoilers here.

A sweet marriage proposal! A beautiful wedding! I love marriage proposals and weddings in BL dramas, and Achi and Karan’s proposal and later a wedding ceremony was perfect. And I can’t state enough how much I adored Jinta and Min’s relationship. They were super cute together. I hope Junior and Mark will have another drama as a pairing, I would like that very much.

This adorable and funny fanvid for the secondary character in Reset:

Cat Apostle, Conqueror of Asthma, Chosen One Of The Light (Vid) by Rhea
Fandom: 开端 | Reset (TV 2022)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Lu Di (Reset)
Additional Tags: Fanvids, Cats
Summary: I have six cats

This song is so catchy. Every time I re-watch the vid I spend the rest of the day singing to myself:

And I have six cats
If I could I'd have all the cats
How many cats is too many cats?
There's no such number, number


This BTS vid – it’s Higuchi Kouhei and Atsuki Mashiko for Gianna Magazine. They both look stunning.

Speaking of these two beautiful people there was also a mysterious announcement a few days ago:



I want to know what is it now, now, now. A special episode? A movie? Please, tell me, please, please, please. 🙏

The trailer for the first GMMTV GL drama 23.5 is here. And it looks so good and so cute. Milk and Love are adorable, and there are View and June as the secondary couple. The 1st episode will air on Friday the 8th of March. I can’t wait.

I wanted to make a longer post with more news and trailers and reviews of the dramas I watched but I have a cold again, and all I want to do is to bury myself under the blanket and watch the next episode of live action Avatar The Last Airbender (I watched three episodes for now and it’s pretty good, I like it). Or listen to OnlyOneOf music. Or watch their interviews and BTS vids. I admit I’m a little bit obsessed. I have three different Bump Up Business fics in the works, and now I also kinda want to write OnlyOneOf RPF fics. And fics for series of vids from their undergrOund idOl project. I love these songs and MVs so much. They’re like three mini BL dramas, each consisting of two episodes.

Here is the playlist, if someone would like to take a look.

Sell Your Haunted House

It’s a drama about a woman with a tragic past, who runs a realty business combined with an exorcism business. She sells haunted properties after first exorcising the ghosts that dwell there. She meets a conman with special medium powers and after the initial reluctance on her side they start working together. And their relationship slowly morphs from annoyance and doubt and dislike to the mutual respect and trust and affection, and true friendship and partnership.

I finished watching it yesterday. It was amazing from start to finish. I loved it even more than I loved The Matchmakers. The last episode made me cry and then made me smile so much. It was emotional and beautiful, and perfect. I really hope that screenwriter will write more dramas, they’re very good.

And for those of you, who prefer the dramas without romance – that was one of them. I mean, there are a few tiny moments of simmering attraction between the female lead and the male lead, but it’s really just a few moments in all 16 episodes, and it never goes anywhere even close to romantic feelings. And apparently it wasn’t intentional, it’s just the effect of Jang Na Ra and Jung Yong Hwa having great natural chemistry.


Last Twilight

The finale was on Friday a week ago. And well, it was disappointing. Everything I didn’t want them to do, they did. I was disappointed enough that I started to write a rant on Saturday, but then I didn’t finish it, and now I don’t even care enough to rant. It’s a pity, it was such a good drama for ten episodes, and then they did this. *sigh*

My major complaint behind the cut with spoilers.

What I mind the most is the drama insisting on Day being completely in the right, and Mhok being wrong. They had Mhok apologize twice. They wanted me to buy into the premise that only Mhok was in the wrong and caused their breakup. And that Day blocking Mhok on all his social media accounts and completely erasing him from his life for three years was a right thing to do. And sorry, but no, I couldn’t do that.

Dead Friend Forever

I like it a lot. Ta is amazing, the last episode was very good, and I can’t wait to watch the next one.

More with spoilers here.

The ending of the episode was like a KinnPorsche Macau/Porchay AU fic. I loved it. And I’m so curious to know what really happened in the past. In the next ep there will be more flashbacks and even more Phee/Non stuff. I can’t wait.

I had to fast-forward quite a lot during those last two episodes, because all those flashbacks to the guys bullying Non was hard to watch. But good job, show, you made it so I won’t feel sorry for any of them when they die horribly. Jin for now seems mostly innocent, and his only failing is not standing up to his awful friends when he saw them bully Non. Yes, he never saw the worst of it. But still he was rather a passive observant instead of actually doing something about the stuff he knew about. And well, we certainly don’t know everything yet, and I still think that maybe Jin isn’t as innocent as he seems, maybe he did something awful to Non later, maybe he’s just as bad as Top, Tee, and Por.

And I did think that Tan and Phee were in it together in the present time, but now I think Tan is just a red herring. And I saw the speculation that White is the one working with Phee, and that White is Non’s brother. I mean I assumed that Non’s bother was older and studying at the university abroad, but it wasn’t confirmed, so maybe Non’s brother is actually younger, so it could be White. I have to say that I like this idea. But we’ll see. We have six more episodes to watch.

As for fanfic writing – in January I posted two fics in a very tiny fandom for Thai drama Wednesday Club. Not a BL, but with a lot of actors I know from various BL dramas – Ohm Pawat, Phuwin, Satang, Film, Papang, AJ and JJ, and Tor. I haven’t written about it before, because it started pretty strong and was pretty good for like 5 or 6 episodes, but then it took a nosedive in quality, and I started to fast-forward a lot and lost a lot of my initial enthusiasm about this drama. But one pairing caught my attention, and then those two fics were born. 😊

Tell me if this is all true, my lover (2006 words)
Fandom: คนกลางแล้วไง | Wednesday Club (TV)
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Kul/Top (Wednesday Club)
Characters: Top (Wednesday Club), Kul (Wednesday Club)
Additional Tags: Episode Related, Dubious Consent, Complicated Emotions, Somewhat Unreliable Narrator, Smut
Summary:

And this moment, right now, was like everything Top ever dreamed of. And Top finally was the one holding all the power, and Kul was the one looking at Top pleadingly, those fucking pretty eyes of his full of hope, and his voice trembling.

“You’re the only one who can help me,” Kul said.

And Top... Well, Top was half hard already, just seeing Kul kneeling at his feet, wringing his hands and begging, his desperate eyes looking up at Top as if Top really was the only one that could save Kul.

What happened after that scene in episode 6, from Top's POV.


Tonight you are mine (1722 words)
Fandom: คนกลางแล้วไง | Wednesday Club (TV)
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Kul/Top (Wednesday Club)
Characters: Top (Wednesday Club), Kul (Wednesday Club)
Additional Tags: Dubious Consent, Possessive Behavior, Porn with Feelings
Summary:

Top would never admit it to anyone, but he had wanted Kul since the first time he laid eyes on him in the university’s main hall when Kul was just a first-year student looking so beautiful in that pristine white shirt.

A big change in RL – in short I quit my stupid job finally. It was never going to get better, and I was only fooling myself thinking that it could. But now I’m free, and I can afford to just take a rest for a few months. And after that we’ll see.

Anyway I spent a lot of time lately watching dramas to distract myself from thinking about RL things. And here is my drama watching report. It got long, sorry, I really watched a lot of things lately. 😊


First two kdramas – The Matchmakers and Sell Your Haunted House.

The Matchmakers

It’s an adorable and funny and heartwarming fusion sageuk about unlikely couple who has to work together for plot reasons to get older single men and women to marry as matchmakers.

More behind the cut with a few spoilers.

( Read more... )


Sell Your Haunted House

I was so impressed with the quality of The Matchmakers' screenplay that after finishing that drama I instantly started watching Sell Your Haunted House, which was written by the same writer Ha Soo Jin. Watched three episodes for now, love it a lot. I will write more about it later. But let me tell for now I am more than willing to watch whatever drama that writer writes next no matter the subject.


Now let’s talk about BL dramas. I watch five shows that are currently airing, all Thai BL dramas. Behind the cut there are short reviews of Last Twilight, The Sign, Cherry Magic, Dead Friend Forever, and For Him. No spoilers, apart from very minor ones about For Him.

( Read more... )


And I watched three dramas that aired in 2022 and 2023 – Unforgotten Night (so bad, I don’t really know why I watched it all 😊), Oh My Sunshine Night (eh, rather mediocre), and My Personal Weatherman (so, so good, I’m obsessed).

More behind the cut, with minor spoilers, and three promo pics for My Personal Weatherman.

( Read more... )

The 8th episode of Last Twilight. 😍 ♥ ♥ ♥ And here is the official MV for a song from that episode sang by Satang titled “One Palm Distance”. It’s beautiful – both the song and the vid.

The reaction vid to Last Twilight episode 6 - with actors Jimmy, Sea, and Ohm, and two directors Aof and Jojo. It’s so cute and funny. 😊


This Yuletide fic for Korean GL drama She Makes My Heart Flutter:

Dream – Hope – Doubt – Joy (1415 words)
Fandom: 여자에게 설레는 편 | She Makes My Heart Flutter
Rating: General Audiences
Relationships: Jung One (She Makes My Heart Flutter) / Lee Re (She Makes My Heart Flutter)
Characters: Jung One (She Makes My Heart Flutter), Lee Re (She Makes My Heart Flutter), Yu Bin (She Makes My Heart Flutter)
Additional Tags: Character Study, Self-Doubt, Financial Issues, Romance
Summary: Some snippets from Jung One's mind before and after the events of the series.


Two short vids from the mini series I called “BL actors being cute with kids”:

Joss and Gawin singing Baby Shark with an adorable little girl

Earth and Papang with one of kid actresses on the set of the drama “Ploy’s Yearbook” (like someone commented it’s like an alternate universe for Moonlight Chicken where Beam wasn’t a cheating asshole and him and Jim stayed a happy couple and had a kid 😊)


Best 2PM moments of 2023 - in other words 25 minutes of 2pm being as always adorable dorks, 2023 edition.

A good thing is the 7th episode of Last Twilight, which was amazing. It was very emotional, heart-warming and beautiful. I know I will sound like a broken record, but I can’t get over how good this drama is. And it contrast to the last episode I was smiling, and laughing, and squeeing, and making heart-eyes at the screen through the whole episode and then the last two minutes made me go ‘ouch, ouch, ouch, my heart hurts’.

Spoilers here.

But seriously how good was everything about the way Mohk and Day became boyfriends after that first kiss. And I thought it would take a bit longer for Day to admit his feelings, like at least one or two more episodes. But I’m so glad he managed to do it in this one, since it seems we will get another dose of heavy angst in the next episode.

I still can’t get over Day being all “I’m sorry, but you’re not my type, and we can go back to the way we were with you as my caretaker, but you can’t cross the line and hit on me.” And then being secretly pleased every time Mohk teased him and went really, really close to the line and showed how much he loved Day. And oh wow, Mohk’s “I’m going to ask you to be my boyfriend” declaration, and Day accepting his feelings, and making a decision that yes, he wants it, he wants Mohk as his boyfriend... It’s good that nobody was looking at me when I was watching this scene, because my reaction was super embarrassing. 😊

And a disappointing BL thing is this – GMMTV announced that they were required to suspend the broadcast of Cherry Magic on their Youtube channel for all viewers outside of Thailand due to lack of permission from the copyright owner. The first two episodes are no longer available on Youtube, either. It made me a little bit sad, because I really enjoyed those two episodes and was looking forward to having this sweet bit of fluff to watch each Saturday evening. Oh, well, I hope they’ll manage to sort it out sooner or later, and international viewers will have the chance to watch this drama in the future.

So yeah, I have Covid again. With a bit milder symptoms than two years ago thankfully, because I’m vaccinated with all possible dosages, and that current strain of virus is less vicious than the one from 2021. But it still sucks and the last three days were pretty bad. But I do feel a bit better today. I’m much more worried about my mom, who’s also sick and feeling much worse than me since she’s 80 years old and has other health problems.

I spent those last three days watching short fluffy BL dramas – Korean Love Tractor and Japanese Kieta Hatsuoki (My Love Mix-Up). Both were super cute and sweet and optimistic and funny.

I also watched the 1st episode of the Thai version of Cherry Magic with TayNew. It was also very cute. And I already like the secondary couple so much more here than in the original, where I fast-forwarded through most of their scenes.

The only dose of angst I allowed myself in the last few days was the 5th episode of Last Twilight, and even that was mostly adorable and heart-warming, although yeah, it did made my heart break for Mhok and Day at the end of the episode. But it’s Aof Noppharnach’s drama, so I expected the slowest of burns, and a lot of hurt before comfort. But in general this drama is very good, and P’Aof proved with his previous dramas that he knows how to stick the landing. So I’ll just sit comfortably, prepare for more heartbreak and wait patiently for the happy ending. 😊