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scoobydooisadetective · 6 months ago

Text

Tenoch's interview at the Vagos de la Vida Real Podcast

Hi! sorry this took so long, I'm a bit rusty. Sorry for any grammar mistakes too. If you find difficulties understanding anything or if you have any correction, let me know.

Bold is the interviewer, normal is Tenoch and italics are comments made by me (mostly explaining things or when I don’t understand what they’re saying)

We already have some followers here in this radio experimentation laboratory called "Vagos de la vida real", produced by La Universidad Autónoma de San Luis. And to start talking, I'd like to ask you something that has to do with your past, with your dreams, with nostalgia, I think. Let's see what you tell us: What does Ecatepec represent in your life?

Well, it’s the place where I was raised. I grew up on the border, right there, a few blocks away in between Ecatepec and Coacalco, and to me, apart from being the place where I grew up, it’s the place that gave me identity. Between the contrasts of things that I saw at home, what you see on the street, what you see at school, I think that at the end of the day the place where I grew up was very privileged because I was able to understand many dynamics and see many points of view and understand many types of lives and experiences based on the place where I grew up.

Back then, going from Mexico City to Ecatepec or from Ecatepec to the city was the equivalent to a trip outside the city, let’s say, it’s like going to Cuernavaca, to Querétaro, you know? It was literally like going to a city in a different state. The metropolitan area had not swallowed that part of the state of Mexico, so it was… Very particular, because I recall that when I have talked with friends that were raised outside the city, let’s say Jalisco or places like that, we have similar experiences about living “outside” the city, in another state and at the same time, this other identity that’s a lot more urban. In my case, it was formed towards my teenage years as a result of the closeness and “distance” between Ecatepunk (another way of calling Ecatepec that Tenoch uses) and Mexico City.

That's right. Hey, right now we're going to talk about Ecatepunk, the term was among the questions I had (Tenoch laughs). Do you remember your friends from there?

Yeah, yeah!

What was everyday life like? Tell us about your friends, what did they do? Did they play in the street? Were they naughty nuisances? What was everyday life like when you were in middle school there in Ecatepec? Because you went to middle school in Ecatepec, right?

Yes, they're sons of a gun (the host laughs and I don't get to hear what Tenoch says properly, but he mentions something about being naughty or doing naughty things). Some were worse than others, you know, there's a bit of everything, from really quiet dudes, the majority of them are hard-working people, with their families and so on, but there were always the miscreants (he says malandrillos, idk how to translate it but basically reckless kids, 'bad' guys, etc, just in case this word is weird) and I just so happened to befriend them. I always had the... (Tenoch laughs and doesn’t finish the sentence). I was a very easy going kid, imagine that my first drop of alcohol... Well, I had tasted something, but I drank my first real drink when I was 21, 22 years old. I was finishing college when I had my first drink. Actually, I was really easy going and the majority of my friends were, let's say, a little more adventurous in life than me. And so I was friends with the bad guys and also the guys that were top in class, so I could move in all aspects, let's say, in all the areas that a public middle school could offer. I went to the Moisés Saenz middle school and when I was a little boy, that was the most posh school in the area, but by the time I started middle school there, it was a step before juvenile prison because everyone was a son of a gun, but the truth is I had a great time, it was fun and I still have many friends from middle school.

That's important, yes, yes. Hey, something that comes to mind about what you're talking about is, how did you and your friends saw Mexico City? You already told us it was like a trip to another city, but how did you guys see it? How did you imagine that urban monster that was growing? Did you ever realize that it was going to absorb you? You didn't realize? What was the imagery of those who lived there?

Well, you truly don't realize it. For starters, it was like a mythical place, it was a distant place, the big city. At the end of the day, it is the country's capital, so when you're a young what interests you is, or in my case, were the raves, the rock shows, going to bars and so on, but we didn't have enough money or the age... 14 years old, where the hell were they going to let us in? So that was like the dream of the city, the city, the city and suddenly, it began to become too urbanized there and when I started college... I mean, in high school I already acquired a little clearer awareness of the immensity of the city and the complexity of it. At the end of the day, I lived in a microcosm. When I was a child, there were, I don't know, four or five subdivisions and I lived in one of them. There were five or six villages that ended up being absorbed by the urban sprawl and now are interior villages and everything else was for plots. Then little by little it became urbanized, the city swallowed it up.

When I started my degree in the UNAM was when I really got to experience Mexico City, I was visiting it on a daily basis. I studied in Aragón, but the majority of my activities post-school where in Acatlán, because I played american football with los Pumas de Acatlán and the other part of my activities were in Mexico City, in Channel 22, where I did my social service, in ABC radio that's in the press building by the Hidalgo subway station, where I also did internships and eventually I did some work as a reporter and journalistic notes in the radio, I went on air and read news. Anyway, it was a whole adventure to discover... While I was growing, let's say... It's very funny, because while I was growing, my horizons were growing too. In terms of the city, the 'chilango' identity, that I personally love, I'm not a chilango supremacist, even though I make a lots of jokes about it, but the truth is I'm not. The bottom line is that something beautiful about Mexico City is that people from everywhere live in the city and Mexico City wouldn't be so cool if only us chilangos lived in it, because it's a really, really boring city. All the diversity, the food, the ambiance, the places, the people... I mean 25 millions of souls are 25 millions of different worlds, so there's a bit of everything for everyone and the truth is that I can brag that I have been able to live, well the precise term of the word is cosmopolitan, the cosmopolitan life of Mexico City, because we're a country that measures half of Europe. So, when we talk about cosmopolitanism, just with the inner immigration in the country is already half of Europe, that's how cosmopolitan Mexico City can be. So, truly, I've had a great time. Now I live in chilangolandia, I have become a chilango completely.

Full time

And I enjoy it a lot. Full time, truly. And I enjoy it a lot, I mean, we also have to keep the distances and proportions. I live in a central area of the city, in a middle class area, so obviously services such as transportation and security are greater, so it offers me a much more comfortable life in the city than to other people.

Hey, would you let us go back to your story?

Let's go, let's go. Yes.

In 91', before you went to college, one of the most complicated decades for this country began. In 94' the Zapatista war blows up, they kill Colosio, there's a series of complications that arose and are part of who we are today. I'd like for you to tell us if you remember how did you see it, if you were already in high school... How did you see everything that was happening? Or you didn't see it? It's something I've asked every guest we've had here in Vagos and the answers have been very diverse, from people that never knew, to people who participated, that went to protests. How was your experience with the '90s?

No, I was very... My parents politicized me since I was little. I went to my first march when I was 7 years old, which was the march in '88 ... (I don't understand what the march was for because they speak at the same time but I managed to hear something about something that they did to someone named Cardenas I think). So yeah, actually, I made things uncomfortable in the classroom since middle school, because when they started to talk about history, I'd bring up my facts like 'no, but wait, Porfirio Diaz did this and that' and they were like 'shut up, asshole' or I would go with my friends to chat and I'd start saying things like Mexico is a great nation and they have to respect us and they were like 'shut up, dude'. Eventually, the majority of my classmates ended up working in political parties and the only one who didn't work with political parties was me. It's like those people that tell you 'you're an atheist because you haven't read about religion' and you say 'no, because I've read about religion I'm an atheist', that happened to me. Since I was a kid my dad politicized me and well, yes, we saw all the events that were happening in the country, and well, I didn't only see them and was aware of them, my dad would talk to me about them and well when the... When the zapatista army arrived at Mexico City, I was there in the Zócalo with my family to receive them. I remember I learned a very important lesson there, I was telling my dad 'I think that Mexico isn't a racist country, but rather a classist country' and my dad told me 'go out to the street and yell 'indio' (indio it's used as a derogatory term in Mexico, meaning someone who's ignorant or uncivilized. Even though the original meaning is being descended from indigenous people) at any person and you'll see how it goes'.

That's right.

'If that is not racism, I don't know what is', and I was like 'oh, fuck'. I was around 13 or 14 years old at that time and since then I began to have a lot of awareness. I thank my dad for that, because regardless of the ideological or political positions that one might have, having awareness and being politicized in life allows you to make better conditions-- decisions, sorry.

Yeah, that's right.

I could say that a good part of the decisions I've taken in my career are based a lot on what I read in the newspapers and especially in the international news.

You have been telling us about your father. Would you like to tell us who your father is? About him?

Yeah, well, look, to me, my heroes in life are my parents. My mom and my dad, they're my fucking heroes, the two of them. My mom lost her mom when she was 11 or 12 years old and my dad lost his dad when he was 5 or 6 years old. So, the fact that my mom didn't have a mom and my dad didn't have a dad meant that no one ruined them (they laugh at this joke, and Tenoch adds something else but he's laughing so I can't manage to grasp what he's saying, though he says something about 'bad examples at home').

They both have worked their whole lives. My mom was raised in what was back then the Iztapalapa village, and it was just that, a village. There were only a few streets that had lights. My dad was from the Colonia Obrera, so it’s funny now that I mention it to you, because my dad was from the Colonia Obrera, a very urban area in Mexico City and my mom was from Iztapalapa, a village, a very rural area in Mexico City and the place where I grew up was a mix between the urban and the rural, right? Because there were many lots there, and at the same time there were a lot of subdivisions, Mexico City, well, the state was starting to split.

My dad was a kid that worked since he was 5 years old as a shoemaker assistant and he was a laborer since he was 13 years old. And being a laborer and having 2 or 3 children, I don’t remember if my sister who was born before me had already been borned, but my dad being a laborer and everything ended up in night-time studies at the polytechnic university (not sure if this or trade school is a better translation but I think you can grasp the idea) and he graduated as an engineer and won a scholarship to study in Germany for a year and a half.

Well I never!

Well, yes. Back then, when going to college actually meant social mobility. And my mom was raised by her aunt, she studied a technical career, starts to work and meets my dad, they get married and made the decision that my mom would stay at home taking care of the kids and my dad was going to work, because back then, before people judge without knowing and understanding, and as the wise says ‘there’s no text without context’. The context about the period when my parents were young, the 60-70s, is that one person, with one salary could sustain a family of 6 or 7 members. In our case, we were six: four siblings, including me, my dad and my mom. So, with my dad’s salary as a teacher, because first he was a teacher at a technical school… With my dad being a teacher, he could sustain us, the whole family. And my mom, by her own decision, wanted to stay home, which I thank a lot because without my mom's effort of taking care of us, of being at home, having always the clothes clean for us and warm food, a mommy that would hug us and pamper us, and when we got sick she would send us to school anyway, she didn't give a fuck, but when we got back from it she would receive us with a hot soup and kisses. And my siblings got hit (he says ‘les ponía su chingazo’, I don’t think it means he hit them violently or anything, it’s probably more like a telling off? just putting this here because slang and intentions are hard to translate at times) because they earned them, those fuckers, but without that mommy, we wouldn't had made it. So that's why I say that both of them have given me great examples. My mom, by staying at home, my dad, by going to work and with all that life experience accumulated, from the two of them, their lives, everything they went through since childhood, their loss of mom and dad, well, they raised us... We're four, the four of us went to college, we're professionals, we are good people, so the clear thing is that without my parents, without my mother and without my father we would not be what we are and that is why I will always be eternally grateful to my parents. And I hope that one day I can give that same example and that same support to my two little girls that I adore, these two little girls are my raison d'être (I looked this up, but basically they’re his reason to exist), they are my solid rock. Someone told me “I’m glad your daughter, the eldest in this case, was born, because otherwise you would have gone crazy, she’s your anchor to reality”, then the little one came along also at a very important time in my life and these two brought good luck to me when they were born. The truth is that these two kids are now what my parents showed me we were for them.

Hey, so I have a question. I read in an interview somewhere that you said that in Ecatepec the microphones were turned off and it was not easy to get out of there. Did you realize this in middle school? Or when you went to high school? Or did you rationalize it when you were already in college?

I realized when I was in college, because you know what? When I was in middle school and high school to me it was normal, I was just another kid from the suburbs and that was it. I lived my life, I went to political rallies and things like that with my parents, but beyond that, well, no.

And your classmates? What were their dreams about their future? Or they didn’t dream of the future?

Well, besides having a good life, earning a good salary and having a house, the truth is that I don’t remember us having any other kind of talks about the future. I think that is something that happens when you’re young, which I think is very healthy too. But also, when you live in less fortunate contexts you’re not thinking so much about the future, because you’re worried about the present and how to overcome things.

Here and now.

For the here and now. I think not all of my classmates, but most of us thought about the future in terms of what career we wanted to pursue and things like that, but there was also a significant part of my classmates who didn’t even question such things, they didn’t have the sense of urgency about the future, really. Beyond buying a house and having a good job, there wasn’t any sort of talks or points of views and I think it has to do with age.

When I started to study my career, when I was accepted at the UNAM in ‘99, just when the 99 strike was happening, the climate was extremely politicized and I appreciate it a lot because it made us question other things. I personally did have the belief that Mexico had to change, that there would have to be a revolution. I thought that at that moment, like a lot of young people and people who came before me, actually, my dad is from the ‘68 generation, several of his classmates lost their lives… Well, they didn’t lose them, they were killed, they died in the movement in ‘68. I did think that the revolution had to be armed, but that didn’t mean that the political fight should be left aside. Anyways, when I started college, I started to understand a lot of things and I realized that college was giving me a lot, a college that was sustained with the taxes of a society, well, it was a college that was giving the less fortunate sons of the revolution… It was giving us a future, right?

Hey, we're running out of time for this segment, we're going to continue talking about this later and I'd like to take this opportunity to tell our listeners, you've heard who's here with us. With studies in communication and journalism at the FES Aragón of the UANAM, from a very young age he dedicated himself to acting and the quality of his work has led him to participate in more than fifty films, more than twelve Mexican, European and North American series. Nominated for the Ariel on five occasions and recognized in one of them as best actor and recognized as best supporting actor in the 54th version of the awards granted by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, in the United States. Author of the book Orgullo Prieto, published in Editorial Grijalbo.

Tenoch huerta, I thank you with all my heart that you have opened a space in your agenda, an agenda that has a lot of work, that has many commitments and yet you still agreed to come and talk with us in this space. I'm going to play a song that closes this segment and I will continue talking with Tenoch Huerta in the next segment.

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We’re back with Vagos de la Vida Real

We're back here, thank you for continuing with us in this radio experimentation laboratory called Vagos de la Vida Real. I take this opportunity to thank Gabriela Hernandez, our university radio director, who allows and supports this project in its second season. I thank you for your calls to the booth. Thank you for the messages we receive in our social networks, remember we have an Instagram for Vagos de la Vida Real if you want to write to us and there, we’ll say who’s going to be the next guests who will come to this program. Today, we have a top-level guest, Tenoch Huerta. Let’s continue talking with you, Tenoch.

I’d like, because of everything you said about Ecatepunk and all of that, to give a little more context: Ecatepec has always been considered as one of the municipalities with the biggest rate of violence, insecurity and femicides. Meaning, the zone where you grew up was very rough, then you moved to Coacalco and went to college. Something I’d like you to do is take us to the memory of your first day of college. I understand, if you want to tell us about that, that when your high school classmates applied for the exam, you were the only one admitted to college.

Yeah, yes, precisely. In the whole high school, I was the only one, which, now that I say it outloud, instead of speaking well of me, speaks badly of the school.

Indeed.

But well, that’s how it was. I was admitted to college. I took the test because my school wasn’t incorporated to the UNAM, it was rather incorporated to another system, so I had to take the test. I was admitted to journalism and I remember the first day I was very nervous. My first day of class was in extramuros, which was really funny because I felt a lot of affinity for the movement and its postures, from which I had some idea, but when I entered I could soak up much more about what was going on thanks to the flier distribution. The people in the general strike board would do it constantly and well, I started to read and soak up the ideas and overall, what the college was looking for at that moment, that topic seemed more important and attractive to me. I was never part of the strike board because I didn’t feel comfortable. Anyone could enter, right? You just went to the assembly and that was it, you were involved. I remember going to a few of them, and later on I went to another and no, it wasn’t something that moved me, but the things they talked about and the reason we were fighting mattered to me. So, yeah, I truly had a great time, but that first day I was very nervous, it was like the first day in kinder, middle school and high school, all of them together and multiplied for ten. So, that’s how the first day of class in my career felt, but the truth is I had a great time, I made great friends and the majority of my classmates are people that in one way or another, I still keep contact with.

Also, it was very gratifying that the first college strike in the XXI century was in Mexico, and it also was a victorious one, because a lot of the things we were seeking, regardless of the phobias or philias of each person, well, the college is still public, free, secular and it still is and continues to have the status of the best college in Mexico. So, with all the love and respect that public and autonomous universities throughout the country deserve and also the private ones, well I come from a public school so evidently, my heart beats a bit more to the left. So, school, public education to me… If there’s something you have to bet on… Betting on the future is betting on education, but not education in an abstract way, but rather on a humanist education with a deep social commitment, which, at the end of the day, I ended up absorbing to a greater extent at the UNAM. Once I started having a bigger status in the film industry, I understood that my position is not only to enjoy the success, but also distribute the jar of honey. Start to distribute that jar and most importantly, well, take over the hives so we can start producing honey for everyone, that’s the idea I’ve always had in life, I know it sounds chairo (Chairo is a pejorative word that is used in Mexican politics to discriminate, disqualify or relegate militants or sympathizers of left-wing causes) and it’ll probably scare a lot of good consciences, but what can I say? Without social justice there’s no future.

No, that’s really poetic. That’s how it is, that’s how it is. Hey, something that comes up that I want to imagine, but I want you to tell us, how did a kid that enters college, what, were you like 18 years old?

Yeah

How do you make it coincide? How do you reconcile the college where you were going to study communication, journalism… But also you were already involved in acting for a bit, for a few years, and a while ago you told me you played american football in college. Which one do you want to start telling us about first? Football, acting, what came first?

I played American football since I was 5 years old.

Oh, since you were a kid!

Yeah, since I was 5 years old until I was 21 years old.

Wow!

Here and there I didn’t play two or three seasons for different reasons, but I played. I played every year my season of american football. I played in a lot of teams, the last team I played with was at the UNAM, with the Pumas de Ataclán. After that, I dislocated my shoulder and I couldn’t do anything and my dad… I had taken acting workshops when I was 17 just as a hobby, because I was really happy doing nothing on the couch in my living room, waiting for it to be 11:45 to watch Golden (they both laugh because golden was a channel where they would show adult movies around that hour). No, no, it’s not true. It’s a joke, but if you want to, it’s not a joke.

But it happened at the time, yes.

So, I was really happy doing nothing in life and suddenly, my dad said ‘go and do something with your life’ and he almost dragged me to take those acting workshops. I liked them a lot, but it was just a hobby and when I was in college, as I was telling you, I played my last season, I dislocated my shoulder and my dad told me ‘Why don’t you take the workshops again?’ So I went back to the workshops, a little bit for curiosity and a little bit for having something to do.

Hey, before you tell us about the workshops and acting, what position did you play in american football?

I played as everything, but like my natural position, I figured it out the last 3 or 4 years that I played and it was the defense. For those who don’t know a lot of american football, the front line is the defensive and in that line, in the edges, there’s a pair of players that are the defensive ends and basically and elementally you dedicate to run into the coreback and beat the crap out of him so the dude would see you come and would be scared and wouldn’t be able to play at ease. So, basically, you’re a beater.

And it’s a complex position to play. I also played american football and the line is tough.

It’s tough (Tenoch goes on to mention something about receiving kicks I think, but the host speaks over him and I don’t understand).

And even more here, the american football played in universities is tougher than in the United States, what we see on TV. Here, the hits hurt in a different way.

Yeah, no, yeah, yeah. I played equipped when I was five, imagine it. The atom ant. We looked like little martians with the helmets that would make us lean to the side, but we start to bump into each other since we’re little, you can imagine… (Tenoch adds something but the host talks over him).

Now, tell us about the workshops. You repeated workshops.

Well, since I couldn’t play anymore, I started to take acting workshops and well, more than see these acting workshops as a way of living, I rather took it seriously because I liked it. So I dedicated it all my time and energy to my texts, monologues, to prepare, to give it a spin over and over again, because I truly liked it, I never had aspirations or anything, I simply liked it and it was something I was doing because all my time, energy and abilities were poured into accomplishing the job. Later on, a therapist told me that I’m obsessive and that obsession makes you not be able to let go until it comes out perfectly. It will never be perfect, so you never let it go. So, that obsession or profile made me always try harder. I was bad, I was terrible as an actor, really bad, but since I didn’t give up and I always kept going and I thank american football for that…

The discipline

One time, they blew the skin off one of my fingers while playing, and you could see the bone. I was 10 years old, I went out of the field and told the doctor ‘put a bandage on me’ and he put a gauze on and adhesive tape on my finger and I went back to play, even though they had torn off my skin, because that’s how it is, I don’t understand life in any other way. So they put the gauze and in you go. That’s why I get so angry when I watch soccer players, they tell them ‘good day’ and they tumble around four hundred times and they cry, and throw themselves and drag their feet and cry tears in front of the camera. I say, ‘dude, these people should be acting, they should be in soap operas and not in soccer’. And I know good soccer players who are actors and should be on the field, dude, but oh well.

So, there’s this thing about holding onto pain, not giving in without moving forward, continuing to fight until the referee whistles the end of the match, it’s what took me to eventually go from the worst actor in my workshop to the worst actor on set, but I was a professional! I wasn’t a student anymore, I was a professional actor. A very bad one, but I was there fighting, battling and that leads you to question yourself, and demand yourself and put the ‘this doesn’t end until it ends’ always in front of you, and you can’t take it for granted until it’s perfect, so that’s how I’ve always tried to do my job. I obviously have to measure myself, because there were times when I didn’t sleep or would hurt my body because I overtrained or demanded too much of myself. So, my therapist told me ‘yes, dude, but calm down a bit, it’s not a vow (he says ‘tampoco es manda’ so I guess he’s talking about when people ask a favor from a deity and then they pay it back by sacrificing their physical integrity at times) either’.

But I think that American football gave me a fighting spirit, a sense of camaraderie, of teamwork, of strategy and of what you can't do… A player on his own is no one in a match, it’s always teamwork. I mean, you’re a team, a group and in that group, there are many individualities, but at the end of the day, they align towards the same objective and it allows you to achieve something. So I think all of that shaped me, not only on a professional level, but also on a personal level and it ended up making me the actor that I am now.

I finished my degree, I worked for a while, and suddenly, they called me to make a movie professionally, beyond those little calls here and there I took because I was simply bored and looking for something to do and earn some money, no, it was in a professional way. Deficit by Gael García Bernal was my first professional film, and although I had already done things before, it was my first professional film for real. And since then I have not worked on anything else, I haven’t earned a living from anything that is not acting. I’ve lived well, I’ve had seasons of skinny cows, fat cows and seasons where there even aren’t cows (cows are used to talk about money, like, época de vacas flacas is equal to lean years. I kept it because otherwise it didn’t make sense and I don’t know if there’s like a proper translation for this saying, but basically he’s saying he has struggled, has seen a lot of money and sometimes nothing at all). But I keep going, and overall, I think it has allowed me to find myself, to question a lot of things about life that eventually make us grow and now gives me the chance to offer a life, the best life I can, to my daughters. Someone told me something very nice recently: our ceilings will always be the floors of our children, so I want to elevate my ceilings a lot, so my daughters can have firm, solid floors, but they’ll have to build their own buildings. I’m not building anything for these damn kids! (He laughs).

Hey, let’s see if you allow me to go back to Ecatepec but in another sense. I read somewhere, in some interview you gave about the movie where you star as a cop and before you starred in it, you went to enroll in the police academy in Ecatepec, but without saying you were an actor. Tell us about that, because at the end of the day you returned to your land in some way.

Well, yeah, when we were preparing the movie, by the way, I had the script like a year and a half before, well, when the time to prepare the character arrived the director… I wasn’t giving what it needed. Actually, when I finished reading the script, I was about to tell the director that I couldn’t do that, that he needed an actor with more life experience, meaning, an older actor or with more training, because I had only taken workshops, I didn’t study acting as a career. So I was about to quit when he sent me the script and I read it, I was going to see him to tell him “you know what, dude? This story deserves someone who’s more prepared than me or has more life experience’ and when I arrived, he tells me ‘before you tell me anything, before you even speak, I would like to tell you that there’s no other actor in Mexico that can do this, only you. Now, what did you want to tell me?’ and I was like ‘When do we start, dude?’

So, the truth is I wasn’t enough, so the director suggested… And at the end of the day it was an agreement, but he said ‘dude, what if you take a few trips to the police academy?’ So I went to the police academy in Mexico City and they told me that no. I said well, I’m going to sign up as a cadet, and they told me that I couldn’t do that either because, I think I can say it openly, I don’t have a military service card, so I couldn’t sign up. And I was like ‘damn it’ and then, my mom knew people in the municipality of Coacalco, from Ecatepunk, and my mom told me ‘go there, they’ll receive you’, so right there my mom did production work, that’s how cool my mom is. So I arrived at the academy and the production intervened, obviously, and the agreements that had to be signed were signed, because I was going to train as a police officer, but since I wasn’t going to sign up, because if I did sign up, like with paperwork and so on, well, after I finished the training I would have had to serve in the police for at least six months. So, we reached an agreement with both the academy authorities and the municipal authorities, which was that I would train there an in exchange, we were going to talk about what was happening, which meant the process, about the Ecatepec police, to whom, to be honest, despite everything, at least what I could see is that a lot of the people that are in the police academy and in the Ecatepec police are people that wants to do things right, good people, honest people. At least that’s what I discovered from my experience. Obviously, every person might have a different one, but I met really good people, with good intentions and well, I graduated. I was going everyday, I was treated just like any other cadet.

In fact, no one knew I was an actor, except for the directors. Only the two of them knew that I was an actor, and well, obviously the municipal president, but apart from them no one else knew. And well, I finished my cadet training and thanks to all that experience I was able to play a role that ended up winning an Ariel and we also were part of the official selection of the Cannes Film Festival, we were in the main competition and we had a great chance of winning, but that was the year when everything happened with Florence Cassez (Not sure if I picked up the name right, but if it’s the right person, she is ��a French woman convicted in Mexico of belonging to the kidnapping gang Los Zodíacos (The Zodiacs). She received a 60-year sentence for the crimes of kidnapping, organized crime, and illegal possession of firearms”.). And so there was a lot of…

The camera lens was turned the other way

Yes. I don’t want to say that that’s why… I don’t want to say that that’s why we didn’t win the Cannes Film Festival, but it did have an influence because there was a lot of general animosity towards us.

Tenoch Huerta, we reach the end of the program, the end of this episode. I want you to briefly answer me this last question. That little boy that wore his american football uniform, that little boy that went to college, where you explained that it was like arriving to kinder but 10 times worse, the one that started acting and has conquered international stages, how does he see the future? Where is Tenoch Huerta headed now?

I think that everytime I’m… It’s funny because I think that while my path goes further inward, the further inward I go, ironically, my career is taking me further outward, it’s taking me further in geographical terms, obviously in work terms too, but also in emotional terms. It’s taking me inwards, towards my heart, towards my spirit, towards my mind, towards love. The love I have at home, the love I have from my daughters, even the love from my puppies that were just barking, you know? I think that the further inwards I go, the more the world expands. It’s very funny, they say that universals become universal because they talk about the local, so I think that universalizing ourselves implies, or its first condition is being really honest with an introspective look to see the more human, because in the most intimate and in the most human, it's what we all connect on.

Tenoch, I wish you to continue winning on stages, to continue receiving interesting projects, to continue growing. I thank you for accompanying us until the end of this episode and I ask you to recommend a song to close.

Goodness! There’s a song that was considered the best song of the year and probably of the time, of the decade, it’s called “Oye Mujer” by Raymix. By the way, this dude, if I’m remembering it right, worked in a NASA project, experimenting with sounds and so on, so this dude takes part of the sounds he used the most, he’s an engineer, so he uses his knowledge to design this song that to me seems so beautiful, it’s one of my favorite songs because it’s so pretty and it gives me so much peace and it makes me… It’s funny because he uses sounds from NASA and truly, if you hear it, this song does take you to the stars, no matter how cliché of a romantic gentleman that might sound.

I thank you again, I send you a hug. And I’ll wait for you (the listener) in the next episode.

***

To be honest, I'm a bit dissapointed he didn't speak about future projects, but I understand he might not be able to or doesn't want to just yet. It was fun to know more things about his background, though. It's good to hear him again ❤️‍🩹

(Also he said PUPPIES as in more than one?? I'm DECEASED)

@teeunderscorebee @artintel001 @cutelatinagirl @observers-journal @talokanda-forever @cantstayawaycani @too-many-atoms @neoboha @aolechan @chaoticcatbunny

(sorry if I didn't tag you, as I said I'm rusty and can't remember more usernames rn lol or you speak spanish so this isn't useful to you <3)

#tenoch huerta #vagos de la vida real #podcast #spotify #scooby translates

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the-conversation-pod · 6 months ago

Text

Mixed Nuts, Part 2: Thoughts on Yaoi

And we're back! Japan is churning them out almost faster than we can keep up, so we dedicated a whole grab bag episode to give them the attention they're asking for. Ben, NiNi, Ginny, and Shan talk what's working and what's not in Japanese BL as we discuss Sahara-sensei to Toki-kun, One Room Angel, Perfect Propose, Sukiyanen Kedo Do Yaro Ka, I Want To See Only You and I Became the Star of a BL Drama.

Timestamps

The timestamps will now correspond with chapters on Spotify for easier navigation.

00:00:00 - Welcome 00:01:15 - Grab Bag Part 2: J-BL 00:02:22 - Sahara-sensei to Toki-kun 00:11:29 - One Room Angel 00:18:54 - A Note on MBS Tunku Shower 00:26:01 - Perfect Propose 00:49:27 - Sukiyanen Kedo Do Yaro ka 01:04:44 - I Want To See Only You 01:10:55 - I Became the Main Role of a BL Drama 01:26:16 - Outro

The Conversation Transcripts!

Thanks to the continued efforts of @ginnymoonbeam as transcriber, and @lurkingshan as an editor and proofreader, we are able to bring you transcripts of the episodes.

We will endeavor to make the transcripts available when the episodes launch, and it is our goal to make them available for past episodes (Coming soon thanks to @wen-kexing-apologist). When transcripts are available, we will attach them to the episode post (like this one) and put the transcript behind a Read More cut to cut down on scrolling.

Please send our volunteers your thanks!

00:00:00 - Welcome

NiNi

Welcome to The Conversation About BL, aka The Brown Liquor Podcast.

Ben

And there it is. I’m Ben.

NiNi

I’m NiNi.

Ben

And we’re your drunk Caribbean uncle and auntie here sitting on the porch in the rocking chairs.

NiNi

Four times a year we pop in to talk about what’s going on in the BL world.

Ben

We shoot the shit about stories and all the drama going into them. I review from a queer media lens.

NiNi

And I review from a romance and drama lens.

Ben

So if you like cracked-out takes and really intense emotional analysis…

NiNi

If you like talking about artistry, industry, and the discourse…

Ben

And if you generally just love simping…

NiNi

There is a lot of simping on this podcast…

Ben

We are the show for you!

00:01:15 - Grab Bag Part 2: J-BL

Ben

And we're back. Continuing into Grab Bag episode 2, this time we're going to talk about all the Japanese projects.

We are still with pod team members Ginny and Shan. Say hi, Ginny.

Ginny

Hello.

Ben

Say hi, Shan.

Shan

Hi again.

NiNi

We are here to talk about Japanese BL, Japanese drama, all things Japanese, aka Ben's favorite thing, aka Ginny's starting to become favorite thing, aka Shan's actual favorite thing, aka my I'm gettin’ there thing.

Ben

We will be talking about six shows this week. We're talking about Sahara-sensei to Toki-kun, One Room Angel, Perfect Propose, Although I Love You, and You? aka Sukiyanen Kedo Do Yara ka, I Want to See Only You, and I Became the Main Role of a BL Drama.

NiNi, take us in.

00:02:22 - Sahara-sensei to Toki-kun

NiNi

Let's start with Sahara-sensei, which I did not watch. So, Ben or Shan, who wants to complain about this?

Ben

Well, there's no need for you to watch it, bestie, because it was horrible!

Shan

Horrible!

Ben

Sahara-sensei to Toki-kun is a Japanese BL from MBS through Drama Shower about a juvenile delinquent who falls for a new teacher who seems to pay attention to him, and starts to reform his behaviors as a result of this relationship. But the teacher’s got his own baggage, and then the show makes a goddamn mess of all of this. And we have very many gripes to voice!

[exhales] It was not good. Ginny, did you watch this show?

Ginny

I did.

Ben

I feel like you were less pissed than me and Shan. Is that true?

Ginny

I'm usually less pissed than you and Shan.

Shan

I think it's just a natural state—[NiNi laughs]

NiNi

I don't think anybody could be as pissed as Shan. [Ben and NiNi laugh]

Shan

Right!

Ginny

Scaling for our norms, I think I was about as pissed. I really did not like the show.

Ben

Oh, yes! Go for it, Ginny! Tell it! Kill ‘em. Kill ‘em, bestie!

Ginny

I don't know anything about the source material, but it felt like it was trying to set up two taboo relationships: one teacher student, and one side ship that was sort of step-siblings. And then it completely whiffed both of those and decided, bizarrely, to deal with the taboo nature, particularly the main relationship, as if it simply isn't a taboo.

No one cared! No one cared that this teacher and student were having a romance. It was simply not addressed, or didn't seem to be a concern to anybody. It made the show baffling to follow because it was like they lived in this alternate universe where that doesn't matter, but other things like homophobia do matter—but only sometimes. It was not coherent.

I really enjoyed Toki, the juvenile delinquent. He was delightful. His actor was really fun, and that's really what kept me watching the show for however many episodes it was—six, eight, ten? Eight. That's what kept me watching the show for eight episodes, even though by about the midpoint, it really felt like it was not doing or saying anything interesting.

Ben

Shan, go in and let have.

Shan

Okay, I will! This show is fucking infuriating. I am still so mad every time I think about it.

Ben

[laughs] I can hear it in her voice.

Shan

Ugh! Here's the thing with the teacher student trope: it can be done well. It has been done well. The way that you do this trope well is that you take that relationship seriously. You have to care in the story that there is a power dynamic here, that a teacher has a role to play and a job to do with regard to their students, that they are an adult who is meant to be trusted to guide their students to good life choices, to their own social/emotional wellbeing, to care about their futures, to care about their education. This show just utterly, utterly failed on that front, and it makes the teacher character here completely irredeemable and unbelievable as an education professional. At no point did this show take its own concept seriously. It wanted us to engage with this romance as if this was just a normal teen love story between a teenage boy and a slightly older boy. There was no reckoning with the fact that this was his teacher.

The biggest sin, among many, was that we were shown through the story that Toki was not actually helped by this relationship with Sahara-sensei. We were shown that Toki—because of his feelings for his teacher, and because of his desire to impress this prospective love interest—that he made choices that were harmful to him. That he did not seek help when he was being bullied. That he did not take his education and his assignment seriously because he was too focused on this crush. We began the show with the notion that he was a juvenile delinquent who needed support and mentorship. He's a good kid, a nice kid, a kind kid, and he just needed some guidance. But he didn't get any fucking guidance from this teacher.

Instead, what he got was a distraction and an extraordinarily self-centered adult who really only cared about what he was getting—the confidence boost that he was getting—out of this relationship with his student. Did not look out for this kid, did not help him focus on his studies, did not help him prepare for his future, and did not help him in any meaningful way with the problems that he was experiencing at school.

This show literally ended with Toki [volume increases] graduating, walking out of the school building, spotting Sahara, and chucking his diploma into the fucking bushes so that he could run and kiss his boyfriend, because school's over now and he doesn't have to care about appearances anymore. I actually could not fucking believe that. And the wildest part of all of this is that the show doesn't seem to have any awareness about it. This is not a narrative about a student getting so obsessed with a teacher that he loses his way. This is just being presented as a straightforward, happy and positive romance that we're supposed to root for. It is one of the most baffling things I have ever fucking seen.

NiNi

Tell ‘em why you mad, son! Tell ‘em why you mad! [laughs]

Ben

Bestie, everything you said was true and correct. I will add further that this show does not get the benefit of the doubt of being BL to cop out about a lot of this because of the backstory they give on Sahara and Nekoto—his junior in high school, now fellow teacher. The failure of their relationship is grounded in the realities of homophobia and taboo, so there's no way to approach the Sahara-Toki relationship under the guise of “any m/m attraction is fine because BL,” because the show draws attention to the social and political realities of queerness.

And it's especially frustrating because Sahara actually gives decent guidance to another student: the Todo character, who is playing injured as a basketball player. Sahara talks him down from going into a match that he shouldn't because he's hurt in a way that I thought was really excellent from an educator, because he doesn't tell the kid, “You shouldn't play.” He asked the kid pointed questions, making the kid self-introspect and recognize for himself that he should not play. Which only exacerbates the issues that Shan eloquently highlighted just now about how fucked up this whole thing is, because he does not bring that same awareness to the relationship he has with Toki. It is such a weird experience with this show and I really hated it.

Ginny

I think that about covers it. It just feels like it didn't know what it was trying to do, and it did everything badly.

NiNi

I think that's an excellent tagline. [Ben laughs] So, those of you who watched it, it's time to rate.

Shan, you first.

Shan

I gave it a 3, and I think reflecting in this moment, I want to lower it to a 2. I'm giving it a 2.

Ben

I agree. Go ahead. Ginny?

Ginny

Oh man, so I give it a 6.5. [Ben hmms] I simply don't finish shows that I'm gonna rate lower than a 4 or a 5. On the surface level, there were moments that I really enjoyed about this. As I said, I did like the performance of the Toki character in particular, so I gave it some credit for that.

Ben

I agree with Shan. I originally gave this show a 4. I'm lowering it to a 3. [Ben and Shan laugh]

Shan

Let's talk about it again in a couple of months, see where we land.

Ben

I'm giving the show a 3.5 from The Conversation. That is not how the math works, but that's what I'm giving it.

Shan

Feels right.

00:11:29 - One Room Angel

NiNi

Moving on to our next show, let's talk One Room Angel.

Ben, what is One Room Angel about?

Ben

One Room Angel is a story about a depressed man who ends up hanging out with an angel for a few weeks, it feels like, and starts to maybe come out of his depressive spiral as a result, which ends up with some really sad over- and undertones from what we learn about the angel character.

This is a kind of difficult show to talk about from a BL perspective, because I don't really think it's a BL. This wasn't really a romance. From my understanding, the angel character is significantly younger in the source material, and I get why they maybe chose not to go that direction. Shan had more complex thoughts, I think, than I did about the genre assignment of this show.

Shan

I like this show. I just want to say that upfront, I think it's a really beautiful show, a really thought-provoking show. I think it has some really interesting things to say about depression and self worth and finding meaning and life and the will to live. I liked all of its themes. I liked the characters.

I do think that it feels incomplete as a narrative, and it feels like there was supposed to be a romance arc here that got removed. I don't know if that's true, I haven't read the source material, but that's kind of how it felt upon watching it. I don't think it's a BL. There's no romance here. There's what feels more like a platonic friendship to me between Koki and the Angel.

This show has some of the most beautiful cinematography that we've seen in Drama Shower. Some of the visual imagery is really striking, and I still think about it off and on. I like the way that they constructed Koki as this character who is kind of downtrodden, but kind at his core. He's just been through some shit, he's had a hard life. And I like that, I like that he was someone who was very easy to sympathize with. The Angel was a good foil for him. He would come at him in ways that would provoke him and give him some spark, make him feel a little bit alive again, which was what was missing and what was so important.

I think the show wasn't that strong on unpacking the mystery of the Angel and who he had been in his life, and connecting that back to Koki. I think there were a few different threads here and they didn't all come together seamlessly, but I did really like the core story of healing.

I do have feelings about this tendency we're seeing recently in the MBS Drama Shower shows of sprinkling in some non-BLs in the lineup. This is a dedicated time slot that is explicitly meant to be for BL shows, and there have been a couple now in the lineup that don't really fit that bill, and so I do kind of regret that we got this show as part of the Drama Shower lineup instead of another BL. But I'm glad we got the show. I like it a lot. I think it has some good things to offer.

Ben

Ginny, were you able to watch this show?

Ginny

I was! In the interest of precision, because we're talking about it not being a romance, which I do kind of agree with. They do have a conversation about being boyfriends, and they have this cute little beach date and stuff, but it feels like something that's sort of tacked on to make it fit in the BL space. It doesn't feel like it's actually part of their story. The connection that grows between them is, but the romance was not really played out. So even though they kind of give it lip service, it doesn't feel like it's there, which is why we're all saying it's not a romance. I think my favorite thing about the show was the Koki character.

Ben

This is Ginny's favorite character type: the hot mess. [Ginny and Shan laugh]

Ginny

I love a hot mess. I do. He's older, which I also like. He's not especially pretty, which is a nice change of pace. And he's just so down in it and can't seem to get himself out. I do like the story of him sort of getting forced roommate Angel therapy, basically. So yeah, I enjoyed it. I didn't deeply love it.

For the themes that it was getting into, it could have gone deeper. It's got some really dark material in both of the characters' backstories, and it didn't feel to me like it really followed through strongly enough on the resolutions to those things. But it also wasn't a total miss.

Ben

I ended up feeling really complicated about this show. I feel like I was very unfairly comparing it to Eternal Yesterday a lot, and because it wasn't BL I was a little bit frustrated that this time slot was going into non-BL content. Like, it feels like the original thing was BL, and they decided in their adaptation not to lean into the potential romance between an adult and a high school student. A totally fine adaptation choice, but it's like, why adapt this work then? It doesn't exactly work for me as a result.

I really liked the Angel character. I liked how sassy he was, and pushy he was about stuff. Nishimura Takuya; loved the way he played the Angel character. I really liked the aesthetic with his all-white outfit the whole time. I really liked the effort that the costuming department put into his wings. That was not easy, particularly on the budget that Drama Shower was clearly working on. I thought they got a lot of good work out of the animatronics of his wings. I really wish we had gotten more about Koki's yakuza based trauma. There's an allusion to this with the brother that feels a bit incomplete for me. Or the stuff with his mom, Arisa.

There's like a weird ambiguity with the end of this too, where some of the viewers thought that Koki also died at the end, tragically.

Ginny

What?

Shan

Wait, what? I don't think—he didn't die.

Ben

I didn't think he died, but apparently that was one of the reads.

Shan

Fascinating.

Ginny

Huh.

Shan

That didn't occur to me, but you can't really argue with it in a show that leaves things this unfinished.

Ben

Exactly, and that's why I was a little unsettled by it towards the end, because I'm like, “Well, I can't refute that, but also damn!” [Shan laughs] “Y'all killed this man so they could fuck? Shit!”

Okay. [Ginny laughs]

Shan

[laughs] Oh boy, we better wrap it up there.

Ben

So let's rate this experience. Ginny?

Ginny

I gave it a 7. Not bad for what it was. Not great.

Ben

Shan?

Shan

I gave it an 8. I liked some of what it was trying to do, but I don't think it fully got there on all of its storylines or really on its themes.

Ben

I gave it an 8 originally. I think I'm going to downgrade it to a 7.5, so we'll give it a 7.5 from The Conversation.

00:18:54 - A Note on MBS Tunku Shower

Ben

Let's discuss Drama Shower before we move to the other projects. As of this recording, we are almost at the end of My Strawberry Film, the last outing from Drama Shower Season 2, and currently MBS has not renewed the Drama Shower time slot for additional projects. They may renew this in the future, but let's talk on the podcast how we feel about Drama Shower after almost 11 projects, the role this time slot has fulfilled, and our complex reactions to all of the projects.

Ginny

I like that they did so many different kinds of things. Almost none of the Drama Shower shows are favorites of mine. There are a lot that I quite liked, and a few that I could see rewatching, but I do appreciate the commitment to do and try a bunch of different things. I hope that something like it gets renewed or gets put in place because, as we discussed a little bit last time talking about genre, I want to see experimental BL. I want to see different ideas and frameworks being explored, even ones that we hated like Sahara-sensei and Toki-kun. I would rather they make a bag of shows that includes a terrible one than just crank out the same reliable favorites, so. While I don't love most of the individual shows, I feel positively about the project.

Ben

Shan, how are you feeling?

Shan

I'm sad at the prospect that Drama Shower might not continue. It did produce one of my all time favorite BLs—Eternal Yesterday—and while I don't always love the shows, I love that we can rely on a steady progression of shows being released. When one show ends, we know the next is coming very soon. Japanese media can feel uncertain. We often don't find out about shows until right before they air. We often find out about a show, but then find out that it's not accessible to us, and we can't watch it. It's been nice to have kind of a steady, reliable place where we know we could go to find a Japanese BL, and I like how, you know, like Ginny said, how experimental it's been. They're doing a lot of different types of shows, a lot of different tones and styles.

A lot of them have been not my favorites. Maybe, like, mid to bad, but there have been a few real gems in this lineup. Not only Eternal Yesterday, but also shows like Jack o’ Frost and Tokyo in April is… These are shows that stuck with me, that I really enjoyed the watch experience for, and I hope that even if Drama Shower as a dedicated time slot doesn't come back, that MBS will keep churning out these shows and releasing them at a steady clip because I think that they are pretty solid. I really like this format for Japan, where they do these six- to eight-episode shows. These tight contained stories. Have a pretty clear sense of what they want to do most of the time, with some exceptions. And I'd like to see that continue.

We've had this kind of recent boom of Japanese BL. And I don't want that to go away. I want them to keep producing shows and I want to always have a Japanese BL airing, ideally. So yeah, I'm hopeful that if not this exact project, that something will come back, that we will continue to get shows that are interesting and a fun watch.

Ben

I'm also a bit sad that we might be losing Drama Shower because I really like what Azuma Kaoru has talked about with it from the little bits of translation we've gotten. They have a real commitment to BL as a genre and showcasing what BL can be. I like the Drama Shower has had two original projects both times it's run. Jack o’ Frost was original and My Strawberry Film is original, and whether or not we end up deciding that these projects were especially good or not, I actually think it's really healthy for BL as a genre to not be as tied to the developmental format where we basically just raid the closet and see what indie writers have been up to and then quickly adapt their shows. I'm really curious what knowing that you're developing for television right away enables with the storytelling.

So, I'm a little bit bummed that we don't know for sure if Drama Shower is coming back right now, but I've really enjoyed this entire project. My average rating for Drama Shower was just under 8, which feels correct. If you like BL, Drama Shower has been a really fascinating project because it's been so varied. We had some cool stuff that came out of it. I thought Mr. Unlucky had some cool ideas. I loved Eternal Yesterday. Takara-kun and Amagi-kun let me down slightly, but I liked it! Like, I liked almost every single one of these outings—except for fucking Sahara-sensei to Toki-kun.

Shan

They really had to come in and ruin it right at the end, didn't they? [laughs]

Ben

For fuck’s sake. I will miss this if we don't get it back, but I really like what we got from it.

NiNi, any thoughts on Drama Shower from sort of only getting our reactions to it and then being prodded about some of the shows?

NiNi

When you were talking to me about some of the Drama Shower shows, you basically were saying these are Japanese pulps. So I've tried to place them in the BL firmament, for me, according to them being mostly pulps. I've only watched three of the Drama Shower shows. I've watched Jack o’ Frost, I watched Tokyo in April, and I watched My Personal Weatherman. Of those three, Jack o’ Frost is easily my favorite, but the shows that I've watched coming out of Japan that weren’t Drama Shower in the last year or two were actually the ones that I enjoyed overall more. So, while I appreciate the role of Drama Shower, what it has done in giving a dedicated time slot, much like in Thailand GMMTV Frigay was a dedicated time slot to help build some bits of the genre. This is kind of similar.

It's a lab, and I think that the genre needs its labs. I think Drama Shower is a good lab, and I'm sure we're going to get another good lab out of Japan again soon. So, yeah, I think that the project was worthy. I only really watched a little bit of it, but I think I could also see how some of the things that it was working through have already started to percolate a little bit through some of the other stuff that we're getting out of Japan. Specifically out of MBS, but also are some of the other places.

00:26:01 - Perfect Propose

Ben

On to our next show: Perfect Propose.

NiNi

Yes, bring it on! I love this show.

Ben

Shan, would you like to describe Perfect Propose for us?

Shan

Sure. Our protagonist Hiro, who is extremely overworked, exhausted, very stressed out by his soul-sucking corporate job, is found, passed out on the sidewalk, by his childhood friend? Sweetheart? Question mark. I think they see that slightly differently, but a childhood friend named Kai, who has also just come into some personal hardship. Kai decides to move in with Hiro to take care of him and also so he has a place to stay. And the story is primarily about Hiro seeing his way out of this really horrible burnout situation that he finds himself in with Kai’s support.

Ben

Second chance romance is my favorite thing in BL [Shan trills] so I had a great time with this show. One of the things the show really focused on was how fucking horrible Hiro's fucking job was.

Shan

Mmhmm.

NiNi

Listen! Oh my God, it was too real.

Ben

I want to talk about that part first because, while I think we all have mostly positive things to say about Hiro and Kai's relationship, I don't want to downplay that particular portion, because the show cared a lot about. And I know, Ginny, you landed on the uncomfortable to slightly put off side of that presentation. It's rare that I see you repulsed when we're watching something. And it was interesting seeing you have a difficult time with that.

Ginny

My issue really was that, as the second half of the show came into play, it became clear that this wasn’t primarily a romance. This was a story about Hiro escaping his soul-sucking corporate job and also being more attentive to his body in the most fundamental sense of, like, his needs as a human being. I felt like I'd been a little bit bait and switched. The setup of the first couple episodes, tt's very much about Kai offering him this physical nurturance, including sexual attention that he was in need of, and possibly their relationship growing. And then it let that be nothing more than a catalyst for Hiro to leave his situation. There was like an episode and a half that were really just fully dedicated to the misery of his job and how and why he was so stuck in it.

I was just like, they're doing this well, but I didn't sign up for it and I'm not enjoying it. [laughs] So that was my experience.

Ben

I respect that. While we're talking about the job stuff, I want to go to NiNi, because I think of all of us, you had the strongest response to the corporate culture stuff.

NiNi

Oh my God, it was like I was seeing myself. So, if you listen to us, you will know that I'm doing this thing where I've restarted my life in my 40s. And the reason that I'm doing it is because I left a job like this. I left a soul-sucking job where I was being gaslit and basically burnt out and destroyed, and so this was almost like a healing drama for me. I would just settle in like, “oh, I'm gonna stab the boss. Oh, he's making him food. I want somebody to make me food. This is so awesome. I'm so glad. Is he gonna get out? I need him to get out. Hell, I need all of them to get out. Why don't they all quit?”

Like, I was having that running commentary in my head while I was watching the show. It was very cathartic for me. I enjoyed everything about it. It was too real. The gaslighting from their boss, especially, was the part that sort of sent me a little bit into a crouch. I was just like, “oh, I'm having flashbacks,” but I needed it. I needed to see Perfect Propose.

It wasn't just an enjoyment for me. It was something I needed to excise from my life and I was able to do it through Perfect Propose. So, it was great for me. The experience was so cathartic. Can't complain about it at all. Fantastic.

Ben

Shan, I remember you having some thoughts because, I don't know that you lived through this sort of stuff directly, but you know colleagues who did.

Shan

Yeah, I'm, I think more on NiNi’s side of the line with this, in that I experienced it as more cathartic and healing. I have been in some toxic workplaces. I've never been in quite the kind of place that Hiro was in in this story like NiNi has. But, I thought it was just a really authentic presentation of that kind of work experience. I thought it was a really genuine representation of the dynamics that can come up in a workplace like that.

One of my favorite things that happened in the show is that Hiro's supervisor left and Hiro became the supervisor, and then he was put in the position of having to drive his team to do the kind of things that he had been driven to do. And he was realizing how limited his options were for breaking that cycle. And I thought that that was just such an important note to include here. It's not the people within the system that are the problem, it's the system itself and it's all reinforcing.

Ben

I was also Hiro in my last job and my team and I, we quit—on my birthday, no less. What an incredible experience. So I started the age of 32 [laughs] unemployed. Which was fun.

I really liked that the show leaned into the work culture aspect of it, that Hiro's previous supervisor was like. “You need to quit, too. Like, I'm leaving. I got a better offer. You are way better than these people allow you to think of yourself as. You should quit, too.” I loved Hiro staying because he thought he needed to insulate his team from that kind of hell. And I love that he failed, spectacularly. Like, he tried to save a younger dev from that and he couldn't.

I really appreciated that they show that there's no amount of effort that overcomes that sort of nonsense. A lot of the times when they do the adult BL, the work part of being an adult feels kind of missing or nebulous. They're mostly using work to recreate the cliquish dynamics of high school to tell those sort of stories, and I really appreciate it that this show, and the next show we're going to talk about actually, don't do that.

I want to refocus now that we've talked about really fucked up, sad work part of this, on the relationship between Kai and Hiro. Part of what locked me in on this show, right away was Kai literally picks passed out Hiro up off the street, takes him back to his house, feeds him some proper food, and then jerks him off so he can go to sleep. Hiro was more than a little overwhelmed by all of this. But that man's skin cleared up the next day.

NiNi

[laughs] He was looking refreshed, restored, rejuvenated.

Ben

We had some complex reactions in our own circle and online about that particular encounter. Ginny, I want to get your commentary on this part because I think you often have the most nuanced appreciation of sexual moments that carry a level of dubious consent. And I wonder if you have any thoughts about that.

Ginny

One thing that you and I have talked about, Ben, is people often put male-female frameworks onto these shows. Which is not to say that consent isn't a problem between men, ‘cause it for sure is. But the way that these dynamics play out and the way that the core relational dynamics between men work is not always comparable and can't always be mapped onto a male-female dynamic.

How I read this scene and how I think it was intended to be read is Hiro can't say, “Oh yes, do this, please,” because he's not in a headspace to accept that this is something that he could want from another man, or really at all. And again, it's really difficult to talk about this without inviting people to map it on all kinds of other situations where it doesn't belong. So please don't do that. But the way this scene is constructed felt very clearly to me like, this is something that Hiro is willing to let happen to him and maybe needs to let happen to him, but is not able to affirmatively say yes to because of where he is in his head, and especially with the way that intimacy develops between the characters later fulfilled the storyline that they set up in that first scene.

NiNi

I feel like this is a place we always land up in with Asian media because of the ways that Asian media portrays and puts forward ideas about what is acceptable sexually, what it is acceptable to want and not want, how it is acceptable to relate in a sexual manner. I feel like these always come up when we're dealing with Asian media. People talk about wanting to change the conversation in Asian media around this kind of stuff, and I fully understand that.

But this story read to me pretty old school yaoi and because of that I got where the headspace of the story was coming from. Like you said, Ginny, this can't be mapped on to everything else. But in this specific story I saw where it was coming from.

Ben

For me, I think I would have been more concerned about their dynamic if not for the morning after conversation in the bathroom. The energy in that scene was Kai being very attentive and almost doing, like, aftercare with Hiro, who was clearly into the dynamic with that whole scene with the hair gel and then him giving him the key so he could stay and then the next episode being like, why has nothing happened since that moment? Which also, like NiNi said, is very old school yaoi.

Shan

Sexual encounters with dubious consent happen a lot in life. It's a thing that happens. I don't need every depiction of it in fiction to be accompanied by someone turning to the camera and saying, “That was dubious consent, and it's bad.” Instead of just letting the context of the story and the characters’ reactions let us know what their headspace was and why it happened.

And I think that the show did that. I think that we understood Hiro and Kai's dynamic well as the show progressed. I think that we saw a pattern develop where Hiro would hope for or want something from Kai, but wouldn't ask for it. And Kai could read him and see what he was going for. I like that Kai got to a point of teasing him about that and pushed him to ask for the things he wants or come right out and say or do something to confirm it. I thought it was quite legible what the show was going for here, so I was not troubled by it. They did a good job of building a believable dynamic for them of Hiro coming to rely on Kai for all kinds of different comforts and as his main source of care and pleasure.

Ben

I think they did a great job conveying that Kai was totally down for Hiro the whole time without it feeling, like, possessive. I particularly enjoyed around—was it episode 5 when they had that kiss on the bench where he's like,”Hirokuni-san, have you made your decision yet?” I thought that was great.

Shan

Pairing that with teasing him with the shots of the delicious dinners he was making at home, that Hiro wasn't making it home to eat. I think the message from Kai always, consistently, was this is all here for you. You just gotta take it. And I like that. That felt adult to me.

Ben

I want to talk about Kai a little bit. We know that Hiro is obviously at the end of his rope when we first see him passed out on the street, people walking past him. We learned fairly quickly that Kai is also kind of at the end of his rope. He's been a neglected, lonely child for a long time, and the only other person who ever seemed to give a shit about him was in the midst of a health crisis, and that guy's son was keeping him away from the dad because he didn't understand their relationship.

NiNi

I really liked, actually, that part of the issue that Kai was having with his boss and his son was that Kai couldn't ask for what he wanted out of the boss. He clearly saw the boss as a father figure and the boss saw him as a son figure, but he couldn't talk about it. It's very Japanese. He couldn't presume and he couldn't put himself in a position where he appeared presumptuous. So he had to take a step back. Be polite. He couldn't say certain things. He couldn't behave in certain ways. This is the situation, I'm going to make myself as small as possible in this situation. And then once it got to the point where he felt like maybe he could have presumed a little more, the son started to understand, “Okay, this is actually sort of a father son dynamic here,” the son backed down immediately. He was just like, “I'm sorry. I didn't understand what you guys were to each other.”

I really liked that. I am often the one who complains about the Japanese non-communication or Japanese communication and how it is frustrating for me, but I thought this was a really good use of it, of Japanese cultural expectations around family and not wanting to be presumptuous about certain things. I really think that it played out really well here. I quite enjoyed that.

Ben

I love the relationship between Kai and the restaurant owner. Few things are more important to a boy than bonding with an older, grumpy man and connecting in the same grumpy way. It's extremely important to your development.

Shan

I like what you said NiNi about Kaiju's inability to communicate what Kenji meant to him and what he was seeking from the relationship, and I like that that was mirrored in Kenji, the restaurant owner, also not being able to say out loud what the deal was, like, why this boy mattered to him. He also kept his mouth shut and didn't explain it to his son, I think for similar reasons. They have a very emotional bond that they both found hard to talk about or justify to other people. I did like that.

I will say, though, that I do think that the Kai side of this show is the weaker element, perhaps of the story. Hiro's narrative was the main narrative, but Kai had a story too, and I do think it didn't get the fullness that Hiro's did, and it was one area where I wanted a little bit more from the show than what we got.

Ginny

This is more to my personal preferences than necessarily show doing right or wrong. I was much more interested in Kai and his situation than in Hiro's situation, so I also would have liked to see more of it. There were a lot of layers to the ways that Kai and Hiro each struggled to take care of themselves or see themselves as deserving care. We did get that fully played through with Hiro and we didn't really get to see Kai’s own dovetailing/mirror image issue of that fully realized and I would have liked to see it.

Ben

Getting back to some of the adult things I really liked in this, I really liked the whole missed opportunity around the festival because Hiro is unable to leave his job and tell him to fuck off. And I really liked Kai, just sort of accepting that disappointment, but getting something kind of interesting out of it by growing the strawberries in the tank they were hoping to use for something else.

I really liked the failure of that moment. Hiro getting mad with himself on Kai's behalf and being frustrated that Kai didn't presume more from him and voicing all of the ways that he kind of was a jerk about the whole festival thing. I think that was one of my favorite moments in the show where Hiro gets mad, but doesn't really have a great outlet for it because he knows he's the one who's at fault. And so Kai's telling him, “It doesn't matter, like, you don't owe me anything,” only frustrated him even more.

NiNi

Yeah, because he wants Kai to expect things of him by that point, and he's not even entirely sure why. But he does want Kai to feel like he has responsibilities towards him.

Ginny

You do see Hiro consistently more upset about other people not getting what they deserve than himself [Shan mmhmms] with Kai in that situation and with his new underlying when he becomes the team lead.

Ben

I'm never getting over that man having a couch that matches the aesthetic of the chairs in his office.

Shan

I clocked that in the first episode and I was so depressed. I was like, no!

[Shan and Ben laugh]

Ben

I remember you pointed it out first.

Shan

I was like y'all, are you seeing these colors? I'm not usually a colors person, either. I don't usually notice that shit. But that was so striking to me that the one pop of color in his entire gray, sad home was that green couch that was the same green as the chairs in his office. Depressing as fuck.

Ben

Before we get to ratings, we gotta do a shout out for Hiori, the junior dev who was clearly a fujoshi who was keyed in right away to watch series.

[all laugh]

Shan

I loved her!

NiNi

She was so ready when they went on the work dinner and she was like, “All right, I'm headed out. I'm going home. Y'all are getting drunk. I'm not sticking around for this, I'm gonna catch the last train” and then Hiro’s drunk and somebody's like, “oh, we're gonna call the guy he's living with.” And she sat back down immediately, like, “He's coming here? I need to see this.”

Shan

Sat her ass right back down and ordered another beer. She was like, “Hell no, I'ma miss that train.”

NiNi

“I'm gonna pay for this Uber ride or this taxi and I'm gonna like it.”

Ben

I loved her. She was like, “Oh, shit, Am I gonna get to see him?” And she got everything she wanted. Kai showed up, sweaty.

Shan

Ooo, sweaty from his run. Mmm.

Ben

Glared at Konoko, like, “Don't you ever fucking put your hands on him ever again, I will fucking kill you. And she was, like, “I got everything I needed.”

[Shan laughs]

NiNi

She didn't even go home after that. She's just like, “Well, I need another drink because that was delightful.”

Ben

I do appreciate that we got to see Hiro, quit that job and stop prioritizing it at the end. Like, he woke up, clearly from them having a good session the night before, like “I ain't answering that fucking phone.” And we saw that the other employees have seemingly maybe left their job because they all looked like they were happy in the park. And they ran into Konoko, as well. So, I feel very relieved by the end of this drama.

Shan

I definitely interpret that group picnic at the end as confirmation that they have all left that awful job.

Ben

Particularly because Sakamoto was also there and I'm really glad that he looked okay.

NiNi

Listen, I was so worried about that kid. I was so worried that I stopped in the middle of my binge to ask. “Listen, you'll need to tell me if this kid is okay, because the last time I saw him, he was having a meltdown. And then they sent him home. And then I have not seen him. So y’all need to tell me that he's fine.” And they were like, “Yeah, he's fine” and then I was able to continue the show.

Ben

So, ratings! NiNi.

NiNi

I gave the show a 9.5. I agree with Shan and Ginny that I wanted to see a little bit more of Kai’s side of the story because I think it was actually quite intriguing. I understand that they didn't have a ton of time and they didn't use their time well, but I would have liked to see a bit more of the Kai side of things.

Ben

Ginny?

Ginny

I gave it an 8.5. I think execution-wise it probably merits a 9, but I did dock it for my own personal enjoyment because it's my rating and I'm allowed.

Ben

Absolutely. Shan?

Shan

I gave it a 9. I agree with basically what NiNi said. I think if they had managed to drive home Kai’s side of the story a little firmer, it would have been a higher score for me. But it's a good show, I really liked it.

Ben

It's not an obvious recommend right away, because then they have to get involved in the discourse and so it’s hard for me to just go, “It's a 10. Go watch it right now!” But I like the show a lot, so I gave it a 9 because there are reasonable knocks on some threads not being fully completed and yaoi considerations around male sex that made me a little bit grumpy to deal with while we were watching this.

It gets a 9 from The Conversation. I liked it a lot, I think it's worth your time.

NiNi

I have to add, whenever I saw Kai’s hands, I kept thinking about the discussion I had with Ben about yaoi hands.

[all laugh]

Ben

He did have yaoi hands.

NiNi

He had massive hands!

Ben

I have started following that actor. His real smile is so fu,n he is worth following on IG.

NiNi

Bestie you know I don't do the socials, but for those of you who do.

Ben

I do. That's what I'm here for.

00:49:27 - Sukiyanen Kedo Do Yaro Ka

NiNi

Moving on to Although I Love You, And You?—Japanese title Sukiyanen Kedo Do Yara ka. Oh my God I can't believe I got that right the first time around.

Ben

Yeah, good job, bestie.

Shan

Good job, NiNi.

NiNi

I'm not gonna get it right again. So, Ben, what is Sukidoya about?

Ben

Sukidoya is a story about a burgeoning romance between a restaurant owner and a corporate salary man who has recently moved to Osaka from Tokyo. Both of these guys are coming out of failed relationships and find friendship and connection in each other. The restaurant owner already is very aware of his own queerness. Meets this guy and has an instant attraction to him and is determined to follow up on it, but decides that he should probably be a bit more cautious this time, particularly because of some of the cultural differences between Osaka and Tokyo. We get to see them try to sort through what their new potential relationship will look like with the complications that ensue.

This was another show that we had a lot of complicated discussions about while we were watching it. Because you have more consternation than others, Shan, we'll let you go first, and then we'll follow up.

Shan

This is a show that I wanted to like more than I ended up liking. I really loved the main characters in this show. I liked that there was what felt like a very adult setup for the romance. These were two adult men with pasts, with romantic histories who had exes that were present in the story and actually had roles to play. They were coming together across differences, both cultural differences and differences in how they had experienced romance in the past, differences in how they relate, differences in their hobbies and personalities. I was very interested in all of that and I was really excited to get what I thought was going to be a pretty adult narrative about figuring out how to be in a relationship together across those differences.

That's not really what the show ended up being about. There was a lot going on in the narrative here and some of it in the end didn't feel like it justified the amount of story time that it got. Some of it felt like it really derailed the story. There I'm speaking primarily about the insertion of a love triangle into the plot that I don't think ultimately served the story or the characters very well. Sakae’s ex, Mizuki, came into the story around the midpoint and I liked his inclusion initially, ‘cause I liked seeing this mature ex that was in the mix. It's very common for people to still have exes in their lives and we don't see it depicted very often in drama, and so I liked that he was around, that he was coming back into Sakae's orbit, that he was bringing up some issues for him that were maybe throwing a little bit of a wrench in this burgeoning romance that he had with Soga. But then the show really took that much further, turned it into a full blown love triangle, had Mizuki pursuing Sakae again, had him intervening in the romance, getting in the way, dating Sakae again briefly. It was a lot, ultimately, I think too much. It took up a lot of story time. It threw off the trajectory of Sakae and Soga’s relationship development. The pacing of the story felt pretty rushed. It felt like we hadn't really gotten to settle into any kind of relationship with them. Candidly, I am not generally a fan of love triangles. They can be done well and they have been, but this is a romance narrative in which a love triangle was kind of awkwardly inserted to create drama, and that's the kind I really don't like. That was a big negative for me on this show and threw off my investment in the romance.

But it's not a show that I wanna be too negative about. I like a lot of what it did. I did like these characters, this smaller town restaurant owner who's really genuine and straightforward, but maybe not the most socially graceful guy. Being into this nerdy, quiet guy who has nothing in common with him, trying to figure out how to relate to each other, trying to figure out how to communicate across their differences. I really liked those aspects of it. I left the drama wishing that we had gotten a story more focused on that and less on all this random stuff that they were throwing in to create conflict. In the end I was a bit frustrated with the show, but I like a lot of what it was doing and I hope that we'll get more shows like this that focus on adult characters.

Ben

I just learned some fun trivia while doing some research.

Shan

Oh?

Ben

NiNi, the screenwriter of Sukiyanen Kedo Do Yara ka is also the screenwriter on Three Star Bar in Nishi Ogikubo.

NiNi

The DNA is there. I could see it.

Ben

This is also one of the same directors who was on Sahara-sensei to Toki-kun.

NiNi

We shall not speak of it, bestie.

Shan

Don't bring them back into this. [laughs]

Ben

Ginny, of all the shows we're going to talk about tonight, you had, I think, the strongest connection to these particular characters, and I really want to hear your thoughts on them.

Ginny

While I agree that narratively the show did not hold together as strongly as it could, in every scene they were written well, they were acted well, they were consistent, they were who they were. And that, I think, was why I loved the show so much, as it played so well on a scene by scene level. Both of these are, in almost completely opposite superficial ways, men who struggle to advocate for what they want in life. Sakae is extremely a pushover. You see, as soon as his ex walks back into the scene, how difficult it is for him to say no and even earlier, as he and Soga are getting to know each other, it's very easy for him to fall into a rhythm of just doing whatever Sogo wants and enjoys and simply not advocating for himself or his interests at all. So he's this very kind of impulsively outspoken character. He keeps saying things that he doesn't mean to say, but when it comes to actually saying what he wants, he's slow to do that.

On Soga’s side, he's very reserved, and kind of doesn't feel confident enough, I think, in his own desires to advocate for them. Even though he clearly likes and feels very drawn to Sakae, he takes so much of the show trying to figure out exactly what that means and waffling on what to do with that. I really like seeing two characters with the same fundamental issue that expresses itself in such different ways come together and try to build a relationship.

My favorite part in the whole show is after they've started dating, they try to work out this conflict resolution system in such a characteristic way. Sakae knows Soga has been married before, so he says, “What was your ex-wife like? What was your relationship like?” Thinking in his head, “I'm going to become exactly like her, because clearly Soga liked her, so that will work out great and I foresee no problems with this.” And so Soga tells him about their conflict resolution style, which is not Sakae’s style at all, but they try it. They both kind of yes, and each other into doing something that's not gonna work for either of them and they try it for a while and then it falls apart and then they talk it out.

It all felt so real to me as a person who struggles to express and sometimes even to know what I want. I've been in relationships on both sides where that's a major factor and they played it out so beautifully realistically, while still feeling very fun. The show always felt light, even when it was headed into kind of a difficult moment between them. It never let the mood sink too much. I loved seeing that dynamic play out between them and the ways that they tried to work towards each other and often worked harder at making the other person happy than making themselves happy and had to kind of figure out how to do both at the same time.

NiNi

I liked you describing it as them yes, and-ing each other, because that's exactly what that felt like. It felt very improv. I really enjoyed that scene a lot.

Ben

I really liked that we got to see a homo jock trying to date a culture person. That was so fuckin’ funny to me. We don't get to see fitness gays that often, and I had such a great time as a result.

NiNi

It was delightful, and it was more of that city mouse, country mouse thing that they were trying to do, it was so fun. I wish that they had leaned more into the differences between them, more than the external factors.

Of the external factors, I really enjoyed the job one coming up and when it came up in the relationship, and the conflict that that posed. But I think that the ex-boyfriend thing was a bridge too far. I think it was important that we saw the ex-boyfriend to understand certain things about Sakae, but I don't think that they needed to drag that out into him trying to get Sakae back kind of thing.

Ben

I liked Mizuki as a character a lot and I liked them showing Sakae having an intimate, intense relationship with another person. I think on the pragmatic side, from talking about this as a drama, I'm more with Shan in that I don't know that this show set us up for the right expectations and that could be a cultural competency part on our part, because of the thing they were playing with, with the Osaka, Tokyo thing. But I was also hoping to spend more time with these guys as a functional couple perhaps than I think we got? I think it's fine for the show to do what they chose to do with their time, but I think I wanted something from the show it couldn't give us. I also got a little bit frustrated that there was way less food in the back half than there was in the front half because I signed up for a food show.

But, they did give me a great baseball moment, so maybe it’s okay.

Shan

[laughs] They did have a really good baseball scene. I was just gonna yes, and you Ben about the food. The food was a strong presence in the first half of the show. And then it did just kind of disappeared. I wouldn’t really call this a food drama, in the end.

I think one other piece that we kind of discussed live while we were watching that I do think is worth mentioning—not to single this show out, but to talk a little bit about a trend that exists, I think, across dramas—there was a quite a spicy sex scene between Sakae and Mizuki in this show. Far spicier than any scene we ended up getting for Sakae and Soga. Feels like a strange choice that they went to that heat level in a scene with his ex and then kept the heat so low on the current relationship.

One of the reasons I don't like it when dramas do that is because it kind of sends a message that only toxic relationships have hot sex in them, and that when you find your right person when you're truly in love, sex is not that important, or it's not part of the dynamic. And I don't think that's a good message. It's not a sex positive message, certainly—and I don't know or think necessarily that the show intended to do that here—but, it is kind of the effect of that choice that a lot of dramas make to only show hot sex in the context of toxic or old relationships and keep the main couple of a show kind of quote unquote pure. That stuck out to me in this show and nothing that came after that scene hit anywhere close to that heat level. So it did kind of stand out as a weird choice to me.

Ginny

In terms of the general trend, I certainly agree. It is worth noting that that scene was specifically happening in Soga’s imagination, so it wasn't like, “This was how it was.” It's like, “This is how Soga is thinking about Sakae and his ex.” Which in the context of the story gives it a very different meaning. But I do certainly agree with what you're saying about the overall trend in media.

Shan

That's a good point, Ginny. It's a fair one to bring up. I do think, though, if the show is willing to go to that heat level, why are they not willing to go there with the main couple?

NiNi

And we do know that they are having a hot time, because at the end when they make back up Soga’s like, “Look, we know we gotta fuck, okay? So let's just get this relationship shit wrapped up before we do.” And I thought that was delightful.

Ginny

So good!

Shan

It was a very funny line, but it also kinda came out of nowhere, ‘cause we hadn't seen any sexual relationship for them. [laughs]

Ginny

We saw some.

Ben

I get where Shan’s coming from, like, they confirmed that the guys are having sex and they deliver some of the prelude and the aftermath. But it stands out with what they showed with Mizuki. I think minus the Mizuki stuff, we probably don't feel that way.

NiNi

In general, I agree with Shan, yes, but I do agree with Ginny as well that this is really Soga’s imagination. Like really pushing up his fears and anxieties and all that stuff.

Ben

I at least got to make a joke about the need for a robust public transport system [Shan and Ginny laugh], because it's what allows them to be compromised in the end of this. I’m like, “You see that? Robust, fast, frequent high speed rail is the only reason that these gays made it.”

NiNi

Public transport is for the gays, that's the new slogan.

So, ratings, how are we rating this one? Ginny, how about you? What do you think?

Ginny

I gave this one also an 8.5 from the opposite direction of Perfect Propose. I think execution wise it deserves a bit lower, but I enjoyed it so much that I bumped us up to 8.5.

Ben

Shandler?

Shan

I gave it a 7.5 because the execution issues really really bothered me. I think ultimately I really wanted to love it and I was disappointed that I didn't.

Ben

NiNi?

NiNi

I liked all the Osaka stuff. I liked how homey they made Osaka feel. I liked the female coworker who, having been pushed back, decided to become a full on supporter and get these two guys together. I gave it an 8. I had a good time with it. I think it was well done. I could have done without most of the Mizuki arc, but, I enjoyed it.

Ben

I did like Kanda a lot too, and his friend Kanada [Kaname]? Oh man, I really like the friend support group, but this show didn't come together fully for me. I struggle to really talk about it and give a clear recommendation for it, so it's a 7.5 for me.

Which averages out to a 7.89ish. We'll give it an 8. I think that's fair.

NiNi

I think it's fine for it to get an 8 from The Conversation.

Ben

We liked it. Even though it was not exactly what I think any of us was wanting.

01:04:44 - I Want To See Only You

NiNi

Next up, we're gonna talk the latest entry, actually: I Want to See Only You.

Ben, what is I Want to See Only You about?

Ben

It is about how we all really, really loved Kura Yuki in [laughs] His: I Didn't Mean to Fall in Love, and we needed another show with him.

Shan

Oh, man, you're struggling. You can't even deliver the joke, sir, [laughs] ‘cause it's so ridiculous.

[Ben laughs]

Ben’s just trying to score a point off me right now, but it's not working. [laughs]

Ben

Kimi no Koto Dake Mite Itai, aka I Want to See Only You, is a four episode Japanese BL, partially funded by Hulu—that was kind of interesting—in which two boys in high school go through a friends-to-lovers arc. One of them has been nursing a crush for a long time on his friend, and confesses to his friend, and they deal with the complications that ensue from that in a way that I thought was really gentle and wholesome. This was a very short story, but I enjoyed it a lot.

Because it's not that complicated! They've been childhood friends. One of them reveals that he has stronger feelings than just friendship, and the other guy just begins to process that, and we get this really interesting dynamic where they're figuring out what the changes to their relationship are going to be. There's not any real complicating drama here. It's really just about these guys sorting their shit out.

Shan

Yeah, I mean, this show is just uncomplicated. It is heartwarming. It is cute as fuck. It is two nice boys being kind to each other while they navigate a change in their relationship. It's really as simple as that. Sakura confesses to Yuma. Yuma processes the confession. They have a lovely kiss around the fire pit. It's so straightforward and I loved it. It was just nice to watch something that is gentle and kind and lovely, and that's what it is.

I really like this show. I think it's a great serotonin hit—a quick one. And definitely recommend folks watch it.

Ben

Ginny and Nini, did you have time to watch this show?

Ginny

I did not even know it existed until I saw it on the show notes and I was like, “What's that? Oh, well, I'm already doing another show as my homework.”

NiNi

I watched it. It was very short, very sweet. I came away just with the feeling of having really enjoyed watching something, like being wrapped in a nice warm blanket. Watching these two soft boys have a soft time and then all the kooky characters around them. This is one of the things about this kind of Japanese drama that I enjoy, which is all the kooky side characters.

So you've got the two teachers, you've got the girl who has the crush on—I can't remember which boy she has a crush on—and then the boy who has the crush on her. It's so fun. It's so delightful. The teachers are the second best part of the show. I love the teachers so much.

It's just fun. It's sweet. It doesn't require a lot of you. It's very wholesome. I enjoyed it thoroughly.

Ben

I was being really goofy at the beginning of this, but I like Kura Yuki a lot and I'm really glad we got to see him in BL again. I thought he was really good in the His prequel, and I really enjoy getting to see him again.

NiNi

He has really sad eyes, which I actually really enjoyed.

Shan

Yeah, he has a really emotive face, I think. I'm excited to see him keep doing more shows.

Ben

There's really not that much more to say. This is a really quick, really gentle show. If you need a really good mood boost, I recommend it.

Ratings! Shan?

Shan

I gave this a 9. It is straightforward. It is sweet. It's an easy watch. Highly recommended.

Ben

NiNi?

NiNi

I also give it a 9. It's incredibly straightforward and cute. I enjoyed it. I like that they couldn't quite figure out how to shift their relationship from friends to boyfriends. They were dating and they're like, “Should we be doing, like, other stuff?” But they were just doing the same stuff that they had always done. I found that delightful.

Ben

I gave it a 9.5 for the terrible pasta they made. [Shan and NiNi laugh]

Shan

We forgot to talk about the pasta!

NiNi

The pasta was so bad.

Shan

[still laughing] Those boys really went outside and picked some tomatoes and just tossed them fully, without any chopping, into a pan and stirred them around a lil bit and put them on top of some fucking limp noodles and called that spaghetti.

Ben

Zero notes. [laughs]

NiNi

The pasta was still semi-crunchy. It was delightful. It was so high school. It was the most high school thing I've ever seen.

Shan

[still laughing] Raw tomatoes and, like, unseasoned noodles? Amazing.

Ben

I really loved it. For your context Ginny, this is when the boys are trying to figure out the shift in their relationship and they make a list of things they wanna do together. Making pasta with the tomatoes they were growing in the school garden was one of those things. And I thought that was a really lovely idea and super romantic. And then because they're a bunch of high school boys who barely know how to cook, they fucked it up badly. But they had a good time together. It was great.

Shan

It was so good.

Ginny

Incredible.

NiNi

Seriously, Ginny, it's a short watch. It's an easy watch. If you're ever in the mood for something to just lift your mood, I suggest watching it.

Ben

So it gets a 9 from The Conversation. It's worth your time. Please go watch it.

01:10:55 - I Became the Main Role of a BL Drama

NiNi

On to the main event, which Ben has literally been waiting to talk about since we recorded the winter series. We're finally going to talk about I Became the Main Role [of] a BL Drama. Ben, you've been basically building up to this moment. Go right ahead.

Ben

I Became the Main Role of a BL Drama is about how these two boys will drown the audience in the BL goodness. [Shan laughs]

NiNi

Oh God.

Ben

It is a BL about making a BL, which is a lot of fun. No shade against Thailand in this, but when they do self-critical BL it's not always the most fun experience because there's a lot of real grievances the people making it need to air—and I completely respect that. But it also can be kind of a downer. When Japan makes fun of BL, they end up seeming to have more fun poking at the nature of the genre and delivering on the comedic beats without it just feeling like a bitch session.

So, in this particular show, we have Aoyanagi Hajime, who is a former child actor who was struggling a bit with his career and trying to figure out how to move forward, and he gets an opportunity to be one of the leads in a BL production against a up-and-coming idol, Akafuji Yuichiro. They are working on a workplace BL and we're mostly on the set of them filming this show. We don't get to see the show itself. I really wish we would get to see the show they made, it looks great.

They're starting to work on the show, and the two guys do not seem to have much chemistry. The reason we learn is because Yuichiro is actually an Aoyanagi Hajime stan, who is internally freaking out the whole time because he's this close to his idol. And they suggest the two guys live together to build up their chemistry. Their relationship gets complicated as they start to develop something between each other, and this complicates their relationship on set as well. But we mostly spend that time unpacking Aoyanagi’s confidence issues.

This was my favorite show. Before I just start gushing about how beautiful I find Akutsu Nichika, Ginny, thoughts on the show?

Ginny

I love this show so much. Just hearing you talk about it, I was feeling little bubbles of delight remembering all of the different scenes and moments and setups. It was just exquisite. It was so fun and so funny. Very comic, but also felt true to these people as people. Love seeing the cheeky BL commentary. Love seeing Abe Alan play this cool, up-and-coming popular idol, who is just smitten with this kind of no-name, famous-for-one-ad guy and just is flailing around, having to try to act BL.

One of the best moments any BL drama will ever give us is him asking Hajime to record that one kinda bitchy line he says for fap material. [Ben and Shan laugh] God, that's the funniest thing that's ever happened to me personally.

Ben

We will not do that scene justice describing it because it's not just about the dialogue of the scenario. It is staged really well. The blocking is a huge part of the joke in that one, because of what other people know or don't know in the background. It's really a great sequence of the show.

NiNi

I loved all of the blocking in that show, all of the stage direction, all the stuff that's happening in the background of all the scenes when they're on set is hilarious. Japanese shows will always reward you for paying attention to what's happening in the background of a scene. And this show, in particular, the background of every scene, is just phenomenal. It is delightful.

Ben

We cruised into the new year watching this show.

Shan

It was both the last show of 2023 and the first show of 2024 for us.

Ben

This show ended, I was like, “We've already decided the winner [laughs] for ‘24. Everybody, pack it up.”

Shan

I love this show. It's a great example of a super high velocity comedy where it's just joke, joke, joke, joke, joke coming at you from all sides in every moment of the show, not just through the dialogue, but through the scenery, through the blocking, through the things that other characters are doing just out of the frame. This thing is just packed, packed, packed with jokes, and so every time you watch it, you will see new stuff that you missed last time. There are so many gags in this, it's just so well done. The command you have to have to deliver comedy in that way with this extremely zippy pacing, in that super-packed content to shove it all into this three hour package. It's just so impressive. It's the kind of precision that most productions can only aspire to.

There was such good visual jokes in this. The reveal that Akafuji had been wearing a fan T-shirt [laughs] underneath his clothes in scenes. There was a fantastic scene with a leg kabedon.

Ben

Hold on, this is fun. Let's go around the group with a gag that we remember until we run out. Shan gave two. NiNi?

NiNi

I mean, I feel like the leg kabedon was a moment, because when I finally watched the show, I literally said, “Did he just do a kabedon with his leg?” and I was instructed [Ginny and Shan laugh] in the ways of Japanese media in that moment.

Shan

Sure did!

Ben

Ginny?

Ginny

Him running after Hajime carrying his Hajime standee.

Ben

After he had previously used it as a shield. [laughs]

Ginny

Yeah.

Ben

One of the gags I enjoyed was all Aoyangi mentioning he was called a bad kisser by his ex, and Akafuji just checks out for that moment, like he's not even listening to the rest of the conversation. He just keeps repeating “moto kono,” referring to the ex-girlfriend over and over again because he's spiraling over it. I enjoyed that one a lot.

[all laugh]

NiNi

Speaking of spiraling! Him fighting with the showerhead.

Shan

[Ginny and NiNi laugh] Oh my God! The showerhead! I still don’t understand what he was doing in that scene, but it was so funny.

Ben

It represents his sexual desire almost being out of control.

Shan

Oh, I got that part. [laughs] I just don't understand what the character was doing.

[Ginny laughs]

Ben

Struggling.

NiNi

When he nearly kissed Aoyanagi, then he went outside and basically hung over the balcony railing [laughs]. Just had a meltdown just from being close enough to almost kiss him.

Ben

The spinning scene on the steps where I was like, “He's gonna kill that boy.” [Ginny laughs]

Shan

Yes! When they were like, twirling each other around on a concrete stairway. [Ben laughs]

There were so many good supporting characters in this, too. I really liked the initial pitch scene with the producers who are describing the vision for the show.

Ben

That was fucking fantastic.

NiNi

Oh my God!

Shan

The level of intensity that they were bringing to their description of this super fucking basic office BL. [laughs]

Ben

Our follow[ers] did not understand the way I lost my shit over this show after the first episode. From the “I will drown the audience in the BL goodness” scene, I was like, “This is it, y'all. This is the show.”

Shan

This is the one.

Ben

“Everyone else can go. I'm done. I found what I needed.”

NiNi

So funny, and literally every time she was on screen, whether it was foreground or background, she was killin’ it. I loved her.

Shan

Every performer in this show was so dialed in at all times, whether they were the focus of a scene or not, they were always doing something important and funny in the background. There was also, of course, the great runner with the managers—

Ginny

The managers!

Shan

—who were carrying on a secret romance.

Ben

We saw them interacting like, “Are they exes? Are they together? What's goin’ on?”

Shan

It was clear somethin’ was going on there from the start.

Ben

They know each other, that's for sure.

Ginny

Mmhmm.

NiNi

They definitely know each other.

Ginny

They know each other.

Shan

They know each other. I was very surprised by the spicy reveal we got [laughs] about their relationship.

NiNi

It was kind of spicy, wasn't it? There was choking involved.

Shan

And then also Ryoga, who was brought in to be a co-star in the show. He was, like, a very well known actor/influencer, I think?

Ben

He was a member of a boy band and they were bringing him in for additional crossover appeal. ‘Cause his strong point was his arrogance. [Ginny and Ben laugh] He walks in the room and they're like throwing fucking feathers for him. And then he starts helping them pick it up. “Thanks for throwing the feathers, guys.” [all laugh]

Shan

This drama! Three episodes, it had a small cast, but it did so much with what it had.

Ben

We were only with this show for two hours, but boy was that a great time.

NiNi

It was so much fun. The producer, the look on her face in the background when the two of them were flirting on set and she caught them? [Shan laughs] Her face was slowly lighting up. [laughs]

Ben

She's like—

Shan

So happy.

Ben

—”Conceal, don't feel, don't let them know.” [all laugh]

I love the manager glaring at his own fucking ward. He's like, “Can you read that line again for me?” and he glares at him. [Ben and Ginny laugh]

Shan

Oh man.

Ben

In terms of the BL commentary, that was fun. There's the whole ramp up of you get selected for a role, you don't really know your costar, there's the reading of the material.

One of the things I really enjoyed with this is that they delved into Aoyanagi really struggling with the fact that he was unable to build rapport with his co-star right away. I like actors getting to play actors and stuff. When Aoyanagi was acting as his character, he was actually really good and was really dialed in. It was really cool how quickly he could go in and out of character. I really liked them showing that he's actually good, but he's in his own head about it because he's really sensitive to commentary from fans, and they reinforce how fan behavior has really potentially negative impacts on actors and entertainers with Kuromiya. He gets cornered by a really aggressive fan, and has to be saved by Aoyanagi in that moment.

I actually liked the moment with Tendo, the female supporting character on their cast, when Aoyanagi’s trying to talk to her about what's going on with Akafuji and he's speaking about it hypothetically, and she's like, “If your co-star is trying to make out with you off set, that's not good.”

Shan

Mmhmm.

Ben

“That's extremely bad.” And he's like, “Wait, but this is a BL story, we're gonna just ride it out for this.” But she's like, “Mmm, no.”

Shan

Aside from how very fucking funny this is, it had some really good messages. The most important thing this show did for me was make it super clear that, in order for the two of them to have a real relationship and have a romance, Akafuji had to let go of being Aoyanagi’s fan. You can't idolize and worship a person if you want a relationship with them. You have to process them as a human being, a full human being, and see them fully for who they are, and not keep them on this fannish pedestal. I really like that the show was clear about that. Being a fan, being a stan of somebody, is not the same thing as loving them.

Ben

It was really surprising as well that the show allowed there to be the commentary about the network, late in production, interfering—getting cold feet about something. The guys had a lot of consternation about whether or not they'd be able to deliver a proper kiss for the intimacy, and then the powers that be pulled the kiss, and you get the sense immediately from the producers that that wasn't their choice, that people with money above them made that decision and they had to just deliver the party line and just accept it.

Shan

That probably brings us to our one real criticism of this show, yeah?

Ben

The reason why the show did not get a 10. [laughs]

Shan

Damn it, we wanted it to get a 10!

Ben

I get what they were going for. They reserved that moment for them. But I'm looking at you TV Asahi.

Shan

Because, they did not deliver a kiss.

Ben

They didn't.

Shan

They did not deliver a kiss in this show. [laughs]

Ben

It’s the only knock.

Shan

They teased a kiss continuously. They showed them about to kiss multiple times before cutting the camera away.

Ben

We got sad kissing in episode 2.

Shan

They implied that they might have been kissing as practice off camera, that we didn't see. And then they ended the show—similarly to Cherry Magic—with the camera zooming in on them, about to kiss, and then a cut to black. It was unsatisfying all around.

It's the one real ding on the show. The first time they did the fake out, we were like, “Oh no, show. Please don't do this. We want to love you unreservedly. Please just deliver the kiss.”

Ben

That's the real sadness of our two grab bags. We did not get a NiNi “I love this unreservedly” and we talked about like 10 shows. [Ben and Shan laugh]

NiNi

Everything's got a little ding to it right now, but we'll get that again, I believe.

Ben

[laughs] But genuinely I love this. I really like that for the little time we spent with them, all the characters felt really human to me in a way that was really accessible. And even though they were mostly broad strokes in all of these characters, I got a lot out of it. It was really, truly one of my favorite BL experiences I've had in a long time.

NiNi

I'm gonna give it a 9.75.

Ben

Oh, my God, here she goes.

Shan

[laughs] She’s cheating! That’s just cheating—

Ginny

Cheating!

Shan

—so you can be the most generous.

NiNi

It's not cheating. It is producer privilege. Get it right. [Ginny and Shan laugh]

Ben

Ginny?

Ginny

I gave it a 9.5. Would have been a 10 if they'd given us the kiss, but a truly delightful and worthwhile show.

Shan

Same. 9.5 for same reason.

Ben

I gave it a 9.5 for the same thing. It's a 9.5 from The Conversation.

Shan

But let the record state that NiNi is the most generous. [laughs]

Ben

Truly, we love this. This is one of our favorites. Go watch it right now.

Ginny

I have to rewatch it ‘cause I don't even remember my favorite gags.

Ben

Exactly. You gotta go watch again and get your gags back.

01:26:16 - Outro

NiNi

And with that, we have come to the end of our Japanese Grab Bag. So, what are we thinking about Japanese BL having just run down six of them in a row? Ginny, you go first.

Ginny

Last time I answered this question I was kind of feeling like Japanese BL can do no wrong, and now I feel like, well it can, and has. There have been several less than perfect shows. Still feeling very positive overall. Loving so far—knock wood—some of what's currently airing.

The beautiful density of storytelling that Japanese BL tends to deliver in such a short time, it almost never feels hollow or incomplete. It feels very rich and detailed, and I continue to love and appreciate that.

Ben

Shan?

Shan

I am just living right now. What a time to be alive. Japanese BL coming at us, all the time, consistently. It didn't used to be like this. We used to go long stretches with nothing coming out from Japan. No clue what was gonna come next. And now it’s like, we've got these consistently airing shows, we've got shows that are showing up as a surprise alongside that. I think at one point we had six different Japanese QLs airing simultaneously. That's just an unheard of bounty of Japanese QL content, and I am so happy about it. I hope it continues.

With volume, of course, comes some shows that are not gonna hit as well as the cream of the crop, but I still love the experience of watching all of them, I love getting to dig into this much Japanese content. I'm just so happy and I hope it continues.

Ben

I can't believe we got to talk about nine Japanese projects in a single season of this show. That's ridiculous.

Shan

Wow, right?

Ben

I am having a great time, and I'm actually glad some of these shows were flops or duds. As much as I really like Japanese BL, I'm glad that there was a show that I got to genuinely hate in this run [laughs] so that NiNi could see that I'm capable of hating a Japanese project with my whole heart.

NiNi

I did actually need to see that. That is true.

Ben

I'm havin’ a great time. It's really refreshing that so many different networks were involved. We had shows from about five or six different networks, and even if it feels like we're getting a slowdown in spring, I am very glad that we have more projects on the way. There's at least two more Japanese projects on the horizon, so. I'm in a really good place.

NiNi

There's some stuff in there, I think, that we're going to talk about in the Lagniappe about where things seem to be going next season, but for now, that's going to be it from us.

We out. Say bye to the people, everybody, this time in actual chorus: 1, 2, 3.

Ben

Peace.

Shan

Bye.

Ginny

Bye!

NiNi

Oh my God. Y'all are terrible at this.

[Ginny and Shan laugh]