#i'm only on ep 29

[aannonn]

⭑.ᐟ˚⭐彡 // bold text , strong colors , spoilers

A TLDR about the podcast for those who don't really want to watch the whole 1 hour and a half video !! :> ( I had posted it here before but I deleted it cause I wanted to wait a bit until I finally 'completed' it (technically speaking 'cause I'm only really making a TLDR at what my brain stuck onto or else I may get burnout. (っ °Д °;)っ) so I wouldn't have to edit this post every time . . lol ... feel free to add anything else in the reblogs/notes though !! ^ _ ^ )

The Most Successful Stick Animator in the WORLD Ft. Alan Becker - Dojocast Ep.6

。─ ⭐ Animation vs. Animator/Minecraft Stuff !!

° . They have been working on AvA 11 for over a year ;; 20 minutes long ;; Probably the biggest one they have ever worked on ;; They are doing their best to push it as early as they can , possibly around early december or even late november // { 54:07 }

° . They have a Minecraft Short being worked on about BedWars ;; This one's been really complicated since they are using real Minecraft acting with stickfigures // { 54:56 }

° . Next thing coming up is a Three-Part series about Green ;; It's a surprise. lol // { 55:40 }

° . AvA is going to be atleast Three seasons ;; As long as AvA and Minecraft are popular they are gonna keep going // { 57:08 }

° . King Orange used to be King Gray for a long time ;; Alan was considering to make him a light purple for a while // { 58:10 }

° . Alan's favorite is The Second Coming // { 1:06:36 }

° . Alan had different ideas for the 'fight scene in the box // { 1:19:29 }

° . Animator vs. Animation was originally supposed to be a trilogy ;; At the end of AvA3, everyone was supposed to die ;; His senior year college Teacher, who knew about his animations, gave him the idea to continue the series // { 16:45 }

。─ ⭐ Alan Becker's Production Team & Other Stuff !!

° . Alan's biggest inspiration was his lead animator; Terkoiz = The same one who worked on AvPhysics // { 1:00:07 }

° . Alan is the lead creative ; Hatena is the line producer ; There are three project leads = One takes care of AvA , One takes care of AvM , One takes care of Everything Else ; The animators are not segmented into only a certain series , they work on everything based on their skill set ; Also a Production Assistant that helps Hatena takes notes // { 1:02:34 }

° . An advice for any animators struggling to break into the industry/studios be it Indie or major ones : TLDR: The best thing you can do as an Independent artist is post your work as much as you can, and eventually opportunities will land and you have to take them as they come. You have to put yourself out there; Get yourself into as many doors as possible, and just get to know everyone. // { 1:07:29 }

° . They got inspiration from BoxOfCrayons' Voices Plus Faces !! // { 1:15:27 }

° . Alan made Animation vs. Animator 1-4 completely on his own. ;; Animation vs. Minecraft was when he decided to experiment in having a team of animators, and he did it with the diamond armour as it was an extremely tedious process (he taught 5 animators to do that). ;; in Animation vs. Youtube, Stone and Oxob were the first two animators he trusted to animate stickfigures. // { 27:45 }

° . ABTV is basically a loop compilation of all the AvA/M videos they ever made ;; They are trying to make it fun by adding little transitions between the episodes like "you're watching ABTV !! ^0^" ;; Eventually it'll get to every single transition between episodes; Is unique // { 48:44 }

[seirei-bh]

I'm trying to calculate or at least approximate in headcanon the ages that I think each character is in New Gen

First according to ep 5, Ysaline is 22 years old, since she says that she was 9 when her sister Tasha was 3, and now her sister is 16, (although since each sucrette is customizable, I think each player can have the freedom to decide what age prefer to imagine that they have their sucrette in New Gen, and that's what I'm going to do with mines)

Anyway, this also gives us a clue as to at least Thomas's current age. And also this other important fact: Thomas is 10 when OldSucrette (Lynn) is 17. So they are 7 years apart.

And there's supposed to be a 3-year time jump after Love Life to the special crossover ep. Since Lynn is 26 in LL, she is 29 in that special ep.

If we subtract 7 from 29, then Thomas is 22 years old. The same one as supposedly Ysaline canonically.

Now, it is much more difficult to estimate the age of the other characters. The only clue we have is that Elenda said in ep 4 that she was 6-7 when Devon was 10-11. Taking into account that many stories in video games, books and animes sometimes tend to use even and round numbers in big time-skips so that readers can easily remember the dates, it makes me assume that 20 years have passed since that time. So Elenda would be 26-27 and Devon about 30-31. Now the problem is that we don't know if Roy and Devon are the same age or if Roy is younger, we only know that they went to the same high school and so did Elenda, and these three met each other since they were kids, but I'm inclined to think that Roy and Devon were more like friends in a sense of older-younger brothers, since Devon seems older due to his features and behavior, so perhaps Roy is the same age as Elenda. I can be wrong though, and Roy and Devon being the same age, but this is what I think for now~

We also don't know Amanda's age, but due to her features, she appears to be around the age of Thomas and Elenda. Although Elenda in a scene from ep 3 defines herself as "the fairy godmother of Devenementiel" and says that she was there from the beginning, while Amanda seems like a recent member of the company, which makes me think that perhaps Elenda is a little older than Amanda.

Jason could be either Roy's age or Devon's age, but I'm inclined to think that it would be more convincing for Jason to be Devon's age, given his features, and since they are both company bosses and direct rivals, it would make sense for them to be the same age, and olders than the other crushes.

And Brune seems from her features to be somewhat older than Elenda, but perhaps not as old as Devon.

So my final conclusions are:

Thomas: 22 (the only age probably canon for now) Amanda: between 22-24 Roy: 26/27 Devon: 30/31 Jason: 30/31

Elenda: 26/27 Brune: 28~

There are other possibilities, of course. But the only thing we can be quite sure of is Thomas's age, being 7 years older than Lynn and the same as Ysaline, and that Devon is 4 years older than Elenda. It's also possible, for example, that they are all 22 except Devon and Jason being 26, but Rayan Zaidi is 33 in UL and Devon and Jason's features seem -at least from my pov- closer to that age than in the middle of the twenties~

Anyway, I'd like to know the opinion based on these calculations and/or headcanons of other players regarding this topic 💜

I guess we won't know until they confirm it in the game, if they confirm it in future eps, however if it is never revealed, I'd really like to know what the canonical ages of each crush are. So @chinomiko if you ever see this, please it'd be wonderful if you could answer this some day, or at least if these ideas are close to the canon. I know that the age of each character is something that doesn't have too much importance since everyone can imagine what they want, but I am especially curious about Jason and Devon <3 Besides these details are always useful for fanfic material.

[the-conversation-pod]

In Your Lavender: The Wedding Plan Episode

AND WE'RE BACK!

We originally planned to discuss Wedding Plan alongside a few other shows but abandoned that quickly when we realized we both had a lot to say about this show. Come join us as we discuss whether MAME has shown growth, what it means that the lavender marriage term has existed for over 130 years, the importance of lesbians in this story, and the fundamental nature of the closet.

If you've been missing how heated Ben gets, now's your chance!

Timestamps

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

01:16 - Intro 03:00 - Wedding Plan and MAME's Previous Crimes 15:18 - Realities of the Closet and Fandom Misunderstanding of the Show 29:23 - Things We Love About Wedding Plan and Final Ratings 37:26 - And Another Thing! The Wedding Plan Special

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. 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!

01:16 - Intro

NiNi

Welcome, welcome. [sighs] Go ahead.

Ben

Oh no, it's fine, you said welcome, I'm not going to do it this time. They won't get it for the Wedding Plan episode.

NiNi

[laughs] All right. Welcome, welcome to the—

Ben

I'm just kidding! And we're back!

[both laugh]

NiNi

Welcome! to the episode that was supposed to be a secret admirers episode, but instead is now the Wedding Plan episode, because everything else was a bit crap. We wanted to talk about this because we could not believe that this came fully formed from the head of MAME, of all the creatives. We were shocked, I think, but…the fandom was also kind of shocked, and we'll delve a little bit into how that played out when we get into the segment but, when I looked at the trailer I was like, ‘mm, okay, this could be cute.’ Did not expect to be…devastated, emotionally [laughs] at certain points.

Ben

I don't really think I watched the trailer properly. I went in a little bit hostile, because MAME’s got a whole thing for boundary crossing. And I was worried going in that this show was just going to be about some rich guy punking around his wedding planner, and then like, cheating on his wife. And that's not the show we got at all.

NiNi

Let’s dive into it so you can hear what we had to say!

03:00 - Wedding Plan and MAME’s previous crimes

NiNi

We are talking all things Wedding Plan. Now Ben, you and I had agreed sometime back that no matter what happened we were never going to talk about a MAME show on the podcast. And here we are [laughs] talking about a MAME show! And there's a really good reason for that. 

Let's start by talking about what Wedding Plan is about. Ben, do the honors.

Ben

Wedding Plan is a story about a wedding planner named Namnuea, who is the ace at his event planning company, and a fan of McDonald's, who very much sponsored this show. He is tasked with planning the wedding for a very attractive man and his soon-to-be wife. Complications ensue immediately, because their wedding is coming up in three months and these two have no idea what they want to do for their wedding, and only the groom is the one making the choices. 

We can tell very quickly that the groom, Sailom, is flirting with Namnuea; Namnuea is not stupid and picks up on this. The attraction between them is very mutual, but the complications around him being a client and a groom frustrate Namnuea. The reveals that eventually come out make this show to be way more than just a closet case trying to hit on his wedding planner.

NiNi

Reveal the reveals, because I feel like it's impossible to talk about this show in any meaningful way without knowing what the twist is.

Ben

Right! So Sailom and Yiwa, his bride, are in a lavender wedding. So for well over one hundred and forty years, we've had a term to describe queer people choosing to present themselves as heterosexually entwined for mutual benefit and safety. In this case, Sailom and Yiwa hail from fairly wealthy families that are extremely restrictive. The two of them recognized their own queerness at a very young age, and understood that they needed to hide that information. While on a trip in Europe the two of them recognized the queerness in each other when they both had a strong emotional reaction to seeing two women publicly kiss. And then became each other's best fucking friends for life, and decided to protect each other. Yiwa ends up developing a very meaningful romance with a woman named Marine, and she convinces Sailom to marry her so that they can both get out from under their families. They have a long-term plan to divorce. 

So when Sailom is flirting with Namnuea, Yiwa is 100% aware of it, and extremely supportive of it, because she doesn't want her friend, who she treats like a brother, to be lonely all the time.

NiNi

That basically sums it up in terms of the mechanics of the plot. But guys, the reason that we're here talking about a MAME show, is, this hit me right in the fucking throat, man. It was so real, in a way that I've never gotten from a MAME show. It felt like MAME almost apologizing to BL for some of the shit that she's done? It felt like MAME trying to gain some understanding and learn some shit, and show that she had learned some shit?

Ben

Just so that we get a bunch of stuff out on the table for listeners: what are some things that MAME has done that you think she should apologize for? [laughs]

NiNi

Ah, [laughs] where do I even begin? MAME work tends to lean very heavily into…traumatizing already traumatized people? I have mixed feelings about a lot of MAME’s work. There are sometimes I'm just like, oh fuck you. And then there's sometimes where they're like, I see where you're trying to go with this but you didn't have the skill. And then there are times I'm just like, ma’am, get the hell out. Something like this that I don't have any mixed feelings about, I just feel strongly positive about it…it's never happened to me before with her work, not ever. And it made me recalibrate in my head—a little bit, because it's still only one show—maybe where I should place MAME as a creative.

Ben

I have a list.

[both laugh]

NiNi

Go on ahead! Read!

Ben

Let's start with Love By Chance. There are four goddamn couples in Love By Chance. Only one couple is remotely stable! We really only talk about Ae and Pete, because we do not need to talk about the other three. MAME loves to question the line between crossing boundaries and romance. There’s Tin and Can, who were the focus of Love By Chance 2—

NiNi

Which I did not watch.

Ben

Then there's Kengkla and Techno, and Kengkla is paying Techno's brother for information on him to eventually date rape him—I mean, that happened in Love By Chance! Then there's Tum and Tar, who are brothers, and Tar was a victim of horrendous acts by a character from TharnType. Moving on to TharnType, a show that I will not watch, for multiple reasons, some of them fandom related that we are not going to get into in this podcast. But the idea that Tharn is going to teach Type that he's actually into men without his consent? Yikes. I don't care how it ends up resolving. The wall is real fucking high for me on that one.

Ben

Didn't they have a spinoff with the other guys from Don't Say No? I'm not talking about that. Then we get to Love in the Air, which I mostly enjoyed, but why do both of the ukes in that show have to get kidnapped in their final episodes? [laughs] Why? It's so unnecessary! Rain and Sky were straight up kidnapped as the final complication of their show. It's insane.

NiNi

I did not watch Love in the Air. So every time you say that I'm just like, ‘that's a thing that actually happened?’

Ben

So this is the difference with Wedding Plan. Wedding Plan is so straightforward. There is no major complication to Wedding Plan. Everything that happens in this show flows naturally from the base conceit that two people involved in a lavender wedding are dealing with some difficulties and frustrations as that approaches, and then make logical choices for their characters, in response to everything that's going on. 

And it kind of surprised me how much I ended up really loving this show. It's interesting for me that Yiwa and Marine’s relationship is the reason why the wedding is occurring. I've never really cared about heterosexual weddings in a lot of these shows and stories that I watch, but I feel so much about the way Lom and Yiwa care about each other and protect each other. Lom is agreeing to this sham wedding that's going to eventually lead to a bunch of complications in his life, because he's trying to protect his friend. 

Normally in a story like this, there'd be all this tension about the groom struggling with his sexual identity, and what he wants for himself, and the girl's going to get hurt along the way—‘he feels loyal to the girl, we can't just do her like that!’ In this show, Lom is withholding information about the specifics about his relationship with Yiwa from Namnuea because he's protecting her. The crux of the romantic drama of this show was about a gay man in the closet protecting a gay woman in the closet.

NiNi

Yiwa and Marine's relationship is the key to the whole story, but the relationship between Yiwa and Sailom is the core relationship. The fact that they're doing this for each other, the fact that they care about each other so deeply, the fact that they basically decided long ago that they were the people who mattered to each other…and then as people come into their lives who are maybe somebody they might be interested in building a life with, it becomes a decision for everybody as to whether this person gets let in. I would have loved to see how it went when Yiwa decided that she wanted to be with Marine. I understand that's not the point of this particular story, but I would have been fascinated to see how that played out. 

By the time we join the story Marine’s on the inside. She's 100% bought in. Marine has made the decision to be in the closet with Yiwa, which is sad in one way, but it's so freeing for them in another, because of what Sailom has done for them. They can be happy. And they are happy! They're happy and they're in love, and they're part of this family of the two of them and Sailom. It made me smile just watching them be with each other as a family unit. And then Lom meeting Nuea. When you're going to bring somebody into a secret like that, you have to be 100% sure. And not just you, everybody has to be on board with it. [laughs] It's not polyamorous, but it's—polyamoresque [laughs] I guess is the best way to describe it. Everybody has to be on board with what's happening. It's not just a question of ‘do I like this person?’ It's a question of ‘is this person a safe person?’ It's a question of ‘do the other people involved in this like this person?’ It's a question of ‘is this a person who I can share this secret with?’ but it's also, as it comes down to later in the story, a question of Lom knowing that he couldn't ask. He couldn't ask Nuea to be a part of the secret. He could just tell Nuea what was happening, and he could just hope and pray—and I don't even think that he dared to hope. And I think that's what the crying was about when Nuea decided that he was going to become part of the family? Lom broke down when Nuea said to him, ‘I'm going to help you keep your secret.’ Because he knew he couldn't ask it of him. And the fact that he freely offered it just brought Lom to tears.

15:18 - Realities of the closet and fandom misunderstanding the show

NiNi

This show is amazing. The show is emotionally sound, the show is beautiful, and I got so mad [laughs] watching this show get misunderstood. And if I was mad, Ben was incandescent. [laughs] 

Ben, you take the floor and tell ‘em why you mad, son.

Ben

I'm going to talk about the closet for a little bit. It felt like a lot of the people who are reacting to this show have not been in the closet. I was in the closet for 11 years. Your brain does not work in the same way on the inside, and I'm going to say frankly to anybody who thought Lom should have told Namnuea a lot sooner than he did? When you've been in the closet for 13 years, you do not tell someone you have a crush on, in two months of knowing them. Not when the stakes are as high as they are. The reason they're in the closet is because there will be severe and painful consequences for failing to maintain a heteronormative status quo. 

The big thing that separates Lom from Namnuea is, Namnuea is out. The truth about who Namnuea is cannot harm him. Namnuea develops feelings for Lom, and tells his boss. And she says, ‘there's nothing wrong with you having a crush on the guy, like he's hot. You know what the professional boundaries are though, do you need me to step in and take care of this for you?’ and Namnuea said no. When Namnuea fell for Lom, before they hooked up, he called his mom and said, ‘mom I think I fucked up.’ And she's like, ‘sometimes we fuck up baby boy, come home if you need me.’ And after he hooked up with Lom that's what he did! He went home, and he told his mom flat out: ‘the thing I told you about? Yeah I think I went too far.’ And she held him, and let him be a mess about it, because she understood that he already knew that he put himself in a really untenable situation, and she didn't pile on. They protected him. Namnuea can be honest about who he is, and whenever he tells the people who matter to him about something that happened, they close ranks around him and protect him. At the point at which Lom is trying to chase after Namnuea, every woman in his life pulled out their claws and was ready to slit that man's throat. They were all ready to throw hands with this man! 

But when you're in the closet, your brain doesn't work right. You are under constant surveillance to maintain the heteronormative veneer over your life. The show does not make this hypothetical. Their friends and family are snapping pictures of them in public, and questioning every relationship they have with someone other than Lom and Yiwa. Lom is sitting at the table with Marine—Yiwa stepped away for a work call, and someone’s snapping a photo like, ‘why is Lom on a date with this other girl? She's trying to steal Lom from your daughter.’ Or ‘I saw Yiwa hanging out with her best friend, are they gay? I took some pictures and now I'm telling your mom.’ When you look at the reason why these two are so vigilant about being in the closet, that's literally what they're experiencing! It's super heavy-handed in this show, but it is exactly the kind of shit that I lived through. Being in the closet because you know that there are consequences and there are dangers breeds hypervigilance. 

And I'm going to say it really plainly: all of the really negative takes I saw about Lom that were really unsympathetic to what this man went through? Made me, as a 30-something year old gay man who survived being closeted, really extremely uncomfortable. And I really need you to reckon with whatever you were going through that made you turn on a closeted gay man, and view him as the evil aggressor party in this particular relationship. Because goddamn! 

The reason why he chose Namnuea to be his wedding planner was because he had a crush on him! And when you're in the closet you need plausible deniability. Lom is toeing the line. He can hang out with Namnuea and flirt with him, because he's talking to his wedding planner. Nobody's going to question him being around a gay man, because he's his wedding planner! And that's what the homos do, is they plan events for the rest of us! Because they're very good at it. The reason why he's being an irritating client is because he wants Namnuea to talk to him more. If he's a good client, Namnuea’s not gonna talk to him! Because Namnuea’s professional, and busy. 

And Lom admits it. He says in episode…6 I believe, because I just rewatched again, that hiring Namnuea was just, in his mind, a little bit of fun before he got married. He would flirt with the guy that he had a crush on, even if it's a little fucked up to do that, and have a little fun before his wedding. He was not expecting to fall in love with Namnuea. But he's got a competency kink! And Namnuea is so good at his job. And he likes his job! He likes seeing people happy at the things that he planned for them, and he takes care of people. Lom loves these things in Namnuea. This even played out in their sex. He was happy that Namnuea was not a virgin. Very tasteful, sir.

NiNi

It being MAME, I will confess, that up until maybe somewhere around the beginning to middle of episode 4? I wasn't sure where they were going with this.

Ben

Let me tell you, I was waiting for her to do some convoluted bullshit as of episode 7. [laughs] They're like, ‘the bride’s run off!’ and I'm like, there's really only one way this should play out. Closeted people make plans. Yiwa is also not stupid. There’s this moment in episode 6—and this is again intentional, the editing on this show is actually really crisp. We get the really poignant scene on the bridge, where Lom talks about the knowing, and Namnuea’s like, ‘we need to fuck right now.’ And then, if you have access to iQiYi, they did! And then we get the scene where Namnuea agrees to be in the relationship, and all that that means. 

The very next scene is Yiwa’s mom showing up at Marine's apartment to accost her and slap her. Which is immediately followed by Yiwa running back to the condo, and the way she enters that apartment? She genuinely thought that Marine might have left her. For as happy as they seem, Yiwa never underestimates or undervalues the stress that she's putting Marine under. When she enters the room and Marine hasn't run away, but is just laying in bed, clearly spent from all of this? That's the moment that breaks Yiwa. And then we flash forward three weeks to the wedding, and she's run off with Marine and leaves a note. 

Lom knows her! He was not phased by this at all, when—after he's done putting on his jilted groom act, he's laughing. He's like, ‘I know what that cheeky girl did, I can't believe she did this without telling me. Look at this stupid note! I can read between the lines.’ [laughs] And then they call her, and she's like, ‘I knew you would understand my note. That's my boy, don't fuck this up! I'll take this on for you.’ Yiwa takes on the social pariah role here, of being the lesbian who ran away the day of the wedding, leaving Lom at the altar, ‘how dare she?’ 

The power here is that Yiwa doesn't give a fuck anymore. That's the whole thing about heteronormative shame: it only matters where you can exert that influence over people. Yiwa and Marine said, we cannot exist the way we want to, so we are leaving and going somewhere else. That is a choice a lot of us choose to make: to leave our home communities, to go build community with other people elsewhere. And then she gives Lom the ability to spin that, to soft launch his relationship with Nuea. Because they don't come out as a couple for like six months after that. They put on the act of Lom being a drunken mess for months—he's fine. He's just spraying alcohol on himself and then going to work with his hair unkempt.

NiNi

Episode 7’s so delightful. But anyway, continue.

Ben

And he's just hanging out with Nuea, and he just tells people, ‘yeah, we bonded over the wedding stuff because we had a lot of work to do really quickly for the wedding, and you know he felt sympathy for me afterwards. And he took care of me at a really difficult time, and I feel comfortable with him. I loved Yiwa, she was the only woman I was ever willing to marry.’ 

Not a lie! But also not the exact truth.

NiNi

I loved the big lie at the end, because it was basically Lom, Yiwa, and everybody in the situation putting two giant middle fingers up at their society, and the people around them. Aside from the people who, as you rightly said, would have protected them anyway. So all the women in Nuea’s life, and the people who he works with at the wedding planning company—basically the people who earned the right to know the truth know the truth. And everybody else gets two giant fucking middle fingers and the big lie.

Ben

It's a little bit like the ending with Bad Buddy, about them breaking up publicly but still being together? It's the same question: who is allowed to know? Something for you to think about, if you didn't get this show and you hated Lom and all this sort of stuff—ask yourself if the queer people in your life trust you. Would you be brought in? Would you be trusted with this information? Lom's mother realizes along the way what was going on the whole time, because she's not stupid. And she says quite plainly—because Lom has not properly come out to her yet, he's been hinting at it, he's like, I feel comfortable with him—and she says, ‘I'm still doing what I need to do to process this, but just promise me you won't leave.’ 

What she recognized is that she was playing a zero sum game that she could lose. That her son could make the same choice as Yiwa. She recognized that he and Yiwa were likely withholding important information about themselves, from their parents, for a really long time. And that can be really unsettling. It's something I went through in my family when I started coming out, that people were very put off by how I just…hid hugely important portions of my life from them, for most of my life. And she recognized that if she pushed too hard, she would get nothing.

NiNi

It really is the Bad Buddy conundrum, because this is where their parents are at the end, where they know, but if they're not willing to fully be on board? Then they don't get to fully know. And they don't get to be fully involved. Lom's mom knows, but until and unless she's willing to wholeheartedly accept Nuea there will always be now, at this point, a barrier between her and her son. All she can ask of him is that he doesn't leave. But beyond that, she doesn't get to ask anything of him, until and unless she is ready to fully accept every part of who he is. I can't believe that came from MAME's pen.

29:23 - Things we love about Wedding Plan and final ratings

Ben

Something else I really love—I really love the community around Nuea, particularly his family. I love when he goes back to Chiang Mai, and he sees that his little cousin is also out and proud now and has a hot boyfriend. And I love that Sun, Ryu’s boyfriend, is immediately engaged in in-law solidarity with Sailom. Nuea’s family hates him, and he's like, ‘valid.’ Like, ‘If you want to stay here, you got to work.’ ‘Okay.’ And he just works. Nuea's family is protecting Nuea from someone who they think doesn't respect him. Everything mean that they're doing to Sailom is because they are protecting Nuea, and it's really not that much, what they're asking. They're basically just giving him a difficult time, until Nuea decides what to do with him. But Sun is helping him the whole time, he's like, ‘this family's very difficult, I got you bro.’ And that pairs really well with the phone call that Nuea has with Yiwa and Marine, where Yiwa is like, ‘Lom and I do love each other. That is my ride or die: it's been me and him for a long time. I'm not going to pretend that he is not the most important man in my life, but he's not who I'm building my future with.’ 

And I love that for Yiwa and Sailom, it is love between them. The heteros just misread it. They don't have to fake an admiration for each other. I love that Marine talks to Nuea, and talks about the sincerity of their feelings, and how she's okay, at this point. Because she's the only person that Nuea can really accept any sort of perspective from, and I'm really glad that they had that moment and that was just them.

NiNi

I love that in that moment she doesn't try to convince him of anything. She just says, ‘I can't tell you what to do. This is a crazy situation: here's what I accepted about this, here's why I accepted it. These people are good people.’

Ben

Right! She says their love is sincere.

NiNi

‘Yeah, but whatever decision you make I completely get, because I made my choice. You're gonna have to make your own choice as well.’ She spoke to Nuea very candidly, and I truly appreciated that, and I think that Nuea definitely appreciated that too.

Ben

I love the reveal about Sailom's hands always being cold because he was nervous.

NiNi

Ehhhh [laughs] It was one of those romance things that I'm just like ‘eh!’ about, but it was adorable. It was.

Ben

I really like Pak in this role. A lot of the times when MAME writes her ukes, they tend to be a little bit on the demure side, and they usually need a stern counterbalancing presence for them? I really like that Nuea did not need that at all. I also liked how queer Namnuea felt. He very much feels like a gay boy.

NiNi

I love stories about love and family, and this is one of the ultimate love and family stories. For me, and I can't believe I'm saying this, when it comes to love and family, it's going maybe a half step behind Moonlight Chicken this year for me? I can't believe that just came out of my mouth about a MAME show. But that's really truly how I feel about it. For me, it was a 10.

Ben

I ended up giving this show a 9.5. It's one of the ones that's going to linger with me for a while, and I think a big part of it was just how much everyone else really hated the show. I think we went into this show with a lot of MAME blinders on—I knowingly went into the show hostile. I don't really like a lot of what MAME does. But, respectfully, watching a MAME show—the writer famous for writing romances about boundary crossing—and being mad that her characters are crossing boundaries? Is a little bit disingenuous of a place to write your criticism from. That's her shtick. 

Nuea crosses those boundaries too! Nuea had agency, and I really resent the way a lot of the takes damsel him and make him seem powerless. He's not! He is the one with all the power here. It's why Sailom is pouring everything he can into, every time he says ‘I like you, Nuea.’ Sailom is such a sap, and y'all really hated that man. And I really need y'all to reckon with that. Like if you listened to us and you hated Sailom, please, examine your life. [laughs]

NiNi

I have a smidge of sympathy up until episode 4, for anybody who struggled a little bit with Sailom. But only up until episode 4. Because somewhere to the beginning, middle of episode 4, it was very clear what they were driving towards? And then at the end of episode 4 when Sailom and Nuea hook up for the first time, I said to myself, ‘Okay. I see where this is going.’ And then when they get to Chiang Mai, and Sailom finally tells Nuea what happens, because Marine and Yiwa have given their okay, and Nuea said, ‘Duh. Clearly that's what's going on, I already knew that.’ Nuea wasn't fooled by Sailom.

Ben

No, Nuea basically guessed 90% of it accurately. The only thing he didn't really guess, was that they were both in on it. Let me say this as well while we're here: in terms of queer solidarity, Namnuea never once outed Yiwa when he caught her out with Marine. He did not mention that once. Not at all. He ain't tell none of his hoes. He ain’t tell none of his people. He caught those two out, was like ‘oh shit, is my gaydar broken?’ And then he didn't say shit about that. He didn't even hold that up in his whole thing with Sailom. And I respect the fuck out of that man for that, because that’s not his thing to say.

NiNi

The show is amazing.

Ben

It really is.

NiNi

It's, for me, an easy cruise into some type of VIIB Award at the end of the year.

Ben

It's gonna be a difficult year for us, when we're sorting out acknowledging the incredible work that's been done, but this is one of them.

NiNi

Delightful, emotional, deeply gratifying, deeply satisfying. Ben gave this a 9.5, I gave it a 10, let's call it a 9.75.

Ben

It can get a 10 from The Conversation.

NiNi

You heard it here first, folks: Ben says it can get a 10 from The Conversation. MAME gets a 10 from us, and nobody is more surprised than us—

Ben

It’s true.

NiNi

—that that is a thing that happened [laughs] on this show.

Ben

I feel so intense about this show. I get so mad about the discourse around Sailom. He's one of those characters, like, if you don't like him? I don't like you. Fuck off.

[both laugh]

NiNi

And that’s…a word!

37:26 - And another thing! The Wedding Plan special

Ben

And we're back! I have so much more to say, I am not through. [laughs]

NiNi

So before we get into Ben's ‘and another thing!...’ Let's talk a little bit about the Wedding Plan special, because there was a special episode, that cost $8.

Ben

[laughs] I paid $7 for my rental.

NiNi

However much it costs, it costs money. Which I'm slightly salty about because MAME had McDonald's money on this, she didn't need ours.

Ben

In her defense, she has done this on literally every show. Except for Love by Chance…and Don't Say No.

NiNi

McDonald's money. That's all I'm going to say.

Ben

And she cashed in! Good for her.

NiNi

[laughs] Anyway, so let's talk a little bit about the Wedding Plan special. Ben, tell the people what it was about.

Ben

The show's fucking called Wedding Plan. It was the fucking wedding, guys, let’s—we're not going to beat around the fucking bush on this one. It was the wedding for the gays! It was really beautiful. The basic premise is, the guys have been dating properly for what feels like a year, year and a half at this point. They're taking a trip to go back to see Namnuea's family. Before they leave, they have one final check-in with Lom's mom, where she meets Nuea properly as Lom's boyfriend. She doesn't take it very well, but Sailom does not give a shit. 

Meanwhile Sailom is working with Wiwa Square to organize a secret wedding for Namnuea. Hilariously, Im still does not like Sailom, and I thought that was an excellent character detail. So they go and travel back to the north, and Sailom has Nuea taking him around—I think they were in Chiang Mai?—to check out sites and locations while everyone else has moved to Namnuea's house to set up for this wedding that Namnuea doesn't know about. Lom proposes to him, they end up having the wedding the next day. It's this incredibly beautiful ceremony, it’s very traditional Thai, I believe. There's more I want to say about some of the stuff that happened at the wedding, but that's the basic premise: Lom organizes a wedding for Namnuea, and his friends plan it in secret. Which I actually think is lovely for a wedding planner, that he didn't have to plan his own wedding.

NiNi

That's the crux of it. You guys know, I am not the one the two or the three for these weddings. I believe in marriage. I believe in the importance of marriage. I am generally not a fan of the weddings. But, this one? It was beautiful, I do have to say. It was a beautiful wedding, everything around the wedding was beautiful. When I was talking about Wedding Plan in the main part of the show, I was talking about how much I love love and family. And that was what the wedding episode was about, it was love and family. Yiwa and Marine were there at the wedding, being Sailom's family, because while his mom is starting to come around to Nuea, she's still not there yet. So she doesn't get to be a part of this. So Yiwa and Marine are his family. They show up for him. They are hosting on his behalf. It's beautiful. It's just so beautiful.

Ben

I did not praise Pakpai enough in our recording; Pakpai’s reaction, as Nuea, to Yiwa appearing before him, for this wedding that he had just found out about? Is one of the most perfect expressions I’ve seen all year.

NiNi

Because he hasn't seen them since they left for England.

Ben

I am a gay boy who believes in community. And believes in gay people taking care of each other. And that means that I have worked in solidarity with lesbians. And it is such a beautiful thing for me, in this year of really good shows, to see two lesbians in a critical role in the lives of gay men. There's something so special about the unconditional, ride or die love between Yiwa and Lom, and how that extends to Marine and Nuea, and creates this very special little family unit. I cannot overstate how important it is to me that Nuea almost cried because he was overwhelmed with emotion getting to see Yiwa in front of him again, and for a wedding that he had just found out about. That was his first reaction: awe, and then he burst into tears because he loved her so much and had missed her for that long. That is so beautiful! 

As for the other things in the special…The ceremony itself is really beautiful. There's a lot of really great moments in there. There's this very special moment between Namnuea and Im, where she comes to pay respects, and he takes her hand, and he says ‘I love you’ in this way that conveys a very special history between the two of them? That sent me over the edge and I burst into tears right away. [laughs] I do not know what those two have been through together, but that ‘I love you’ was one of the most effective I love yous I have ever experienced in this genre, and it was not between romantic leads at all.

NiNi

We always go up for the non-romantic I love yous in BL. lt's the Jim and Li Ming thing all over again. Namnuea’s co-workers being there for him at his wedding, the way that they put it together for him, the way that Marine and Yiwa stepped in to be Lom's family, the way Nuea’s actual family stepped in as well. There's a gorgeous scene, after the actual wedding ceremony, where they do—I suppose this is another traditional part of a Thai wedding, which is a bedding?—where Nuea's parents are with them in the room, and talking to them about love and commitment and marriage, and that's the part that put me into tears.

Ben

It was really funny, because like we had not really seen any of the dads in the show. Moms were a big deal in the show. Nuea’s dad is just this sweet man! It was overwhelming for me, how just beautifully sweet this man was, and the way he was pouring love out to Sailom, because he's like, ‘I never thought Nuea would get to have this.’ Nuea, the wedding planner, who spends so much of his time trying to make sure other people's dreams come true? I was floored by his dad just being there: ‘I just wanted my son to be happy, and I'm so thankful that you were able to do that for him.’ And I was like, ‘I don't know who you are sir, but good job!’

NiNi

It was really really gorgeous, and just so many other things…also the stuff that's happening between Sailom and Nuea. The way that Sailom proposes, and the way that Nuea knew it was coming but he still got surprised by the way that it happened? That was gorgeous. And then again, after the wedding and after the bedding, when it's just the two of them in the room, and Nuea does the thing where he pays respect to his husband? And says that that's something that he always wanted to do? The way that these two take marriage so seriously, and especially the way that Nuea feels about it. Because like I said, Nuea is a wedding planner; he sees weddings every day. He sees these rituals and ceremonies and everything every day. And I can just imagine him sitting thinking to himself, ‘one day, one day, and this is something that I want to do with my husband, and this is something that I want to do with my husband’—I can just imagine that. And then meeting Sailom and falling in love with Sailom and actually getting to marry Sailom, and being able to do that, and the way that he is so emotional about that. Mmh! Got me right in the feels. 

The reason that I tend not to like weddings is because a lot of the time I find them so artificial, so stage managed and overproduced. I'm talking about this not just in terms of weddings in fiction, but weddings in real life. So, watching something so sincere, something so genuine, something so personal… t’s a production, yes, all weddings are, but it was real! Everything about it was so real, it was so emotional, it was so…[sigh] it was great. It was fantastic. I thoroughly enjoyed that. I cried more than once watching the special. It just added to the joy of discovering Wedding Plan and this whole little universe and these characters.

Ben

There was a lot of little stuff happening around that. Like, one of the things that I think MAME is actually pretty good at, is really caring about her supporting cast in a useful way? She's very good about understanding why that character is there. There's Yiwa and Marine getting to have a private moment, being a little bit sad that they didn't get to have this, a Thai wedding with the people who love them around them. And I like that they got to have, like a quiet bitter moment about that. And I like that they didn't put that on Lom and Nuea, it's not something that they need to be consoled about, it's just one of those things that hurts about being queer sometimes, and that's part of the choice they made. They did take on that hurt, to give the boys a chance to be together, but it still hurt, and I like that the show never forgot that. This show cared about its lesbians, they mattered to this story, they weren't there just to check off boxes to make sure that we covered all of our bases. They were still telling their story. 

I love Sun and Ryu listening at their goddamn bedroom, and then having to be chased off. Great comedy. But also I loved it, I loved that there were younger gays excited about gays slightly older than them getting to have their moment together. It was such a special execution of that. 

I genuinely like that the Wedding Plan special episode is treated as a special episode. I like where the show ends for itself. I like thinking about the wedding as a special epilogue for the story, and not necessarily as the actual finale of the story. I think it's better as epilogue content.

NiNi

I have to agree! So all in all, when it comes down to Wedding Plan, looking back at it now, I think we definitely stand by how we felt about it. I think that… I have, you know Ben has, gotten even more in love with it? And even more, I think, defensive and vocal about it, because it's good! It's just good. And I don't like people saying it's not! That's it for me.

Ben

This is the number 4 or 5 show of the year for me.

NiNi

Yeah, there you have it.

Ben

Currently it's behind—in no specific order because we're not at the VIIB Awards yet—Moonlight Chicken, My School President, La Pluie, and probably The Eighth Sense? It's that good! 

I am in this genre for queer cinephile reasons. I am here to connect with people for gay reasons. I'm not in this for, like, taboo, or to see cute boys kiss each other because it's titillating in and of itself. I exist as a queer person, it informs my decisions on the regular, and it was such a relief to see characters that were not incidentally gay, so that we can imagine two idols bumpin’ uglies. 

I really love Sailom and Namnuea so much. Sailom got updated to blorbo status so quickly. Every week I'll just send NiNi a gif of Sailom and be like, ‘they really hated this man!’

[both laugh]

NiNi

He's not even kidding, this literally happens.

Ben

[laughs] It’ll just, just be a great gif that somebody made of Sailom and I’ll be like, ‘they really hated this man!’ 

Something else I want to say quite plainly here, and I would like you, as listeners of the podcast to reckon with this—and I would really like to talk about this, so please talk to me on Tumblr about this: Part of why I think Wedding Plan did not hit for people, is that Namnuea doesn't look like a girl, and doesn't behave like a girl. He behaves like a kind of femme man, and he feels very gay, in a way that is distinctly masculine. Additionally, the show doesn't really conform to a seme-uke dynamic very well, because Namnuea does seme things—like I noticed in episode 2 that he does a kabedon on Sailom. And I know that bothered a lot of the people who are obsessed with loyalty to the tropes. Namnuea is so self-assured, and I don't necessarily think that that resonated for the people who are in this for BL reasons and for regular romance beats. And I wonder a lot if that was their big problem. 

I would really like to have a secondary conversation with the folks who listen to us about this particular dynamic, because I do think it's worth us unpacking why people—as much shit that gets talked about MAME—refused to engage with the show. This is legitimately one of the top queer narratives of the year. And we snubbed this show. I have watched people talk shit about MAME and her writing for five fucking years, and when she writes a whole show that is basically the byproduct of all of our feedback, we snubbed it! When MAME returns to her roots, I don't want to hear none of y’all who snubbed Wedding Plan saying a goddamn thing about her.

NiNi

I'm so mad at you for saying when MAME returns to her roots. Like this was clearly a fluke. 

Ben

She's gonna be like Jafar! She's going to be like, ‘let's see how snakelike I can be, bitches!’

NiNi

So you definitely are of the view that this is not a change for MAME, this is just a detour.

Ben

I don't know! I don't know, like I was not expecting Wedding Plan. This show has so much goddamn heart to it, and it was gay! In a real way!

NiNi

I think you need to start subscribing to my vibes-based scoring method.

Ben

What? Absolutely not! 

[both laugh] 

Nah, it's always about the recommends. Legitimately, it's a 10 recommend. Everyone needs to go fucking watch this show. This is essential viewing for this year. This show represents a fascinating growth point for MAME; because we've criticized her for five years and she made something that is one of the most wholesome gay things I have ever watched in the genre. And we snubbed it, and threw it away. 

To the cast of Wedding Plan: you all did a fantastic job, and I hope you all had a really fun time together. I want to thank every single one of you for the work you all did, because you all collectively created one of the most compelling community support systems I've ever seen in queer TV, truly. Especially to all of the women who are on that cast. BL women get messed around a lot, and don't often get to do a lot of great stuff, and every single one of you did a fantastic job.

NiNi

That is going to wrap us up on the Wedding Plan episode. We out! Say bye to the people, Ben.

Ben

Y’all better watch this fucking show. Peace.

[both laugh]

[kandadze]

Ep 29 loose thoughts

Oof, Li Lun's really on his last legs, eh? I do feel sorry for him, but I feel even worse for Bai Jiu - locked up inside his own body, poisoned, forced to ingest human livers, coughing up blood and dying. Can this kid get a break, please.

It's funny to me how ZYC might have figured out ZYZ's ruse because of his top-tier observation skills... or it might have been because he pays *that* much attention to the demon. I guess we'll never know 😅

It's heartbreaking in a way how well ZYZ knows LL, still, after all, and trusts him not to hurt Ying Lei, trusts LL to honor an emotional debt. Also, interesting how even while pointing a sword to ZYZ's throat, ZYC trusts him not to go to certain lengths for his goals... I keep saying this, but- the bonds in this drama! 😭

Is this really the time to walk away without saying anything, ZYZ? (I know, I know. It's so that they can break our hearts more thoroughly real soon.)

Oh okay. So even Wen Xiao doesn't know what exactly is wrong with her - don't you think that's kind of vital info you should've shared, Bai Yan daren? Ngl, I guffawed when ZYZ said, "I searched Wen Xiao's body etc," not sure if it's the translation that's lacking or what, but I'm pretty sure we all had the same thought about how thorough that search was 😝 On a more serious note though, is poison always the most powerful weapon of destruction in cdramas? Like ZYZ has the power to heal stab wounds and vein cuts that would otherwise be lethal, but he can't do shit about poison?

Thanks for explaining why she wasn't there when the gang came back with the scale, I thought it was so weird for Bai Yan to just leave like that when she was supposedly the one to tell them how it works. (Still not sure why it had to be her and not Ying Long or even the princess Longyu herself, but oh well.)

Yes, that's why ZYZ stole the scale. The never ending variations on the trolley problem in this drama (I think I saw someone mention it re the Bingyi cave and then it happened again in ep 28, and now it's happening again)!

"It's hard." And? That doesn't mean it's impossible, right? Bai Yan, *please* speak plainly and in full sentences, because instead of raising tension you're raising my blood pressure.

Ah, of course she would withhold that info if it meant saving her son. ZYC, going straight for jugular lol (gotta love the man, for him restoring the sword means not only getting Bai Jiu back but also saving his own life, and he still would choose not to go through with it if it meant losing ZYZ or, as he just found out, WX.) As a mother, she might have thought of letting her son know who she was when she still had a chance; she might have thought of a contigency plan in case something happened to her. They might have not been in this particular mess now, had *someone* made sure the kid didn't have to resort to making wild guesses, ultimately leading him to be lied to and exploited.

Wow, yeah, okay. I officially dislike both of Bai Jiu's parents now. Also, Bai Yan's words once again reinforce the difference between humans and demons/gods and how they think about time and bonds. ZYC might be a demon now, so technically his lifespan is way longer than human's, and still he might not live long enough to see the next incarnation of the Baize goddess; and even if he could, at this point his concern is the *current* incarnation, thank you very much, whereas BY's looking at the situation from a much wider perspective. Because of course both worlds will be involved. And I'm still with ZYC on this. (Unrelated, but I love Bai Yan's voice. It's not often we get to hear that low of a voice from a woman, and especially not in cdramas, as far as I can tell.)

Oh, fuck off. The fatalism rubs me the wrong way always, and coming from such a supposedly powerful being it's even more grating. (Not for the first time while watching this drama I get a flashback to reading Clamp's "X-1999," the set-up and tone is eerily similar.)

Well I guess I got my wish. Li Lun, you sad little demon possessing a dying child's body, I feel for you and your longing. The white petals around them (white, for death and mourning), oh my heart. The fact that they kept switching the actors throughout his reflections made it even more painful. And then he goes and (indirectly) quotes ZYC, the bit about the lamp kept on for travellers... while Ying Lei can only listen and cry. Oof. Can't help but notice that he still focuses mostly on his own suffering, though... I guess it's fair, for all intents and purposes he still has a mentality of a hurt teenager.

The whiplash I got when he switched to, "if I die, I have to find someone to die with," ouch 🤣 Once a drama queen, always a drama queen, right, LL? Gotta find yourself the grandest stage for your final exit... am I ready to see that? (I adore his character song, btw, even though when I first heard it, it gave me a completely different image of what his character's going to be. Hmm.)

Again, fuck right off, Bai Yan. I kinda wish they showed us more of WX in that scene, but hey, I'll take ZYC's memories, too (probably the first time with a time stamp!). "You must live well." It's like a refrain at this point that they seem to cling to, the worse the circumstances get. And the care between them, I'll never be over the bonds we're being shown in this drama.

I relate to WX so much. Like I get the idea that some things are worth dying for and no one in the gang would hesitate to put their lives on the line. And still, WX wants to live. Staying alive is just as, if not more, difficult as dying. Staying alive while others leave is difficult. Only when you stay alive can you really change the narrative. (Also, can we please *stop* sitting on that goddamn bridge. Why are you even there when ZYC was clearly shown back at the Mount Kunlun? Come to think of it, I just realized that they seem to have completely forgotten about Ying Lei??? And where did PSJ go?)

"How is wanting to live not the right choice?" Funny, coming from you of all people, ZYZ. Will you make the right choice for yourself, then? Thank you, WX. Make him sit on that for a bit... Ngl, I cheered when she tore up that goddamned contract. I don't care if they get to kiss now or no, but I care that he won't have to experience a mild heart attack every time he focuses on his affection towards her. (Because I've never seen him look at her as you would a colleague, so technically his heart should've been acting up nonstop, unless the emphasis was on conscious intent on his part. I'd have to rewatch that ep to see if they actually mention the exact wording.)

Awww look at her boys going "I'll find a way" at the same time! I just hope I'm not gonna cry when their way turns out to be yet another self-sacrificial mission. Interesting, there's a bottle of wine and two cups sitting by ZYC, even though he seems to have been sitting there by himself for quite a while... is it going to be one of those tiny details that become relevant later? (I love how this drama makes me pay attention!)

Oh dear gods, I really hope this isn't what I think it is. ZYC!!!

GODDAMNIT IT IS, HE WENT TO SEE WZY BY HIMSELF, FUCKKKKKK

At this point in the story my sincere wish is that, if nothing else, we *will* get to see WZY dying a slow and horrible death. If *he* survives, I'm throwing this whole drama in the garbage. (Also, somehow I'm not in the slightest concerned about what ZYC's choice might be. I trust him this much.)

Lol the moment Bai Yan mentioned that the fire of the mortal world is not enough to forge ZYC's sword I totally went, "it has to be taken to the Mount Dooooooom!" 🤣

Huh, okay, I didn't expect the ever-burning wood to be necessary for this. That's how we know that we're close to the final boss battle, folks, the quests are getting more and more complex.

"Take it"??? Wait, is it that easy? Oh no, of course not. How did it *not* burn him up after all this time though, was it just chilling in his body without actually doing anything? Other than accidentally hurting LL with it, I don't think we've ever seen ZYZ use it in any way, either 🤔 Okay, so he needs the creation stone as well, okay-

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

😲😲😲😲😲😲😲😲😲😲😲😲

That's the live reaction of yours truly at *that* visual of golden light blasting from ZYC's sword as he grasps it. Holyyyyyy shit, Guo Jingming, Silmarillion adaptation when????

Oh gods, their hands on that stone. Like in ZYZ's vision. I'm scared again. The image of ZYC morphing into LL and then back again!!! If you want ZYC to promise that he'd protect the Wilderness with you, then *you* better promise not to die, ZYZ! Also, could they be any more queer coded at this point? (Aww, WX, I want to give her a hug so badly. Where the hell is PSJ when you need her???)

I take that back, they can and currently are even more queer coded. ZYZ's face when ZYC prepares his drink for him with yet another jade pendant!!! This whole scene, starting with one of my favorite songs from the OST playing in the background, the soft focus, warm lights, close-ups of their faces, the way they gaze at each other... so beautiful. Of course there had to be some theatrics (ZYZ) and fond exasperation (ZYC) involved, too, that's just how they roll, and I'm eating it alllll up.

Did they *have* to go and draw the parallel to last drink and meal though? 😭 also, also, ZYC doing his best to emphasise that their "blood feud" is in the past! In how many ways does he have to tell you that he wants you to live before you get it, ZYZ?

I also remembered their conversation in ep 15, when ZYC asked how ZYZ could live with contradictions, and boy, is ZYC a walking paradox himself. His feelings seem so tangled and complex, but at the same time he's so clear eyed about them, and able to express them, even while saying that they're ineffable. And ZYZ's response! His face! ::head in hands::

The toasts broke me a bit. The way ZYZ hesitated for the longest time before downing his cup for the first toast. The goddamn *poetry* in ZYC's words, the goddamn eye contact throughout, the goddamn tension, HMH's goddamn face!  So good! 😭

!!!!!!!!!!!

Okay you know what? I think I'm getting better at this. There *was* the slight pause before the camera cut to WX and then back to our soulmates (they said it more than once now, I feel justified in using the word for them 😁), I'm gonna wait and see first!

Aw but they're both just so stunning with their hair flying around them lke that. I could watch them forever.

Loved the slow-mo before ZYZ collapsed. Poor WX! That quick shot of her wiping the blood off of ZYZ's chin was so satisfying somehow...

Ahhh I was right, they were in agreement and trying something dangerous together, not against each other! Yay for removing that godawful thing from his inner core, but now what? Are they gonna give it to WZY in exchange for the antidote? Do they actually believe that after all he's done he will play nice??? I love WX, scolding them both like a pair of unruly children 😂

Okay this is getting a little too convenient that they can get eavesdropped on so easily. And not to repeat myself, but where the hell are Ying Lei and PSJ?

I certainly didn't expect to get my wish so quickly lol I guess now we're really down to business when it comes to death countdowns... What did I just say? There is no goddamn antidote! What the fuck did WZY use to create that poison in the first place? The only solution is for someone to use their demonic power to absorb the poison into their own body??? Don't tell me that that's how ZYZ is gonna cure WX. And then ZYC will kill him so that he doesn't suffer. Looking at ZYC, he's about ready to sacrifice himself, though... ::incoherent pterodactyl screeching::

I keep repeating myself, but how is this kid 12. And finally the missing members of the squad reappear! (Just to get the front row, of course.) Oh, oh no. Even though I kinda knew that Ao Yin was going to do this... (I wonder if the poison worked way faster on her because she's a lesser demon?) I can't believe they made me cry over the human livers dealer!

I feel like I said it after every episode so far, but what an episode. I also find it more and more difficult to watch without being tempted to read other folks' commentary first, since I'm so anxious about what's going to happen next; so on one hand, I'd want to be prepared for the worst (so I should spoil myself), on the other though, I want to see what happens with my own eyes first... ah, decisions, decisions.

[narujenreacts]

Will Murder Drones get a Season 2?

Alrighty. So, after GLITCH's post yesterday of Digital Circus that also mentioned "We're also working hard on Murder Drones & will be releasing final episodes soon!", which sent a lot of the fandom (including yours truly) into a panic that this meant these are the final episodes for the SERIES and not the 1st season. However, that felt off to me since GLITCH has been promoting MD as Season 1 and not a short series, which, if it had always intended to be only 8 episodes, it would've been. That's just how it goes in the industry for online series. And I believe GLITCH wouldn't make that kind of mistake in marketing. It'd be different too if it was only promoted as Season 1 for the teaser, but it's been that way up until that Digital Circus post. Hell, here are some of the things Kevin and Liam said during GlitchX:

"I remember when we were coming up with the, uh, this is like way before when, you know, Murder Drones was really, like we were really going for a smaller, smaller show-" - Kevin

"The whole oil thing that was getting set up in the pilot, that was gonna be like a MASSIVE sort of plot thread throughout the season." - Kevin

"Because in terms of importance to kind of where I want the story to go, it just ended up being less relevant." - Liam

"We, um, did the opposite of that. I think the series as it progressed, which I think is - it is intentional, I would say. We have gone from, I think, supremely silly to supremely kind of self-serious." - Liam

"There's so many dog easter eggs if you go and watch through the entire season." - Kevin

"We are announcing the finale of the season." - Kevin

With everything they said, none of it sounds like Murder Drones was intended to be a single season series. Now, this leaves two questions myself and I'm sure some of you have, "Why haven't they announced a S2 yet then and why are they barely posting MD?" I decided to enter analyzation mode and went digging through GLITCH's Twitter and YouTube. What I found was that this isn't GLITCH's first time handling their series like this.

Meta Runner Season 1 (Animated Movie Cut) was released on Aug 28, 2020 and in the description Season 2 was immediately announced since they already had it done.

Meta Runner Season 2 - EP 1: Hard Reset released Oct 16, 2020. The final episode for S2, "EP 10: Fatal Error" was released Dec 18, 2020 and there was no mention of the 3rd and final season.

Want to know when they announced it? Not until Nov 29, 2021. Over a YEAR later.

And before that they barely posted anything of MR. At first it was Sunset Paradise, and then once that series was about to conclude they started posting about MD. A lot. Way more than they have for DC. And when they announced S3 for MR they didn't even mention it was the series finale! That wasn't announced until May 6, 2022, 6 months after S3 was even announced.

However, once they did they made it VERY clear it was the final season. 99% of their posts of MR after that mentioned it was the final season.

So, to conclude my thoughts. I don't think we should be worried. I wouldn't suggest getting our hopes up TOO high, because despite GLITCH handling MD the same way they did MR, there's always the chance MD doesn't get a second season. That way we're not deeply disappointed if it doesn't, but after looking into it I personally feel a lot more confident MD will get a S2. Just be prepared that if GLITCH doesn't say anything, it could be up to a year before they do, but if MR fans could hold out for as long as they did, we can too. Don't forget either GLITCH isn't only working on the first season of DC. They're also working on the pilot for Gaslight District.

[eisa-core]

I would like to request going seventeen ( insomnia-zero II #1) episode 29

[GOING SEVENTEEN] EP.29 불면제로 II (Insomnia-Zero)

🌟 Insomnia-Zero returns 🌟 in all it's meme-making glory!

With their cringy pasts being unearthed right there, who will maintain their cool and succeed in clocking out of work?!

«Okay! insomnia-zero season 2. Hoshi's insomnia-zero!»

Hoshi immediately began speaking energetically as soon as the staff started recording his show, Insomnia-zero: trying to keep calm, your heartbeat relatively low, while others disturb you by exposing your 'secrets' or by being, as usual, silly.

«It took longer than we expected to start the 2nd season» - Woozi continued along with Hoshi.

«That's right. But there's a reason for this: in fact, for season 2, the rules have been upgraded» - Hoshi continued presenting the new rules in the same initial tone. For Daisy this was new, in the first season of 2020, she had not been able to participate along with Seungcheol, but she had caught up with the episode and she was afraid she would not be able to go home that day.

«Let's start» - Hoshi finished introducing the new rules to the viewers, cubics and carats, and with a cut to the scene, the staff had started to place the bed and pillow, putting the heart rate meter on each person.

«Daisy, you weren't there the first time. How about we get started with you?» - Dokyeom pushed her into the middle but fortunately he didn't want to make her the first victim of the game, rather, the first to expose the secrets of... Mingyu.

Mingyu already embarrassed and aware of what was in store for him got under the covers, knowing that Daisy was not as much of an angel as she might have appeared.

«Oh you know, during Insomnia-Zero 1... I wasn't there. But I wanted to talk about what happened at a concert back in the days.» - Daisy sat back comfortably including the others to humour her with what she was going to say, it seemed like it wasn't something "new" at all.

«Oh that's legendary!» - Seungkwan added. «It was a concert abroad! He used to lift up his shirt to show off his abs!» - Daisy continued making everyone laugh, including the lighting technician who was playing behind them... yes new rules.

«And now that we can't do concerts, the only way we can meet our fans is during fansigns» - Daisy continued enthusiastically, Seungkwan next to her loved being able to add details about it.

«There's a very short span of time where we're outside and bodyguards with us leading the way» - «Exactly! And Mingyu in those five seconds-» - Daisy paused as just imagining the scene she wanted to describe was amusing. «He's stretching his biceps» - She concluded and then threw her back to the floor, shuffling her feet in embarrassment for her friend, who was squinting his eyes trying not to wake up.

Perhaps it was better for him, or he would have witnessed Seungkwan's super spot-on imitation. «Mingyu likes to show off» - Dokyeom added continuing with the muscle imitation. «야! people will think i'm a pervert!» - Mingyu could finally stand up and 'defend' himself, pointing a finger at Daisy who was flicking tongues at him.



«Go you now our dear princess» - Mingyu was looking forward to nothing more than being able to take revenge, but what could be expected from the only two aries in the group?

Daisy wanted to disappear now, her heart pounding just at the idea of having to participate in the game.

«It's time to reveal something that all of us have kept from you, even Jun and Minghao» - Jeonghan took the initiative, also naming the two members who were absent that day, and who he knew very well are the two members who never hide anything from little Hyejin.

«Carats, as you well know our dear Daisy is very obsessed with coffee» - Seungkwan continued. «Well coming from you...» - He was immediately interrupted by Woozi who, with this comment, made him roll his eyes. «It's her turn, not mine!» - He sulkily defended himself, Daisy giggled under her breath hearing the chaos they were already creating.

«Anyway, I was saying, she's obsessed with coffee, so for her birthday we had given her a coffee machine, she loved it, she used it every day» - Daisy feeling the memory of her beloved gift had brought her hands to her breast. «It's time to reveal why the coffee machine broke. I know, you think it was an internal fault but it wasn't...» - Daisy hearing these sentences opened her mouth wide, already not caring about how she was supposed to keep calm.

«It was Moon Junhui... he started clicking a thousand buttons until smoke came out and it stopped working» - The name of the culprit had been said under the laughter of the others, who watched poor Daisy inwardly weeping at the loss of her precious object. At the moment of the wake-up call she considered her 'sleeping' time to be over, she jumped up and walked straight towards the main camera. «Moon Junhui! Count your days!» - She put her hands to her hair shocked. «Are you watching this Jun? Stay in China! Don't come back here!» - She was obviously offended, but in a joking way.

«It is time to announce who can go home» - The pd-nim after all the members had gone through the "terrible sleep" waited to hear their names called. And so it was for all but Woozi, Mingyu and Daisy. Woozi had failed after there was a talk of his pride and a made-up story about (not pink boxers) but his Hercules-like muscles.

[After some no-holds-barred talk 'in front' of their backs, ASMR! Insomnia-Zero II, now with breathing techniques! Who will be the last member to stay awake?]

«Okay so with our ambiguous Mingyu, our Woozi who denies being a winner and our Daisy who lost her favourite svt member along with her coffee machine, let's begin the last round.» - Woozi huffed as he got used to these last sentences from Hoshi, it was the second time he had failed to come home in the four rounds. And that was what he hated the most. Daisy also, she never could stand asmr, especially she couldn't conceive how this could help her fall asleep, it only annoyed her.

[Hoshi's Mukbang; Hoshi's debut show starts] [Ramen Asmr]

«Oh Gosh.. Oh God.. this look so» - Woozi started to say and was interrupted by Mingyu and Daisy simultaneously «Good» - «Disgusting».

Hoshi continued to deliciously eat his pot of hot noodles, also chewing some kimchi and leaving very ambiguous comments such as "Mmm" "Aaah" every bite.

«Okay this is going too far» - Daisy could no longer continue, it was like torture. She stood cross-legged taking off her headphones. «Oh! Daisy's up! Let's interrupt the timer and calculate the results.» - Hoshi carried on with the last scene of the episode, which could give either obvious or shocking results. No one really understood what was the best method to keep a calm pace.

«In the meantime, tell us how you feel. Mingyu?» - «I feel ambiguous, I feel weird, but I'm confident i'm sure I will win» - He said giving Daisy, the one who led him to lose the previous rounds, a bad tongue. «Woozi?» - «I'm confident I will lose» - He replied bluntly and now abandoned to the fortunes of his fate with this type of Going Seventeen. «Daisy?» - «I'm hopeful that Woozi will lose too» - He answered the question with a wink at Woozi, in reality he knew full well that he was in danger of staying here until the end of the shoot.

«The results are in and...» - Hoshi had the paper given by the staff in his hand, laughing as soon as he read the name written on it. «Mingyu and Daisy you can go home!» - The two nominees held their hands clasped in prayer but upon hearing their names spoken and the word home immediately after made them get up and jump all over the room, as if until a few minutes before they hadn't been bickering at each other.

[2 Awards] [Insomnia-Zero is defined for WOOZI]

«Why is it always me?» - The producer thought aloud as Hoshi joined the group hug between Mingyu and Daisy. «Catch you tomorrow in the studio Woozi! Sleep well!» - Daisy added as a final comment full of glee, hurriedly taking off her microphone. «Guess who won't be singing on the next title track!»

ー☆ ͏

oc's masterlist

going seventeen

taglist: @cinnamon-falls ; @allthings-fandoms ; @taestrwbrry ; @illusionocnet ; @kimhyejin3108 ; @enhacolor

[gotinterest]

I Want To Watch Kamen Rider, Which Season Do I Pick?

I'm going to focus on Heisei Era shows because those are the easiest to access and the ones most fans have watched so it's easy to find people to talk to about them. Every season of Kamen Rider is a different story with a different cast and vibe, so determining which season you should start on is largely dependent upon your personal taste. This list is based mostly on the shows I have watched or know a lot about, so it's not exhaustive. Some shows will be listed under more than one category, just depending upon what might be most important to you. Guide is located under the read more!

DO NOT START HERE: Kamen Rider Decade, Kamen Rider Zi-O, Kamen Rider Gaim. Decade and Zi-O are anniversary shows that lean HEAVILY upon Rider lore and referencing past seasons. You don't need to watch those seasons to understand the story, BUT you may get spoiled on key plot points from past seasons by watching them. Gaim is on here because it is almost universally hated and thought of as a terrible show.

WARNINGS FOR THE SHOWS RECOMMENDED HERE: Kamen Rider Blade is heavy in the flashing lights department and the opening in particular is known to bother photosensitive folks! All the seasons have flashing lights, but Blade is the one that people have straight up said they couldn't watch through because of how many flashing lights there are.

Kamen Rider Kuuga has a pretty gross transmisogynistic caricature in two of the episodes.

Kamen Rider OOO has a cafe that is nicknamed the "cultural appropriation cafe" by fans because the servers are frequently made to dress up in outfits from other cultures and it can be a bit offensive from time to time. It's not the worst I've seen in terms of "people dressing up as other cultures" and there isn't any black face or brown face but I still felt it worth mentioning since the cafe is a major part of the show.

Kamen Rider Faiz has a black character in it for a few episodes who is written in a way that gives "big dangerous strong black guy" stereotype. It's uncomfortable to watch.

RECOMMENDATIONS:

I don't really like kid's shows and I'd prefer something a little more mature: Kamen Rider Kuuga, Kamen Rider Ryuki, Kamen Rider Hibiki (eps. 1-29 only). If you are looking for a show that feels more mature, these are where you should start. The pacing of these shows is a bit slower and more thoughtful. Kuuga and Ryuki are both HIGHLY beloved. Kuuga is good if you really like monster of the week shows, Ryuki is more for you "overarching story driven" types. Ryuki is a bit more silly in places than Kuuga, but largely maintains a serious tone. Hibiki is very creative and experimental, but it doesn't really give you an accurate picture of what most Kamen Rider seasons are like because it is very different. BUT if you can't stand musicals do not watch Hibiki. ALSO stop watching Hibiki on ep. 29. After that there was a show runner change and the end of the show sucks. Ep.29 is largely considered a satisfying enough end to the show.

I like mature themes and concepts, but I'm fine with kids show silliness: Kamen Rider OOO, Kamen Rider Build, Kamen Rider W. If you constantly feel guilty for wanting things and taking up space, watch OOO. If you had a rough childhood and complicated feelings about your family watch W. If you want to watch a show about war, watch Build.

I love kid's shows give me silliness and fun!: Everything recommended in the second category + Kamen Rider Den-O, Kamen Rider Fourze. Den-O is a time travel story that is heavy on slapstick humor and has a lot of heart. You may have seen a a red horned guy named Momotaros dramatically swing his leg up to rest it on the bench of a booth- that's from this show. Fourze is a high school story about friendship and space!

I like to watch things that are bad but also good: Kamen Rider Blade. You can basically ignore almost the entire lore built up in the first half of the show. The writers certainly do. If you've seen people memeing on a guy named Tachibana... this is that show. This show is very easy to post about. Deeply funny but not on purpose in many places.

I want to watch one of the ones that are especially known for homoeroticism: Kamen Rider Kuuga, Kamen Rider Ryuki, Kamen Rider Blade, Kamen Rider OOO, Kamen Rider Build, Kamen Rider Faiz. Blade isn't initially very homoerotic until it very much is. Kuuga is for you if you want a more sweet and sincere vibe. OOO, Ryuki, and Build are more for if you like watching men bicker with each other homoerotically. Ryuki also contains a couple of side characters who read very much as a domestic couple (if you are big into the "loyal dog" type dynamic you will enjoy these two). Faiz is for you star-crossed lovers enjoyers that can also tolerate a stunning amount of heterosexual love drama (Blade is also a bit star-crossed). Watch Blade if you want to have a very personal grudge against a bench for the rest of your life. Kuuga and OOO are the most homoerotic.

I like weird shows where I don't know what the fuck is going on: Kamen Rider Kabuto, Kamen Rider Blade. If you watched Hannibal and were really into the way they talked and made a bunch of food, watch Kabuto.

I want something that leans more into horror: Kamen Rider Kuuga, Kamen Rider Agito. Kuuga can lean pretty hard into horror in places. Agito is a bit lighter, but still has more of a horror vibe to it.

I like mystery stories: Kamen Rider Kuuga, Kamen Rider Ryuki, Kamen Rider Agito, Kamen Rider Build, Kamen Rider W. There are other seasons with elements of mystery, but these are the ones where the mystery really takes more of a front seat. W in particular is actually a noir-inspired.

I want to watch the one with that blond curly haired Ankh guy that I keep seeing on my dash: Kamen Rider OOO

I want something that's a bit artsy and I also like or don't mind musical numbers: Kamen Rider Hibiki (eps. 1-29 only). The only Kamen Rider season where characters regularly break out into song. The sound track, editing style, and aesthetic of the show are so unique. Really strongly written. Do not watch past ep. 29 because of studio mandated changes ruining everything that made it worth watching.

I want to get a good intro to Kamen Rider: Kamen Rider W, Kamen Rider OOO, Kamen Rider Build, Kamen Rider Agito. Kamen Rider W and Kamen Rider OOO are considered great starter seasons. They give you a pretty good feel for Kamen Rider's formula while overall being pretty solid shows. Build gives you a good vibe for how Kamen Rider seasons with bigger casts feel while giving a good balance of serious and silly. It also gives you a bit of a better feel for what some more recent Kamen Rider seasons are like stylistically. Kamen Rider Agito is just a solid early Heisei show that gives you a feel for the tone of a lot of early Heisei shows WHILE also being a good starter show for you to dip your toes into the works of the infamous Toshiki Inoue. Inoue is a prolific writer of tokusatsu shows that most fans have a love/hate relationship with. He is the main writer for several Kamen Rider seasons, specials, and movies and has written several episodes even in shows that he wasn't the main writer for.

WHERE TO WATCH:

Legally: Ryuki and Kuuga (along with the original Kamen Rider from the 70's which is good cheesy fun) can be streamed on Tubi (at least in the US). If you understand Japanese and have a VPN (or are in Japan) I believe most of the seasons are on Hulu.

*I actually wouldn't recommend watching Kuuga FOR THE FIRST TIME on Tubi because the Grongi subtitles are baked in and you can't turn them off. I strongly believe that a key part of the first watch experience is not being able to understand the Grongi, as was the original intention of the show's creators. You can buy the blu-rays for Kuuga and toggle the Grongi subtitles if you really think its worth it to spend the money*

Alternative: You can watch them on most illegal streaming sites, lol. The only season I've seen where that has been an issue so far is Den-O, with the uploads being kinda wonky and partially missing.

There is... another source but I shan't link to it directly here (loose lips sink ships!) Please reach out to your nearest Kamen Rider blogger for the goods.

[fake-married-my-dead-fiance]

Random thoughts, Love Between Fairy and Devil, Ep 29:

It does seem to be a genuine problem if Dongfang Qingcang can't use his hellfire powers because he's the only reason the fairies don't invade/the civil war stopped

Then again, what is the other option? He just doesn't have emotions for his entire immortal life. Yay...

Gotta love that Chang Heng is totally forgiven because he unwittingly fell in love with the right person and also tried to save that same person multiple times. Not a crime! Even if you purposefully committed a crime! Our laws are totally sensible!

Obviously the wedding between the leads won't happen yet because it's only Ep 29/36 and also the mirror predicted Orchid's wedding with Chang Heng which I'm guessing will be crashed/she'll run away/something

EVERY TIME they try to kiss they get interrupted by something, usually a subordinate. Now I'm not usually in favour of beheading subordinates but if there was ever a justification for beheading a subordinate...

Orchid is a one-woman Make Love and Not War campaign and I love her for it

[quakinqueer]

Hey so I've had this in my drafts for well over a month, then that recent smosh mouth came out, rendering this near useless, but I'm still gonna post it cause why not.

Beginner's Guide to Smosh Seasonal Games

(For newer fans, even though no one asked. And yes I'm manifesting summer/winter games 2024, look away.) Mostly sourced from the Smosh Wiki.

1- Smosh Summer Games! (2015)

1st trailer aired: June 27, 2015 ~ Finale: July 31, 2015 This was the OG that started it all! No theme, unless you count it being entirely held at a beach house. Very classic smosh vibes, inappropriate jokes, and queerbaiting galore, with 12 episodes total across Pit (2nd channel at the time) and Games. (tbh I haven't seen this one). This was held shortly after the 'main squad' was cast (Keith, N*ah, Olivia, and Courtney), and was Shayne's official introduction to the channel! Teams/Cast: Bananarama: Anthony (Captain), Lasercorn (David Moss), Courtney, N*ah, Mari Takahashi, Jovenshire (Joshua Evan Ovenshire). Jiggle Physics: Ian (Captain), W*s J*hns*n, Sohinki (Matt Sohinki), Flitz (Amra Ricketts). Keith, Olivia. Refs/Hosts: Shayne, Joe Beretta Winners: Bananarama Special Awards: MVP - N*ah, LVP - Lasercorn, Biggest Fail - Olivia.

2- Smosh Winter Games! (2016)

1st trailer aired: Jan 30, 2016 ~ Final Ep: Feb 29, 2016 The first Winter Games! Similar classic vibes to the first, except by this time the 'main squad' was much more settled in and comfortable with each other, and the overall cast. Strangely, Ian and Anthony didn't actually participate in the games, but commentated (not sure why). Combo of actual competition eps and also videos for other shows aka specials (s-s-s-sleepover, put it in my mouth) that were winter games themed. 23 videos total across 2nd Channel (Pit) and Games. Teams/Cast: Snow Fleeks: Anthony (captain), Mari, W*s, Sohinki, Keith, Olivia, refs. Blue Balls: Ian (captain), Lasercorn, Shayne, Courtney, Flitz, N*ah, Jovenshire. Refs/Hosts: M*tt R**b, Joe Beretta, Sunny Peabody. Winners: Blue Balls Special Awards: MVP- Olivia, LVP- Joven, Epic Moment- Lasercorn, Biggest Fail- W*s. (Lasercorn got Epic Moment for dropping an actual fire rap during the *wrap* battle)

3- Smosh Summer Games: Camp (2016)

1st trailer aired: June 25, 2016 ~ Final Ep: July 30, 2016 The first one to have a theme, extremely iconic, the vibes were starting to peak around this time with the main squad being almost fully settled in by this point. For those of you who do not know, back in the day Smosh had separate casts for main/pit and for games, and the seasonal games were one of the only series where they would consistently appear together, and were originally intended to be a bonding activity. This one was the first to really let those dynamics *shine*, and really have them interact in memorable ways. Also best challenges up until this point cause of the theme. 13 specials and 9 competition episodes across games and 2nd channel, this time accompanied by a few vlogs on Courtney's personal channel. Teams/Cast: Kumbayaaas: Anthony (captain), Jovenshire, N*ah, Olivia, W*s, Courtney, Sohinki Harshmallows: Ian (captain), Mari, Keith, Shayne, Lasercorn, Flitz, refs Refs/Camp Counselors: M*tt R**b, Joe Beretta, Sunny Peabody. Winners: Harshmallows Special Awards: MVP- Olivia, LVP- Sohinki, Epic moment- Ian, Biggest Fail- W*s (Sohinki had to leave early due to sickness and so automatically got LVP)

4- Smosh Winter Games: Again! (2017)

1st trailer aired: Jan 31, 2017 - Final Ep: Feb 28, 2017 Longest seasonal games by far, lot of iconic moments and fun specials, featured CFM's 2nd ever appearance, and was also Boze's debut as a games member! Not much else to say about this one, it's a blast with a lot of classic moments. Oh, and it was the last seasonal games to feature both Ian and Anthony as team captains :,). 19 specials (Game Bang, Board af, hot tub truth or dare, etc.) and 8 competition episodes across pit and games. Teams/Cast: Spaghetti Yetis: Anthony (captain), Boze, Sohinki, Lasercorn, Olivia, Flitz, Shayne Dablizzards: Ian (captain), Keith, W*s, Mari, N*ah, Courtney, Jovenshire Refs/Hosts: M*tt R**b, Joe Beretta, Sunny Peabody, Sarah Whittle, Tanner Risner. Winners: Spaghetti Yetis Special Awards: MVP - Anthony, LVP - Jovenshire, Epic Moment - Shayne, Biggest Fail - Boze

5- Smosh Summer Games: Wild West! (2017)

Trailer aired: June 26, 2017 - Final ep: July 31, 2017 WWIIIILLLLDDDD HWEST! Let me tell yall this one is ICONIC, for so many reasons, in so many ways. Filmed on an awesome location (a ranch in Nevada), great teams, the production quality was top-notch, and let's not forget the infamous bar-brawl fight choreography of the trailer. So many iconic moments its astounding. Damien's first seasonal games, and also the first to neither feature Anthony nor have team captains (instead of picking teams dodgeball style like they had done previously, this time the teams were picked via a lottery). 15 specials (maricraft, board af, etc.), and 8 competition episodes across pit and games. Fun fact, this season was filmed a week before the "Anthony is leaving smosh" video was released. Teams/Cast: Randy Bandits: Lasercorn, N*ah, Olivia, Damien, Mari, Ian, Flitz Cowbaes: Jovenshire, Courtney, Shayne, Keith, W*s, Sohinki, Boze Refs/Sheriffs: M*tt R**b, Joe Beretta, Sunny Peabody Winners: Randy Bandits Special Awards: MVP - Flitz, LVP - W*s, Epic Moment - Shayne, Biggest Fail - Jovenshire Shayne told his Epic Moment story on the pod, but incase you missed it: during a hangman competition he managed to guess a 2-word answer, with no letters on the board, on his first try. The answer was Wyatt Earp. Some out of context references: "MUNGE", "My name is Calamity Janet, and I am crazy.", "Sorry"×20, *wide shot of damien holding up his fist for like 3 minutes*, *Mama bird*, *shot in the chest* "Where's Anthony?"

6- Smosh Summer Games: We Blew It! (2018)

Trailer aired: August 17, 2018 - Final ep: August 24, 2018 Folks, what can I say, they blew it. They had 10 dollars and a dream for this one, and they tried their best, but it is admittedly still the weakest of the Summer Games. Between airing later than any other, taking place within only a week as opposed to a month, having the least amount of competitions (5) and the least amount of specials (1 Smosh and Order), this one really is a last-ditch effort sort of ordeal. But make no mistake, it's no one's fault but Defy Fuckhead Media Inc.; in case you missed the Smosh mouth ep, the story goes that Defy simply didn't want summer games to happen that year, and gave M*tt R**b an eighth of the usual budget. Despite all this, I'm sure if you go back and watch it, the videos are actually really enjoyable with some fun goofs and special moments. The first games to not feature Sohinki or Flitz, and this time there were team captains, chosen according to the personal awards given the prior year. Teams/Cast: Inflatabulls: Jovenshire (Captain, previous winner of Biggest Fail), Mari, Damien, Courtney, Keith, Boze Balloonatics: Shayne (Captain, previous winner of Most Epic Moment), Lasercorn, N*ah, Ian, W*s, Olivia Refs: M*tt R**b, Sarah Whittle Guest Refs/Guest Judges:  Garrett Palm, Joe Bereta, Spencer Agnew, Tanner Risner and Tim Baker Winners: Balloonatics Special Awards: MVP - Mari, LVP - Damien, Epic Moment/Biggest Win - Lasercorn, Biggest Fail - W*s

7- Smosh Summer Games: Apocalypse! (2019)

Trailer aired: July 15, 2019 - Final ep: August 16, 2019 APPOOOCALYPSSE!! This one ROCKS! Not quite as iconic as Wild West, but it's honestly up there in my opinion. The first and only summer games post-mythical, and a return to normalcy from We Blew It in terms of length, airing schedule, etc., probably because they'd managed to find a sponsor to help with the budget. This one had some greeaat specials, including Spelling Bee-kini Wax, Maricraft, Try Not To Laugh: Gauntlet (so many iconic bits from these tntls, and if I'm not mistaken one of Tommy's earliest appearances), and a lot of Smoshcast. Fun fact, Sohinki was actually invited to participate but was in Italy at the time, so Kimmy was cast as a guest participant instead to even out the teams. The first to have no team selection process or opening ceremony, instead the teams were pre-picked at random and revealed during the trailer. 18 specials and 8 competition episodes across Pit, Games, and Smoshcast. Teams/Cast: ToxiciTea: Jovenshire, Ian, Olivia, Mari, Shayne, W*s Mushroom Clout: N*ah, Lasercorn, Damien, Keith, Courtney, Kimmy Refs: M*tt R**b, Sarah Whittle Guest Refs/Guest Judges:  Joe Bereta Winners: ToxiciTea Special Awards: MVP - Joven, LVP - Shayne, Epic Win/Moment - Courtney, Epic Fail - Ian Fun little end note, Lasercorn, up until this point, had never lost a single season, and had been described for a while as having a 'Winning Streak'. That became a big running gag this season in particular, with Lasercorn describing his team as being 'Blessed by the power of the streak', while ToxiciTea claimed that was the year the streak would be broken. In the end, it was. On Twitter and other socials, the hashtags "#Breakthestreak" and "#Thestreakisreal" were used by the fandom to support either team. Overall super fun season with a lot of fandom involvement.

This took me way too long. Enjoy!

[dhiings]

𓇼 ⋆｡˚ 𓆝⋆｡˚ Jane w/ HYBE Artists ⋆｡˚ 𓆝⋆｡˚ 𓇼

જ⁀➴ Nana (actress) x Jane

Relationship Dynamic : mother-daughter at the same time older sister, " Nickname given by Jane for Nana : jinah eonni Nickname given by Nana for Jane : nuki

• Nana first met her when jane's crouching down in pledis's old building's bathroom. She found her silently crying, it was breaking her heart. Jane was comforted by her. From there, nana always checking up on her if she's doing okay or not. • Jane always said that Nana is someone she look up to and is the literal definition of angel sent by God. • Nana’s mothering jane. But, also at the same time, she’s like an older sister she never have. Gossiping with each other. Asking about romantic advices. • It could be seen that they hang out with each other a lot, even when seventeen haven’t debut. Everytime jane is stressed out, nana always invite her to have a picnic at han river. • Sending each other a food truck, flowers, or gifts as sign of support.

જ⁀➴ Baekho (Nu'est) x Jane

Relationship Dynamic : strangers to friends, "i always thought you could eat someone alive, but turns out... you're just a hello kitty" Nickname given by Jane for Baekho : baekho/dongho oppa Nickname given by Bakeho for Jane : jein/soonok

• They know each other because they are under the same company. Yet, they're not that close, they just know each other's name and bowed to each other. • Later on, they finally get more close after bumping into each other at a gym place (this is when pledis haven't acquisition with hybe). From there, they started to get closer with each other. Despite that, they doesn't hang out that often. • There are many interaction of bakeho and jane captured during The Game Caterers 2 x HYBE.

જ⁀➴ Yeonjun (TXT) x Jane

Relationship Dynamic : friends to hang out with, silly, "i think i can tackle you down" "you wanna try?" "nvm" Nickname given by Jane for Yeonjun : yeonjun Nickname given by Yeonjun for Jane : jein/soonok noona

• She got to know him because of dino. Their first meeting is when jane needs to grab her phone in one of the dance studio, which txt's currently using. She was accompanied by dino at that time. Knowing that dino and yeonjun are close, he decided to introduces yeonjun to jane. After that, they just kept running to each other coincidentally. Then they decided to just hang out together (the three of them). • During, The Game Caterers 2 x HYBE, he teases her because she can't answer a simple question. Then, when it was his turn, he can't answer a math times table. Jane got her revenge by teasing him endlessly. - ep 2-2, 16:29

જ⁀➴ Jiwon (Fromis_9) x Jane

Relationship Dynamic : adoration, friends, "i'm finally seeing somone" "stop being delulu, i know it's one of your male fiction collections" Nickname given by Jane for Jiwon : jiwonie Nickname given by Jiwon for Jane : soonokie

• Being ina co-ed group where there's only 1 female member, make her thrilled knowing a girl group will son join pledis. • She mentioned that, "You know, when i was a substitute of m! countdown's mc, i saw fromis_9. They are soooo beautiful like a fairy goddess. Even when they're not wearing any makeup, they still look so pretty. I even got one of their number and start befriending her." - Vlive 201018 • They made lots of tiktok videos and challenges together when they hang out.

જ⁀➴ Jay (ENHYPEN) x Jane

Relationship Dynamic : "i mean it's crazy" "what?" "we finished each other's s--?" "sentences?" "bruh, you haven't watch frozen aren't youH" Nickname given by Jane for Jay : jay Nickname given by Jay for Jane : jane (sometimes w or w/o noona)

• Got to know each other (more than just saying 'hi' or bow) through nikki. His very chill to be around (so american style), it wasn’t hard for jane to adjust and become herself. • When they’re around each other, they always talk in english. • Many moments of them talking and whispering in The Game Caterers 2 x HYBE. • Jay’s actually the one who tell both jake and jane that they went to the same high school.

જ⁀➴ Nikki (ENHYPEN) x Jane

Relationship Dynamic : 'swag kids', developed crush, "you're so cute" "me? i mean you are cuter though. wait, i mean- no i mean- no.. yes? no?" Nickname given by Jane for Nikki : nikki Nickname given by Nikki for Jane : jein noona

• Jane rooting for nikki during i-land and belive in him that he could debut too. • Before i-land even happened or broadcasted, they had met before. When nikki wants to go to the audition in the hybe building, he got lost (ofc, that building is sooo huge). Then, he abruptly ask to a stranger to ask for direction, that stranger happened to be jane. Seeing him stutter, mixing both korean and japanese together in a same sentence, jane confidently strike up a conversation in japanese. Hearing the "stranger" could talk in japanese make him felt soo relieved. • Nikki develop a slight crush on Jane. He would secretly glance at her direction when she's in the same room/show with him.

[the-conversation-pod]

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]

[mehh141]

Give me a list of Barry's hot scenes bestie I'm begging

With pleasure, dear 😏

Im gonna count kissing scenes and scenes where Barry is… not fully dressed…as hot scenes as well.

“SIX”

s1ep2 24:30, the famous “big bear” moment starts at 26:10

s1ep3 22:50

s2ep1 6:27

s2ep8 35:10

s2ep9 12:35

“LONGMIRE”

s6ep7 29:00

s6ep9 23:00

s6ep10 7:10, then 18:30

“SHAMELESS”

s7ep11 34:50

“THE BAY”

s3ep2 3:19

“REVENGE” ( I actually recommend watching it, at least just all Barry’s scenes, ITS A GOLD MINE)

He is in 43 eps which is A LOT, and also the amount of kissings scenes… is unholy. So im gonna list only best of the best (imo)

s3ep5 15:57

s3ep6 17:46

s3ep7 11:16, 34:00

s3ep9 15:45 this one is… interesting. And to understand why is this moment in a list, you need to look at… his crotch ahem… i mean… i hope im not the only one who’s seeing this, right? Its like… ITS THERE. I have so many questions honestly…….. but nevermind, let’s continue.

s3ep10 16:55

s3ep14 13:00

s3ep18 30:55

s3ep21 36:00 this one is more sweet than hot, but after all those spicy scenes you’ll need something sweet :)

“THE WHISPERS” (also recommend to check it out, its a surprisingly good show imo (with no s2 😒)

ep5 10:24

Also there’s a deleted scene from revenge with Aiden in a towel (theres definitely something between Barry and towels…)

There you have it) enjoy 😉

[tare-anime]

Finally I finished reading Eyes Only the english translations.

The highlight of this book for me? Endo and Lin's commentary 🤣🤣🤣👏👏

It is very interesting to see that I get the impression that out of all Forgers, Endo loves Yor the most (but it's highly probable that I'm biassed. Duh!!)

I mean, we know that Endo loves strong female - fighting heroines. Especially if we look at Endo's previous works. Like the two serialization: Tista and Gekka Bijjin. Both has strong female heroines as the leader. And then, his one shots also featured female leads. Perhaps only his latest one shots: Ishi ni Usubeni (the one with Medusa kid which later become Anya's prototype) and I spy (the prototype of spy x family) that featured male character as leads.

No wonder Endo can creates so many amazing female characters in spy x family. (Not that the sxf male characters are bad. Far from it!)

But it warm my heart when Endo shows that Yor was the longest he took in creating the character design. (And I also notice that Endo loves to draw Yor in so many cute outfits and accessories 🥰 and also seems to get hurt the most for my whumpy needing souls delightment #ahem)

At the same time, the badass yet cute and naive Yor is the one character that he got trouble the most to develop!

I still remember back then, when we were still at chapter 38-39 ish, Endo did have more breaks than usual, chapters that is focuses on side characters like Damian, Bond, Yuri, Sylvia (short mission), Frankie, all that make the small fandom fans 'restless' for the "too many fillers chapters"

And then there was a tweet of him telling the fans to be patient, because he was planning something.

And then, BAM!! Chp. 43 dropped. A Franky and Yor chapter, that end with Yor getting a call from Shopkeeper. Yes, the chapter we just got the anime episode (ep. 29!)

The small fandom at that time was going ferall over "Garden" name drop. And keep chanting "Yor arc Yor arc Yor arc Yor arc!!"

And then BAM!!! We got one of the best arc ever: Cruise Arc.

With that one gorgeous Yor ilustration that make the small fandom around the world decided 4-6th April to become Yor's day. On the spot.

It's one amazing experiences, ngl.

So if one asked me whether Yor has been pushed to the back, I dare say no.

It's just writing an interesting assassins plot is difficult.

Especially in a story where everything is grey.

WISE is described as the "good" guy who tries in all their might to stop the war. (But are they really? Why are they snooping around inside other country? And why are they badmouthing Ostania?)

SSS is described as the "bad" guy cause they oppressed their own people and manipulate young energetic talent as Yuri to serve them. (But what if it is needed to keep 'peace' from the rebels which of course can be found everywhere in a freshly stopped war country?)

A good story can work with two opposing sides going head to head.

But then there's Garden. Where are their position? A story about three way "war" can be difficult to tell, overly complicated, and too much. On one side, Garden can't be the "good" side because they murder people. But they can't be "bad" either if the people they murder are the bad guys. However who to tell which one is good which one is not?

And most important, how to make Yor as a protagonist that is not a villain.

That's hard.

So, judging from the past experiences (when Endo took more breaks than usual), plus this amazing detail analysis by @itsmaferart, I dare say Endo is cooking another Yor or Garden centric arc, after the Eden and SSS vs WISE.

I have high hope for this. 😁😁😁😁

So we shall wait and see.....

Tldr; I think Endo loves Yor. He is preparing for something awesome for her. and I'm not complaining. 🤣🤣🤣🤣

[salt-hag]

fall 2024 cdrama + kdrama check-in list

haven't done a check in/wrap up post of dramas watched in a while so wanted to do one before the end of the year ✨ hoping to have finished a lot of these and have a list of reviews at around new years

dramas watched

story of kunning palace (cdrama)

8.5/10 for me. This is my year of loving costume period cdramas and I kicked it off with sokp. Really enjoyed the time travel/redemption plot line and Bai Lu as a somewhat reformed evil empress.

the legend of shenli (cdrama)

9/10 for me. A little slow in places but this goes down in my list of fav drama romances. Badass and admirable female lead and quirky oddball male lead who simps for her (as he should). I found the fantasy somewhat goofy but lovably so. This is a *comfort* show for me now. Has the best happy ending/post finale last episode I've seen up to now.

the double (cdrama)

9.5/10 for me for the sheer melodrama. Is this technically a better drama than the legend of shenli? No, of course not. Is it entertaining as hell? Yes, so it's gets a .5 boost. Costume period one-woman's-revenge, absolutely delicious. Hilarious male lead who loves the drama of it all and is very handsome. I was telling a friend about this and she was confused. Weren't you just watching this earlier this year? No, dear reader, she had the revenge stuff confused with Story of Kunning Palace. I have a type, and that is conniving women getting what they want in beautiful period costumes while a handsome, competent man answers their beck and call and simps all the while.

currently watching

RIGHT NOW: Are You the One (cdrama) - ep 22/40

This started out as costume period brain popcorn for me but now there's intrigue and back-stabbing and a clever woman out-scheming men in power so. yeah i'm enjoying this i guess whatever...

RIGHT NOW: Cinderella at 2am (kdrama) - ep 3/10

I haven't watched a kdrama in a while and I wanted a comforting, brain-popcorn modern rom com. I think this will deliver.

My Journey to You (cdrama) - on ep 20/24

I am DETERMINED to finish the gorgeous scheming assassin ladies period drama. I WILL. It's just the main plotline made me snooze a bit at ep 20 so it's taking me a while.

The Princess Royal (cdrama) - ep 6/40

Snowfall (cdrama) - 17/24

dropped or on hold (I'm a mood watcher)

[on hold] Love Like the Galaxy part 2 (cdrama) - ep 12/29

[on hold] Meet you at the blossom (uncensored period BL, Thai) - ep 4/12

[on hold] Lost You Forever season one (cdrama) - ep 17/39

[on hold] In Blossom (cdrama) - ep 22/32

Another one I am DETERMINED to finish!! But I don't vibe with the main actress. I loved the one who played the female lead before the body swapping. Otherwise this drama has everything I would ever want: costume period murder mysteries, a very beautiful man who devotedly simps for his nice wife, a clever female lead with quirky interests, BODY SWAPPING AND IDENTITY SHENANIGANS.

[can't decide to drop or not] Only For Love (cdrama) - ep 21/36

I can't really stand modern-setting cdramas, I'm sorry. I was watching this one for Wang Hedi. I somehow made it to episode 21 despite the cringe. Might finish watching this while pmsing.

[can't decide] Tale of the Nine-tailed 1938 (kdrama) - ep 9/12

Idk why but I just found the plotline kind of boring?? I loved the extra character and world lore. But I had problems with the original TotNT too so.

[dropped] Till the End of the Moon (cdrama) - ep 20/40

This was gorgeous but I like sweet romance, I'm sorry. This was too dramatic for even me. I wanted Bai Lu to love her problematic malewife!!

[dropped] Miss Night and Day (kdrama) - ep 2/16

Loved the concept, found the show too painful to watch.

____

anyway hoping to get back into kdramas this fall or in 2025. we'll see!!

[half-truths-and-hyperbole-louk]

Louk's Bad Batch rewatch part 29 !!!

we're in the second half of season 2 batchersss (was gonna say were in the end game now but I'll save that for tomorrow 😫)

The Bad Batch 2x09

her voice 🥲 she sounds so down it hurts

"sounds dangerous" *giggles* ilysm Wrecker 💕

Hunter sniffing dirt again hehe

Tech says "without Echo" and Omega immediately droops her head 😫

creeper peekin 👀

I love how Wrecker was carrying the case with one hand and Hunter needs two and keeps adjusting it 💪

Wrecker checking in on Omega 🤲

oop Omega dramatic sigh count 👀

Hunter lifting Omega up 🥺

"chain reaction, explosion got it 🙄" tbb dealing with teenage fett mood swings now

gentle hands 🤲

that is not your ship kid 👀

Hunter slams the highly dangerous explosives into the ground lmaooo

Hunter hearing the ship power up !!! his turns so fast and jumps over the stairs 🙌

the bickering batch

they're literally all so feral at each other rn 😮

Wrecker giving Omega water first 🥺

she's calling Echo for help 😭

Tech knows he disabled his comms... have they been chattin 👀

Hunter's senses on fire this ep 👌

Hunter pushing Omega in front of him and steering her out of the way 🙌

the Lion King ???

Tech: "protect the ipsium!" Wrecker: bruh 😑

the ipsium survived Hunter slamming it on the ground I'm sure it'll be fine

Wrecker: "why don't you carry it 😠" Tech: "fine" lolol

Tech is so strong omg he carried it like Wrecker 👀

Omega needs something to cover her face in this sandstorm 🥲 give her a helmet

THEY'RE SO SHITTY BOYS CALM DOWN !!!

Omega bby someone hug her !!!!! 😫😭

"what is your issue" 💔

how soft Hunter said her name 🥺🤲

Tech doesnt understand the emotional connection she has to everything but they probably all struggle to see that being soldiers, they're taught to let go of things, stay in the moment to be able to be the best they can, she's just a kid who wants her brother and her home back after just losing everything, I can completely understand both sides of this 🥲 I'm blabbing and it's not making sense anymore 🙃

"thats not the only mistake you need to fix" Hunter's dad mode applies to Tech now too

Tech: "but she said she wanted to be alone" 🥺

they're getting so much better at the whole dad/big brother thing 💕

Tech said her name so gently 😭

Omega and Tech having the same ideas 🥰

"I am fully aware you are capable of the task" 🥺

TECH BLINDLY FOLLOWING OMEGA WHEN SHE FALLS MY HEART

oop I forgot the 😫 Tech falls count: we're on 5 now

THE WAY HE GRABS HER IN THE WATER OML 😭 he was so desperate to save her

Hunter sensing they're in trouble 👀

Not only do I love Hunter's senses but I also love how aware they all are of him, like they all question him every time he pauses or looks off at something, they're all just so aware of each other 💕

Tech and Omega lying down out of the water 🤲

Tech emptying the water from his glasses !! 🥺

"we are alive" ~ bro I love how often he responds like this I can't wait to hear it again hehehe

Omega's wet droopy hair is getting so long 🥺

"the narrow crevasse" i love the way he talks he's so fancy 💅

Putting a bunch of quotes in bc they're iconic 💕

Omega: "everything is changing and you don't even care"

Tech: "I am not sure how I should care about change, it is a fundamental part of life"

Tech: "I am aware that you miss him, but we have to adapt and move on. That's what soldiers do."

Omega: "we're more than that. We're a family aren't we?"

Tech: "yes of course we are"

Omega: "why don't you act like it?"

Tech: "Echo chose a different path, as did Crosshair. I have to respect their decision. Even though it can be difficult to understand, we must carry on. I may process moments and thoughts differently, but it does not mean that I feel any less than you"

I have to put it all in bc this scene means so much to me 🥺🤲💕

Wrecker's scream and the big *fwosshhh* landing in the water vs Hunter's tiny *bloop*

Omega's wave 🫶

the way Hunter just tosses Tech's stuff out of the water and he's still holding Omega's bow is the difference between brother and dad

wet hair Hunter when 👀

Omega "see that wasn't so bad" Wrecker: 👍

Tech being almost as precise as Crosshair 💕

Tech and Omega looking at each other 👀🤲

Hunter noticing somethings different with Omega now after talking with Tech 🥺

CID 🔫 I want to hunt her for sport fr 😈

Omega quoting Tech 💕💕💕💕

oooohhhh this ep holds a special place in my heart fr

[hils79]

Hils Watches In Blossom - Ep 29

A-Ze is the MVP of this drama. Going off and doing all the important research while Yang Caiwei feeds Pan Yue soup at home

Even Pan Yue would rather be doing research

I'm intrigued as to how they're going to get Pan Yue out of this fake engagement given that everyone around them is dead set on the wedding happening

Four episodes from the end is when we should be starting to wrap things up not introducing extra drama

How the hell does he know that?

I'm glad at least one person thinks the whole face swapping thing is weird

I keep thinking Pan Yue is the criminal mastermind but then it turns out he's just doing something nice for his son. OH! He's evil! Oh, wait, no he just rescued Yang Caiwei OMG IS THAT POISON? Oh, wait, it's just a healing powder for Pan Yue's injury

I love that whenever a character is in jail in a cdrama they're always in an enormous cell. I mean it's probably meant to be for multiple people but there's only ever one person in there.

I would laugh if the princess's seemingly affable brother in law was actually the criminal mastermind

I'm sure this whole illegal salt subplot is important but I just can't seem to bring myself to care about it

OMG IT ACTUALLY IS HIM!!!

If they get Pan Yue out of his fake engagement by killing the princess I will throw my fucking laptop out the window!

Ah, okay, he's not going to kill her he's just going to threaten to kill her sister.

I FUCKING KNEW THIS WOULD HAPPEN! With the added bullshit of Yang Caiwei now being made to look like the murderer. God, if I wasn't so close to the end I would nope out of this drama now.

Hongjoong went live while I was watching this episode. I should have watched that instead.

Yeah, I figure she'd probably stabbed herself but this is still utter bullshit

Of course she had time to impart important info before she died

Not even a kneeling in the rain scene can make me feel better

He does look good being all damp and sad, but also you can see the edges of his wig

I'm actually not quite sure what the kneeling is going to achieve. Or is he being punished for cheating on the princess?

Ah, there we go. Thank you for explaining.

Some of us like men who are pathetic. Don't judge.

Another single person in a massive jail cell

Given that Pan Yue's dad is the one who told him about all the secret plot stuff in the first place I don't know why Pan Yue doesn't just tell him who the mastermind is.

Well, that was very annoying but I only have 3 eps left so I suppose I'll push on. I'm not happy about it though.