I’ve felt like I’ve been in a weird holding pattern with shows until this past week, which I think is because I hadn’t finished anything since Pit Babe II, but then two shows I was watching ended last week and I finally finished Revenged Love, so I guess I’m back. I’m traveling the next two weeks and I’ve decided I’m going to try to wrap up a bunch of the shows I’m most of the way through.
Fall seems to be my season when it comes to BL releases, though—most of what’s been announced for the next few months is stuff I’ve been looking forward to. Which is worrying, because I remember at the end of last year, I had like eleven ongoing shows.
Currently Watching (On Air)
Desire: The BIG REVEAL has happened! Or at least part of it—Shaoyou at least knows that Hua Yong isn’t an omega now. We’ve only got like three episodes left, which isn’t a lot of time to wrap up them, have two babies, and resolve everything with Gao Tu and Wenlang, but the pacing has been bad the entire time so I guess that’s just par for the course. Truly the best part of this show is Hua Yong—not only is the character entertainingly insane, the performance is so great. His pathetic simping to Shaoyou combined with him being such a bitch to Wenlang is thrilling. I could watch him manipulate people for another ten episodes, probably.
My Magic Prophecy: I can’t think of anything else I want to say about this episode because I was so thrown by Book suddenly showing up. ARIANA WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?? It’s also a very baffling directorial choice to have his credits pop up next to him when he appears, but then I feel like a lot of this show is strange directorial decisions. It’s just show so poorly at times.
So Book has shown up as Thap’s ex-boyfriend, which is I guess the kind of thing you need at this point in the show, but it was absolutely killing me that In was like :/ when Thap was pretty clear that he did not miss his ex and was literally just talking about marrying In. Like, my good man, this doctor is head over heels for you. It is very funny that Book is here as a jealousy plot when Sea served the same function in Perfect 10 Liners. An ongoing bit i hope they continue tbh.
Mu-Te-Luv: I feel very smug about guessing the twist of this show, and I’m curious to see how it plays out next week! I’m really enjoying this, and I’m impressed with how much character development they managed to cram into a four episode arc, not just for the main two but for the supporting characters as well. Like, Mhee and Magpor feel like fully realized characters!
I also like the way this show examines and critiques the pressures put on students and shows how it affects them in multiple ways. The part where Mangpor was upset because Mawin seemed to be so effortless at getting better scores felt so real, because they’re under so much pressure to do well. I actually was the Mawin in this situation in high school, though my grades weren’t as good as his—there was a girl who I later learned hated me because she felt like I didn’t put in as much effort (true) and still did well.
So I like that this show—and to some extent Boys in Love—have been emphasizing that it’s okay to fail, that it’s okay to mess up and not know what you want from your life, and encouraging teens to enjoy their youth. It’s a nice message from a youth-oriented channel.
Revamp: The way this show has been feeding us bits of backstory and lore has been really good for me—I guess it tracks with how Director New likes to tell stories anyway, but it works well for something with this kind of plot. Slowly introducing us to all the players and giving all of them some kind of establishing character moment helps them feel like more than plot devices.
I particularly love the three vampire minions; they’re all so different, and the explanation of their backstories tracks perfectly with their personalities and mannerisms. I especially love Barcode as Ciar, who is such an edgelord, and Aun as Mekhin. Their chemistry together is great, I could totally ship it. To be fair, Aun also had an unsettling amount of chemistry with Pokpong.
And the twist at the end of this episode! I had a slight feeling after the opening (I can’t believe they give me KapookCiize BE again rip), but I was feeling very, surely that can’t be it. And yet it was, and it casts the past three episodes in a new light. I’m tempted to rewatch and really pay attention to everything [REDACTED] does. It feels like it should have been obvious, yet I’m still surprised. Which is impressive.
My Bias is Showing?!: I have never seen such biblically accurate yaoi; this is exactly the same kind of insane size difference in every Korean manhwa. I went into this pretty prepared to cringe nonstop, but so far it has been surprisingly light on that aspect, which is largely because the actual plot is more than just “I have to be normal around my bias.”
I had a feeling about halfway through the second episode about what the actual plot of this show was—I had already been suspicious since the absolutely bonkers vibes between Jooha and Siyeol in that interview, and then I was pretty sure I knew what was going on, so I ended up hunting down and reading the entire manhwa. A few takeaways from that:
The show made a couple of very smart changes to condense things and make some of the misunderstandings more…understandable, namely Kyusung and Aejoon actually living together.
I really like the change of Kyusung to being a manager at Jooha and Siyeol’s company, and the show is already giving them more time than the manhwa did, which is nice.
Changing the timeline of the show a bit so that the variety show they’re working on is already approved and filming rather than having the gap between making a pilot and it getting greenlit is a good way to condense it.
The manhwa is like. 60% porn. Maybe more. And this show is rated TV-PG (though tbf that means nothing on iQiyi). The part that really has me like fry squint dot meme is that the lead is an Omega X member and historically OX members have not even really kissed in their BLs.
Anyway, I’m enjoying it! I think Kevin’s performance as Aejoon is surprisingly charming, and Siyeol’s actor is great at flipping between his different moods. We’re already halfway through the show and have only just hit something that happens decently early in the manhwa, so it’ll be interesting to see what they keep.
Khemjira: Gosh, I love this show. I love the layers of supernatural bs following Khem around and how it gets elaborated on every episode. And for once the reason Pharan is being so hot and cold towards Khem is actually explained; it’s clear that he wants very badly to help and take care of Khem, but is trying to resist it both because of his promise to his grandfather and because he isn’t sure he can actually help. The bit this episode where Khem came in with a bit of waist showing and Pharan visibly panicked absolutely thrilled me.
Finished
Revenged Love: I finally finished the last couple episodes and as I said before, this show is Fine. I liked the first third way better, both because I felt like it had a more coherent arc and because I found their relationship more interesting (sorry, I love toxic yaoi). Towards the end, I felt like I didn’t really know what this show wanted to be, and there were too many different unrelated obstacles. If they tied more of the different setbacks together, it would have felt less disconnected to me, and more like things actually building on each other. Also, where are the snakes? GIRL THE SNAKES???
The Promise of the Soul: I ended up giving this an 8 out of 10 on MDL just to counteract all the people who hate the show on principle because of the premise, but if I’m honest it’s probably more like a 7.5. I think it could have gone more into things like, does Cha Xia have any aspirations for himself that were unrealized? Also, it never really addressed the reincarnation stuff when it felt like Haiyuan was a reincarnation of both his wife and his childhood friend.
Like, I think both actors were good in this, especially the actor who plays Cha Xia/Cha Zhefang—he really got to show off in the final episode in that scene with Riqing, where his entire body language and even tone of voice changed. And I liked the b couple, I thought they were so cute, but in general it just felt a little flat and underbaked in some ways to me. Maybe it’s because I recently read High School Return of the Gangster or whatever the novel is called where Deukpal has really clearly defined goals and desires for himself outside of the relationship, but it felt like Cha Xia hadn’t actually decided on something he wanted to live for in the same way.
Memoir of Rati: What a lovely ending to the show! A part of me kept being like, yo, Thailand and France are about to have a war! Don’t stay in France past 1930 too! Which of course they can’t possibly know about.
Overall, I think this show was also Fine. If you like historical romances, it’s probably a pretty good one, but I do think it’s held back somewhat by the directorial and visual style, which I don’t think serves the lushness of the romance or the setting. Compare to the Khemjira past life flashbacks which are from like 20 years later and how beautiful those were. I also think it could have milked the angst of their 5 years apart more—I would have loved a montage showing Rati waiting to hear from Thee all that time and not getting anything. It would have been good to have a bit more from his dad as well, since the scene with him feels a little like it came out of nowhere re: him being like, I Know About Thee.
One last thing is I totally did not understand that last post-credits scene. When is that supposed to have taken place? I was so confused.
BL News:
No fear one fear meme where the one fear is the My Stubborn special episode, which I will unfortunately be watching.
On a similar note, Your Dear Daddy seems to be actually alive and that show looks completely fucking insane. I will be watching.
Another fear: Only Friends: Dream On has finished filming.
No newsletter for the next few weeks while I’m abroad, but possibly a very long one when I’m back if I end up watching stuff on the flights.
urs,
hk