This dark gritty Japanese BL is something I was not expecting. The story focuses on a Yakuza bodyguard assigned to kill his young boss. The premise sounds interesting but the execution was just weird. There were lot of problems with the show like violence, abuse, coercion and even forcing themselves sexually. Eventually it somewhere becomes. BL with some nonsense stuff. Thankfully the series was only 6 episodes of about 26-30 minutes each. Kataoka is a respected yakuza leader. His boss has grown old and frail, unable to manage the organization anymore. Leadership now falls to the boss's son, Keito. He assigns Odajima as Kataoka's new handler to keep him in check. Kataoka is impulsive and treats Odajima aslmost as a servant even forcing sex on him. But beneath the rough exterior, Kataoka occasionally reveals a gentler side. Odajima, on the other hand, is stoic and distant, keeping his emotions under tight control. What Kataoka doesn't know is that Odajima has a hidden agen...
Nguyen is a college senior, who left theatre club because of an accident, even though theatre is his passion. `enter Bao, a fun and active freshman who just joined theatre club alongwith his best friend. Bao gets to play the role of Romeo in the popular play. The theatre club president Khanh reaches out to Nguyen to share and mentor the new actors. Khanh is dating his best friend. After a few days of rehearsal, Nguyen and Bao have started to find a common ground. And even more, the chemistry between the two have gone past the stage of just pure friendship. Nguyen even tells Bao that he likes him but Bao stays quite. He is in fact shocked. But this info gets leaked and Bao is bullied, although Nguyen is always there to protect him. The play eventually happens and is a success. The secret behind how the stage accident with Nguyen happened also comes to light in the meantime. Eventually in a sudden twist of events, Bao's best friend proclaims his love for Bao to Nguyen who then realizes that Bao can never be his love. Bao finally takes the courage to accept that he also loves Nguyen and they both end up kissing.
Although above I have highlighted only the main focus of the story, which is a gay love story, almost half of the other time, there is focus on a lot of other characters. We have the girl playing Juliet, who is obsessed with handsome boys and sometimes write BL fiction. Her older brother is Nguyen's best friend and a lot of time is focussed on his relationship with Khanh. There is another guy in the club who is also obsessed with Khanh and is the actual perpetrator behind getting Nguyen out of theatre. Its just all too convoluted and contrived and after a point I really couldn't care less. Also the acting and the direction is sub par. The characters talk as if they have memorized their lines and just talking it out. There is absolutely no feeling, no connection, no empathy. There is not much of a back story as to why Bao lives alone. Or why does Bao suddenly have feelings for Nguyen at the end. It is all too random. The direction could have been lot more crispier. The only good thing about the show is how cute Bao is. All the girls are shown to be super annoying.
Having seen some good Asian BL stories of late, my expectations from the genre are a bit high. So when I see such a shoddy job, I am disappointed. It may be a big deal to have a gay series for the country as a starting point but as a seasoned viewer, I did not like the series at all. (3/10)
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