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...
Bai Zong Yi, a 17 year old exemplary student has dreams of becoming a doctor and he works hard for it. One day he finds an injured stranger Rui, who literally forces himself on Bai to help him out and nurse him by getting bai's fingerprints in the knife. Bai's medical knowledge helps Rui's recovery and somehow he starts falling for Bai (or maybe just flirting, we don't know). Bai and Rui grew close after living together for a while. Despite Bai's grumpiness, he treats his tenant with kindness. Rui also brings a lot of cheekiness and playfulness to the relationship. Over time, their interactions become increasingly affectionate. A heartfelt connection genuinely forms. Now Rui actually comes with a gangster background. We see that he had got injured because of an internal fight and now he needs to go underground to find who is smuggling drugs into the school. In a random twist, he shows up in Bai's school as a teacher to find this out. Bai has no idea what Rui really does in life. But one day they both are walking and are attacked. This is when Bai finds out the truth about Rui. Rui's boss (or father or grandfather, I was so confused) gives Bai an option to walk away from Rui's life, take blame for one the murder or something random like that and in return they will support the heart surgery and full recovery of Bai's father. He agrees. Few years later, suddenly we are told Rui has lost memory (or is at least pretending), Bai has shorter memory loss. Bai has given up on medicine and has now opened a bakery shop making only strawberry cakes that Rui loved. Eventually dramatically everything falls in place and Bai and Rui are back together. In between all this, there is parallel story of a young gang member of Rui's gang who gets almost 40% of th show's time footage and this weird thing of way too many male couples.
The whole gang aspect and what's really going was so damn confusing. I tried my best to understand but eventually gave up. Also there are lot of easy routes that this show takes and gives us situations which are likely not possible. Showing up in school a a teacher and a student, sudden gang fights, clumsy time transitions, bizarre love stories; the list continues. The narrative doesn't flow smoothly, omitting crucial details or failing to offer clear explanations. And as I mentioned, the later episodes disintegrate into senseless chaos and bewildering melodrama and made me wonder if this was the same show which I was enjoying watching till an hour back. The gangster aspect goes into al kinds of different directions with various characters introduced at multiple times and somehow still not adding value at all. We see these gang leaders with their right-hand man, and somehow all of them have some sort of gay love story going on. It just did not make any sense. On a brighter side, the way chemistry between Rui and Bai works and grows in first 5-6 episodes is done well (minus the whole gang angle). They are both hunky looking with great physique which they display in numerous shirtless scenes. The camera loves highlighting their bulging biceps, broad shoulders, sculpted pecs, and washboard abs. The guy playing Rui is absolutely hot. This is true of the secondary couple as well although, even after the shows end I am not very sure why they behave so abusively towards each other. Also the sudden twist of one the school members being theban person leading to Rui's attempted murder.. WTF!!! The show keeps getting weirder.
Like some of the Thai dramas , this BL series tries to merge crime genre into a BL love story but somehow muddles it all. If you focus on just the growth of love story between the leads in the first half, it is nice and heartwarming. However, I can't excuse the outrageously nonsensical plot, which hinders most of my enjoyment. In each episode, I'm baffled by the story's absurdity. So , by the time the show ends, you are left bewildered and disappointed overall. (4.5/10)
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