No, that’s not the title of anything I watched. The titles are TOO long to make SEO happy. It’s getting out of hand. Anyway.
Welcome to my Saturday blog post, where I give thoughts on dramas I’m watching, whether at the beginning, middle, or end. Whatever I want, because I’m petty that way.
This week, I recapped episodes 33-34 of Pursuit of Jade. Or leads are barely in them, but when they are there, they have hot kisses.
I also recapped episodes 3-4 of The Prosecutor’s Proposal. Here we discover that Chaeha has a blue-rubber-thimble kink.
For Funsies, I am sharing commentary on the latest BoatOat omegaverse nonsense, Knot and gamer fun with MaxkyBas Be My Player Two on my Patreon!
Since I couldn’t fit the titles in my title, what did I watch this week? It’s a fun combo of verticals and horizontals featuring the same actors playing the tops while regressing in age. Let’s start with the verticals!
My Idol Was Watching Me – “推し”が僕を見ていた – 2026
Dangerously Sweet – キケンで甘い檻 – 2026
Here is the trailer for My Idol Was Watching Me (in Japanese because it’s what I could find).
Here are the first two episodes of Dangerously Sweet.
These are babies’ first verticals, and I enjoyed both for the brief time that they lasted.
If you’re also a newbie to verticals, here’s what I learned
Verticals are best watched on your phone, in bed.
Each episode is 2ish minutes in an alternate, portrait reality with a relatively simple plot and cartoonish villains who do a few evil things while they can.
You get a little dose of dopamine or whatever we’re calling pleasure these days, and then it’s done.
Between the two of them, My Idol Was Watching Me visibly had less money to spend on the episodes. The production was clunkier, filling the frames with individual characters in a way that made things disconnected and failed to capitalize on an amazing height difference.
In it, a young man comes across his idol, a streamer of some kind, in distress on the sidewalk. As one does in BL, he takes the man home until he feels better. Chaste romance and the problems of celebrity ensue. It’s sweet, it’s cute, it’s short.
As a bonus, there are 5 behind-the-scenes episodes where the young actors talk about this being their first acting job. You can also see how small the production truly is.
I liked Dangerously Sweet more, and it was the stronger production of the two. They better used the vertical frame to include multiple actors and the background. They also had more characters, entire boardroom scenes, and more kissing.
The story starts with some drunken hotel room confusion and sudden, insistent, but not graphic sex. The next day, our ordinary salaryman, the drunk aggressor, wants to forget it happened. But the usually touch-averse rich heir suddenly enjoyed being touched. He will not leave the poor, just-wants-a-normal-life salaryman alone.
To make things more complicated, the heir has the usual evil rich family. Still, it’s all resolved with enough episodes left for some cute fluff.
I enjoyed this first foray into the portrait world
It’s not going to replace my regular, horizontal drama watching, but it’s intriguing. I think humans naturally see the world in a more horizontal format. The switch-up in framing has some interesting, creative possibilities.
Plus, it’s better than doomscrolling in bed when I’m resisting going to sleep at night.
If anyone wants to throw title suggestions my way, I welcome them.
Then, by happy happenstance, I discovered the top actors from BOTH verticals had newly airing horizontal high school shows that I had already started watching. So, let’s talk about their horizontal high school realities.
After Moving Seats, the Boy Behind Me Has a Crush on Me – 席替えしたら、どうやら後ろの男が俺のこと好きらしい – 2026
Currently airing Japanese High School BL, I’ve watched 3 of 8 episodes.
The set-up is in the title, but whatever. A brooding hot guy gets a crush on a classmate with low self-esteem. Awkward courtship ensues.
Both the horizontal shows I’m reviewing follow in the too-long title and general plot footsteps of School Trip: Joined a Group I’m Not Close To. The popular guy has a thing for the unpopular guy.
That set-up is like sushi to me, I will never stop eating it up.
Here, our intense heir from Dangerously Sweet makes for an intense high schooler
Age-wise, the actor is closer to 30, so more appropriately a rich heir than a high schooler. At least the actor playing his love interest is close to his age, so it’s a little less obvious.
And I think it makes for an interesting, mature-seeming performance. He’s not the typical, immature-and-over-eager teenage boy. He’s straightforward, thoughtful, brooding, and serious. Also obsessive and possessive, but willing to listen to reason.
He makes it clear from episode one that he likes the unpopular guy. Well, clear to us anyway.
The actor playing the unpopular guy is our adorable shorty from Takara’s Treasure and (as a side character) Therapy Game. Here he’s a sweet, quiet, shy guy who’s been hurt in the past and withdrawn deep into his shell. Initially, he can’t even fathom that the guy behind him has a crush on HIM.
When it finally STARTS to occur to him that he’s the object of desire, he’s not interested in returning his brooding pursuer’s feelings. He’s too scared.
And I think that’s going to be it for the central conflict
Our intense guy is going to need to chill long enough to understand what’s going on with his would-be partner. Then he can alter his approach to support the guy he likes and get him to open up. Unpopular shorty will need to get brave enough to admit what he wants to himself, and that he deserves it.
I’m… So here for all of that.
And I’m also here for this drama with an overly long title:
Popular Serizawa Acts Weird around Me – 陽キャ集団にいる芹沢は、俺の前だと様子がおかしい – 2026
Currently airing Japanese High School BL, I’ve watched 2 of 11 episodes.
Popular Serizawa starts acting weird around the loner kid for a very specific reason. But it’s not what you think.
Here’s a link to another trailer that’s in Japanese, and it’ll just have to do.
Our Idol from My Idol Was Watching Me has lighter hair and the same lack of concern for what others think as he did when vertical. He takes an interest in the unpopular kid when he discovers they are both fudanshi (guys who like BL).
AND the unpopular kid has chosen him as the model for the ideal seme/top in the BL he is writing. Serizawa is thrilled, because he ALSO thinks he’d be the perfect seme.
It’s a more unconventional plot than the one above, and it has me giggling
Unpopular guy claims he’s only using Serizawa for his writing, and Serizawa hasn’t confessed to unpopular guy. But. Things may be revealed. We’ll see.
It doesn’t matter. Popular Serizawa is actively pursuing our unpopular guy because he wants him to keep writing so he can keep reading.
So, the end result is the same as if he WERE romantically interested.
This leads to some absurd situations, with our poor unpopular guy absolutely bewildered as to how his life has turned out this way. He’s not QUITE being bullied, but he’s definitely lost control of what’s happening to him.
The show is genre-aware, as Popular Serizawa KNOWS how he’s supposed to act as the perfect seme. Now with a captive audience, his attempts to PROVE he’s the perfect seme produce even more absurd results.
Our unpopular guy is maybe charmed by these enthusiastic failures.
Only two episodes in, I don’t know where this one is going
(Besides the usual BL happily ever after.)
The only conflict revealed so far is that our unpopular guy has never actually finished writing a BL novel before. He’s afraid that Popular Serizawa will be disappointed if he doesn’t finish it.
But Popular Serizawa has already promised to help him if he gets stuck again.
So… is that + romance = the next 9 episodes?
Whatever, like I said, I’m giggling and happy and going to keep watching. I’ll let you know in 9 weeks how it all goes.
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