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 1-2 of The Boy Next World because I’m curious what happens when you combine Boss, Noeul, and parallel worlds. I’m expecting spicy, problematic parallel-world nonsense. So far so good!
I also recapped episodes 5-6 of Love Game in Eastern Fantasy, which included advice on how to shop when you’re poor.
What did I watch this week? I’ve got a final review for something very different.
Caged Again – บอกกรงๆ…ว่ารักเธอ – 2024
Recently aired fantasy-school BL with 10 episodes.
A penguin transforms into a human so he can go to the North Pole. But there are no penguins at the North Pole and he ends up in high school instead.
I adored this weird, quirky, nonsensical BL-not-BL and think it’s a rare gem. Being such an odd duck of a show, it’s going to have a limited appeal. Do you want something unexpected and not quite a BL or do you want a BL?
Because it doesn’t have a plot so much as a theme.
The show is called “Caged Again”. Hint Hint.
I go over our set-up more in the initial review, but for a quick recap: We’ve got a panther and a penguin who became human and escaped from the zoo only to be trapped in High School. Now they need to escape High School.
Anyone looking for explanations for how they turn human and why they can attend a boarding school needs to look elsewhere. This is a fairy tale or a fable or an allegory, something like that. Magic happens. The end.
The real story is about living despite the cages people put you in (or you put yourself in). Our leads start in literal zoo cages and end up in High School, which I certainly felt was a massive cage. They wear PJs that look like prison uniforms complete with ID numbers on them to dehumanize them. Their various efforts to escape bring them up against danger, people telling them what to do, a panther’s desire to kill and eat a penguin, and confronting their fears. Sometimes being in a cage even looks more comfortable than not.
But they also get out of those cages and have new, exciting experiences. They go on adventures, meet ghosts, mistake a sketchy bar for a temple fair, and meet a nice gay couple.
I read it as being about being a teenager, being lgbtq+, being human, and dealing with what the world expects of you.
The romance between our brash, fearless penguin and a quiet, fearful panther is an important and sweet part of the story. Their kisses are hot. But no one eats food off the other person’s face and it doesn’t have the usual BL tropes and plotlines. I see it as closer to something like Marahuyo Project, an lgbtq+ story with a strong romance.
Unfortunately, there are places where the small amount of plot goes astray
It reminds me of a typical BL problem: it sets up interesting stuff, drops it, and moves on.
The second half goes around in a circle once or twice. Our adorable penguin-panther couple struggle to get on the same page and flounder while the villains take over. There are some fun adventures with our secondary characters (more on them in a moment) but it felt aimless.
I would have rather we spent that time exploring our panther’s personal growth and past, which felt hinted at but never addressed.
We could have also spent that time doing something with the penguin’s brother/best friend penguin. They seemed like they should be a part of the story but weren’t.
Or playing with other aspects of life, growth, and living how you want.
Or, more time with our secondary “couple” that never really happens. Our Knock Knock, Boys! Almond and Latte are here and they’re adorable but not given enough to do. It would have been nice to get more of them.
But there are a lot of things I love about this show anyway
Let me list them!
The cinematography! Instead of bright lighting, we’ve got more muted, sepia tones. It gives the show the feeling of older photographs and a nostalgic, coming-of-age feeling.
The humor! It’s quirky, silly, and absurd. Often it’s self-referential, highlighting the fact that it’s a BL show with certain expectations.
The sense of place! I feel like I know where the zoo, the school, the forest, the gay couple’s house, and all the places they visited are. I want to go there and find that sketchy bar and then go to a real temple fair.
The secondary characters. These were some of the most memorable secondary characters because they were so quirky and different. We’ve got our gay couple in the forest played by the IRL gay couple we’ve seen play a couple before. We’ve got the school security guard, somewhat bewildered and overwhelmed by his job.
But in particular, the woman secondary characters are some of the best I’ve seen in BL. They aren’t moms or scheming fiances or best gal-pals. Instead, we’ve got a goddess, a school headmistress, and an auntie with a sad past who cleans the school. They get to be a surprising part of the adventures.
This story is here if you’re in the mood for a quirky, absurd adventure with a gay cross-species, high school, romance
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