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 5-6 of Pursuit of Jade. First, they skip love, then comes marriage, then comes the awkward wedding night.
I also recapped episodes 5-6 of Love upon a Time. Nakun is having trouble staying focused on finding his time-travel mission and NOT his feelings for Phop.
What did I watch this week? Still wading into the sea of shows out there right now, so I’ve got two countries and two genres today.
Let’s start in Japan with an initial review of:
Fake Fact Lips – フェイクファクトリップス – 2026
Currently airing frenemies-to-lovers Japanese BL, I’m at 4 of 12 episodes.
Coworkers who have been competing since their High School days take things a little too far one night. But, they don’t stop there.
Here’s an almost-spicy highlight from the first episode.
This is a fun twist on the “I-had-a-crush-on-you-and-now-we’re-adults” genre. Instead of feelings suddenly being revealed, we’ve got sudden sex.
And now no one knows what’s going on
Let me back up.
When we start the show, our two leads have a competitive relationship, but I wouldn’t say this is a frenemies situation. They’re definitely friends, but the main way they interact is through trying to outdo one another.
After taking it too far one night, they naturally take it further, competing over who can make the other fall for them first.
Turns out that feelings are involved. Beneath years of friendly-ish rivalry, there are emotional bonds that have never been acknowledged or explored. But with this sudden physical intimacy, these feelings are starting to come out.
Very confusing feelings. I’m almost certain that one of our guys may fit into the standard “I had a high school crush” situation after all, but has never pursued it. He’s laid back and easy going, except when it comes to our other lead.
Our other lead is tense and driven and not the type to acknowledge feelings of any kind. Until the sex. Now he’s very, very confused.
I’m really enjoying watching these guys, er, suffer
The tone of the show itself is something between the slice-of-life BL and the over-the-top BL. It’s a bit tongue-in-cheek.
But importantly, it’s not shying away from the complexity of the situation and the feelings involved. While until now they’ve kept the relationship simple, on the surface at least, now things are very messy, and the character’s actions are messy. They say things they don’t mean, or maybe they do? Do things that seem to mean one thing but… maybe it doesn’t?
At least one of them has no idea how he feels, and the other… Well, I’m not sure what he’s doing.
I’m really enjoying watching them both grapple with the complicated and confusing mess they’ve got themselves in.
The one reservation I have is a typical one: this is a 12-episode show. I’m not sure I want to watch 7 more episodes of confusion and hesitation, followed by an episode of running.
But my feelings on the matter are as confused as the characters so… maybe I would want to watch that? We’ll see!
Now let’s head over to Thailand, where I finished up a GL:
The Water – นทีร้อยเล่ห์ – 2026
Recently aired hotel-family-versus-hotel-family GL with 8 episodes.
A super serious hotel executive finds herself dealing with a new, daring, sexy employee. An employee with a lot of secrets.
I really, really, really liked the main characters of this story. I liked them so much that they were all I talked about in my initial review.
The story, or more accurately, the storytelling, I didn’t like so much
Because I think the story was okay.
It was what you’d expect from the setup and characters. There were secrets, they got exposed, the horrible family was horrible, the nice family was nice, characters handled feelings poorly, characters made bad choices, characters made declarations, etc., etc., etc.
It put our leads through an obstacle course of trauma that I would have enjoyed much more if it had been done better.
My two biggest problems were the emotional distance we were kept from the characters and the pacing.
First, the show liked to keep secrets
The show, not just the characters. Yes, things were hinted at, and you could guess them, but they weren’t explicitly revealed until later.
This is fine for suspense, but I nearly always dislike this with romance. To keep this secret from the audience, the show picks and chooses what we get to see of characters and their actions. Instead of seeing the full picture of the character’s struggles and emotions, we get disjointed pieces.
This creates an emotional distance in a genre I watch because I want to be swept away by emotions. It’s unsatisfying.
To make it worse, the characters had a habit of not speaking up and saying things when they could. This is not the miscommunication trope. This is the not-saying-things-to-drag-out-the-conflict trope.
Which is also part of the pacing problems
Another reason I watch romance is that I like watching characters build relationships. I find it frustrating watching a romance where the characters spend more time keeping secrets and not talking than working together. Either before or after they get together, I want to see them learn to really trust and rely on each other.
And there were many sweet moments of deepening feelings, even when everyone was keeping all the secrets from each other. But even after secrets started coming out, our characters defaulted to Not Talking rather than Talking.
Even if some of it made sense, the show spent too much time on it. It dragged out conflicts that didn’t need to be dragged out, and then rushed through the rewarding moments of intimacy and closeness.
Then the end was a mess of Really Big Things Happening that we spent 10 seconds resolving. Remember that big conflict that came out of nowhere that one character spent half an episode upset about? Never mind, we took care of it in one conversation.
And of course, we had the usual semi-forgiveness of vile parents because maybe they were right to be abusive. It was for their child’s Own Good!
There was also a disappointing lack of the cousins. They still popped in from time to time, but they could have been used more.
But I can’t let go of how much I liked the characters, together
And ultimately, it never went to a place where they were scolding and judging each other for their actions. That has ruined shows for me.
So even as I sat frustrated by what was happening with them, I was still taken on an emotional journey with them.
In particular, our strong, determined, insecure lead. Her complicated mix of confidence and struggles with self-worth was very relatable. It wasn’t hard to see why the other lead fell so hard for her.
I watch romance more for character than plot. While I’m not sure this will go on my re-watch list, I don’t regret spending this time with these characters. If you also have a thing for characters over plot, this may be worth a watch for you, too.
Finally, there was some unexpected, completely untranslated VO in the final episode. Who knows, maybe what was said there would change my opinion about everything?
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