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.
Lately, I keep finishing all my recaps around the same time. This is despite recapping shows airing and unairing from various countries. This is despite not wanting to finish things all at once. Oh well, you have some new show recaps to look forward to in the coming week. More Thai BL, would you believe it?
Anyway, this is all to say this week I finished recapping sweet-high-school-slash-horrifying-nightmare BL Love for Love’s Sake with episode 8. I still have questions but mostly understood what happened. I’ve already done a series review which you can read here.
I also finished I Hear the Sunspot with episodes 11-12. It ends with a summer festival but no summer fireworks. I’ll give my final review for this show below.
What did I watch this week? Japanese BL. That’s the answer. First, I have a final review for:
Takara’s Treasure – タカラのびいどろ – 2024
A recently aired Japanese college BL with 10 episodes and a special.
An adorable weirdo enrolls in college so that he can thank a tsundere senior who was once nice to him. A strange romance ensues.
There wasn’t much to this show, but I really liked it. As I mentioned in my initial review, this is another entry into the weirdo-on-campus-hot-guy-on-campus pantheon that includes My Personal Weatherman, My Beautiful Man, and even something like Heartstopper. The popular Cherry Magic manga, drama, and anime is the workplace equivalent (plus telepathy and virginity).
It’s a popular genre for a reason, because of numbers most of us cannot be the most popular person in school or anywhere. But wouldn’t it be cool if we got the biggest social prize available despite that? I hated school, hate popularity contests, hate being the center of attention, and yet I am drawn to this set-up too. 🤷
The kinder, gentler version
Where My Beautiful Man and My Personal Weatherman were edgy shows with conflict revolving around failures to communicate, Takara’s Treasure is a more gentle character study.
Our hot guy on campus, tsundere Takara, is initially (and reasonably) repulsed by the young man who followed him from Fukoaka to school. Taishin, the stalker, realizes he shouldn’t stalk Takara and begins to build his own life. But while scolding and protecting the helplessly naive Taishin, Takara has become interested in him.
As per the usual Japanese dram roadmap, we get the flashbacks that illuminate our characters’ backstories and motivations. It made sense that hard-on-everyone-but-himself-most-of-all Takara would be so attracted to so-naive-he-may-not-be-actually-thinking Taishin.
There’s no real plot here. They go to school, hang with their friends, go hiking, get sick, hang out, stare at marbles. The focus is on their characters, how they grow and change together, more than anything that happens. I was happy with the amount of time spent exploring the romantic aspect of their relationship.
Probably my favorite part about it is that they change each other without setting out to change each other. Which is how I think it should work.
I can well imagine people finding this boring, especially people not drawn in by this kind of setup. But apparently I can’t get enough of it.
This week I also finished:
I Hear the Sunspot – ひだまりが聴こえる – 2024
Recently aired Japanese inter-abled college BL with 12 episodes.
The story of an introverted young man with hearing loss, and the loud extrovert who tumbles into his life.
I have recapped the entire drama here.
This story has been near and dear to my heart since I first read the manga because it features a hard-of-hearing character. Yes, hard-of-hearing, not deaf. As someone born hard-of-hearing, it thrilled me to see someone like me on the page. I had to recap the show.
For better or worse, the drama follows the manga
There are some changes, but they are minor. Nothing like the strange cut-and-paste job that My Love Mix-Up Thailand did with its source material.
Like the manga, we have Kouhei, who lost his hearing thanks to one of those never-named illnesses that like to take hearing. Taichi literally tumbles into his solitary life and then eats his lunch. Would it be a Japanese BL if food weren’t a core part of the relationship?
Kouhei is an introvert and his hearing loss has exacerbated an unhealthy tendency to isolate himself. But his lunch is too good for Taichi to leave him alone. Taichi becomes Kouhei’s untrained, erratic note-taker and his friend.
Taichi is the push that Kouhei needs, forcing him to interact with others and smile. All the while reaffirming that it’s not his fault he can’t hear and it’s okay to demand people repeat themselves. Meanwhile, Kouhei’s quiet focus gets the aimless Taichi to think about his goals and the future.
What’s the “worse” part?
I don’t think of this story as a strong romance. It’s more of a dual coming-of-age story, where the relationship is the strongest motivation for the characters to grow.
But Taichi is very immature. He spends most of the story confused about his feelings. He’s loud and in your face and perfect for Kouhei, but he is not romantic.
When I started reading the manga I was thrilled to find a hard-of-hearing character. I ended the manga still wanting a heart-fluttering romance with a hard-of-hearing character.
On the other hand, I give Kouhei and the actor playing him all the credit for selling what romance there is. If you want the tense, yearning stares of a young man in the throws of unrequited love, this he delivers.
I recommend this as an inter-abled-dual-coming-of-age-relationship drama
If you’re looking for action, adventure, and heart-pounding romance, keep looking. (And probably don’t look for that in Japanese dramas.)
The story’s message is that it’s important to feel understood. I talk about this more in my final comments on the last two episodes, but I felt that way when I read about Kouhei for the first time. And I think the feeling of not being understood and wanting it is universal.
If you want a slow-moving journey that makes you feel like there are people who might understand you, this could work.
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