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 episode 7 of Korean sweet-high-school-slash-horrifying-nightmare BL Love for Love’s Sake. Things get really bad for Myungha, but at least he has a pen.
I also recapped the last two episodes 11-12 of Thailand’s High School BL My Love Mix-Up. See below for my final review.
What did I watch this week? I just said, time for the final review of:
My Love Mix-Up! เขียนรักด้วยยางลบ – 2024
Recently aired Thai high school BL with 12 episodes.
Based on a popular Japanese manga with a popular Japanese drama adaption already, a high school mix-up that gets a couple of guys mixed up or maybe on the right track.
This was a frustrating watch because it’s hard to pinpoint where it goes wrong. The show is polished, with better production than something like Monster Next Door. Leads Gemini and Fourth are handsome and charming and have nice chemistry together. The story is a series of High School BL tropes but that’s all High School BLs. It’s an opposites attract piece and I love that.
People complain about the PPL but I think that’s because they weren’t into the story. Popular BL like Bad Buddy, not to mention crazy popular Korean Dramas like Crash Landing On You, have an equally obnoxious level of PPL. They’re still beloved by their fans.
So why was I never drawn into the story?
My Adaptation Mix-Up
I’ve decided that the most blame goes to how the story was adapted from the manga. I’m not here to compare this show with the Japanese version, but the Japanese version stuck pretty faithfully to the original material. It also only covered maybe the first half of the story.
The Thai version covered the entire story, but it also cut out chunks, changed side character personalities, and added singing. Adaptations are gonna adaptation, but most of these changes had me going, “But why?”
First, I liked the added “Thai-ness”. I liked that it took place in Sri Racha (of the famous hot sauce) which has a Japanese district, which is a great nod to the original. The power of the eraser took on fantastic, epic importance. I’m totally happy with a dog being changed to a cat.
But most of the changes disrupted the character arcs and the narrative flow. With pieces missing or altered, the reasons characters are doing things change or even disappear. As a result, the plot becomes a series of things happening.
My Character Mix-Up
And I’ve liked many a BL that is just a series of things happening. But this is no Pit Babe, with its implied male pregnancy, race car driving, kidnappings, human trafficking, and poorly done action scenes. This is a trope-y High School BL, someone’s gonna tutor someone, someone’s gonna get sick, there will be athletics, adults will give advice, and since it’s based on a Japanese manga we know there’ll be a cultural festival with the class putting on Cinderella.
What’s important in a trope-y show is the characters. I want to see how they handle these tropes. But these characters are weak. I think they can all be described by one descriptor “and nice”. Atom is a coward and nice. Kongthap is serious and nice. Mudmee is fierce and nice. Half is sweet and nice. Add to that their disrupted character arcs and there’s not much to hold my attention.
I don’t blame the actors. I get the sense they are doing their best to match the characters in the manga. But again, since they’ve changed up the manga, that isn’t working. The characters should have been changed to match whatever they were doing with the story.
So am I saying don’t watch it?
It’ll take a truly appalling drama to concern me enough to warn people away. I know some people will like this show despite its flaws. If the comedy works for you, if you adore Gemini and Forth and want to see them being adorable, if you can never get enough High School BL or if you like to watch adaptations and figure out why some work better than others, give this a try. Otherwise, I’d skip.
Leave a Reply