Welcome to my weekly blog post where I give thoughts on dramas I’m watching, whether I’m at the beginning, middle, or end. Whatever I want, because I’m petty that way.
This week I recapped Eye Love You episodes 9-10 taking us to the end. You can read all my detailed and petty thoughts on that ending there, but I’ll also give a broader, spoiler-free review of the entire series below.
I also recapped episodes 15-16 of Until We Meet Again, in which our sweet, innocent Pharm confronted condoms and family secrets.
Onto the reviews! First, I binged my way through:
Unknown – 關於未知的我們 – 2024
A recently aired Taiwanese BL with 12 episodes.
A young man struggling to take care of his sister alone takes in another abandoned child, who grows up and grows feelings.
Mmmmmm. Angst. Delicious angst.
We’ve got our “big brother” who has appointed himself as the family protector and gone through rough times to care for his family. All he wants is for his siblings to be happy and he doesn’t allow himself to want anything else.
Then we’ve got the “younger brother” who isn’t a brother at all. An orphan on the street, he was reluctantly taken in by the family and is now one of them. Kind of, because when he’s obsessed with “big brother” who takes care of him. Once he turns into an adult, it becomes a desperate love.
Yes, that is uncomfortable to write and thankfully it makes both of them uncomfortable too.
It’s also handled with typical Taiwanese BL groundedness. We don’t have the high intensity of Korean dramas or the spastic lightness of Thai/Japanese stuff. There are no power ballads over slow-motion walking or constant animal noises so we understand this is comedy. There’s a family, in a house, in naturalistic lighting.
It feels real, I could walk through the narrow pedestrian streets, go to that house, and find the knives if needed.
As adults, our leads grapple with their feelings and their changing relationship. Our self-appointed older brother also has some childhood trauma he’s grappling with and a stubborn streak of self-sacrifice. He’s not the type for affectionate words, so his actions need to be watched to understand his true feelings.
Our younger lead is more open with his feelings and determined to get his man, but it won’t be easy for him.
Watching both of them grow and their relationship evolve is very satisfying.
It’s slow but, unlike the show below, it feels earned and honest. The drawn-out longing makes for delicious anticipation of the eventual changes between them.
Our couple is surrounded by a cast of concerned and supportive characters, some whom get their own journeys. Their reactions to what our main characters go through feel very real and motivated.
This is a definite rewatch for me. I’ve already rewatched parts of it. Mmmm. Delicious angst.
(If you need your own pooping dog lamps as seen in today’s main image, they are available for sale.)
And now for a final review of:
Eye Love You – アイラブユー – 2024
A recently aired Japanese, cross-cultural romcom with 10 episodes.
A romance develops between a woman who can hear people’s thoughts and the young Korean man whose thoughts she can’t understand.
That was cute and fun, but the promising start got tangled up in weak writing leading to a confusing ending. It didn’t ruin the whole thing for me but was disappointing.
Let’s get into the problems.
The first problem gave me flashbacks to The Sign, where one of the leads seems written to make conflict more than to make sense. There was a lot to like about our FL, a strong CEO and emotional scaredy cat overwhelmed and charmed by our adorable male lead. As the show went on, she remained stubbornly against growth, taking five steps back for every one step forward. It was frustrating to watch her constant back-and-forth.
On the positive side, her love interest seemed aware and accepting of her flaws. Find a partner who loves you despite your inconsistent writing.
The second writing problem is one I see again and again in Rom Coms and is partially why I’m not a huge fan of the genre: The ending isn’t funny. It’s not that it lacks comedy or jokes, but the final hurdle for our couple to cross is a dramatic, serious issue. There’s a lot of un-funny crying. I much prefer when the ending of a comedic story is a punchline to everything earlier, but that’s a lot rarer.
This is a pet peeve for me, I don’t think other people mind as much.
Finally, the ending didn’t quite make sense. It revolved around several characters’ absolute belief in the prophetic powers of a picture book and its writer. I started to feel like I was watching the beginning of a cult. Then, characters made decisions I didn’t understand, so while I know what happened I’m not entirely sure why.
All of this is negative, but the show itself was positive, upbeat, and lighthearted.
Our leads were cute together and the second couple was adorable. Even with the serious final conflict, the show moved quickly and lightly, so it didn’t get bogged down in misery.
East Asian dramaland does not have a lot of cross-cultural romances and that in itself is enough for me to want to recommend this show. I still love the concept of someone who can read minds struggling with someone who thinks in another language. There were great scenes that delved into the confusion and nuance of language as our Japanese FL tried to understand Korean and words that don’t translate exactly.
So I still encourage people to watch it, just keep your expectations for the FL and the second half low and you won’t be disappointed.