Jia You Ba Shao Nian (2024)

Walks the line of 'No Hetero Explanation' with a Balancing Pole called Hǎo Péngyǒu (好朋友)

Nice show, the pacing (considering it covered 2 years in 24 eps) is actually great and if you're not expecting some over the top drama fest or action and you're settling in for a fun, funny, easy to watch, high school slice of life, then you'll enjoy this a lot.

THE GOOD:
- The acting flowed. Sometimes there were some highly cheesy friendship and character personality moments reminiscent of early PG13 Japanese animes, but they played out well enough.
- Likeable characters ALL around, shit, even that d*ck Gu Fei turned out to be alright once he got his crazy in check.
- Good humor, it's funny all the way, and cute too.
- Production costs hold up for all scenes, from the school, to their houses to where they hang out.
- The school theme doesn't drown out the characters, even though it's a huge part of the plot, well done.
- Nice OST music, catchy (albeit over used in too many scenes, as many Cn dramas do with their music)
- The actors are not teens but fuck me, I wouldn't have known they were in their twenties if I hadn't looked it up. Good casting.
- Side characters and couples didn't overwhelm the story either.
- A variety of things happen in this, all quite entertaining moment to moment.
- Consistently enjoyable from start to finish.
- The AI subs don't actually suck.
- Dusha is obvs the typical female no-homo buffer between Jinzhan and Yushu, but she's harmless and likeable.
- If someone REALLY wants to ignore the obvious censored BL coded scenes in this show, they can do so by slathering on a nice layer of Hǎo Péngyǒu to appease their no-homo needs. They're teens after all, so that somehow makes Jinzhan and Yushu's 'friendship' completely understandable. (in Asia? I'm not Asian, I don't know if teenage male friends are really like this in Asia, if so, let me know kay?)

Nothing BAD or UGLY.

The HIGHLIGHTS:
- Jinzhan! aka OUDOUDOU! What a great character, such a dilly, sweet kid.
- Jinzhao! Jinzhan's brother is just such a vibe and a mood all at once, the kind of sibling who'd be exhausting and embarrassing but great to grow up with.

9 (because all high school dramas test my attention span on some level)

I recc it for a one time watch for sure, two times if this genre is up your alley!

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Personal side note:

Maybe it's just cause I'm western, but as with other forced bromance Chinese dramas, the way these MLs interact ain't how male best friends behave with each other as far as I have ever known or experienced.
But anyhow, in an ideal BL world, censorship in Cn would finally drop and we'd get sequels to so many forced bromances. This would be one if them, I'd hope, because I'd really enjoy watching a college based series of these two figuring out that they're not just friends.

I do think this series got away with A LOT more physical touch between the ML's than other 'bromances' because firstly, being teens in high school apparently means it's friendship for two boys to be so close and touchy, and secondly, this show isn't well known, hence not drawing too much attention to it which has proven to be a problem with shows like Justice in the Dark (pulled off air), The Spirealm (pulled off air but rebroadcast outside of China) and Blue Canvas of Youthful Days (pulled off air but rebroadcast outside of China) so it didn't garner a lot of attention and over trigger the censors. Thirdly, they obviously DID cut some scenes between the MLs to get this broadcast, it's obvious (and regrettable) and fourthly, they chased every other close moment between the MLs with Hǎo Péngyǒu' and an extra character showing up like their broadcasting rights depended on it...oh wait.

Hehe.

But ya'll, of all the moments in the show, in the end and in my opinion, there is no hetero explanation for ep 24 @ 26.14 to 26.23, as well as how YuShu's looking at Jinzhan at 28.00. No friend I've ever known acted that way around me ? and if they had, shit would have been AWKWARD, unless, well, you know, someone's into it.

Ah well, fight me.

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