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I really apreciate that the story emphasizes them not being gay. I have seen people criticizing this aspect, but I actually think this is the advantage of the movie. There are so many colors of queer, and it's good that there are a few movies that do not depict just the standard hetero/homo/BL (I am not gay, I just fell for this one guy) relationships. There are hints that Yashiro is transgender, but we do not actually know whether they are not a crossdresser or a genderfluid, or something else on the genderqueer spectrum - and I don't think they as a character know. They probably didn't put a label on themself. And we don't know whether Momose is gay, bisexual, pansexual, or simply fell in love with Yashiro's femininity and takes them as a woman. And again, perhaps they do not know either, yet. It's their time to discover themselves and each other and it's perfectly fine that nothing is strictly defined yet. Also, yes, Momose's behavior was problematic, but it is not a bad thing to show problematic behavior in a movie. He forced himself on Yashiro, then acknowledged that what he did was wrong, apologized, and tried to better understand his love interest so he could be with them without causing them harm. I liked this aspect of the story, too. Sure, the whole thing could have been handled better, but it's an hour-long movie touching several problematic topics, and I think they did a good job in that amount of time.
The actors did a great job as well in roles of their insecure and impulsive characters confused by their own feelings.
Overally, I found this to be a really sweet love story that's definitely worth watching.
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The story in general was nice and there were some funny and some sweet moments I really loved. I liked the first half of the series, which to me felt less rushed and much more romantic than the other half. The actors were nice to look at and believable, and I especially liked the character of Man (except for the stalking part). I appreciate the music that was used throughout the series, because it featured more songs than just the theme one as is usual in other series. Now I know a little more about Thai music, which is great. I am afraid I am out of the positives now.As for the negatives, I don't think each scene was really thought through, especially in the second half of the season. So we had an episode with Type playing an evil brother (and I don't really believe his character was like this), then we have the field trip, then Pam - in the first half, everything's happening at the university, there aren't really new characters, there are no trips, and the development of the relationship between Sarawat and Tine works really nice. You can clearly see Sarawat fell head over heals for Tine and is only shyly trying to show him that, while Tine is slowly falling in love as well, first without noticing... it's slow, it's believable, and it is really sweet. Than this happens, that happens, Type arrives, Pam arrives... and while Tine knows perfectly well that he loves Sarawat and that Sarawat loves him and didn't really get any reasons to doubt it, he throws everything away at the first sign of a girl on the scene? Well, perhaps it is because they weren't really boyfriends in the first place, were they? No kisses, sleeping on one bed as friends would do. Real holding hands when together? No. They are what, nineteen years old boys? Somehow I really doubt two guys of that age in love with each other would act like that.
I get that the series was aimed on younger audience than, for example, TharnType, so I might not even mind the practically non-existent PDAs (although it really was more of a bromance than a love story). There's one thing I don't get, though: Younger audience, huh? So as I understand based on this series...
Things that cannot be shown to younger audience:
- sober loving kisses,
- saying each other "I love you",
- spooning each other in normal bed (and not just on a couch behind your brother's back).
Things that are perfectly fine for younger audience to see:
- getting so drunk you forgot what you've been doing last night (and regularly drinking hard in general)
- kissing the person you love only while drunk as hell
- beating someone because your girlfriend liked his photo
- getting your boyfriend drunk so you can ask him questions he wouldn't feel comfortable answering
- stalking (I loved the ManType couple, they were really cute together, but omg if anyone followed me like this, I'd be furious)
- beating your boyfriend so he's scared of you, than saying sorry and everything's just fine. You can even slap him in public from time to time, no big deal (Dim & Green - what the f?)
- taking a cellphone of the other person without permission, posting on their profile, searching through their media (Sarawat and Tine both)
It's not a problem that these things are shown - they happen in real life, and youngsters might just as well know about them in advance. The problem is that they have zero bad consequences. The person you stalked? Not only he never really says it's inappropriate. He starts to miss you. You are regularly drunk to the point of being unable to walk - no problem. Someone just puts you to bed, no big deal. You beat your boyfriend? He loves you anyway and everyone around you is ok with it. In TharnType, lots of fans were criticizing the lack of consent in several scenes between Tharn and Type - but there were at least some consequences. In here? Zero. So the young audience can learn that you can stalk someone just because you like him, but kissing your boyfriend, that's the real tabu here. IDK whether it's a western thing, but I do not like this a bit.
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I would give it 10/10 for the lovely parts. I've been stressed a work a lot these days and came for the beach scenes repeatedly just to get my endorphine levels higher to get through the day. It worked better than chocolat and that's saying something. The actors are great, the scenes are cute, and the scenery... omg, I want to travel to Thailand right now. Also, I really loved Tutor's boss from the bakery and some other side characters like Tutor's sister - she was an interesting side-story all on her own. BUT. Cuteness aside, the storylines are underdevelopped (the "being in the novel" part had so much more potential!), the storylines are rushed (so one day, Fighter explodes on his father, and that one not only completely changes his views, but he immediatelly sends a video with apology to Tutor. Sure. As if stuff like that "just happens"). It's a pitty, the series could've been truly great. It had it all: promising premises, interesting characters, good actors, lovely sceneries with loads of atmosphere (not just the beach, the bakery was a little piece of heaven to my eyes as well, and the interiors of Tutor's a Fighter's rooms were very nice). The execution though sadly lacked some important details. Was this review helpful to you?