Unpopularopinionbydemand
watching BL in the corner of my room
This review may contain spoilers
J-BL Gem of 2023
Oh yeah, this was the shit. This was everything and more to me. This is the kind of story I crave more in BL -- simplistic first love stories that can tug at every heartstring until you're desperately crying out for more once it ends. I Can't Reach You was a spectacular J-BL that I'm so glad I found cause this was exactly what my little soul needed.
Let's Dive In.
Friends to lovers will always be my cup of tea, but add on childhood friends to lovers and you've basically sold me. And then on top of that, it's a first love story where we get to go through them experiencing their firsts with each other. And then on top of THAT, you throw in a plot without evil scheming characters or a third wheel -- just pure fluff, and feelings. I loved this, but I think that's obvious at this point.
Oh gosh, how I loved Yamato and Kakeru. They were flawed individuals with traits and odd perspectives like that of any hormonal teenager. Seeing Yamato so head over heels was nice, but getting to go through the story and finding these little moments when you can tell Kakeru is starting to feel something too -- the longing stares, keeping little memorabilia, laying his head on his shoulder, holding hands, the sparkling eyes while he smiles -- urgh, fuck, I love that shit so much.
Everything was so perfect, it was the right mix of awkward first encounters with figuring out feelings and how to go about them. The leads had great chemistry and great connection. Off-topic, but Kentaro (Yamato) is the prettiest J-actor I've ever seen and I could write an entire essay on his essence and soft masculine power. And yes I mean the prettiest (aka hottest) sorry I don't make the rule.
I just loved the plot too. I spoke a little bit about this, but there's nobody getting in the way of the main characters but themselves. No conniving jealous person, no evil parents or siblings, no troubling third wheel. Truly just feelings and a bit of miscommunication (which they fix by the end! Gosh, I love them). And yes, there were the girls practically throwing themselves at Yamato, but they were there as a jealousy mechanism for Kakeru and vice-versa, not an actual third wheel that you would have to worry about.
I love the other characters. I loved Yamato's sister, I loved the blonde-haired dude who was pretty much their love advisor and helped move their relationship. I loved that we didn't spend any time on them coming out or Kakeru having some deep contemplation on the fact that he liked a guy or the fact that others didn't react to it either. It was just a regular-smegular love story between friends and it's perfect. This was just such a gem of a series, seriously, it was so great.
My only little negative thing to say was that I hated when the sparkles would pass by their faces, it looked like some really cheap editing, but that might just be me. Also, the subtitles weren't it for a couple of the episodes, but again, just slight nit-picking.
Ratings:
Story: 9/10 - So so good! The pacing was perfect the storytelling was perfect and we went straight into the plot as soon as the series started.
Acting: 9/10 - great! They all did really good! I won't say their acting was the best I've seen, but still did really well! I liked Haru (Kakeru)'s acting the most!
Music: 7/10 - I didn't pay much attention to it, but it wasn't distracting.
Recommendation value: 10/10 - I rarely give something a 10 out of 10, but gosh lee, this really was so good and I highly recommend it. It's good for wanting something simple and fluffy and happy. I know I'm happy!
Let's Dive In.
Friends to lovers will always be my cup of tea, but add on childhood friends to lovers and you've basically sold me. And then on top of that, it's a first love story where we get to go through them experiencing their firsts with each other. And then on top of THAT, you throw in a plot without evil scheming characters or a third wheel -- just pure fluff, and feelings. I loved this, but I think that's obvious at this point.
Oh gosh, how I loved Yamato and Kakeru. They were flawed individuals with traits and odd perspectives like that of any hormonal teenager. Seeing Yamato so head over heels was nice, but getting to go through the story and finding these little moments when you can tell Kakeru is starting to feel something too -- the longing stares, keeping little memorabilia, laying his head on his shoulder, holding hands, the sparkling eyes while he smiles -- urgh, fuck, I love that shit so much.
Everything was so perfect, it was the right mix of awkward first encounters with figuring out feelings and how to go about them. The leads had great chemistry and great connection. Off-topic, but Kentaro (Yamato) is the prettiest J-actor I've ever seen and I could write an entire essay on his essence and soft masculine power. And yes I mean the prettiest (aka hottest) sorry I don't make the rule.
I just loved the plot too. I spoke a little bit about this, but there's nobody getting in the way of the main characters but themselves. No conniving jealous person, no evil parents or siblings, no troubling third wheel. Truly just feelings and a bit of miscommunication (which they fix by the end! Gosh, I love them). And yes, there were the girls practically throwing themselves at Yamato, but they were there as a jealousy mechanism for Kakeru and vice-versa, not an actual third wheel that you would have to worry about.
I love the other characters. I loved Yamato's sister, I loved the blonde-haired dude who was pretty much their love advisor and helped move their relationship. I loved that we didn't spend any time on them coming out or Kakeru having some deep contemplation on the fact that he liked a guy or the fact that others didn't react to it either. It was just a regular-smegular love story between friends and it's perfect. This was just such a gem of a series, seriously, it was so great.
My only little negative thing to say was that I hated when the sparkles would pass by their faces, it looked like some really cheap editing, but that might just be me. Also, the subtitles weren't it for a couple of the episodes, but again, just slight nit-picking.
Ratings:
Story: 9/10 - So so good! The pacing was perfect the storytelling was perfect and we went straight into the plot as soon as the series started.
Acting: 9/10 - great! They all did really good! I won't say their acting was the best I've seen, but still did really well! I liked Haru (Kakeru)'s acting the most!
Music: 7/10 - I didn't pay much attention to it, but it wasn't distracting.
Recommendation value: 10/10 - I rarely give something a 10 out of 10, but gosh lee, this really was so good and I highly recommend it. It's good for wanting something simple and fluffy and happy. I know I'm happy!
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