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Second Rate Second Chance
22 Plays4 months ago
Second chance romances, long-term pining, and their roles in queer narratives are our JAM, so we gotta talk about how two Japanese BLs should have been 10s but absolutely flopped for us. Ben, NiNi and Twig talk Love Is Better The Second Time Around and Living With Him. Join us to break down what it's like to watch a show fall apart in real time.
Episode transcript available here.
00:00:00 Welcome
00:01:15 Introduction
00:02:38 Love Is Better The Second Time Around: What Worked
00:13:31 Love Is Better The Second Time Around: What Didn't Work
00:23:32 Love Is Better The Second Time Around: Final Thoughts and Ratings
00:26:54 Living With Him: How It Started
00:36:33 Living With Him: Where It Went Wrong
00:44:40 Living With Him: Final Thoughts and Ratings
00:52:03 Why The Queerness Matters
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Transcript
Introduction to BL Podcast
00:00:20
Speaker
Welcome to the conversation about BL, aka the Drunk Licker Podcast. And there it is. I'm Ben. I'm Nini. We're your drunk, rippling uncle and auntie who are sitting on the porch in the rocking chairs. Four times a year, we pop in and talk about what's going on in the BL world. We shoot the shit about stories, all the drama going into them. I review from a queer media lens. And I review from a romance and drama lens. So she like cracked out takes and really intense emotional analysis.
00:00:56
Speaker
If you like talking about artistry, industry, and the discourse, if you generally just love simping, there is a lot of simping on this podcast. We are the Show For You.
00:01:15
Speaker
And we're back.
Critique of Japanese BL Shows
00:01:18
Speaker
This week we're going to be unpacking two Japanese shows that really let us down this season. In our second rate, second chance episode, we've brought our friend Twig T back to the podcast. Say hi Twig. Hi everyone. We brought Twig back on because Twig and I have been watching Japanese BL and Japanese cinema for a long time. We have seen a lot of the good and bad of Japanese BL, and unfortunately, both Love Is Better the second time around and Living With Him fall into the bad column for us.
00:01:53
Speaker
We both have a genuine fondness for the way that Japanese teams often execute queerness with a lot of approachable specificity that really lets both of us connect to the queer truth of these characters. That's personally important for me because beyond these shows kind of fumbling the bag, they also undercut the queer narratives. They're telling what some of the mistakes they've made. This is something that's becoming a burgeoning issue for me and Twig in our discussions about the state of global BL. And so we're going to also get into that towards the end.
00:02:38
Speaker
Let's start with love is better the second time around. Ben, what is love is better the second time around about? Love is Better the second time around is a second chance Japanese BL about two guys in their early-ish thirties who were very close in their teens when they were in school together, broke up and are now running into each other again as a result of work. Our main character's name is Miyata Akihiro. He is an editor for some sort of business and economics magazine.
00:03:09
Speaker
And he is assigned to work with this writer and pro professor who happens to be his childhood boyfriend. They were supposed to be very serious and then they had a really painful breakup at a crucial moment. Iwanaga Takashi has clearly still been in love with Miyata this whole time and is flirting relentlessly with this man.
Mature Themes & Character Dynamics
00:03:34
Speaker
They work through some but not all of their issues and are able to start going out together again before the show absolutely shits the bed before we get to that portion of it. Twig, walk us through the early developments when we were initially responding positively to the show and what we were really dialed in on. The first four episodes of this show were some of my favorite television this year.
00:04:03
Speaker
which is why I'm so upset about the last two, but we'll get there. When they meet each other as adults, the messiness of their past is established right away, and you can feel the tension between them. The grudge that Miata holds is really fun to watch. Iwanaga is a real flirt. He leans into the sort of Playboy personality that was also really fun to watch. It immediately felt adult. Iwanaga admitted to having casual sex with his assistant, Miata made fun of him for it. They had a kiss in that first episode. It was so good. Miata decided that he was an adult now and he wasn't going to be pushed around by his senpai from high school anymore. The assistant Shiraiishi was a bitch and a really fun bitch to watch. He really was. He was a real bitch for like the first four or five episodes. I loved it.
00:04:55
Speaker
I enjoyed that. He was played by Takamatsu Aloha, who was in Tokyo in April, is playing Ren there. It was really fun to see him again. He really nailed the whole bitchy, who is this new person? Why are they around this person that I am perceiving to be my man? I need to get rid of this person quick, fast. What is the fastest way that I can do that? Mm, loved it.
Emotional & Physical Reconnection
00:05:21
Speaker
He was so, so bitchy. Perfect. And it played so well to what felt like the point of the story, which was that the main characters are older now and to have this younger person around acting younger really helped highlight the fact that these older characters are a little bit more mature and so they're making slightly more mature decisions. I won't say very much more mature, but a little bit. He actually worked really well to help emphasize that part of the story. If we learn early on that Miata was trying to get engaged
00:05:51
Speaker
We also see him fail at it so badly. That scene is one of my favorites, where he's opening the ring box and Fukuda-san, she won't let him propose, she keeps closing it in his face. and That was honestly one of the most enjoyable meta moments about BL, where the girl who doesn't deserve this sees a very bad proposal coming and physically restrains the main character from opening the ring box so he can't propose. It was super muddy. It was so pretty. She was just like, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope. It was perfect. And then, of course, Miata then called Iwanaga to complain about not being allowed to propose, which was perfect and gave more opportunities for extreme flirting. I loved so much that these two characters started having sex again while Miata was still mad and still unwilling to be in a relationship with Iwanaga. Miata confirming that the sex did not mean anything.
00:06:49
Speaker
I loved that he was just like, I wondered if you were good at this. I'm so mad at you right now. That was so funny! That was also kind of hot. Let's be real. Yes! Ben and I had a whole conversation about how finally a scene with tension in Yucatán's pays off and we see people actually have sex. Let me tell you, the real sign that you've been in Japanese B.O. for a while is when you see two fucking boys in Yukita sharing a room together and you know no one's gonna fuck. Right? There's a fun one for the listeners. Sound off in the comments. List all of the Japanese B.O. that put those boys in Yukita and then did not deliver. But we got it in this one, finally. And we also got that iconic line, if you love me, don't apologize, which is also, whoo.
00:07:43
Speaker
I did enjoy that. Do not apologize for this because I'm about to have a good ass time. I want to do a quick follow-up on one of the comments you made about the maturity of these characters relative to Shiraiishi in the story. There's this moment where Shiraiishi intentionally doesn't deliver a message about an updated deadline to Iwanaga for the column he's writing for Miyata's magazine. and It causes a real problem because now Miata has to go rush to Iwanaga who was away on a work trip and get him to hurriedly write this article. It leads to an important sex scene, which is great for us in the Yucata delivery that we were very happy about. But I really like that Miata is so done with Shiraiishi. When he finally confronts him about it, he's like, I don't care if you don't like me, but you're fucking up other people's lives when you do shit like this.
00:08:37
Speaker
He wasn't angry at him. They're just jaded disappointment. Cut that man to the fucking bone. He was not ready for it. It both illustrated me out of being more mature and also that he wasn't letting Shiri get to him. That you're not actually a threat, but you're now a problem. So you need to stop. I really highlighted how young and petty he was. I really love the way you summed it up. You're not a threat. You're a problem is so succinct. And that's really what hurt him in that moment. He realized he had really fucked up. There's no winning at that point. There's only the huge loss of face on his part. Exactly. And then we got Miata jerking off to Iwanaga's face in the shower.
00:09:19
Speaker
There was a really accessible sexuality in the show that was actually really surprising for us because we've been dealing with a lot of cutesy BL lately, it feels like. So it was really refreshing to have these guys have access to their own sexuality and be able to express that and act on it. There are ways in which sex is handled in BL. Sometimes it's held back to add tension to a story, but it's often also done in a way that makes the story feel puritanical. From episode one, we knew that they wanted to fuck. By episode three, they were fucking. That just felt so refreshing. Yeah, these are grown-ass adults who have had a previous relationship before. They know each other, so there's some level of familiarity there. They're attracted to each other. They want to bone down, and so they do. That seems perfectly reasonable. It's actually ridiculous. That doesn't happen more often.
00:10:15
Speaker
From the moment that Iwanaga sees Miata again, it's game on. He's like, okay, this, this is happening. I don't care what it's going to take for this to happen, but this is absolutely happening. He bought them in cufflinks. He did what needed to be done. Absolutely. He was not playing around. He decided that this is what they're doing and he made it happen. So I think what I really want to highlight here about this particular show with the second chance component is we were actually super dialed in on how seriously the show was taking that part of the premise. Iwanaga comes from a very wealthy family and he was dealing with some shit and he was like, we're going to run away. Normal, stupid kid shit. The two of them plan to meet at the train station and get out of there and go make it in Tokyo.
00:11:08
Speaker
A stupid character we'll talk about later complicates the situation by convincing Miyata that Iwanaga is just toying with him. Miyata is hurt and embarrassed by this and does not show up to go on the train. Two of them end up separated by Iwanaga's family circumstances and that was their big break. So when they meet up again, Miyata has real beef with this man. And the show doesn't downplay the seriousness of Miata's hurt. That was such a real relief. If the characters have done real harm to each other, we do need to focus on the reconciliation that's critical for this relationship to work this time. And that was something that this show was handling so seriously.
00:12:00
Speaker
Even though Iwanaga wasn't actually giving Miyata all the things that we the audience were like, he needs to do these things if it's gonna work, his charm was enough that Miyata was wanting for them to complete the reconciliation. We don't get second chance like this where the breakup was actually the fault of one of the guys, even if it's complicated by familial homophobia stuff. They were serious about each other at the time. Biwanaga was doing this playboy shit even then. And so, Miata can't feel secure with him because it's the same bullshit again. I like that their 30-year-old selves were not fundamentally different from their younger selves. They were just more experienced. The last thing on my list of when I was still really vibing with the show is the feelings off, as I like to call it.
00:12:56
Speaker
Miata challenged Iwanaga. You never felt as strongly about me as I felt about you, and Iwanaga said, try me. And so Miata challenges him. Did you ever cry about me into your pillow? Did you think about me when I wasn't there? Did you jerk off to me? Because I did. He gives him four or five things to say. Were you this embarrassing about me? Because I haven't seen you be embarrassing about me. And Iwanaga says, yes, I was. And that's finally the thing that allows Miata to give him another chance.
Character Regression & Narrative Issues
00:13:31
Speaker
So we build all that up. We're having a great time. Everybody's fibing with the show and then it all turns. From the time that the family started showing up, that was when the show went to me off the rails. I was just like, all of this is interesting, but not the same story that they were telling all the time. It was confusing. We were in this really solid second chance romance arc where we were focused on the guys rebuilding their relationship with each other. And then it feels like they didn't know what to do with the guys. Once the fuck you don't touch me barrier falls away.
00:14:16
Speaker
they immediately complicate that by trying to reintroduce Iwanaga's family trauma as this sudden barrier. This is the common thing with the two shows that we're going to talk about, introducing contrived bullshit barriers to keep the characters apart and fuck up their ability to talk to each other when the entire arc is built upon these guys improving the way they talk to each other. That's the real fundamentally unsatisfying aspect of all of this. I am usually a defender for the way people interact in Japanese cinema. We talk about trying to bring a level of cultural competency to watching Asian media having been raised in the West. Respect the way that these cultures
00:15:02
Speaker
handle some of their communication protocols when they're engaging with each other. We talk about respecting the way honorifics work in these languages and how that impacts the way these people talk about each other, listening to some of the tones they use with each other, about how certain terms immediately signify things. And these things don't always translate well. You just have to be able to hear and understand these things. I don't really want to give these two shows. I'm going to continue talking about here a lot of credit for this. This show was in the middle of a really satisfying second chance romance arc of rebuilding a relationship and then completely throws that out the fucking window. Iwanaga is now the male scion of a wealthy family that disowned him for being a homo but now needs him to come back because his sister
00:15:55
Speaker
is like, yeah, fuck all this Japanese nonsense. I'm marrying a foreign man and we're gonna R-U-N-N-O-F-T. That's fine as an arc on its own, but I kinda wish we had like an extra episode or two for these guys to move further along their arc before we introduce that. And it was doubly frustrating because Iwanaga immediately regresses in a way that is not satisfying because he isn't our main character. If Miata was the one who was suddenly regressing, we have been in that man's head. We were in the shower. He was beating his dick to this dude. We get it. We know what this man is going through. So if he were the one to regress, we would be down with it. We would understand the emotional complexities that he was facing. But the difficulty with Iwanaga being the one to suddenly back off in the middle of all this family nonsense as we never understood the family nonsense. So reintroducing that with this shitheel of a cousin who really wants to fuck Iwanaga was just so deeply unsatisfying and honestly kind of offensive because they don't even dwell in it.
00:17:09
Speaker
They're relying on the shorthand of us just going, well, they're gay, right? Homophobia, what you gonna do? fish What I was gathering the story was leading up to the family coming in at that point in time is that at this point in the story, maybe their romantic feelings had gotten ahead of their commitment. So they're feeling a lot of things, but they haven't talked about a lot of things. They haven't decided what they're going to do or who they're going to be to each other. They're just sitting in the moment, enjoying being together, enjoying having sex and all that kind of stuff, but they haven't really decided what they're going to be.
00:17:46
Speaker
And then all this family shit comes in, so you're just like, oh, okay. They're out over their skis. They don't know what they're doing. All this stuff is happening at exactly the wrong time because it's throwing them back into a history that they haven't really dealt with. Okay, this is good. But then instead of focusing on that, they focus it towards Iwanaga's family and what actually happened back then and how it affects Iwanaga. And that doesn't really work. I don't care about that at this point in time. I want to know what's happening with Miata and Iwanaga's relationship. I think there's room for where we could have cared about it, but we weren't given time or space. There's a story there of Iwanaga so alienated from his family that he wanted to run away with his boyfriend and they found out about it. And he took all of the blame and didn't let anyone know who Miata was so that he wouldn't get in trouble.
00:18:42
Speaker
And so his family disowned him. He was cut out of the family registry and cut out of his family's life. There's a really tragic story there and we're given almost no time to ah sit with that or care about it. His hurt isn't given any time. Instead, we just find out that Iwanaga made the decision to let Miata think he was the butt of a joke and stay heartbroken for years, decade, rather than admit that Iwanaga had family problems when they were kids. And then we see him be willing to let Miata go again for the exact same reason as adults. And so all of the work we'd seen Miata do to process what had happened in their relationship in the past and decide to trust Iwanaga again, Iwanaga betrayed that trust, frankly, by not allowing himself to be vulnerable with Miata. We find out in the very last episode that Miata actually fell in love with Iwanaga in a vulnerable moment. He saw him crying alone on the pier.
00:19:40
Speaker
And that was where his feelings turned to love. So we know that Miata cares about Iwanaga as a person who is not perfect. And he wants Iwanaga to be less cool. And Iwanaga has not learned the lesson. So I left the series feeling like I can't trust this relationship to continue in any other way than exactly the way it's happened twice before. It was very frustrating. There's this is moment in like episode five or six where Miata goes and confronts Shiraiishi who decides to stop being a bitch at the final moment. Why? I was disappointed. He should have been a bitch the whole time. I just need to see this man be mean to Miata one more time and they didn't give me that. That's the point. Because Iwanaga never has that important vulnerable moment with Miata.
00:20:31
Speaker
The emotional reveal has to come from the not rival, which is not satisfying. You know what? I'm not done bitching. Let's talk about what the show thought it was doing with the cousin. I feel like the cousin is meant here to be the stand-in for what trying to be queer and closeted and inside of this family does to you. So we get this vile man in Sugimoto who is just so gross and playing these goofy manipulative games trying to achieve some sort of position for himself or his branch of the family is what I think they thought they were doing. It did not land for me at all.
00:21:10
Speaker
Yeah, at some point it seemed like we were supposed to believe that Sugimoto was secretly on Iwanaga and Miata's side the whole time and he was like testing them and the test was supposed to be some sort of thing that they should be grateful for? I was like, no. I'm gonna do that the next time I get called on some bullshit. You've passed the test!
00:21:31
Speaker
I legit don't understand, like I actually don't narratively understand what happened there. Not just in terms of what they thought they were doing thematically, but narratively that whole part of the story is so confusing. Nini is correct. The first four episodes, we're like, this is a banger. This is going to be a 10. We got to tell all the other girls they need to watch this. Episode five happens. We're like, whoa, what the fuck? And then by the time episode six ends, we're like, never mind, girls. You don't need to follow us in this one. Shiri, she and Sugimoto have the same role and arc in that final episode. Right. We already had a bitch. We didn't need another one. Two bitches is too many bitches.
00:22:13
Speaker
no And they didn't even team up and have like nasty sex or something. Oh my gosh, I could have forgiven everything I said had happened. First of all, two bitches is too many bitches is perfect. But the other thing is, it feels like they thought they needed to have a bitch in the past and a bitch in the present. Do you want me to tell you my theory? Oh, Bestie, I want to hear all of your theories. Go for it. Tell us, tell us, spill the tea. So I tried really hard to find the manga for this because I needed to know what had gone wrong in the adaptation. And I couldn't find it. If anyone out there has it, please send it to me. What I do know is that there are three volumes and that it's still ongoing. One of the things that Japan likes to do, usually one of its worst mistakes when they do an adaptation,
00:22:58
Speaker
is they try to squeeze together at least two volumes into what should be one volume series adaptation. And so we get one really good arc, and then an entire volume or two squeezed into the very end, feeling rushed because they are rushed. So that's my totally uneducated but based on an experienced guess about why this felt like two different shows and two different arcs, because it probably was.
00:23:32
Speaker
Unfortunately, that is going to end it for this show. I really want you all, if you've taken the time to listen to us, to really understand that end of episode four, we were like tens, tens all arounds. This show is doing some great shit. There are some hot messes here that need to be resolved, but the way that we're being led through this with these characters, the way they're talking to each other, the way we're in it with them was so, so satisfying before this show shits the bed. I am a queer cinema critic who really loves BL and the role it fulfills in the global queer cinema landscape. My goal is to connect other queer people to meaningful stories that they can enjoy
00:24:22
Speaker
And sometimes that means that we have to say, a show really fucked up, guys. If you do watch it, please understand that we loved the show for four episodes, and then it transitions in a way that is not satisfying at all. But the first four episodes were still some of the best shit we've seen in a long time. And with that in mind, let's rape this motherfucker! NeNe! I get to go first, oh me, oh my. We love JBL, so you get to rate without us giving our ratings. I will give this a 6.5. Disappointing me at the end is always gonna hurt me more than something that was wobbly from the start. Twigty! I gave it a 7. After I first finished it, I gave it an 8, but the longer it sat with me, the madder I got. I've downgraded it.
00:25:15
Speaker
It is also a seven for me because where this show goes wrong is very obvious. I think BL viewers would learn a lot about the genre from watching this and understanding where some of us have come from. With that in mind, I'm giving this show a 6.9 from the conversation because the sex was good in this show. Producer it for Village Raring, it's had I see you, when I see you. We didn't talk about how pretty Iwanaga is. You know, we have not simped over these men. Let's talk about how fucking beautiful Burya Robin and Hasagawa Makoto were. Holy shit. We have needed some older guys and JBL older being 30 for fuck's sake. But these guys are fucking beautiful. He put on his reading glasses and I swooned. Hasagawa Makoto was a delight to look at.
00:26:11
Speaker
Holy shit, as we're recording this, it is Fourier-Robbins birthday. Happy birthday, sir. Happy birthday. Happy birthday, indeed. Keep aging like fine wine. I'm so mad, though. The show was a 10 right up until, like, episode five, and then it went from a 10 to a 6.5. It really was. Nini's rating is not off. If I didn't think the show was useful to talk about for people, I would have given it probably a six. Love is Better the Second Time Around gets a 6.9 from the conversation, recommended with severe caveats.
Introduction to 'Living with Him'
00:26:54
Speaker
Let's move on to the next show that disappointed us, Living with Him. Ben, what is Living with Him about? Living with Him is about how we will never get the roommate's BL that we deserve. All of the energy that we were supposed to get out of roommates BL was lost to the Philippines during the quarantine period. We blew up all of that energy on lockdown stories. God damn it.
00:27:24
Speaker
Living With Him is about two college freshmen who are going to live together because they were once childhood friends and their moms think it might be financially beneficial and emotionally beneficial for the two of them to reconnect since they're both going away to start school away from home and they would like for them to have someone to live with that they also know. will be primarily following Natsukawa Ryota, who is so excited to be going to college. He has dyed his hair brown. He is no longer going to be doing house chores and taking care of his little sisters. He is ready to spread his little wings and figure out who his actual personality is going to be. He is living with his childhood friend, Tanaka Kazuhito, who is obviously gay and obviously has had a huge crush on Natsukawa for a long time.
00:28:14
Speaker
Kazuhito is also dealing with some major changes in his life. He was a national competing level baseball player in high school who can no longer play baseball due to a shoulder injury. It's very clear that Kazuhito has feelings for Natsukawa. Natsukawa picks up on this fairly quickly, but particularly because all of Kazuhito's friends are being real shady about it. And I was really excited about what this show was gonna be because this was about two childhood friends reconciling and dealing with this major thing between them. What was really enjoyable about this show, now that we covered the premise of two childhood friends moving together, one of them has a crush, the other one picks up on it.
00:28:53
Speaker
is they talk about this crush in episode three, and we were primed for the rest of the show to deal with this crush being in the open and reconciling what that change in your relationship is gonna look like. Where this show goes wrong, after episode three, episode four is them being awkward around each other, a completely reasonable reaction. They come to some sort of agreement by the end of that and decide they're gonna go on a trip together in episode five, but they do nothing with that. Episode six is a useless fucking flashback episode about shit we already knew to lead into the seventh episode where Kazuhito decides to preemptively reject himself for Natsukawa's benefit, who suddenly can't open his fucking mouth
00:29:49
Speaker
into stupid four-separation nonsense for a whole fucking episode and then Japanese track star run for no reason, don't link up with each other and then pick up episode eight, not dealing with a failed Japanese track star BL run. And we end on this perfunctory note where they want to suddenly get us back on track in the finale. I'm not on an extensive rant there. I apologize for you having to edit that, Nini. I was just letting you cook, fam. I would like for you to unpack your experience coming behind us and catching up with our disappointment.
Emotional Depth & Communication
00:30:25
Speaker
As usual, when it comes to the shorter BLs, I like to bench. So I started living with him, loving everything about it, loving the emotional core of what it is. One of the big things that really got to me is that they do throughout the show have flashbacks to their childhood. And there's a lot of good, the knowing content in there. I was just like, oh yes, this is so good. He's been feeling this way for such a long time. We're going to delve into that. It's going to be so good. It's going to be so emotional. ah And then they don't really do anything with that. For five episodes, the show had me.
00:31:07
Speaker
Kazuhito is teasing Ryota, saying, not saying the thing. Ryota basically figures it out with the help of Kazuhito's friends. He's now starting to think, okay, well, what is this? They have a conversation about it. And then you're getting into episode four and episode five where they're turning these things around in their heads. And then the last thing that happens in episode five that I really responded to They have like a physical moment where he tells Kazuhito you can hug me, basically.
00:31:38
Speaker
And that moment was so heavy, it was so good, and I'm looking forward to having the outgrowth of that moment. And instead, we get a fucking flashback. And then we get weird sort of casual homophobia, not homophobia from Kazuhito's mother. Worse, we got compulsory heterosexuality. And then It's like that didn't happen in the end. Like, okay, that's a digression that we went on. We don't know why we did that. We're going back to the main story now, but now I've lost the emotional thread. They're doing all this stuff and it's cute or whatever. They decided they're going to be together great, but it's not landing anymore. They've lost me. They've broken the tension. They've broken the emotional thread. I don't feel it anymore.
00:32:30
Speaker
Okay, so Ben and I have both talked a lot. Twig, you step in here. What are your thoughts about this? How did you feel that the show went wrong? What did you think that the show did well? Walk us through your process, Twig. I'm still so bad. but Walk us through it, Bestie. All right. Okay. I was so invested in these two. We start. with Natsukawa and the show sets up so well that he's excited to be on his own and he's unsure about his childhood friend Kazuhito being there. Kazuhito is immediately weird in ways that throw Natsukawa off and which the audience, or at least the gay audience, immediately clock as, oh, this man is gay and catty about it. Nini, you called it teasing. Oh, it's more than that. I was having so much fun with Kazuhito and the way he was like,
00:33:20
Speaker
Mmm, I wonder what it could be. Why would girls always be unhappy with me as their boyfriend? I wonder. This man. It was so bad. He was basically like, I am trying to tell you in every way possible that I am a gay and be into you. And you are just not picking this up, sir. And he was mean about it in a way that wasn't mean mean, but when they go on their adorable not date, which was some of the best domesticity we've had in a while, Kazuhito says to Natsukawa, It's alright, you wouldn't get it. Though he was just ah calling him out for being obliviously heteronormative without actually calling him out. It was BEAUTIFUL. And the best part about that was, he was wrong. Natsukawa did figure it out, and so Kazuhito being so sure that Natsukawa was too straight to get it actually flew up in his face in a way that I loved.
00:34:13
Speaker
the way that they were so honest with each other and the way that they cared about their relationship. This is one of the things that this show does really write about friends to lovers, even though they're a little bit unsure with each other because they haven't talked in a while, they still really care about this relationship between the two of them and they don't want to fuck that up. But rather than not fuck it up by holding it all in, they actually talk to each other about it because both of these men have an understanding that communication is actually important. Both of them say to each other at one point or another, I think you've misunderstood something that I said, I'm going to clarify that. Or I said that that was a joke, but I was actually lying about that. I did mean it. The fact that we got to a place where Kazuhito owned his feelings and said, listen, tell me if you're uncomfortable, but I'm happy to just keep things as they are. And Natsukawa immediately empathized with him and said, wow, this must have been so hard for you. Is there anything I can do to make this better for you? That was beautiful.
00:35:10
Speaker
It was such a loving moment, even though it wasn't romantic yet. Their relationship was so good. And then the show fucked it up so badly. The other thing I loved about the show before I move on to why I'm so mad at it was the way they used the friendship group to establish that Kazuhito had clearly talked about this man before when he wasn't around to the point where his friends recognize who he was and how important he was to Kazuhito. So they met Natsukawa. They treated him like he was a minor celebrity. Like this is not the color. He reminded me of what did you eat yesterday when what's her name finally meets Kenji. Oh, yes.
00:35:48
Speaker
yeah I would like for you to note that Nini is the one who brought up what did you eat yesterday. This time, not me. Julie noted. It's delightful. He doesn't even have to introduce himself. Yoshida is like, oh, you must be Natsukawa. And he's like, what? She's like, shh, shh, shh. Don't worry about how I know that. because he took us called away. He's like, come on guys, let's go. And they're like, no, we're good. We're going to stay and talk to this man. The gossip is here. Why won't you go where you are? This is where the good stuff is. And then.
00:36:34
Speaker
And then take us into it. OK, so and episode four happened and I did appreciate sitting with the awkwardness after the intensity of those emotional conversations and the uncertainty of what things were going to be like now. That actually felt true. But the problem was it started to feel slow. This is where I think it started to drag. Episode 5 was clearly filler. We go camping. Okay, there should have been a kiss. I'm still mad about it. What it seemed like they were trying to do with the camping episode was establish some of Natsukawa's insecurities
00:37:09
Speaker
He wants to seem a little bit more competent and cool in front of Kazuhito. That already felt a bit weird to me because in their apartment, he's the one who cooks. So he already has established himself as someone who does things that Kazuhito can't. He also, in the flashbacks in the earlier episodes to their childhood, was established as the one in Kazuhito's life who didn't see him as perfect, but who liked him as he was and as not perfect. So for him to suddenly be. caught up in Kazuhito as a perfect guy didn't feel true to the character we'd gotten to that point.
00:37:44
Speaker
I felt like this episode was really about Natsukawa trying to flirt. I feel like Natsukawa has certain confidences, but the insecurities that Natsukawa is dealing with here are about his romantic potential. It's not that he sees himself as smaller or less, but it's more like when it comes to romance and sex and all those things, he doesn't feel as confident in that way. I agree with you, which is why it was so weird that so much of the camping thing was about how Natsukawa learned all of these camping things so that he could give Kazuhito a good time and then couldn't get the lighter started and so they had to rely on these girls. It felt like they were focusing on the wrong parts of him that he didn't have confidence in.
Missed Opportunities in Storytelling
00:38:26
Speaker
But if he's trying to flirt with Kazuhito in this way, then maybe it's more like I'm trying to flirt and I'm failing at it kind of thing. See, and this is where things could have been really interesting. Here is the problem. Natsukawa
00:38:40
Speaker
wanting to take care of Kazuhito as his primary way to respond to their situation made total sense. The only skills he's really developed outside of studying are domestic chores. Being unable to deliver on that front when they went camping was totally reasonable, and there was something potentially interesting there, but they don't really deal with that properly
00:39:11
Speaker
there's this actually kind of satisfying moment at the end where he says plainly, I want you to rely on me more. That lands pretty smoothly from where we were in episode three, where he was like, you must have been holding this for a long time. How do I help you? And ending on relying on me more dummy was absolutely fine. The big problem for me was episode six gives a thematic point and the thrust of episode five is rely on me more dummy. the byproduct and answer to that in episode 6 should have been that man waking up and saying I've always relied on you.
00:39:50
Speaker
But instead, the show backs off from them entirely by having Kazuhito break up in the next episode because they don't know what the fuck else to do, I guess. The natural response to that fucking long ass flashback telling us that this man has always thought about this man, that he has defined a huge part of his adolescence, was for him to wake up and say it. And he doesn't. This leads to the finale episode where finally he says what he has to say and Kazuhito is like, this is the happiest moment of my life. Let's dead fish kiss. And I'm like, absolutely not. This man has been horny for 10 years. I need to see that being released now. The thing about me with this is like, Shannon, I joke about this. We are real haters, but like a big part about being a hater is being a lover. You love these shows.
00:40:41
Speaker
You love what they do really well, and where they fuck up is so obvious sometimes. The obvious fuckup of this show is Ryota saying clearly, rely on me more, and then Natsukawa not talking to him for basically two episodes after that. The end of episode 5 is a very clear request from one of our romantic leads to the other that the other romantic lead does not respond to. The guy who has been in love with this man the whole fucking time receives a direct request from him. The guy who was apparently the reason why he was able to get his fucking life back together.
00:41:23
Speaker
And he does not respond to that clear, stated request. And because he can't respond to that, it shuts down Natsukawa's arc for the rest of the show about who is he beyond caring for other people. It's so deeply unsatisfying. Twig, in terms of where it breaks down for you, is that similar to where Ben's talking about or you have a different place where things start to break down? Episode 6 is definitely the waste of an entire episode, just illustrating things that they'd already told us through conversation. Show not tell, but there's no point in showing us what you already told us. That's a waste of time. Natsukawa, his arc, got completely fucked up by all of the wasted space in this show. That's why it feels so confusing and unsatisfying, because the order of what he goes through internally no longer makes any sense.
00:42:20
Speaker
What we see him do in this show is he starts confused, uncertain about what's going on with Kazuhito. He has a realization about what's going on with Kazuhito and then they have the conversation about it. He has time to reflect on it and think about what his feelings are. He accepts his feelings. We see him realize that he likes Kazuhito. He wants to be with him. Then we see him hesitate about that because I like you. It's actually really hard to tell you, which is not how they've been communicating to date, but okay. And then he goes from that to concern about homophobia, which makes no sense to have as a thing to happen after you've already gone through acceptance and hesitation. And then it gets resolved. It was a confusing clusterfuck because it didn't make any sense. And the only reason why his arc happens that way is because they had those two filler episodes of his acceptance and hesitation in the middle that weren't in the manga.
00:43:16
Speaker
I did read it to figure out what the hell went wrong. Twig, walk us through the experience you had reading the manga to get some clarity. A lot of the things that I thought didn't necessarily work or I was confused by in the show work perfectly in the manga because of the order in which they happen and the lack of space between them. Natsuka Ozaka in the manga is he reunites with Kazuhito. He's confused by what's going on in Kazuhito. He has the realization and the conversation with Kazuhito about it. He's left to think about it. He immediately goes from that to his concerns about homophobia and then it's resolved. So all of the moments where he realizes he feels good with Kazuhito, he wants him in his life. He misses him when he's not there. Those happen after the concern about homophobia. It made a complete difference.
00:44:05
Speaker
things that I hated in the show worked perfectly well in the manga because they made sense in terms of an order of events and the emotional arcs that people went through. It was a really good illustration of understanding the overarching arc you're telling and not just the moments because they kept all of the moments of the manga. They're all in the show, but by moving them around a little bit and adding so much in between them, it completely changed how they landed for the audience.
00:44:40
Speaker
The show feels like it wanted to touch on a lot of things, but it also didn't want to touch on a lot of things. So we get some of Natsukawa's arc regarding the way that he feels about having spent his teenage years looking after his sisters and some of the things that have come out of that. His family is a decently big part of the show. and there's some things there with his mom and how his mom may feel guilty and like she needs to make up for certain things and then his sisters are still asking him for stuff even after he's moved out they're still bugging him all the time there's stuff in there that's swirling around but it never really gets concretized and then there's stuff around Kazuhita's mom that again is swirling around it never really gets concretized
00:45:29
Speaker
And I just feel like the show wanted to do all of these things, but they weren't serious about any of them. And then they spent all this time in the middle, these two entire episodes, pulling in a bunch of stuff that has nothing to do with any of this. I want to pick up what you said about the parents. The show spent time with both Kazudu and Natsuka's moms. We got Natsukawa's mom clock immediately that there was something wrong with Natsukawa because he was making something deep-fried, which is a sign that her son is going through it. And I thought that was a really beautiful way of showing that his mom understood him. And then we got the conversation with Kazuhito's mom when the combat happens where Kazuhito's mom asks Natsukawa to let her know if Kazuhito meets anyone so that she can find out about his love life because he never tells her anything.
00:46:20
Speaker
In the final episode, we get a moment with both moms where they clearly clock that something's going on with their sons and seem happy about it. And that was so unearned and made me so angry. Natsukawa's mom at least seemed like she knew her son, but Kazuhito's mom was fully oblivious. And for her to get that moment of, oh good, my son is now happy with his boyfriend to the point where I took in these yukatas so that they can have this yukata moment um to bring that back. There it is. Sorry listeners, you won't get to count this show when you list them out.
00:47:05
Speaker
So they get these yukatas, take it in so they can have them permanently and nod to, I know that you guys are going to be a thing, a quiet without having to say it aloud. I'm cool with your relationship. And she makes an off-hand comment that Kazuhito's so much happier now, like he was when he was younger, that indicates that she knows that Natsukawa is making a difference in Kazuhito's life and she's happy about it. Where the hell was that energy when she was talking to him before? Where did this come from? You're right, man. After two episodes of Ang's, then episodes six and seven, they rushed the shit out of the resolution in episode eight.
00:47:44
Speaker
This show had too little material to work with, was too cowardly to add very much at all. The little bit that they did add was not good, so maybe for the best that they didn't try to do too much. But they wanted to keep the main beat in the same place, which meant that they shoved a bunch of filler in the middle that fucked up the entire emotional arc and then rushed the ending. They just sat the bed on it. the part that I was actually really interested in, which is what is this relationship gonna look like once it gets off the ground? We didn't get any of that. This show is good for like 30% of its run, tolerable for about 62% of its run. 62%? That was so specific. is we're find about by ais It's That's just math.
00:48:35
Speaker
Sir. Sir. Anyway. This is from the same team that brought us old fashioned cupcake. So we're trying to understand why the people who have made a five episode banger decided to take what should have been a five episode banger and make it an eight episode fart. Talk that talk. This show was so vacant. They clearly ran out of the great source material by the end of episode three and did not know what to do for the rest of the show.
00:49:11
Speaker
Spending this much time in one character having intense angst over another character, not ending in a satisfying release of that tension is extremely disappointing. If Kazuhito was holding these feelings for 10 years, that perfunctory little dead fish kiss was so unsatisfying. I rebuke it. We shall not speak of it. The one thing that did keep me going through that last episode were the performances specifically of Seto Yoga and Sakai Show. The performances in this show were good and I would like to see them in something else. I would very much like them to try again. I absolutely agree. Even through all the nonsense, I think that the acting was solid and I would like to see these boys do something again. I don't want to talk about this show anymore. Let's rate it!
00:50:04
Speaker
ah Let's read this sucker. It's a six. It's a six. It was not exactly offensive, but this show made the egregious sin of being boring. How do you make a Japanese BL boring? That is the reign of Thailand with its 50 to 100 fucking minute episodes.
00:50:29
Speaker
I'm going to let you cook for now. The worst part about it is it's so close to being so good. You can almost fix it just by watching one to four and then eight. No, no, no, no, no, no. no no Absolutely not. I would be right there with you normally, but eight is not good. I love you, Twig.
00:50:59
Speaker
That would be back to back with you against anyone in this fandom. But I can't be with you on this, sis. Episode 8 fucking sucked because it doesn't complete either character's actual character arc. It doesn't pick up on the stuff that was going on up to episode 5, and then it also doesn't pick up on the stuff that they were doing in 6 and 7. So it doesn't follow either of the arcs that they were going with. This is my point, you have to cut out all the shit it didn't pick up on.
00:51:31
Speaker
And then it's fine! They're gonna make it the 5th episode of the evolution of this! That's what I'm saying! I'm sorry. Even if you wanted to do that, I'm sorry. Those lame-ass kisses at the end, forget about it. Nini, rating! It was a 7 until this conversation, now it's a 6. Twigty! Yeah, I'm with y'all, it's a 6. It's a 6 from the conversation!
00:52:03
Speaker
Both of these shows cut less than a seven from the conversation and the conversation about them is different. Love is Better the second time around was actually so fucking good for the bulk of its run and then clearly jettisoned to go be something else instead. with living with him, it's very clear that they didn't know what to do with the amount of runtime they had.
Authentic Queer Representation
00:52:27
Speaker
You can see this show falling apart in real time. This show was not it, and it should have been. The potential was sky high, and the show really let me down.
00:52:42
Speaker
It went from being a 10 to a six. That is a terrifying fault. I don't think I've ever had such a turn with a show in my experience in B&L. So the thing about these two shows is why we ended up placing them together, aside from the fact that they started strong and flopped. The flop happened for both of these shows in trying to go for a flashback, trying to go to time prior to the show, to tell us what exactly. And I think that's the thing that really I'm taking away from this. If you're gonna do a flashback in a story, the flashback has to give you something, it has to mean something, it has to illuminate something. And for both of these shows,
00:53:28
Speaker
I do not feel illuminated by the flashback. I didn't feel like the flashback gave me either new information narratively or new information thematically and emotionally. I just feel like the flashbacks were there because they wanted to flashback to a different time for whatever reason, but there's no real reason in either of these stories for the flashback to exist. It's because they're making the mistake of not recognizing what Western MM romance understands that if you're going to break the characters up in a meaningful way, do it at the 60% mark. I want to bring up what Nini said too. The flashback has to accomplish something and we should learn something from it. But also the character should have learned something since and it should set us up for them to move their arcs forward in a way that makes sense from what we had before the flashback.
00:54:23
Speaker
Absolutely, yes. In both of these cases, the flashback did not fill in the information to allow us to follow the character arc in any way that was meaningful or satisfying. I'm not always keen on flashbacks and romance, I gotta be honest. The problem with romance flashbacks a lot of the time is, unless you're contextualizing something that the audience has picked up on the whole time, you're just retconning your show. Yeah, I agree. For the most part, I think sometimes shows seem like their goal is to trick the audience and that most of the time should not be your goal except in very specific genre circumstances. but Most of the time your audience should be able to at least anticipate sort of what's coming-ish and be excited about it. The how and the why is the part that's interesting, not the oh you did something that you didn't tell me you were doing for the last however many hours of my life. It shouldn't be a surprise.
00:55:16
Speaker
For me, that's not entirely it. I have enjoyed before a midstream flashback that tells me something brand new that I have to go back to the beginning and be like, oh, a twist. Like I have enjoyed a twist flashback before. It's not even a question of that. It's a question of the flashback has to have a purpose. It has to have a reason. It has to give me something, something that I did not already know, like I said, whether that's narrative, whether that's thematic or emotional, but it has to illuminate something new for me. It has to have a reason for being there, and I just feel in both of these cases, the flashback had no reason for being there. That said,
00:56:03
Speaker
I have enjoyed this episode for many reasons. It's because we dunked on Japan. say That's it. That's it. You can't even let me have the fun of singing it. No. if No. No, you don't get to have it because I love Japanese BL. This dunking is me trying to grab them by the shoulders, like James T. Kirk grabbing people by the shoulders and being like, what are you doing? I need you to get it together. I'm enjoying this episode because sometimes I do feel sort of alone in it in my little
00:56:45
Speaker
I'm not entirely feeling it bubble on some of these Japanese shows. So it's nice to have company for a change is what I was saying. I was not trying to shade you. Here's the thing. Let's unpack this. Japanese BL works for me the most often because their romance stories often track for something very specifically queer about them. All the Japanese BL that I constantly bring up on this show has romantic angst that also taps into my very specific concern as a queer critic. And that's particularly why I get frustrated when these shows fuck it up. As Twig pointed out, living with him introduces a compulsory heterosexuality moment after the character has made the big emotional turn and recognized that he does want to remain close
00:57:42
Speaker
to his friend after he learns an important queer detail about him. That is a huge queer fuck up. The big fuck up with Love is Better the second time around is these guys went through the task of getting back together and trying to be open with each other and be vulnerable and kind of embarrassing with each other. When the homophobia rears its head again and is gonna separate them, the show does not reward us or the characters for the growth that they've been trying to achieve
00:58:18
Speaker
By letting them have that moment together to become a battle couple. That's the real problem with here because like in a normal fucking heterosexual romance who gives a shit if the straights are going to stay together. The whole world is going to help them stay together if they want to or let them divorce if they don't. We're the only ones who are going to give a shit about each other when the boots come marching again. And so When I'm watching BL, I'm watching from the queer part. And when these shows fuck up on the queer part is when I turn against them so aggressively. That's why you see in Japan, not even catch strays this time. I'm sniping at them for these shows because this is not correct. This is the true fuck up. This is the crux of my disappointment here. They fucked up on the queer front, not on the romance part.
00:59:09
Speaker
I can take it or leave it on the romance part. Writing romance is not as easy as people think it is. People fuck that shit up all the time. But if you can do something that feels queer in a way that feels truly correct to me, I will be very forgiving about some romance missteps. But both of these shows fucked up on the queer part of their romance arcs. And I do not forgive that. After they were doing so well, that's the part that hurts. They started getting the queer part so right and then got it so wrong. I truly get you why you don't always vibe with these shows, Nini, because they're not always satisfying in that way as romance stories. I totally get you on that. But what always works for me in the shows that I want to advocate for when we get together is that these shows have a real kernel of queer truth.
01:00:00
Speaker
that is worth connecting to and worth advocating for, for people who want to engage with queer stories. It's why you and I were able to bond so strongly over, I told something about you, I promise you the moon and bad buddy. Those shows are satisfying romantically and also as queer cinema. The shows that we both love the most on here are very good at both of those things, but the queer part of their storytelling is non-negotiable for me in a genre about boys kissing each other.
01:00:35
Speaker
I hear you. I'm with you. This episode is going to air right at the end of June. I think this is a great way yeah for us to end Pride Month. Happy Pride bitches. fifty Because it is important to remember that among everything else, amongst all the love and the romance in this genre, that this genre is a queer genre and the queerness matters. Any final thoughts you'd like to share with the audience, Twigty? I don't have anything to add. That was right. Correct. That's what I have to say to that. That is going to wrap us up on second rate, second chance. Twig, thank you so much for being with us. Thank you for having me. We will see you guys next time. Until then, way out. Say bye to the people, Twig.
01:01:30
Speaker
Dispatch! Dispatch! Say bye to the people, men. Peace!