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Whew, friends real life was real-lifing tew-day! On days like this, comedy feels really essential for unwinding, so it's great that we've got a piping hot comedy episode! Me 'n' Benjamin sat down with new friend of the pod @twig-tea (a bonafide certified Fandom O.G.) to talk all things Ossan's Love and unpack some of fandom's reactions to it.

Dispatch! (The Ossan's Love Episode)

And we're back!

NiNi and Ben bring our friend @twig-tea to the show to talk about the entire Ossan's Love series. We'll talk about the way this franchise evolves over time, the difficulties of comedy, what it means to love older queer men, and how this show tackles the complexities of family and masculinity.

Timestamps

The timestamps will now correspond with chapters on Spotify for easier navigation.

00:00:00 - Welcome 00:01:15 - Introduction and Some Context 00:06:25 - Ossan’s Love History and Summary 00:13:42 - The Characters 00:28:23 - Love or Dead and In The Sky 00:39:00 - Ossan’s Love Returns 00:45:33 - Final Thoughts and Ratings

The Conversation Transcripts!

Thanks to the continued efforts of @ginnymoonbeam as transcriber, and @lurkingshan as an editor and proofreader, we are able to bring you transcripts of the episodes.

We will endeavor to make the transcripts available when the episodes launch, and it is our goal to make them available for past episodes (Coming soon thanks to @wen-kexing-apologist). When transcripts are available, we will attach them to the episode post (like this one) and put the transcript behind a Read More cut to cut down on scrolling.

Please send our volunteers your thanks!

00:00:00 - Welcome

NiNi

Welcome to The Conversation About BL, aka The Brown Liquor Podcast.

Ben

And there it is. I’m Ben.

NiNi

I’m NiNi.

Ben

And we’re you’re drunk Caribbean uncle and auntie here sitting on the porch in the rocking chairs.

NiNi

Four times a year we pop in to talk about what’s going on in the BL world.

Ben

We shoot the shit about stories and all the drama going into them. I review from a queer media lens.

NiNi

And I review from a romance and drama lens.

Ben

So if you like cracked-out takes and really intense emotional analysis…

NiNi

If you like talking about artistry, industry, and the discourse…

Ben

And if you generally just love simping…

NiNi

There is a lot of simping on this podcast…

Ben

We are the show for you!

00:01:15 - Introduction and Some Context

Ben

And we're back!

This week, we are covering all of Ossan's Love, from 2016 through 2024. We have brought on a special guest for this special episode as we're going to talk about the longest-running BL project. We have brought on our friend @twig-tea.

Twig

Hello.

NiNi

Hi, Twig. Welcome to the show.

Twig

Thank you so much for having me.

NiNi

New friend of the pod. Super excited to have you here. Twig is what we delightfully referred to as a ‘fandom old.’ I'm very excited to be having this conversation with two fandom olds in here, Twig and Ben, because, dear listeners, I have not had the time to watch Ossan's Love, so this is gonna be interesting. Ben and Twig are gonna school me.

Twig

We'll do our best.

Ben

This is going to be an interesting episode because we're going to be talking about a project that was somewhat overlooked by fandom, myself included, until the last couple of months. And I'm a little bit salty about it, and so I wanted to bring on somebody who has watched all of this in real time, and I thought that their perspective would be helpful.

Twig, you are new to our listeners. Why don't you tell them a little bit about yourself in fandom and your history with queer cinema and BL?

Twig

I actually started on the GL side, which is a little bit different than I think a lot of folks in the BL fandom. I started with getting into Sailor Moon and got involved with a group of women who started Yuricon. The first Yuricon was held in Newark, NJ, in 2003 and I was the secretary.

From there, there just wasn't enough GL content, and so I got into BL, too. I was really into Japanese manga, was part of a few scanlation groups, got oversaturated, stepped away, came back in 2016 to be shocked at the fact that a whole lot of the stuff that I used to watch was now made into live action.

The YouTube algorithm in late 2016—early 2017—fed me Lovesick and I sort of went, “Hello. What's this?” Then watched Make it Right and was hooked on Thai BL. Tried to backfill as much as I could, so I watched Gray Rainbow, and Diary of Tootsies, and all this stuff that nobody talks about, really, anymore.

One of the things about fandom at that time was that the way you found stuff was digging and a prayer, and random people making random lists, and it was very hard to tell how good those lists were. And so I managed that by watching everything and making my own opinions. And that is why I watched Ossan’s Love when it aired, or as soon as I could get my hands on it.

NiNi

So we're talking like real, real old school. We're talking about “Oh God, maybe some fansubber might help us out here.”

Twig

Fuckin’, like, Internet relay chat.

NiNi

IRC was my job back in the day.

Twig

Yes!

NiNi

I was talking about other things—not BL, but I was there.

Ben

Twig has sketchy as shit DVDs that were handed to her by a fan that have not great rip but really solid subs.

Twig

Bought in a mall parking lot with Mandarin subtitles that we used to watch with my friends who spoke Mandarin so they could translate for us in real time. It was hard. We used to walk uphill both ways back in the day.

Ben

A lot of folks who have been in this for a long time—we joked that we watched everything because we had to. You have done a better job of keeping track of what you've watched.

Twig

I wish I'd done better. I only really started tracking things in 2020. I did try to backfill the years before that, but I only really captured all of the major series. There was so many shorts, and things like that, I just couldn't do. But my spreadsheet has about 600 things on it, 606 as of today.

Ben

Incredible.

NiNi

I have been watching media overall—like seriously watching media—for…30 years…and I have not watched 606 of anything.

Ben

Nah, I believe her. It adds up. I engage with close to 100 BLs every year for the last 2-3 years.

NiNi

Clearly I'm not in these streets with y'all.

[Twig laughs]

Ben

I'm so glad Twig has showed up because it has given me permission to not watch so much.

NiNi

I bow down to you guys, because there was a point in time where, trying to keep up with week-to-week, I was watching something like eight shows at a time and I literally felt like my head was on fire. So, I don't know how you guys do it.

Ben

Practice. [laughs]

NiNi

We talked about this on the show, how last year I watched 50 things, maybe, for the whole year, and I felt like I was losing my mind. I usually watch like 15.

Ben

50 is good. Like, that's a really healthy number.

Twig

That is. That's pretty solid.

NiNi

As in five-zero?

Ben

Yeah, no, that's great!

NiNi

A year?!

Ben

Yeah! And we made a whole fucking show out of it! It’s good!

NiNi

Deep breaths. Okay, let's continue. Let's go on. [laughs]

00:06:25 - Ossan’s Love History and Summary

NiNi

Let's get into Ossan's Love. Ben, do the honors, tell us what is Ossan's Love about?

Ben

Actually, I want to do this one a little bit differently.

NiNi, you have not engaged with Ossan's Love. The most you have is the fandom vibe on it from the periphery. What is your impression of Ossan's Love prior to all of us posting a lot about the new show?

NiNi

When you say periphery, I think you're being incredibly generous. There was one where they’re flight attendants maybe, or something to do with an airline. I am aware of that. And then there was something with a boss. There was a thing about a shower. There's some dirty jokes that go over my head because they're referential to this show. But in terms of my awareness of Ossan’s Love, it's honestly not much.

Did I get any of those things correct by the way?

Twig

You totally did.

Ben

You did. I almost shouted “Dispatch” when you mentioned the airport. [Twig and Ben laugh]

All right. So, I will give what I knew of Ossan's Love prior to earnestly engaging with it: Ossan's Love is a workplace-set drama in which a guy who works in an office is being pursued by a colleague of the same age as him and his boss—who is like 20-plus-odd years older than him. At the time when I didn't watch it, the fandom vibe on it was that it was fairly offensive, particularly around the old guy character. And, when it was hard to find this show, I was like, “Whatever, I'm not going to work that hard for a show that people seem really put off by.” I have had to make sure that I check if I am riding an old fandom opinion from prior to 2019 when it comes to older work, because those opinions are usually not informed by the lens that I use. And so I decided to engage with Ossan's Love properly.

Before we start describing what the show is specifically, Twig, what do you remember about your experience watching the show in real time and the popular opinions about it?

Twig

So, the first thing is real time had really different meanings back then because we didn't have international distribution. It was sort of when things were fan subbed and when you could find them and knew they existed. So, I actually didn't get to watch the short until years after the original. So my first outing with Ossan’s Love was season one.

At the time, it felt like if you liked it, you should be quiet about it, because the opinion was so negative that you would be shouted down if you said anything positive about it. So I just sort of stayed in my corner of enjoyment and tried not to think too hard about it.

Ben

That is unfortunately how I remember it being. It was not popular to say positive things about Ossan’s Love at the time. Even the fans of Ossan's Love seemed super ambivalent about the second season, which was an alternative universe.

Twig

Yeah. When Season 2 aired it was an even wider swing. The people who really loved Season 1 seemed to hate Season 2. I actually like Season 2 better than Season 1, so I was even more like, [laughs] “Okay, I guess I don't know what I'm talking about, guys, so I'm just gonna stay over here and let you all have your opinions over there.”

Ben

So our quick timeline: we have Ossan’s Love the TV special in 2016. We have Ossan’s Love the TV show airing during spring of 2018. They released the movie Ossan’s Love: Love or Dead —that went into theaters on August 23rd of 2019—and then a few months later, in November, they released Ossan’s Love: In The Sky. It's my understanding that Ossan’s Love Returns was originally supposed to air in, like, 2020-2021. They've returned to that project this year in 2024.

NiNi

I know they're going to be doing a Thai version of this coming up and they also have the Hong Kong version?

Twig

That's right. Yep. There was a Hong Kong version in I think 2021 or 2022.

NiNi

I love when they take a property and they remake it across cultures over and over again. I'm always intrigued to see how they turn out.

Ben

Have you watched the Hong Kong version, Twig?

Twig

I peeked at it. It's really true to season one in a lot of ways. I haven't actually watched it all the way through because I was like, “If I want to rewatch season one, I'll just rewatch season one.”

Ben

I feel like I have to watch it at some point.

All right, so let's get into Ossan’s Love properly now: Ossan’s Love is about a 33 year old man named Haruta who is a slob. He is a hot mess of a man. He cannot take care of himself. He lives with his mom, and she does all the housework. She decides to bail on him and go run off with the hot new man she's with. And so he asks his colleague, whose name is Maki, to move in with him to help him out because Maki is very good at house chores.

He learns accidentally that his boss, whose name is Kurasawa Musashi, has had a crush on him for a long time and also simultaneously learns that Maki has been crushing on him for a long time. Hijinks ensue as the two of them begin aggressively pursuing him, and he is not prepared for this sudden surge in gay activities.

Twig

One thing I add to your description, Ben, is it's a comedy.

Ben

So this is where things get a little bit complicated. Comedy is hard to do correctly, because a big part of comedy is playing with people's preconceptions of how an interaction should go. A lot of folks struggle with Japanese comedy because they're just not aware of the expectations for how an interaction should go, and so the humor is not landing on them, and this can happen even in your own culture. Like, if you showed a teenager today Airplane, many of the jokes in that movie would make no sense to them because they're missing some of the cultural context. Some of that exists with peoples engagement with Ossan's Love, I think.

Twig

I think that's right.

00:13:42 - The Characters

Ben

The big part about Ossan's Love that impresses me is how the show gets better each time they come back. There are things that are kind of yikes in the short that are tweaked out in the first show. There are things that they retooled Haruta and Kurosawa over in the airport season. And then, in the most recent season, Ossan's Love Returns, they've shifted where the focus of their storytelling is after everything that's going on. So we are seeing the same characters, but they're dealing with much different dynamics.

So, Ossan's Love Returns was a completely acceptable point for a lot of people to jump on, and I almost just jumped on. But, I like to know how we got here. So I was like, “I must watch all of this first!” [laughs]

NiNi

I was about to say on what point were you ever gonna just jump on without going back into the before times? You, sir, are a historian and a completionist.

Ben

Of course. And so I went back and watched.

Twig, since you didn't have a lot of people to talk about Ossan's Love with at the time, how about you talk about your impressions of Haruta, Maki, and Kurosawa when you first engaged with it?

Twig

The thing that stuck with me is that, even in 2018, it felt a little more queer than a lot of the other stuff I was watching alongside it at the time. Haruta and Maki, and all of the characters, play into that in different ways. Haruta is an extremely frustrating character. I just wanted to reach through the screen and strangle him through most of season one, and I think that's partially intentional.

Haruta is set up as the literal straight man. He's there to be what your average straight guy reaction might be when confronted with gayness, and everyone around him literally slaps him and tells him he's being an idiot. Delightful, but it doesn't make the character himself very likable at first. The fact that he grows on you anyway, even while he's being so frustrating, speaks to the other strengths in his character: his kindness, and the way he values his coworkers. And I think the later seasons did a really good job of picking up the things that made Haruta such a great character, and enforcing that in the character writing itself to make him more likable overall.

I loved Kurosawa from jump. I think he's [laughs] incredible. He lives life on 11, and I think watching an older man step through some of the more standard romance tropes very clumsily but earnestly is incredibly charming.

Maki is the competent character. He's also a self-actualized gay man. He at no point questions his sexuality at all, has no crisis about it. He knows who he is and what he's attracted to. And that was also really refreshing for BL at the time.

NiNi

Describing the kind of character that Kurosawa is made me think of Ben describing characters like Shin from Minato's Laundromat. When you tend to see these younger characters who are full on gung-ho chasing after the ones that they like, people like that. But they don't like the boss because they don't think their character should be doing that.

Twig

When I was first telling Ben about my opinions about the show, I said one of the things I struggle with is whether Kurosawa is telling the joke or is the joke. I think the more I have watched and rewatched, especially in later seasons, they do a really good job of him being a funny character and we're not laughing at him. He's not the butt of the joke, he's just funny. The people who would be turned off by an old guy hitting on a younger guy no matter what were turned off by that character and the ones who were sympathetic to older men also having romance in their lives were turned off by the idea that it was a comedy.

Ben

The comedy in the way Kurosawa pursues Haruta is about the age gap, not the fact that he's an old man. It's that he's at a different stage of his life. He's not fumbling to figure out stuff, he knows what he wants and his time is limited, so he's pursuing it determinately and also because he's older, he's behaving in line with his generation.

Like, if you don't have friends who are more than 10 years older than you, sometimes you're going to get weirded out by their cultural stuff. Like right now, I'm reaching the age gap with some of the kids I tutor, and I had to deal with all the various iterations on rizz and I don’t like it.

[Twig and NiNi laugh]

I had an 8 year old call himself The Rizzler the other day and I almost pushed him down.

Twig

Oh no.

NiNi

Oh my God.

Ben

I understand the concern around Kurosawa. But that is not what I think the show is doing, and even if it accidentally does it, that is not the show’s intent. Haruta is dealing with the sudden shift in his relationships with men who are important to him. Maki was just like his friend and colleague, who he was low-key mooching off of to do housework for him, and he has to deal with the fact that the only reason Maki is willing to put up with him is because Maki likes him. With Kurosawa, a big part of their relationship is the fact that he respects and admires him so much. The relationship between them is very paternal in a lot of ways?

Twig

A mentorship.

Ben

Yeah, he sees Kurosawa as a respected mentor and Kurosawa respects Haruta as well as a valued member of his team. A big part of the show is them sorting out the way that affection complicates some of these relationships, and we as the audience have to struggle with why these men like this man. Haruta is fucking useless in the household. He may be good at his job, but he is horrible at house related stuff. And so the question is why would anyone want him?

And this is not rhetorical for the show. They really want you to grapple with this. The fact that Haruta is kind of repulsive as a romantic interest is something the show wants you to think about. You have to work to understand why so many people are into Haruta, and I think this gets better overtime.

Twig

They do a really good job with all of the women characters in this show, which was super rare for the time and still worth saying. His best friend Chizu also is terrible at housework, but she's a woman, and so she's struggling with the expectation that she get married and she keeps talking about how she needs to find somebody who does for her what Haruta’s men are willing to do for him. I just love putting those two characters side by side. And the silent question that's asked of the audience. That's like, why is this okay for Haruta, but not for Chizu.

Ben

It's not really subtle. As the show goes on, Maki won't really commit to Haruta because Haruta is ostensibly straight. Maki is hesitant about full committing because it's hard to be gay, like you got a lot to face as a gay person and he doesn't know that Haruta is going to stand up to all that. He's kind of a waffly type of dude. He's kind of a people pleaser who won't really stand up to anyone. This is kind of good for him as a salesperson. It's obvious why all their clients like Haruta. But it makes him kind of unreliable as a partner because you're not certain he's going to hold ground with you when the world is telling you that you shouldn't be together.

The first season ends on a really cool note, ‘cause Maki and Haruta break up and Haruta just falls apart. And Kurosawa moves in with him for a while to help take care of him. For Kurosawa, it's a romantic thing, but it very much feels like someone’s parent going to take care of their kid. Haruta recognized where he failed with Maki, and he starts trying to help out with house stuff a little bit. But it's not like he suddenly becomes like a great housekeeper. I really liked that choice, that he starts putting in an effort but he's still horrible at it.

Kurosawa ends up proposing to Haruta. Haruta has a hard time saying no to people, so he accepts. Also, he used a flash mob. It's hard to say no when someone flash mobs you.

NiNi

Pause. Pause for cause.

Twig

Michael Jackson-themed flash mob.

NiNi

Okay, not pausing. Unpausing. Go ahead.

Ben

Kurosawa is always at 11. He is an incredible character and like he and Haruta are going to get married and at the altar, Kurosawa is like. You need to go to him. You don't actually want to be here. And so Haruta runs to Maki and proposes to him at the end of the first season.

And then there's just an incredible supporting cast in the show. I don't think we have time to talk about all of them properly, but. Haruta’s friend Chizu’s older brother Teppei runs a little bar diner that they often hang out at. He's so funny, always giving them weird gross food combinations to try out. They’re’s Maro, who's a member of their team who did not know Haruta’s given name for the years they worked together, there's Maika, who's kind of a nosy busybody at their work. She's a great source of comedy, ends up with Teppei. There's Takegawa, who's the second at their office in the first season, who is revealed to be Maki’s ex later. And he is intense as hell and becomes a complicating factor in the budding relationship between Haruta and Maki because he challenges Haruta. He's like, why is he putting this much effort into you? You suck! I really love the Takegawa character because he is a hot mess.

Twig

He just is so pained at Maki falling for a straight man. Something that is deeply relatable for anybody in queer spaces. [NiNi laughs] Like we have all been that person. Like, what are you doing to yourself?

Ben

I want to nod to Choko real quick. In the first season, Kurosawa has a wife of 30 years. Her name is Choko. Once his feelings for Haruta become known to Haruta, he decides he's going to pursue them and he tells this to his wife and they get divorced. She is understandably upset about this whole situation. But what's so great about it is, the show allows her to have a journey of figuring out what her life is going to be now that this information is out there. Like, she was hurt and upset at first, but then decides to support Kurosawa because this is her partner of 30 years and she understands him, so she ends up eventually supporting what he's trying to do with Haruta. And she ends up developing her own relationship with Maro.

It's really cool in this show where there's this whole complicated thing about whether or not these three gay men are going to sort themselves out into various relationship configurations, they're also doing a pretty steep successful age gap romance between like a 30-something year old man and a woman approaching 60.

Twig

I love Choko's arc so much. It's the one thing that stayed with me the most. She is also allowed to be funny. She's silly and immature in the same ways that the male characters are. She's not perfect either. And I think that is super important that she's a complicated character.

I think it's really important that this show talks about the ways in which homophobia and being in the closet hurts everyone, not just gay people. I think this show does a good job of at least alluding to the fact that the hurt that's caused by people having to live lies makes waves in communities.

NiNi

I like when they put that on older characters, as well. There's so much to unpack when you're talking about a life lived in the closet, emerging from a life lived in the closet later on in life. What you're gonna do with that life and how you're gonna treat it. From what you guys are saying about Kurosawa, it’s like he just decided to take life by the balls once he came out of the closet, and that's always something that I enjoy seeing.

Ben

I guess, well, on some of the negatives. The humor is choppy in the first season. You do have to recalibrate as you're watching. It is very funny, but in ways that are unexpected. You will end up feeling a sense of revulsion in the show, particularly to season one Haruta. When I started going back to it, I had a difficult time with the first episode because I'm asking myself why would anyone want to fuck this man? [NiNi and Twig laugh] That is a real and valid reaction that you have to work with as you're watching the show. And so parts of it are a little bit difficult to watch in that regard.

And Kurosawa is a huge character. You have to take time to get to know him and understand him and understand where his behaviors are coming from. And if you're not willing to do that work, the show is super off putting.

Twig

It is loud. You do have to allow your comedy ear to calibrate to its shouting.

Ben

However, I will say that if you want to see romance in BL about older characters, Ossan’s Love is right there. The entire drama is about 30-somethings and much older dealing with life and love. There is no wistful stuff about “things were easier when we were kids” in this show at all. It is very much grounded in the perspective and dramas that people in their 30s and 40s and 50s are dealing with in life and romance.

Twig

I feel like the one other thing that I always feel the need to call out about the first season is Haruta, because of what his character is struggling with, is physically uncomfortable with displays of affection, and particularly with kissing, in the first season. And that can be off putting too, but he makes it clear verbally that he's not actually against physical affection, he's just familiar with it? It is one of the things that the show does better later on.

00:28:23 - Love or Dead and In The Sky

Ben

Let's talk about the movie! Ossan’s Love: Love or Dead.

Twig

[laughs] Every time I think about that title, it makes me laugh, ‘cause it's just so extra.

NiNi

I'm sorry, Love or Dead?

Ben

Mhmm.

Twig

Oh yeah.

Ben

The premise of this movie is at the end of season one, Haruta got an opportunity to go work in Shanghai for about six months, and the guys are going to be facing a separation for a bit. There's drama when Maki goes to pick up Haruta ‘cause he's found in a compromising position, and a big part of this is Maki still dealing with his anxiety around whether or not Haruta can be a partner to him. Maki gets selected to be part of this high-powered real estate team, and there's a bunch of drama that unfolds involving a partnership with a drug peddling organization and then we end on like an action note where they have to rescue Haruta from a burning building.

Twig

There are explosions.

Ben

Lots of explosions.

NiNi

This sounds… delightful. This sounds like exactly my kind of crack.

Ben

You should watch it sincerely.

Twig

It is delightful.

Ben

If you're not certain about Ossan’s Love, legit, watching Ossan’s Love: Love or Dead is not a terrible place to start. It's a two-hour outing that covers the basic ground of the franchise, has some really strong moments, and is super cracked out.

What's so fun in it is, we talk about the retooling of the characters. In season one, Maki and Kurosawa beef a lot over Haruta and legit get into physical brawls over it. This is a feature of the entire franchise. These men scrap on the regular. There's this great moment when they're trying to rescue Haruta from this building where Kurosawa's role as their mentor comes through and he reads Maki about how he's always holding back in the relationship. That's what I think works for me the most in this franchise, the collective love that everyone has for each other. It's true that Kurosawa is not going to succeed as a romantic rival to Maki in this story, but that doesn't mean that he's not important to everyone and everything going on. And I really, truly love that.

Twig

His mentorship relationship with Maki really starts to flourish in the movie, the moment where Maki’s hanging off of a ledge and Kurosawa is helping him physically back onto the ledge so he doesn’t fall into the flames, but also verbally telling him what he needs to do to save his relationship. This movie is not subtle with its metaphors. But it's such a good moment where we realize that Kurosawa plays that role for Maki, too, of a mentor, and that he's willing to do it for the relationship, even at the same time as being a love rival. And it sets up the new season really well.

Ben

The movie matters to the timeline of the series. The movie is not just some sort of one off moment that occurs. The events of the movie are built into the characters, and it was the beginning of them retooling how these characters function.

NiNi

This sounds like a very experimental type of series, just the way that they do different things each time. While they are refining their central characters and the central storylines, they're also experimenting with style and tone, and a number of other things it feels like?

Twig

I think that's really true. One of the things about the movie that's really fun is it's the first instance of sports in the series. We get Justice playing basketball with Haruta and working his feelings out through basketball.

Ben

JUSTICE!!! [Twig and Ben laugh]

Twig

Love and peace! And that becomes a huge part of the AU and also part of Ossan’s Love Returns that I think really adds to the experience. They try things out and then if it works, they pick it up and add and yes, and it, and then they pull out the things that didn't really work. I find that really interesting to watch happen.

NiNi

The concept of something being iterative like that in real time, it's not for everybody.

Ben

This series went on to do something super experimental where a couple of months after they released a continuation movie promising that these characters would get back together, they released an alternative universe season where only Haruta and Kurosawa were present from the original cast, and now we're at an airport dealing with a completely different set of characters and a slightly different dynamic.

It also gave Twig and I our favorite bit.

Twig

[laughs] Dispatch! 👍

Ben

Dispatch! 👍 Oh my God. It is so funny, every single time.

NiNi

Every time.

Ben

Every episode has at least two dispatch moments. [Twig laughs] It's so fucking funny.

Twig

Sometimes it's to end a conversation. Sometimes it's to greet somebody, sometimes it's to shut down a conversation, distract from someone saying something you don’t want them to say.

Ben

So in this particular season, Kurosawa is still a leader. He is the captain of a flight crew. Haruta is a new flight attendant who is joining this team. In this case, Kurosawa is not Haruta’s long-term mentor who has been harboring a crush on him. He develops his crush in real time. Haruta moves into company housing and there's a slightly older guy there who's got a crush on Haruta, but he won't say anything about it. And then there's the meanest twink who's ever existed in BL.

NiNi

I mean y'all just seem to be giving me multiple reasons to watch this show at this point, so.

Ben

So in the second season, there's far more complicated people in the Haruta stuff. There's Kaname who is the older mechanic who lives in the dorms, and he's got this huge crush on Haruta, but he'll never say anything about it. Naruse is causing fucking problems all the time, because every time he has relationship drama and people show up at their airport to fuck with him about it, he just starts kissing Haruta to make people go away. And then people throw drinks in Haruta’s face over it. Because Tanaka Kei is a master of physical comedy.

Twig

One of the staples of the series is what I call the Haruta reaction supercut, where they just have multiple cuts of Haruta’s face as it morphs into more and more absurd huh, no, whaaa faces. He does bend his body in ways that's like a cartoon falling over, it's pretty incredible.

NiNi

Ben knows that I love physical comedy.

Twig

Yoshida Kotaro has incredible physical comedy, too.

Ben

Like if you ever want to see an old man try and kill an aging twink [Twig laughs], this is the show for you.

I get why people who liked the first show bounced off of this, because the rest of the cast is gone. The supporting cast is a really strong part of the Ossan’s Love experience, but I really like the AU season because I think it allowed them to retool Haruta and Kurosawa. And retool the relationship between them to make it more about their mentorship. They're building that relationship in the AU season ‘cause they don't know each other.

Twig

The thing that I really like about the AU setup is because Haruta is coming into a new environment, we get to see him build his network of people around him over the course of the season. Showing us what's likable about Haruta because he has to charm all these people around him in order to get friends and build a community, is a really important piece of the puzzle that allowed me to get to like that character a lot more, because he was charming me at the same time.

Ben

We get a lot of great moments in the season. Kurosawa has been a pilot for 30 years and he decides to retire and everyone is sad about it. I'm sad about it, Twig is crying about it.

Twig

Mmhm.

Ben

He ends up inviting the three guys who we've mentioned out to hang out in the park with him. He has this sumo tournament with them where he's basically giving them the last bit of advice he's going to give them and it is, one of the most intensely emotional man moments I have had in this genre. I was losing it and I was crying. I was hollering and screaming, messaging Twig like, “Wake up, I need to talk about this right now, I don't care what you're doing. Get up.”

Truly, it is one of the best moments in TV about the relationships between men that I have ever experienced, and it is this hyper ridiculous sumo wrestling moment in a gay romance drama in the AU season that is technically not canon, and it was the moment from the series that lingers with me the most.

Twig

Even in the moment they're looking at each other like, is this happening? How is this happening? This isn't real. Nobody does this. Nobody calls each other to the side of the river with a note [laughs] to hold a wrestling competition in which we talk about our feelings.

Ben

But it works really well. I ended up really loving the way it allowed us to think about these two men and the relationship between them. We get to appreciate how important Kurosawa is to Haruta.

Twig

That sumo wrestling moment allows us to see Kurosawa's relationships with all of his subordinates. The way he's so firm and so gentle with Naruse, with like “soft landing,” meanwhile, throws Haruta out of the ring.

Ben

The way he talks to all of these men as specific to them, like his role as leader is strongest in the AU season. My primary concern for the Thai adaptation is who is playing Kurosawa, because this character is as important as the romantic leads.

Twig

I think it's more important.

Ben

I am with Twig. Who is going to match Yoshida Kotaro in Thailand? I need to know.

Twig

I'm eagerly awaiting that announcement.

NiNi

The answer is going to be Nu Surasak or Kob Songsit.

Ben

I really hope it's good.

00:39:00 - Ossan’s Love Returns

Ben

Ossan's Love Returns reunites the original cast after five years. Maki is returning from an extended stint in Singapore, and now he and Haruta are gonna start their cohabitating married life together. Maki is now part of the super team at headquarters, following up on the movie. Haruta is still on the streets with regular folk, ‘cause that's where he wants to be. Kurosawa has retired, I liked that follow up from the AU season. And now he's working as a housekeeper. Maki is working too much and Haruta is still bad at house, and so they hire a housekeeper, who ends up being Kurosawa [Twig laughs] who cannot hold back his feelings for Haruta and it becomes one of the ongoing dramas of the season.

One of the things I enjoyed in this season is… they explore how to integrate Kurosawa into their lives long term. Haruta is serious about Maki and committed to their romance. Kurosawa is also extremely important to him and he treats him like a father figure. They explicitly have Choko talk to Kurosawa about how a lot of the ways he feels [laugh] about Maki are a lot of the ways a mother-in-law might feel about their daughter-in-law with the way they beef with each other. And when we say they beef with each other, I mean, these two men are legit fighting in their kitchen, like Kurosawa hits Maki in the head repeatedly with a frying pan. Maki legit throws Kurosawa through a door at one point and knocks it off the hinges. These two men, when they scrap with each other, are fighting for real and I love it every time.

NiNi

It's just like you all conspired to come into this recording booth today and just be like, okay, so you say this and I'll say that and between us we're gonna get her to watch this, because she likes this kind of stuff.

Ben

I didn't really have to work that hard. We're just legit talking about what the show was doing. We get a really great season of Maki and Haruta settling into what their life is going to look like. There's some introduced new characters in the season that we all had very complicated feelings about who I think end up fitting fine by the end. Most of the original cast comes back and there's like a really great bit of exploring what all these characters settling into their relationships that they got into in the first season in this one.

So Haruta and Maki are now living together and figuring out what that is going to look like, who are they gonna be as a couple now that they're not doing long distance ‘cause they've basically been long distance between every outing. Which I think was a clever choice because it means that the characters’ relationship dynamic doesn't really move that much between outings.

Choko is now living with Maro and Maro’s mom, and Choko is struggling because she's older than Maro's mom. She can't just treat this woman like her mother-in-law. And Maro doesn't know how to help because he's caught between his wife, who's way older than him, and his mom, who's confused and a little bit uncertain about this whole dynamic.

Twig

I also love that that's not the only thing we see Choko having worked through in the time we've been apart from her. She opened an archery range after her divorce, and sort of reinvented herself with this new life that she's actually thriving in.

Ben

They get new neighbors who are a bunch of weirdos.

Twig

[laughs] They're so weird. They're so weird.

Ben

These two are revealed to be members of, like, a public security division that maybe doesn't actually exist. Izumi ends up becoming obsessed with Haruta because he's a doppelganger for his dead lover who was killed in the line of duty, who is very, very different from Haruta. It was fun to see Tanaka Kei play a very different type of character in those flashbacks. I don't know that it entirely landed for me over the course of the season, but by the finale, which was fantastic, I was okay with them.

Twig

A large part of the way they were written is that they were a mystery for a large part of it, too. It's hard to bond with a character that you know nothing about and is intentionally opaque.

Ben

Chizu is trying to make it as a single mom and this reinforces one of the big themes of the season, that family is all the people who are going to show up for you all the time. She relies on Teppei and Maika to help, and she feels guilty about this and they tell her straight up, like, don't feel guilty. We are a family. You should rely on us.

She had already made Haruta and Maki designated adults who can pick up her kid from the daycare. An important gay right of passage is your friend calling you and telling you I need you to go pick up my kid, and then you show up at said kindergarten to pick up a kid and they look at your ID and they go “oh you're allowed” and the kid runs to you and everybody goes, well, that makes sense. An important gay moment that everyone must experience.

Twig

One of the things that I love about this so much is that it picks up from a throw away line that Chizu says in the movie. She sort of brags that she's going to balance having a kid and her career. One of the things about the series is that it really feels like the people who are writing it love the whole series and are constantly thinking about how to call back in loving ways and how to pick up threads in loving ways. Something that she just sort of confidently stated she was going to do no problem in the movie becomes a whole plot in the following season.

Ben

There's a final arc in the season where Kurosawa has a health scare where we think he's going to die.

Twig

When we were talking about it, Ben, you said that it was an important moment for Maki and Haruta to confront the idea that Kurosawa won't always be around. And I was like, oh, that's why I don't like this part because I don't want to ever think about that. [Twig and Ben laugh]

Ben

The entire finale is this really great examination about the way this whole group of people are a family to each other.

Twig

It's not even just that it's happening, but they're explicit about it. They're having conversations about what is family? What are we to each other? How do we define our relationship? Where do those lines get drawn? And the answer is just sort of, yes.

Ben

There's an explicit line, like, what is Kurosawa to them? And then Maika comes over and hammers it home for the audience and is like, “There's no need to describe it. What matters is you all are going to be part of each other's lives forever.”

00:45:33 - Final Thoughts and Ratings

Ben

I don't think we talked about it as much. So, the first season is pretty light on kissing and intimacy between the male characters. Ossan's Love Returns is not! There's so much married intimacy between Haruta and Maki.

Twig

The casual intimacy in Ossan's Love Returns is constant, and it just feels very lived in? They're just constantly touching each other and having small kisses and teasing each other.

Ben

We got more of that today in the unexpected special spin-offs we're getting. I was like “ohh, I thought we were done. Oh, it's another cute little 20-minute office episode ending on the two of them making out next to the copier.” Love it.

NiNi

This is called Forbidden Gout Temps Nouveau.

Twig

Mhmm.

NiNi

I have so many questions, but I feel like I should not ask those questions right now.

Ben

My general attitude is you don't need to watch all of Ossan's Love to enjoy parts of Ossan's Love. I think if you are interested in gay domesticity and complex family units, you can just watch Ossan's Love Returns right away.

NiNi

I'm watching it all. Eventually. I don't know when. There's a lot going on in the IRL space right now, but I'm gonna be watching the whole thing.

Twig

I feel like I should say something about the original short. It has a lot of the things that people found the hardest to swallow about season one. A lot of the stuff that they did originally they fixed or did better as they moved through. I would say the short is the thing to skip, of all of it, unless you're really curious about the journey of this franchise.

NiNi

I'm really fascinated by the idea of this as a reserve process of working through and refining the show in kind of a real time. I would like to see the whole thing just for that purpose. I'm a writer, so the way that this feels like multiple drafts, and you getting to actually see the multiple drafts to see why they might have decided to make a particular change in the next draft, or why they would have gone for an overhaul, or what would they have tweaked around the edges. I like the idea of looking at that.

Twig

It is not just the writing that they iterate. We haven't talked a lot about the visual effects that this show uses, but it has its own style. One of my favorites: it uses the bokeh effect, where the lighting in the background is blurred and sometimes takes shapes. It starts from the very beginning. You'll see the lights behind Kurosawa make little hearts while he's confessing to Haruta and Haruta’s has little like stop signs. [Ben laughs] And then they get bigger and bigger with that where Kurosawa’s hearts have little like heartbreak. They have– there’s little, like, zigzags in the hearts behind him when he gets rejected. Sometimes he'll be crying tear lights. That’s just one of the things that they play with in the different versions.

Ben

Naruse having that whole tantrum trying to get someone's attention for help? Then having that super cut of them screaming and then smash cutting to them just sitting at the table. There's like the courtroom audio stinger that dominates the first season that I fucking love [mimics the sound] thing that happens over the course of the whole season. It's so, so dramatic, and I'm like, “Is Judge Mathis gonna walk out? What is happening?”

Twig

Oh, and they do this thing where they hard cut to a visual metaphor like water leaking out of a water bottle or a pot boiling to represent the character’s emotions. There's so many visual moments. It's not just written well and acted well. It's also represented visually really well, and seeing how they experiment with that and how that changes. Like, the weird bobble heads we got in the AU season. I'm still not over those. I'm glad those didn't return.

Ben

It is not a perfect show. This is not a “Everybody was wrong. They should have watched all of this. Grab your pitchfork!” situation. This is not an easy show to love. If you can find your way to loving the show, I think it has been one of the most rewarding watches I've had in the genre since What Did You Eat Yesterday?

Japanese BL is different from Thai BL. More experimental and weirder things are gonna happen over time if the series has a lot of leg in it, and Ossan's Love is one of those that has so much leg in it. Like the second season just ended, and I'd be okay if we don't see them again, but, I really hope we do.

Twig

Me too.

NiNi

All right, so let's get into ratings. I mean, is this the kind of thing that you rate? Instead of rating, let's rank. If you had to rank the different parts of the Ossan's Love franchise, how would you rank them? In terms of, for you, most enjoyable to probably the least enjoyable?

Ben

Well, the least enjoyable is the original special. It's the most rough and the hardest to swallow. I think the best season is the current one?

Twig

Yeah. I mean, for me, it's basically chronological order, I think. I struggle between the film and the AU ‘cause I like them for different reasons, and I struggled with them for different reasons. But I think Naruse tips it over there so that it stays ahead.

Ben

[Ben and Twig laugh] I love that mean twink!

Twig

He's just so great.

Ben

I don't know that I'd want to…rank them that way. I think each outing adds something to it. It's really a question of, do you like seeing people try to get together for the first time, or do you really like seeing people be together? For me, I'm very partial to Ossan's Love Returns because it's about gay life drama, which is what I’ve wanted for a while. And so I'm really fucking enjoying that.

Twig

Yeah, I love it when people have to figure out, “Now that we're in this relationship, how do we make this work?”

Ben

But I also love the AU season. I think the retooling of Haruta and Kurosawa is actually really helpful. I think taking a break from Maki is actually helpful for appreciating Haruta when you come back to them. I think you end up liking Haruta more by the time you get to Ossan's Love Returns and seeing the potential in him. The love people are trying to pour on to him in the current season is more accessible to me as a viewer because I got to spend time with Haruta growing to love him in the AU season.

Twig

I also just have affection for an entire season that seems to have basically been built off of like a throwaway reference to episode one, when Haruta says he's most attracted to stewardesses. And then, and also, like, maybe a pun because Kurosawa’s character is called bucho which means, like, manager essentially through all of the regular Ossan's Love stories. But in the AU he's kucho because he's a captain. And I think that's very funny.

Ben

In terms of my ratings, I'm looking at on MDL, I gave Ossan's Love and Ossan's Love Returns a 9. But I gave the AU season a 9.5. [Ben and Twig laugh] So, there's your answer.

Twig

There you go.

Ben

Twig, what did you rate the second season? I know ratings aren't always your thing, but did you give the second season a rating?

Twig

I didn't. If I was going to give it a rating. Ossan's Love Returns? Yeah, I’d give it a 9.

Ben

It's a 9 for me in that I think if you're into BL, you should watch the show, but I don't know that it is the most accessible show, so I don't want to give it a 10.

Twig

I think the thing about this show, too, is it's about multiple relationships. It's not just about Maki and Haruta, and I wouldn't even say their relationship dominates the story. So, to rank it against other BL as a romance narrative is quite difficult. It's about family and what that means in a queer context. Part of that is romance, but it's not even the biggest part? The family feels is what gets me about this series.

Ben

That's going to do it for Ossan's Love. We have succeeded at our mission. NiNi has agreed to watch the show. Twig and I got to unpack the entirety of this whole franchise. We have the benefit of knowing it gets better over time now, and so I don't begrudge people bouncing when they did in 2018. I think that in 2024, it is beneficial for people who care about the history of the genre to go back and properly engage with Ossan's Love. I genuinely think it is worth reconsidering your initial opinion. They… grow. Their characters are not static. What has occurred is taken seriously and what worked and didn't work is considered as they move forward.

NiNi

That is going to wrap us up on the Ossan's Love episode. Twig, it was so great having you on, and I hope you come back.

Twig

Thank you so much for having me. It was really fun.

NiNi

With that, we out. Say bye to the people, Twig.

Twig

Dispatch!👍

Ben

Dispatch! 👍

NiNi

At some point I'm going to find out what that means, and then I will be unstoppable. Say bye to the people, Ben.

Ben

Peace.

#the conversation #ben and nini's conversations #podcast #on art #spring series #spring 2024 #season 6 #s6 e2 #ossan's love

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shortpplfedup · 11 days

Text

Our spring series is here, and we started off by thirsting over Tay Tawan. We are nothing if not reliable. Come hear me, @bengiyo and @lurkingshan talk old man yaoi, Thai comedy and cross-cultural adaptation.

The Pillars: The Return of OffGun and TayNew

And we're back!

NiNi and Ben bring Shan back to the recording booth to discuss how BL is not just a young man's game. We break down why we enjoyed Cooking Crush and Cherry Magic Thailand so much, and what makes OffGun and TayNew so special.

Come and join us for a healthy mixture of simping, genre appreciation, examinations of conflict writing, and love for queerness in BL.

Timestamps

The timestamps will now correspond with chapters on Spotify for easier navigation.

00:00:00 - Welcome 00:01:15 - Intro 00:03:58 - Cooking Crush: A Surprisingly-Good Romcom 00:08:02 - CC: Comedy Ain't Easy 00:16:59 - CC: Dynamite’s Queer Writing and Ten as a Rare Romantic Lead 00:32:08 - CC: Final Comments and Ratings 00:41:14 - Cherry Magic: Beating Expectations and Simping for Tay Tawan 00:54:13 - CM: Relationship Development and the Powers 01:02:15 - CM: Other Characters 01:13:51 - CM: Ratings 01:19:34 - The Pillars: Overall Thoughts

The Conversation Transcripts!

Thanks to the continued efforts of @ginnymoonbeam as transcriber, and @lurkingshan as an editor and proofreader, we are able to bring you transcripts of the episodes.

Please send our volunteers your thanks!

00:00:00 - Welcome

NiNi

Welcome to The Conversation About BL, aka The Brown Liquor Podcast.

Ben

And there it is. I’m Ben.

NiNi

I’m NiNi.

Ben

And we’re you’re drunk Caribbean uncle and auntie here sitting on the porch in the rocking chairs.

NiNi

Four times a year we pop in to talk about what’s going on in the BL world.

Ben

We shoot the shit about stories and all the drama going into them. I review from a queer media lens.

NiNi

And I review from a romance and drama lens.

Ben

So if you like cracked-out takes and really intense emotional analysis…

NiNi

If you like talking about artistry, industry, and the discourse…

Ben

And if you generally just love simping…

NiNi

There is a lot of simping on this podcast…

Ben

We are the show for you!

00:01:15 - Intro

Ben

And we're back. Welcome to the second spring outing with The Conversation. Shan is here with us today. Say hi, Shan.

Shan

Hiii.

Ben

And we're going to review the GMMTV pillars.

NiNi

So, Ben, what are the pillars? Let's do a little GMMTV history.

Ben

So when we refer to the pillars, we're talking about the original BL ships at GMMTV. The two we're going to talk about today are Off Jumpol and Gun Atthaphan, and we're gonna be talking about Tay Tawan and New Thitipoom, who've been together four times now — soon to be five.

Shan

I think what's important in the BL context about these two pairs, OffGun and TayNew, is that they have been at this for years at this point, like nine years, I think this year?

Ben

Nine years? Yep.

Shan

They have been at GMMTV, leading BLs, for almost a decade. And they have aged with the genre. They are now in their 30s. It's great, in my opinion, to see them continue to make shows and come back.

There was this idea that Thai BL was only for very young actors, that actors, once they exited their 20s, would also exit the genre, to move on to, quote-unquote, “mainstream” work that was heterosexual. And I think that these pairs sticking around and coming back to make new shows in their 30s is really important because it just shuts that whole line of thinking down: that BL is only about and for young people, that it is a phase of a career that actors need to quote, “move on from.” And also it gives us the opportunity to actually see adult stories in GMMTV BL, which is not something that we've gotten much of yet. To see stories about adult characters actually played by adults who are the right age for those characters is really refreshing.

So it's been really interesting to see these pairs come back into the public consciousness and to see that the fans are actually happy for them to stick around. I think that's been pretty cool.

Ben

I think what I enjoy the most about these two pairs coming back together is, both of the shows they're attempting have a more grown-up feel than their previous work. And in both cases, I think the fact that these actors are experienced and know each other really well genuinely benefits the work that they're doing.

00:03:58 - Cooking Crush: A Surprisingly-Good Romcom

NiNi

So let's dive into the first of the pillars. We're going to talk OffGun, and we're going to talk Cooking Crush. So, Ben, what is Cooking Crush about?

Ben

Cooking Crush is about how the most effective way to introduce a new actor at GMMTV is to slide them in around a bunch of other veterans.

Shan

[laughs] That's what it's about for you, for sure.

[all laugh]

Ben

Cooking Crush is a college-set BL about a team of culinary students who are trying to win a cooking competition, and the complications in their romantic lives around them. This show is actually really simple. Like, our protagonist, played by Gun, is named Prem. He lives with his grandmother and his sister. His grandmother runs a formerly very popular restaurant, and he has a goal of helping his grandmother's restaurant become more successful, and he wants to open a chef's table type of restaurant in the future.

He and his two friends, Samsee and Dynamite, are kind of the oddballs in their culinary school? They're considered the lowest ranked students. They get kind of picked on a bit. Prem is considered kind of clumsy; Dynamite is just really young, because he's kind of a prodigy; and Samsee is just picked on because he's old, because he's pursued three different degrees without completing them.

They're having some difficulties with school and Prem ends up having an interaction with Ten, played by Off, who is a med student who was a little bit overworked at the time and has accidentally starved himself to be pissy with his dad. The two of them have a very cute moment and a little relationship starts to build between them, originally off of Ten wanting Prem to teach him how to cook more, and Prem basically scamming that man because his little sister lost her tuition money.

NiNi

I think that's a good explanation of this setup. Shan, I want to come to you first. What's your headline on Cooking Crush?

Shan

Ohh, Cooking Crush is a warm hug of a show. And I love it. And it's not perfect. But it left me with such a good feeling and I intend to rewatch it, many times.

NiNi

OK. Well, Ben, I think we got your headline: Cooking Crush is about Aungpao.

Ben

That's about him.

[all laugh]

NiNi

Cooking Crush for me… what is my headline on Cooking Crush? That everybody in this is really good at comedy! Except maybe Gun, who's a little less good than everybody else, but everybody that they put in this is a very funny person, including Gun’s real-life sister, who I laughed my ass off at several times.

Shan

It's surprisingly good comedy. This one has been kind of a weird one in terms of the way it's been received by fandom. It didn't really fit the mood of the moment, I think. I think right now Thai BL fandom is very much paying attention to like, these more high-concept shows that are doing really fancy shit. Crazy visuals, supernatural, and mystical stuff. Cooking Crush is just a sweet romcom that wants to be really good at being a sweet romcom [laughs] and that's kind of it. It has kind of modest goals, but I think that people underestimate how hard it actually is to make a romcom that is actually sweet, and actually funny, and actually makes you want to support the couples in it—and this show succeeds at those things.

00:08:02 - CC: Comedy Ain't Easy

Ben

I think that's probably the biggest thing I would want to highlight about this show. Comedy is not easy. [laughs] At all. Comedy and comedic timing is really difficult to do, and Gun’s admitted that it's not his strongest skill as an actor—that he needs a lot of help from the crew and his cast mates to do comedy well.

Shan

Whereas for Off this is where he thrives, and he hasn't gotten to do it before in a BL.

NiNi

I think that they had the right idea in making Gun’s character Prem sort of the straight man of the ensemble, so to speak.

Ben

A great joke unto itself.

NiNi

[laughs] And surrounding it with a bunch of really good comedic actors who could sort of take up the zip and the zing of it all. Like I think that was the right idea. And I did enjoy, like, all that sort of zany, madcap stuff that was supposed to be happening around him from a writing standpoint, and the shape of what I saw it was supposed to be. I absolutely enjoyed that. My little niggle about it was that the direction doesn't zing enough for me, in terms of how I feel like this was meant to go.

It's really surprising for me because this was directed by Golf Sakon, who did my nemesis Fish Upon The Sky, but [laughs] Fish Upon The Sky, for all that we could say about it—and trust me, I have said plenty—it was visually interesting, it was zippy, it was well directed from that standpoint. And I feel like Golf’s direction in this was a little bit flat. It didn't have the zing. That sort of is my main complaint about the show, but the show itself is really, really good. I just wanted it to zip a little bit more.

Shan

Yeah, I agree with that critique, NiNi. I think the directing and the editing—[laughs] cannot forget the editing—is definitely the biggest ding on this show. There was some weird stuff going on in the production. The most notable of course being right in the middle of the show when we suddenly had an episode that was mostly reshoots, which was extremely obvious because Off got a haircut after they finished wrapping this show, a very obvious haircut, and then they had to come back and do reshoots. There was some really hinky editing throughout the show, like some dropped beats, some confusing scenes, some flashback sequences that didn't make sense as flashbacks… They were trying to do some stuff in the editing booth that I just think didn't work, and sometimes really undermined the good work that the writing and the acting was doing.

In terms of overall production, this show was not quite at the level it should have been. In the end, that didn't get in the way of what was a really strong story and really good performances from the cast, and so it still came together well enough, but it's a definite ding.

Ben

I want to talk about the writing portion. Shan, you're usually really good at detailing conflict writing. How about you go through the various major beats of this show and how this show executed them?

Shan

Obviously, we had the main romance, which was between Ten and Prem, and that was a pretty straightforward, simple romance, that actually worked amazingly, because what this show did extremely consistently was it set up all of these really annoying like classic drama tropes for the romance, and then every single time it just knocked them down by having the characters communicate with each other. An obstacle came up for the couple that would normally cause a one- or two-episode conflict. Instead, Ten would insist on talking to Prem about it, coming to some kind of alignment and understanding each other, and they would sail through it. That was kind of the consistent throughline with their relationship, and it was really strong and really lovely to see.

We also had a side couple romance that was between Fire and Dynamite. That one was a little bit more contentious. It was tied to a couple different things that were going on with Fire, with internalized homophobia, with some struggles that he was having in being his authentic self in his family with his mother. Dynamite was someone who kind of pushed him, and kind of made him aware of the things within himself that he was stifling. And so they had a very adversarial dynamic when the show started: Fire was very committed to kind of trying to be the son that his mom wanted him to be, including dating a woman, and so really fighting against what he was feeling for Dynamite. Dynamite is a great character, who I'm gonna let you talk about more, Ben, but I think their dynamic really pushed both of them along a good character growth arc through their relationship.

Alongside that, we had a couple big threads about the friendship between particularly Prem and Samsee and Dynamite. They were working together on this cooking school dream, they were trying to get through their classes, they entered this cooking competition and there was a lot of story about them as like a group of people who are kind of considered losers within their cohort, trying to get to a place where they were a good and efficient cooking team who could actually play at the level of some of these other folks that they were competing against.

We also had another big thread for Ten’s family situation. His mother had passed away some time ago. He had a lot of anger and resentment with his father about the circumstances around that, and a lot of trauma around his mother's death, and he was kind of working through that as he was falling in love with Prem.

So we had all of these different things flowing into the same story, and one of the things that was so impressive about this show is that they actually did all flow together. The writing was very consistent. The characters were figured out from the beginning of the story. It's one of those things where, once you have all the context of who these people are, you can look back at all their previous behavior and it totally makes sense, and everything tracks. And all of these plot threads came together in the final three episodes through an actually pretty well executed conflict arc, which is something that doesn't happen very often in Thai BL—usually that's where Thai BLs completely fall apart. But here all of the conflicts were well laid throughout the show and built to kind of come to a head at the same point, and then we had them converge in the final arc.

Not everything about the way they played out was extremely perfect or satisfying, but most of it was, and the characterization stayed true the whole way through. So it was some pretty strong writing for a show like this.

NiNi

I have to concur that the writing was really strong on this show. It's logically laid out. It makes sense, the characters behave like recognizable human beings, which I can't always say [laughs] is the reality of a lot of these dramas that we're watching. For example, Dynamite, who is a complicated character—with the mix of the writing and the acting, I could see underneath where his pushing of Fire was coming from, and why it was something that he felt like he needed to do?

We find out through a flashback later, which—was a weird way to get this information—Fire was the one who made Dynamite who he is. He made Dynamite feel like he had to stand up for himself and be out there, and all he's doing is trying to do the same for Fire. It just plays out in this way that I think made some people uncomfortable, but I could see it once the context information was there. This is where [their] editing got hinky, because clearly the character was written this way. The hinky editing needed so that it took almost 2/3 of the show for the motivation to meet up with the character. That's not a writing problem, that's an editing problem.

I found the writing on the show was incredibly strong, everything logically follows on from everything else. There was a lot of surprisingly deep writing around Ten’s whole issue with his dad about his mom, and his feelings about his mom. Around Samsee's feelings of potentially getting left behind because he's older, and they're getting into these relationships and he's starting to feel like, ‘what is there for me? It took me so long to find my people, and I feel like they're leaving me.’ And that was a particularly strong thread that I really enjoyed. I enjoyed Metha, who is Fire and Ten’s friend—hilarious, played by Tum, super good actor. I love him, very, very funny. I really enjoyed the writing on this thing, and I can't always say that for, particularly Thai BL… it was delightful.

00:16:59 - CC: Dynamite’s Queer Writing and Ten as a Rare Romantic Lead

Shan

All the characters in this show are great, but there's a couple that really, really stood out, and I think we should talk about them. And Ben, you should definitely lead us with some Dynamite talk. Tell us why that character matters so much to you.

Ben

Dynamite has the great honor of getting The Conversation’s first blorbo of the season award.

Shan

[laughs] So early in the season, too.

Ben

I know. He is the winter ‘24 blorbo for me! I love this boy. Here's the thing. With Dynamite: he is canonically young, he's like 17-18 in like his third year in school. And his only friends are played by Gun Atthaphan and Dome Jaruwat, who… create this very visibly queer friend group dynamic? This communicates a ton to me almost instantly, very early in the show, particularly with Dynamite living in some sort of like tenement housing, and then having really no one else to rely upon when someone died in the apartment above his, and contaminated the apartment he lived in, so he ends up moving in with Samsee.

It’s a very obvious story to me as a queer person, that he had to finish school early because he could not stay home. And he has no one else to rely upon except his closest friends when he's in trouble. Samsee is communicated as a person who is like ‘I don't want nobody in my house,’ but immediately opened up his house to Dynamite when Dynamite was in trouble, because where else was that kid gonna go?

And so, with Dynamite, we eventually learn that he was kind of getting picked on when he first got into the school with the rest of them, because… obviously he's a kid, and boys suck. And Fire saves him from this bullying instance, which almost read as a bashing? And this clearly rearranged his view about who he is in his life, where he recognized that he was gonna get clocked regardless. And so he was just going to be who he is. Fire gave off this whole fuck-you aura that he was clearly drawn to, and so he didn't go at Fire timid, because that's not what he saw in Fire.

Dynamite spends the early part of the season determinedly pursuing Fire, who feigns annoyance about this, but is eventually revealed to… not want Dynamite to stop pursuing him. When he gets drunk and calls Dynamite out to come hang out with him, he tells him very directly: ‘even if I say no, don't stop.’ Which, very familiar to me dealing with my own closet issues and a bunch of other closeted folks growing up.

Fire and Dynamite work really well for me, because familial acceptance is something that they're both struggling with. When Dynamite reveals his story to Fire, he tells Fire that he's okay with Fire not being ready to come out. Even if it's something he would prefer they do, he has lived through the worst things you can experience when you come out, which is losing your family support network. I really like that Dynamite’s understanding and belief in him is clearly what allows Fire to rebuild his sense of himself when he finally tells his mom that he cannot live up to this ideal that she has of him. That's built out from him recognizing who he is, because Dynamite has helped him figure that out.

Dynamite hits a really specific queer note for me, because they create a character who I think is genuinely funny to watch, but you can feel a lot of his queer angst running underneath him the whole time, and they don't overextend it and make it be [laughs] way too melodramatic. Like his character’s just not gonna behave that way. I really like the way Dynamite has accepted the reality of his world, and has decided to build his own space in it, and it started with his friends.

Most of these shows often get queer characters wrong in that they don't have like a reliable queer support network around them before they go rushing into some fuckin’ romance with some guy that's supposed to be the romance of their lives. Very glad that in this particular case, Dynamite has rock solid besties as he's pursuing Fire.

NiNI

In terms of other characters that I really responded to—and Shan's gonna like pick up the torch and run with it here—I loved Off as Ten.

Shan

Yeah!

NiNI

I am a recent Off convert. I really started getting into Off around Not Me, because the roles that I was seeing him play, from Not Me and continuing, I could see the growth that he's had over the years, and I really liked the energy that he was starting to bring to his roles, the maturity and the gravitas that he was starting to bring, whether it was something serious, like playing Sean in Not Me, or Mote in Midnight Motel, which I really enjoyed—or even, especially actually, playing Ten in a comedy like this. I mean, I just bought it 100%. They put Off on screen in those glasses, and the first thing we saw him do was argue with his dad, and I was like, yes absolutely, I am here, let's do this.

I love the character of Ten. He's such a combination of tightly wound ball of stress and also incredibly fun and relaxed human being. I don't know how those two things work in one character, but they do, and Off plays both sides of him, I think brilliantly. I really enjoy getting into why he wanted to be a doctor, and the little mini arc that we had towards the middle of the series where he gets to recommit to being a doctor because he had sort of slid off course slightly. And he gets to recommit to, ‘no this is really what I want to do, I want to save people.’ Really loved that. The angst that he had around his mom dying, the angst that he had around his dad moving his girlfriend in, apparently it seems not too long after that… there's just a lot happening with Ten, but through it all he's just so delightful as a character. He saw Prem, he decided: ‘Yep, that's the one for me.’ He pursued him openly, he was just very forthright and honest at every step of the way, communicating all the way through… just love it. Love the character, loved Off in the role. I know. Shan's gonna, like, take that and run with it. [laughs]

Shan

I just want y'all to know—

NiNI

Shan is a babii, Shan loves Off.

Shan

I am living. I am getting my whole life right now. I just want you all to know, all of you listeners, that I was pretty much the lone babii around here until very recently. [laughs] I have always been an Off girlie, I have loved him since way back in the Puppy Honey days, I've always found him so charming.

He started out as a pretty untested untrained actor and we've seen him grow across his roles, and so a lot of people have only kind of recently, in his last couple of shows, like fully come on board. But I have always been an Off girlie. I know that this show has turned Ben into a full blown babii, finally, [laughs] and that NiNi has come around on Off, and it's been very amazing to see.

For my money, Ten is Off’s best character. They found the perfect character at the perfect time for him to play to all of his strengths. What's great about Ten — everything that NiNi just said is true, he's a very well written, very well-rounded character, and I love him specifically as a romantic lead. He has some really important qualities that you typically don't see in romantic leads, and that's why so many romcoms and romances are frustrating. Ten is a very honest person. He's a straightforward person. He is loyal. He kind of insists on building trust and on talking things through.

One of my favorite things that happened in the final stretch of episodes was, Ten found in Prem’s room this sticky note that Pang had written, that said something like ‘the money from scamming Doc’ or something like that, basically making a joke about Prem scamming Doc for money. Ten found this sticky note and… he got his feelings hurt about it. He was like, ‘wow like, this kind of seems like you all were mocking me, this hurts my feelings.’ And in a typical drama you would see that turn into a big conflict. You would see the person who found the sticky note not saying anything about it, maybe be passive-aggressive, probably leave and go sit in their hurt feelings by themselves and then later it would blow up into a big fight. That's not what happened here, because Ten wouldn't let it happen. He takes the sticky note directly to Prem and he says ‘I found this, it kind of hurt my feelings, can you explain what this is about?’ And then he actually listens to Prem. And Prem apologizes because it was kind of mean-spirited, and he admits that. And then Ten says ‘OK, thank you for telling me. I forgive you, I'm gonna let it go.’

And I just love that! You don't see that kind of mature communication very often in romance at all, let alone in BL that's typically centered on younger characters. That was what Ten was like through that entire arc. He was just so honest. He wouldn't let silly misunderstandings get in the way. He always made sure to be very clear with Prem about what he wanted and what he was feeling. And he was respectful when Prem wanted space, but he always made sure that Prem knew that he was waiting there for when he was ready for more. Such a good model for a romantic lead, and because of those qualities in him, he and Prem ended up becoming a great couple that just—were a team. They faced things together. Our friend Twig called them a battle couple. They faced challenges together and didn't let things come between them.

We haven't really mentioned Chef Chang Ma, who sucks and we hate him.

Ben

Sorry, Victor, your character sucks.

Shan

Your character sucks! He's a mentor to Prem, but he's also trying to hit on him the whole time. He's super inappropriate, he's always crossing boundaries, he's kind of a piece of shit, if I'm being real honest. But that guy was not able to get between Ten and Prem at any point, because every single time he tried, they communicated with each other, and figured out how to get back on the same page, and worked around him or shut him down.

This couple's gonna stick with me in that they were able to work through so much together, and that they really sincerely made each other happy and made each other more confident and better at the things that they wanted to be better at. It was just lovely. I really loved this romance.

Ben

I'm going to continue behind Shan and continue praising Off Jumpol on this one, because I have not been kind to that man for the last decade. [laughs] He has not always been necessarily my favorite ambassador for BL. He's come a long way. This is definitely his best BL role.

I'm making a Venn diagram after we're done with this recording, and it's just going to be Patts from La Pluie and Ten from Cooking Crush, because these characters have a lot of great crossover traits I really like. They're really kind with their partner and their friends, but… they have a temper, and it comes out with people they don't like. Off is funny, but also he's really good at playing… kind of pissy characters, and I'm really glad that they were like, ‘we gotta have Off be pissy with somebody. Let's make the correct choice for once, and not make it Gun that he's gonna be pissy with.’

Shan

[laughs] The crucial change!

Ben

Let's make him be pissy with his dad!

Shan

Mhm.

Ben

An excellent choice. And why is he pissy with his dad? Because his dad's a doctor. He didn't save his mom. That's a fairly valid reason to be pissy with someone about. And I think it works in terms of the family dynamics they go into. The dad's not going to tell his son that he's hurting because he feels like he failed to save his wife, the only woman he says he'll ever marry. He clearly cares about his son, because despite the way his son’s always talking out his fucking ass at him, he's not really punished him in any way. Despite the fact that Ten is clearly upset about the mom, and the dad in relation to that.

Shan

Yeah! Ten’s scenes with his dad were intense, and he was not being respectful and backing down in those scenes, ever. In this finale, he, like, took a power pose across the table from his dad, sat down at the other end of the table, planted himself firmly, and was like, ‘this is my boyfriend, and you are gonna fucking deal with it.’ I love that shit!

Ben

This is what I mean with the implied writing, because the way the stepmom is playing, she is way too familiar. It's very clear she's meant to be read as younger…

Shan

Mm-hmm.

Ben

And is trying to figure out what line she's supposed to take between being the partner of an older man, but also being closer in age to the kids. And like they mirror the positioning, she's sitting next to the dad, at the same position that Prem is sitting next to Ten. And there's this whole, ‘you brought this woman here. I wasn't consulted. This is my boyfriend. You're not getting consulted.’ And so I think the conflict between Ten and his dad is really great. Off needs to have, like, hostile conflict with other characters, because that's what we want to get out of him as an actor [laughs], directed in useful ways at his dad and at Chang Ma, and not at Gun's character, which is usually the problem I have with them in their shows.

00:32:08 - CC: Final Comments and Ratings

Ben

I was really glad to get a solid romcom out of OffGun. They also gave us some really ridiculous hilarity moments, like, they got that shot with their hands in the oven glove, twice? [Shan laughs] Unhinged. Holy shit.!

Shan

The interior oven glove shot? Amaaaazing.

NiNi

Off getting hit in the face with Chinese kale? Not something I ever knew that I needed, but oh my god, I needed it.

Shan

Ten—he’s a big-ass goofball, which we saw with his fantasy sequences! Every time they were having cooking lessons, he was having fantasies in his head about Prem and various food items. [laughs] And they were the wackiest shit. Listen, I wish GMMTV would stop playing these games, but there was a YouTube version that had a lot of scenes cut from it and a WeTV version that had the full scenes. A lot of these food fantasies got cut from the YouTube version, but these sequences just really let you into Ten’s head, how wild and weird he was getting in there, and I just loved seeing that aspect of his character.

NiNi

It was a lot of fun. I have some dings, I have some critiques. The final episode went a little bit flat. They did round out and complete every single arc, except maybe one. But it did feel a little pat at the end? And out of left field, Pang and Samsee getting together in the end of the final episode.

[all laugh]

Shan

That was quite a choice—I was shipping Metha and Samsee for the whole show.

Ben

I was—

Shan

I was kind of disappointed.

Ben

I was disappointed.

Shan

I didn’t expect to actually get Metha and Samsee, but I kind of hoped that they would have left the door open for it. Firmly closing that door with having him get together with Pang at the last episode? I didn't hate it, but I didn't love it either.

NiNi

It was a choice. But. It did kiiind of work, and the only reason that it kind of worked is because of my first nominee of the year for the Mark Pakin 6th Man award, and that is Dome Jaruwat.

Shan

Mmm! Dome was great.

NiNi

Dome is a great supporting actor.

Ben

You wanna know how good Dome is? I've been half joking about rewatching Until We Meet Again since we started doing this show. I haven't actually started until recently, because watching Dome every week reminded me that he sang on the Until We Meet Again soundtrack. And I had to go back and start watching the show.

NiNi

Yeah, cause Dome is primarily a musician, you do forget, but he is actually a very good supporting actor. When he shows up, I am always delighted anew by how good he is.

Shan

I've seen other shows that had him in it, but this is the first one where I really sat up and paid attention to him. He was fantastic as Samsee. And he got some real shit to do. One of the big conflicts in the final run of the show was about the way that these new romances were affecting the friendships. Dynamite and Prem were paying attention to their boyfriends, they were blowing Samsee off, they were missing cooking practice, and he was feeling some kind of way about it. He was kind of feeling a little bit abandoned. And it was just awesome that the show actually took that seriously, not just in letting Samsee express his feelings and get mad and have the other characters take that seriously and care? But they actually very deliberately, in the narrative, prioritized the friendship reunion and makeup scene over Ten and Prem getting together and making their relationship official. They had Ten approach with the intention of asking Prem to be his boyfriend, and stop and see that they were repairing their friendship in that moment, and back off and walk away.

Ben

It felt really important for BL, because BL friends are so ridiculous. BL friends are basically shippers half the time. Like, if they see, like, one of the boys is possibly getting with another boy that becomes the only thing that that character cares about.

Shan

Everyone's a fujoshi.

Ben

I like that that wasn't the case here! I like that Samsee had genuine beef with his friends deprioritizing him, when they were in the midst of something really important to them as a group that they've been working towards for a long time. Like, are you all fucking up our big project for dick? Come on!

Shan

This show really let its side characters shine. It was a really good showcase for a couple of actors: I think Dome and Aungpao, in particular…. Tum also got great stuff, Neo got to do great stuff… We haven't even mentioned Prem's grandma, who was also awesome.

Ben

She was great.

NiNi

Amazing. She was so good.

Shan

Fantastic, no nonsense, cut the bullshit, but at the same time, very loving and supportive. She was awesome. I loved her.

Ben

There's a little bit of a dropped bit that happens in episode 11, that I kind of wish the show hadn't cut out as much. Fire and Dynamite go back to Fire’s place and the mom comes out of Fire’s room in this very weird jumpscare, and Fire has the closet panic and ends up kicking Dynamite away from him. And he kicks Dynamite hard enough that he goes flying across the room and gets hurt a bit. And I kind of wish they had followed up on that scene. Because… I feel like Fire, recognizing that he actually hurt Dynamite is probably one of those things that tilts him on to the other end of ‘I'm going to come out now.’ And I kind of wish the show had followed up on that properly and let us see Fire make the decision.

Shan

Yeah, I do wish that the pacing of the Fire and Dynamite plot had been a little different in the final episodes? I think that it ended up feeling a little bit rushed at the end, and I think that was just about the timing of the beats. If a couple things had shifted back a little bit, I think it would have worked. As it was, it kind of all got shoved into the finale, and so it felt a little too quick, a little too easy. I like where it landed… like NiNi said earlier, the way that all of these story arcs ended felt correct and felt right. They rounded everything out. It's just that some of the beats in the final stretch got kind of weirdly compressed.

Ben

It was a little bit frustrating for me because Dynamite and Ten are both very forward and overt pursuers of their romantic interests, and I kind of wish that the two couples’ romantic pacing had been better aligned across the show.

NiNi

And again, that goes to the editing. It's a good show, it's incredibly well written and incredibly well acted, but I think that the direction and the editing let it down a little bit, and that's why for me, it got an 8.5.

Shan

I gave it a 9. The show was such a positive experience. I was so excited every Sunday morning to watch it, it was such a great way to start my rest day, to like, have a good vibe to take me through my Sunday. The writing was so strong, and that's the thing that I tend to care most about in shows. If the writing is strong, if the characters feel right to me? That is what I prize most in a show. The editing, the directing, definitely had some flaws. There are some things that I would change, but the most important parts of the show held up really well for me and I definitely will be returning to it often.

Ben

I think I'm going with a 9 because they got the gay portions of the show right, and I really liked the character drama of this. All the big moments for the characters in this show land correctly for me. This show held together the whole way through. And that's kind of what's good about the writing. Like when you're noticing editing issues in a show, it's because you're following the writing, and you see the editing stumbling to try and not let it down. I think the character writing is really strong and holds together for the whole show. I think the conflict writing that comes out of who these characters are is really good, and I just really like the way these characters work together. When I see these folks together in the ‘It's been years later! Let's go to Prem’s restaurant!’ it doesn't feel like a ridiculous impossibility.

Shan

I loved that flash forward. I love a time skip when it's used to tell us that everything is still good in the future, after all the conflicts have been solved in the present. I hate a time skip when it skips over conflict, but once all the conflicts are solved, yes! Take me to the happy epilogue. I love that shit.

NiNi

So that's a 9 for Cooking Crush from The Conversation.

Ben

It's a good show, it's an easy recommend.

Shan

Thank you for coming back, Off and Gun, and thank you for sticking around for The Trainee in 2024. We look forward to seeing you again.

00:41:14 - Cherry Magic: Beating Expectations and Simping for Tay Tawan

NiNi

OK, so moving on, and it's time for us to talk about Cherry Magic Thailand! Now, I am not so big an original Cherry Magic girlie as a lot of other people. I enjoyed it, I had a great time with it, but I'm not a stan of the original Cherry Magic live action from Japan, in the way that some other people are.

Ben

I was!

NiNi

[laughs] Let's see. So, go ahead and lead us in. What is Cherry Magic Thailand about? And maybe you could talk a little bit about the original Cherry Magic as well.

Ben

Cherry Magic is about a young man, in this case named Achi, who is a low-ranking member at some sort of large corporation, who at the age of 30, because he's a virgin, gains telepathic powers. When he touches someone and makes any sort of physical contact with them, he can sort of hear their current internal monologue and what might be going on with him. He learns fairly soon after getting his powers that the hotshot salesperson in his company has been nursing a long-time crush on him, and complications ensue. There's also a very great supporting cast, which also in one portion features the same power.

NiNi

So this is an adaptation of an adaptation, or an adaptation of an original that was also adapted in another way… like [laughs] it's a little confusing. So this is originally a manga. The manga was adapted to Japanese live action. The manga has now also been adapted to a Thai live action, and then there's a third adaptation currently ongoing, which is a Japanese anime version. So there are three adaptations of this manga. We're going to talk about the Thai version in the most detail here, but I think we're going to come maybe to a couple of things to be said about the Japanese live action and the anime version.

Shan, what were your overall initial thoughts when you heard Thailand's gonna adapt Cherry Magic and it's going to be done by GMMTV?

Shan

I was so skeptical. I am a TayNew girlie, I love them. I loved Dark Blue Kiss back in the day, so I was really excited to see Tay and New doing BL together again — I was not at all excited to see them doing Cherry Magic [laughs] when I first heard about it. I did have an affinity for the original Japanese live action. I don't think it's a perfect show, I have my own notes on it, but I did enjoy it a lot, I thought it was really well done. And I was just unsure of why GMMTV and Thailand needed to do their own version.

That said, I was also hoping that if Thailand was going to do this, that the main purpose would be to address the biggest shortcoming of the Japanese live action, which is that in this narrative about a virgin who acquires magical powers, and then falls in love and then loses those magical powers via having sex with the person he's in love with, there was no sex! There wasn't even a kiss on screen! That was a huge flaw of that version that I hoped to see Thailand correct. And honestly, what I thought was going to be the main thing they could bring to the table in tackling this adaptation, was kind of finishing that narrative in a more sex-positive way that Thailand is kind of known for that Japan doesn't always do, particularly when they're doing their lighter BLs.

NiNi

Ben, what about you? When you heard about this adaptation, what were your thoughts?

Ben

Opposition. I was deeply opposed to this. [everyone laughs] I was not keen on a Thai attempt at this. I was kind of curious about what Thai humor would look like for this, and I was interested in the adaptation because I don't know what corporate culture in Thailand was like. So I thought that there was a real opportunity there. I was interested in a TayNew comeback, particularly because Tay hadn't really lost a step—even when he was doing other work—and I thought Newwie had gotten a lot better. And so I was excited about the two of them getting back together, and I thought that they were the best choice at GMMTV if GMMTV was going to do this. But I was not looking forward to it.

How about you, NiNi? Did you have any initial feelings or concerns about it?

NiNi

I had no intention of watching this. [laughs] I was gonna give it a pass. I love Tay Tawan—I'm just gonna spend a few seconds here being a simp. That man is gorgeous.

Shan

He's so beautiful.

NiNi

He is so beautiful. And he is such a good actor. The first thing I ever saw Tay Tawan in was 3 Will Be Free, and I literally remember thinking, who is that? I think I might have said it out loud. Since then I have been a devotee. He can do no wrong as far as I'm concerned. Tay Tawan is everything to me.

I have not been a big fan of Newwie. When I watched the parts of the Kiss series that I watched, loved Tay, was into Tay, Newwie I wasn't really feeling. I came around on Newwie a little bit last year after watching him in The Warp Effect—I thought he did really well there. And so I was not as down on him as before, but I still didn't feel like Cherry Magic was a story that I was interested in seeing Thailand adapt necessarily?

A, it felt like an incredibly Japanese type of story and B, the director, X Nuttapong, is not one of my favourites. I do not tend to like his work. X did Vice Versa, Theory of Love, neither of those are my favorites. So I was saying, ‘OK, I'm only now kind of starting to feel like Newwie could maybe do something. I don't really like X’s work. I think I'm going to give this a pass.’ And I did give it a pass initially [laughs]. And then all of you started watching it and getting incredibly excited about it. Somewhere near maybe episode 10, I was like, ‘ahh! Fine!’ and started watching it. And I'm glad that I did!

Ben

So Shan, since you are the TayNew girlie—I don't remember their fans are called—of The Conversation—

NiNi

Polcas, they're polcas! How do I know that? I don't know.

Shan

Yeah, I don't know what polca means, but that's what they're called. I do not identify as a polca, ‘cause I hate the name. But I do love TayNew.

Ben

Why don't you break down why this was such an excellent viewing experience for us?

Shan

I mean, you heard all that skepticism that we were all bringing to the table, right? And this show, just, like, blew us all out of the water. It was such a good adaptation, it was so impressive. There's a lot of reasons for that, and we'll get into all the things that this production did well, but right at the core of it, the most important thing, is that Tay and New just killed it in these roles. They were just absolutely perfect as Karan and Achi.

If you're familiar with the story of Cherry Magic, you know that Karan, or Kurosawa in the Japanese version, is meant to be this kind of otherworldly perfect man, like he's excellent at his job. He's kind to everybody. He's beautiful. His very presence is just intimidating, because he seems too perfect to be real. And of course, he's not actually perfect, he's a human being. But that's kind of the image that he has. And so Tay Tawan [laughs] honestly, is a perfect casting choice for that role.

NiNi

No notes, no notes whatsoever.

Shan

Right? That man is beautiful. Every single time he is on screen in this show, I just got to get a hold of myself, and it's difficult every single time. Seeing that man and his beauty properly appreciated by the camera, wardrobe working, hair working, everything working for him… it was just such a good role for him. Not only on the looks either, but on his performance!

He really nailed the inherent kindness of Karan, but also the inherent loser goofiness of him, which is the part of him that you don't see on the surface, and that's the secret. He seems like this cool, suave guy, but he's actually a total simp. He's super in love with Achi, and real fuckin nerdy about it. I think Tay Tawan was really able to… balance those aspects of him so well, so that they came together believably as one person.

And then New as Achi, I think brought a really interesting dimension, because in some versions I think that character can feel a little bit self-contained, to the exclusion of being able to empathize with others. And Achi didn't feel like that. He felt like someone who had self esteem issues, he felt like someone who was intimidated by others and wasn't always sure what he could bring to the table, but who was interested in other people, and kind, and really wanted to learn how to communicate better with others.

I thought they both did such a great job, both as their individual characters, and then together. We already knew they had awesome chemistry, but they really brought their A game to this show in terms of developing a believable chemistry between these two characters. We got to really see, over the course of the show, Achi's awareness of his attraction to Karan build, and his feelings genuinely grow, from kind of liking him in kind of a generic way, to actually getting to know him as a real person, taking him off that idol pedestal he'd had him on in his mind, and falling in love with him genuinely, and learning how to return his affection and develop a mutual relationship together.

This Thai version really hit all of those really important landmarks in a romantic relationship, including the physical intimacy, with perfect pacing, such genuine emotion… they just really, really sold it. They did such a good job with this show, and I'm just so happy to eat my words and to have all my skepticism proven wrong. They did awesome.

Ben

I think you're right about Tay Tawan being a good choice, ‘cause Kurosawa slash Karan is… eminently charming in a really accessible way. The big part that works for him as a character is the fact that he's such a fuckin dork! And Tay Tawan is a dork. [laughs] That is a… important piece of his public persona, that he's really charming in a way that's not always intentional on his part? It's funny when it is intentional, and it's hilarious when he trips over himself because he's like, wait, did I just do that? It's great. It works really well here. Tay Tawan.

Shan

What a man.

Ben

I say like, these boys are beautiful, like every week, but he really is gorgeous. He's just absolutely stunning to look at all the time and he is just so delightful as Karan. This is probably my favorite role for Tay. I don't think, like, it's Tay’s best work, but I think it's my favorite role for him.

NiNi

I understand exactly what you mean, because I think that his best role is Shin from 3 Will Be Free, but in terms of like a great just nailed-on role for him? It's exactly like you said: he's gorgeous and the camera loves him. And so every time the camera turns on him and shows you Achi looking at Karan, and the camera is Achi in that moment—he takes your breath away!

When Karan goes to see Achi during Songkran and he has to basically wash himself, there's a slow-motion thing when he starts throwing the water on his face, and I just kind of literally was watching that with my chin in my palm, and just like, wowwww, full zone-out moment. The camera loves that man. And it spent so much time on letting us see how gorgeous Karan is, but especially how gorgeous he is to Achi. I thought there was some really clever camera work and it was a good use of Tay’s good looks.

00:54:13 - CM: Relationship Development and the Powers

Ben

Speaking of Tay Tawan being a dork and being perfectly selected for this: at the end of episode 3, when they are returning from the company trip, and [laughs] Achi falls asleep and ends up leaning on Karan and wakes up because Karan starts screaming in his head—

NiNi

[laughs] Screaming internally, that's so funny.

Shan

That was so perfect. There has never been a more perfect moment on television. I don't care.

NiNi

It was amazing. It was incredible. It was delightful. It was fantastic. I can't even describe it well. Like you just have to see it.

Shan

It's the way that he keeps his face so controlled…

Ben

But like you can see like his mouth opens slightly, his eyes widen a little bit.

Shan

His eyes are screaming, while his face—

Ben

Ahhh!

Shan

And then you see the “AAAAHHH” Like on the subtitle, which is perrrrfect perfect perfect. They did so well. They had so much fun with the mind reading jokes, and there were so many of them.

Ben

There were, they got a lot of traction out of it, it was great. Like, even after that moment ends and he wakes up Achi, Achi leans against him again, and he's like, ‘I wish I could fight all of Achi’s nightmares.’

[laughs]

Shan

Every time we heard his simp thought it was so perfect, it was always something so cheesy, or he's having a fantasy about like wiping Achi's nose or something, or like dreaming of their future together. Or he's singing a love song off-key in his own head. It's just so good! [laughs]

NiNi

I actually really like the way that the Thai show used the mind reading power. I like the jokes that they made out of it better than the Japanese version.

Ben

I think that's one of the things that they had extra time for, and I think they calibrated the humor for the Thai approach really well.

NiNi

Just simple things like, after Achi tells Karan about the mind reading power and Karan decides to use it to A) get Achi to move in with him, and B) once Achi has moved in with him to quote-unquote “test” the mind reading power at every potential opportunity by saying, ‘can you hear me now? Can you hear me now?’ And just like touching him randomly… [laughs] He touched his ankle and I was just like, oh my god, ok, this is ridiculous.

Shan

My favorite—he stuck out his elbow. He stuck out his elbow like a huge dork, leaning on his shoulder. And he was like, ‘can you hear me? Can you hear me?’ It's like, it was just so charming!

Ben

My favorite thing about Karan is he was never embarrassed about how deeply attracted to Achi he was. There was a toothpaste moment, where he started having a fantasy and Achi was like ‘oh my god, bro, please step back,’ and he's like, ‘wait, you see those things, too? So you saw… oh! ok.’ And then he walked away giggling to himself.

Shan

He just thinks it's funny. Actually that is an under-discussed, really cool thing that this adaptation did. Once Achi confesses to Karan that he's been able to hear him the whole time, Karan doesn't get upset. He actually thinks it's awesome. Because to him it's so meaningful to know that this whole time, Achi has known how he feels, and Achi has decided to be around him, he's OK with it. Karan, he’s someone who seems very confident on the surface, but he's very insecure about his feelings for Achi, because he doesn't think that they're returned, and he's always very worried about whether or not he's being a burden to Achi with his feelings, whether or not he's pushing something on him that he doesn't want, he's very conscious of that and respectful of boundaries.

Ben

It's an excellent gay choice.

Shan

Right? And so for him to learn that Achi has known the whole time how he feels and has been comfortable being around him anyway actually really made him happy. He was delighted to know that he didn't have to hide himself in that way.

Ben

Achi called that out, too. He's like, ‘why is the real beneficiary of my powers Karan and not me?’ That's actually a source material joke that they brought over really well. Kurosawa learns about the powers and starts actively flirting with Achi at work. And he's like, ‘why is he better at using my powers than me?’

NiNi

As much as we love the use of the powers, I actually want to talk about the moments that he chooses not to use his powers and instead to, for example, use his words. Because part of this story is about Achi coming more into himself and learning to be bolder and to be more open with himself and his feelings. And I really enjoyed that story happening alongside the powers. One of the things I found in the Japanese version was that Adachi really, I felt, leaned on his powers perhaps a little too much, in his relationship with Kurosawa? Achi, in this version uses his powers more sparingly, and also more accidentally? Whereas in the Japanese version he uses them more deliberately.

Shan

I thought they were so intentional about it. Achi confesses earlier about having the powers in the story. He expresses clearly to Karan his fears, about how their relationship will stay intact when he doesn't have that crutch to lean on. They talk about it directly. They do their really silly practice long-distance thing because Achi's feeling so nervous about whether they'll be able to maintain their communication while they're apart and he can't touch Karan to hear what he's thinking.

Like you said NiNi, in some really crucial moments in the later stages of their relationship development, he's not using his powers, and he doesn't even think to, because he has grown to be so comfortable with communicating with Karan, using his words and listening to Karan and trusting what he's saying. We saw that evolve over time, so that in the end, when they finally decided to have sex, it really wasn't about the powers at all. That had already been resolved and they were already on really solid footing, Achi wasn't even using them anymore in that way. I like that they did it that way, that they separated those things a little bit. They had sex when they were ready to have sex and it wasn't related to wanting to get rid of the powers; the powers were not a barrier for them.

NiNi

I really liked how they went about the whole progression of their physical intimacy.

Shan

I think it felt…really right. I felt like I could trust this show to address it in a way that not only tied off the plot of the story and the narrative, which was rooted in sex or lack thereof, but also to make sure that it felt emotionally authentic to where the characters were, that any moment of intimacy between them was building their relationship development arc. And they pulled that off so beautifully.

Ben

They have their first kiss in a way I think is really satisfying, because Achi initiates it. Which I think is an excellent choice for Achi compared to Adachi.

Shan

And it felt very earned because their relationship was already so deep at that point, and you felt like Achi was ready for it. And of course, the build to them deciding to have sex for the first time. I like the way that that played around their temporary separation. Achi went away, and they hadn't gotten there yet in their relationship—not because of any big reason, it's just the natural progression, hasn't happened yet. And I like that when Karan went to visit him, things just felt right, and they progressed. I like that the story never felt like it was artificially holding that up to get to a certain beat. It really felt cathartic to finally see these characters get there in a way that felt so, so correct.

Ben

I thought every moment of intimacy between these characters was really well calibrated for the moment, and that the two actors involved understood what they were trying to accomplish in the scene. It was really nice to see two actors with experience, who trust each other, really deliver good emotional and intimate scene work, and that is supported by even all of the non-kissing they do between their characters. Just overall, I really, truly enjoyed watching Tay and New work together with these characters.

01:02:15 - CM: Other Characters

NiNi

Let's talk a little bit about the characters outside of Karan and Achi. I really enjoyed the way that these particular versions of the side characters were done. I particularly enjoyed Pai and Dujdao from the office. Dujdao is me, I am Dujdao. She is my fave. She is the one, I love her. Pai in this version is Fujisaki in the Japanese version, and then you've got Rock who is Rokkaku, you've got Min who is Minato, and you've got Jinta who is Tsuge.

I really liked the way that this adaptation played with those characters, and I like how they intersected with the Karan and Achi story. I always like to see the wider world of these characters and the friends and family that they have, and how their relationship fits into their relationships with their friends and their family. Watching, particularly the little office family that formed with Dujdao and Pai and Rock, and then the friendship between Achi and Jinta, which I felt a lot more strongly about in this version than I did about the friendship between Tsuge and Adachi—it's a different kind of relationship. And I personally enjoyed Achi and Jinta’s relationship a little more than I did Tsuge and Adachi’s.

Shan

I really, really loved Min and Jinta in this story. I thought those actors did a great job with these characters, I felt like they fit in really well into the narrative. Jinta and Min in their own romance, as well as Jinta's friendship with Achi—both of those threads that they were carrying complemented the main story so well: supported the themes, helped move the plot along, they were just really well integrated into this story.

Jinta is a great character: he’s awkward and kind of introverted and weird, because he spends a lot of time alone, but he's also a kind person, and he has a generous spirit, and I think that all of that came through really well. I loved that he and Achi kind of came into their powers in parallel and then worked together to figure out how to use them and what they meant. They got a lot of good additional mind reading jokes and humor out of Jinta, both in his scenes with Achi, where they would slyly touch each other and then have mind conversations, which eventually Karan caught on to, and that was also hilarious [laughs].

With Min and Jinta, I liked how much in this version that was about Min figuring out what he wanted to do with his life, whether or not he should continue to pursue his passion of dancing, and through his relationship with Jinta, getting encouragement, finding new confidence, and figuring out how to do that in a way that he felt like he could make a living from. And I thought that nicely supported the themes that were going on with Achi and Karan, also learning to communicate with each other and care for each other and support each other through new opportunities.

This show also did something really interesting with Pai and Rock. One of the big reservations when this adaptation was announced was that in the Japanese live action, Fujisaki was an aro-ace woman. She explicitly identified that way, it was plotline of the show. And I just knew that in Thailand, they were gonna put the same character in a romantic relationship, cause Thailand loves side couples and they just can't let anybody end the show single, even people who are supposed to be single [laughs] according to their identities. And so I was dreading that, honestly, I was like, ‘they're gonna have Pai get into a romance with Rock, I'm gonna hate it.’

But you know what? I didn’t hate it. The way that they got them together in the end was really sensitive, I think, to the fandom that they were clearly aware was out there hoping to see this character retain some of that aro-ace rep that was so meaningful to people in the Japanese live action. So I thought they were really respectful of it, I thought they did a great job with it. I think even though they got together in the end, there's still a very clear aro-ace read on Pai, and I like them together. Their scenes were fun, they have a good easy chemistry and charm, even if it doesn't feel particularly sexually charged.

And I thought that Rock and Pai were both as well, great supporting characters in the narrative. Their connection supported the story when it needed to. All of these side characters came together really well in a way that never distracted from, and always bolstered the main narrative, which is the most important thing to me for side characters.

NiNi

When Sing Harit picks up Tay Tawan and runs off with him while he wais at the client —

Shan

[laughs] It was perfect!

NiNi

[laughs] He literally just picked him up off the ground and just runs away!

Shan

He was so good in this role, he was perfect.

Ben

I'm glad we get to keep Sing. I've been watching that man for nine years.

Shan

He always brings something great to every show he's in.

Ben

So, I am a fan of original Cherry Magic adaptation Tsuge and Minato. I like how extra Tsuge is. Asaka Kodai: I like the way he played Tsuge. I like how he focused on how weird Tsuge is, and how passionate he is about things. I like Jinta as a take on that character…I appreciate why people like him more. I don't think I like him more? But I like them both specifically.

I like the Tsuge character, and I like how in the three versions of him I've seen adapted now, each adaptation has approached him. I genuinely enjoyed the version of Tsuge and Minato we got in Jinta and Min. I really liked the way they played together. I don't necessarily think Mark succeeded at all of Min, but I really like the way he and Junior work together.

I like Rock in this version because Rokkaku is an aggravating character, intentionally, in the Cherry Magic story. He is far less annoying in this version than he is in Japanese versions of this character.

I liked Pai in this one, I like the corrective fujoshi behavior that they were doing with her. I was worried at first when they leaned into the fact that Fujisaki is a shipper who has been shipping Adachi and Kurosawa for a very long time [laughs]. I like the way the Thai show ends up using that. I like the presentation of her as, ‘you can help your ship when they need to overcome an obstacle, but their moments don't belong to you.’ I loved her, genuinely. And I liked — what was her name? The manager's character?

NiNi

How could you forget my girl Dujdao?

Ben

I really liked the way they made the office manager kind of like a…auntie figure to a lot of them.

NiNi

I love how Achi accidentally brushes against her, and hears her positive thoughts about him. Because that's not a moment that they had to put in there. But I thought that it was really nice and important that Achi got to hear how much she truly cares about him.

Shan

We didn't mention the other coworkers who came at the very end of the story, when Achi traveled, but there was a whole new crew of colleagues that he got to meet on his one-month assignment at another branch. They started that episode with a little bit of anxiety around, you know, are they gonna be mean to Achi? Are they gonna pick on him? Do they think he's a snooty city person? Are they going to be homophobic?

I love that they just turned out to be like, a good group of dudes who were pretty good at their job, needed a little help getting set up, and once Achi proved that he was there to help them and he was competent, they completely accepted him and they were lovely to him. The show is just like—everybody was trying their best all the way through and I really like that. With one exception.

NiNi

Let's talk about that exception now, let's talk about the dreaded episode 8.

Shan

Dreaded is the right phrase.

Ben

My thing is, if you're going to add to Cherry Magic, why would you add workplace sexual assault? Why would you make the boss worse? The boss is really good prior to episode 8 and he's really good after episode 8. I don't understand why in episode 8 they would have him put some sort of bullshit ‘employees can't date each other’ rule into play, and be like, ‘Alright gays: if you can prove that you are economically viable to me by hitting an unrealistic sales target and whoring yourselves out to shitty clients, maybe then I will consider letting you two homos date each other.’

I hated that. I hated that Karan felt like he had to go face her again, I hated that the boss knew it, and sat with Achi to be like, ‘how do you feel about that, bro?’ And then there's like, this whole sequence where she further tries to embarrass him, but then the boss decides to be like, ‘No, I have morals.’ Where were they 40 minutes ago? I just did not like the inclusion of any of that.

It sucked too, because it was a holding pattern episode for Achi and Karan and the crew around them. Nobody really grew as a result of the events that happened there, and it just made me really resent the boss as a character. After that episode, he has a completely reasonable professional response to Achi clearly being frustrated with his role at the company. Achi, who—Karan has shown him through the course of the season—is actually a really good and really valuable employee whose efforts have gone maybe unnoticed, but that's because he's shy. And so when he recognizes that Achi is struggling professionally and wants to maybe do more, he gives him a very reasonable opportunity. Has very reasonable expectations about it, does not withhold how difficult the position may be, and has a reasonable expectation for Achi to make a decision about it.

It was really frustrating for me to try and reconcile that version of a fairly sensible boss, who is trying to give an employee an opportunity to succeed professionally, with the guy who we got in episode 8.

Shan

It felt wrong, it didn't feel like it was of a piece with the rest of the story. We found out pretty quickly that it was not from the source material, and it was an original episode that they've decided to write because they think they needed to fill a little bit of time. It's the one blemish on the show which was otherwise so wonderful, and so it just kind of sucks that they made this choice and tarnished things a little bit by doing such an ugly extra subplot, that just wasn't needed and didn't do anything for the story.

NiNi

In the end, I'm glad it was just a subplot. And it is, to my mind, pretty easily excisable.

Ben

We just deleted the episode. Boop!

Shan

Just pretended it didn't happen and carried on, and that worked great for me personally. [Shan and Ben laugh]

01:13:51 - CM: Ratings

Ben

I will say at this point, before we get to rating that this is now my default Cherry Magic version.

Shan

Same.

Ben

I think the Thai show feels complete in a way that the Japanese experience didn't. And that's…honestly, for me, reinforced by the anime that's running simultaneously right now. What I am enjoying with the two active adaptations right now is the very different approaches to the characters.

Karan is really sensitive to Achi and Achi is really sensitive to him in a way that I find really useful in the story, but there's a chippiness to the Japanese anime version of these characters. They are not as emotionally intelligent, they have a temper about them, there's a little bit of selfishness. Like, I think Adachi’s kind of a dick in this one, he complains about people being irritating normies a lot in a way that I find very amusing. And Kurosawa’s far more possessive—internally, he doesn't express it externally that often—in a way that I find lands more correctly for him, in comparison to maybe the way Keita Machida played Kurosawa and the way they presented him.

I really like the Thai localization of the Cherry Magic story here, and I think it exists very peacefully alongside the current Japanese anime version and the source material, and I think it sits favorably against the original Japanese version.

The intent of the powers to enable greater empathy and better communication between people lands far more consistently in the Thai version. I am really, truly glad that they actually did this and did a good job with it. We did not have high hopes for this motherfucker when they told us about it, and this ended up being one of the most pleasant experiences we've had in genre in a really long time.

NiNi

So, ratings. Shan, you go first: what's your rating for Cherry Magic Thailand?

Shan

I gave this show a 9.5. Could have been a 10 if not for that episode 8, but episode 8 exists, unfortunately, so it's a 9.5 for me. I found it to be such a good time, such a well-executed story. I think it was a masterful adaptation. It did such a good job taking this Japanese story and translating it into something that felt of a piece with Thai culture. The performances were excellent. The whole production was great. I loved how thoughtful everything was. It was such a good show for me. I wish I could go back to before I watched it, and watch it again and be delighted anew.

NiNi

Ben, how about you?

Ben

Similarly, I gave it a 9.5; I think this was an excellent experience. I think it was really enjoyable week to week, and this is what I want out of my BL TV viewing experience. I got to look forward to it every week, and I walked away from it satisfied. One of my favorite TV experiences is when a show is really good, without me instantly yearning for more. I had a really great anticipation of it when a Saturday morning rolled around, and I felt really good for the rest of the Saturday after watching it, and I didn't feel like I was missing something all week because it wasn't on. It was something that I really looked forward to on Saturdays. That is the ideal TV show experience, for me. And I don’t get to have that very often. I really, truly appreciate it that this show was one of the better or best week-to-week viewing experiences I've had for years.

9.5 for episode 8.

NiNi

I scored the show a 9.75.

Ben

Oh my god.

Shan

[laughs] Wait, are we allowed to do .25?

Ben

We're not. She can do it, though. [laughs]

Shan

She’s cheating!

NiNi

I am calling producer privilege to give it a 9.75! No, but the subplot in episode 8 really is a ding, but also I really loved this show. The ding had to be dinged, but I will find it very easy to excise that subplot from my memory of the show and move on. Also, I didn't have to sit in it for a week like you guys did because I was binging it, so it's easier for me, I think, to just kind of be like, pfft! Over that.

Ben

Let me tell you, that was a difficult week for us.

Shan

It was a bad week. We were scared.

Ben

We have been in this position with Thai BL where things are going great, and then episode 8 rolls around and like, oh, here we go. That was not a great week with this show’s experience. We were not really anticipating—we were hoping it wouldn't be shit, picking up with the cliffhanger of Achi revealing his powers to Karan. That was a good choice, that allowed us to focus on the future, not the past.

NiNi

And then you were immediately rewarded in episode 9 with the kiss!

Shan

Sure were!

Ben

And then they reminded me of the boss's bullshit in the finale. He's like, I'm throwing away my stupid policy. I'm like, ‘why would you bring that back up?’

Shan

Don’t bring it up! We’re trying to pretend it didn't happen!

Ben

I had just forgiven you, you motherfucker. Shut the fuck up. [all laugh]

NiNi

All right. All right. [laughs] OK, so 9.5, 9.5, 9.75 fine, it gets a 9.5 from The Conversation.

Ben

We highly recommend it! It is a good viewing experience.

Shan

Everyone should watch it.

NiNi

Fantastic show.

01:19:34 - The Pillars: Overall Thoughts

NiNi

OK, so we've just spent the last — I don't know how much time this is going to be edited—

Ben

It's going to be a long edit for you, that's for damn sure. [laughs]

NiNi

We have just spent the last maybe two-ish hours talking about our OGs, and the stuff that they've been in this year. OG to new G, so to speak. Let's talk a little bit about the pillars, about the experience of watching these people do what they know how to do really well at this point. Shan, what's your experience been like?

Shan

It was so lovely for me. I am an OffGun and a TayNew girlie. I have been a fan, I love those pairs. I am not a big fan of the branded pair system, to say the least—I think that it can be really damaging sometimes in the Thai media landscape, but I think that these two pairs have worked together for a really long time and they've figured out what works well for them. And they have also gone off and done other things, they don't only work together making BLs. All of these four actors have very full careers. And so I'm very happy that they were able to bring them back and pair them with such great projects.

Candidly, these are my two favorite Thai shows of this entire season. They knew what they were about, they executed them really well, and they used the pairs at the center of them to all the best of their abilities and their strength. I'm glad to see that they're planning to continue to work together. Both TayNew and OffGun have announced their next projects already for 2024, and I'm excited to see more adult BL from these guys.

Ben

To be clear, we are not certain that Peaceful Property or whatever it's going to be called is actually going to be a BL.

Shan

I don't need them to make out to enjoy their presence together, so I'll be happy either way.

NiNi

I don't care if it's a BL—I would prefer it to be BL, but Peaceful Property just looks like a good-ass time, so I'm going to enjoy that. I wasn't planning to watch The Trainee, but after Cooking Crush I'm gonna watch The Trainee. I've dialed in to the OffGun of it in this particular direction. I just like Off doing comedy.

Ben

He is good at comedy.

Shan

So good at it

NiNi

I really enjoy it. Not only watch him doing comedy, but watch him doing comedy now. Because he has improved, he has grown, he's really dialed into what he's good at, and he can portray it in a way that I don't think he used to be able to. So, I am looking forward to watching The Trainee definitely.

News news, apparently the third of our pillars coming back is a possibility? So there are three OG pillars for GMMTV. Like we said, OffGun, TayNew, and the third OG pillar was Krist and Singto. We got word recently that Singto’s coming back to GMMTV? So that's an interesting thing. I don't know necessarily that there's going to be new KristSingto stuff, but…

Shan

Krist has already teased it on social media.

Ben

Krist has teased it, but he said that they won't tell him information because he usually leaks it.

Shan

Right. But he said he wants to do another project with Singto. They've put it out there, maybe as a little bit of a test balloon to see if people are interested in it. So I wouldn't be surprised if we find out next year that they're going to be doing another BL together.

NiNi

I wouldn't be surprised if we find that out in April, when the Part 2 of the GMMTV thing comes out.

Ben

[sigh] OK, I'll talk about this. We need to own that has not been a good run for Singto, for about three to four years now. He hasn't really had a solid win in a while. And I don't know that I want him and Krist back together. This is such a weird choice to make, coming off of Be My Favorite where I was like, ‘OK, Krist, you've grown as a performer. I thought you were used well here, I thought your reputation, whether it be right or wrong was used well here. And I'm willing to put all this aside and move forward.’

And now I'm feeling triggered [laughs] by the news that he and Singto will be back together. I'm not necessarily thrilled about it. Like, yeah, we had a lot of skepticism about Cherry Magic, blah, blah, blah, coming into this. And that ended up being fine. But like… [sigh]

Shan

None of my reservations were about the pairs, though. It's all about the material. Here, Krist and Singto don't have good chemistry.

Ben

I don't think they do at all.

Shan

We know that. They did two, three shows together over several years of working together. Did not manage to produce believable chemistry as a pair.

Ben

I'm not keen on it.

NiNi

OK, so here's what I'm gonna say.

Ben

Go ahead, bestie.

NiNi

I have been wrong about all of their recent projects. I haven't watched any really old things or stuff since he left GMMTV, but in terms of Be My Favorite, in terms of Cooking Crush, in terms of Cherry Magic Thailand, I have been wrong. And so I am willing to give any new KristSingto project a shot.

Shan

Oh I'm going to watch it. If they make it, I'm going to watch it. I need to know.

Ben

It's not about whether or not we're going to watch it.

Shan

Yeah.

NiNi

[laughs] They're all like, ‘oh, no, we're watching it! Nobody said we weren't gonna watch it.’ [laughs]

Shan

We will be watching it and we will be having takes! That is what we will be doing. I continue to be skeptical about the two of them being able to generate believable chemistry together. Maybe they could do a show that's not a BL. Maybe they could try that.

Ben

I won't watch that, that's for sure! [Shan laughs]

NiNi

We're talking about OG to new G. Maybe we could do some mix-match merry-go-round with Perth and Chimon.

Shan

I'd be OK with that!

Ben

Oh my god.

NiNi

Get some new pairings out of it.

Ben

There are no more—I—why are we giving Perth and Chimon another ch—Why would you bring them up in this conversation?

NiNi

Mix match merry go round! Mix up the pairs! Maybe they'll work better with other people.

Shan

I think Krist and Singto both need to be paired with strong screen partners who can bring that chemistry piece, because neither of them is particularly good at it on their own, and together it just doesn't happen. I don't know how much of this we should even allow to air. We're going to get shot by their fans.

Ben

I do not care about them. You can be mad.

NiNi

I don’t care [laughs].

Shan

What is their fandom called?

NiNi

It's Peraya.

Shan

Peraya that's right.

NiNi

Peraya ask me how I know. I don't know how. I know. I just pick up these things by osmosis.

Shan

I am not a Peraya. I want this to be very clear.

Ben

I am not either.

NiNi

But like, OK, so we've established that Perth needs a good lead and Chimon needs a good follow, and Krist is, I think, a better follow than a lead, and Singto is a better lead than I think a follow. So maybe they mix them up, maybe they get something good out of it.

Ben

Mm, anyway. So. [laughs]

NiNi

Y'all are mean to my baby Perth and I'm not having it.

Shan

NiNi I appreciate the spirit of this brainstorm. I think it's worth a try [laughs]

Ben

I don't. [laughs]

NiNi

Perth, if you ever listen to this, don't listen to the mean people. It's OK. I love you.

Ben

Look, I love Perth. But it's not been a good year for him. I'm sorry, baby boy.

Shan

I think it's been very cool, though, sincerely, to see the OGs come back around. I like that we're no longer saying [laughs] that BL is a young man's game, you gotta get out when you turn 30. I like that we're letting some of GMMTV's older talent headline these shows and that we're getting some shows about adults. That's all super welcome, and I think it's really nice too, to see pairs like Tay and New and Off and Gun, who are real veterans with handling all of this stuff around making BLs together—handling the BGP, handling all of the fan attention, they do it with a lot of grace and very professionally, in a way that I think is helpful to see a model for for some of the younger pairs.

I think it's helpful for fans also to be reminded of how they should engage with actors who are doing their job when they're making these shows. GMMTV is going to continue to dominate Thai BL for the foreseeable future, so I think it's good that they're bringing these veterans back and doing good work with them.

Ben

I agree. I think OffGun and TayNew have been on the forefront of the development of Thai BGP for a long time, and it's really good to see them seem confident and comfortable about it at this point. Both of these pairs have had some negative experiences with fan behavior, so. I'm very glad that those two pairs were able to continue working together, continue to make projects together, and in this particular case, deliver two of the most satisfying viewing experiences we've had in the last three to four months. I'm pleased.

Shan

They killed it. Amazing work.

NiNi

I, too, am pleased. I wasn't in the OG thing. I wasn't shooting with y'all in the gym then, but I'm here now and what I saw this time around I truly enjoyed. I'm never going to be a babii. I'm not going to be a a polca. I'm never going to be a peraya. I'm just not a fan like that. I fan, I don't stan, I always say, except for, [laughs] you know, the large ones.

Shan

For a couple exceptions.

NiNi

Except for the bigguns. The pillars thing has always been like the super weird thing for me, and this is the first experience that I've had with it that it wasn't weird and slightly creepy for me, which I truly enjoyed. So yeah, good job, boys. Excellent work, 10 out of 10, no notes.

So, that is going to wrap us up on our pillars episode: we out! Say bye to the people, Shan.

Shan

Goodbye people.

NiNi

Ben, say bye to the people.

Ben

Peace!

#the conversation #ben and nini's conversations #podcast #on art #spring series #spring 2024 #season 6 #s6 e1 #cooking crush #cherry magic thailand #off jumpol #gun attaphan #tay tawan #new thitipoom #offgun #taynew #babii #polca

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