The much-awaited Thai adaptation of “Cherry Magic” is here, folks, and it’s off to a steady start.

“Cherry Magic” is the story of Achi (New Thitipoom), your everyday office worker, who realises on his 30th birthday that due to being a virgin, he has now gained magical powers. He can read the minds of people he physically comes into contact with. To make matters more complicated, when he accidentally touches his co-worker Karan (Tay Tawan), he finds out that Karan has feelings for him. While at first Achi tries to keep his distance from Karan, he ends up falling for him too.

Karan is the greenest of green flags, a seemingly perfect man whom Achi both looks up to and is partly envious of, though as Achi begins to realise, his own insecurities about being queer, or believing his feelings are off-putting to Achi, give a depth to his character that prevent him from venturing into Gary Sue territory. Speaking of Achi, the scenes where he is baffled are more convincing than the scenes where he is supposed to be insecure, but otherwise, it is a solid performance by New. Tay and New are back together in a fresh, light-hearted dynamic, and their pre-existing chemistry is enhanced by the script.

I am really looking forward to Jinta (Junior Panachai) and Min’s (Mark Jiruntanin) story too. Min is very spunky, and is already giving Jinta a hard time with his sass, I can’t wait for more of their banter.

Since this is a localised Thai adaptation, one can expect there to be divergences from the Japanese live action, but something I do hope they end up adapting similarly is the resolution of Pai’s (Jan Ployshompoo) character arc. In the Japanese adaptation, Fujisaki is heavily implied to be on the asexual/aromantic spectrum, and her struggle to pretend to be “normal” is an important part of her character. An openly ace character is still very rare, and it would be interesting, and welcome, for Pai to be shown as ace/aro. Though the trailer is ambiguous on this and it is still too early to ascertain either way, Jan and Singh Harit, who plays Rock, are a very popular pair, and this can be an indication that their characters might become romantically involved. In any case, whether it be platonic or romantic (though I would definitely prefer platonic), I am excited to see more of them together.

To address the elephant in the room, yes, since this Thai adaptation has come only a few years after the hugely popular Japanese live action, it is inevitable that there would be comparisons. And yes, while the premise and the overall settings are the same, the Thai version is set to diverge quite a bit from the Japanese one. Achi and Karan, too, are already slightly different in their little quirks than Adachi and Kurosawa, and I’d encourage everyone to watch them as two separate characters in their own right, not simply as the Thai versions of the beloved Japanese characters. On the whole, “Cherry Magic” is off to a strong start, and hopefully keeps up this momentum.

Rating: 4.25 out of 5

Streaming on- GMMTV YouTube Channel