New beginnings.
Second chances.
A fresh start.

No matter what phrase a person prefers, second chances aren’t easy to come by, especially when wounds run deep.

In the Japanese BL Love is Better the Second Time Around, adapted from the manga series Koi wo Surunara Nidome ga Joto by Kinoshita Keiko, Hasegawa Makoto and Furuya Robin take center stage as Miyata Akihiro and Iwanaga Takashi, two men on the verge of starting over.

Set against the backdrop of unresolved longing, this drama dives headfirst into the complex dynamics between former lovers thrust back into each other’s lives. When editor Miyata Akihiro is assigned to university professor Iwanaga Takashi by his publication, the tangled threads of their past begin to unravel. Their shared romantic history, buried beneath the everyday world Miyata has created for himself, resurfaces, threatening to dismantle Miyata’s ordinary life. And Iwanaga’s.

Emotions run high, and the specter of old wounds looms large.

Love is Better the Second Time Around is easy to fall into. Its fast pace forges straight into the overwhelming chemistry and tension that obviously brought our leads together when they were young.

Not much is revealed in the first two episodes, most of it focusing vaguely on their past and the hurt they caused each other. Yet their focus on each other is the very reason why a series that hasn’t really gone anywhere yet feels so riveting. Lust, love, desire, lost innocence—it’s all there.

And with one of Professor Iwanaga’s disgruntled ex-lovers thrown into the mix, Love is Better the Second Time Around promises to be as angsty in the present as our leads’ love was the first time around, especially when each man is waiting for the other to take responsibility for the past.

Only now, they are adults. And it will be fun to see where the last few years have taken them.

For a second chance at love that promises to be anything but smooth, check out Love is Better the Second Time Around now on Gagaoolala.

Rating- 4 out of 5