I loved this series! It has charm, wit, sweetness in all the right spots, and a bunch of endearing human warmth. While not overly saccharine, it is also not traumatizing. Curiously pensive and reflective, it has all the elements of a most believable love story told in soft, subtle gentle tones that simply make you feel good all over. There are two love stories, actually. Both are surprisingly compelling. While the various protagonists are interconnected, their individual love stories take very different paths to fruition. Both end up being (well, more-or-less) plausible and credible sequences.

The premise for the central couple is simply hard to dislike and oozing with appeal. Hill (March Chutavuth) gets his dream job, working for the company that created his favorite female dating character in a romance simulation game. He identified deeply, almost reverently, with Yuka. Even though Yuka was AI, she was unique in the sense that she could be programmable to meet the individual needs of each player. In this case, with Hill, being fat, ugly, humiliated and bullied as a child, she helped Hill feel worth and value and became his companion and confidante. Quite literally without Yuka, who knows what might have happened to the person called Hill. His social interactions were all with Yuka. Yuka gave him strength, perseverance, and drive. She represented intimacy. Not in any physical sense but certainly psychologically, emotionally, and perhaps even holistically as well.

When Hill comes to work for the company that created Yuka, he has now become a new person. Outgoing, fit, and handsome, he is excited like a kid in a candy story; he has his dream job. However, he is devastated to find out that Yuka will be shut down. His Boss, Junji (Mukai Koji), is taken aback by Hill’s passion, loyalty, and fervor for Yuka. While he might not be able to stop her shut down, Hill is tasked with creating a program where the loyalists to Yuka could have a period of reprieve to allow Yuka a dignified and honorable way to fade away.

Hill becomes good at this, and he gets involved in the company’s newest dating game that will match two men together in a contemporary dating game. He and Boss become the willing subjects to base the new characters on. As their pretend relationship develops, something really begins to happen between the rather cold and distant Junji and Hill. Both become intertwined with each other and despite their vast differences and clumsy approaches, manage to find a togetherness that works and intensifies.

Meanwhile, Junji has a close friend who owns and is a chef of a restaurant. Phat (Fluke Natouch) is an outgoing and gregarious individual who is as attractive as Junji is. Hill’s supervisor, a known and blatant Cassanova of women, while on assignment, begins to find Phat irresistible. Even though Bay (Judo Tantachj) is straight, he falls hard for Phat. Phat, having seen Bay’s, philandering, initially is legitimately skeptical, but Bay’s sincerity and commitment to Phat soon becomes undeniable.

Overall, the acting in this series is laid-back and mellow because the story and circumstances call for it to be so. It is not a loud series. It is reflective and surprisingly personal. It goes deep into the personalities of several of the characters. However, three truly stand out for me. Fond Natticha as Jeans stole my heart. She is the ‘model’ for Yuka. She helped in the creation of Yuka. Yet, she is way more than merely a side-character. Early on she recognizes that Junji is lonely and the gravitational pull between him and Hill is growing exponentially. Jean’s interference is gently guiding them together – sometimes overtly, but mostly covertly. Fond’s interpretation of her role is omnipresent when she is on screen but more so in quiet, supportive ways. While an integral part of the story, she slips in and out easily and effortlessly yet always in a dynamic way. The other individual is Victor Chatchawit as Art. Art turns out to be an interesting character. He was the other individual who also helped develop Yuka with Junji. In the beginning stages of Yuka’s creation, Junji developed feelings for Art at a time when Art was not ready for those intimate feelings. When he was asked to return to help with their new project, he assumed that the old affections would flood back for the two of them. Normally, these reintroductions are a source of irritating distractions, but in this case, he does become a transitional point for both Junji and Hill. And to a large extent, he inadvertently helps to solidify their relationship. Victor’s portrayal of Art is just fascinating to watch. You can see the life drain out of him as the jilted unrequited lover then takes a negative turn. And Victor does a great job of carrying that burden of guilt with him for the remainder of the series. Also, a special shout out must go the characterization of Yuka. This representation takes on almost human-like qualities. And when her programming ends, I found myself strangely feeling sad about her demise as well. Her impact throughout this series simply cannot be underestimated.

This is a totally enjoyable and quite entertaining series. These characters felt like real tangible people and the production did an outstanding job of making them more relatable by giving us just enough of their backgrounds to see how each fit into who they were and how Yuka fit into the whole scheme of things. Therefore, this story made Yuka one of the main protagonists and thus she almost felt real. Sure, the story got a bit Pollyanna but in such a nice way and one that felt genuine and a natural consequence for concrete actions that were taken. In other words, so much of this felt – real.

I loved the heart and soul of this story but not the parts of the game design aspect. It frankly lost me as to what the second game was supposed to be as well as the ending for Yuka which was totally not what I was expecting or thinking. But again, since I am not a gamer, it all got disorientating and those portions all seemed just segmented and not presented as a full package.

In addition, the ending felt a bit rushed and just too neatly wrapped up but not necessarily coherently. It seemed a bit nebulous. I was not sure what was happening. Both couples’ relationships just seemed to be floating on by without any clear direction. It just felt uneven and unfinished.

Unsolicited advice, when of course no one has asked for it. Perhaps a pet-peeve of mine, but nonetheless, I think it is still worthy of more reflection. I honestly think more effort needed to be put into the augmentation of the relationship between Phat and Bay. When you have a completely ‘straight’ guy that now suddenly without ever giving a consideration to leaning in another direction abruptly gives the impression that it is ‘not the gender but the person’ spiel, I honestly think that way, way more time is needed to develop a relationship. Phat must be cautious and weary which he was but then succumbed too effortlessly. Their relationship moved at light speed from a lot of outside pressures. That whole aspect, while grazed, was not fully fleshed out. That is an honest human dilemma that should have been explored more cautiously and seriously even if this series was geared more for being entertaining. Frankly, it did tackle some highly sensitive personal issues, and this is one that I felt should have been delt with deeper convictions.

Summarily, this is an excellent production, and I thoroughly enjoyed this drama. It blended a lot of great beliefs into an amazing narrative – humor, pathos, honesty, passion, joy, disappointment, redemption, covered with a heaping supply of love, and then smothered all of it even more with an undiminished commitment to one another.

A most worthy and highly entertaining BL.

Rating- 4.75 out of 5