This is a sweet journey if you are drawn to sweet genteel cliché friends-to-lovers romance narratives. All the characters are sweet. The story is sweet. The outcome is sweet. But be forewarned. You might slip into a diabetic coma from watching this rather short series because of all the sweetness that is pumped into your blood from this saccharin novella. However, I cannot say that it is not curiously entertaining, for it is. Mainly because of the symmetry between the actors. While there is nothing in this series you have not seen in other similar versions before, perhaps done much better and deeper than here, there is still enough hitherto to grab your attention.

I shall make this summary simple because the story itself is simple. Academically average high schooler but cute and outgoing, athletic Ju Do Wan (No Yum U) has an attraction for the introverted, handsome and ultimate intellect, Sin Jae Yul (Lee Jae Hyeop). They have been friends for years, and it is obvious that Do Wan guards and dots over him at every step. Even though Jae Yul seems a bit indifferent, he is always happy to see Do Wan and is accepting of his assistance. It is plainly evident that whatever Do Wan feels for Jae Yul, Jae Yul also feels for him. Jae Yul is now a senior and his main worry is getting into college, while Do Wan’s concern is trying to get through the last year in high school without Jae Yul.

The story feels a bit choppy as it speeds up to one year later when Jae Yul is in college and is also working part-time at a coffee shop. Do Wan, and a mutual friend of theirs, No Jeon Su (Kim Min Wook) are preparing for college. Do Wan is studiously trying to get into the same college as Jae Yul. Do Wan now begins to spend more time at the coffee shop where Jae Yul works, in an attempt to reignite their old friendship. However, he does have some competition as Jae Yul seems to be close to another male student he met during college orientation. It becomes clear rather quickly that Do Wan is jealous of their connection.

The acting of the protagonists in this short series is certainly individually cute, low-keyed, but passible. However, it remains overall, stiff and rather robotic. Amity seems to have been glossed over in these two. However, the person who truly outshines is Kim Min Wook as Jeon Su, their mutual friend. He is so entertaining from the beginning to the end. Gregarious, bubbly, and with such a great personality, he becomes the center of attention. And he makes sure he is. His humor gets right to the point and Kim Min Wook delivers that humor with perfect timing and tempo. He is lovable and simply fun to watch; and brought some much-needed animation to this rather mechanical series. He has a personality that radiates. His tongue-in-cheek humor is all over the place, and he maintains a sense of joviality throughout. Plus, he is just so adorably cute despite his thinking that he is not. The sincerity in his characterization brings such a sense of warmth by using sarcastic humor to unmitigatingly accept the relationship between Jae Yul and Do Wan. He makes everyone feel like they have a sense of worth. Kim Min Wook completely dominates the scenes he is in. I just loved watching his performance. He is worth watching this series for!

While a pleasant series, it goes nowhere and is as innocuous as watching paint dry. There is absolutely nothing new here story wise. It has the same old theme. Guy cannot convey he likes his friend because he does not want to ruin their friendship. Yet both like each other and neither will get off dead-center to change anything. These stories are getting weary, trite, cliché, and most assuredly overdone.

Also, there is no depth to the characters. On the other hand, how can you with 6 episodes of under 10 minutes? There is not enough time. We really have no idea who any of these characters are. I watched this in toto. Anyone who thinks that there is enough entertainment here to keep someone interested in returning week after week for over a month has got to have his/her head examined. This is light fluff at best and is not interesting enough to wait with bated breath weekly to see another episode. Watch it in one setting; then it becomes dulcet. Please stop with these ridiculously short 5-to-15-minute series each week. They do not work.

What else brought this series down is that there is no real chemistry between the two of them. While occasionally cute together, one could not seriously believe that they were a couple at all. Timid. Shy. Fearful. Mechanical. Although Korean culture and society is homophobic and closed, I have still seen BLs from South Korea where in the privacy of an intimate moment, two men can and have been themselves. In this series though, these two actors apparently seemed ‘forced’ to kiss. Awkward, awful, and amateurish. Remember these are young adult men who were supposedly ‘in love’ and are in the age of heightened sexual lust. But despite that, they acted like they were rehearsing for a high school play or were just caught doing the naughty in the sandbox on the playground; it was all so silly and childish. They made it feel as if the camera was on them, and they knew it, and subsequently we knew it. Therefore, they were uncomfortable ‘kissing’ (if you could call it that) while we became uncomfortable watching their embarrassment. How about once simply being adult and acting like it. Kiss like you were in love and show us a smidgeon of lust for one another. There was zero sexual tension between the two of them. My point being if actors do NOT want to show the audience they are in love, which includes some physicality, then do NOT make BLs. You insult the intelligence of the audience.

The other thing that is overdone in this series is the utter nonsense of not being upfront, honest, or forthright. This constant theme of pinning over someone with complete inertia or inability to do anything about it is getting so worn out. While I understand the difficulties of not acting on impulses in high school (trust me, we have all been there), to have this paralysis drawn out for years is ludicrous, especially if you are now entering your young adult life (even given the repressed society of certain cultures). Why these series cannot have a modicum of reality is reaching the breaking point. It is the same theme done repeatedly with the same pathetic ending. Enough. Surprise! How about a refreshing story where one in the beginning says “I like you” clearly and then create a serious story around that in any one of a thousand different directions. Add something that is reality-based. Intense and painful reflections based on your cultural taboos. Overwhelming guilt over being gay because of religious reasons (my personal favorite). Understandable and perhaps overwhelming family pressures. Anything besides two friends who deep down know that they at least like each other but are too timid to act on it (except in the last episode and generally within the last few moments of the series). If all else is overwhelming – say nothing – and move on, alone, which undoubtedly is more of the likely real-life outcome of not speaking up if you are unwilling to find out, or you waited too long. At least we would feel something.

This series is, as its title implies, indeed nameless.

Rating- 3 out of 5

Streaming on- GND Studio YouTube Channel