Confusion. I just did not get this series. Perhaps had I known this was composed of snippets of movies/series, I might have appreciated it more. I assumed it was a stand-alone series. Not having seen any of the previous references, I was at a loss as to the subtle references. Frankly, trying to make an anthology out of several movies/series is a fool’s errand and those of us trying to watch this are engaging in a fool’s task. Having said that, the account as presented does have some merit, and I found several subplots it was trying to emphasize, noteworthy. The rest of it merely became fluff and was perfunctory.

I found the one substory of the relationship between Gii (Kato Daigo) and Takumi (Shiozaki Daichi) captivating, in as much as it was the most heavily affirmed. Since I know nothing about their previous dynamics except what was given to us, it appears that Gii is fixated if not down-right obsessed with Takumi. Although we can deduce that Takumi seems to be in love with Gii, he is unable, more importantly, unwilling to fully express that to Gii. We further sense that he wants to, but it is obvious that Takumi is hiding or at the very least not sharing something traumatic with Gii. Both attend an all-boys academy high school nestled in the mountainside in Japan. They are roommates by chance. Gii is a transfer student from the United States, while Takumi, a very handsome soft-spoken young man exudes a boyish charm but is a bit of a loner. Gii, with his more rugged good-looks and exotic personality, is the center of attention of the whole school.

When the discourse to what is troubling Takumi finally is exposed, we understand rather dramatically and traumatically what makes Takumi shy away from people and his aversion to being touched. And how he walled himself from either feeling pleasure or pain. It is based upon a foundation from the fact that his family treated him like a non-entity. There are deeply disturbing reasons here that need to be dealt with before actual healing can take place. Takumi has been seriously damaged in the process and essentially ignored by his family. He is a product of abuse and rape from his brother with no one in his family willing to believe him. While Gill is acutely sympathetic and supportive of Takumi, will that be enough? Never, unfortunately. To say that Takumi has a long road to recovery would be to underestimate the path ahead of him. Tragically, these series tackle such profoundly moving topics in such a superficial fashion that it deeply saddens me how little, truly little, they understand the subject they are writing about. Having been in human services for over 40 years, I can guarantee you with nearly 100% certainty that Takumi is not ‘ok’. While he might look superficially like he has blended into society, there are deep and lasting demons still lurking in him that must be dealt with.

There is another weird couple that stood out, but frankly I did not understand but became intrigued with their dynamics or what I understood their dynamics to be. Takabayashi (Sekoguchi Ryo) initially liked Gii but after a very interesting conversation with him, he realized that his first love is not Gii but his roommate, Yoshizawa (Yuga). Takabayashi has low impulsive control, overzealous defense mechanisms, and an overblown sense of desirability, and uses physical attacks (slapping) as a way of protecting his fragile ego and grandiose self.

There are other couplings in this series but honestly, I could not figure out who was with whom as there were so many and the whole production kept bouncing around from one couple to another that I could not keep track. I just lost interest.

Sure, this series is nearly completely disjointed and exceptionally hard to follow. Not necessarily impossible but difficult. The difficulty in trying to present any kind of cohesive and comprehensive story in this fashion is you NEED to give us more, especially when it is presented so cryptically. Some of the substories were interesting but trying to understand the messages was made virtually impossible because we really did not get to know any of these characters very well or at all. Takumi was best portrayed, but he still needs more exposure and Gii needed way more time to understand than what was presented. Why was he so obsessed with and possessive of Takumi? I just did not understand.

There is also a lot of ugliness in this series. Going around slapping people on the face, hard, simply because they said something you perceived as inappropriate or made a comment you did not like, is not a reason for such an intense physical reaction. Takabayashi slaps his roommate Yoshizawa for stating an obvious observation. If that happened to me, I would want NOTHING more to do with him. Period. No reasoning justified that ugly behavior. In addition, while I understand Gii’s level of frustration with Takumi not responding in kind to his advances, but to quite literally rape him is just unacceptable. Sure, after struggling, Takumi gave in because he does love him, but Gii started out raping him. And in hindsight when he finds out what happened to Takumi by his older brother, one would have thought there would be some sort of an act of contrition on the part of Gii. I heard none. Gii simply represented the height of self-centeredness and arrogance and/or at the very, very least completely tone-deaf.

And true to form for the way the Japanese tend to portray GAY relationships as of late, the kissing scenes between Kato Daigo as Gii and Shiozaki Daichi as Takumi were misrepresented. They did not actually kiss, but it sure looked like they did. It is all a ruse – a camera trick and a theatrical performance. One ‘kisses’ just above the upper lips while the other ‘kisses’ just below the lower lip, thus both avoiding an actual kissing on the lips, like normal couples do who profess to be in ‘love’. How revolting. You are actors! Damn it! ACT! Then do not do a gay series. This has got to stop. This is insulting to all gay relationships and an affront to gay people in general when you simply cannot even do a simple kiss. After so many years of producing BLs, we still get this infantile and parochial response to simply kissing. I am so done with this. And please do not go down the road of cultural sensitivities because I have indeed seen some strong Japanese BLs in the past.

Frankly, I am just not sure why these ‘BLs’ continue to be made. Give it a rest. Just make the stories doramas. The substories were surprisingly interesting from what I could glean. You destroyed the messages by not making them meaningful to the content for which the story was intended to display. Shame. Shame. Shame.

Rating- 2 out of 5

Streaming on- Gagaoolala