Ximmich
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The BL that touched me the most.
My review will contain spoilers from the first novel/ Utsukushii Kare novel, so people who hadn`t read the novel /the first audio drama and plan to read it shouldn`t read my review.I`ve been able to make a review for this drama after all this time. It was really hard for me to write all this, because i have a hard time expressing myself in a way that i am satisfied when it comes to what i love the most.
This drama is my favorite BL and i think it speaks a lot about how much this BL has shaken me and has impacted my life from the moment it was released and until now. Utsukushii Kare is the only JBL adaptation based on a BL NOVEL, because the rest of them are adapted from BL mangas, and i think this is also a reason of why this JBL has such a distinctive vibe compared to other JBLs released until now.
I have a hard time reviewing japanese BLs, not only because i am more attached to them, but also because when i have to review them, i also have to mention things related to the original work and is really hard for me to keep a balance between them.
The way the characters were originally writed in the novel- the original (OG) Hira and Kiyoi:
HIRA is written as someone with low self-esteem and a negative mindset, who develops an unusual intense love for Kiyoi, similarly with an obsession for someone or with the idolization fans has for their idols/worshipers towards their God. I love unique characters, and while his obsession for Kiyoi makes him a creep and a harmless stalker (I don`t care how harmless he is, a stalker is still a stalker, the guy knew he was in the wrong and he still did it), he doesn`t come across as really unpleasant, because his love for Kiyoi is pure, he is most of the time really selfless in his actions and will never do anything to hurt Kiyoi. Well, not in purpose at least, but indirectly he can be such an arrogant and selfish person and he doesn`t even realise it. I side with Kiyoi on this, because while reading the novel, Hira has some scenes where he is worst than Kiyoi. Most of time Hira is really passive, will keep his distance from Kiyoi and he doesn`t notice the things that Kiyoi does to get close to him. The reason of why Hira acts like this is a result of his low self-esteem issues, which makes him think he doesn`t deserves Kiyoi and that Kiyoi will never come to like him. The unique thing to him ( which I thought is such a genius move) is that even through he is usually passive and indecisive, when he is encouraged or when he gets really emotional in the presence of Kiyoi, he gets excited, his eyes sparkles, he is more straightforward in the way he express himself and he confess his love passionately. In some scenes he looks like he has a SWITCH that gets TURNED ON. Hira ( Kiyoi too) has thick walls around his heart, because he was treated differently, bullied, looked down by people all his life because of his stuttering, so he hates people and he dislike being around them, those being the reasons why he wants to be invisible. Kiyoi was the first person ( beside his parents) who he liked enough to be able to open up to him more, in the presence of who he could be himself and who makes him go out of his comfort zone.
KIYOI is writen as an ordinary boy, who in the surface is a strong-willed person and treats everyone around him equally. He is merciless towards everyone that bothers him and he is courteous towards people who only wants to make use of him. This is Hira perspective of him too, but this is only one side of him. He might look strong-willed, but he is written as someone who gets lonely easily (this is the reason of why he still hangs around others) and who can be a mess when it comes to expressing his feelings to people he loves. He has a hard time expressing his real feelings to his family too, not only Hira. The experiences that he has while he is a child with his mother and his family impacted him a lot, and he is aware of this. Basically, Kiyoi is one of those persons who is unable to express their feelings easily to people around him. He is able to do it more easily when it comes to his job and people who aren`t close to him, but he has a hard time to express them to people he is close with. He gets better at it in the future novels as he realises he has not choice in the matter. He learns the hard way in the drama, but also in the future novels, that he has to be direct about his wants and to express his feelings, because Hira is worst than him when it comes to this. Kiyoi doesn`t like to explain all the things he does and thinks to Hira and he wants for Hira to also make some efforts to guess what his intentions might be, but as we know, this doesn`t work, because Hira is a dense, ignorant guy who doesn`t like to assume things. In my opinion, the reason why Kiyoi is like this, is because he has trust issues originated from being let down by his mother when he was a kid, and from observing the superficial way people act around him because of his good looks or because they want to take use of him.
I think the reason Kiyoi was attracted to Hira, both in the novel and in the drama is because of his desperate need to be loved unconditionally, in a way that makes him feel secure that the other person will never abandon him. In my opinion, his intense need to be loved match the intense and irrational way that Hira has come to love him. Kiyoi need to be wanted is really intense, and this is conveyed well in the explicit scenes from the novels, which in the drama were foreshadowed cleverly. The reason Hira has come to be obsessed with him and later love him genuinely was not because of his beautiful appearance, but because of his personality, the self-assertive, overbearing way in which Kiyoi acts around others and the confident way he carries himself. This might be partly because of a lowkey kink of looking up to others who are more powerful than him, but I think is also partly because he saw in Kiyoi someone he wants to be, but he isn`t able to. I think that while Hira attraction for Kiyoi starts as an obsession, the obsession becomes mixed with genuine love after Hira starts to interact to Kiyoi more. I think the moment in which Hira love for Kiyoi becomes even more stronger, to a point that he can`t deny it and it has come to impact his life, is that scene when he beats Shirota to defend Kiyoi. That action changed Hira, because he felt that thanks to Kiyoi he has done something that has saved him. It was a moment where he felt he can continue living for Kiyoi ( Hira is not in a good place mentally in the novel in that period of his life), and he is always grateful to Kiyoi because of this and is unable to forget him. A really twisted way of thinking, but I understand him, no all people manage to grow up normally when they have the kind of childhood and school experiences that he had.
The things that I liked the most about the drama is the acting ( I give it a 9.5/10), cinematography (10/10), OST ( 9/10), writing (9.5/10), originality of the story ( 10/10), ending (9/10, I wanted more and it was a bit rushed).
I want to say some things about the actors, because in my opinion the way the drama was writed and directed is an important thing of why I love this drama, but the thing that make this drama unforgettable to me is the performance of the actors. I cherish great acting. Hagiwara Riku did exceptional for this role, I think is his best acted role until now, His acting is 10/10 for me. Riku is one of those actors who can give a completely different image depending of his role, and he was able to not only pull off the creepy character he had to portray, but he has made him so complex and endearing, that It made me want to ignore all Hira weird quirks and just enjoy his performance. I think the way in which Riku played Hira in the drama is the reason people overlooked the character flaws . Kiyoi did a wonderful job for Kiyoi too, especially since is his first acting role, but there are some scenes where his acting inexperience is showed, one of it being his acting in the classroom scene in the last ep. He did a good job with this scene too, but some small moments come across as his acting needed polishing. I read this scene was shoot much more earlier when he still hasn`t gotten used to his character, so this is a reason too, and this is why I didn`t lowered even his acting score more. His acting is 9/10 for me, because he did so great In some of his scenes, to the point that I felt he owned the character.
I want to also mention some controversial moments from the drama and how i perceived them.
I thought that something is odd from the way Hira looked at Kiyoi while he entered the classroom and in the scene where he leaned over Kiyoi who was pretending to be sleeping and saying HOW BEAUTIFUL, i thought, OH BOY, What is this? I was like, why did he thought that this is a good idea and his reaction after was really weird. The explanation he gives is really far-fetched and it makes his behaviour even more weird. I thought that it was only right that Kiyoi called him on his bullshit, I mean what explanation was that, and he even looked at him in that way, like he was in a trance, like he liked what he looked at, and he couldn`t take his eyes of him. I honestly thought that Kiyoi has to think that Hira is a pervert for looking at him like that, and this is why he called him creepy/weird. I was taken a bit aback about Kiyoi making Hira do errands for him and his "friends" ( which can be perceived as light bullying too), but I also observed that Kiyoi has also noticed Hira and he was looking in his direction many times before the scene where he confronts Hira and makes him do stuff for them. I`ve also noticed that while Hira looks at Kiyoi with those kind of eyes, he never does anything to approach him. Because of this, i already thought even before watching ep 5 that Kiyoi most likely decided to approach Hira and to test him about how he feels about him by making him part of his group of "friends", even if the approach was wrong. I still liked Kiyoi despite this, because to me, it was obvious that Kiyoi also knew that his approach is wrong, as he always stepped in when he saw people took the bullying too far. He still defended Hira in some scenes, and to me that was him making amends for approaching Hira the way he did. The scenes when Hira starts to follow Kiyoi, taking that photo of him without permission and doing "that thing" using his photo consolidated to me how much of a creep he is. This convinced me and also made me like him even more because I love watching unique characters, and he is one of a kind character In all this BL universe. This is the way i interpreted Kiyoi and Hira behaviour for the first half of the drama.
I`ve come to the conclusion that the main reason why I liked this drama is because of how realistic and raw all the feelings and the emotions of the characters were portrayed. I was charmed by how alive and vibrant expressed the emotions are. In my opinion, this is one of the most visually stunning drama I watched in general, and I am not referring at how beautiful everything is shoot, but also about how extremely well the emotions of the characters are showed.
Another thing that i liked about this drama is that the story gives the message that everyone has an equal chance to be loved, not matter what issues people have and not matter how undeserving they might feel like.
In real life, not all people meet their own significant other when they are mature or ready enough to be in a relationship, in the best state of mind, or other ideal circumstances, and i loved to see this.
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Where your eyes linger is the first Korean BL drama that I really liked. Previously, i have watched some of the BL/LGBT movies released over the years, and while some of them are very well made, the majority have the grey or dark kind of stories, and i can`t say i enjoyed them that much. I found them memorable and i am fond of them, but why do they have to be so sad??? 😅😓While watching the first episode, i thought that surely has to be something between Tae Joo and Kang Gook which will be revealed later, because the interaction between them were really close, like the way lovers will behave towards each other ( or my fujoshi side were seeing things that aren`t there, hahaha) . I thought that Tae Joo likes Kang Gook and tries to flirt with him or mess up with him with the purpose of getting a reaction from Kang Gook. The first impression Kang Gook has given to me was that he most likely knows that he likes Tae Joo but he is in a situation where he thinks he isn`t allowed to hope more happening between them because in that case, what they have will disappear, or that he is afraid of things changing between them. I really understood why he thought like this, he is in a situation where he has to carefully consider what to do. This is the dynamic that i thought those two has at the beginning. I was really surprised to realise at the end of ep 1 that while this is true for Kang Kook case, Tae Joo tends to like being spoiled by Kang Kook, because he is used of him always doing what he wants and this is why he acts that way. I thought that Tae Joo has always treated Kang Gook different from other people, and what is between them is more than friendship and that he also unconsciously knows it, but he never had to confront it and nothing from Kang Kook has did until then has made him think of him in that way.
At some point, is revealed both of them thought that they have a servant and master relationship, especially Kang Kook. Tae Joo treats Kang Gook as a friend and someone who knows he will always protect him and will do things for him. He is not that of a good friend though, but at the same time he doesn`t look down on Kang Gook. In my opinion, them treating each other like that and trying to not get too personal with each other, is a way to keep the relationship between them going on smoothly. If people look closely at how they behave around each other, is not really a servant/master kind of relationship because while they try to behave according to those two roles that they indirectly acknowledge, they care about each other and they wouldn`t do something really hurtful and bad to the other.
I think Tae Joo is a very well written character, even more than Kang Gook, because while he is a spoiled brat, who tends to do what he wants most of the time, he rarely crosses the line. He knows to take responsibility when he does something wrong and he gives respect to people close to him. Otherwise he wouldn`t have agreed to go to England as his father wants him. I honestly love watching characters that have the kind of character Tae Joo has, because him behaving how he sees fit and without being considerent of others shows he has his own beliefs and that he has a strong character which can withstand many things not going his way, without giving up on his goals easily. I understand some people finding him rude, a bad guy, asshole and all kind of bad words, but i think people can`t deny that he is a complex character. When it comes to Kang Gook, he doesn`t have that much of a unique personality on it`s own, and while he is not around Tae Joo he tends to treat all people around him in a kind and considerent way while losing himself, of how to say it, putting other people needs above his owns. I observed that only when he is around Tae Joo he acts in a more genuine way, as how he is himself, how the real him is, which is when he shines. I think the best scenes that Kang Kook is in are the ones where he is interacting with Tae Joo, especially the ones where there is tension or when they are fighting because it brings the real and more emotional side of him.
In the end, i will mention some of the things that i liked the more about the drama and the things that has made me remove one point in my rating.
The things that i liked the most about this drama are the acting, the OST, the cinematography, the effort the actors has put into this drama that has made even the most harder to act scenes a pleasure to watch ( in this drama i could really felt the effort and thoughts that the actors has put into it), the poetic and clever lines that the characters are saying in almost every ep which elevated the quality of the drama, the tension and the chemistry.
What i liked the least is the direction the story has took in the last two eps, the slow motion flighting scenes, and the badly executed kiss.
Everything that happens in the last ep is too dramatic and while it was foreshadowed in a way, i still thought that the story took a too dramatic turn out of the blue.
The kiss was too cringe to look at it, and it has stand out even more because in their other scenes the characters has great chemistry.
The OST for this drama is amazing,. At some point i thought that i wouldn`t like the drama as much as i liked it, if it weren`t for the OST. I liked every single song for it.
The acting of the actors are at a scale of 8/10 in my opinion which is really high for my standard. I think how good the actors are at acting and how much they have prepared for the role is showed the most in the intense scenes or when the characters are fighting, because they are more challenging.
While the story in this drama isn`t very original i still wasn`t bored when watching because in my opinion it was well writed and executed. I think the most interesting parts is the words the characters used to describe their relationship and themselves.
In the end, i think the main reason of why i liked the drama and why it was so appealing to me is because of how well the characters get along with each other despite being so different. I think is that something between the characters that only have it, that makes this drama unique and memorable to me.
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