The Best Story depicts a sweet, simple, and sentimental high school romance. This BL drama doesn’t do anything too different from the norm, so the ordinary love story between two teenagers will feel familiar to you. There’s an age-appropriate wholesomeness that will definitely appeal to younger (and older) BL fans. It does a wonderful job at capturing the innocence of first love, including all the bashful glances, the playful teasing from your friends, and the butterflies in your stomach when you encounter the boy you like.

Best and Dew are cute to watch together. There’s a little bit of conflict at the start, but the rest of their interactions are filled with warmth and positivity. I especially love the scene where Dew teaches Best how to shoot a basketball, showcasing their intimacy through a simple platonic moment. Other scenes highlight Best’s shyness or apprehension around his crush, which feel very authentic and relatable. Overall, their romance seems down-to-earth, relying on small ordinary moments to convey the romantic rapport between the main characters.

Where The Best Story shines is its beautiful cinematography. The drama looks gorgeous with lush colours, warm hues, and a dreamlike ambience that sets a distinctive aesthetic in all the scenes. If you look closely, the entire series is filmed in classrooms, school courtyards, and a tiny bedroom. Yet, the production team transforms these mundane environments with colour grading, lighting techniques, and intuitive camera angles, giving each scene a polished and stylized look. There’s some fabulous production work that elevates the quality of the series.

Although my review has been positive so far, The Best Story falters in its final act. The last episode should’ve focused on Dew, who doesn’t receive as much character development up until now. Instead, we get a big smack of bigotry, jealousy, and pettiness from the only two female characters in the drama. I really hate the conflict introduced by the evil mom and the scheming love interest, which clash so much with the pleasant vibe of the series. The last-minute melodrama feels abrupt and forced, as if the storylines are engineered just to drive a wedge between the couple.

All along, The Best Story has been building up a blissful and pleasant schoolboy romance, until the fantasy comes crashing down in the final episode. Not all BL dramas need to have a happy ending, but damn this one hurts. The ending makes me take off my rose-tinted glasses as I scrutinize The Best Story with a more critical eye. I start to notice the barebones plot, the shallow characterization, and the disappointing romance that goes nowhere. These storytelling flaws were always there, but I overlooked them because the series had seemed so charming until now.

After the last episode, I ended up feeling less enthused about The Best Story, but that shouldn’t diminish the excellent qualities of the series. There’s still a lot to enjoy about this BL drama, from the aesthetically pleasing visuals to the positive portrayal of adolescent friendships. Even if the story is nowhere near the best, it’s certainly decent enough if you’re a sucker for a wholesome high school romance.

***Spoilers Ahead !***

STORY
Simple story
Best is great friends with Bright and Ray.
The Best Story has a remarkably ordinary story about a high school student with a crush on his classmate. There aren’t any twists and turns, scandals and secrets, or curveballs and complexities. It’s simply an age-appropriate love story featuring down-to-earth teenage characters and their mundane lives.

The Best Story also does a fantastic job at portraying high school friendships in a positive light. Best really has the best friends in Ray and Bright, who are both so supportive of him during his ups and downs. Sure, there’s a little playful teasing from time to time, but these two friends are loyal to Best and always have his back. They offer him love advice, emotional support, and absolutely no judgment. They’re there for him when he needs his friends the most.

More than the romance itself, the emphasis on friendship may actually be my favourite part about The Best Story. Even if Best doesn’t get with the guy in the end, I think he lucks out having such a positive network of friends. Hey, who needs a boyfriend when you got your bros? ?

ROMANCE
Wholesome romance
Dew gives Best a piggyback after he falls unconscious.
The relationship between Best and Dew is very, very wholesome. Their romance consists of longing gazes, bashful smiles, and pleasant conversations. In fact, I don’t even know if there’s enough to classify what they have as a romance. It’s more like a schoolboy crush, which never develops into anything more.

You may be disappointed to know that Best and Dew don’t become a couple at any point in the series. There’s no kissing, no affection, and absolutely no physical intimacy between them. In fact, the tragic part about their relationship is that they never confess their feelings for each other. They come close on several occasions, but have to resort to cryptic Instagram stories to communicate their love.

Basically, Best and Dew have a crush on each other. However, it doesn’t work out before they can even start dating. The end. ?

ACTING
Good acting
The actor playing Best (War) looks so good on camera, radiating in every scene.
The acting from everyone in The Best Story is pretty good, but the one who catches my attention the most is Best’s actor (War Wanarat Ratsameerat). Mostly, it’s because of how telegenic he looks. This drama is my first exposure to the actor, who caught me off-guard with his wide eyes, rosy cheeks, and angelic smile. He looks so good on camera, almost radiating in every scene.

After watching The Best Story, my first order of business was not to write this review, but it was to look up every piece of information about War online. I checked his age, read his bio, translated his Twitter feed, stalked his Instagram, and marked down all the other BL series he appeared in. After consuming the entire experience, consider me an official fan of this actor. Where do I sign up for his fan club? ?

ENDING
Sad ending
Best cries as he walks away from Dew without a love confession.
I must emphasize how much I hated the ending in The Best Story, which really brought down my overall opinion of the series. Everything in the first two episodes indicated that we were headed towards a happy ending. Best was on the verge of confessing his feelings, Dew seemed to reciprocate the crush, and their romance was progressing nicely. OR SO I THOUGHT.

In the final episode, Best and Dew don’t end up together because of Fern’s outrageously out-of-line meddling. After Dew rejected Fern, they had a nice conversation and cleared the air with each other. Let’s be clear that he didn’t lead her on, he was completely honest with her, and he treated her with so much respect. Dew was the perfect gentleman, whom she immediately stabbed in the back. ? What was Fern’s agenda when she went to Dew’s mom and OUTED HIM behind his back? Did Fern think snitching on him would make Dew like her more? Or was she simply doing it out of spite? Either way, Fern had nothing to gain from outing her closeted friend. It was a scummy lowlife move and she had no right to do that to him. WTF!?

Homophobia
Fern tells Dew's mom that her son might be in love with another guy.
Dew’s mom is also trash, reacting horribly to a nasty rumour just because she suspects her son might be gay. She uproots his entire life, chucking him out of the house without listening to her son. What’s your endgame here, lady? Are you just gonna relocate your child every time he gets along with a male acquaintance? The next time Dew makes a close friend in Chiang Mai, will you panic again and deploy him to another city instead? ?

Worst of all, the mom character feels SO contrived. She doesn’t show up at any other point in the series, only existing for this storyline alone. She has no characterization other than being a stereotypical bad parent with no logic or compassion. It’s infuriating to see this new character suddenly show up in the final act, and her only purpose is to deny her son happiness. Ugh, I’m just so angry with this ending, like a painful curveball thrown straight into my face. It feels duplicitous to build up this sweet, sentimental gay love story, only for homophobia to win in the end.

Ending explained
Dew has read the journal entries and he's aware of Best's feelings for him.
What makes the ending in The Best Story so tragic is that we find out Dew had feelings for Best all along. As you may have predicted, Dew read those journal entries and he’s completely aware of how Best feels about him. Dew reciprocates these feelings, but he’s just as shy and doesn’t want to make the first move. He has been observing Best from afar, waiting for him to confess. Except the love confession doesn’t happen, and it will never happen now that he’s moving away.

The Best Story is a tragic love story about two schoolboys who like each other, but they don’t end up together. Best never confesses because he doesn’t believe his feelings would be reciprocated. However, Dew also doesn’t confess due to shyness, passiveness, and a little hopelessness about their relationship. With such a homophobic mother, can you blame him for not taking more initiative to pursue this romance?

What Best & Dew wrote
Best stops himself from finishing his confession on Dew's shirt.
What Best wrote on the shirt and what Dew posted online are partial sentences that say: “I like-“. However, they both stop themselves from completing the full sentence: “I like you.” Their love confessions are interrupted midway, each for various reasons.

For Best, he hesitated to finish his confession after seeing Fern’s message on the shirt, making him doubtful once again. Like before, he feels insecure about competing against Fern (aka. a girl) for Dew’s love. For Dew, he posted that Instagram story to let Best know that his feelings ARE reciprocated. Yes, I like you too! However, he’s also unable to complete his love confession. Dew is now forced to move away, plus his mom is strongly homophobic, so he doesn’t feel any hope about starting a relationship.

Best sobs because he got confirmation of what he always desired: Dew’s reciprocated love. Even though both of them know about their mutual attraction, they can’t be together due to circumstances out of their control. That’s what Best finds so upsetting, because he finally learns that Dew wants to have a romantic relationship. Except it isn’t possible for them to be a couple anymore. Sadly, their romance is doomed before it can even begin.