I once said "Gemini and Fourth can save even the dumbest of ideas." As a fan of theirs, I was convinced I'd love this series no matter what, so I was incredibly excited for it to air. However, I got proven wrong.

Let me first clarify that I'll judge this show as a stand-alone piece. I haven’t read the manga, and I don’t recall much of the Japanese adaptation. Some people say those who dislike the show should be mad at the manga instead. I disagree with that sentiment. If you adapt a story for a different media, changes need to be made. What works for manga might not work for TV. I understand being an adaptation comes with limitations on a story level, so I'll give them some grace there, but on a scene level, it needs to be reconsidered. This is what I watched, so this is what I'll judge.

GemFourth have a lot of chemistry which is why they’re one of my favorite ships. Yet, I didn’t enjoy this half as much as MSP or Moonlight Chicken. I don’t think their chemistry has dwindled. The problem is that MLMU didn’t nurture it properly. They’re at their best with slow moments for them to banter, shyly kiss on the cheek, hold hands, or stare at each other lovingly. Think about the dance scene in MSP. The way they look at each other delivers more chemistry in 2mins than most other ships do in an entire show. The problem is that MLMU doesn’t give them enough such moments. My favorite scenes are 1) Kongthap sleeping over, and them bonding over their parents relationships, and love being scary, 2) Atom telling Kongthap about his dream of having a café, and his trauma involving fire, 3) Atom sketching Kongthap while he’s playing the guitar, looking at him with actual sparks in his eyes, and 4) them holding hands on a train and blushing about it. In these moments, their chemistry was fantastic. Sadly, such scenes were few and far between amidst silly conflicts, busy plot points, and unsatisfying resolutions. Thus, Atom and Kongthap never really felt like more than friends.
Their chemistry also didn’t hit as hard because I’ve gotten used to them. When I first got introduced to them, they gave me butterflies and made me feel giddy. I still love them just as much, but now that I'm used to them, they no longer give me that same thrill that they gave me in the beginning. On top of that, they’ve gotten older. They looked like actual babies in MC, which is part of why they sold the puppy love so well. It just doesn’t have that same effect anymore.
Also, GMM knows the chokehold GemFourth has on us. Here, it felt like they’re teasing us by only giving us sweet moments very sparingly. The lack of kisses made sense in MSP because they were underage, and I'm all for protecting underage actors. That excuse is gone now though. I felt like they were deliberately holding back on cute scenes (not just kissing, but also hand-holding, hugs etc.) in order to tease the audience and keep them wanting more. It had the opposite effect on me, leaving me frustrated instead. I don’t need them to make out, obviously. Simple touches would be enough, but it was short even of that. MSP and MC felt a lot more intimate despite them being younger then.
Of course, I still want to see more of GemFourth together in the future. But I've come to understand and accept that no matter what show they’ll be in from here on out, it won’t ever feel the same way it did at the start, and that’s okay. It's just something to keep in mind to manage my expectations.

I loved Fourth as Atom. He’s great at being animated and acting like a whiny, pouty baby. Thanks to his expressive eyes, he also did well in emotional scenes. I think he’s at his best in more heartfelt and emotionally demanding shows like MC, still, he pulls off rom-coms too. I struggled with Gemini's acting though, especially in the first half. He had a lot of charm and charisma in MSP, but here, his delivery often felt stiff and disinterested. I think he was trying too hard to come across as cool/aloof, and like many other BL actors, he equated that to moving as little facial muscles as possible. The stark contrast between him and Atom’s animated nature didn’t help, but only worsened the issue.

The poor character writing didn't help either. Atom felt most cohesive, but he’s a caricature more than anything. First, his whiny, exaggerated nature was endearing, but it got irritating quickly. He over-reacted about every little thing, often with little regard for people’s feelings. For example, when Half struggled to ask Mudmee out, Atom immediately took her side, sulking at Half without ever asking him about his feelings. Kongthap never felt coherent to me. The story adjusted him to be whatever it needed for the given episode, so he never made much sense. At first, he’s this smart, cool guy, then suddenly, he lacks any semblance of emotional intelligence. All in all, he felt like a nice piece of cardboard with googly eyes for Atom. With Mudmee and Half, there were inconsistencies too. Depending on the episode, Mudmee was either a smart, independent young woman, or a stick with no braincells. The narrative didn’t know what it wanted her to be, so during camp she’s bad at anything involving physical effort, but later she’s strong and gifted at sports.
All of them together never felt like a convincing friend group. Other than Mudmee and Atom, everyone just came across as classmates who occasionally talk. None of the characters felt compelling. Traits came and went out of the blue, like Atom being into cooking. Chef Sin said it makes sense why he was tense during cooking club at school. But I don’t remember him being tense. He was thinking about Kongthap, thus burning the food. You'd think someone with trauma would be too tense to think about their crush in such a moment, and that an incident like that would be triggering. But it didn’t seem to affect him. In episode 11, Atom's mom tells Kongthap how he has a fear of being abandoned. Nice idea, but this is the worst case of telling instead of showing, because they never bothered to show us that in the whole show. The only thing they followed through was Atom's fear of heights which luckily didn't just disappear after one successful experience.

The romance arc was unconvincing at best. The issues started from the get-go with Atom getting over Mudmee way too quickly. Since they’re teens, and his undying love was in reality probably just a small crush, I won’t be too hard on them though. This is also where I give them grace for having to follow the plot of the manga. But things only got worse. I have no clue how Atom and Kongthap fell for each other since they never really got to bond. They spent a lot of time together, but it hardly felt like they were talking about meaningful things. Mostly, they just read as friends. Sometimes even like brothers, which is the last thing I want to think about in a romance. I understood at first, because they were clearly written to be awkward around each other. I appreciated that since it’s their first relationship, so feeling unsure of how to act is realistic. But awkwardness doesn’t equal lack of passion. When they became boyfriends, I was hopeful we’d get all the bonding that had been missing so far. Instead, they went straight back to silly conflicts. GemFourth are such naturals at holding hands, kissing on cheeks, hugs etc., but the show never allowed them to do much of that, so there was a severe lack of romantic tension. I actually couldn’t even picture them kissing until they did.

The kiss episode was underwhelming at best and incredibly frustrating at worst. Dedicating a whole episode to a misunderstanding about kissing was very annoying. Not that Kongthap had much of a chance to clear things up, because Atom stalked off angrily to pout whenever Kongthap was about to explain. It was so immature that it made me feel like these two definitely shouldn’t be in a relationship at all. Kongthap’s friend tells him a first kiss isn’t about when, instead about why. By the end of the episode (and by the power of plot convenience) he has magically understood this lesson. The kiss scene that follows was grating. My biggest gripe is it being interrupted by silly sports day shenanigans. This is the emotional climax of your story thus far, stop distracting from it! I know the towel thing happens in the manga, but it just felt like a tease. It did come off eventually, but maybe it shouldn’t have because the kiss was so awkward. It must be a problem with directing because from MSP we know they can actually kiss with passion. I think the director wanted a "shy" first kiss, but the kiss in MSP was also their first one and their lips were actually moving there, yet it still felt very puppy-lovey. Why would you direct two actors with a lot of chemistry to kiss like two dead fish pressed together? It makes no sense on a story level either, because Atom and Kongthap wanted to lock lips so badly. It was the whole premise of the episode! One would think if they were so desperate, there would be at least a bit of fire there, even if they’re nervous.
In the next episode, there was a sudden shift from them being desperate to kiss to not even holding hands. It felt jarring and made it feel like their relationship was stagnant, never really growing deeper or more intense. Maybe their kiss didn’t just look bad, it also felt bad, so they were like "Nah, we’re good. Let’s not do that again.“ (Their kiss in episode 11 isn't much better, feeling stilted and awkward without chemistry. If this was my first GemFourth show, I definitely wouldn't be as obsessed with them. I really hope this is just a problem of directing, and things will look up in another show again because these kiss scenes are just painful to watch. They just looked like they didn't want to be there.)

Because of all that, MLMU often had me rooting for Mudmee and Half instead. You know it’s bad when I’m rooting for the straights.

Another poor choice was limiting conflicts to a single episode. Most story/character arcs would’ve greatly benefitted from being more drawn out, so they can build and conclude them in a satisfying way. Instead, it all felt rushed. Episode 7 is the best example. It would’ve been far better to see Atom grappling with his sexuality over a few episodes, so the emotional climax of him breaking up with Kongthap hits harder. The way they handled it, it felt like Atom’s insecurity came out of nowhere. I would’ve loved to see an exploration of why Atom feels like hiding their love is best, while also exploring why Kongthap wants to be open about it. Atom then changing his mind after a single conversation was way too fast. It’s a shame because I appreciated the message they were going for, about neither Kongthap nor Atom being wrong about their feelings, and everyone opening up at their own pace. But it would’ve made more sense if this wasn’t just dealt with in the span of 45mins. A similar thing happened with Atom realising he wants to go into culinary arts. He didn’t know what to do with his life, then after cooking ONE time, suddenly eureka! I like the idea of his trauma from almost burning the house down, thus having given up on his dream. But cooking one successful meal being enough to get over all that was poorly done. How about he slowly starts warming up to the idea, then working up his courage again? How about having a conversation with his mom? Maybe she could’ve told him she blames herself, because she wasn’t supervising him when he was clearly too young to be cooking alone. It was an interesting idea but clumsy execution.

The show’s very tropey and doesn’t stand out from other campus BLs. That’s not a bad thing necessarily. If you have an interesting aspect or unique/lovable characters, you don’t need to reinvent the wheel. Sadly, MLMU has nothing interesting to add to the table. Not just on a story level, on a scene level too because it pulls out all the BL clichés: Tripping and falling on each other. A lot of feeding each other, and of course messy eating that requires a thumb to wipe food off, because napkins do not exist in the BL universe. Leaning on someone's shoulder on a bus. Attempts at kissing someone in their sleep (can't believe we're still pushing the narrative that even the attempt at this is okay/normal). Characters randomly pulling a guitar/song out of their ass. A lot of miscommunication. And of course we also need the mandatory episode dedicated to a stupid jealousy plot that goes nowhere.

I understand they need to fund their shows somehow, but the ads only made things worse. GMM's never handled product placement with much subtlety, but in this it’s handled with all the grace of an elephant running through GMM headquarters. Cringe is one thing, but here, it felt like they were actively writing their screenplay based on the products. It didn’t feel like the ads blended in with the show, instead like a long ad with some loose plot strands sprinkled in-between. If all the time spent on ads was used to further characters/relationships instead, this would be a much better show.

Finally, my pettiest issue is how they put the end credits over the final scenes of each episode, taking away from heartfelt moments. At first, I thought this was bothering only me. But clearly even GMM are aware of how annoying it is, because during the kiss scene in episode 8, they deliberately didn't put any credits on (instead putting them on the interspersed sports-day scenes). If you know it's distracting, why not refrain from doing it altogether?

Of course, it's not all bad. A few things I liked are...
- Pushing the message that girls don’t have to be a damsel in destress to be lovable.
- The indirect kiss via fingers was a nice ode to Tinn and Gun.
- Atom’s and Mudmee’s friendship. They're two halves of a whole idiot and it was the highlight of the show.
- The behind-the-scene videos because they showed how much fun they all had on set, and that’s what matters most.
- The soundtrack slaps, though the title song was overused.

A couple of years ago, I would’ve liked this. Back then, I was just happy to see more stories representing my community. However, these days there’s such a flood of Thai BL that a show needs to do something unique to stand out. Mediocre shows just aren’t cutting it anymore. I want well-written stories with exciting characters, unique plots, and scenes that don’t feel like I’ve seen them a hundred times before. Sadly, MLMU had none of that to offer. It suffers from the same problems most GMM shows do, and is dragged further down by the lack of swoon-worthy scenes that usually make even mid BLs an enjoyable experience. So, despite my love for GemFourth, I can’t rate this any higher than a 5. That pains me a bit, but we should be able to criticise things even if we adore the people involved.

MLMU has shown me that not even my fave ships can save a lacklustre show. A new ship might distract me from bad writing by giving me enough butterflies. But with already established ships I love, and the thrill of that gone, I now know this is not the case. I’ll keep this in mind for the future, so I can manage my expectations better. That's easier said than done, of course, so we'll see how well it goes. I’ll be practicing with Heart Killers, the new FirstKhaotung show, because they are my other favorite GMM ship. At least now I know not to set the bar too highly, because the higher the hopes, the harsher the fall. And this one really hurt.