If Only GMMTV Was About That GL Life, Casting For Semantic Error Would Be Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy.

LEE JONGHYUK & LEE SEUNGGYU for GLEAM.

the korean web drama Fragile that was first announced as korean remake of Skam and then was retracted as such and advertised as its own show (with similar model of airing and themes) premiered

i skimmed through episode 1 and plainly, it is Skam. not just similar or reminds of, but a really damn faithful adaptation of the show, remade with korean filming style and mood. the story, characters' profiles and traits, relationships, the storytelling style (like intro speech about societal problems of high schoolers), showing the date of events in the beginning of a clip, the airing model with bonuses on social media, it's all identical. we have a korean Eva with horrible insecurities and loneliness, korean Ingrid who makes her feel like shit in classes, her boyfriend korean Jonas whose affection she is so unconfident about

korean Isak is very possessive of korean Jonas and his feelings can be seen like 5 kilometers away so i assume if it's renewed for more seasons we will see a gay storyline later too

korean Noora briefly appeared in the middle of the episode too and seems to be as cool as the original which thank god, korean Eva is gonna need her influence badly

if anyone is a Skam fan and wanted to watch back when it was announced and got discouraged when it was retracted as a remake, you can do it. as long as they don't suddenly go completely different way in episode 2, it's Skam Korea

The fact that Seojoon has folders upon folders saved and named: (1) Seojoon, (2) Do not open, (3) Are you sure? (4) You may regret it (5) Hanjiwoo… in order to access Jiwoo’s pictures he didn’t come around to delete, kills me. Also, the fact that he finds it difficult to fake cry onset during filming, but cries deeply upon viewing these photos, kills me even more.

Give me a kiss.

HIDDEN AGENDA BTS SPECIAL

OUR DATING SIM [EP 6]

Lee Wan being *shooketh* yet delighted by workplace PDA assault

BEHIND THE SHOW | KinnPorscheWorldTour💫

Japanese QL Corner

In which I cling to the last vestiges of two of my favorite shows of the year, write a eulogy for one of the most disappointing, and rejoice over the entry of a new fav. These shows are available for weekly streaming on Gaga unless otherwise noted.

Mr. Mitsuya's Planned Feeding

Farewell to a wonderful show. @isaksbestpillow has posted all seven episodes as of last week, so if you've been waiting for a binge, now is your chance. I already said a lot about why I loved this one, so I'll just use this space to urge you again to watch! This show is a goddamn delight.

Takara's Treasure

The main narrative ended last week, but this week we got a sweet little epilogue and one more visit with Takara and Taishin. I enjoyed the brief glimpse into their near future and getting to see Taishin turn 20 with his very first fuzzy navel, though I was a bit sad we got a repeat of the finale's themes rather than treading new ground for their relationship (I could not have cared less about the fujoshi writing RPF). This was a lovely show and I will miss these characters.

Happy of the End

CWs: Assault, child abandonment, child molestation, childhood sexual slavery, dubcon (including between the main characters), human trafficking, rape, sexual coercion and exploitation, suicidal ideation/possible attempt, unsafe S&M practices, violence

A very rough week for this show in terms of the content--please mind the triggers above because these are explicit depictions and it can be hard to stomach. I am waiting to see where this show is going with its themes before I make a final judgment, but watching the fourth episode in particular, some parts felt like crossing the line into gratuitous trauma porn that provided little additional illumination. We'll see how it shakes out in the end, but please take care with this one. I continue to find the characters and relationship dynamics compelling, and I am invested in Haoren and Chihiro's attempt to have a relationship despite the metric ton of baggage they are shouldering between them. Neither is equipped to even have any idea what a healthy relationship looks like, but they see something in each other and they want to try. That tiny bit of hopeful but likely doomed thinking may be all we have to cling to in this story.

I Hear the Sunspot

Sigh. I am sad about what this show could have been. For me, the finale definitely did not succeed at sticking the landing and making the last six weeks of wheel spinning feel worth it, and this show is going down as one of the big disappointments of the year for me. As you know if you've been keeping up with this weekly post, I loved the first half of this show, and Taichi's original characterization, so much. And I don't understand what happened here. The second half has felt like a completely different, confused, demonstrably worse show. Taichi hasn't felt like himself in weeks, the plots with Maya and the job at Sign were poorly grounded, inconsistently executed, and offered little pay off either thematically or in terms of character development, and the romance writing was a complete failure. It was actually painful to see Kohei run after Taichi and confess to him again, and the directing and editing of that sequence was so muddled that I had no idea what I was supposed to understand about Taichi's emotional journey or why this was the moment he was suddenly able to reciprocate. After all that brooding and his big speech about communication, he did not communicate much of anything to Kohei in the end. And I'm supposed to be content with leaving them here? Deeply unsatisfying on just about every level.

I understand from @twig-tea that while the story followed the beats of the manga's first two volumes at a high level, this production chose to remove many of the contextual details that actually made sense of the characters' behavior. It also seems they didn't understand they were setting up character arcs that did not get resolved until a later volume the show will not cover, thus ensuring the story would end at the wrong place. Just a baffling set of adaptation choices, and so much wasted potential. It's a shame.

Love is Like a Poison

But at least we have a new favorite coming in hot a week sooner than expected! I absolutely loved this first episode, in which we meet Shiba, our cold-hearted lawyer with delusions of grandeur and a sexually charged fixation on his house plants, and Haruto, our flirty scammer who has his number. This show is really well written and packed a ton of story, comedy, and deep characterization into its first episode. It's a promising start! For now it’s only available grey outside of Japan; I am hoping it will get picked up for proper international distribution soon.

Tagging @bengiyo to add this week's anime update.

I swear so many critics of queer media are full of brain rot, because they’ll watch a new queer series and invent an alternate universe where we have a rich body of queer media from which to judge tropes in these series as “tired” or “overdone” or “cheesy.” We don’t “earn” good queer media by constantly belittling new works for not being a tortured artistic exploration of queerness in an unforgiving society. Queer media is allowed to have tropes that are relatable, and tropes aren’t inherently bad. Queer media is allowed to expand to different genres. Queer media is allowed to be idealistic and cheesy, and it is especially allowed to be campy. If it doesn’t directly and actively harm queer people by reinforcing negative stereotypes and promoting violence towards us then it’s not “overdone.” You just don’t like it. 🙄

Let's just stay like this.

really cannot emphasise enough that "All Men Bad" and "masculinity is inherently violent, dangerous, and evil" are load-bearing pillars of radfeminism and these ideas cannot have a place in any truly progressive queer theorising.