Jill

VIP

10

I wanted to like this, cause it sounded interesting with the reincarnation part. But I just didn't care about the two main couples enough.

The flashbacks were mostly confusing and I'm still not sure of the timeline of that story cause random clips were shown out of order. And they were randomly shown in between things happening in the "present" and I just didn't care about them at all.

Another thing I just couldn't get over was Pharm's facial expression every time Dean kissed him (or more), and how he said stop and no constantly to everything but Dean kept going for a while before stopping? Especially where the series had them pause, cut to black, and then naked the morning after. Every scene felt like Pharm doesn't want anything sexual, and the few kisses he initiates are simple peeks (as far as I remember anyway). Even another character who heard them have sex comments something like "if he didn't stop when you continue to cry or you stopped saying no, I would have stepped in." That is not romantic, nor a good representation of a relationship.

I do like the last 7 or so episodes, when they reveal to the past couple's siblings that they are the reincarnated people, though that came way too late and I was tempted to give up long before that.

I'm kind of curious about the relationship between Win and Team, however, so will probably watch Between Us when it gets released!

Initial reaction upon finishing this/season 1: me like!

After a little time to consider and think about it, I feel there are so many plotlines that are unfinished and I sincerely hope they get answers in Season 2. I do like this series, though it kind of feels more like a teaser or setup to a much bigger story which affects my rating of it. It feels in places rushed, and that saddens me cause it has such potential, with interesting characters and great chemistry, but with three couples in about 2.5 hours, there isn't enough room for neither character, relationships, or the plot to really develop. But this also puts into perspective what to expect, if you want a lot of plot and deep characters or character development this might not be it, cause it is only 2 hours with 6 characters and 3 relationships to tell.

There is a lot of plot behind the scenes as I mentioned, and I hope to get some answers in the future:
- Jun Cheng (the oldest brother): he has no desire to take over the company and seem to hate his father and blame him for his mother's death? And on that subject, just what happened to his mother? And will he ever manage to retrieve his mother's property as he wants to? Is his father the sole reason his grandfather's resort is still in business? Will they address the fact that Jun Cheng pays his "boyfriend" like a hooker, after having literally kidnapped him earlier in the story?
- Jun Dao (the middle brother): what is his goal since he has no desire to take over the company or even care about his inheritance and not even bothering to look for Lin Xun? More information about how and/or why he and Yang Xiang went from "best friends" to "my family owns you" to "lovers"?
- Jun Ping (the youngest brother): just what happened when he got kidnapped and Jun Cheng refused the ransom but still saved him?
- Yang Ziang (the father): what happened between him and his brother? Jun Cheng gets attacked by the uncle in Episode 1, but then neither the incident nor the uncle is ever mentioned again?

Oh, and in the first few episodes it seems that Lin Xun is the half brother of Jun Cheng and the others, but it is revealed to not be the case, so no worries there is no incest happening.

Another thing to note is that Jun Cheng speaks in Korean, while everyone else speaks Taiwanese - I wasn't bothered since I don't know either of these languages, but it might affect someone else's view of the series. I read someone speculating that the eldest son speaks Korean (he is supposed to be half) because Taiwanese is his father's language, and therefore Jun Cheng prefers Korean over Taiwanese. It isn't really talked about in the show though, but I'm going with that headcanon.

It has potential, the story is interesting and so on and so forth. I really did like that the BL is a smaller part of a much bigger plot, while still very much present. And they are adults, not teenagers with their teenage drama but proper adults with jobs and such—that is always a plus for me.

But I just couldn't get over the constant back and forth of "Are they a good guy? Are they a bad guy?" for a bunch of the characters. A traditionally good role/character acts suspiciously, they might be bad, it gets explained, they might be good after all. Then they do something new suspicious and the cycle repeats. I much prefer the characters that gave me a clear "I'm good/bad" and then switches once as a twist instead of the constant back and forth that I felt I got (both with clear doubt and more subtle hints).

It made it so that I didn't care about the characters, and therefore didn't care about the suspicions and mistrust as much as I felt like I should have. It also affected how much I could enjoy the relationship between Bun and Tan; Tan is constantly shown as suspicious while I'm supposed to root for their relationship to last or whatever? No, that just makes me want to scream "leave him" at the screen.

I'm kind of disappointed. Feels like only one character had a life outside the storyline, Maes Hughes, and the rest feels kind of flat and underdeveloped. They have their own skills and such, but outside the brothers, it feels like they either don't have a goal at all, or their goal is "Help Roy achieve his goal". There are exceptions of course, but they are either bad guys or borderline bad guys...

And Roy Mustang is another disappointment cause I remembered it as I liked him, but I just didn't find myself caring one way or another about him. His reasons and explanations and depth came way too late for me. Everyone is supporting him and his goal of becoming the leader, but I never understood why they do, or why I should care, or why I should want him as the leader...

From around the murder of Maes Hughes and onwards, I felt like I had to force myself to continue watching.

I do love that they "revisit" places and characters again later on in the series, and talks about characters before they are shown and such. And the story and world itself are so fascinating, making me want to like the anime.