BLISS RATING: ★★★★+
“Start writing, no matter what. The water does not flow until the faucet is turned on.” – Louis L’Amour
This story is a gritty, raw, no-nonsense life about a novelist who has hit rock bottom and is living on past laurels. It is profoundly depressing yet incredibly intoxicating to watch. There are two main characters with the third being pivotal and in a sense passing the baton of control to the younger guy. The novelist is Kijima (Terunosuke Takezai). He is a rather recluse individual who has had a string of successes writing porn novels.
He is involved in a bike accident with a young man named Kuzumi (Kenta Izuka). Kuzumi accidently bumps into Kijima and injures his writing hand.
Kuzumi has no money as he is a struggling student. Immediately upon their connection, you can feel the air get heavy as you can almost anticipate what the movements of these two individuals will be. Kuzumi offers to work for Kijima as a transcriber into Chinese. At first, Kuzumi is thrilled to do so as realizes the nature of his work when he listens/transcribes. He gets lost in the eroticism of it all and transfers that over to Kijima. He begins to see him not only as an author but a sexual object of great interest and fascination and to some degree wonderment, since his mind is filled with graphic sexual deeds. (Akin to perhaps eating the forbidden fruit). To some degree, he becomes mesmerized by it all and starts to fantasize about Kijima. Being as astute as he is, Kijima jostles this awareness and plays Kuzumi like a fiddle.
Eventually, they end up in bed with some very passionate and steamy love making. It is not to be confused with love as it is not that. Infatuation? Perhaps. But it is more of a craving, maybe insatiable, for lust and the intense feelings that go with having a lustful attachment. Kuzumi is a somewhat sheltered individual who is not particularly outgoing but does have a creative imaginative mind and deep thoughts about sex.
However, in walks Kijima’s friend, Kido Shiro (Yoshida Munehiro), who is his editor/publisher and ‘friend’. Of course, if you watched, MOOD INDIGO, you know that he was more than just a ‘Friend’. Kuzumi is jealous of that relationship and feels (rightly so) that there was more to it. As usual, Kijima evades responding honestly and tells him it is nothing. Of course, it was. Ironically, much of what happened to Kido will happen to Kuzumi.
All are powerless to stop it.
In an ironic twist, when Kuzimi comes to visit Kido to find out his true relationship after what appears to be the disappearance of Kijima, he hands Kuzimi the key to Kijima’s apartment, signifying that that part is over for him. Kuzimi will now be the object of attention. And they do so with an intensity and lust that is not often seen or felt in a BL series. Their connection is raw and exceedingly physical. Kuzumi will be the new focus in Kijima’s life even though they are apart and Kuzumi is living his own life.
Who really S.T.O.L.E. the series? For sheer range of acting intensities, I am naming Kenta Izuka as Kuzumi but only by a hairsbreadth. They were all spectacular, but Izuka has a phenomenal rage of acting abilities – from innocence to pure lust. I relish when actors can show characters on multiple levels depending upon the environment, mood, and fantasy. This he did. I liked his transition from being introverted and unsure to finally seeing another person with pure lust and desire, perhaps for the first time. You could tell his levels of confusion as to how he felt about Kijima from admiration to envy, to lust, to utter disappointment. Yet, he was inexorably drawn to him like a moth to flames. His levels of jealously with Kido intensified the more he thought of him as a threat. There was a deep connection in his eyes with Kijima that ranged from soft affection to deep lust. Much of this acting was subtle but with real overtones of evolution. One could tell that he went from being innocent to a full-blown passionate individual with complete sensualism. All done with an incredibly boyish charm which simply added to his cuteness and sexuality. Who would NOT have wanted him?
While this was a continuing story of MOOD INDIGO which was made after this but was the prequel saga to it, the characteristics of all three players were similarly evident, yet oddly divergent. The haunting words from Kido in MOOD INDIGO are as profound in this series as they are in this one. As Kido drives off and he sees Kuzumi embrace Kijima, he thinks to himself, “somewhere in my heart there will always be a flickering flame [for Kijima]. I think that flame will flicker until my dying day.” Sadly, Kido in this series passed the torch of this same sentiment to Kuzumi. Will Kuzumi someday face the same inevitable fate? What a fascinating story!
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