BLISS RATING: ★★★★★
“Just because you are soft, doesn’t mean you are not a force. Honey and wildfire are the color of gold.” – Victoria Erickson, Edge of Wonder: Notes from the Wildness of Being
This BL series so lives up to the quote above. It is in so many ways a soft, impressible BL series with its end message literally taking off like wildfire. It is a remarkable and surprisingly good series about love. But told deeply reflectively and more so without words than with words.
The series is more abstruse than the storyline because of the complexities of the main characters. It focuses on the photographer named Kaburagi Motoharu (Yamanaka Jyutaro) who works in the stake-out division of a weekly gossip magazine mainly concentrating on celebrities. Kaburagi is a rather intricate individual who weaves a web of connections around town in odd ways. Sometimes compromising to get a story. He is essentially a loner, pretty much aloof, but has an intensity about him that is serious. Rather focused on his job, he tends to forsake other pleasures to get the scope.
As a shakeup, Onoe Satoshi (Kimura Keito) is assigned to partner with Kaburagi. Onoe is a serious journalist but quiet and way more reserved and somewhat naïve. He is very dogged too. However, there is an honesty about him with a real sense of integrity to the work that he does. But both are very intensely focused individuals whose faults are obvious to each of them.
There is a moxie about this series that draws you into their story and their lives. The acting is simply superb. They underplay the roles yet bring such an underlying tone of sincerity to them. Both are misfits. Both are passionate, sincere, honorable, and dedicated. Both easily get wounded and without a doubt wear their emotions on their sleeves yet try to pretend they are not there. They speak volumes by what they do not say through their mannerisms and facial features and spontaneous acts of sensitivities to each other. The acting here is not done so theatrically but with intense feeling and emotions that are released through expressions.
The story is not necessarily unique although the premise is. They have a certain camaraderie and a natural rivalry between them but with an instant connection that is quirky and perplexing. It should not be, yet it is. It feels like sexual tension between them. They are indeed attracted to each other in the most awkward and clumsy way.
Who really S.T.O.L.E. this series? Yamanaka Jyutaro as Kaburagi and Kimura Keito as Onoe ARE the stars. There is just something about their quiet performances that made them so genuinely likeable with their misfit personalities. The way they sized each other instantly and see each other for who they are, both for what is attractive and not. It is a thing of beauty to watch. While perhaps not particularly what would be considered leading man qualities with a kind of frumpy look and appearance about them, they had a certain animalistic attraction to each other. In their brief romantic encounter, I found it, strangely, to be highly erotic. These two are the quiet ones, with the perception that sexual activities would be dull for them. But there is no doubt in my mind their sexual life will be quite fulfilling and incredibly satisfying. Why? Because they are in their own little world and they see only each other and understand, accept, and love each other on a whole different level. That is some fine acting to portray that kind of intensity without, ironically, being intense. Perhaps this makes no sense to anyone other than me. But I found them inexplicably compelling to watch.
Perhaps the oddity of the coupling made it work. With the self-assuredness of the one character with the hesitancy of the other complimented the relationship. They looked out for one another, focused their priority on protecting the other. From the very beginning, they only saw the other, became intertwined with each other and from the from the first moment they met, you have to define it as love. It just had to be for them.
I am so happy they found each other. Perhaps destiny or fate had a hand in it. And because to some degree they are cut from the same cloth, their love will simply grow and enhance. For some unknown reason, I was completely mesmerized by this simple, short series told so softly and in a laid-back tone, I was taken in. I loved this series a lot!
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