BLISS Rating: ★
“In your hesitation, I found my answer.” – Sad Love Quotes
Some things simply should not be extended. And this is one series that should not have been prolonged. While I was not particularly enamored with the first season, I thought its concept was an interesting one and found it reasonably entertaining. So, I took a ‘chance’ on this second season. What a complete disappointment this was! Wow! It took me by surprise how inept and really substandard this story became. Not only is this story bad; so was the acting.
In the first season, Aoyanagi Hajime (Akutsu Nichika) and Akafuji Yuichiro (Abe Allen) ended up dating and were theoretically a ‘couple’. Yet in this reality, they do not live together, sleep together, communicate with one another, or even kiss. The level of immaturity displayed between the two is beyond-the-pale. They are even more juvenile in this season than they were in the previous one, which seems like an impossibility. While both are supposedly in their 20’s, they are in some sort of prepubescent stage of psychosexual development. Both refuse to want to grow or take their relationship to the next level. They are not even adolescents because at least in that stage, they would be showing signs of sexual tension. Here there is absolutely nothing but immaturity and juvenile behavior. Although Hajime is a bit more fixed and desires to take the relationship to another level, Yuichiro continues to act like a sophomoric dolt.
What is further exaggerated is the asinine set-ups of jealousy for each of them. It was all so contrived and artificial and downright childish that it was not remotely entertaining. I am guessing they were trying to make some of these contrived setups funny, but they were not. Most were so cringeworthy and so artificial that most critically-thinking adults would have found them scarcely credible.
Honestly, when you have a premise where two actors who are in madly in love and are a couple and act in BL series but in real life do everything they can to avoid commitment and passion and then think somehow all of that will be funny, entertaining, or cute, well you know you have a serious problem on your hands. That is how bad this whole series was. Not even the main protagonists could bring themselves to kiss one another playing lovers in a BL series who are supposedly in love in real life. Laughable? For sure. And it had nothing to do with cultural issues, or break-up traumas, or any other trite reasoning. It was just a dumb and stupid premise.
Who really S.T.O.L.E. this series? The only thing that saved this series from total extinction is the acting of the individuals who played the two managers of the two protagonists. Mostly in the background, they continued to play cat-and-mouse games with each other. While pretending to be enemies is triflingly overdone, it more overtly appears to be heightened expressions of sexual tensions between the two. Watanabe Shu plays Kijima Joji, the manager of Hajime and Ogoe Yuki plays Yuichiro’s manager, Yukari Hiroomi. Both are quite devoted to their respective clients and yet are inseparable from each other. Always finding a reason or excuse to be together. They show way more depth to their on-again-off-again relationship than the supposed one between Yuichiro and Hajime. They show at least some emotional connection to one another, and it is obvious that they like to be together, despite the feigned protests. They are a way more believable couple than the protagonists are. Both these actors are entertaining and bring a certain sense of joviality to this series that is sorely needed.
Overall, this is an astonishingly dumb plot with zero growth in the characters. The main actors have no real chemistry either individually or even less as a couple. Both seemed only half-hearted in their attempts to portray their personas. Worse than all of that is that there is no emotional payoff either. Not for one split second did I believe they were a ‘couple’ in any way, shape, or form, and did not for a New York minute ever believe they were in love. Their acting was rote and perfunctory.
Furthermore, the screenplay was juvenile and full of trite cliché setups that were frankly embarrassing to watch. How can you have grown men show not one iota of emotional growth, or even a smidgen of physical attraction to one another and yet profess to say they were a couple? They acted like juveniles not wanting to grow up from the beginning and remained that way throughout.
It is getting tiresome to constantly watch the same stupid concept of two adult grown men refusing to talk to each other in even the most basic of terms. And then to be so insecure that EVERY other person that even gets NEAR their supposed lover, partner, or love interest has more power, dynamics, beauty, influence, connection, and sway over him than he does. Enough already! I know this was billed as a comedy, but I found nothing, and I mean nothing, humorous about this series. Cringeworthy, for sure. Infantile, yes. Dumb, absolutely, Half-baked, yep. Funny? No.
This is one of the worst BLs series this year. This ought to be put in the Hall of Shame.
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