BLISS RATING: ★★★★+
“Don’t let sadness trap you.” – Quote from The Boy Next World My Destiny
I loved this adaptation of virtually the same premise of the Thai story completed last year, which I disliked with enmity. The current version has so much more richness, depth, and dimension to it than the presentation from last year. It is an exceptionally good remake. Normally, I detest remakes as they are either unoriginal copies or perhaps only use the title for a completely new story. While keeping the basics, this version made the story so much more tenable and relatable. More importantly, it did not try and ‘fake’ us into thinking it was one thing but only to twist it into another, like the original Thai did. Yet this rendition did present just enough of a metaphysical twist to make me believe there could be indeed a parallel universe. Or, at the very least, believe in the possibility that one exists.
To accept this premise, you must suspend your beliefs. And accept on the surface what you see without prejudice. Yotsuba Fuh (Hamaya Takuto), a handsome but rather laid-back college student who seems incapable of seeing the world in negative terms and maybe a bit naïve in the ways of the world, one day gets a knock on his college dorm door from Kogami Sara (Nagumo Shoma), breathless and bandaged, thankful Fuh is all right. He suddenly hugs him and exclaims they are lovers. However, they are not. Fuh has never really met Sara, although he certainly is enamored by him. Sara is ardently handsome but as cold and distant as he is striking. Yet he continually insists that they are lovers.
There is such sincerity in what Sara says and does that begins to make Fuh believe, earnestly, that Sara must be from a parallel universe. And in that universe, they are indeed lovers. Sara seems to know so much about Fuh that is uncannily accurate. Yet something is off.
Not his passion or love for Fuh. That is genuine. Unequivocally real. As time passes, their relationship deepens and grows intenser. Yet Sara knows that he is not telling Fuh the whole story. And Fuh is hesitant to want to fully embrace Sara because he thinks he is only a substitute for his real Fuh who is in another universe. He does not want to fully commit himself to Sara in this world because he knows he could disappear into the other universe.
Sara is a deeply trouble young man. His split-personality from being the loving Sara to the detached and dispassionate Sara is a direct result of his abusive upbringing. His mother has and is continually treating Sara only as a commodity that she owns and to do with as she wants. With feeling no love or connection to anyone, the only one who had shown him even a modicum of amity towards him was Fuh. So, it seemed natural for Sara to glum onto Fuh from a distance. He became his protector, his guardian, and peripheral friend. Overtime, he developed a love for Fuh that became unrequited.
The car accident caused something within Sara to jolt him to become more apparent and outward in his feelings for Fuh. However, rather than be honest from the beginning, he chose to manufacture and foster the parallel universe story. Or was it?
Who really S.T.O.L.E. this series? Two supporting characters did. Both equally fascinating characters and in a sense undoubtedly must be considered as perhaps almost construct characters. Limura Taiga played by Nakayama Shugo is Sara’s best friend from childhood and his only connection to humanity. Astonishingly and hauntingly handsome, he has tried to keep Sara grounded and tethered to humanity, often times not very successfully. He knows what an evil woman Sara’s mother is. He has been there for Sara’s good times and challenging periods and tries mightily to keep him from losing all hope. The other individual is the best friend of Fuh named Kana Jin played by Uemura Sauta. Jin, devilishly handsome as well, seems to know things that he should not, but does. It turns out that he can read minds of individuals if they are close to him. These two carry a major burden because they know so much more than perhaps, they should or ought to. As they try to steer Sara and Fuh into the direction of being together, they too fall in love, but in a rather helter-skelter fashion. Both Shugo and Sauta play their parts in such gentle, whispered inclinations. Always grudgingly yet lovingly. Both are loyally devoted to their friend. Their relationship to one another, however, is hardly detected except for the undertones of sexual tension between them. Both pretending it is not there but both knowing it is. They in essence are falling in love with each other and we can see it ironically without seeing it. These two did a masterful job of pretending to not being in love and yet showing all the signs that they are. Oh, I wanted to watch so much more of their entanglements together!
The reason I loved this series so much more than the Thai version is because it does not pretend. It also became clear from the beginning that Sara was deeply in love with this current Fuh and not some other version. It was also so refreshing to watch them explore their first sexual encounter together. I loved it as it was something that for new gay couples who are young and likely to have sex for ‘the first time’. They pleasured the other which was honest and likely the usual first act between two men. So straightforward and so candid. It was intimate and something that will remain with each for the rest of their lives. Nicely done and intimated with frankness.
As mentioned, there remains a metaphysical component to this story. Sara seems to drift into a realm where versions of himself seem to fight over who will return to be with Fuh. Fuh always seems to be the key to their ongoing battle between versions of himself. One was dressed in white while the other was dressed in black. Signifying an opposite – a yin and yang – within Sara. A balanced duality between Saras – fighting for his soul or his identity. For me, this did represent a possibility of a parallel universe. And not a break in reality or a schizophrenic personality trait as was obvious in the Thai version.
In this version, Sara was NOT delusional or insane. He was presented as an astonishing sad figure, hiding behind a cold-stoned façade – looking out for Fuh as a protector and was willing to remain in the shadows. Then a push – perhaps the sojourn into the parallel universe meeting his other Saras – made him realize that if HE did not act, he would indeed end up just like his mother: lonely, bitter, angry, with not a shred of humanity left.
In all aspects, he loved and did not want to lose that. He had to convince Fuh that he truly loved him and win over his love for him. What a beautiful story and so much better than the Thai version because this one had heart and emotionally cared for the characters and it showed.
Why perhaps I did not make this a higher rating is because the kissing, especially at the end, slipped into the usual Japanese mode of a dead-fish kiss. While not as bad as some Japanese BLs, it was still pathetic. Look, you had such a great passionate series, and you could not put the finishing touches on this series by making their kisses, particularly at the end, ones of passion and sensuousness. Shame and disappointment.
This would have been one of my all-time favorites had you done so.
Nonetheless, this is still a very good series and a much, much better version than the Thai one.
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