BLISS RATING: ★★★★★
“What is love? Love is short-lived eternity. Being happy together each day is all that matters.” – Quote from Wishing Upon The Shooting Stars
This is one of those rare journeys that comes along every so often that initially seems so straightforward but ends up becoming a transcendent traversal.
This gently told paragon may be the best-written and best-acted BL of the year. The foundation begins rather mundane and, in a sense, ordinary. By its end, however, it may prompt you to reflect on your own life and think back to moments when you wished you had maybe disappeared or imagined being someone else who might have made you feel more understood and appreciated. What would happen if you really did disappear…. But in the process, you realize that what you had all along was exactly what you had been looking for and seeking? Is it now too late as the reality that one might drift into oblivion? It seeks to answer the question: What happens if what one impulsively wished for, actually came true? Yet not in the utopian sense one thought it would have.
Laid-off worker He Xiang Yong (Jed Chung) comes home and immediately gets into it with his father (Lee Lee Zen). Seeking out his childhood friend, Li Wang Zhe (JN Yu), they go to the cliffs where they make a wish when they see a shooting star. On their small island, the legend goes that if you through a pebble into the sea during a shooting star, your wish will come true. Xiang Yong wishes for himself to disappear and not be remembered. While his friend Wang Zhe wishes for love.
When Xiang Yong wakes up the next morning, no one recognizes him, including his own father. The only person who does recognize him is his friend Wang Zhe. To compound his problem, Xiang Yong’s father has hired a helper while his son was gone who happens to be the former lover of Xiang Yong, Chen Haou Wei (Chu Meng Hsuan). He also does not recognize Xiang Yong for who he really is. Thus, he passes himself off as a close friend of Xiang Yong named Zhong Xiao You.
This is a story that makes you regard its characters. You understand them. You experience their stages as we see them slowly lessen from who they are. As Xiang Yong slides into oblivion, he finds out more and more about himself and who he was, or rather who he is. He is missed and was a likeable and productive member not just of his community but was influential in his professional career. Having realized that too late, he begins to see the folly of making frivolous impulsive wishes. Although Haou Wei does begin to perhaps sense who Xio You is, he cannot fully embrace him as Xiang Yong. Yet, in a strange way, a connection between the two develops that is reminiscent of what they had. The two struggle to define their budding connection. The heartbreak is only one party can fully grasp the whole picture and as time goes on, he fades more and more into oblivion where the fear is he will never be remembered at all as ever having existed.
In the meantime, Wan Zhe because of his wish, is suddenly pursued by his long-time friend, Hamaguchi Aomi (Kagami Kota). Their relationship fluctuates because as their time passes, the effects of the wish readjustments. Those now inside their world see events from different perspectives. Thus, their relationship twists into different versions but always with the same outcome. The development of their relationship is not smooth. Nothing is in this series.
It should be noted that of all the secondary relationships that have been animated in BL series, this one is by far one of the hottest and most sincere to be developed in a very long time. These two actors concentrated on who the characters were and made Hamagucjhi and Wan Zhe concrete. We can apperceive these two. There was no hesitation in their love-making or passion for one another. A rarity in BLs these days and an even rarer commodity for secondary couples. These two performers made their individual characters feel completely alive, exuded desire for the other, and projected an intense eroticism in their romantic scenes. In other words, what I am trying to say is that they were simply and blisteringly sensual and were to put it in the vernacular – hot.
Who really S.T.O.L.E. this series? There is some exceptional acting in this laid-back series. However, there is none better than the two young men who played the younger versions of our protagonists. Max Kuo as Hao Wei and Chen Yen Hsv as Xiang Yong captured not only the essence of their older personalities, but they were also who they purported to be. It is very difficult to have different individuals play the same personas and have seamless personalities with their same traits and quirks. These young actors did that and yet were able to capture the personalities of who they were with the exuberance of youth. So, when we see them older, we understand them already, as the foundation has already been laid down for us. These two young performers portrayed some fine acting and captured the essence of who each was representing. They gave us continuity in the story and a pure sense of why they had and continue to support such a strong bond with one another. Kudos for some fine acting by two younger performers.
This is a screenplay masterpiece. It takes a simple idea – our own frustrations – and turns it into an enchanting story. It makes us see, feel, sense and imagine what would happen if we euphemistically ‘disappeared’ yet were still able to see ourselves vanish. We could then discern all the people who loved us, cherished us, and thought of us with solemnity from their perspective. We could also name and perhaps take hold of what we have contributed to family, friends, and society. It gave us the opportunity to step back and see that love was right in front of us, often unnoticed, yet right there.
You will get no clear answers from this story, as there are none to get. It is confusing, illogical, time-expanding, transient, obscure, and mystical. But you will recognize the love. It is deep, enthusiastic, intense and beautiful. On so many, many levels. On a physical level, sexual level, emotional level, filial level, family level, professional level, spiritual level, and provincial level. It taught us all these loves were right here, waiting for us. And how easy it is for us to not see them and only see things from our own wounded perspective.
This series is messy in presenting a fantasy. The story becomes esoteric and metaphysical. If you want remedies, this series will not give you many. Except perhaps to only look inward to ‘see’ what is there all the time that you just did not notice. As an illustration, the two ‘gods’ presumably sent to consign the dichotomy in the space-time continuum only added to the confusion. Yet the avant-garde approach to finding a solution is what gives the premise a uniqueness and a flow to the story that, while cryptic, came together at the end. It works best when you accept the configuration as an experience rather than a puzzle to solve. The deeper truth is that a life becomes ‘forgettable’ when you chase the approval of those who do not matter and push away the people who truly do – those that love you. Your goal: Love in the moment those that will love you back.
This fantasy is a soft, gentle, deeply reflective, pensive, and introspective parable. Yet, it contains two of the most passionate love stories to come out in a long time, both with such genteel touches. Simply enjoy its themed message and ask yourself: What would happen if your essence suddenly disappeared, yet you remained? How would you sense having never existed yet here you are? It makes you think about this perhaps for your own epitaph.
What you have is a remarkable and provocative series overall to say nothing of a nucleus in which love manages to conquer even the space-time continuum. This is by far one of the best BLs this year and must be consideration for the Number One spot.
This is a true Magnum Opus for the year 2026.
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