March 2023 Roundup

4/14/23

Super late with this one hhhh

READING 

I've been severely slacking on my reading lately. I haven't been reading as much as I used to these past several months anyway, but since finishing volume 1 of the SOTUS manga (and being reminded how mid SOTUS was) it's been a slew of DNFs adding to a very long dry period. When I do read it' s usually just BL, yuri, and non-fiction, but even those have failed me. It doesn't help that all of my anticipated titles don't come out until May (Run Away With Me, Girl vol. 3, Happy Crappy Life, The Yakuza's Bias, My Dear Agent, Manner of Death vol. 1) and June (Old-Fashioned Cupcake, If My Favorite Pop Idol Made It to the Budokan, I Would Die), and those are just the ones I felt like listing. At least I have Does It Count If You Lose Your Virginity To An Android? to look forward to, but even that doesn't come out until the 18th! Luckily my days have been busy enough to where true boredom hasn't set in, but I miss those bits of escapism.

At least if no one else got me, I know webtoons got me. I'm still reading Jinx and Pearl Boy. The good thing about webtoons is that they go on for ages, so I'll be getting my BL fix out of those for the forseeable future. We're on ep 70 of Pearl Boy now (I think I was somewhere in the 40s when I first posted about it) and our dear Inkling saw fit to give us some psychotically, erotically codependent brothers!

Daehwi is, uh, very much a villain here, though, so I don't see us getting that brocontent for long, but I'm going to enjoy it while it lasts!

WATCHING 

Divorce Attorney Shin (2023)

It's always nice to watch a show with little to no het romance in it.

I put on Divorce Attorney Shin on a whim. What a gem! The plot waws intriguing, humor refreshing, and the cast phenomenal. And can you believe there was only one romantic couple in the whole thing with the majority of the story focusing on the strong platonic bonds between the characters?

My beef with Netflix aside, I would not mind another season of this. In the meantime, I'll be watching videos of Cho Seungwoo's performance as Hedwig. What a guy!

The End of the World With You (2023)

Did someone say "Toxic"? Bruh, this show. This show. Thetoxicity, the apocalypse, the fucking, the crying, the gender and sexuality reveals—this drama had everything. I first saw Seto Toshiki in Senpai, This Can't Be Love! which was... bad. And his performance wasn't exactly the greatest. I'm also not the biggest fan of end-of-the-world settings, so I had low expectations going into this thing. But it's based on a manga by Marukido Maki (the mind behind the manga series Pornographer which was adapted into a whirlwind multi-part drama series in 2018) so I was going to give it a go. I'm so glad I did. I only wish Japanese companies would include English subtitles on these kinds of releases because I would buy it in a heartbeat.

Jack O'Frost (2023)

Japan has been stepping up their BL drama game lately. The End Of The World With You, My Beautiful Man: Eternal, and Jack O'Frost are all contenders for the Top 5 2023 BL Drama list so far and it's only March! Jack O'Frost had little fanfare when it was announced so it almost slipped under the radar for me, but I quickly grew to love it. How cute are Kosuke Suzuki and Kyoya Honda? The 6-episode series, while shorter than the other Tunku Shower BLs, didn't result in a rushed or unfufilling ending. It wasn't perfect by any means, but damn if it didn't make me feel things.

ON REPEAT 

Something I never talk about—because literally no one has ever asked—is my love of the Japanese rock group B'z. To tell you the truth, I cannot for the life of me remember where I learned about them or the first song I heard from them. I know it was sometime in the 2000s and I think the metadata of whatever song it was pointed to the B'z The Best "Pleasure" album (or was it the The Best "Treasure"?). Either way, I loved what I heard and went down a B'z hole I didn't emerge from for almost a year. Five years ago B'z weren't on Spotify so I bought The Best "ULTRA Pleasure" and The Best "ULTRA" Treasure on eBay (in decent condition, too!). Not long after that I realized B'z were on Spotify now. No regrets for buying the physical albums of course, but now I can enjoy the songs more easily. I don't know why my love of B'z came back this month, but I've cycling through their discography nonstop. Honestly, this whole playlist could have been B'z songs but I limited myself to three.

NEATO 

I'm four months late to this hbomberguy video but it is a whirlwind. You can't guess where it ends up—or you could if you're more tapped into the video game world than I am. Highly recommend!

• Continuining the trend of BL actors dominating Korean survival shows: Santa and Yacht of Studio Wabi Sabi are apparently killing it on Fantasy Boys, having reached the top 5 in the latest voting round. At the same time we're on the last round of voting for Boys Planet and things are looking promising for Kim Jiwoong, who hasn't dropped out of the top 5 since voting began. Truthfully I haven't been keeping up with the show too much but I did re-download the MNet app just to vote for him. You can do that, too. Ahem.
• WE'RE GETTING SEASON 2 OF THE HYPMIC ANIME! The anime was FAR from perfect, but goddamn was it a good time. This time we'll even get to see DH and BAT! I'm so excited.