Archive for the Staff Writer Category


Is You and Don’t Mess with Senior

October 2nd, 2024

Promotional poster for the Cambodian yuri series Is You. At the top of the poster are Kun (left) and Sour (right), nuzzling nose to nose. At the bottom of the poster are Sour (left) and Neang (right); both have pulled-back hair and bright red lipstick, and are staring at the camera, not smiling.Continuing our tour of Southeast Asian live-action yuri, we come to Cambodia, a country that has a much smaller population than either Thailand or Vietnam, and a per capita GDP as small relative to Vietnam’s as Vietnam’s is to Thailand’s. It’s therefore a surprise to find that Cambodia has produced a number of live-action yuri series, due primarily to the work of media entrepreneur Bun Channimol and her production company Sastra Film. Thus far Sastra Film has produced almost a dozen yuri series (some short-form, others longer), distributed through its own streaming app and on YouTube. Here I look at two series chosen at random from its output.

Is You is an adult yuri series, with six episodes plus a final “special episode” available on YouTube with English subtitles. It tells the tangled tale of TV host Neang (Ya Sophanmai), her husband, actor Kun (Sok Sunny), and fitness trainer Sour (Rachana Ravady). Neang is secretly married to Kun, who chafes at her reluctance to make their relationship public. Sour, a guest on Neang’s show, is also (unknown to Neang) Kun’s girlfriend from many years ago. Kun seizes the opportunity of Sour’s reappearance (and his apparent single status) to renew their relationship. After learning of Kun’s infidelity, Neang strikes back by beginning her own affair with Sour (as one does).

Unfortunately for yuri fans, this turn doesn’t occur until the end of episode 4. A good part of the first few episodes is taken up with Kun’s and Neang’s frustration with each other and Kun’s gloating to himself about having found a new love. After Kun is exposed and Neang and Sour begin their affair in earnest, the final episode destroys any goodwill one might have had toward the series: First Neang tests Sour’s love for her with a cruel prank that Sour should have slapped her for, and then Kun ends the episode monologuing like a B-movie villain about his desire for revenge. This implies that there may be a second season, but frankly I have zero interest in watching it.

Story — 5
Characters — 4
Production — 5 (mediocre subtitles, with some episodes on the Sastra Film app lacking them entirely)
Service — 3
Yuri — 5 (Neang and Sour get together because it’s ostensibly a yuri series and the plot demands it)
Overall — 3

Promotional poster for the Sastra Films yuri series Don’t Mess with Senior, showing the lead characters Dy and Lin.After watching Is You I badly needed a palate cleanser, and fortunately Don’t Mess with Senior fit the bill nicely. Season 1 is on YouTube and the Sastra Film app, with a second season starting October 19. (There’s also a short form series, Don’t Mess with Senior: Part-Time Love, that’s set after the events of season 1 and presumably before the events of season 2.) Its premise is a classic yuri trope: first-year university student Dy (short, brown-haired) enthusiastically pursues her senpai Lin (taller with black hair), who initially resists Dy’s advances but eventually finds herself responding to them.

As we saw in Blank: The Series, there are two keys to making this trope work: the actor playing the younger pursuer must walk a fine line between being cute and being annoying, while the actor playing the pursued character must effectively portray the transition from being annoyed to being intrigued to being in love. An Mengly (nickname “Lily”), who portrays Dy, does about as well at this as Yoko did in season 1 of Blank, playing things a bit too broadly at times, while Som Monipich (“Pich”), who portrays Lin, isn’t as convincing as Faye in her character’s evolution. Nonetheless Lily and Pich as Dy and Lin play well together and make a cute couple, even when Dy’s antics get to be a bit too much.

Don’t Mess with Senior is also noteworthy for its setting: most of season 1 takes place on a university trip to rural Cambodia to study the local ecology and plant mangrove trees (which entails everyone schlepping around almost hip-deep in the water). The trip offers plenty of occasions for Dy to try to get closer to Lin, to play pranks on her fellow students (including Lin) and their professor, and to get jealous at Lin’s being friendly with the professor’s daughter.

The season ends somewhat inconclusively, with the final episode being a combination of recap episode and a Q&A session with the two leads. The latter features questions a bit bolder than those posed to other yuri leads, including asking Lily whether she and Pich are in a relationship off-screen (“No!”) and what she thinks of homosexuality (“I can’t see anything wrong [with it]. I want our society to accept them as well.”). Lily adds that people tried to discourage her from appearing in the series (her first role) based on the subject matter, but “I don’t care at all.” For her part, Pich is happy to have been cast in Don’t Mess with Senior: “I’m into that kind of series. Now I’m able to act in my kind of series.” Lily and Pich conclude by thanking their supporters and asking them to watch the upcoming season 2; I think I’ll take them up on that suggestion.

Story — 5 (you’ve no doubt seen it before, and likely more than once)
Characters — 6 (somewhat one-note, but often amusing and endearing)
Production — 6 (location shooting greatly improves the look and feel of the series)
Yuri — 6 (a reciprocal confession from Lin must await season 2)
Service — 3 (a drunken kiss)
Overall — 6

Is You is eminently skippable, but those interested in live-action yuri beyond Thailand might want to check out Don’t Mess with Senior, especially if you want a break from the typical urban settings of Asian TV series.





My First Love’s Kiss, Volume 1

September 25th, 2024

On a rocky shore, two girls in Japanese school uniforms with dark skirts and white sailor-style uniform tops stand. One, with long dark hair, is a distance away. Closer to us is a blonde who looks over right shoulder at us.

by Eleanor Walker, Staff Writer

Content warning: Underage sex work is a prominent theme of this book, although nothing is explicitly described. There is also violence.

My First Love’s Kiss is the newest English release from Hitoma Iruma, who authored the Saeki Sayaka novel spinoff of Bloom into You, and Adachi and Shimamura. Illustrations are by fly, whose work has also appeared in Chasing After Aoi Koshiba, and various yuri anthologies.

My first introduction to Iruma-sensei’s work was reading the Saeki Sayaka spinoff novels of Bloom Into You, and having subsequently read most of Adachi and Shimamura, and now the first volume of this series, I have come to the conclusion that his works are much more enjoyable when he’s writing about someone else’s characters instead of his own.

The author’s own afterword says that this is planned to be a 3 volume series, and this volume almost reads like a prequel, setting up the characters and story but without much actually happening. Some research while writing this review indicates that this series is set in the same universe as Adachi and Shimamura and stars Shimamura’s former senpai. Hino and Nagafuji also appear as supporting characters. However, I had no idea about this going into the book, and the cover just says “From the author of Adachi and Shimamura” with no indication that the two series are linked. Perhaps it’s because the Adachi and Shimamura novel series is released in English by Seven Seas, whereas this is a Yen On release, but I feel that’s some important context which is missing.

As for the story itself, I’m not really sure what’s going on here. The first chapter is told from Takasora’s point of view. She and her mother live in a small apartment, and the novel opens up with “surprise, here’s my friend and her daughter, they’re going to be living with us for a while” Understandably, Takasora is not too impressed with having to share her already small bedroom with this new interloper and losing her only private space. At first they agree to ignore each other, but Takasora wonders where her new roommate is going late at night.

The second chapter is told from Takasora’s new roommate, Umi’s, point of view. Umi and her mother have clearly not had an easy life, couchsurfing is all she knows, and she finds herself involved with an older woman, Chiki, who is willing to pay her for companionship. Much of this chapter is a flashback telling the story of Chiki and Umi so far.

The third and final chapter alternates points of view, and Takasora confronts Umi about what she’s doing at night. Encouraged by Umi’s mother, for some unknown reason, Takasora follows Umi to see what she’s getting up to and overhears her confessing her love to Chiki and her wish to start dating without money involved, which they do. Maybe I’m just missing something, but I don’t understand how Takasora has gone from barely tolerating Umi at the beginning to now having an unrequited crush on her by the end of the book.

Ratings:

Art – 6. I enjoy Fly’s art style but the illustrations in this book are very samey. Even the cover illustration is repeated twice in the colour page section at the beginning of the book.
Story – 5. All setup, no substance. Hopefully it’ll improve in the next volume.
Characters – 5. Especially without knowing the link to Adachi and Shimamura, I found the characters rather flat.
Service – I don’t feel comfortable rating underage sex work as service.
Yuri – 4 . There are women/girls in relationships.

Overall – 5 . I’ll probably finish the series if it’s only 3 volumes, but I’m glad it was on offer when I bought it on a whim in the shop.





The Loyal Pin

September 18th, 2024

Promotional poster for the series The Loyal Pin, showing Freen as Pin and Becky as Anin.It’s been less than two years since Rebecca Patricia Armstrong and Freen Sarocha Chankimha put Thai live-action yuri on the map with their appearances in GAP: The Series. GAP racked up hundreds of millions of views and inspired a host of other Thai yuri series seeking to match its success. Becky and Freen have now returned to put to flight the pretenders to their throne, in their new series The Loyal Pin, based on the novel of the same name by Mon Maw. (The Loyal Pin is currently streaming on YouTube; this review covers the show through episode 7 of 16.)

The “throne” is almost literal in this case, as The Loyal Pin, a period piece set in the 1950s on, tells the story of Princess Anin (Becky), a member of the Thai royal family, and Lady Pin (Freen), her childhood friend and (as the series progresses) lover. Unlike GAP (for which its production company Idol Factory famously had no sponsor), The Loyal Pin is lavishly funded (by the Thai Ministry of Commerce, among others). Every baht of that shows up on the screen, from the beautiful sets to the top-notch cinematography to the lovingly-photographed Thai cuisine. As befits what is in many respects an advertisement for Thailand (part of the Thai government’s “soft power” strategy), The Loyal Pin also presents an idealized view of a (fictional) Thai royal family, depicted (at least thus far) as uniformly nice people.

To put it simply, The Loyal Pin is a romantic fantasy of a princess finding true love — except that in this case the princess is a lesbian. Princess Anin and Lady Pin have been extremely close since they were children, when Pin was adopted by her aunt (another princess) after the death of her parents. While Pin is attending university, Anin returns from studying abroad in England to express her “burning desire” for Pin. Pin, an introverted young woman (and outranked by Anin to boot) is initially reluctant to respond in kind, but eventually gives in to her own desires. But trouble is on the horizon: now that their studies are over, Anin and Pin will no doubt be expected to marry eligible suitors arranged for them. Anin has rejected a multitude of hopefuls thus far, and may escape that fate (there is real-life precedent for this), but it’s likely that Pin cannot. The remaining episodes of the series will presumably see this drama play out.

Freen and Becky’s previous appearances in GAP and other works and their history as an Idol Factory-promoted khu jin or “imagined couple” have given them a level of trust and comfort with each other that makes their characters’ on-screen romance completely convincing. Becky has improved her acting since GAP, and effectively portrays a princess who can be imperious with servants and would-be suitors, and dominant in her love scenes with Pin, but who is ultimately subject to the constraints of her position as a young woman in a patriarchal family.

Freen has less dialogue and the character of Pin is shy and retiring, but she compensates for it using her eyes, facial expressions, and gestures to convey Pin’s emotions. The camera focuses on her when Pin finally confesses to Anin, and rightly so — it’s an achingly romantic scene. Finally, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Nam Orntara Poolsak, who plays Anin’s maid and confidante Prik. Nam, who played Sam’s friend Jim in GAP, is truly hilarious as the wingman for Anin and Pin’s relationship; she deserves to have a lead role someday in her own show.

Ever since GAP, fans have been waiting for “FreenBecky” to appear on screen again. Another production company featured them in the science fiction film Uranus 2324, but that movie has not yet been widely released outside Thailand. Now with The Loyal Pin Idol Factory has created a more than worthy successor to GAP, one that further cements Freen and Becky’s position as Thai yuri royalty.

Story — 8
Characters — 9
Production — 9
Service — 5 (sensual without being explicit)
Yuri — 10
LGBTQ — ? (a final score must wait until the full plot plays out)
Overall — 9

Incredible production values, an affecting story, and solid performances by Freen and Becky make The Loyal Pin the best Thai live-action yuri series to date, a sapphic storybook romance that should delight their current fans and attract new ones.





The Secret of Us

August 14th, 2024
Promotional poster for the Thai live-action TV series The Secret of Us, showing Orm as Earn (left) and Lingling as Fahlada (right).Another day, another Thai yuri “love team.” Today it’s Lingling Sirilak Kwong and Orm Kornnaphat Sethratanapong, better known to fans as “Lingorm.” They star in The Secret of Us, an 8-episode series that aired on Channel 3, Thailand’s oldest commercial broadcast channel, and is streaming with English subtitles on YouTube, the 3Plus Premium service, or Netflix, depending on the country.

Based on the novel of the same name by Mee Nam, The Secret of Us features the lovers-to-enemies-to-lovers story of Fahlada (Lingling) and Earn (Orm), who meet and fall in love as university students. After a particularly cruel parental intervention, Earn is forced to break off the relationship. Stung by Earn’s rejection, and not knowing the cause of it, Fahlada is unpleasantly surprised years later to find that Earn, now a successful actor, has been engaged to film a commercial for the private hospital owned by Fahlada’s family, in which Fahlada now works as a doctor and of which she’s the presumptive future director.

While Fahlada wants absolutely nothing to do with Earn, and is slated to be engaged to a handsome fellow doctor, Earn regrets the break-up and tries to persuade Fahlada to open her heart to her once again. And here lies the major problem with this series: although Earn wants to reconcile with Fahlada, who was severely traumatized by Earn leaving her, Earn never bothers to explain to Fahlada exactly why she left her in the first place, and we as viewers aren’t provided any clue as to why Earn doesn’t provide that explanation. It’s a particularly egregious example of a story that wouldn’t exist if the people involved bothered to talk to each other.

The Secret of Us has other plot problems: The end of the series features a clichéd plot twist (one that’s already been employed by at least two other recent Thai yuri series) that serves to force a family reconciliation that comes off as more than a bit unearned. (It’s apparently a standard theme in Thai dramas that happy endings require that initially-recalcitrant elders be appeased.) There’s also a cringeworthy BL subplot that is not in the source novel and was clumsily shoehorned in, presumably as a sop to BL fans.

Fortunately, things look better when we turn from plot to characters: Orm (who resembles a young Scarlett Johannson from certain angles) is quite winning and winsome as the brown-haired extroverted member of the standard yuri pair, while Lingling cuts an elegant figure as the scorned and sensitive black-haired beauty. They play well against each other, both when angry and upset and when being cutely affectionate with each other—although those looking for the raw eroticism of GAP and Blank will be disappointed. Three other characters stand out from the crowd: Russamee (Um Apasiri Nitibhon) is an ice-cold villain and formidable final boss who won a “most hated” award on Reddit. Engfa (Ying Anada Prakobkit), one of Earn’s fellow actors, is consistently interesting as she alternately pines for Earn and helps her reconcile with Fahlada. And Earn’s manager Suzie (Eclair Chatsak Mahata) is so unabashedly herself, in her colorful outfits and ever-changing hairstyles, that she transcends the comic relief role that the script has assigned to her.

Unfortunately, the relatively weak scriptwriting in The Secret of Us often puts otherwise compelling characters into situations that don’t make sense given the context, as with some of Earn’s more forward attempts to win Fahlada back. Lingling and Orm deserve a better vehicle for their considerable talents.

Story – 5
Characters – 8
Production – 8
Service – 4 (not just one but two shirtless guys for the BL fans)
Yuri – 10
LGBTQ — 3
Overall – 7 (I was this close to giving it a 6, but Lingling and—especially—Orm persuaded me not to)

The Secret of Us is a fun watch as long as it focuses on the main characters, but you’ll need to turn off the part of your brain that’s sensitive to plot holes and clichés.





She Makes My Heart Flutter

August 7th, 2024

Promotional poster for the South Korean live-action yuri series She Makes My Heart Flutter, showing Jung One (left) holding a clipboard and her niece Kang Seol (right), looking surprised.

By Frank Hecker, Staff Writer

I like to highlight yuri series from different countries (why should Thailand get all the attention?) and from new directors and studios. In that spirit, today’s pick is She Makes My Heart Flutter, a short web series (just over an hour in total running time) from South Korea’s SOO NOT SUE Studio. It’s not exactly new, having been released almost two years ago, but I wasn’t around these parts to review it then; please allow me to rectify that omission.

She Makes My Heart Flutter wastes no time in kicking off its plot, as “optimistic” 20-year-old Seol Kang (or Gang Seol—the subtitles have inconsistent romanization as well as name order) awakens to her girlfriend breaking up with her via text message. Meanwhile her aunt, “considerate” 33-year-old One Jung, posts a “help wanted” poster for Dickinson’s Room, her café and bar, which is frequented by Seol’s friends. (The series also doesn’t waste time introducing its characters: they each get an introductory graphic with name, age, and personal traits.) As she joins her friends for drinks, Seol is surprised to learn that her aunt is the cafe’s owner, and schemes her way into getting a part-time job.

This sets up the first of the show’s two plot threads: unlike Seol, who is proudly out, One is both closeted and very reserved, and wants herself and her café to have as low a profile as possible—the café has no exterior signage and its social media account is private. As Seol brashly points out to her, this strategy is not conducive to running a successful business, and Dickinson’s Room is often empty of patrons. Well, not completely empty: Re Lee, the woman who designed the café’s interior, now comes in every evening at 8 pm sharp to have a drink and talk with One. Seol’s friends think Re is straight, but it’s impossible to miss the sparks flying between the two. The two parallel subplots briskly play themselves out, with conflict between generations on the one hand and mature reticence on the other, but all is well in the end.

She Makes My Heart Flutter is a romantic comedy that separates the two aspects: Seol and her friends provide the comedy (along with Bin Yu, the café’s manager) and One and Re supply the romance. This works quite well from both a story and character perspective. Ji-Hyun Byun as Seol Kang is the very model of an extroverted young lesbian who’s come out at a time when that’s increasingly a normal thing to do, while So-Mi Park as One Jung gives a subtle and touching performance as a mature thirty-something who still fears the disapproval of her parents and society at large.

The director of She Makes My Heart Flutter, the pseudonymous Soo Not Sue, has released two other web series on YouTube, the 15-minute short Chalna: Enough Time to Fall in Love and the 3-episode series Out of Breath. In an interview, she’s expressed her desire to make more shows reflecting the reality of lesbian life in what is still a relatively conservative and hostile South Korean society. I hope she gets that chance.

Story — 8
Characters — 8
Production — 7 (director Soo makes maximum use of limited resources and locations)
Service — 2
LGBTQ — 10 (the series reflects the lesbian scene in Seoul’s Hongdae neighborhood)
Overall — 8

She Makes My Heart Flutter is a can’t miss combination of young adult lesbian comedy and mature adult lesbian romance, both wrapped up in an easy-to-watch one-hour package. If you missed it back then, consider checking it out now.

Erica here: This year there was finally some good news for same-sex couples in Korea, as a high court ruled that discrimination by national insurance is illegal, but Korea is generally far behind on rights for queer folks.