Boys love marathon
For once I think I´ll write this post in english, as the topic might be of considerable interest for other faghag-otakus desperately and utterly in love with boys who love boys, especially in the forum manga and anime. Think I might even keep all the posts on the subject in english, it depends. Well. Long story short - poor little ol me was completely ignorant to the fact that there actually existed BL- Live action movies! :O You say. Well. I actually thought the market wasn´t really that welcoming of something still so controversial. An occasional gay love movie does hit the cinemas now and then (and of course I DEVOUR them all) but that it actually had been done several productions on popular BL mangas, that had passed me by. Well - yesterday I was enlightened... Moahahahaha.
I PRESENT : BAMBIKILLS TOTAL ASIAN BOYS LOVE FEST!
Ta-fucking-daa :)
Since I am this utterly selfobsessed person who values my own opinions highly (and truthfully mostly because I want someone, ANYONE (!!!!) in my cirkle of acquaintances to recognize and share my passion so I could have someone to chatter away with about stuff that... hrm... To say the least, most people does not understand my view...) I will review them ALL as I go along... hehe. Please bear with me - I promise - I´m a killer writer. And some of them were AWESOME. Must see.
I started out light with the first movie I heard of, since I particularly was looking for that one when I stumbled upon the others - japanese Live action adaption of very popular BL manga "Takumi-Kun series" - a publishing manga about the relationship between two highschoolboys on a private academy in the japanese mountains. (Cliché? Hehe. That´s BL for you usually - and I love it!)
"Soshite harukaze ni sasayaite" (2007 by Yokoyama Kazuhiro, "And whispering in the spring breeze")
is a sugarsweet lightweight movie in all ways - a classic Shonen Ai (means just that: Boys Love) of the fluffier kind - Shojo (girls manga) with the two maincharacters being gay. Boys are pretty, colours bright, acting so-so due to inexperienced actors and low budget, and lovescenes are few and innocent - except for the (seems obligatory in the movies I´ve seen) fairly (pun intended lol) nude and cuddly-cosy "sex-scene" in the end. Plotwise this is based on the first two volumes of the manga - but it´s not that much of a story actually, and doesn´t need to be. (Boy Takumi starts at new school, boy Takumi meets other boy Gii, some complications arise on the way. But of course Takumi and Gii get eachother. And that wasn´t a spoiler - that was a fact one should be able to understand allready by now.)
Well, if I think about it, actually it happens TOO much in the movie! haha
If one hasn´t read the manga it might be a little bit hard to follow, and besides one might think that a LITTLE too much is cramped up in these humble 73 minutes... And that´s true - many of the small sidestories portrayed are extremely unnecessary, and takes focus of the relationship between the main characters. But it´s bearable, allthough some of the guys (almost all to be completely honest - haha) show some considerable lack of acting experience... But it´s ok :) It was the first movie for many of them, budget was low, and they tried their best :) They´re cute anyway.
This manga and movie are actually quite refreshing in my opinion, this due to the fact that the story isn´t traditional in all ways. Firstly - one of the main characters has quite an chocking past to be a fairly innocent Shonen Ai. Second - the way in which the boys actually grasp and accept them being homosexual without any angst or selfdisgust is nice to see. Maybe not THAT believable - but nice. (That the prevalence gay boys is THAT high in an average highschool... THAT I also have a little bit hard to believe - all boys school or not... Not ALL pretty boys are gay.) But a happy and cheerful little story is definitely out of the ordinary in all the heartbreaking tales that are so common in the genre.
I do like the manga better, but I still think the tenderness of it is traceable in the movie as well.
When coming to the good parts...if one is not used to the very careful and subtle cinematic/animatic/whatever actually, language used in asia one might be quite outweirded by the almost metaphorical way the subjects that are somewhat controversial are approached. Ok, this scene is not THAT good of an example, I was mostly spacing out now and reflecting over the way one gets used to the language of anime and manga and interprets stuff that a "non-believer" would never grasp. The nuances is somethin that comes with reading and watching a lot of it.
And in the beginning it takes a little while taking used to the way of expressing things. Well - enough spacing out then - the subject of young guys jumping into bed with another - in love or not - is probably still quite a delicate matter to show on film, and for the movie to be approved - by both censorship, a broader audience than the hardcore yaoigirls, and media, I suspect that the visual stuff need to get cut down a little bit at least. But still - the scenes are tastefully done considering they´re so extremely "shy". The kisses are shot from behind so nothing can be seen, bodies are mostly covered in white sheets and sheer light, and even if one gets a little disappointed in not seeing too much action between these two insanely sweet boys, both the scene and the movie are still satisfactory in the sense that they leave a warm and fuzzy feeling inside, one can´t get other than happy by seeing sincere, mushy, romantic stuff like this :)
So I would definitely recommend, just maybe not if you´re in the mood to see som hardcore stuff....
Then, somewhere around midnight I took on the next one - this time a little heavier stuff, that I read a little about before I saw it, and got good vibes.
BOYS LOVE ( "Boizu Rabu" 2006 by Kotaru Terauchi)
Is a movie I both enjoyed and emphatized with very much. An early, but pretty explicit movie of the genre, and I would say a must, not only for yaoigirls but also for anyone who would be able to grasp and appreciate the concept of not so simple love. Taishin (Kotani Yoshikazu) is a young journalist, working for a small tabloidpressmagazine, and is assigned to do a piece on young model Noerus ( Saito Takumi) artistic sidework as an illustrator. And here starts the tumbling, chaotic and painful lovestory. Noerus emotional unbalance, strong attraction to Taishin - allthough he leeds a to say the least destructive lifestyle with various partners and constant depression, his mean and cunning ways and arrogant attitude gives a multilayered portrayal of a very much tormented young boy. Taishins restricted, uptight person and fear of the fact that he has feelings for another man, a young boy nontheless is acted out flawlessly by Kotani, who I think lifts this movie from mediocre to very seeworthy. His acting is so sincere that I sometimes even can´t say he´s acting at all, especially I can feel, truly feel, his angst over having to realize things about himself that he doesn´t want to.
The plot develops to a heartbreaking lovetriangle between Taishin, Noeru and Noerus best friend Chidori, who has been in love with Noeru since always. Much drama occurs - definitely too much in western measures, but after one gets used to the asian way of often putting in extreme amounts of melodramatic stuff, it doesn´t bother one. The keepsake of this movie is the acting of the two maincharacters, the´re developing relationship, and the tender way in which their saga is told. The end is absurd to be honest, but still so heartbreaking so I caught myself crying.
There are of course some stuff with the movie than are not so fantastic - for one - the awful drawings and art done by Noeru. I can only interpret this as that the director is trying to say something (which I don´t understand to be honest, maybe that Noeru is extremely naive?), because they s-t-i-n-k. That´s not important at all, but bugged me enormously.
Then I got a little annoyed on the overdrama. This could have been SUCH a FANTASTIC movie if the director would have settled for less is more. As now, it becomes a somewhat mediocre movie with fantastic little details and parts.
But don´t get me wrong, I do love it. A lot. And I have a feeling this one will top my chart for wishlists for my birthday...
The sexscenes are extremely good, I feel. Not too showy - scaring away sensitive watchers, and not too lame for a movie with this amount of angst and emotion. The scene where Noeru forcefully practices oral on Taishin in a restroombooth was actually not very graphic at all, but I feel portrayed in an extremely good way - you´ll see what I mean. The sight of their feet tangled up in another - a pair of businessmans shiny leathershoes and a pair of dirty converse, and their absolute silence due to the fact that they are not alone in the restroom, is far more sexy than showing more vulgar stuff.
Noerus absolute arrogance in letting Taishin (and others) see him in intimate situations (allthough they´re not so intimate but actually more sad and abusive), and throwing himself at Taishin completely nude, is quite chocking actually - I thought that would have been stopped. But - this movie was released straight on DVD... But when it became immensely popular, it was remade for the big screen (thus resulting in Boys Love 2 which I will come to later).
And in THAT version, the sexpart is NOT very present.
But well. This isn´t so much about sex. This is a lovestory. And a heartbreaking one it is.
Next - moving on, moving on, now I think it was around 1:30-2:00 am...
Ai no Kotodama ("Words of Devotion", by Kei Kaneda 2008)
Is a whole other type of movie, that just leaves you with a wonderful feeling of warmth and pink cottoncandy, and I kind of needed that after the depressive mood I got into by the last one. The movie is a liveaction, adapted from a popular oneshot Yaoi manga with the same name. The manga isn´t either as good or interesting as the movie though.
Shinya ( Hidenori Tokuyama - famous J-pop singer) and Miyako (Saito Yasuka) are best friends ever since childhood, and since two years back also are living together. They study at the same university, and are always together. On the outside they are just the best of friends, but in private, their relationship is a little more complicated. The are sort of together... In the latest, they have started to argue about trivial stuff more and more, and even more pressure adds when a mutual highschoolfriend, Yuki, enters the picture again, and appears that she has a crush on Miyako. Shiniya gets grumpy and arguments follow another, and suddenly Miyako seems to be more interested in hanging out with Yuki than with Shinya...
It even sounds quite fluffy and innocent. And it is. Incredibly refreshing in more than one way, just because it´s such a sweet little story with hardly any angst, no terrible/sad/depressing plot, but just depicting normal everyday life for a couple and how it can be tricky to figure out sometimes how to move on and resolve things. It´s not usual for BL to tell the stories of the allready formed couples (allthough this couple still had a little bit to go until they had established truly what they meant for eachother.)
Acting is nice, allthough a tiny wee bit overplayed sometimes, but that´s ok, almost all asian actors tend to overact, at least according to our western ideals, I guess it´s a cultural difference, since japanese is a language that is more dependant on emotional distress to bring out some lingual points. I´m used to the overacting so it takes a LOT for me to react, just warning them who might not be used to it. I especially like Hidenori - he´s a natural talent I feel.
And the couples interaction with eachother is fantastic - it´s TOTALLY believable that they love eachother, I have a hard time imagining that those two guys are estranged for the idea of homosexual relationships in real life....
They are so sweet and tender in their bodylanguage towards eachother that one easily is convinced of their characters.
The movie is no fantastic thoughtraising piece of art - absolutely not. It´s a lightweighter, made as an entertaining fanservice mostly. Lots of bare cheasts, lots of kisses and NAWWW-moments. And a looooong lovescene of the same kind as in "Soshite harukaze ni sasayaite" - cuddling and kissing and caressing and on and on and on for so long that it ALMOST becomes boring (!) But extremely sweet, extremely tender, extremely believable and well... Nice to see :)
But not exactly hot. Since it´s too loving...? That may sound weird but... well... what the hell.
This is a sweet little bagatelle that makes a good watch for the short 78 minutes it lasts. It makes one feel happy and very kawaiish.
If not only for other reasons, then to at least watch Hidenori Tokuyama.... heh.
End of act 1 of the Grand BL fest!
I PRESENT : BAMBIKILLS TOTAL ASIAN BOYS LOVE FEST!
Ta-fucking-daa :)
Since I am this utterly selfobsessed person who values my own opinions highly (and truthfully mostly because I want someone, ANYONE (!!!!) in my cirkle of acquaintances to recognize and share my passion so I could have someone to chatter away with about stuff that... hrm... To say the least, most people does not understand my view...) I will review them ALL as I go along... hehe. Please bear with me - I promise - I´m a killer writer. And some of them were AWESOME. Must see.
I started out light with the first movie I heard of, since I particularly was looking for that one when I stumbled upon the others - japanese Live action adaption of very popular BL manga "Takumi-Kun series" - a publishing manga about the relationship between two highschoolboys on a private academy in the japanese mountains. (Cliché? Hehe. That´s BL for you usually - and I love it!)
"Soshite harukaze ni sasayaite" (2007 by Yokoyama Kazuhiro, "And whispering in the spring breeze")
is a sugarsweet lightweight movie in all ways - a classic Shonen Ai (means just that: Boys Love) of the fluffier kind - Shojo (girls manga) with the two maincharacters being gay. Boys are pretty, colours bright, acting so-so due to inexperienced actors and low budget, and lovescenes are few and innocent - except for the (seems obligatory in the movies I´ve seen) fairly (pun intended lol) nude and cuddly-cosy "sex-scene" in the end. Plotwise this is based on the first two volumes of the manga - but it´s not that much of a story actually, and doesn´t need to be. (Boy Takumi starts at new school, boy Takumi meets other boy Gii, some complications arise on the way. But of course Takumi and Gii get eachother. And that wasn´t a spoiler - that was a fact one should be able to understand allready by now.)
Well, if I think about it, actually it happens TOO much in the movie! haha
If one hasn´t read the manga it might be a little bit hard to follow, and besides one might think that a LITTLE too much is cramped up in these humble 73 minutes... And that´s true - many of the small sidestories portrayed are extremely unnecessary, and takes focus of the relationship between the main characters. But it´s bearable, allthough some of the guys (almost all to be completely honest - haha) show some considerable lack of acting experience... But it´s ok :) It was the first movie for many of them, budget was low, and they tried their best :) They´re cute anyway.
This manga and movie are actually quite refreshing in my opinion, this due to the fact that the story isn´t traditional in all ways. Firstly - one of the main characters has quite an chocking past to be a fairly innocent Shonen Ai. Second - the way in which the boys actually grasp and accept them being homosexual without any angst or selfdisgust is nice to see. Maybe not THAT believable - but nice. (That the prevalence gay boys is THAT high in an average highschool... THAT I also have a little bit hard to believe - all boys school or not... Not ALL pretty boys are gay.) But a happy and cheerful little story is definitely out of the ordinary in all the heartbreaking tales that are so common in the genre.
I do like the manga better, but I still think the tenderness of it is traceable in the movie as well.
When coming to the good parts...if one is not used to the very careful and subtle cinematic/animatic/whatever actually, language used in asia one might be quite outweirded by the almost metaphorical way the subjects that are somewhat controversial are approached. Ok, this scene is not THAT good of an example, I was mostly spacing out now and reflecting over the way one gets used to the language of anime and manga and interprets stuff that a "non-believer" would never grasp. The nuances is somethin that comes with reading and watching a lot of it.
And in the beginning it takes a little while taking used to the way of expressing things. Well - enough spacing out then - the subject of young guys jumping into bed with another - in love or not - is probably still quite a delicate matter to show on film, and for the movie to be approved - by both censorship, a broader audience than the hardcore yaoigirls, and media, I suspect that the visual stuff need to get cut down a little bit at least. But still - the scenes are tastefully done considering they´re so extremely "shy". The kisses are shot from behind so nothing can be seen, bodies are mostly covered in white sheets and sheer light, and even if one gets a little disappointed in not seeing too much action between these two insanely sweet boys, both the scene and the movie are still satisfactory in the sense that they leave a warm and fuzzy feeling inside, one can´t get other than happy by seeing sincere, mushy, romantic stuff like this :)
So I would definitely recommend, just maybe not if you´re in the mood to see som hardcore stuff....
Then, somewhere around midnight I took on the next one - this time a little heavier stuff, that I read a little about before I saw it, and got good vibes.
BOYS LOVE ( "Boizu Rabu" 2006 by Kotaru Terauchi)
Is a movie I both enjoyed and emphatized with very much. An early, but pretty explicit movie of the genre, and I would say a must, not only for yaoigirls but also for anyone who would be able to grasp and appreciate the concept of not so simple love. Taishin (Kotani Yoshikazu) is a young journalist, working for a small tabloidpressmagazine, and is assigned to do a piece on young model Noerus ( Saito Takumi) artistic sidework as an illustrator. And here starts the tumbling, chaotic and painful lovestory. Noerus emotional unbalance, strong attraction to Taishin - allthough he leeds a to say the least destructive lifestyle with various partners and constant depression, his mean and cunning ways and arrogant attitude gives a multilayered portrayal of a very much tormented young boy. Taishins restricted, uptight person and fear of the fact that he has feelings for another man, a young boy nontheless is acted out flawlessly by Kotani, who I think lifts this movie from mediocre to very seeworthy. His acting is so sincere that I sometimes even can´t say he´s acting at all, especially I can feel, truly feel, his angst over having to realize things about himself that he doesn´t want to.
The plot develops to a heartbreaking lovetriangle between Taishin, Noeru and Noerus best friend Chidori, who has been in love with Noeru since always. Much drama occurs - definitely too much in western measures, but after one gets used to the asian way of often putting in extreme amounts of melodramatic stuff, it doesn´t bother one. The keepsake of this movie is the acting of the two maincharacters, the´re developing relationship, and the tender way in which their saga is told. The end is absurd to be honest, but still so heartbreaking so I caught myself crying.
There are of course some stuff with the movie than are not so fantastic - for one - the awful drawings and art done by Noeru. I can only interpret this as that the director is trying to say something (which I don´t understand to be honest, maybe that Noeru is extremely naive?), because they s-t-i-n-k. That´s not important at all, but bugged me enormously.
Then I got a little annoyed on the overdrama. This could have been SUCH a FANTASTIC movie if the director would have settled for less is more. As now, it becomes a somewhat mediocre movie with fantastic little details and parts.
But don´t get me wrong, I do love it. A lot. And I have a feeling this one will top my chart for wishlists for my birthday...
The sexscenes are extremely good, I feel. Not too showy - scaring away sensitive watchers, and not too lame for a movie with this amount of angst and emotion. The scene where Noeru forcefully practices oral on Taishin in a restroombooth was actually not very graphic at all, but I feel portrayed in an extremely good way - you´ll see what I mean. The sight of their feet tangled up in another - a pair of businessmans shiny leathershoes and a pair of dirty converse, and their absolute silence due to the fact that they are not alone in the restroom, is far more sexy than showing more vulgar stuff.
Noerus absolute arrogance in letting Taishin (and others) see him in intimate situations (allthough they´re not so intimate but actually more sad and abusive), and throwing himself at Taishin completely nude, is quite chocking actually - I thought that would have been stopped. But - this movie was released straight on DVD... But when it became immensely popular, it was remade for the big screen (thus resulting in Boys Love 2 which I will come to later).
And in THAT version, the sexpart is NOT very present.
But well. This isn´t so much about sex. This is a lovestory. And a heartbreaking one it is.
Next - moving on, moving on, now I think it was around 1:30-2:00 am...
Ai no Kotodama ("Words of Devotion", by Kei Kaneda 2008)
Is a whole other type of movie, that just leaves you with a wonderful feeling of warmth and pink cottoncandy, and I kind of needed that after the depressive mood I got into by the last one. The movie is a liveaction, adapted from a popular oneshot Yaoi manga with the same name. The manga isn´t either as good or interesting as the movie though.
Shinya ( Hidenori Tokuyama - famous J-pop singer) and Miyako (Saito Yasuka) are best friends ever since childhood, and since two years back also are living together. They study at the same university, and are always together. On the outside they are just the best of friends, but in private, their relationship is a little more complicated. The are sort of together... In the latest, they have started to argue about trivial stuff more and more, and even more pressure adds when a mutual highschoolfriend, Yuki, enters the picture again, and appears that she has a crush on Miyako. Shiniya gets grumpy and arguments follow another, and suddenly Miyako seems to be more interested in hanging out with Yuki than with Shinya...
It even sounds quite fluffy and innocent. And it is. Incredibly refreshing in more than one way, just because it´s such a sweet little story with hardly any angst, no terrible/sad/depressing plot, but just depicting normal everyday life for a couple and how it can be tricky to figure out sometimes how to move on and resolve things. It´s not usual for BL to tell the stories of the allready formed couples (allthough this couple still had a little bit to go until they had established truly what they meant for eachother.)
Acting is nice, allthough a tiny wee bit overplayed sometimes, but that´s ok, almost all asian actors tend to overact, at least according to our western ideals, I guess it´s a cultural difference, since japanese is a language that is more dependant on emotional distress to bring out some lingual points. I´m used to the overacting so it takes a LOT for me to react, just warning them who might not be used to it. I especially like Hidenori - he´s a natural talent I feel.
And the couples interaction with eachother is fantastic - it´s TOTALLY believable that they love eachother, I have a hard time imagining that those two guys are estranged for the idea of homosexual relationships in real life....
They are so sweet and tender in their bodylanguage towards eachother that one easily is convinced of their characters.
The movie is no fantastic thoughtraising piece of art - absolutely not. It´s a lightweighter, made as an entertaining fanservice mostly. Lots of bare cheasts, lots of kisses and NAWWW-moments. And a looooong lovescene of the same kind as in "Soshite harukaze ni sasayaite" - cuddling and kissing and caressing and on and on and on for so long that it ALMOST becomes boring (!) But extremely sweet, extremely tender, extremely believable and well... Nice to see :)
But not exactly hot. Since it´s too loving...? That may sound weird but... well... what the hell.
This is a sweet little bagatelle that makes a good watch for the short 78 minutes it lasts. It makes one feel happy and very kawaiish.
If not only for other reasons, then to at least watch Hidenori Tokuyama.... heh.
End of act 1 of the Grand BL fest!
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