Middle Love (2023)

Just hop to episode 5

This is hard to review because I can see both what they were trying to do, and where they got lost along the way. Jade could be a bit of a buffoon who finds himself suddenly the leading man, but they went too broad and he's frequently clownish rather than a lovable fool. In the second half of the series you actually do get glimpses of what could have been - scenes where Jade is interacting with his family in particular. He's a lonely man who accepted his role as comic relief or a NPC in other people's stories. His struggle to start acknowledging he has needs and wants could be so much more. Yim did actually hit that emotional note several times, but quite late in the series.

I did like seeing King and Uea as an established couple. Uea seems like he finally feels safe with King. That makes me happy.

I'd recommend Zettai BL ni Naru Sekai VS Zettai BL ni Naritakunai Otoko instead if you want to see a NPC get a story of his own.

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PAINFUL

Absolutely terrible. This made me wanna poke my eyes out.
I was so excited to watch this. I was a fan of this couple in Cutie Pie and was hoping they would be SOMEWHAT similar to that in Middleman's Love. I really liked Jade in Bed Friend and I have no idea what happened to his character. He was the most annoying person on the planet and I hate to say that, because I like Yim very much. Tutor's character was nice as always, but I think this ship was ruined. I'm telling y'all, every minute of this was painful and cringy LOL I think I only watched till the end because I really love James. Everything about the show was poorly done. The script was terrible, the story didn't make sense, the side couple was very weak and I didn't like anyone but Uea. I like King but even he was annoying.

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Too over-the-top for my liking

While this sounds like a run-of-the-mill office romance, Middleman’s Love is, in fact, the most over-the-top show I’ve seen recently. Typical of Mandee BLs, expect off-kilter humour, absolutely ridiculous visuals and wonky sound effects all around.

I love Tutor and Yim’s cute dynamic (and great visuals!) but Mandee’s over-the-top scripting makes the story a little cringey. Some people see it as a way to evoke laughter, but this is just not really my thing.

The side couples, King and Uea (from Bed Friend) and Tong and Gus (new pairing) bring some variety but also predictability to the cadence of the show since Jade can get a little over-the-top as a character.

The censored YouTube cut, which is shorter, gives you the minimum info you would require to understand the story, but the quality of the story and the depth of the relationship development suffers quite a bit from the edit. Spicy scenes are left out (understandably so, since it’s a censored version) and some extended emotional scenes are truncated, which makes the show seem even more shallow than it actually is.

Speaking of which, the spicy scene between Mai and Jade was WACK. I wanted to bury my face in the ground from the secondhand embarrassment. Just, um, sorry, no.

Full review: https://asianblreviews.wordpress.com/2024/01/07/middlemans-love-2023-bl-review/

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"todos merecem um romance" (e os tutoryim merecem um BL melhor)

? história: o plot deseja passar a ideia de que o amor independe da maneira que um indivíduo é taxado socialmente, desde "desinteressante" a "esquisito", tendo como exemplar, jade, um homem de 28 anos com conduta extremamente infantil e imatura, o qual possui dificuldades em expressar e aceitar sentimentos, sejam próprios ou externos. mai, por outrora, é seu estagiário, a quem sempre lhe foi imposta a pressão de ser um homem "perfeito", sendo este o par romântico de jade.

os problemas dão início assim que a série abre diversas lacunas para, no final, corrê-las em meio a 8 episódios, que por sua vez, possuem diversas cenas sem agregamento com intuito humorístico, mas que somente geram uma enorme vergonha alheia vinda totalmente por parte das atitudes de jade.

assistir esse lakorn foi como aguentar uniformemente a vergonha dos episódios, para chegar no penúltimo e soltarem toda a carga com a famigerada "forte vontade de dropar" nos meus braços, junto a um drama sem sentido*, para aliviar no último episódio, com cenas fofas dos protagonistas, já como casal, e um leve amadurecimento no jade, na segunda metade do mesmo episódio (8)

sobre o "drama sem sentido", este deu a impressão de ter sido feito como qualquer clichê de romance pré adolescente, tirando o fato dos dois protagonistas terem até 28 anos de idade, sobretudo, sendo um casal homossexual dentro de uma empresa. é sem nexo quando aplicado à realidade, e poderia ter sido abordado diversos temas que preferiram somente irrelevar. porém esse é o ponto mais compreensível até então, por se tratar de um "lakorn de comédia" e irrealista.

por último, a indecisão de público alvo em faixa etária. algo comum que eu vejo acontecer em lakorns são temas tão simples sobre relacionamento e maturidade sendo tratados como tentativas de "lições de moral", nos causando a impressão de que é voltado para um público muito jovem que ainda tem dificuldade em compreender a dinâmica de relacionamentos e os sentimentos envolvidos, os quais estão embarcando nesse meio que é a adolescência. porém, logo em seguida, nos é mostrado cenas mais íntimas entre os protagonistas, trocando totalmente o foco juvenil para um público mais maduro, sem manter uma estabilidade de roteiro, ou falhando seriamente em tentar deixar lições de vidas implícitas de maneira mais sútil e "adulta".

? personagens: não me agradou a maneira que o personagem de jade foi construído, nos apresentando claros problemas de socialização, compreensão de sentimentos, autoestima, maturidade, comportamento, além de espécimes de "traumas" gerados pelo seu primeiro relacionamento, que por sua vez tenta justificar alguma de suas atitudes, sem buscar tratar de nenhum deles, ou sequer explorar o seu crescimento como indivíduo. o único feito de jade durante a série, que poderia acarretar em uma "melhora" em alguns de seus problemas, foi namorar e se abrir com o mai.

gus e tong foram um dos pontos positivos desse lakorn, possuindo um desenvolvimento decente para a quantidade de episódios, cativando o espectador sem ultrapassar o tempo de tela e profundidade do casal principal.

uea e king, por já terem tido seu desenvolvimento em "bed friend", cumpriram o papel de mentorear jade e mai em diversas questões sobre relacionamento. vale ressaltar que a maturidade de uea me impressionou, em meio a tanta dor de cabeça que eu estava passando devido ao jade.

? atuação: conheci o yim (jade) e o tutor (mai) por cutie pie, e desde então eu venho vendo um enorme potencial neles, o que não me decepcionou nessa série. a atuação de ambos foi ótima, e creio que eles se sairiam perfeitamente protagonizando um BL com a proposta mais séria. sobre o james (uea) e o net (king) eu não tenho nadica a reclamar, adoro o trabalho deles. e por último, fiquei feliz em conhecer o trabalho dos atores que fizeram os papéis do gus e tong (tai e leo), espero vê-los atuando juntos novamente!

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Lighthearted and fun, contrary to popular belief

I must say after watching the series I was surprised by how low the reviews were on the series.

First of all I mainly was interested in watching the series because of Tutoryim and honestly their performance was great, especially Yim really shocked me with how good he was on the role. It is mainly a comedic series and while people don't like it because of that I found it really fun and lighthearted.

Story wise, it's very basic, nothing that we haven't seen before but as someone that watched it without the knowledge of Bed Friend the series it might have been even better that way, as no expectations were set before hand. So if there's someone that hasn't watched Bed Friend, giving this series first a try might be a good idea!

Of course the series isn't perfect, I resonated a lot with Jade's story which might be why I also grew attached to the show and are biased to some extent, but the way in which some scenes are portrayed in order to make the audience understand the character more can honestly be not as effective as they might've thought. In this case seeing the feedback on the comment section of the episodes was a great help in understanding Jade better. Also the comedy in the series might seem unnecessary at first but I felt like it gave it more of a cheeky and fun vibe to it and unless you're someone that really doesn't like comedy, I don't see it as being that much of a big deal.

It's an overall entertaining show, and while it might not be everyone's cup of tea, I highly recommend anyone that's second guessing to give it a try!

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A missed opportunity?

Now as someone who partially watched this drama because of TutorYim, I won't hide the fact that I was disappointed from the get go.

The plot had everything to make a cutesy yet memorable drama, however the plot flow definitely did not deliver in any satisfying way (imo). I'm all for fan service with those little cute moments between the characters, but the story pacing was quite irregular which very much influenced my viewing experience and impression of the show as a whole. The resolution of the main issue felt very conveniently fixed and enabled a very rushed ending filled with fan service (which in my opinion was too much for one episode, let alone a finale). As I finished the show, I was left wondering what truly happened between episode 3 and 7 that was substantial to the development of the story or characters.

All in all, I have to say I was quite disappointed the way the show turned out and knowing it could have been something much better if a little more care was put in the writers room.

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too much

the first episode was one of the most difficult things I’ve ever made myself sit through. it was a constant fight to finish and I kept dropping the show.

it took about five episodes for me to see any appeal to tutoryim, though i found leotai a lot more interesting. the script was all kinds of bizarre, the comedy was laid on a bit too heavy for me, and the times I did enjoy anything, it was really just a quick scene and would be over before I knew it.

it may just be that I don’t enjoy this type of comedy, but it bugged me that it had the potential to be a lot better. I do hope to see more of Leo and tai though.

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womp womp....

i have been waiting for tutoryim to have their own series after they acted nuersyn on cutiepie and i waited for sooo long ever since it was announced that they will be playing the main characters, jade and mai. it honestly made me very happy because i am a very big fan of both actors, but i waited for what cost?

before i start reviewing, keep in mind that i watched the cutted version of this show. but that doesnt really matter. i think either way, i'd still rate it the same.

it isnt rewatch worthy and i wouldnt really recommend it to many people.

okay so, i could still handle the first few episodes, but after the release of ep.5, i got bored catching up with it. tbh, i kinda forgot that the series existed and it took me half a year to finally decide that i will try to finish the remaining episodes because i thought it would get better :P (but as i get into it, it got worse...)

the storyline is very nice but is also a bit confusing. my biggest icks were the acting and the lines, its either the actors did that on purpose or the directors did them dirty. i know they can do better than that. i like the workplace setting since it is very underrated. but, everything was going bad, what were they thinking? it was very repetitive.

moving on to the characters, i only liked how uea and king were there for maijade. jade is very stubborn, he made me very impatient. the more i watch the show, the more his character became annoying, i couldnt handle it. mai was fine, but i never felt the two's chemistry. tong and gus definitely deserved more screentime.

i am a very big tutoryim fan, and i want be honest, this was a waste of time. i honestly want to hear others' opinions about this show but for me, i'm disappointed, i waited for so long just for this. the overall outcome was meh.

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My impression of this series

I wanna say this is just my opinion and you dont have to agree but i just wanted to express the way i felt about this series and the anger i felt .Honestly I was so disappointed . When they announced about this series with tutoryim i was so happy i waited more then a year and when it fainelly came out i was so angry. they had an amazing opportunity to make an incredible series with this 2 magnificent actors and they messed up so badly its painfull .
The series has nice moments and the cast is great but over-all i recommend to find another series to watch . Absolutely not one of my favorites.

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Excuse me... where's the real story

When I read the book, Jade was a kind naive young man. This series version makes him an idiotic simpleton. There's more depth to this story than is portrayed. Overall instead of giving this story a little more true content the series creates a frantic confusing portrayal of Jade. Bedfriends had a complex story line with character development and relationship building. This unfortunate redition is childish and has an undeveloped romantic relationship. Jade is so silly it's hard to imagine him being in love or sexually interested in anyone. Mai definitely has a swoony persona. The series doing a little more justice to his character. I'm going to perservere and watch all 8 episodes simply because I enjoyed "Bedfriends" so much.

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