This show is definitely not my favorite, but it’s not entirely unenjoyable either. I would classify it as a very typical GMMTV BL, and thus a perfectly mid show. Most GMMTV shows are in that range of "not great, but not horrible either“ for me, and Be My Favorite is no exception.

Acting / Chemistry:
For me, the main reason this show didn’t crumble under the weight of its flaws is the acting. Gawin and Krist are both great in their roles. Krist pulls off the awkward and whiny Kawi so well, but he’s also delivering a great performance in emotional moments. I actually like him in this a lot more than I did in Sotus. Gawin has been great in anything I’ve seen him in, so it comes as no surprise that he’s doing an excellent job in the role of Pisaeng as well. He’s naturally charismatic, and he knows how to deliver emotions when needed. The performances of the entire cast were really good, and they definitely saved a lot of what went wrong with the writing.
The chemistry between the romantic leads was decent. They’re not one of my favorite pairings, but they do have more chemistry than other pairings (cough Pastsenger cough). To me, it was just lacking the real butterflies that come with other ships, so I don't crave more of them together, but if they were paired again, I wouldn't mind either.

Characters:
I’ll start with the positive—Pisaeng. I adore him, and he deserves the world. He’s very easy to like. That’s partially because Gawin lends his natural charm to the character, but also because he was really refreshing. It’s not like he was super well fleshed out, but he was a genuinely kind and caring guy, and he had a lot of emotional intelligence. In many ways, he reminded me of Ayan (from the Eclipse), who might be my favorite GMMTV character up to date, so that’s a huge compliment. I loved watching Pisaeng on screen, and I was rooting for him.

Kawi on the other hand was horrible. Okay, that’s a bit harsh. I actually liked him in the beginning. But the longer the series went on for, the more I started disliking him. At the start, he was just this awkward, self-deprecating guy who was actually quite cute. However, as time went on, his "I’m such a loser“ attitude began to get annoying. He also became a pretty big asshole in many moments. He was only concerned about his own emotions and thoughts, completely disregarding other people’s feelings. Him then being like "I’m such a bad guy, I feel horrible, boohoo“ didn’t help. If you’re aware that you’re being a douche, maybe try not being one next time? But then he did it again. He was also very judgmental, which didn't help his case. It got incredibly frustrating. Especially since Kawi always needed someone to point out that he was in the wrong, but never realized it by himself. I know he was written that way on purpose, but it’s just not great for a main character you’re supposed to root for. Krist also being naturally charming did help, but even Krist can’t make me enjoy watching this whiny little prick. All of this wouldn’t necessarily have been a bad thing if there was severe character development. Him starting out as selfish and judgmental, but then growing and opening his horizon would’ve been great. But that didn’t really happen. Or well, it did by the power of montage and time-skip and time travel magic. But that wasn't enough for me. Kawi was the main reason I really started disliking this show about half way through.

On a more positive note, I really liked Kawi’s best friend, Max. What a shame he didn’t really have much of a storyline to himself, but only served as Kawi’s emotional trashcan. He basically helped Kawi function and act like an at least somewhat decent human. You know how in Pinocchio, the cricket acts as Pinocchio’s conscience? That’s basically what Max was to Kawi. He was patient enough to put up with Kawi’s attitude. What an angel. Couldn't have been me.

Pearmai was fine. I appreciate the attempt at fleshing her out as a character, for example by giving her a difficult relationship with her mother. It wasn’t a lot, but it was a lot more than most other BLs do with their female characters. She wasn’t portrayed as a villain either, which I was super happy about. In general, she was really likeable and I would’ve loved to see more of her. I hope more BLs will take this approach with their female characters, rather than having them be two-dimensional villains that only exist as objects in the way of the boys love aspect.

Romance:
I was in favor of the romance because I wanted Pisaeng to be happy. And for some reason unbeknownst to me, he finds his happiness in Kawi. I also liked the general idea of Kawi travelling back in time to get Pear to like him, just for him to realize it was Pisaeng he was meant to be with all along. That actually makes for a really fun and cute story. However, because I really disliked Kawi, I found it hard to root for the romance. Especially since Kawi’s constant self-deprecation and Pisaeng serving as someone to assure him that he’s not a loser seems pretty unhealthy. Also, Pisaeng constantly having to give in to Kawi’s wishes and demands while Kawi is being stubborn also seems problematic. To me, it felt like one of those relationships where 10 years down the line, Pisaeng will probably have given up on anything he had going for himself, in order to make Kawi happy, while Kawi is not even willing to do as little as compromise. They had very cute moments, don’t get me wrong. I just don’t think Kawi was ready for a relationship at all. As we got to see in the future, it luckily didn't turn out this way. But that's probably because Kawi did an unexplained full 180 and is apparently entirely different in the future, thanks to the power of montage and time-skip.

I feel like this show would’ve greatly benefitted from a side couple (whatever the Not-Kwan-Pear love triangle was doesn't count). Spending all the time with Kawi and Pisaeng was A LOT, so a side couple to mix things up would’ve been great. Anything for me not to be trapped with Kawi for the entire episode would’ve been appreciated honestly.

On a different note, I was genuinely surprised by how little I minded the love triangle between Kawi, Pisaeng and Pearmai. Normally, I hate love triangles in BLs, especially if they involve a girl. Usually, because it’s tied to a lot of toxic jealousy and the girl being the villain of the story. But in this show, I actually thought it was handled very well.

Also, I want to talk about how they had the perfect opportunity for some asexual representation. To me, it genuinely felt like Kawi had no interest in sex. I would’ve loved it had they actually made him ace. But instead, we got a super awkward sex scene that made me feel so uncomfortable to watch, because Kawi was looking like he didn’t wanna be there (at least in the beginning). So instead of ace representation, it turned into yet another BL where one character wants to cuddle, kiss and have sex, while the other is portrayed to be reluctant to any of that for no explainable reason.

Writing / Storytelling:
Let’s start with the time travel aspect of it all. I’m simply not a fan of time travel shows in general. That’s because it’s extremely difficult to pull it off in a way that doesn’t leave 100 plot-holes. I think they were pretty clever by not really focusing much on the time travelling as a mechanism itself. At least they were until episode 11, when Time Travel Man showed up, and lectured Kawi about how he can’t use time travel to win the lottery, because that apparently depends on destiny. If you haven’t won the lottery so far, you weren’t destined to win it, and you can't win it even with time travel magic. So, according to that, apparently love isn’t based on fate then, since you can just travel back in time to fix it? Usually, BLs heavily steer into the direction of love being entirely destiny-based, so this was actually an interesting thought. But still, it left me with many questions. I wouldn’t have been too bothered by everything, if it weren’t for these glaring issues:
(1) When Kawi travels from the past to the future, he gets there with no memories of what happened during the past ten years, and then gradually gains back those memories. This is proven by the fact that in episode 7, he doesn’t remember his apartment or how he’s on bad terms with Pisaeng. But how is it then that he somehow did know the lyrics of a song he had assumably written within those past 10 years? He arrived backstage of his gig, not even remembering he was a famous singer. So how the hell does he remember the lyrics? I guess by the power of plot-convenience.
(2) They kinda broke the time travel mechanism in episode 10, when Pisaeng spun the time travel thingy, but somehow nothing happened? Why did he not travel to the future, like it happens with Kawi? Does that mean the time travelling ability is tied to Kawi specifically? I could’ve accepted that with a frown, but then in episode 11, Pisaeng spins it again, and he actually does travel in time. This made no sense to me.
(3) I thought the whole purpose of time traveling was for Kawi to right his wrongs, and then go back to the future. But apparently, he just stayed in the past? I wasn’t aware he could even do that. The whole show seemed to steer into the direction of him eventually having to return to the future, and that was just dropped entirely. To me, the end of the show would’ve been much more satisfying if Kawi had travelled to the future again, instead of the whole almost death and Pisaeng time travel arch.

The writing of conflicts wasn’t always great either. The issues weren’t as offensively bad as in A Boss And A Babe for example. But oftentimes characters’ motivations or moods changed from one scene to just a few scenes later without any reason or resolution. For example, Pear got very upset with Not for basically having pressured Kawi into a love confession, and recording the whole thing. She even calls him out in front of his friends, seemingly very angry. Then, without any resolution to that, Not gave her his book to read, and she thanked him and told him he was doing great— the bad blood seemingly having vanished into thin air. This wasn’t the only instant either. Some fights between Kawi and Pisaeng were left with no resolution too. They just suddenly got along again. It probably isn’t as notable if you watch the show week by week, but it gets very apparent when binging it. The whole love triangle story between Not, Pear and Kwan was dropped completely without any resolution whatsoever. I could not tell you if Not and Kwan ever actually got together, or if they stopped their fling entirely. Not that I really care about what Not does or who he’s with, since he’s an asshole, but leaving it unresolved is still unsatisfying.

In a similar manner, there are things that just happen out of nowhere and are left with no further explanation. For example, in episode 8, Max thanks Kawi for "helping me realize I should stay here and keep fighting“. But we saw none of that actually happening. Kawi was just using Max as his unpaid therapist, but we didn’t see anything about Kawi helping Max. The story didn’t show that, so the dialogue was clashing with what was actually happening. Similarly, in episode 9, we suddenly find out that Kwan and Not have a friends with benefits situation going on (or something like that). That also came out of the blue. We knew from that one time of travelling to the future that they would eventually have an affair, but there was no reason to believe that was already going on in college. Us finding out very late in the show that Kawi apparently is into music when it was never alluded to before also felt very sudden. These things could’ve been implemented in much better ways that wouldn’t have left you feeling like some brand new piece of information was just thrown at you out of absolute nowhere.
In this regard, another thing was Pisaeng suddenly playing the guitar and singing to Kawi in episode 7. Why the hell did that happen? Well, I know why. Because Gawin is a solid singer, and GMMTV has this agenda of pushing all their actors into a singing career as well. But in terms of the writing, it made no sense. We had no reason to believe Pisaeng had any interest in singing or playing the guitar. It was entirely illogical for him to suddenly serenade Kawi, and should’ve been cut. Not every single character needs to sing in your shows, GMMTV. Please stop forcing it in when it makes no narrative sense, I’m begging you.

I already mentioned the friendship between Kawi and Max. It was pretty badly written. For one, the story starts with Max being mad at Kawi. He then suddenly changes his mind about being mad (god knows why) and they’re back to being best friends. If you just make him change his mind without Kawi really having to work for it, why start off their relationship with any conflict at all? It was pointless and left entirely unexplored. We’re then supposed to believe they’re both helping each other and are there for each other. When really, all we ever see is Kawi using Max to complain about life. It felt so insanely one-sided that I really felt sorry for Max. I don’t think there’s a single instance where Kawi asks him how he’s doing. It’s just Kawi here, Kawi there, Kawi everywhere.

Another random thing that bothered me was the amount of scenes we got of characters eating. I know that being a foodie was part of Kawi’s character, so I don't mind more eating scenes than usual. But after a certain point, it just felt like a lack of creativity. Like please, there are other scenes that can serve as a basis for characters to talk to each other. They don’t have to be eating every other scene.

The worst offence in my opinion, however, was their annoying way of storytelling. The amount of times they cut away from a scene, just to show how that scene ended in a flashback five minutes later, made me want to rip my hair out. They did it for dramatic effect, I suppose, but it only took me out of the story with the constant flashing back and forth. It’s just unnecessary and makes it more difficult to follow the narrative. Just let the scenes play out, and then move forward. It didn’t happen all the time, but it happened often enough for me to really get annoyed by it. And there were even instances when scenes ended very abruptly without us ever finding out how they ended at all. Which in my opinion was still better than the annoying back and forth between present and flashbacks.

Positives
- I liked the relationship between Kawi and his dad a lot. It was heartwarming, and the only moments I actually liked Kawi were when he was with his dad. However, this actor in my mind will always be the mafia boss and dad of Kinn (from KinnPorsche). So I had this head-canon that the mafia business of Kinn’s dad went really south, and he had to take on a new identity. So he started a new life, with a new wife, and a new kid.
- The show had some solid comedy in it.
- As annoying as he was, Kawi felt like a pretty unique character, and not just like the stereotypical character GMMTV goes for in every other show.
- Them not making Pearmai the villain of the show just because she’s the girl was very appreciated.
- The line "Parenthood is about more than just raising our children. We have to grow with them.“ That was the best line in the entire show. It was said in a scene that was entirely useless and senseless, since it was the only scene we ever got of the parents alone. But I’m glad it was there, for that line alone.
- I liked how it opened with Pear getting married to Pisaeng, and ended with her getting married to someone else. That was a nice full circle moment.

Final Thoughts
Initially, I liked the show. For the first few episodes, it felt fresh and funny. However, the longer it went on for, the more I started disliking Kawi. And it’s just really hard to like a show when you constantly want to yell at the main character. This, paired with the weird editing choice of cutting away and then flashing back five minutes later, really took away from my enjoyment. The writing wasn’t great. It wasn’t as bad as in other GMMTV shows, but a lot of it could’ve been an easy fix, which is always very frustrating. It seems as though GMMTV puts more effort into making all their actors sing and dance these days, rather than actually putting that effort into solid writing. With all of that weighing the show down, around episode 9 I just wanted it to be over.
It was not my cup of tea, but I see why other people enjoy it a lot. There were enjoyable aspects there, for me they simply got overshadowed by the bad. But I was watching this with a very critical eye, I’m aware of that. If you’re someone who views BLs maybe a little less critically (and if you don't find Kawi as irritating as I did), then you’ll probably enjoy this. As I said, it’s a very typical GMMTV show, so if you’re into most of those, you’ll probably be into this too.
This was quite difficult to rate for me. I really didn’t enjoy it much, but giving it a very low score just because I personally have vendetta against Kawi doesn’t seem fair. Therefore, I’ll just rate this somewhere in the middle ground, like I would most other GMMTV shows.