#eien no kino

[ginpotts]

@userdramas event 12: loss ↳ eien no kinou (eternal yesterday)

no one remembers him as a living corpse. i cried so much, i felt like i was turning into a puddle of tears. in the end, my sadness never went away... and it probably never will.

[wanderlust-in-my-soul]

Koichi. It's okay. I will never forget you. Until the day I die, I will never forget you. Koichi is my number one. I love you the most.

[duckflyfly]

Micchan is very warm.

[whumpetywhump]

Whumptober Day 29 - Examination

Chimera - Ep. 6

Dear Parents - Ep. 25

Eien No Kino - Ep. 2

Hospital Playlist 2 - Ep. 11

National Security (2012)

[25shadesoffebruary]

Sleeping in Koichi's arms was so warm. I feel so happy that I can't describe it. It's a very special feeling. I wonder if this is called peace.

[connorjesup]

It was in the blink of an eye. It was so sudden, it was inevitable. I couldn’t do anything.

EIEN NO KINO (2022) | EP 01

[fellhalcyon]

“so, are we... like that?” “yes.”

eternal yesterday, ep3.

[narakoi]

Eternal yesterday (2022)

[kolaicendionysos]

God, im not your strongest soldier.

[absolutebl]

October 2022 BL Forthcoming

Oct 3 

To Sir With Love 

AKA Khun Chai - Thai (Trailer) 10 eps 40 min ea 

A Thai HISTORICAL gay romance came outta nowhere (probubly not BL, more cray cray family drama). Does not look like it’s gonna end happy, but I’m still excited.

One31HD, no idea on international, possibly WeTV 

Kabe Koji 

AKA Kabesaa AKA Kabesaa Doujin Sakka no Neko Yashiki-kun wa Shounin Yokkyuu wo Kojirasete iru* - Japan 10 eps 20 min ea 

Gossip here. A manga artist wants nothing more than to see his yaoi on shelves and be recognized by readers. Then one day he meets a childhood friend he once had a crush on who is now an idol. From Minamoto Kazuki's manga Kabe Sa Doujin Sakka no Neko Yashiki-kun wa Shouninyokkyuu wo Kojiraseteiru, stars Matsuoka Koudai (the mangaka - I know him from Five) and Nakao Masaki (the idol - Kakafukaka, Bow Then Kiss - he’s a BIG DEAL ya’ll). 

Viki

* JUST PICK A TITLE, JAPAN 

Oct 5 

Ghost Host, Ghost House 

Thai (Trailer) 5 eps 30 min? ea

My ghost bf trope. Kawin (Love Area), a live streamer who hopes to see ghosts once, and Pluem, a young man who fills in his missing feelings. Could be sad. 

YouTube for reruns 

Oct 8 

Big Dragon 

Thai (Trailer) 8 ep 40 min ea 

Star Hunter’s back and bringing on the chaos as per usual. Based on the y- novel, มังกรกินใหญ่ by Aiden N Vivienne (reputed to be plotless smut), features Mangkorn (Dragon) & Yai (Big) in a high angst blackmail plot plus a secret piece on the side. 2022 is the year BL glorifies cheaters, apparently. 

OneTV reruns on Star Hunter’s YT

Oct 9 

Remember Me 

AKA Remember the series - Thai (Trailer) 8 ep 40 min ea 

JaFirst + plus same cast (and production company, Ultimate Troop) as The Yearbook. Also has Title (LBCs+) and Mean (LBC2) in possibly one of BLs worst ever wigs (and that is saying a lot).

Thailand! Put down the wigs and the acoustic guitar. I am losing patience here. 

Gaga 

Oct 10 

2 Moons: The Ambassador 

AKA 2 Moons 3 Thai (Trailer) 10 eps 40 min ea 

From Motive Village for Amarin TV. I predict a shit show. But it is supposed to finally finish out the plot of 2M2 with added 2 more couples. Because why not? 

Who tf cares? 

Oct 13 

Circumstances of Pungdeok Villa Room 304 

AKA Roommates of Poongduck 304 Korea 8 eps 20 ea

From Idol Romance, A happy-go-lucky third-generation chaebol receives an ultimatum from daddy to: 1. Leave the house penniless and survive for 2 years; and 2. Achieve results as team leader in a new business venture. The owner of the villa he lands in ignores and disregards him. However, it turns out they work in the same company. Let the cohabitation office drama commence. 

Stars Kim Ji Woong & Yoon Seo Bin of Kissable Lips - Korea’s first example of a co branded repeat pair. Also will feature Singer-actor Holland (Ocean Likes Me) and Actor Kang Woo Jung (Once Again). I liked them all A LOT and am very excited about this show.

Viki (not sure on this air date) 

SELF 

Thai 

A young artist (musician? NO!)  mysteriously loses his reflection and sees a strange boy in the mirror instead, PNR and/or horror. Stars fresh faces, directed by Too (Triage) and NutSor (screenwriter of Dew). Could be sad. 

Oct 14 

My Tooth Your Love 

Taiwan (Trailer) 12 eps 30 min ea

From Result Entertainment (producers of We Best Love) a story about a dentist and his patient, also a bar owner and a rebellious young man (who takes the initiative even with a 12 year age gap). Stars Andy Wu (Amensalism), and Alex Chou (composer/musician and the bartender in WBL). Script by Lin Pei who loves VERY traditional yaoi tropes (HIStory1: Obsessed, HIStory2: Right or Wrong, HIStory2: Crossing the Line, HIStory3: Trapped, WBL, & See You After Quarantine?) 

Gaga & Viki 

Oct 15 

Hard Love Mission 

Thai (Trailer) 

Thai pulp about a journalist sent to interview a celebrity on an island who then ends up his manager.

WeTV & iQiyi? 

Wish Me Luck

Thai 

About a boss and his temporary employee in an advertising company, based on Bittersweet's y-novel of the same name สุดที่รักษ์. Starring my boy Fiat (Grean Fictions, SOTUS S, My Gear and Your Gown, Triage) who I’ve been waiting to lead a BL for a decade (it feels like) and Na Naphat (KinnPorsche, UWMA). 

Oct 20 

Eternal Yesterday 

AKA Eien no Kino Japan 8 eps 25 ea

Japan takes on ghost boyfriends now? Is no country safe from this damn trope? Taking over Takara-kun and Amagi-kun's time slot in the home country this is a school romance between two boys. After one of them is run over, other friends gradually forget about his existence. 

Distribution unknown. 

Oct 28

Grand Guignol 

movie (Trailer) 

Japan’s school horror BL movie グランギニョール starring Rio Komiya (Eternal Yesterday) and Ryosuke Sota (Mr Unlucky) among others. 

Oct 29 

Till The World Ends 

Boys, trapped somewhere, end of world, yadda yadda. Art’s (What the Duck) comeback, so that’s interesting. 

Distribution unknown. 

Oct ? 

Choco Milk Shake 

Korea (Teaser) 8 eps 15 ea

Strongberry bringing us a full length romcom that looks bonkers. Childhood pets reincarnated as humans find their former owner and flirt with him, I guess. In Strongberry we trust but this premise is testing me. 

Distribution unknown. 

My Roommate 

Thai (Trailer) 

I couldn’t even watch the trailer, the sound and filming was that awful. 

YouTube I think. 

(source) 

[xnoel]

i'm thankful that i understand enough japanese to know that they said 愛してる (aishiteru) to each other in the screenshots above, instead of the usual 大好き (daisuki) (though it also made me cry even harder while watching the finale)

(link to the article)

[wanderlust-in-my-soul]

Love at first sight.

[duckflyfly]

"I'm the one who became the corpse. Because it's my corpse. So I felt disgusted."

[itmightrain]

Eternal Yesterday (2022)

[scarefox]

So you are telling me the outro clip was Mitsuru camping 5 years later all along?? And idk... imagining Koichi by his side????

--

[waitmyturtles]

Eternal Yesterday. Before I dive into a meditation on memory, let me get a couple words down regarding a memory about memories.

I’ve written before that I’m pretty sure the first piece of Japanese art I ever consumed was Yoshimoto Banana’s novel, “Kitchen.” But also memorably, in college, I watched Koreeda Hirokazu’s film, “After Life.”

“After Life” is about a group of counselors who exist in purgatory. Their job is to meet the souls of those who have recently passed away, and interview them about the memory they want to re-live in their afterlives. Many of them choose memories related to their children or spouses, or moments in time that gave them beautiful feelings, such as snuggling against their parents when they were small children themselves. Over time, it’s revealed that the counselors are living in this purgatory because they themselves haven’t chosen a memory to live with. The story particularly focuses on two counselors who come to terms with their decisions, and how it changes them.

I’m reflecting on this movie because when I watched it, so long ago in college (me, old), it was one of the first pieces of art from Asia in which I saw that a quiet tone and even pace to delivering a message via content was incredibly vital to accurately conveying that message. In this case, the tone and pace of the movie was necessary to indicate that choosing this everlasting memory was a very important decision, indeed — it would be the very last decision these souls would make.

And I think there was something similar happening here in Eternal Yesterday.

The wonderful @bengiyo’s review of the show made me realize that while I was slightly confused and bemused by the magical realism play of Koichi not being quite dead throughout the series, that there was a very deep and real point to the concept that Koichi was a living corpse. I think that point relates, at least for me, to the reflection that I’m having on “After Life.”

It’s not clear if, in the universe of Eternal Yesterday, if people outside the circle of Mitsuru’s life who pass away can also experience a moment of living death; in other words, I’m not clear if this is a common occurrence in the world of this show outside their characters. Nevertheless, I’m only going to focus on Mitsuru for a second:

The fact that this phenomenon happened to two very close people in his life makes me think that the concept was designed here as a means for helping Mitsuru to begin the process of mourning. I think it was designed as a means for preparing Mitsuru to begin the process of letting go -- by leaving him with a slew of gorgeous memories, with the people he loved, as a means of him living out the love he has for them for the rest of his ontological life. 

I am twisted with angst, beautiful and saddened angst, at the thought of this concept. It is unbelievably COMPASSIONATE to me that there would be a concept that the way for someone living, to let go of someone who has passed, with a moment in a kind of purgatory that allows two people to create their final memories together, intentionally -- I mean. How much more humane and empathic can art get?

I was drawn to this show by the intense reviews of the series finale by @gillianthecat and @lelephantsnail, two people with amazing taste in shows, and when I saw how much Eternal Yesterday moved you two, I had to eat this show up, and I totally get why. For me, I’m totally wrapped up in the intensity that BOTH MITSURU AND KOICHI got to have their final moments together, knowingly, INTENTIONALLY. It’s gut-wrenching.

And there’s one more point that’s really getting to me -- it’s something related to why I really need to learn Japanese in my older age. 

Earlier in the series, during the campsite confession scene, I thought that (at least on Viki, I don’t know about other translations), the English translation of the word ichiban to “my number one” was a little inaccurate. I thought it was incredibly cute that the the guys called each other their ichiban, but I thought that “number one” as a translation was a little reductive in the context of a confession.

Ichiban, to me, meant something more like “superlative” in that moment. I think (I think!) it was meant to indicate something like, “I like you the very best of all,” rather than the guys saying to each other that they were each other’s “number ones.”

I’m harping on this because I was totally, utterly wasted and gutted by Mitsuru’s final words in the last episode -- when he said about Koichi, ichiban aishiteru.

I’m a real sucker for aishiteru in doramas, especially BLs. I was wrecked when Adachi used it to describe his love for Kurosawa to Kurosawa’s parents in the Cherry Magic movie earlier this year. 

It’s because I think it’s really necessary that this word is used more in Japanese BLs, because of how it indicates the very heavy and deep love that one partner has for another. For me, the usage of the word is a very welcome BL trope (I remember it being used memorably in Life: Love on the Line, when Akira uses it with Yuki when they meet again in Alaska). 

Aishiteru indicates the only love, the permanent love, the absolute love of a lifetime that exists between two people. It blows away the everyday English “love” by way of intensity and permanence. (I think it belongs in BLs so that audiences can see that aishiteru can exist in same-sex couplings -- it’s not limited to cishet pairings.)

What twisted me about ichiban aishiteru is that it indicated that Mitsuru was going to be OKAY with this reality for his lifetime -- that Koichi was going to be his superlative and permanent love for the rest of Mitsuru’s lived life. Mitsuru wouldn’t say such a heavy thing if it weren’t true. It was SO BEAUTIFUL to me that he used this phrase. I’m so messed up by it because of how concretely and resolutely Mitsuru said it. 

@bengiyo wrote in their review that this show is “poignant queer cinema,” and I could not agree more. Eternal Yesterday was DEEPLY satisfying and moving. And, I think, necessary in the library of BLs, to demonstrate depth of love between two characters that could not stop or help themselves to love each other. 

(THANKS @gillianthecat and @lelephantsnail, for the encouragement! Fantastic recommendation.)