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Chained To My Bully Stepbrother (AI Vertical BL Drama)

By Golu
This is the second vertical AI BL drama I've sat through, and honestly I went in knowing better. I had it on while I was doing cardio at the gym, and what struck me was just how much the plot echoed the last one I watched. Same step brother romance angle, same mystery girlfriend showing up near the end, same extra guy pining after one of the leads. Genuinely the only thing going for it was the runtime, the whole thing wrapped up in forty five minutes flat.  The setup kicks off with Finn moving schools because his mom just married into money. He finds out his new step brother Aiden goes to the same place, and he's warned to keep his distance from him. Their first run in at school is rocky, just like you'd expect, but there's this odd pull between them neither can shake off. Finn keeps telling himself not to read into it because Aiden's straight and openly homophobic. Things shift when some kids start bullying Finn and the student council president, Ryan, steps in to ...
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Yes, No, or Maybe? (Japanese Anime)

By Golu
For a short one-hour film, Yes, No, or Maybe tells a cute, compelling love story at a comfortable pace. This anime deals with the theme of duality, exploring the discrepancies between perception and behavior. I liked the fact that the story stays focused on what it wants to say and wraps up ion less than an hour, without over dramatizing stuff. Luckily, when you use anime as medium, you can play around with a lot of things, but thankfully the makers here stayed true to their vision and focus. 

Kei is a TV presenter who maintains a poised persona in public, even though his real personality is petty and belligerent. He is very good at hiding his inner thoughts because he needs to keep s a certain celebrity persona always around him for the sake of his job. One day, Kei meets animation artist Tsuzuki Ushio for a work assignment. As expected he keeps a pleasant demeanor around Ushio, making a good impression on the artist with his friendliness towards his crew members. A few days after the interview, the duo accidentally meet again having gotten into a bike accident, which resulted in Ushio injuring himself. When Kei (this time wearing a face mask) shows indifference towards his well-being, Ushio becomes upset over the perpetrator's bad attitude. As compensation for his injury, Ushio strong-arms Kei into assisting him with his next stop-motion project. Although Kei is reluctant at first, he begins to visit Ushio's home on a regular basis, helping him out with his creative work. A strange but friendly connection forms between Ushio and his masked companion.  As comfortable as Kei feels when he's around Ushio, he still hasn't told the truth about his identity. Keeping up this facade starts to feel stressful to Kei, especially since Ushio insists on learning more about the secret guy's personal life. The ending leaves a surprise when Kei realizes on his new assignment that Ushio had found out Kei's secret sometime back that they were both the same person, when Ushio tried to kiss Kei and his real voice came out. The ending is a bit OTT with a very passionate kiss but ending in a very sexy, and a very verbal sex scene. 

The story is simple and this anime presents the story in a cute and charming way, something that we have known the Anime BL's to do and this is no different and icing on the cake was the duration of this short film. The story flows smoothly in a comfortable pace, always transitioning to the next plot point without ever feeling too rushed. The relationship between Usho and Kei's masked version grows organically. Even though we don't hear much talks but a visual representation of them spending time together gives the viewers an idea on where things are headed. Kei was an interesting character. The conflicting personality of him having to always pretend to be this nice guy while inside he wants to be mean to people makes it a very interesting and fun watch. Similarly Ushio's underplayed character slowly falling in love with his unwanted friend makes sense. Audience can see that the storyline will lea to a happy ending. At one point, I started wondering of there was going to be any BL scenes, so imagine my shock when this cute romantic drama suddenly ends with sex scene which is very verbal and really not needed. This sex scene is terribly distressing and feels so different from the gentle tone in the rest of the movie, especially since it shows Ushio literally forcing himself on Kei who repeatedly refuses. This scene ruins the beautiful sweet love story that was established so far, but personally I am willing to let that go and remember the good parts. (6/10)
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