This Indian series is being sold as a story about a gay man falling for his straight best friend but honestly, at its heart, it's really about friendship and what friendship can look like when it gets complicated and messy and emotionally loaded. It's available on the YouTube channel of Last Leaf Pictures, seven episodes of about 30 minutes each. I had mixed feelings throughout and a big part of that comes down to how I felt about one of the lead characters, but more on that in a bit. Anshul and Kavith are the two men at the centre of everything. They first meet on a train heading to Delhi, both of them not really ready to go back to their hometowns. They get off midway, turn around and head back to Mumbai to give themselves one more shot at the life they want there. Anshul is an aspiring actor with a young son back in Delhi living with his grandmother. Kavith is gay, freshly out of yet another relationship, his 17th by his own count over the years. The two strike up this unusu...
The plot follows an asocial but ambitious fashion student, Chiaki, whose ultimate goal is to design clothes for his favorite model, AE. He doesnt talk much to anyone in class and just focuses on himself. Opportunity knocks in the form of a design competition for students, where the winners will have their clothes worn by AE. The theme is 'human connection', and the outfits will be judged on the runway.. However, Chiaki is forced to team up with his clumsy classmate, Enaga. Chiaki isn't close to him and dislikes Enaga's tacky fashion sense. After. A few frustrating sessions between the two, Chiaki visits a trendy club where to his surprise his idol AE meets him person and the duo start to share a bond. A friendship soon develops and the two start to hang out where AE shows him his favorite spots. The surprise that no one sees is that Enaga is AE in disguise, studying fashion design undercover to avoid attention. One night when Chiaki tells AE that the one thing he dislikes is people lying, AE starts to pull himself back. Wondering what happened, Chiaki reaches out to him a lot but to no avail. Eventually one day he seed AE and follow shim and they spend time together again with AE trying to kiss him which confuses Chiaki and he runs. Eventually the competition day arrives and when Chiaki sees Enaga wearing the dress and walk the ramp, it occurs to him that all this while it was him and AE as the same person. They win the competition but Chiaki is so schooled by the whole thing, he just withdraws himself and the two do not see each other for a while. Few months later when they reconnect, AE puts hi POV and this is when Chiaki also admits that he never felt in love with AE but he can see himself falling in love for him.
Chiaki always seems so jumpy and on edge whenever he's around AE, but I honestly think he’s at his best when he’s just hanging out with Enaga. As they get closer, you can really see him relax and finally come out of his shell. He starts talking more, sharing his actual feelings, and he just seems like a much happier person. I really enjoyed their scenes together. Now, it is pretty hard to take things seriously when you realize Chiaki can’t tell they’re the same person—I mean, a bad wig and a hat can only do so much! But if you can just look past that, the show is actually pretty decent. There’s a certain charm to the main character’s double life that makes it worth watching. I felt like Enaga had a good reason to hide his modeling identity; it came from a place of real fear and wanting to protect both himself and Chiaki’s dreams. When the truth finally drops, Chiaki’s reaction is pretty intense. It’s not just that he’s upset about the lying, but he’s also realizing that he’s actually more frustrated with himself than with Enaga. Watching Enaga walk out on stage in the outfit they made together really highlights Chiaki’s own internal struggle with who he is versus who he pretends to be. That said, I think the show was really missing that romantic spark. Chiaki acts more like a fan than someone in love—I mean, he didn't even want to kiss AE back! Plus, all those long inner monologues from Chiaki got pretty confusing after a while. Overall, it was a light, simple, and slightly punk story, but it just didn't have enough romance for me. It’s not amazing, but the actors did a solid job with what they had.
It's a quirky, light watch that's pretty charming if you can ignore the silly disguises, even if the love story feels a bit flat. (6/10)
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