I think I am putting myself at a realt disadvantage by watching the best BLs out there right from the get-go. How is a Japanese BL supposed to live up to My Beautiful Man? Tokyo In April Is… sure seemed like it was a contender, but it didn’t quite measure up in the end. Still, let’s take a look at this dramatic series.
We first meet Kazuma, who has just returned back to Tokyo after living in the US for a while. He immediately lands a job where he learns that his childhood friend, and first love, is the top designer. Ren finds it pretty easy to fall back into a friendship with Kazuma, though it’s clear that something still lingers unsaid between the pair. It’s not until we get some more information from flashbacks that we learn that boh Kazuma and Ren harbored feelings for each other but were too afraid to act on it. Givn how most Asian countries feel towards same sex couples, it’s no surprise that they are afraid to be completely honest with each other.
We also learn that Ren was about to have sex with an older stranger before Kazuma stopped him. Instead, the two agree to have sex with each other. In a strange turn of events, Kazuma gets very sick and falls into a coma for a short while immidiately after, so it’s hard for Ren to know where they stand. He also believes Kazuma’s sickness is his fault, so he comes clean to their parents. Wrong move. Ren gets shipped off to a school in France, so by the time Kazuma recovers, he has no clue where Ren is. It’s in that time that he moves to the US.
In fairness, it really doesn’t take long for Ren and Kazuma to reunite romantically. But in order to protect himself from disappointment, Ren claims they are just in a friends with benefits situation. He still has no clue that Kazuma has feelings for him. He just assumed that having sex back then was just more out of pity than anything. So it’s throughout the rest of the season that Kazuma has to try and break down Ren’s walls to let him know that he does care deeply for him. There are a few roadblocks on that path that kind of seem extremely random to me. Or at least not flushed out as well as they could have been. I think part of that has to do with the limited number of episodes with such a short run time.
All in all, I’m glad I finally got to check this series out. I don’t think the chemistry was quite as good as Youtub clips led me to believe, but I still liked this series. Who knows, maybe I’ll forever be in search of the next great Japanese BL.