#miki koichiro

[harurio]

takezai terunosuke and yoshida munehiro in one three-minute shot, episode 5 of mood indigo, 2019.

#cannot stress enough that this is all one very long shot. one. #context is mustache was sleeping with glasses while simultaneously using glasses to switch careers so he (mustache) could marry a woman #and this is glasses finally going off on him. as he very much deserves. scumbag #i didn't even notice this was one shot until i thought about why it had me holding my breath the whole time. and would you look at that! #it's like the equal and opposite of the old fashion cupcake confession lmao #this whole franchise is full of long long takes and i love it i eat it up #mood indigo #indigo no kibun #kijima rio #kido shirou #takezai terunosuke #yoshida munehiro #miki koichiro #mood indigo spoilers #i guess #japanese bl #kijima rio my beloved #japanese bl my beloved #i love loving things lol

[waitmyturtles]

CW: MAJOR SPOILER ALERTS FOR THE MOVIE “THE PORNOGRAPHER: PLAYBACK.” LONG POST!

I feel like there’s been something humming in the wind lately around the franchise of The Novelist/The Pornographer. We’ve seen a cameo by the incomparable Izuka Kenta in Candy Color Paradox, Yoshida Munehiro is about to cameo in The End of the World, With You, and The Novelist’s Twitter account has been buzzing with news about new DVDs and theater showings of the last installment of the franchise, The Pornographer: Playback. Miki Koichiro, the screenwriter and director of the franchise, has TWO shows out at the moment, the aforementioned TEOTWWY, as well the sessy-sessy Raise de wa Chanto Shimasu, the three seasons of which I am dying to watch as soon as there’s a solidly bad season of QL sometime in the future (which seems like will never happen in my lifetime, bless all these amazing QLs for coming out every season!). Couple all of this with recent reviews of the OG Novelist and Mood Indigo series by the fabulous @gillianthecat (here) and @respectthepetty (here), and I was happily reminded of good times of watching all of these parts way way back when I first discovered QL/BL in 2019/20. 

When the amazing @lurkingshan commented on a stray thoughts post by @bengiyo that she had seen The Pornographer: Playback, I was VERY intrigued. With HUGE thanks and big ups to @lurkingshan, I watched it over the weekend, and here are my thoughts! I’m going to put up a break to keep y’all from getting spoiled if you want to avoid it.

First off, let’s make sure we know what all the installments are, and that we’ve watched what we’ve needed to get to the movie. We have:

1) 2018 -- The Novelist: the original meeting between student Kuzumi Haruhiko and adult author Kijima Rio

2) 2019 -- Mood Indigo: a prequel depicting the sexual engagements between Kijima Rio and his classmate, Kido Shirou 

3) 2021 -- The Pornographer: Spring Life: a very short vignette set 2 1/2 years after Kuzumi and Kijima first met. They’re now in a long-distance relationship, and Kuzumi visits Kijima in the countryside at Kijima’s sister’s house, where he’s living as he continues to write.

(The first three works are all available on Viki.)

So I was BEYOND THRILLED to get to watch the movie and see all of this wrap up. If most of y’all only watched up to Mood Indigo, you saw Kijima re-meet with Kuzumi. Kuzumi, at that time, was just becoming a successful employee in the advertising business. 

Spring Life hints that things are still going well for Kuzumi, and that he was looking forward to spending a summer break with his long-distance boyfriend. Most notably, the piece ends with Kuzumi jumping from honorifics, by asking Kijima if he (Kuzumi) could call Kijima “Rio-san,” which we know indicates intimacy. Kijima’s like, whatever you’d like, and the smile on Kuzumi’s face takes up the whole screen, it seems.

So then we finally get to The Pornographer: Playback, which begins during the same summer break. Continuing with the theme and mood that I like to call melosexual (the music alone of this franchise is SO INTENSE, let alone the heaty sex scenes), the guys head to a love hotel and do their thang. At the end of the night, as they’re getting dressed, Kijima finds a business card in Kuzumi’s wallet for a hostess club that Kuzumi is forced to go to with work colleagues. 

Without divulging a tremendous amount more about the plot at this moment, the movie is basically structured around the push-and-pull of Kijima’s inability to move authentically closer to people -- not just Kuzumi, but also his sister, who Kijima disappoints repeatedly by backing out of family events. 

Kijima’s essentially paralyzed by fear and insecurity that he is a terrible person -- one that is not worthy of love. His sister is so overwhelmingly angry about it that she essentially kicks him out of the house, and blames their mother for never calling him out on his namby-pamby bullshit (at least, that’s in her eyes). At another point in the movie, he frustrates Kuzumi so much that Kuzumi walks out on the relationship and heads back to Tokyo, a surprising move for the otherwise always-devoted younger companion. 

It takes a serious scolding by a hospitalized and flirtatious owner of a karaoke snack bar (you read that right) for Kijima to get his damn head back on straight and fight for his relationship with Kuzumi. (And, HILARIOUSLY, I was cackling -- in the process of this, Kijima has KIDO -- KIDO OF ALL PEOPLE -- call Kuzumi on Kijima’s behalf, to get Kuzumi to talk to Kijima to reconcile. KIJIMA used KIDO to call KUZUMI. Lord.)

Okay, so what I’m really getting at here is that the movie showed that the whole franchise was missing two KEY elements that the first three parts did not have: comedy and authentic emotional connection. There was actually a little comedy in this! Besides the whole Kido thing (which I’ll get back to in a minute), there were a couple of bumbling moments that were designed to elicit some lightness, mostly with the snack bar owner, a flighty gal with a lovely son who tries to hook up with takes Kijima under her wing.

About the other element: we FINALLY, FINALLY SAW KIJIMA SHOWING SOME EMOTION ABOUT SOMETHING. He really regretted letting things go to shit with Kuzumi. Kuzumi called Kijima out for wasting Kuzumi’s time to leave work in Tokyo and visit the countryside. Kuzumi felt like Kijima wasn’t taking him seriously, and was constantly pulling back. I mean -- Kijima was living away from Kuzumi.... for what, exactly? It’s not ever clearly explained. And Kuzumi got angry and left.

This is a great time to mention the excellent post by @emotionallychargedtowel on pursuer-distancer dyads, because the Kijima-Kuzumi push-and-pull in this movie perfectly defined this dyad dance. When Kuzumi got fed the fuck up and pulled way back -- Kijima finally stepped into his emotion and owned his desire to be with Kuzumi. 

Honestly, in the first three installments of this franchise -- I felt like Kijima really didn’t talk too much. I felt like he was far more defined by his brooding, his letting the winds take him to where he was at any given moment, ragingly sexual and lonely all at once. He simmered -- he was flinty, defensive, and used his sexual energy to dominate and burn the emotional energy all around himself. 

The movie showed a TOTALLY different side of him. To me, the movie showed that his relationship with Kuzumi, long distance as it was, HAD a softening impact on him -- even to the point that Kijima dropped everything he was up to in the countryside to head to Tokyo and fight for the relationship. Kijima needed to be rendered totally alone, one last time, to come to realize that the connection he had with Kuzumi was worth fighting for.

And, yes, in the process of it, he brought back Kido in the mix -- which was also seriously poignant. 

REALLY SERIOUS SPOILER HERE, y’all, especially if you love/hate/gaaahh that awful devil, Kido!

. . . . . .

Kido asks Kijima if they could have ever had the same kind of relationship as Kijima is fighting for with Kuzumi! AAAAAHHHH! AND! AND! KIJIMA SAYS, no way. We’re too similar.

WHICH IS TOTALLY TRUE! They’re both self-indulgent, selfish assholes! I mean, after that insane sex scene in Mood Indigo, Kido just fucking LEFT -- he just LEFT, and GOT MARRIED, and HAD A KID, and was like, peace the fuck out, I can’t actually be my honest queer self with you, Kijima, because I think that’s actually abnormal (oh, Kido, you internally messed up piece of shit, AAAHHH). 

Whereas, as beautifully analyzed in @respectthepetty‘s review, Kuzumi represents honesty and openness -- the kind of traits that Kijima doesn’t have, but is aspiring to, in order to be with Kuzumi. AAAHHH. 

I was seriously like, WHOA, WHAT AM I WATCHING HERE, at that moment. AND, AND? At the end of that scene? Kido wishes Kijima good luck. And says: “You better keep Kuzumi-kun. He’s a valuable asset.” Of course, what a Kido thing to say -- that humans are assets, commodities. But -- he sends Kijima off with good wishes. 

And then.

Kijima reunites with Kuzumi. He called Kuzumi by Kuzumi’s name, Haruhiko. AND -- holy shit, y’all, my mind was blown. He tells Kuzumi that he loves Kuzumi by saying ichiban aishiteru.

I tell you, I was FLOORED. All throughout the movie, I’m like, “dang, Kijima keeps talking and talking, and I just don’t remember him TALKING all that much before in the other three series.”

And then he DROPS the ichiban aishiteru! And I think BOTH me AND Kuzumi are BOTH LIKE, WHAT THE DAMN, DUDE!

I’ve spoiled a LOT, but I won’t say more after this, except to say the following:

The ending was one of the happiest, LOVELIEST endings of a drama/movie I’ve seen in QL. Oh. my. god. Talk about SATISFYING. EVERY. CHECKBOX. MARKED. Takezai Terunosuke and Izuka Kenta were MAGNIFICENT. I had SERIOUS tears. They got in everything -- they got the heat, they got in FAMILY, LOTS OF FAMILY, GORGEOUS shots, FEELINGS. ALL OF IT. 

@bengiyo made an excellent point recently in one of his reviews of TEOTWWY that it seems like Japan lately has only been doing high heat in stories about death. It’s an accurate point: all of the pieces of The Novelist came out well before TEOTWWY and Eternal Yesterday, the two most recent shows about death that had heaty elements. I kind of wonder about something. I wonder if other directors and screenwriters are like.... The Novelist did it the best. We can’t mess with that standard. 

Because -- Takezai’s and Izuka’s acting in those scenes is BEYOND EXCELLENT. It was NECESSARILY EXCELLENT to end this franchise on such a warm, happy, COMPLETE high note. 

Now that I can look back on all four parts of the whole franchise, what Miki Koichiro did for us by way of Kijima was to show the whole-scale growth of a man vis à vis love. This guy, Kijima -- a brilliant writer who was influenced by a sexually provocative teacher, someone who was left inexplicably behind by a tormented, internally homophobic lover/benefactor -- felt he was deserving of nothing. And then he found his something in Kuzumi. He nearly destroyed the relationship, multiple times. And as he fell and slipped while climbing the hill of happiness, he was able to get a stronger and stronger grip each time he tried harder. And he was supported by people around him, including family and random friends, to give him lift. 

This movie was a lot more straightforward than I had honestly expected. I 100% expected more of the melosexualness of the first three parts of the series. Instead, what I got was a WHOLESOME (I can’t believe I’m using that word, but it’s true!), complete, and uplifting story of a man finding his true happiness in his lover, his companion, his chosen family. All of it certainly laced with heat, for sure, but also very deep, very convincing love. 

It was utterly fabulous. It might be too emotional, maybe too family-oriented for some who preferred the dark heat of the previous installments. But Playback, in my eyes, was a perfect closing note for a man who honestly deserved happiness after the work, and the SELF-CHANGE he put in, to get love in the first place. If you are a fan of this whole series, and can get your hands on the movie, I beg you to watch it, even just for one of the best happy endings you’ll ever see in QLs.

#spoilers #the novelist #the pornographer #the novelist: playback #the novelist playback #the pornographer: playback #the pornographer playback #mood indigo #the novelist: spring life #the novelist spring life #the pornographer: spring life #the pornographer spring life #takezai terunosuke #izuka kenta #yoshida munehiro #miki koichiro

[zacknakazato]

#Initial D #initial d #Initial D Arcade Stage 8 Infinity #頭文字D #Takumi Fujiwara #Keisuke Takahashi #Ryosuke Takahashi #Itsuki Takeuchi #Koichiro Iketani #Kenji #Kenji Initial D #Takeshi Nakazato #Shingo Shoji #Mako Sato #Sayuki #Sayuki Initial D #Kenta Nakamura #Miki #Miki Initial D #Two Guys from Tokyo #Bunta Fujiwara #anime #gaming

[idleminds]

The Travelling Cat Chronicles (2018) ‘旅猫リポート’ dir. Koichiro Miki

#the travelling cat chronicles #tabineko ripoto #旅猫リポート #jmovie #caps

[ginnymoonbeam]

10 BL Boys I Want Carnally

Tagged by @bengiyo, who has excellent taste even though our character overlap is much smaller than our actor overlap.

Tian, A Tale of Thousand Stars

gif by smittenskitten

There was obviously gonna be a Mix character on this list, but I had to think for a bit about which one. Came down on Tian, he's the right level of brat for me.

Payu, Love in the Air

gif by thyla

For all the obvious reasons.

Wang, 180 Degrees

gif by 25shadesoffebruary

He's tried to work out his daddy issues via seduction, maybe I can help w-- *hook drags me off stage*

The One, Midnight Museum

gif by earthfluuke

It would probably be all mind games and I'm fine with that.

Ritsu, The End of the World With You

gif by perths

He's my exact flavor of damaged plus you know he's good in bed.

Kijima Rio, The Pornographer series

gif by maki-ryota

Also my exact flavor of damaged, thank you again Miki Koichiro for my entire life. (There were so many filthier gifs I could have picked for this one.)

Tutor, Why R U

gif by gabrielokun

The way he uses those eyes is probably illegal in some states.

Charn, Laws of Attraction

gif by jimmysea

By now we have established some things about my taste in men, yes?

Ye Xingsi, History 4: Close to You

gif by leixinyus

Out of the whole list this is probably the one I am most actively feral for and I have no explanation. He pings something in my lizard brain. I couldn't find any gifs of the scenes that really drive me wild, which is probably to the good as far as most of y'all are concerned.

Tharn, The Sign

gif by maxescheibechlinichacheli

A newcomer but oh what a powerful contender.

Thank you I hope you've enjoyed this journey into my not-so-private lusts. If you want to play, consider yourself tagged!

#tag meme #tag game

[piningintrovert]

We bring you breaking news. The president of the U.S.A. has announced that in ten days, a massive meteorite will collide with Earth [...] The probability of mankind's survival is zero.

Seto Toshiki as NISHINA MASUMI 僕らのミクロな終末 (2023), dir. Miki Koichiro

#it's giving range #i love it when actors ACT #seto toshiki #the end of the world with you #bokura no micro na shuumatsu #tuserfaiza #usertoptaps #userstorge #japanese bl #jdramasource #jdramaedit #jdrama #raemakes #s:teotwwy

[misspoetree]

These two nameless characters literally had one (1) minute of screen time in 2021 and yet...I still think about them.

A Man Who Defies the World of BL, dir. Miki Koichiro, ep. 1 (2021)

#the power of this cutie #babygirlifying the bad guy: speed run editon #but seriously though: I want more of them and I want to know more about them #because they were cute af and had chemistry and so much potential #AND LITERALLY JUST ONE MINUTE OF SCREEN TIME BECAUSE THEY WERE JUST RANDOM BACKGROUND CHARACTERS 😭😭😭 #a man who defies the world of bl #zettai bl ni naru sekai vs zettai bl ni naritakunai otoko #j bl #i ship them #a Man who Defies the World of BL ep. 1 #zettai bl

[thasorns]

”Could I have a sip?”

BOKURA NO MICRO NA SHUUMATSU 僕らのミクロな終末 (2023), dir. Miki Koichiro

#bokura no micro na shuumatsu #the end of the world with you #jdramaedit #jdramasource #asianlgbtqdramas #seto toshiki #nakata keisuke #zeystuff #gif: bnmns #watch how this one can possibly be get flagged... #does anyone watch this?? #and again the habit to post in the middle of the night #both make me scared like one stalks while the other one blackmails. #ritsu never made it official but then he said masumi is special more than others... yeah boy got his hopes up... #idk I'll see how this will turn out

[gulongming]

-GO AWAY, YOU DAMN METEOR! -A miracle? That's not happening. -Don't be such a downer, you ass. The word "miracle" exists 'cause it might happen.

@kdramaspace  2023 YEAR IN REVIEW | Best Picture

♔ best/favorite drama of 2023: 僕らのミクロな終末 THE END OF THE WORLD WITH YOU dir. Miki Koichiro

#kds2023 #the end of the world with you #bokura no micro na shuumatsu #boyslovesource #jdramaedit #dramasource #dailyasiandramas #japaneseartistsinc #alx.gif #seto toshiki #nakata keisuke #tomimoto sousyo #idegami baku #yoshida munehiro

[alwayspining]

First kiss things in Bokura no micro na shuumatsu/僕らのミクロな終末 (2023) l ep 2 l dir. Miki Koichiro

#bokura no micro na shuumatsu #僕らのミクロな終末 #the end of the world with you #the end of the world with you series #the end of the world with you: ep 2 #ritsumasumi #ritsu x masumi #nakata keisuke #seto toshiki #kiss #japanese miniseries #japanese drama #japanese bl #jbl #japan is not messing around #I have THE scenes as well but I’m very scared to post them #more ecplicit then anything on here and that’s saying something #asianlgbtqdrama #lgbtqia+ #video #video post #by alwayspining

[chinzillas]

WATCHED IN 2022: a man who defies the world of bl dir. miki koichiro ↳ in this BL world it’s so hard to remain straight

#a man who defies the world of bl #zettai bl #absolute bl #jdramas #jdramaedit #jdrama #annagifs #watched22 #ABSOLUTE LOSER OF A MAANNN #also not me watching this and then keixyaku back to back and going. wait a damn minute

[rindascreenies]

Yowamushi Pedal dir. Koichiro Miki

#yowamushi pedal #ren nagase #kentaro ito #kanna hashimoto #ryota bando #ryo ryusei #cinema #japan cinema #japanese cinema #japanese movie #japan movie #asian movie #japan film #japanises film #screencap #screenshot #japan drama #asian cinema

[waitmyturtles]

I told myself that I was going to pause all other dramas/doramas to finish up Bad Buddy this weekend. But, I discovered through @respectthepetty‘s post about The End of the World, With You, that Yoshida Munehiro -- A.K.FUCKING.A. KIDO SHIRO of The Novelist/Mood Indigo -- has a guest role in this show, so I’m effing back into watching it. (GAH, too many dramas.)

TEOTWWY is by Miki Koichiro, the screenwriter/director behind The Novelist/Pornographer and all of its continued sequels and prequels, and that’s literally the only reason why I picked up this new show. After last week’s second episode, I honestly wasn’t feeling the chemistry between Ritsu and Masumi. I get that Ritsu is Masumi’s first passionate love, but I think I wasn’t feeling the tropes used to demonstrate Masumi’s post-breakup obsession with Ritsu, like following him. I don’t believe that I had seen Ritsu give Masumi any indication that they were exclusive to each other (but I could have very well missed something...). And also, it IS clear in other ways that Ritsu was/is, in Masumi’s wonderful words, a fuckboy, so like... Masumi, you knew this about Ritsu already. 

In any case, I kinda felt like the show is putting Masumi up to be a tiny bit of a whining weenie -- but that is purely my own humble opinion. I don’t think the show is doing justice to how complicated Masumi’s feelings might be. Ritsu is clearly a selfish jackass, but I think he’s owning up to it just fine in the show, and it’s Masumi’s deal to deal with it.

I mean, maybe this show is going to be about Masumi’s maturity journey, in that he needs (of all things) a meteorite to hit the earth to recognize that maybe he needs to get more knowledgeable, fast, about how adults hook up and have relationships in the real world. At the end of yesterday’s episode, when he’s laying in bed with Ritsu, and saying he’d get turned on if Ritsu touched him... tell me something I don’t know, honey. 

Anyway, I apologize for whining, because I really want to see what Miki does with Yoshida, and if there’s a character comparison between Ritsu and Yoshida’s Kido. Kido was SO COMPLICATED, and icky, and FASCINATING, and misbehaved, and totally demonstrated his struggle between het “normalcy” and his attraction/fascination with Kijima and his own queer revelations in Mood Indigo. Ugh, he was amazing. 

I am loving that recent QLs are referencing The Novelist/Mood Indigo, because they are brilliant. I also think this means that I really need to put Raise de wa Chanto Shimasu on my list, which is a dorama about a sexually active woman with multiple partners, also directed by Miki Koichiro. All of the seasons and specials are subbed by an absolutely fabulous fansubber and, besides Zettai BL, are some of Miki’s most popular work. I’ll maybe catch up on those seasons in the late spring/summer. 

So, TL;DR, come at me, Yoshida, because TEOTWWY is back on my list. But this is otherwise a big Aof week for me.

#the end of the world with you #teotwwy #miki koichiro #the novelist #the pornographer #mood indigo #yoshida munehiro

[omarandjohnny]

MIKI KOICHIRO’S BACK TO EMOTIONALLY DESTROY ME AND I COULDN’T BE HAPPIER 

(very promising start, and it’s also lovely to see Seto Toshiki again so soon!)

#bokura no micro na shuumatsu #the end of the world with you

[idleminds]

The Travelling Cat Chronicles (2018) ‘旅猫リポート’ dir. Koichiro Miki

#the travelling cat chronicles #tabineko ripoto #旅猫リポート #fukushi sota #jmovie #caps #cats

[ginnymoonbeam]

For the BL ask game: #7 - top 5 bl, please and thank you.

Ooh, thank you! I had to think about this one a bit. I picked out five shows that I think are brilliantly executed and that have cut themselves the deepest into my heart, for one reason or another. In alphabetical order, because I can't possibly rank them against each other:

I Told Sunset About You/I Promised You The Moon

I do consider these a single story and I adore them as a unit. Every detail of this story is so exquisite and vividly felt that just watching it dredged up several long-buried memories of my own teens and early 20s. It wrapped itself around my guts and it's still there.

Moonlight Chicken

Every single relationship in this story is carefully, thoughtfully developed. Every character and setting feels loved and precious. It's about community and sustenance and intergenerational queerness and so many different kinds of love. If ITSAY/IPYTM are buried in my guts, Moonlight Chicken is wrapped around me like a blanket.

Secret Crush On You

When I realized this show was going to be about a painfully weird dude being intensely loved for exactly who he is, I was all in. It's fierce and goofy and horny and absolutely unashamed to be what it is.

The End of the World With You

I spend a lot of time with the whole "to be or not to be" question and this show hits at exactly the place that I find most affirming and rejuvenating. Ritsu and Masumi's painful, tangled relationship is also exquisite to me, and Meguru and Yuma are a constant surprise and delight. Also, every time I watch it I realize I forgot how funny it is.

The Pornographer series

Miki Koichiro has two spots on this list so I'm eagerly awaiting whatever he does next. There's a ruthless grace in both Pornographer and TEOTWWY, a brutal clarity that's still ultimately very loving. The way art and sex and obligation and love are twined together in this series make me want to yell from the rooftops.

Ask game

#answered #bl drama #moonlight chicken #secret crush on you #the end of the world with you