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waitmyturtles · 1 year

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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

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swedishboyfriend · 2 months

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インディゴの気分 Indigo no Kibun/Mood Indigo (2019)

#indigo no kibun #mood indigo #like ouch #pornographer series #the novelist #the novelist series #marukido maki #bledit #bl jdrama #takezai terunosuke #yoshida munehiro #thank you god for yoshida munehiro

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bengiyo · 9 months

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Mood Indigo (2019) Ep 3 Stray Thoughts

Last time, Kido is trying to get out of his job at an erotic fiction company, and his director has promised to help him if Kido gets a famous, retiring author to public his last book with their company. He convinced the author by promising him an apprentice in Rio. However, the pervy old man was not interested in men, and hoped he’d have a younger woman to likely harass. Rio insisted that he should apprentice, so the old man demanded that he blow Kido to completion. Also, there was crying and vomit in the last episode. I will be having words with you all if I have to watch this man puke again.

I should apologize to the Pornographer franchise, because I’ve been wanting there to be more BJs in BL, and they were here in 2018 and 2019. Still, this one being coerced makes it unfun.

Good performance from Yoshida Munehiro to sell that scene. He even popped the veins on his neck to make it look like he was straining.

Look at this show even providing tissues to complete the physical reality of the scene.

Episode 3: Awakening Past Reasoning

It’s actually extremely sad to see the author awakening something in Kido with Kijima, because it now feels like Kijima modeled that behavior on Kuzumi later. Also explains Kido’s reticence about their relationship.

Do we consider cab drivers allies for all the things they’ve witnessed over the decades?

“Your face is telling me you want it.” Sir, I have a few pamphlets for you. Read over them and then join the rest of the group in the circle.

Oh hey we’re actually detailing some decent warm up procedures here!

Well what do you know. Finally, a show that respected a character being nervous and uncertain about insertion, and resorting to alternative acts between men instead!

Ah, the beginning of the significance of that key. How neat.

Also glad that they were sober for both encounters.

This old man took him to his sex room and said, “I FUCK.”

Bad news: The pervy old man is sex positive in an approving way. He doesn’t think Kijima needs to run around having sex, but he does need to be in tune with his own desires to write good erotic fiction.

Oh, did Rio just jerk off while thinking about Kido as Kido is continuing to make choices to leave this company and go into more traditional work? A mess.

Man, it feels like BL as a whole has taken a step back from where this series was. I need more admission of the frank reality of male existence in my BL.

#pornographer #the novelist #mood indigo #japanese bl #bl series #Ben watches

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thelaziestmotherfucker · 2 years

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Open your legs wider. How is it? You’re filling me up...

#Mood Indigo #The Novelist #moodindigoedit #thenovelistedit #userspicy #uservik #lakornet #Terunosuke Takezai #Kijima Rio #Yoshida Munehiro #Kido Shirou #thelaziestmotherfucker #do not repost

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shizukais · 3 years

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#rewatch #indigo no kibun #mood indigo #jdrama #shiro kido #yoshida munehiro #ポルノグラファー #bittersweet ending or is just bitter??

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thaibl97 · 4 years

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Can we just talk about how crazy good “Pornographer” and “Mood Indigo” were!? Like at woah .. Pornographer reminded me of an BL anime I’ve been watching called “Junjo Romantica” just the the mood and how Kuzumi is a college student and how Kijima is a Writer 😏 anyway I recommend both of them and watch it in the order I mentioned 😂 and just a FYI it’s rated R like really skdhdhdhndbd anyway enjoy my over all rating for both outta 10 is like a 8.5 just because I didn’t like Mood Indigo as much it was a little shitty what Kido did.

#mood indigo #pornographer #the novlist #boy love #japanese bl #kijima rio #takezai terunosuke #kido shiro #yoshida munehiro #kuzumi haruhiko #izuka kenta

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juneviews · 4 years

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Mood Indigo + faceless

#indigo no kibun #mood indigo #kijima x kido #yoshida munehiro #takezai terunosuke #my gifs #bypiningbisexuals

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leenaevilin · 4 years

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[Announcement] 舞台『パレード』(butai parade)

the show will be running from April 15th, 2020 to April 20th, 2020 (Tokyo) @ CBGKシブゲキ!! (CBGKShibugeki!!)

Cast:

Baba Ryouma as(杉本良介) Satou Hinata as(相馬未来) Konishi Seiya as(小窪サトル) Satou Nanami as(大垣内琴美) Yoshida Munehiro as(伊原直輝)

homepage twitter enterstage

#パレード #parade #馬場良馬 #baba ryouma #佐藤日向 #satou hinata #小西成弥 #konishi seiya #佐藤七海 #satou nanami #吉田宗洋 #yoshida munehiro

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talkaboutpreciousthings · 5 years

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Indigo no kibun (Mood Indigo)

I really loved this one! While I watched the first series too (Pornographer), it didn’t quite grab me the way this one did, with Kijima and Kido. Kido may be messed up, confused, indecisive etc etc, but he’s a wonderfully complex character rarely seen in these type of stories. And so his and Kijima’s relationship is complex too.

I’m fond of this kind of very romantic, doomed love with lots of beautiful pining and a sort of happy ending, despite everything. And great chemistry (and kissing!) between the two.

I want more drama like this: mature and moody and sexy.

#indigo no kibun #mood indigo #gif #takezai terunosuke #yoshida munehiro

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maki-ryota · 5 years

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#pornographer (drama)#yoshida munehiro #takezai terunosuke #izuka kenta

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gulongming · 10 months

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I guess fate isn't just a figment of Yuuma's imagination.

僕らのミクロな終末 THE END OF THE WORLD WITH YOU ↬ episode five

#alx.gif #the end of the world with you #bokura no micro na shuumatsu #asianlgbtqdramas #jdramaedit #dailyasiandramas #japaneseartistsinc #nishina masumi #kusakabe ritsu #hirose yuma #kagami meguru #seto toshiki #nakata keisuke #tomimoto sousyo #idegami baku #yoshida munehiro #flashing gif #crawling out of PS completely mauled: i'm good it's all good!!!!

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waitmyturtles · 1 year

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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

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