My Only 12% (2022)

The best level of pining one can imagine.

I’m willing to call it a perfect binge watch material. It’s easy to digest, has amazing chemistry and loveable characters. There is not much unnecessary drama and over the top events. It’s not a groundbreaking story, but it’s a nice and believable youth romance.

Not gonna like Cake was the main reason I loved it so much - both with how the character was written and how Santa portrayed him. Funny, charming, entertaining, loyal, but at the same time caring and mature. I am surprised how understanding he was, when his initial introduction was a chaos impersonation. Santa’s acting too, I could see the hearts in his eyes even before he was aware of them. Damn, this boy makes your heart flutter like crazy.

Then we have Seeiw - THE cinnamon roll. Even though more proper and organized, I would say he was acting more his teenage age compared to Cake - especially with more challenging and emotional moments. Which was nice to see - teens acting their age. I do believe his crying got a bit frustrating a few times, but I blame the writer. Sadly Earth’s delivery in that aspect was also not that good, at least in some scenes. Sometimes I watched his scenes and was not sure if he was crying or laughing…

For everyone who enjoys mutual pining - this is THE show for you. The feels were amazing. It’s so obvious to everyone they like each other, but these two teens were painfully blind to it. And I loved every second of it.

Production value was high, especially for the BL. I did not have many issues with directing. The pacing got a bit fast by the end. Not to mention, in my opinion the last two episodes should not even exist - the whole last minute plot addition was unnecessary and did not fit the show.

One of the side couples also made me question reality. I don’t have issues with age gaps, but there are some lines that should not be crossed, and I have a weird feeling that if the genders were swapped, more people would complain.

Overall, I enjoyed it a lot. I appreciated a lot how it was more grounded in reality and not the typical “everyone is gay and the only homophobic people are jealous exes” and no one is afraid of coming out, or even worse - no one is really gay, they just love this one specific person of the same gender.

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IM ONLY 12% AWAKE

I'm scared to write this review. For sure, I'll receive a lot of backlash again for saying bad things about it, but I CANT just keep silent.

First, let's discuss the good things. The outline of the basic plot is good on paper; it's the love story of a couple who have been each other's first loves. In all fairness, the first few episodes were a little slow but engaging. It also feels like they have enough of a budget, as the series looked decent enough. I also appreciate the subtle changes in technology that show the difference in timeline. And yes, the main lead's hairstyle changed after the time jump! Also, let's give props to the actors because they did a good job. Of course, Earth did all the heavy lifting, but we must also acknowledge that Santa did a good job for someone so young and not as veteran as Earth.

Now, for the not-so-good parts. First, and this is totally my own opinion, I hate seeing gay characters who are portrayed as softer and more delicate than marshmallow. It felt like a backward progression for our quest for acceptance when on the  other side of the world, a lot of female characters are being portrayed as EQUAL to their male counterparts. In this day and age, portraying gay men as crybabies and scaredy cats is simply unacceptable.

And then there is the endless crying, especially in the last two episodes. Why, for crying out loud, do they make Earth cry this much? I didn't even know why it was necessary to kill Seeiw's mother just so we could have a last episode that was almost entirely Earth crying. It is not entertaining. It is so boring and unnecessary that whenever he cries, fast forwarding becomes a necessity. In fact, no matter how hard I tried, I was only 12% awake in the last 2 episodes. There are other ways to show how good an actor can be aside from shedding tears. It was a series finale, and the episode could have been used to further the storylines of our characters.

Other readers will kill me for saying this, but as strong as the start is, this felt like a cheap imitation of Love of Siam and I Told Sunset About You; unfortunately, this show can't hold a candle against those classics.

I'm sorry, as much as I adore Earth and Santa, I just cannot rewatch this show. I'm giving it a 7 for the effort.

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