I Hear the Sunspot (2024)

The first thing that comes to my mind when I'm thinking of this series is a scene where Kohei (Nakazawa Motoki), a boy with a hearing disability, confesses to Taichi (Kobayashi Toranosuke) under a bridge in the pouring rain. Like Ohm and Nannon's 'rooftop scene' in ”Bad Buddy” or YinWar's 'umbrella scene' in ”Love Mechanics”, this is an iconic BL highlight.

Due to his hearing problem, Kohei distances himself from campus life, until he meets extrovert (to put it mildly) Taichi, who enthuses about the food Kohei's mother puts in Kohei's lunch box. Kohei hires Taichi to take notes for him in lectures, and the two young men, who are extreme opposites, over time get closer. There are some problems in the devbelopment of their relationship that are based on misunderstandings, but in contrast to misunderstandings in other seties, which are arificially designed just for the sake of drama, they are more natural here as they are based on literal ”misunderstanding” because of Kohei's hearing problem.

I must admit that I shed a tear or two, not only because of the heartbreaking ups and downs of the couple's relationship, but also because I've rarely seen so good acting in a BL series.

I would sum this up as wasted potential. It is 12 parts and the first 6 parts are wonderful in showing the beginnings of a charming romance between a hearing impaired student and the friend he makes and catches feelings for. Then I have no idea what they were thinking, but parts 7 to 11 hardly had the guys together, only a few brief scenes and then the last half of the last part they get back together after a chance meeting. Really, who thought it would be a good idea to tell a gay romance story and then have almost no interaction between the guys for more than half the series! This could have been great, but honestly by the time you get to the last part the emotional impact is gone.