7/7.5

watch the uncut version. do that. if you dont it will suck 4 u. the show is LONG which honestly i love since i think it's utilized well and if shows are 1h+, written well, and pseudo slice of life then ALLOW IT.

summary: it's a ghost boy story. ghost boy (phob) has 2 find out why he died and real boy (phat) helps him. love ensues.

i feel like there's a certain type that likes these shows...i am uncultured and an adult baby so i don't. most times this specific trope—in literally ever country because, you know, death—end with open-endings regarding the life/love OR they part ways forever (in life) often coming together way later (aka in death/afterlife) so. the latter happened. wouldn't it just be better to find someone with a heartbeat? (dont even get me started on sex physics here). for these reasons, i avoided it but that was a MISTAKE! my friend told me to watch so i bit the bullet.

it isn't exactly central to the plot, how he dies, but what it means on an emotional, psychical, intra/interpersonal, and even physical, level. they keep up with these aspects, throwing in some (not overbearing) social commentary and plenty of philosophical notions and artsy bullshit to keep me interested. personally, i think phob is the main character since we see him first and follow him the whole time and see through his eyes. for me the romance was incorporated but not the main thing—which makes sense due to the writer's life experience—which i appreciatee. i'll talk about romance specifically the least.

themes: loneliness, depression, trauma, parental loss/abandonment/abuse, friendship, love, death, GRIEF. the concept of life itself. the remnants of grief are all around; the true haunting aspect. traces of people that won't go away no matter how we wish it would or wouldn't. the elements of surveillance in the show are ominous but also highlight that theme—someone could be watching, something could be in your room, something lingers. a house has a sort of heartbeat but it also may not have been your home.

the acting was okay. nut is way better than whatever that was in that other show that was bad. oxygen something idk. i really love took's face lol. all the veteran actors did a good job and the young ones have ways to go but they could be worse. for the most part it wasn't distracting so i don't have much to say but 'ok'. Faii is the weakest but it's ok gorl take lessons with them. Shout out to that Green kid (Ben); had no fuckin' clue who he was but i recognized that face. Imagine my surprise when the episodes he features he tore that shit up. i am 5y older than him wow i feel old. anyway that was a great surprise and elevated the scenes—a true thespian.

my main complaint for the show isn't in production or poorly thrown together content but this consistent trope in tv shows...parental forgiveness. it's something we do all over; we don't want to admit that our caretakers can be absolute garbage, fucking failures. we get uncomfortable asserting that some do not deserve our peace, respect, time, you yourself. i get that a lot of cultures find that bond impenetrable and a fucking SIN to break but it would be interesting if the truth was told. sometimes you do not get to be forgiven perhaps especially in, their death. comparatively, phat and his mom's rship had some issues that were well addressed. they were very close because of parental (father) abandonment—which his best friend (Dream) went through (in a much more traumatic way)—and it created a sort of dependency and potential for emotional incest. however, they're able to separate themselves/their identities. i appreciated showing this and the dichotomy between the different types of child/parent rships. and, to be fair, iirc Dream never forgives her father but i think she comes to an understanding with him but that's a much different situation.

lak (actor is also my type) and dream's storylines were sad and their relationship was a bit murky/unclear and lak was a bitch for most of the series but like...it makes sense. i didn't realize his loss of his parents, who were college professors, was an allegory for people being disappeared until my friend told me and that hit hard. radical workers, intellectuals, etc are actively persecuted for wanting a better world. it was really well done to tie it to his alien obsession and being captured right on your own soil. one because cencorship and two because metaphor. this (disappearing) happens everywhere and the places where we are have some bloody history. a place where people have been tortured by the state, for having radical ideas, could be right next door.

re romance: they had good chemistry and it was nice to watch their bond grow but it's sloooow and if you're expecting it to be exclusively about a) /their/ specific rhsip and b) their love every ep then...sorry lol. they both had a life b4 each other and they tell us about it. i was kind of surprised how slow it was but i ended up loving it so i was like whatever cool. in the end, Phat and Phob have to part ways—obviously—and Phat is with a woman after, but his heart yearned for his ghost mans and he also loses his mom later. it's sad but (imo) it doesn't mean, as others may think which is ok and understandable, that his need/desire to live on, find love, and connect, create a life is for naught just because he yearned or lost.

love is not the only thing in the world. his mom was worried for precisely that reason: allowing yourself to be swallowed, consumed, eclipsed in love and merge completely with them. something she and her son had to actively get tangled out of. you'll give up your life just because someone you love has left, or is gone, and won't come back? how is that truly living? the point is that life goes on; some shit doesn't work out but you can be happy here, you will be okay. and that death is never the actual end. in psychoanalytic terms that i probably am misinterpreting, death is eternal, the everlasting drive because we matter materially.

i know the writer is a man and this is a personal story which is really cool. it has all he things i wish a lot of these shows would have and i appreciate that this level of care and thought comes from him, his specific perspective, but also as a man himself. it could have gone in every opposite which way but it was thoughtful and imaginative; interesting and actually artistic. it's all so contradictory, placing no constraints on the ability of the characters to be full fledged human beings with a range of experiences, goals, desires, needs that change along with the journey of life. it feels very personal but universal, a la moonlight (i am not comparing but if you know u know).

i lost someone extremely close to me about 6 months before watching this so i think, had i not experienced that and the absolute mess and confusion that grief is, i may not have been as affected or interested. it is clear this man knows what grief is on a personal level because the show doens't allow you to sweep it under the rug, like the characters try so hard to do. like i'm sure he has, like i have. it is so much easier to run even if it kills you. anyway, this is more realistic than like 80% of these shows and it's not even possible...wild.