I Hear the Sunspot

Dominic Kebre

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.