#ascendio

Quick pitch

First Love Again - 7/10

(Korea, Feb-March Viki)

Main Tropes: fated mates, bodyswap-ish

AKA First Love For The Third Time based on a BL script that won a competition from Ascendio studio (You Make Me Dance). It starred two green actors including influencer Jeon Chang Ha (the uke character). About a popular novelist who remembers his past lives and meets his soulmate who has been reincarnated into the body of a man.

I enjoyed this show in part because it tackled one of the questions I’ve always head with the red thread trope: what if your soulmate reincarnates as a different gender than before? What if he’s out and gay and you’re not? Watching our hero deal with this was fun. A whole new kind of queer crisis. 

However, this BL started out a touch mean spirited, but we eventually got a good kiss for a KBL. Then they went from like to love to boyfriends in a red hot minute. When they’re domestic these two are cute together with lots of communication (except the truth). 

I suppose in BL it takes a man who has lived 3 lifetimes to actually understand that conversation is what’s required to make a relationship work. The informal address discussion was adorable.

The confession/rejection scene was justified if one person remembers reincarnation and the other does not, but it was a bit much with lots of crying and a charming little self parody/mockery moment. The reconciliation and ending was... fine.

All in all, the pacing felt rushed throughout this BL, and the romantic arc was underdeveloped. But that’s par for the course with Korea’s short form (they can’t all be Semantic Error), so it didn’t bother me too much. 

If you don’t mind a heavy does of melodrama in your BL First Love Again has a solid story with a strong concept that’s surprisingly well acted and unsurprisingly well produced, making it a classic KBL with better than average chemistry but ultimately a touch forgettable.

RECOMMENDED WITH A FEW RESERVATIONS 

ASCENDIO aura Lifts the caster high into the air.

Song of the day

Ascendio by Ministry of Magic

Album: Ministry of Magic (2008)

Yeah, I’ve got Wrock songs on my playlist. About half a dozen in fact. What can I say, I love Harry Potter. That hasn’t changed and at this point I doubt it ever will. And this song in particular fills me with an odd mixture of sadness and nostalgia and brings me right back to those days when I was a 9-year-old reading Philosopher’s Stone for the first time without the slightest clue how important Harry Potter would become to my life.

Fun fact: Originally they screwed up the lyrics and sang “Today I met a man whose name was Albus” instead of “Hagrid”, which made it very ambiguous whether it was actually from Harry’s point of view or a duet of him and Tom Riddle - I kinda preferred that.

Our Ascendio Chapter in Stellenbosch, South Africa hosted a sanitary pad drive in their community! What a great way to not only combat period poverty, but also to reduce the stigma around talking about periods!