Sneha Jaiswal (Twitter | Instagram)
This show is so trope-y, its climactic scene almost had me rolling on the floor with laughter. So, for a romantic-comedy adapted from a manga of the same name by Suzuri Machi, ‘BL Drama no Shuen ni Narimashita’ (‘I Became A Lead in a BL Drama’) is a great pick for its genre!
Directed by Kumasaka Izuru, the Japanese mini-series stars Abe Alan and Akutsu Nichika as lead protagonists Akafuji Yuichiro and Aoyanagi Hajime, respectively, who in the story play co-stars in a romantic series that fall for each other in real life. ‘I Became A Lead in a BL Drama’ is a BL within a BL, like the title clearly suggests.
Aoyanagi Hajime is a nervous actor who shot to fame with a juice ad as a child but has no self-esteem, thinking he isn’t good enough to play the romantic lead opposite rising star Akafuji Yuichiro. When Akafuji doesn’t acknowledge him on their first day of working on the sets, Hajime goes into a self-deprecating spiral. However, in a twist, it turns out Akafuji was avoiding his colleague because he is a huge Hajime stan. So the story relies on the old trope of misunderstandings, but to hilarious results as Abe Alan and Akutsu Nichika are riotous in their roles.
Akutsu Nichika is charmingly cute as the humble Hajime, with a dazzlingly honest smile, which makes it very convincing that a huge celebrity like Akafuji could be his fanboy. Abe Alan, on the other hand, as Akafuji, was reminiscent of Keita Machida’s character Kurosawa from the popular Japanese BL “Cherry Magic.” Like Kurosawa, the handsome Akafuji is cool as a cucumber on the surface but conceals the fervor of a teenage boy harboring a hopeless crush on his colleague within.
Just three episodes long, the cinematography is straightforward; however, the background music is ridiculously funny. There’s a standard piece that plays throughout the show during comical scenes, which sounds like the bleating of sheep arranged musically, and it’s wacky as hell.
Definitely check ‘BL Drama no Shuen ni Narimashita’ (‘I Became A Lead in a BL Drama’) out if you like romantic-comedy shows based on manga, like “Fukou-kun wa Kiss Shuru Shikanai!”, “My Love Mix-Up”, or the aforementioned- “Cherry Magic”.
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