Review: Great Men Academy

Hello, friends! Bashful Bi is back, and today I'll be reviewing a show I just watched--Great Men Academy. Not gonna lie: this show is kind of weird. There's gender swapping, a magical unicorn, a school principal that's a statue, and a projector-type device that spews lovelorn ghosts. Still, even though I'm usually not super into that kind of stuff, I ended up liking this show way more than I thought I would, probably thanks to some really good characters.

Summary (official):

Love has always been a fan of the popular guy Vier of the famous Great Men Academy but has never had the chance to meet him. One day, she sees the mystical unicorn rumored to fulfill wishes and wished for her love for Vier to get a chance. Unfortunately the unicorn interpreted her wishes in a different way and Love wakes up to find herself... as a guy?

My thoughts:

As with many series, I was not super into the beginning. Love is just way too obsessed with Vier, who is a total stranger to her. Maybe it's just me, who's never had a substantial celebrity crush, needs heaps of emotional encouragement to develop any feelings, and lacks femininity in everything besides gender identity, but I just could not buy Love's obsession. I mean, I've met people like her in real life, but I don't quite understand them either.

Soon, however, when Love turns into a guy and actually moves forward with her plan of realizing her love for Vier, every relationship in the show begins to get much more complex, and everyone gains more and more depth until literally the last episode, which really kept me hooked. Love turns out to be more than a ditsy girl inexplicably fixated on a stranger, Vier turns out to be more than just the perfect guy, Tangmo, Vier's best friend, turns out to be waaaay more than a character foil to Vier, and even Love's dorky brother, Good, turns out to be more than a nuisance. Pretty much every character gets a multidimensional personality, even Love's two twin friends to some degree, despite the fact that twins are frequently presented as one entity on TV whose sole purpose is to be twins. I'm no expert on acting and actors' skills, but each of the actors' portrayals, combined with a solid storyline, definitely made this one of the most believable BLs I've seen, despite the slew of strange supernatural elements.

Also, allow me a moment to gush about Tangmo: he's literally everything I aspire to be and more. He's perfection incarnate. He's the perfect balance between laid back and determined, allowing him to achieve incredible heights without fraying his nerves in the process (albeit because of his incredible talent). He doesn't get overly competitive with his best friend and is not fixated on achievement, allowing him to thrive in the face of challenge. And yet he still seems like a real person in spite of all of this. What can I say--an absolute masterpiece of a character portrayal.

SPOILERS:

The one thing about this series that made me sad was the story of Rose/Sean. She/he is another of my favorite characters. While Tangmo stole my heart, Sean (not Rose, though) lured me in to give it to him. There seemed to be something mysterious about him since the moment I first saw him that somehow made him stand out from the rest of the Great Men. And even after his last appearance on screen, I was left feeling like Rose/Sean remained an enigma yet unsolved. I desperately wanted to know more about what went on in her/his mind throughout the entire show. I think it's because of Sean's eyes--something about the way he looked at everyone always drew me in. Perhaps it's a testament to the skill of the actor who played Sean, because I didn't feel this way towards Rose at all. In fact, I found myself kind of annoyed by her at time. Perhaps it's because I tend to have zero tolerance for lovesick BS, which is a frequent character trait of girls in BLs. But anyway, Rose/Sean (especially Sean) deserved better than an unhealed explant to the friend zone and a move to Germany. While it made sense, it made me sad.

Something I found really funny in this series was the contrast between Love's "female sensibility" and the "typical behavior of teenage boys." While it's definitely a stereotype that teenage boys are much more prone to do something gross in terms of hygene than teenage girls, I hate to say that, sometimes, it's not unfounded, and it's something I've experienced first-hand. Love's horror at the sink overflowing with dirty dishes and the trash on the floor was relatable to me. While I'm definitely not a neat freak, drinking out of someone else's used mug is straight-up disgusting (especially during this Coronavirus pandemic).

I surprised myself at the end of the show by actually feeling kind of bad for Vier. While it was a horrifically asshole move to allow his best friend to be outed as gay by mass media the way he did, I guess I do understand the internalized pressure he had to deal with to be the Greatest for the third year in a row. I remember I told someone I was willing to sell my soul to ensure that I maintain my all-As record during the first semester of my senior year, when I was applying to college, and that's sort of equatable to Vier's situation. I, too, had overbearing parents and an environment that unconsciously stacked expectations on me for a really long time. Additionally, feeling threatened by my best friend being better than me is not an entirely foreign feeling, although I'm proud to say I've always managed that much, much better than he did. Basically, can Vier's actions be explained? Yes. Excused? Absolutely not. But perhaps Nuclear was right in the last episode, and Vier is human and can make mistakes, so therefore should be forgiven. That was one massive mistake to out your best friend like that, though.

Overall:

Rating? 9/10 (the supernatural stuff is not something I vibe with; otherwise it would be a 10)

Flavor? Vanilla (that one kiss was so worth it, though)

Watch again? Sure thing!

Recommend? Heck yeah!