My Beautiful Man (Utsukushii Kare) is a 2021 Japanese BL series. The bottlenecks of the high school period, suppressed emotions, and the slow emergence of a silent love are the subject of the series. Because it is a mini-series, it is easily watched. Do not let it being old mislead you; it is one of the best of the BL genre. The BL industry now makes “disposable” series. This series is one of the lasting productions.
Japanese-made minimalist series always offer stories that do not tire. The novel-adaptation drama is also a production that those who read its novel are curious about. You know how we say “I read its novel, let me watch how its series is”, it is a bit of a series like that. Now I will move on to the tiny review.
🏳️🌈🇯🇵 Curator Recommendation: Best Japanese BL catalog
My Beautiful Man (Utsukushii Kare) Plot and Summary
High schooler Hira is an introverted youth who has struggled with speaking since childhood. Instead of communicating with people, he tries to express himself through photography. His silence, downtrodden state, and loneliness have settled at the center of his life. He is someone who is excluded at school, seen like a servant by his friends, and whose name is not even mentioned. The only stability in Hira’s life is the camera; an escape and existential space offered to him by his family.
Within this silence and invisibility, he meets Kiyoi, who has newly arrived at school. Kiyoi settles at the center of not only the class, but practically Hira’s world. With his beauty and self-confidence, he becomes almost “untouchable” for Hira. Hira, who fell in love at first sight, can never reveal his feelings to Kiyoi. He only serves, fulfills his wishes, practically worships him. However, this love turns into a one-sided devotion and a bottom-to-top admiration relationship rather than a healthy relationship.
Interestingly, Kiyoi also likes Hira. However, Hira’s attitude glorifying him, seeing him like an unreachable god, distances Kiyoi from establishing a real bond. Years passing between them, the progression of time, and changing lives do not bring this relationship to a resolution either. Until their paths cross again in the university period.
Kiyoi now clearly gives a message to Hira: “See me not like an idol, just as your boyfriend.” He believes that love will sprout in equality. Hira, on the other hand, begins to realize that true love is not only admiration, but being able to touch, speak, and walk together.
Series Review and Commentary
My Beautiful Man also explains that a love cannot be lived by just being content with looking; how important touching, feeling, equality, and mutual understanding are. I can say that in this story, I watched the importance of establishing a real emotional bond instead of idealizing someone with their beauty or handsomeness.
Right here is the place for a criticism of the BL series industry. Especially the Thai BL industry focuses entirely on idealized actors, young and handsome; actors practically “commoditized” with heavy makeup and digital filters. For most BL viewers, what is important is how “cute” the actors are. I stay away from these series.
Also, the metaphors in the series are quite powerful. Hira’s silence is a kind of suppressed identity. Kiyoi’s beauty is the outwardly reflecting face of desire. I hope I didn’t make an overly exaggerated comment with these inferences. This duality explains not only a love between two men, but also gender roles, communication problems, and emotional inequality.
Hira and Kiyoi’s relationship is a classic “opposite characters” dynamic, more or less a cliché narrative. It is used in most BL stories. There is a psychological depth here, this is good. Hira, due to his tendency to see himself as worthless, practically idealizes Kiyoi as an unreachable entity. This idealization leads to his constant retreat in the face of Kiyoi, erasing himself. This reminded me more of the phrase “I am not worthy of you.” We constantly see this theme in life.
Kiyoi, on the other hand, although looking strong and confident from the outside, is internally someone who needs to be validated, loved, and truly seen. Hira’s gaze —timid but intense— both gives power to Kiyoi and disturbs him. These two opposing feelings form the main frame of the relationship between them. I watched a story running away and following, wanting to be seen and unable to see, walking on the fine line between love and obsession. Sometimes it was very exaggerated and dramatic.
About My Beautiful Man
I said My Beautiful Man (Utsukushii Kare) is a Japanese BL series released in 2021. The BL series handles a love story progressing through the eyes of Hira, a sociophobic, introverted student, which seems one-sided but takes on a multi-layered state over time. This production is a Novel Adaptation: “He, Who is Beautiful” (美しい彼) author Nagira Yuu (凪良ゆう). The series was broadcast on GagaOOLala. There are more technical details on MyDramaList.
Cast and Characters
Riku Hagiwara → Hira: A young man experiencing stuttering and intense social anxiety, mostly choosing to be invisible. His admiration for Kiyoi gradually turns into an obsession, and then into a painful love. Yusei Yagi → Kiyoi: A popular, beloved young man who attracts everyone’s attention but carries a deep loneliness in his inner world. Hira’s gaze offers him a genuine interest for the first time in his life; but this interest is sometimes suffocating, sometimes healing.
