Pornographer

Japanese BL short series Pornographer is a not-bad time filler if you're in between other series.

Summary: University student Kuzumi accidentally hits a pedestrian while riding his bike. The pedestrian Kijima-san has badly injured his hand, so Kuzumi takes him to hospital. Kuzumi apologises and offers to pay for the treatment, but author Kijima-san tells him to come and work for him for free instead as his book transcriber until his hand is cured. Unemployed and broke, and facing what could be an expensive medical bill, Kuzumi eagerly accepts the job, but he is shocked to learn that Kijima-san writes pornographic erotic novels.

This movie-length series of six short episodes is worth watching for its originality alone. We'll almost certainly never see a BL series like this again, using something as transgressive and taboo as pornography as a channel for its characters' desires. It starts off with some decent gentle humour, as we follow Kuzumi into the startling, in-your-face world of erotic fiction writing. Once Kazumi gets over the initial creepiness of the text he's transcribing via dictation, it's easy to see why Kazumi describes the writing as "classy" as well as ugly and vulgar. The text is regularly glossed over with inoffensive (but, frankly, ridiculous) metaphors involving flowers, stamens and other euphemisms from erotic fiction, but which are also used in descriptions of scenes involving rape or S&M. This idea of a veneer of respectability papering over darker, more primal impulses is the series' most striking theme, and it deepens as Kuzumi realises he has feelings for the impenetrable Kijima-san. There's an emerging sense that he has no idea what he's getting into by trying to get closer to Kijima. When he meets Kijima's suave editor friend Kido-san, Kuzumi is convinced that the two men are in a relationship, even though Kido-san is married with children. One of the best scenes in the series has Kido and Kijima stepping outside the apartment onto the balcony and then apparently quarrelling quietly, in front of a very uncomfortable Kuzumi watching them suspiciously through the windows from indoors.

It's a shame the series never delved deeper into this interesting theme of the black under the beige. Instead, Kuzumi's lovelorn anxieties and Kijima's self-loathing and cruelty come to the fore and overwhelm everything else in the story. As a result, the final two episodes aren't very good, as an overwrought melodrama tips the balance away from the more subtle ideas and gentle comedy of the initial episodes. The ending, and the reasons for it, felt trite and overwritten. The main reason for this is that Kijima's character simply isn't developed properly, so it's difficult to get a handle on what the writers are trying to achieve by making him act the way they do. Kuzumi's is much better written, but his feelings for Kijima, while murky and unclassifiable, are also - in my view - without foundation, especially as the series progresses and its story becomes increasingly lurid.

One technical aspect that stood out for me is the lighting. (Side note: watching BL programs from Japan really highlights how poor the production values of Thai BL series are. The differences are distinctly noticeable, and something like good lighting really stands out, simple as it is.) There's a provocative sex scene where one person is shown in light, and the other is hidden in the dark. It's deliberately sleazy, but it still works because it shows exactly what the director and screenwriters think of the inner truth of the hidden person and their motives.

This series is well worth a couple of hours of your time. Note that there's also a spin-off short series made in 2019, called 'Indigo no Kibun' (Indigo Mood).

Rating: 11/20

Ending: not happy.

Best scene: the balcony scene.