© Here U Are Animation Project
Everyone is carrying baggage that informs their attitude or behavior. That theme seems to be at the heart of Here U Are, a boys’ love romance about university students who are processing a lot of external events. The series feels pretty typical, focusing on two young men with very different appearances, outlooks, and personality types, finding a sense of solidarity with each other. Huan Li is a tall, seemingly emotionless and borderline rude musician who is still processing the death of his mother, which happened just a month prior to him starting classes. He’s very emotionally withdrawn, and while he seems to have a good heart, he is definitely not good at expressing that, which led to some comedic moments that got a good laugh from the audience at New York Comic Con, where the first two episodes were previewed.
Yang Yu, in contrast, is a lot more sociable and able to read the room, given that he has a position at the university where he needs to work with or introduce a lot of students. However, he might ironically have less patience for people than even Huan Li does. I think I liked his characterization a bit more since it was clear he was projecting a lot of niceness to hide a lot of rough edges beneath the surface. What shocked me about this show is that it seems that his identity as being explicitly gay and how people treat him is at the forefront of the show. My favorite scene in the premiere was when a jerk tries to make a big deal about him being gay, but Yang Yu just comes out about it and flips it around back on the bully. Then, when he gets confronted again, Yang Yu gets frustrated and physically retaliates, saying that maybe he was too nice. The second episode ends with a little bit of a dark confrontation that might allude to a lot of the inner workings of gay culture. The last scene literally takes place at a gay bar, and Yang Yu seems to always be on the lookout for people who are trying to cause trouble for the gay community.
Despite watching and consuming a lot of boys’ love stories, very rarely do I find myself coming across a show that has the culture or explicitness of being gay brought to the forefront of the story. As a non-binary person myself, I actually found a lot of this premise very relatable, with a lot of setup for heavy subject matter to get confronted in the future. The idea of how we treat ourselves and how we treat other people inadvertently ends up shaping who we are is interesting. I like how the show is setting up that Yang Yu and Huan Li can feel a little bit vulnerable around each other and that might be the catalyst for why they get together. It’s a little basic, but the execution is incredibly solid, with a good sense of comedy and strong character dynamics that feel surprisingly real. The show wasn’t originally on my radar, but after getting a little taste, it is definitely going to be something that I am adamantly looking forward to when it comes out soon.
