When it comes to Japanese BL Series, My Beautiful Man (美しい彼 シーズン) is one of my absolute favorites. A dramatization of an incredibly popular novel by Nagira Yu, winner of the Honya Taisho (Bookstore Grand Prize) 2020, the series beautifully showcases the love of two incredibly broken individuals, who are healed through love. 

Painfully shy with a speech impediment, Kazunari Hira (Riki Hagiwara) falls head over heels in love with the popular King of the School, Sou Kiyoi (Yusei Yagi). However, he keeps his distance as he doesn’t believe he’s good enough for the “God” on earth. What he doesn’t know is that Kiyoi feels the same about him. He thinks the shy and talented Hira is too wonderful to be his. But slowly, through two seasons, and a feature film these broken men realize how important they are to each other, and by the time the film wraps, they’re finally on their way toward a future on equal footing. 

Series One aired from Nov 18, 2021 – Dec 23, 2021, on MBS for six episodes. The Blu-ray set comes housed in a sleek outer box, with a screen print of the series promotional poster. The six episodes are included on 2 separate discs with an additional DVD featuring visual commentary for the first episode, a making-of documentary, excerpts from the press conference event, and the trailer. Each disc also includes English and Chinese subtitles. The set also includes a leaflet of episode information and behind-the-scenes photos.

A 4 episode sequel series aired from Feb 8, 2023 – Mar 1, 2023, also on MBS and continued to showcase the lives of Hira, now a photography student, and Kiyoi, now a famous television actor, and how they navigate their relationship, in secret. Surprisingly it’s Kiyoi who is tired of living in the shadows. He wants the world to know how wonderful Hira is, but Hira, still believing he’s not good enough for his lover, doesn’t want to hurt his career or reputation by having people find out he’s dating someone as lowly as him. 

The three-disc Blu-ray set includes all four episodes on disc 1 while a special theatrical edit of the series is presented on disc two – both of which include English and Chinese subtitles. Disc three (also Blu-ray) includes the special features: A visual commentary for episode one, a making-of documentary, event footage, outtakes, unreleased scenes, and the series trailer. The set also comes with another leaflet of information, and storyboards. 

A theatrical film My Beautiful: Eternal was released on 7 April 2023 and serves as a conclusion to the story of Hira and Kiyoi. Picking up where season two left off, Kiyoi is working with another popular idol, Anna (Sawa Nimura) whom everyone is shipping together, even though Anna knows the truth about Kiyoi. When the film was released on Blu-ray it came with a special box, that could house not only the film but also the previous two seasons. Also released with English and Chinese subtitles, the two-disc set also includes a making-of documentary, event footage collection, outtakes, unreleased scenes, trailers, and audio commentary. 

With a story as perfectly executed as the first season of My Beautiful Man was, I was nervous for a second season, as was Mimsy, my friend who recommended the series to me. However, the sequel series and film did something incredibly rare. They re-captured lightning in a bottle. This allowed these characters to continue to be broken, but still steered them towards happiness. Not everything was wrapped up in a perfect pretty bow, and that’s the magic of the series. It’s real and relatable. 

You can order any are all parts of the My Beautiful Man series wherever Japanese music and movies are sold, including CD JAPAN. You can also stream both series and the film on Rakuten Viki.

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More BL Boxset reviews soon so…

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