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25時、赤坂で #5
At 25:00 in Akasaka Vol. 5
LONGING AT LONG DISTANCE
With Hayama Asami filming a movie in the U.K., and Shirasaki Yuki starring in a TV drama, the two actors have to make their relationship work across different timezones. Shirasaki is ready for his leading role, but the director is an authoritarian bully from his past. Meanwhile, Hayama has to play the hardest role of his career...depicting his novelist father. Hopefully, their support for each other can cross the distance between continents!
With Hayama Asami filming a movie in the U.K., and Shirasaki Yuki starring in a TV drama, the two actors have to make their relationship work across different timezones. Shirasaki is ready for his leading role, but the director is an authoritarian bully from his past. Meanwhile, Hayama has to play the hardest role of his career...depicting his novelist father. Hopefully, their support for each other can cross the distance between continents!
192 pages, Paperback
Published November 4, 2025
22 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
November 18, 2025
Back to the regular schedule of covering an entire acting project in a single volume: in this case, two separate ones, with Asami filming his father's biopic in England and Shirasaki blasting through an entire drama series in the same amount of time.
The frustrating part is how much of a backseat Asami's storyline takes, when interacting with his father should be...kind of a major character arc. It's weird, too, because even though he's there for the entire film shoot, which is supposedly months, we only actually see him film a single scene. Yeah, it's a pivotal one, where he has to act out his father's decision to stay behind in England, choosing his writing over the wife and son who returned to Japan, so it's the only one we "needed" to see. But there are even some dialogue bits indicating that he's just been sitting around on set watching the filming for the majority of the time.
Why wasn't he out sightseeing? Why didn't we get to see more of him wandering around England and exploring the country his father chose over him? Or why wasn't he at home in Japan for all the time he wasn't actually needed on set? It felt like a contrived way to keep him physically separated from Shirasaki, without actually giving him substantial things to do in the meantime.
When Asami does get page time, it's pretty choppy, with a couple of conversations with his father that get less attention than Shirasaki's contentious relationship with his difficult director. It just felt really unfair to Asami, and I don't get why so little of the focus was on him.
In contrast, Shirasaki's storyline was pretty great. Faced with a director who just verbally berates his actors until they break down, he has to fight back his natural impulse to speak his mind - afraid of damaging his own career, as well as his agent's, if he becomes seen as difficult and unemployable. He eventually manages to take the smarter and more mature route, which is to sit down separately with the director and honestly discuss the problems they're having, which leads to an odd level of grudging mutual respect between a rising star and a fading director.
Shirasaki is definitely the "lead" of this series, because he consistently gets excellent page time and development. While Asami is mostly being lonely and moody in England, Shirasaki is building a lot of friendships and professional connections, as well as learning how to balance his acting growth with his need to speak his mind when it matters.
I do appreciate that there's still no drama on the romantic front. The long distance separation didn't impact them negatively at all - they were able to juggle difficult time zones and busy schedules with in-depth conversations where they could emotionally be there for each other, even if they weren't able to touch. It's a very solid, healthy relationship that's lovely to see.
I just wish Asami wasn't sidelined so much.
The frustrating part is how much of a backseat Asami's storyline takes, when interacting with his father should be...kind of a major character arc. It's weird, too, because even though he's there for the entire film shoot, which is supposedly months, we only actually see him film a single scene. Yeah, it's a pivotal one, where he has to act out his father's decision to stay behind in England, choosing his writing over the wife and son who returned to Japan, so it's the only one we "needed" to see. But there are even some dialogue bits indicating that he's just been sitting around on set watching the filming for the majority of the time.
Why wasn't he out sightseeing? Why didn't we get to see more of him wandering around England and exploring the country his father chose over him? Or why wasn't he at home in Japan for all the time he wasn't actually needed on set? It felt like a contrived way to keep him physically separated from Shirasaki, without actually giving him substantial things to do in the meantime.
When Asami does get page time, it's pretty choppy, with a couple of conversations with his father that get less attention than Shirasaki's contentious relationship with his difficult director. It just felt really unfair to Asami, and I don't get why so little of the focus was on him.
In contrast, Shirasaki's storyline was pretty great. Faced with a director who just verbally berates his actors until they break down, he has to fight back his natural impulse to speak his mind - afraid of damaging his own career, as well as his agent's, if he becomes seen as difficult and unemployable. He eventually manages to take the smarter and more mature route, which is to sit down separately with the director and honestly discuss the problems they're having, which leads to an odd level of grudging mutual respect between a rising star and a fading director.
Shirasaki is definitely the "lead" of this series, because he consistently gets excellent page time and development. While Asami is mostly being lonely and moody in England, Shirasaki is building a lot of friendships and professional connections, as well as learning how to balance his acting growth with his need to speak his mind when it matters.
I do appreciate that there's still no drama on the romantic front. The long distance separation didn't impact them negatively at all - they were able to juggle difficult time zones and busy schedules with in-depth conversations where they could emotionally be there for each other, even if they weren't able to touch. It's a very solid, healthy relationship that's lovely to see.
I just wish Asami wasn't sidelined so much.
March 28, 2026
Shirasaki faces a difficult director as he stars in a new TV drama while Hayama is overseas in the U.K. to film a movie. What no one aside from 3 people seem to realize is, he's filming the novel penned by his father that tells the story of his own life. With 8 hour time zone difference and filming taking up most of their daytime, it's difficult for the boys to find time to connect, but they do their best. While Hayama doesn't seem to think he's learned whatever his father thought he might, it's clear the experience is still good for him, even as he's eager to return home to Shirasaki. Shirasaki is learning and growing as well, as he has to figure out how to be the main lead and help the cast navigate a difficult arrangement with their director. Despite everyone's concerns on the two of them working together, it seems Shirasaki may have the best idea and approach to working with this director, even if the rest of the cast doesn't seem to understand or agree.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 9, 2026
Oh wow!!! I really loved the ending of this series. Would really recommend it to any BL lover. There is quite a bit that is different or left out from the drama through out the whole series, and I can see how the drama tried to cover all the pieces by changing some of the details and the order of events but I honestly loved the Manga version even more.
February 25, 2026
*4.0*
daddy issues! why didn’t you say so…
lo único que pido es que dejen de meter una producción entera de una serie/película en un solo tomo, la historia se beneficiaría bastante si serie tomaran su tiempo con eso
daddy issues! why didn’t you say so…
lo único que pido es que dejen de meter una producción entera de una serie/película en un solo tomo, la historia se beneficiaría bastante si serie tomaran su tiempo con eso
November 4, 2025
we get to see some development of each of them away from one another. it was more focused on yuki than asami, but we still got enough asami and some lore. awaiting the next volume!!
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews