School Trip: Joined a Group I'm Not Close To - Season 1

I love it, I really do. For 10 weeks, I started into Sundays watching “School Trip“, and whatever happened later those days, it couldn’t stop me from smiling. What a wonderful series this has been! I’ve always been a fan of Japanese BL series, as they usually have solid storytelling and avoid dragging for ages like many Thai series. Moreover, most of the actors are experienced, and the production quality is always on point. What makes “School Trip“ stand out, is the gathering of “green flags“ – all the characters are guys you’d like to be friends with. Less talented writers would be tempted to present these characters as shallow or one-dimensional, but the opposite is true about “School Trip“. Hioki (Fujimoto Kodai) is a shy student, who is surprised when the popular “Four Heavenly Kings“ invite him to join their group on a school trip. The leader of the “Kings“, Watarai (Kan Hideyoshi) has had a crush on Hioko for a long time, and inviting him to join the group is his attempt to get closer to Hioki. The two boys – typical examples of “opposites attract“ – fall for each other. So far, this sounds like a conventional BL plot, but it isn’t, because the characters reveal personalities instead of clichés. Watarai appears to be the typical “seme“, the taller, stronger, protective part of the couple, but he is insecure, if not shy, when trying to make Hioki his boyfriend. Hioki, on the other hand, is the smaller and often clumsy guy who appears to be weak, but as he mentions once “he plays sports“, and although he is shy among the “Kings“ at first, his gang of middle-school friends actually adore him, and he turns out to be the mentally stronger of the main couple. “School Trip“ is perfect fluffy entertainment, but never superficial. It has made me smile not only for 25 minutes on early Sunday mornings, but for the rest of the day.

This is a feel-good series about a cute romance that develops on a class trip and carries forward with them when they return to school. There is no 'villain' or angst to overcome in this series, it just shows a peaceful closeness that grows out of uncertainty and doubt between the two guys. While set in school, the classroom plays almost no role, the story is set on vacations and class trips so some time is going by behind the scenes. When one guy is interested in the other, he arranges for his interest to be invited along on the group he is with and one thing leads to another, and it has a happy ending. It is ten parts with two bonus shorts at the end. Honestly, the two bonus parts would make up a whole episode if put together and it actually would have fit better story-wise if the bonus were before the final episode, not that it was bad, but the fit was a little off in terms of storyline placement. If you just want a feel-good story without negativity, this is a good one to watch.