O-Negative (love can't be designed)

The main characters of O-Negative
(L-R: Chompoo, Art, Prim, Peun and Foon)

A while back I reviewed a couple of Russian TV shows: Vyzhit Posle and Sparta. A side effect of watching these show was clips of East Asian dramas and romcoms started showing up in my YouTube feed. Like a fool I clicked on them and before long I was hooked on the insanity of East Asian TV shows.

The one I'm talking about today is the Thai TV show O-Negative (love can't be designed) and is available on Netflix. I have no idea if it is a soap opera, a comedy or what. The Netflix blurb describes it as "Five schoolmates who share a blood type navigate the vagaries of friendship, love and university life." Um... shared blood type as the premise? Well, OK.

We start with our 5 main characters at their computers nervously waiting for news that they got accepted into the art department of a university. They are:

• Prim - presumably she is the good girl. Curiously, the actress is of Belgian descent so she looks European.
• Foon - is the spoiled rich girl who is treated like a princess by her parents. They buy her a car as a present for getting into college. 
• Chompoo - she's a bumpkin (I think) who has strict parents. She joyfully dances around singing that she's going to be a boy chasing bitch now that she's on her own. 
• Peun - who appears to be a bit of a goody-two-shoes doofus and is friends with
• Art - who I think is supposed to be a rebel of sorts.  

They all get accepted and the next we see them is at orientation. They're in a large lecture hall checking each other out. Chompoo comes in and sits with the two boys and tries to strike up a conversation with them, but they're both too busy googoo-eying Prim and Foon to pay much attention to her.

A teacher comes in welcomes them, tells them they are adults now and reminds them that the main purpose of art is to foster unity (err... what?). He then says they can break for a session of getting to know each other and to make new friends.

Note to self - turn cellphone ring to mute if ever in Thailand

They're all gathered outside, presumably making friends and whatnot, when some older students, led by a long-haired guy and a bearded guy, run up and start screaming at them like Marine drill sargeants to form up in lines by gender. As the new and confused students are trying to do that Chompoo's phone dings.

Well, that must be a social gaffe of epic proportions in Thailand because the two drill sergeants fly into a rage and start ranting about how they're all in it together and also something about unity (I'm sensing a pattern here). The guys are instructed to drop and start doing push-ups while the girls have to sort of crouch in a rather odd position as punishment.    

We then cut to the boys marching down a street at night. The drill sergeants instruct them to stop and ask for the gays to fall out and form their own line. As we're puzzling over that development we get our answer to it when the next scene shows the boys all in some sort of bath house pouring buckets of water over their heads. Apparently, I guess, it was just to keep the gays from ogling them during bath time. Oh yea, it all ends with another unity talk for some reason or another.

Meanwhile, after the girls take their showers Foon is looking for her missing hair dryer. She decides, for absolutely no reason, that Chompoo must have stolen it so she dumps out the contents of Chompoo's bag, breaking poor Chompoo's phone in the process. This infuriates Prim, who storms over and dumps out the contents of Foon's bag. This looks like this is going to lead to a cat fight, which us male audience members hope involves hair pulling, clothes tearing and the nearest mud puddle. Alas for us, a female drill sergeant steps in and breaks them up, reveals that she had the hair dryer, and -- you guessed it -- she gives a lecture on unity.

A pack of Unity Deniers get caught

Later that night the two boys decide they've had enough of this nonsense, so they plan to sneak out and runaway. On the way out they hear a girl blubbering. It turns out to be Chompoo, still clutching her broken phone, so they agree to take her along. The three make it about five feet before they find themselves surrounded by drill sergeants who point out, none to tactfully, that running away violates their precious Unity Principle. So much for the great escape.

The next morning they are all gathered for breakfast. First the drill sargeants mock to two guys as a couple of crybabies who tried to run away, then they hand out breakfast which is a Styrofoam fast food box with plain rice and what looks like fried rat meat or something equally as unappetizing. While this is going on Foon's parents show up with a bento box of gourmet food for her. Roh-oh. I'm sure you can imagine the browbeating poor Foon gets over her lack of Dining Unity.

It's a good thing her potential love interest was there to catch her

The last activity of the orientation session is the 10 mile run. It ends with one of the most beloved Asian drama tropes -- the girl somehow flopping into the arms of her potential love interest. Usually it is the girl tripping, but in this situation Foon fake fainted (we see her peek at him while they're fussing over her) into the arms of Peun. Asian romances favor love quadrilaterals over love triangles, with each member of the main couple being pursued by a different suitor. I'm guess Peun and Prim will be the main couple, with Art and Foon chasing them.

After the run all of the students go home where, surprisingly, they just treat all this yelling and screaming as hazing by older students. It also looks like the story writers are setting up the domestic situations of the characters so they can develop what ever ridiculous backstories each has.

I'll watch this show, which had an entertaining first episode. I have no idea how often I'll post about it, but it is shelter in place time so's it's not like I have a lot to do anyway. If it keeps being amusing I'll write about it more.

[Episode 2]