First Impressions: BL Drama “Hold On, Harutora‑Kun” Is A Healing Dorm Room Romance

A masked boy who hides everything and a guy who hides nothing become roommates in the new Japanese BL “Hold on, Harutora-Kun,” and it isn’t long before feelings enter the picture. For a genre that has a way of stretching out its milestones, you might be caught off guard by how many things happen in the premiere episodes. Warning: spoilers from episodes 1 and 2! Kishida Sui (Nakagawa Tsubasa) is a high school sophomore who keeps a mask on nearly 24/7 to survive dorm life, which hasn’t been friendly to him. Ostracized and constantly jabbed at by the guys in his dorm for being gay, Sui has gotten used to hiding every real feeling he has. The dorm has quite literally become Sui’s personal prison; he can’t even go enjoy the group bath because of the looks he’d get from the guys who know about him. His bright, bubbly persona is hiding a guy who’s hurting behind the closed doors of his room. Sui simply can’t be himself around others when his new roommate, Kurobe Harutora (Sakuragi Masaya), comes into his life. Harutora is completely different from everyone else Sui knows at school. He shows up with unfiltered sincerity, surprising honesty, and seemingly no interest in being subtle about i...