WARNING: SOME SCENES OF DEPRESSION AND SELF-HARM

Staying true to yourself and being honest with those that love you is at the center of the Boys’ Love anthology series, Oh Mando! Like a lot of BL stories, a chaste romance drives the plot but Oh Mando! also carries a surprising amount of weight when it addresses issues related to coming out and self-harm.

Mando is a precocious mass communications major who dabbles in his school’s drama program with his friends, Vince and Leslie. His two friends always assumed that Mando was gay, but he brushed off their assumptions despite having dreams that he’s Rapunzel trapped in a tower and waiting for his prince to come rescue him. When Mando is cast as Romeo opposite Krisha’s Juliet, he is determined to make a relationship with a girl work even when he has eyes for a hunky basketball player named Barry.

Mando’s father is pleased that his son is finally acting like “a real man,” but a shocking turn of events makes things more complicated and guarantees that Mando can't hide from Barry. With his flirtatious stare and his athletic body, it feels like Barry is personally torturing Mando. Barry is openly bisexual and in a relationship with someone who doesn’t appreciate him. As Krisha and Mando grow closer as a couple, the closer Mando and Barry become as friends. In recent years, audiences have said they long for gay stories centered on themes other than coming out, but Oh Mando! makes a case that as the world around us changes, we need coming out experiences to go along with it. Please be warned that there are some images of self-harm in this series but it is all handled in a respectable way.

Alex Diaz, as Barry, is a dreamboat and Kokoy de Santos’ title character captures the nervousness and excitement of getting what you truly want for the first time. The over-the-top moments give Oh Mando! a dramatic, entertaining flair, and you will want a continuation to check in on this budding romance.

- Joey Moser