A World of Asian "Boys Love" Drama

2019 Thai BL sequel series Dark Blue Kiss (DBK) gets its greatest gift and strength from the charisma of its two lead actors Newwie and Tay, reprising their Kiss The Series and Kiss Me Again roles of sensitive intelligent Kao and hot-tempered tough guy Pete respectively. These two very likeable and popular actors have amazing chemistry, and with this series they've reimagined one of the least sympathetic couples in Thai BL as one of its greatest. But the real surprise here is how unexpectedly great the new series is too. The screenplay is just so good. Summary: At the start of this sequel, set three years later, Pete and Kao's loving and trusting relationship is now well-established, though they remain closeted and discreet in front of most of their friends and family. Perhaps surprisingly, it's Pete who wants to take the next step and come out, whereas it's Kao who resists firmly and won't be pressured. Perhaps this is partly because Pete is already out to his fa

The latest instalment for HIStory season 3, called Make Our Days Count (MODC), is a marked improvement on Trapped, though still not up to the high standard of other sub-series in season two. It's a high-school BL drama, with a distinct preference for keeping it young and light-hearted but with just enough seriousness to give it some sense and purpose. Summary: Top student Yu Shigu has had a difficult life. After his parents died in a car accident when he was younger, his aunt had taken him but she has been struggling financially ever since. With the idea of making his relatives' lives as easy as possible, Yu Shigu studies extremely hard at school and works part time, hoping for a scholarship to university. When we meet him just before exams, his health is deteriorating rapidly because he has been pushing himself too hard. He keeps himself almost completely separate from all the other pupils, which makes him appear haughty and unapproachable. When rebellious layabout Xiang Hao

It's interesting to note that the highly original Taiwanese BL melodrama The Ambiguous Focus is in fact a sequel to Kinematics Theory. Can this predecessor be even more fascinating than the sequel? Summary: Childhood friends Zhang Zhe and Zhang Nan study mathematics at the same university but they are completely alienated from each other and fight constantly. On the surface, Nan is an arrogant bully, content to rely on his good looks, amazing physique (and goddamn, yes, it is indeed amazing) and his swimming prowess to get by in life. Zhe is a bookish nerd and top student but he's too introverted to make friends. But these boys are longtime friends and understand each other much better than their personalities suggest. Zhe sees Nan's morality and desire for independence under the cocky bluster, and Nan knows he can rely on Zhe's support and loyalty through any difficulty. They soon come to a truce and agree to help each other out. Their mutual support and reliance hel

Let's say this right up front. I ended up hating this program. 2019 Thai BL series The Effect is not going to please everyone. It's not your typical BL, to put it mildly. You can see what it was trying to do, especially in its really fine first episode, but the end result is a complete failure. Some might appreciate it, some might even admire it, but for me, this is a BL program that's so wrong-minded, it's utterly despicable. SPOILERS WARNING: I'm going to give away everything about the story in this series, mainly so that I can make a point, but also because I want to put off as many people from watching it as possible. I make no apologies for that. Summary: Shy new university student Shin meets the kind and popular senior Keng, and over the coming weeks, the two become close. Keng is the obvious instigator of the closeness, and it draws the attention of his jealous friend and admirer Maan. When Maan anonymously releases some compromising photos of Shin and Ke

Indigo Mood is a combined prequel/sequel to Japanese BL drama Pornographer - though the prequel sections make up 95% of this series. It's far superior to its predecessor and is well worth spending time on its six twenty-minute episodes. SPOILERS WARNING: you should definitely watch Pornographer before watching Indigo Mood. Besides the fact that it would spoil Pornographer to watch it back to front (due to the presence of the sequel elements), a lot of its screenplay won't make much sense because it assumes you're familiar with what's been going on between the three main characters. You should also reconsider reading this review, though I'll keep story details to a minimum. Summary: Indigo Mood spends most of its time in the past, before the events portrayed in Pornographer, where student Kusumi had his bicycle accident that launched him into the life of pornographic novelist Kijima-san. It focuses on how Kijima and erotic fiction publisher Kido-san - former frie

Openly gay Korean director Leesong Hee-il's revisits LGBT themes from his other movies, such as blog favourite No Regret, in his 2014 film Night Flight. His portrayal of gay experience from a uniquely Korean perspective and distinctive direction makes his work highly watchable. But his warping of his stories under the magnifying glass of the strictures of Korean society can make his fatalistic view of homophobia and anti-gay violence tough to stomach at times. Night Flight is monumentally grim, despite its deceptively pretty BL-style high school promotional poster, but it's no less riveting for that. Summary: Three friends since junior high are now in senior school, but they are steadily growing apart. Yong-Ju is secretly gay and tries to keep a low profile, hoping to cruise through school more or less unnoticed by the bullies and bad teachers, not liked but not disliked either. He's had a crush on strong, silent Gi-Woong ever since junior high, but they are now completel

A new HIStory series is about the closest thing that BL fans have to mandatory viewing. Each sub-series has an original spin on the usual BL tropes, and they're generally well-made, well-written and have great casts. The latest instalment, 2019's Trapped, has all of this and more, on paper. So has its great promise and hype translated into another top-tier series? Summary: Policeman Shao Fei has been obsessed for years with finding definitive evidence that gangster Tang Yi was implicated in the murder of both Tang Yi's own gangster mentor and Shao Fei's colleague police officer. He tracks Tang Yi relentlessly, following him everywhere and accosting him in public. This gets him into trouble with his boss and Internal Affairs on numerous occasions. Tang Yi is trying to 'clean up' his gang by removing it from the drugs trade. This draws the attention of other local gangs who suspect his motives, and suddenly Tang Yi and his sister find themselves in danger. Shao

When two of the most charismatic Thai BL actors in the business are in same series, deciding to watch it is the easiest decision you'll ever make. 2019 Thai series "He's Coming To Me" is that series, and Singto Prachaya (SOTUS) and Ohm Pawat (Make It Right) are the actors. Seriously, don't wait any longer, just watch it already. Summary: When university student Mes dies a sudden death on his 22nd birthday in 1997, he isn't reincarnated but left as a ghost to roam the grounds of the cemetery where he was buried. He has other ghosts to spend time with, but he feels lonely because no friends or family visit the cemetery. No one attends to his grave and, with time, it becomes overgrown and derelict. When a kind young boy Than takes pity on the dilapidated grave and lights an incense stick, Mes suspects the boy can either see or hear him. As he grows older, Than continues to visit Mes's grave once a year, leaving food and candy that Mes has asked for, much to

It's time to catch up with three of the most popular couples in BL and see what they're up to - Ae and Pete from Love by Chance, Tin and Can also from LBC, and best of all, Noh and Phun from Love Sick. This has to be a guaranteed winner, right? Summary: The lives of six university students intersect when there's a car accident that destroys Noh's guitar and sends Pete to a doctor. Over the course of three very short episodes, there are tensions, jealousies, squabbles and tears. Can true love win out in the end? There's honestly not much to say about this short promotional set of episodes centred around three much-loved Thai BL couples and their story. The narrative is wafer-thin and has obviously been cobbled together hastily so as to complete filming as quickly as possible. The four actors from Love by Chance aren't even given their LBC character names, so as far as they are concerned, Reminders is trading on the chemistry of couples Perth/Saint and Mean/Pl

Get ready to take a step back into the fluffiest and sweetest of BL fantasy worlds, with 2019 Thai series Great Men Academy - where school lessons are a series of gaming adventures, wish-granting unicorns roam the forests, and manipulating your friends is never the best way to achieve success. Summary: High school girl Love is obsessed with dreamboat Vier from the local private boys school, Great Men Academy (GMA). Vier has won his school competition "The Greatest" two years in a row, and he's now aiming for his third and final win as a senior. Love stalks him online and has decorated her room wall to wall with images of handsome Vier. When Love is suspended from her own school for three months for fighting with a student about Vier, she tries to come up with a solution to meet him. Her strait-laced older brother Good, who attends GMA and is a dorm monitor, refuses to help her. One day, while hiking through the local forest between her house and the school, Love comes a

Japanese BL short series Pornographer is a not-bad time filler if you're in between other series. Summary: University student Kuzumi accidentally hits a pedestrian while riding his bike. The pedestrian Kijima-san has badly injured his hand, so Kuzumi takes him to hospital. Kuzumi apologises and offers to pay for the treatment, but author Kijima-san tells him to come and work for him for free instead as his book transcriber until his hand is cured. Unemployed and broke, and facing what could be an expensive medical bill, Kuzumi eagerly accepts the job, but he is shocked to learn that Kijima-san writes pornographic erotic novels. This movie-length series of six short episodes is worth watching for its originality alone. We'll almost certainly never see a BL series like this again, using something as transgressive and taboo as pornography as a channel for its characters' desires. It starts off with some decent gentle humour, as we follow Kuzumi into the startling, in-your

YouTube is where I was introduced to the world of Asian BL and I'll always be grateful for it, but it's interesting to remember that I discovered it not because of a particular series, but because of fan videos / 'edits'. I love the idea that dedicated fans feel so attached to a particular BL that they pay homage to it by making a video. They pick their favourite parts of the series - almost always the best parts too - and edit them into a single piece of video that's usually just a few minutes long, but long enough to concentrate their love into an ode to the series. Some of my favourite YouTube videos are homages to series that I haven't even seen, that's how good they are. And the choice of music to play over the edit is just as important as the images selected. It can't be easy making them, and tastes are so varied that it's inevitable that some viewers won't like them. For example, I've found edits for the much-loved Thai two-season seri

'Does The Flower Bloom?' is the first Japanese BL drama I've seen in a while. It's great to get back to the the basics of BL sometimes and see something that's classically BL, which this drama is. Based loosely on a graphic novel, it reminded me of the Takumi-kun series more than other more modern Japanese takes on BL such as Seven Days - which isn't a bad thing by any means, but it's noticeably not as good as it probably could have been. Summary: Despite being born into the wealthy land-owning family of a famous artist, nineteen-year-old university student and aspiring artist Youichi Minagawa has had a tough life. His parents died in an accident when he was much younger, and it's left him with painful trauma that he is unable to move beyond. He lives at his family's beautiful, traditional Japanese-style home in Tokyo - of which he is now the owner - with two cousins and a guardian who do their best to take care of him. It's an upbringing that