A World of Asian "Boys Love" Drama

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...

2016 Filipino online BL series Hanging Out is one of those fantastic programs you come across by chance, usually from a recommendation online or through word of mouth. I'd certainly never heard of it before seeing it in my YouTube recommendations a few months back, and I'm so glad I did. It's the very first Filipino BL I've seen, and it's such a breath of fresh air after the unadventurous repetitions of Thai BL. Summary: In one of the funniest 'meets-cute' out of all the BL series I've seen so far, aimless cynic David meets the dashing and charming Adrian at a surprise party that he was never invited to. Despite the awkwardness of the situation, there's an instant connection between the two men, though they are both very tentative and afraid to admit to it. Adrian's friends notice the sexual tension, but their unsubtle gossipy speculation about David might scare off the already jittery new guy. Despite his reservations, David is immediately ...

Thai BL series Love by Chance was hyped well before it was finally broadcast in late 2018. Controversially, this is allegedly due to a postponed release date enforced by the show's creators, whose new executive team has apparently purged all gay content from its productions. If this allegation is true, it's a devastating policy reversal from the creative team behind BL classics such as Love Sick and Make It Right. (Check out blogger Queer Fudanshi's take on the scandal here .) So it's very fortunate that Love by Chance was picked up instead by GMMTV and Line TV and released at all, because this series is BL gold. Summary: timid, naive university student Pete is from a wealthy family. He's secretly gay and has had terrible luck dating guys; most of them have used him solely for his money. One day at university, he is accidentally knocked over by handsome soccer jock Ae riding past on his bicycle. Kind-hearted, decent Ae takes Pete to get medical attention, and over...

I came to 2018 Thai BL series Cause You're My Boy (CYMB), also known as My Tee, after seeing a recommendation on Twitter. This series is exceptionally good, beyond anything I had anticipated after having read a synopsis of its derivative central storyline. It lacks consistency in places, and its production values are bargain-basement, but it still manages to be an instant classic, with some stints of top-notch screenplay. Big Spoilers Warning :  I reveal extensive plot details in this review, especially from episodes 6, 7 and 8. I swore I would never do this in my blog, but I've decided I want to look at some of its narrative choices more closely. I've marked the paragraph that contains spoilers, so that you're able to avoid it if you want to. Summary: High school student Mork leads an eventful rebellious life at school, surrounded by friends and having lots of fun times, though his grades are suffering. He's rather selfish and has street smarts rather than book...