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Gateway BLs?

kabocha

I adore The Untamed. But that's mostly because of the writing, acting, and lush production values. I have a weakness for visuals that cost money to create. Large fight scenes, wire fu, high end cinematography, striking art direction and costumes. 

So I never followed The Untamed into the world of BL dramas. I guess I assumed they would be lower budget and dialogue-driven. 

But wait, I love good dialogue and good writing, and even though Guardian's production values are wildly hit or miss, I had an awesome time watching it. And crikey, I'm missing out on a whole phenomenon!

So do me a favor, suggest some BLs that will get me started - the ones you think are the best written and most original.

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autumn iris

The Untamed and Guardian are in fact censored adaptations, mostly bromance. You can try search them using the tags censored adaptation or bromance.

For recommendation, maybe some popular censored adaptations:

High School Return of the Gangster

Justice in the Dark

Killer and Healer

The Spirealm

Winter Begonia

For real BLs with minimum skinship iirc:

My Love Mix-Up!

Spare Me Your Mercy

Where Your Eyes Linger

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kabocha
 autumn iris:
The Untamed and Guardian are in fact censored adaptations, mostly bromance. You can try search them using the tags censored adaptation or bromance.

Thanks for helping me with this! And I also appreciate the real BLs with minimal skinship. So if I am understanding correctly, you're recommending the minimal skinship ones because I had such a good experience with two censored adaptations, so you're thinking I might prefer more innuendo, less skinship? That's quite perceptive, because honestly, I do enjoy innuendo. But I'm curious to what you would recommend without those conditions. I'm truly curious about the genre.

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emeraldarrows
  • Word of Honor - the closest you can get to The Untamed in terms of fight scenes, cinematography, writing, production values, censored BL, etc.
  • Secrets Happened on the Litchi Island  - this one is uncensored BL, and although the budget is tiny it makes the most out of it with very beautiful cinematography/nature scenes. This one has skinship.

And in case you're interested in non Chinese BL, here are a few I really enjoyed:

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autumn iris
 kabocha:
But I'm curious to what you would recommend without those conditions. I'm truly curious about the genre.

Maybe KinnPorsche, it's still the textbook for mafia-themed BLs and also the first Thai-BL I watched. You can skip the NC scenes if you think it's too hardcore.

and since you like The Untamed and Guardian with many action and some supernatural element mixed with some complex characters around, maybe you'll also like To Sir, with Love.

But I think you should first watch the censored adaptations I recommend, they're really good especially Winter Begonia, it's an art.

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kabocha
 autumn iris:
But I think you should first watch the censored adaptations I recommend, they're really good especially Winter Begonia, it's an art.

It looks insanely good. Not gonna lie, though, melodrama hits me pretty hard. I don't see a happy ending lurking anywhere in that trailer... 

Which of the censored adaptations is the least tragic? <3

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autumn iris
 kabocha:
It looks insanely good. Not gonna lie, though, melodrama hits me pretty hard. I don't see a happy ending lurking anywhere in that trailer... 

Ah, I love melodrama the best. Actually in some sense, it's not bad ending for Winter Begonia (ending spoiler ahead) they just separated and live in different cities, but they still be friends.

High School Return of the Gangster and Justice in the Dark also have happy endings.

For the other two, sadly not. (ending spoiler ahead) One of the male lead died in Killer and Healer, and one of the male lead in The Spirealm is not even human.


 kabocha:
Which of the censored adaptations is the least tragic? <3

Ehm, I think High School Return of the Gangster since it's only the other soul that's suffering while the new soul avenged him. Other titles have some characters with bad endings or sad background stories.

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Elisheva

Coming from c-dramas, maybe

To Sir, With Love - very well written historical (1940s) lakorn with multiple story lines, one is a romance between men. Hopefully it's still on one31's official youtube. Thailand.

I Feel You Linger in the Air -gentler, set in the 1920s, semi-lakorn, more focused on the men. This was on youtube too. Thailand.

Meet You at the Blossom - produced in Thailand to get around censorship but with a Taiwanese director and Chinese actors. I've not seen it and have heard mixed things about it. Try Viki.

Lakorns are melodrama but aside from some movies, Thai directors are mostly allergic to sad endings. Everything will be amplified and exaggerated en route. And if you laugh out loud, that may well be intentional - they mix in lightness and fun along the way.


Most BL series are much shorter in length than epic long c-dramas so they necessarily have a different way of telling their stories. It's worth adapting to each.

Japan can pack a lot into 8 or so 24 minute episodes, but background needed to understand the characters might only get a sentence or two - you'll get more story out of them if you're paying close attention to small, understated details. Japan's speciality is repressed yearning. My favourite is Bokura no Shokutaku (Our Dining Table), with the World's Cutest Kid and Most Adorable Wingman to add light and fun as the older ones slowly figure things out.

The Japanese Cherry Magic is a good one to begin with too. It's a classic.

Taiwan's are also short. My rec from there is See Your Love - great comedic use of tropes (including bad guys it refuses to take seriously) and a lovely, mutually supportive, understanding relationship.

Thai series are almost always longer and there's a much wider range of approaches. Not Me is excellent - there's one bit near the end which might seem implausible but is based on something which actually happened.

Aof Noppharnach (who is gay himself) is my favourite director for Thai BLs, with Moonlight Chicken, He's Coming to Me and Last Twilight. Bad Buddy is a good one to begin with too. Parts of the fandom get really weird about the actors but that's easy to avoid.

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