Starting a new topic to discuss watch history and all the BLs, their history, etc.

I have watched over 400 BLs. I am trying to watch a lot of the old ones to get a sense of their history and progression, but they are some really poor quality ones that I’ve been putting off. There are too many good new ones to keep up with instead.

Love Sick 2014 was the first Thai BL as basically showed that there was an interest in these kind of stories. Sotus was the first series to go viral, then probably 2gether. BLs gained much more popularity during COVID (2020) when people had more time for viewing. Since then production has really taken off.

Taiwan was the earliest country to make multiple high quality BLs. Japan has been making gay content for the longest but they tend not to focus on international audiences, so much of it is hard to access. Still, they make some great shows when we can get them. Korea is slow to catch up but has made some quality shows, even if most tend to still be less sophisticated or complex stories.

China is a whole other ballgame and deserves its own feed.

I don’t know anything about Filipino BLs but there are a few Vietnamese ones on YouTube.

I needed to go over my watch list and count how many series I watched or dropped. I would have thought I was around 30-40 series since I started watching BL in 2025, but after checking I am around 80 as of now.

I complete between 5 and 10 series a month, but I'm pretty busy in general, so it's mostly in the evening or during weekend. I try to avoid watching too many airing series, because I'm super impatient, and I hate waiting another week for the next ep.

Most of the BL I watched is Thai production, but I enjoy Japanese and Taiwanese series too.

I dislike toxic relationships, abusive family members and assertive bottoms… And no, I didn't like To My Shore!

In parallele to BL I also watch Korean romance & drama, cop & detective shows as well as Asian Independent films.

jazme:

I thought I started late of 2024, I checked and realized it was late 2023. I have watched around 200 BLs since then. I was lucky enough to start a list when I first started watching BL and had been doing so yearly.

I also keep a spreadsheet separate from MDL just for BLs. I wanted to track extra info and be able to sort by different categories, including how many times I’ve rewatched a show. Right now that’s still only visible in the MDL advanced features.

I started in 2023 as well but I don’t work so I have lots of time to watch. Plus I’m naturally obsessive so I just got completely absorbed in BLs.

I do also watch some bromances, GLs, kdramas, and cdramas, plus BL adjacent shows. But i mostly watch BLs. There just isn’t time for everything, even for someone like me.

dora:

I have watched over 400 BLs.

That's quite impressive! I took a lot of breaks over the years, so I don't think I've surpassed 500.

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I just checked my completed list and in 2022, I only watched 12 BL , lol. I think 2025 is the year I watched the most.

Tiffany:

My BL consumption has massively increased since I joined the forum in December😁

I joined the forum 10 days ago and I already saw how my BL consumption increased!

dora:

I also keep a spreadsheet separate from MDL just for BLs.

I'm amazed! I don't know how to be that organized. tbh I'm allergic to spreadsheets, haha. Since this question came up I started thinking about it and I don't know how many I've watched unless I manually count the BLs in my watched list! That's a chore so I don't know when I will do that.

Unless anyone knows of a quicker way? Maybe I can filter my own list?

I discovered BLs in 2022 and have seen about 350 dramas (mostly short web dramas) and 180 films (again mostly short films) since. About 18 months ago I went into a serious Asian drama slump (result of too many dramas watched!) and I am only now slowly coming back to it mainly through short web dramas. I still have no patience for full 12 episode Thai dramas (unless it stars Keen and See - I am a victim of their cuteness!).

Indie Art Girl:

I don't know how many I've watched unless I manually count the BLs in my watched list!

I used to have another account here that I deleted 18 months ago, and I used to put the BLs I've seen into the Dropped list. Since I wanted only the dramas I completed counted I put the dramas I dropped into Not Interested list. That left me Dropped list free to repurpose and it came in useful. I knew how many dramas I actually completed (not only tried watching!) and how many BLs I had actually seen (too many!).