4sakeofart

I won't challenge you. Most viewers agree with you.

I am aware of ongoing efforts to persuade BL directors and producers to reject the traditional yaoi constructs and tropes. Because I have had this conversation here at MDL before, I know that the seme-uke construct irks some in the lgbtq community. They view it as insulting stereotypes. Yes, the incest and forced love tropes also irk many people. Yaoi doesn’t need a defender because it is fantasy. The things that you find offensive in the yaoi universe are already illegal and/or unacceptable in the real world.

Because yaoi is fantasy, its creators were free to structure their yaoi universe any way they wanted; e.g., select their own society; create their own moral code; set their own male gender subdivisions (seme and uke); and create their own sexual identities. The purpose of fantasy is to explore that which is inaccessible in the real world, so you can’t expect a yaoi fantasy to reflect real world conditions and codes of behavior. Night Flight does have elements of love in it but way too much real life misery to make us feel good about it. Same for Cutter. I agree with you that yaoi comes in many flavors and forms, and it doesn’t always end well, but more often than not, it makes us feel good. Television BL dramas toe the line. In order to make money in their next endeavor, a happy ending in the first is a necessity.

At its core, yaoi has two goals; e.g., to celebrate fantasies of beautiful boys falling in love, and, to create a place of respite where women can go to forget about life for awhile and join their friends in celebration of boy love. Sure, yaoi utilizes forced sex as a prelude to romance, but it can do that. Yaoi makes no distinction between incest and other relationships, but it can do that. Because it's fantasy. Neither you nor I have a say in how the yaoi creators structured their society. 38% of females fantasize about forced sex. They immediately recognize it as fantasy and don’t get upset about it. Women make up 80% of the viewing audience. And BL is more popular today than ever, even with all those controversial tropes. BL ratings and total number of viewers are at an all time high. Based on the data, I don't think women are particularly bothered by what they see. They know its fantasy. Even if we disagree, I respect you and your opinion. Without other opinions, there would be no reason to debate.

Here is my reference but I don’t know if it is reliable. The website often references Lazy Subber, someone we all respect. That’s why I thought it was legit. But it looks like Jamie (the poster above) knows more about it than I do. But yeah, it says that Thailand has 28 BL dramas/movies lined up. It looks like I misunderstood the number of Pinoy BL creations. It's 20. Not 18. It does not say how many of the 20 Pinoy BL offerings are television and internet dramas, and how many are movies.

via Psycho Milk: https://psycho-milk.com/2020/06/09/most-anticipated-bl-series-gaymovies-2020-2021-part1/
• Thai BL – 20 confirmed, 8 for verification.
• Japanese BL – 5 confirmed, 3 for verification
• Filipino BL – 15 confirmed, 5 for verification.
• Taiwanese BL – 1 confirmed, 3 for verification.
• Still verifying series from Vietnam, Myanmar, and Mainland China.

Yes, they are. But ask a casual acquaintance if they like to watch yaoi dramas. I doubt they would know what you mean. Now ask that same casual acquaintance if they enjoy watching BL dramas. I expect they would know what you meant. That’s because these days, BL and yaoi have diverged and refer to different aspects of boys love, at least in East Asian countries. BL now refers almost exclusively to live action versions of yaoi-themed storylines; e.g. television dramas, internet dramas, and movies. Yaoi is used to refer to fictional publications; e.g., novels, mangas, and comics. It’s just a matter of semantics, an entertainment lingo. Where Your Eyes Linger is a beautiful Boys Love drama. But I don't hear anybody refer to it as a beautiful Yaoi drama.

Where Your Eyes Linger is tagged the first Korean-based BL drama but I think School 2013 was the first. That drama featured Lee Jon Suk and Kim Woobin as two beautiful young schoolboys coping with childhood betrayal, remorse, forgiveness, and unrequited love. It produced multiple fluffy moments as well as an emotionally satisfying ending. It fits the BL construct perfectly. Although tagged bromance, there was a romantic undercurrent raging like a tsunami beneath the surface of their platonic relationship. As if invisible to the naked eye, nobody associated with School 2013 called it by name.

There are other Korean school dramas that feature gay characters but most are not BL. Night Flight features two school boys in love but focuses too much on the ugly side of life. This is unacceptable to BL viewers seeking an escape from reality. The Korean drama, Cutter, features two schoolboys involved in an unhealthy relationship that resulted in murder. That’s not BL. The schoolboy love story in The Legendary Lackey is authentically platonic. The protagonist in Marriage Not Dating only pretended to like boys. The writers of the promising Reply 1997 and Reply 1994 dramas focused on one-sided attraction to hopelessly straight love interests. This is not BL. There’s no such thing as hopelessly straight in a BL universe. One of the most disappointing Korean dramas was Hogu’s Love. It had all the makings of a beautiful BL story but The Powers That Be lacked the testicular fortitude to see it through. The gay couple in Cheese in The Trap was senselessly abused. This behavior contradicts every tenet of BL. Persevere Gu Hae-ra, At Eighteen, and Love Alarm also feature one-sided attraction but BL is not possible without romance.

The gay side couple in Love With Flaws is absolutely adorable but is it really BL? The answer lies in your perception; e.g., is BL a reference to two “boys” or can it be expanded to include one “boy” and a twenty-five year old adult bartender? Long Time No See and One Last Order are beautiful love stories but neither is BL; both are adult gay love stories (Mens Love). The short films, Boy Meets Boy and Pistachio, and, the gay side couple in The Lover, are prototypical BL stories. I am still ambivalent about the reality-based My Friend is Still Alive. It plays like a platonic love story but then the dying youth tells his best friend, “It’s not that I like a man. But you are my first love”. That logic only makes sense in a yaoi universe. In the end, this drama is best described as a boy-boy slice-of-life love story that spans both Gay Reality and BL Fantasy. I think the reality based slice-of-life drama, Where Your Eyes Linger, also successfully spans both genres.

BL cannot succeed without female viewer participation and I don’t know if Korean can interest its K-pop generation in BL. In addition to the usual players, Korea must also now compete with a very aggressive Pinoy BL campaign. Those guys have lined up eighteen new BL dramas for 2020-2021. Does South Korea even have another BL drama in the pipeline? Or a sequel? I think the best gay drama to come out of Korea is the lesbian love story, The Handmaiden. I would love to see a Boys Love version of this perfect drama. I think you would love it too.

I agree with most of your post. Many in the lgbt community enjoy yaoi publications and BL dramas but are unhappy with the seme-uke construct which they view as a stereotype or stigma. They would prefer BL to reflect a modern gay lifestyle. But that’s not going to happen. Why would a producer change a yaoi format or construct that is popular with 80% of the viewing audience (women) and making money to appease 20% of the viewing audience (men) and risk losing revenue? Research has shown that women can relate to a seme-uke construct because it is comparable to their real world relationships. They can imagine themselves in these fantasies. Straight women are less likely to imagine themselves as a participant in a strictly homosexual real world relationship.

The yaoi/BL genre deliberately rejects involvement with or endorsement of real world political and social agendas. The yaoi mission is to entertain and have fun while celebrating fantasies of beautiful young males falling in love. It is a haven, a respite from real world problems. A BL drama after a hard day’s work is the equivalent of a warm bubble bath and deep body massage to a fujoshi. There is no room in BL heaven for anything that interferes with that.

Because it is fantasy, yaoi is free to create its own rules and select its own society (Emily Dickinson). It is not bound by real world gender and sexual identity restrictions. Most important, fantasies don’t have to make sense. A fantasy is a desire to experience that which is impossible or improbable in the real world. So, yes, heterosexual males are allowed to fall in love with each other in a yaoi universe beause that’s how the yaoi fantasy is structured. “I don’t like men. I just like him” is allowed to make sense in a yaoi universe. Only the most beautiful, handsome, physically fit males are allowed entry into a yaoi universe. A fantasy can be structured any way we want. Finally, the BL fandom is 80% female. The gay fandom is 80% male. Both involve male-male relationships, but they are not the same.

I interpret your post to mean that BL does not present a realistic picture of gay society. But why does a BL drama, or any drama, need to do that? There are ways to present an accurate and positive image of contemporary gay society, but BL is not one of them. BL is pure entertainment. BL has nothing to do with reality.

BL is a celebration of fantasies about young males falling in love in with each other. This includes both homoerotic and romantic relationships. BL was not created solely for the purpose of fetishizing male-male eroticism, but, yes that is a part of it. Tons of BL data targeting female viewers has shown that a BL drama cannot succeed based solely on sexual activity. A successful BL drama requires an emotional and/or spiritual component as well.

Members of the contemporary LGBT community might find it incredulous but the creators of the yaoi (BL) genre never considered their protagonist to be gay. The reason is because gay is a real world experience that is often associated with injustice. The original BL creators wanted to avoid real world polarizing issues like gender inequality, gay rights, women’s rights, politics, or even issues involving sexual consent. These issues do not even exist in a yaoi universe. BL was meant to be pure entertainment. It has never pretended to be anything else. It was never intended to be a vehicle to promote political agendas and /or image shaping. These basic BL tenets may sound silly compared to the real world. But the beauty of fantasy is that t is not real and is not subject to logic. A fantasy is whatever we want it to be.

Yours is an honest emotion and is based on your own artistic temperament. I respect that. Notice, I never said you were wrong. I said that you were going to be miserable if you viewed BL through a moral lens. Maybe I failed to do so, but I was hoping that a history of BL and how it came to be would change your mind. If you can't accept certain things about BL, that's fine. It's just that most of us here love the BL experience. I just wanted you to love it too.

If you're going to conflate fantasy and reality, your BL experience will be miserable. The mission of BL creators was to provide a place where women could go to celebrate fantasies of beautiful young males falling in love with each other. It is also the only place in the universe where heterosexual boys actually fall in love with each other. It is the only place in the world where "I don't like men, I just like him" actually makes sense. It is the only place in the world where all male protagonist are young, beautiful, handsome, and physically fit. None of this would be acceptable in a real world because decent people don't engage in identity-based, weight-based, or aesthetics-based discrimination. A handsome face and a perfect male body are basic requirements for a BL drama We fantasize about perfection, not about ordinary.

Knowing that forced sex (which never happened here) in a BL drama is fantasy and that it is not related to real world issues involving consent should put your mind at ease. Did you know that 37% of females have experienced at least one forced sex fantasy? But we don't judge them because of a fantasy. BL is becoming an international phenomenon. You are going to miss all the fun if you confuse it with real world morals. Most BL viewers don't do that any more. They've learned to relax and enjoy the experience. Which is exactly what the BL creators intended.

If you visit the MDL page for My Engineer 2, you will see that Ryan Peng (the actor who plays Mek) is the only season 1 actor whose picture is not posted in the Cast & Credits section. I interpret that to mean he will not be back for season 2. Of course he could come back, if Tencent wants him (I think they do; he did a good job), his visas are in order, Tencent is willing to sign him without an agent, and he wants to come back. But I am the only one here that believes these things can be worked out.

BL the way it was meant to be. The bold young Japanese female fujoshis that created the yaoi genre and Boys Love must be smiling ear to ear. These young actors deserve a second season. I will miss Mek though. Poor Boss. Alone again.

If it’s true that Still Together includes Mann-Type and Mil-Fukong, that’s a good thing. Those guys are very comfortable with each other. The addition of a new director is also a good thing. I’m not expecting much from Sarawat and Tine but I am curious to see if there’s been any improvement in their romantic chemistry. So I will reserve judgment until I’ve watched the sequel. I think 2gether fans would welcome a sequel with open arms if it meant a proper ending to a love story that captured the hearts of so many. Bright and Win can use it as redemption and apology for the frustration and disappointment they caused in the last two episodes of the original.

Gunsmile? I see him in so many BL dramas but always in comedic relief. He does it well but I hope he is one day cast as the leading man in a BL drama. His buddy, Mike, made the transition from comedy to romance with ease. Man was a fantastic seme. I think Gunsmile can do the same. With the right uke, he could be a very quirky and seldom seen seme.

Bromance? It could happen but after the disappointment of the final episodes, I think a bromance would be the straw that broke the camel's back. I do think they will make an honest effort to show us their hearts and find an emotional connection with viewers. This season offered so many lessons. Let's hope they learned them well.

Thank You. I made the correction.

I have a vague memory of Mork saying to Sun ”Let’s just do like last time”. I inferred that to mean he preferred the bottom. I also think Fighter-Tutor and Bai Luo Lin-GuHai are traditional yaoi seme-uke relationships. Gu Hai made it clear time after time that he accomodates Bai Luo Lin to keep him happy. I see Fighter as a prototypical seme even if he accommodates a scary and very aggressive Tutor. You say Riba. I say Yaoi. But we can agree on this yeah? Without love, sex is just “something we do in the dark” (Daniel Curzon).

A Good Yaoi Dictionary: https://yaoi.fandom.com/wiki/Basic_Terminology. I listed some examples below.

A Few Good Ukes (nicknames): Fluke (UWMA) is a prototypical uke, Toptap (2gether) is a prototypical uke, Nine (Kitt) from 2Moons2 is a prototypical uke, Gun (Theory of Love) is a prototypical uke, Poy (My Engineer) is a prototypical uke, and Wang Zu Shui (Advance Bravely) is a prototypical uke.

A Few Good Semes (BL character): Gu Hai (Addicted/Heroin) is a classic seme, Yung Jun Cheng (Because of You) is a classic seme, Zhoa Yun Lan (Guardian) is a classic seme, Xuan Da Yu (Advance Bravely) is a classic seme, Lan Zhan (The Untamed) is a classic seme, and Dean (Until We Meet Again) is a classic seme.

In the yaoi universe there are tons of good semes but very few good ukes.

Just a word of caution before you watch The Untamed, Advance Bravely and Guardian. If you haven’t read the novels (I have), you might enjoy your viewing experience a lot more if you read the comment sections on their MDL pages before you start. For example, The Untamed, which many believe to be the best BL drama ever to come out of China (it has a 9.4 rating on MDL) contains flashbacks and a complicated storyline that is best understood by reading the novel, but if you didn't, the comment section on the MDL page (https://kisskh.at/28723-the-untamed) and/or a summary of all 50 chapters on its Wikipedia page: (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_The_Untamed_episodes) should make it easier to follow. You shouldn’t have any trouble following Advance Bravely (see https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLW9K0p-7N1jIVFGIK8nwlCVMV7NDE1F6p), or, Guardian (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdRj_d7_skE).

Incidentally, there is another Chinese series you might like. In my opinion, Addicted/Heroin is the Primordial God of Contemporary Chinese BL. It is an achingly beautiful love story, but you should know that Gu Hai and Bai Luo Yin are sometimes naughty. There are only 15 episodes.

Before watching Addicted, you should know that it is accused of marginalizing women and glorifying rape. I don’t agree but I understand why behavior that degrades the humanity of others is disturbing. I see yaoi as fantasy so forced sex tropes don't bother me. And the role of women in a yaoi universe has always been to nurture the romantic union of beautiful young males. Women are therefore the Cupids of BL. I don’t see it as marginalization at all. It is an integral part of the BL construct. Heck, if not for Japanese fujoshis , there would be no yaoi genre. Without yaoi, there would be no BL drama. Women consume 85% of all yaoi publications and merchandise. Women make up 80% of the BL viewing audience. Why would anyone whose livelihood depends on female yaoi and BL fans want to cannibalize itself by marginalizing women?

Now you have four Chinese BL dramas you can watch. I also recommend two Taiwanese BL dramas; e.g., Crossing The Line and Trapped. Each is guaranteed to put a smile on your face that will last for days. Crossing The Line is a beautiful love story between the responsible captain of a volleyball team and his rebellious rookie: (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLE22zxOA4Gb3hH1f7UKPgmEa_vygsWQxg). Trapped is a gay love story between an over worked detective chasing a crooked gangster and can be found on Viki, for free.

The Untamed and Guardian are based on Xianxia (cultivators and such) that will have you on the edge of your seat. I’m not a big fan of the main couple in Advance Bravely but the love story between Yuan Da Yu and Wang Zhi Shui, the side couple, is an epic battle of wills between a Kichiku Seme (Xuan Da Yu) and a Sasoi uke (Wang Zhi Shui). A Kichiku seme is mean, ill-tempered, and cold-hearted. A Sasoi uke is a fearless and relentless chaser that will do anything to get his man. Enjoy.

I edited my post above to include your phrase, "transmitting romantic love with their eyes" . I like it because it refers to romantic love. I was focusing on kissing and "making love", and Chinese actors do that with their eyes as well. That's why I used the phrase "eye f---". It's the only way they can physically express making love and get round censorship laws. I used quotation marks and properly referenced your post. I hope you don't mind. If you do, tell me, and I will delete it.

I agree. Thailand is the BL capital of the world and we love them for it but if China changes its censorship laws and South Korea can get past its cultural homophobia, they will becomes giants in the BL industry. They do it well.

I will probably get scolded as well because I agree with you regarding Bright. I don’t think BL is his niche either. I deleted all reference to Bright’s future in BL because I remembered others that were awkward in their first series but went on to become good BL actors. For example, it took three years, three dramas, and a lot of patience and frustration by his fans, but Krist finally delivered a magical performance in Our Skyy. He had issues with male intimacy when he started his BL career. So maybe Bright can also adapt. Most BL actors don’t have a problem with male intimacy. They see it as just another job. They routinely complete romantic scenes and then laugh all the way to the bank. I have watched countless BL dramas and I have never seen a BL actor as uptight as Bright is about touching other males. I don’t get it. Has he never played a football or basketball game?

By the way, I don’t know if it was done here but many Thai female actors have a no kiss clause, a limited or set number of kisses clause, and even a limited physical contact of a romantic nature clause, in their contracts. So I would assume that BL actors can do the same. I just can’t imagine a production company agreeing to a no kiss clause in a BL drama. A kiss is an integral part of any BL experience not made in China. But Chinese BL actors don’t need kisses. They have adapted and learned how to get round their strict censorship laws. These days, Chinese BL actors have actually mastered the art of the eye f*** and "transmitting romantic love with their eyes" (taken from AnniaD's post below). Nobody does it better (see The Untamed, Advance Bravely, or Guardian).

I'm sorry. I think I may have combined my reply to this post with another. I discussed the couples you mentioned. Please See AnniaD above.

I agree with you regarding Max and Tul. Theirs is one of the few seme-seme relationships that translate well to television because Tul is able to transform into a very convincing uke. Win was not able to do this. I also think the Sun-Mork seme-seme relationship worked well. I was surprised that Fluke (Mork), who is ultra-masculine, was able to transform into a very “cute” uke. Forth and Beam (2Moons 2) was also an honest seme-seme relationship but I didn’t like it much. It played out in the shadow of a very adorable seme-uke couple in Ming and Kit and paled in comparison. You also mentioned Saint and Zee but in my opinion, that’s also a standard seme-uke relationship. Fighter loves Tutor so accommodate him in whatever he wants to do but Fighter is still the seme and Tutor is still his uke. Bohn (My Engineer), an authentic seme, also said that he would accommodate Duen, who is a very prototypical uke, in whatever he wanted to do.

Yes there is a post-modern BL genre called Riba that experiments with reversible sex positions. It is structured in such a way that whoever has final authority decides what happens in bed. It’s a bit of a misnomer because it's not really reversible in any physical or mental way. How can the final decision making partner not be the seme? I have seen many gay films with reversible sex partners but I have never seen a BL drama with reversible sex partners. Why would a producer want to finance a BL drama with a reversible sex couple when it's unnecessary, confuses people, and runs the risk of a low rating. The standard seme-uke construct is more relatable to heterosexual females that make more than 80% of the viewing audience. Riba might be, but a traditional BL seme-uke couple is not synonymous with or representative of a real world contemporary gay relationship.