-Aprillen-

This is leaving Gaga soon, so if you wanted to watch it but never got around to it, now is the time

Viki and GagaOolala

Yeah, I'd call it a queer youth coming-of-age drama rather than a BL. If you want vivid realism, this is it. If you want sweet escapism, this will probably not be it.

Personally, I guess I'm more in the market for escapism.

Yeah stepsiblings/foster siblings is a whole romance subgenre in straight romance as well, and definitely not limited to Asia. Most stepsiblings romance have the MCs meet as adults, though. Foster siblings romance is a slightly different thing as they often grew up in the same family, but it's also not new (a famous example is Jane Austen's novel Mansfield Park).

The "obsessed younger stepbrother" trope is kind of common in danmei, though. We saw it in HIStory 4 as well as in Unknown, and I've read a few danmei novels with the same trope.

But in Unknown it was the older brother who used to be a street gangster to protect the younger one. In this he's definitely not. Most of the things you mentioned (possessive/obsessive/protective gong etc) are just staple tropes in Chinese BL and not exclusive to Unknown. The older kid adopting the younger kid off the street is the same, that's true, but again, step/foster brothers to lovers isn't a rare theme in BL either and it's very often the younger one who is the pursuer.

They would never have had the budgets to produce those dramas for only an overseas audience. They would have been on a much smaller scale, like Meet You at the Blossom.

Thank you for this very thorough rundown! I'd like to add that there (at least up until now) seems to exist another loophole, which is for subscription apps posting reel format miniseries. Somehow they don't seem to be covered by the censorship rules (yet).

It's interesting about intermediate Chinese actors still joining BL productions. I think they are betting that it's safe as long as they're not big household names, spring festival gala level of fame. And it will definitely make them more well known to international audiences. But it's still a risk.

The fact remains that *individuals* in China keep trying to make and put out BL in spite of the government policies. Which is why I feel that we who can watch it legally should do so. The fact that pirating these shows is the only option for people within mainland China means that we foreigners are the only ones who can support these efforts by paying for subscriptions and watching them on the official platforms.

I think you have to separate government policy around homosexuality (which is super conservative and homophobic) and popular opinion about it. Among younger people and in bigger cities, it's fairly accepted, and danmei is indeed super popular among many young women. Among the older generations and in more rural areas, people are much more conservative , but a large part in that is the strong Chinese culture around family and marriage (and gender). From what I can gather, there's no religiously motivated homophobia embedded in the culture like in countries with a strong Christian and Islamic presence. Buddhism seems to have said nothing on the topic either way.

It's not airing in China. This kind of uncensored BL drama can only be made for overseas audiences.

They're not made by the same people though

Did you watch Top Form? It's the Thai adaptation of the Japanese manga Dakaichi. It finished airing recently so all episodes are out.

The earlier adaptation is reeeeaaallly low-budget and a lot from the book had to be cut out.

He doesn't call him perverted because of the *snakes*, lol. And he didn't take all his snakes because he thought they were gross. He's holding them ransom to make Chi Cheng do as he is told, i.e., stop going with boys and get a girlfriend and start taking responsibility.

I mean, the snakes play a big part in the original novel. The fact that there weren't any in the first adaptation was probably mostly due to budget restraints. This adaptation seems to have a much bigger budget and aims to be a more faithful adaptation.

It's a new adaptation of that novel, that's why it reminds you so much of it ;)

IQiyi has better subs than Gaga, but they lock new episodes behind a premium subscription :(

Gaga has two eps per week for normal subscription (at least for me!)!

This is great, but it would have been nice if you had listed the official platforms instead of a pirate site, so we knew how to support the shows and the actors

Absolutely. I really really want her to win.

It's available in EU