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friends to lovers, boss employee, CEO romance, time travel
High concept of a man from the past traveling to Covid times and getting involved with a spoiled rich kid soon to be CEO that ultimately made for a dull story. Sides were stellar but intentional miscommunication as a narrative driver never works for me. But at least there were only a few damaging tropes in this HIStory installment. Good chemistry from both pairs and some nice sex scenes, and an extremely cheesy ending - 90% of the time this is Taiwan’s BL brand. I expected nothing less. But there is a little part of me that hoped for something more.Was this review helpful to you?
friends to lovers, coming of age, high school setting, introvert/extrovert
This is a beautiful piece of cinema well acted, about two boys who are opposite personalities and grew up together. Gifted and serious Sakura (Kura Yuki from His the series) and outgoing eccentric manic pixie dream boy, Yuma. It features multiple confessions in multiple languages (and ways) and is basically a slice of life but pitch perfect look at coming into identity as a teenager. It directly talks about liminality and occupying transitional spaces (which I talk about in this post about age gap).It is very pretty and this is the kind of atmospheric elegantly performed BL that only really comes from Japan (complete with dead fish kisses - what you though Korea invented them? oh no). The undy scene made me hoot with laughter. There are only 4 episodes and one of them is mostly six people sitting around a campfire telling ghost stories that could (and should) have been cut, making about 1/4 or is unnecessary.
I liked it but I felt like I was “supposed to like it” more than I did, ultimately I was left feeling like I had seen it all before. So for me it was lovely but slightly unmemorable.
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crush, friends to (almost) lovers, paranormal, suspense, murder investigation
Same director but altered cast as Hwall/Hur Hyun Jun (Yoo Han) is out. This time the plot revolves around less monos & probes and more just monos. Yeon Woo searching for his mother (and, sort of, his probe) joined by Se Hyun, whose sister is involved. As in Color Rush this BL is stylish, but it’s not as narratively innovative as the first installment.We all kinda saw the reveal of SeHyun’s identity coming, but it does mean we’re right back in gay allegory territory for obvious reasons (they are both the same identity AKA same gender). This time the question is:
Can you miss something you never had? Especially when it has to do with your own identity? Also, has SeHyun switched his (supposedly) natural inclination towards obsession onto Yeon Woo?
I liked it more than I was expecting to. And I liked Hyuk a lot more than I was expecting too, actually. And it was clever, notice SeHyun in the Yoo Han style hoodie, but carefully not a color Yoo Han ever wore?
Honestly, in the end I don’t know what to say about Color Rush 2.
Does it stand alone as a BL? I don’t know that’s not how I watched it, and I doubt others will.
Does it work as the second installment of a trilogy? Absolutely.
Does it work as the final installment of a duology. Absolutely NOT.
So yeah, what else can I do but say, for now..
RECOMMENDED WITH RESERVATIONS
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Thai Bl Pulp featuring a love triangle: tsundere/sunshine\piner in food service setting
Food service is one of the better premises I’ve seen taken up by the pulps in particular in 2021 (although it seems to be leaking into a lot of BL). This love triangle started off strong but went askew by ep 6. It gave me a terrible case of second lead syndrome (and not in a good way - in a True Beauty kind of way.)It’s interesting to compare this BL to Light On Me, which handled the love triangle so well. In this one, audience sympathy became weighted too strongly towards the 2nd lead, and Kaitoon looked like a jerk because of it. Light On Me managed to keep all 3 sympathetic, understandable, and endearing. Love Area waffled. It’s a bit unfair to compare a Thai pulp to a Korea BL so I’ll stop now.
It is all apparently a moot point because this BL ended abruptly on ep 6 and a cliffhanger. Because this is a pulp there is no knowing if we will ever actually get a Part 2. My low rating is partly because of this.
RECOMMENDED ONLY IF YOU HAVE NOTHING BETTER TO DO AND CAN TAKE A LOVE TRIANGLE + CLIFFHANGER
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Another Thai BL Anthology Sampler Pack
This show used the same basic model as CLOSE FRIEND in which each couple was only given one 1-2 hour episode. All were established actor pairs (well I think of SantaEarth as established even though this was Santa’s first). I think we already get enough short BL out of Vietnam, Korea, and Taiwan I don’t want it from Thailand in this sampler pack form. I only watched and reviewed the BL ones.SantaEarth: bullying at boarding school = 5/10
BounPrem: LTR break up because of the closet = 5/10
BoomPeak: 6/10 I JUST LOVE THEM OKAY?
SammyPeniere: GL but it’s all about a boy = 2/10
BoomPeak’s installment gave me nostalgia for days. You will pry my unreasonable adoration for Make it Right from my cold dead hands. Boom is always and forever the prettiest. Look, this was a bromance more than a BL, they ruthlessly borrowed UWMA’s music, they did not kiss, but I DON’T CARE. It still left me with a big grin on my face and I will rewatch it so, it was the winner of the seres for me.
But overall Seven Project was disappointing.
NOT RECOMMENDED (except BoomPeak’s ep)
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Long term relationship + self actualization + family life
This show applied a ton of BL tropes as a series of romanticized peeks into modern gay family life and I LOVE me tasty slices of gay domesticity (like Japan’s Kinou Nani Tabeta? or Thailand’s Ingredients) its so terribly wholesome. It was such a smart move (with only have a short amount of screen time) to jump in with an LTR and an established couple, and then provide key moments of their past as flash backs. Taiwan can do this kind of thing particularly well because they are so good at establishing relationship chemistry - so the LTR is entirely believable.This one delivered on honest queer rep as well, with a surrounding queer fam and actual Taipei pride footage. Taiwan’s 2020 Pride was called March for the World because Taiwan had controlled C19 better than any other country at the time, so they were the only country able to hold pride safely. They did it for all of us. I don’t feel like they got enough recognition for this.
This would have made my top 10 BLs of 2021 if they had ended it about 5 minutes earlier. As it was, they gave us a relationship cliffhanger and I can’t forgive that. I leave myself open to retroactive upping the score, though, if we get a 2nd season, but Taiwan isn’t consistent about that.
RECOMMENDED WITH RESERVATIONS
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This was a collection of two episode vignettes, slightly linked, and thus not a series as such.
Since this was an episodic compilation series, not an actual series, some I rate higher than others as BL.Ep 1-2: Tue - sports enemies to lovers 7/10
Ep 3-4: Sun - teacher/student poor little rich kid 7/10
Ep 5-6: Mon - player/virgin 5/10
Ep 7-8: Thurs - ghost story 5/10
Ep 9-10: Weds - players learning love 8/10
Ep 11-12: Sat - time slip friends to lovers 5/10
Ep 13-15: Fri - second chance at love 8/10
Average: 6/10
I enjoyed this for what it was but I’m not sure it’s worth judging on a level with proper series because there was no opportunity for full story arc. However, each couple was given no more or less time than some Vietnamese or Korean BLs, so I rated each pair and then averaged.
Because I generally dislike this director’s style, I didn’t expect to enjoy Y-Destiny as much as I did. It used BL trappings but had a certain raunchy crassness to it that came off as more genuinely gay then most BL, which I appreciated and probably explains why the Weds installment was a favorite. I also really loved the YoonLayPerth not the least of which because a three person ship is a hard path to walk under any circumstances let alone in Thai BL.
But taken as a whole?
It was uneven, some chemistry was better than others. And because this is a series, one is tempted to compare couples, which makes those that were less good seem more less good. In the end, It was mixed and so were my feelings. The parts I liked best were the moments when we got to see the friendship group interacting, and I wish this had been more v-gay Friend Zone soap opera with interweaving arcs for multiple couples drawn out over a series rather than episodic installments. Still, I hope we get to see more of many of these actors in the future.
Bonus for Lovely Writer nodding to Y-Destiny with Aeoy and the phone in the final ep. Cute.
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Sam is the Master of Pining
Foundational Romance Tropes? Enemies to lovers + long term pining + sunshine/tsundereThere’s some pretty epic pining in BL, and while Sarawat certainly wins for Thailand and Kurosawa for Japan, Gao Shi De pines for Olympic gold in We Best Love. The way he looks at fierce kitten Zhou Shu Yi broke my heart.
Is there a better pairing than soft af seme and tough af uke? Not in my book (probably because my book started with 90s yaoi.)
The story line is compressed and watered down because this is Korean BL so each season is too short. But the acting and production values are top notch, and in the end the performances are so good they entirely sweep away a flawed plot and thin narrative arc. It’s rare for me to like a show DESPITE the story, We Best Love stands with To My Star as one of the few. It's GREAT.
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Total hot mess
Foundational Romance Tropes? Enemies to lovers + cat & mouseFor the casual BL fan Gen Y was a bloated drunken mess of a show that wasn’t sure what it wanted to be at the start with WAY too many characters and couples. When it found its stride and trusted in MarkKit to carry the weight, friendships to provide the foundation, and parody to push the pace it had moments of glory.
But not everyone stuck with it long enough to get those nuggets. And then once MarkKit were together, it dropped the ball in the fourth quarter and lost its way again.
If you trusted Gen Y to push the ridiculous only so far and to save itself with poignancy it had scenes of self-referential genius. It managed to gently mock the very tropes of BL it was embracing, while still being soft and genuine and never mean or petty.
But it only really worked if you had tremendous patience and it ended with a stuttering splintered mess of dropped story threads. Gen Y alienated watchers and even those of us who liked it understand why.
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sports romance, messy gays be messy, cohabitation, crush, love triangle, tsundere
Enemies to lovers meets forced proximity (boarding house) in which I couldn’t decide if the unlikable main character was stupid or depressed (story of my life, see also Physical Therapy) but I can’t take yet another emo POV.There was no chemistry from the leads and great chemistry from the ex-friend/second lead.
Saint’s dad punishing him, when he doesn’t realize it’s because Saint is gay and heartbroken, really had meat to it as part of a basketball story. But it was such a tiny part of the overall show it felt like eating a meal when all I liked was one ingredient.
I’d like to see the actor who played Saint (Offroad) in other stuff but otherwise this one can fade and be forgotten. It was a mess, and not a hot one. Fatally flawed.
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AKA 2 Moons 3 AKA 2m3 - a trope riddle mess, but I like the main couple anyway
Tropes: E2L, obsession, popular/nerd, university set, pining seme, sunshine/sunshine, openly gay seme, bisexual ukeA Thai pulp that felt like it came out 5 yrs ago with many of the flaws inherent to that time and studio system, including manufactured angst and convoluted plot, but an ultimately sweet main couple that (as a pairing) feels a bit more modern and is satisfying to watch together.
Random additional thoughts:
Basically we open with a recap of 2 moons 2 (NOT 2 Moons original), some are scene for scene re-shots, which acts as an introduction to the new actors in the same roles.
Pairs are:
PhaYo - uke has glasses
ForthBeam - no distinguishing features
MingKit - uke has braces
But these are all side couples, and we have a different new main couple of loser moon + ultimate hot guy too-lazy-to-moon, TatchLom.
Gay af Tatch has a huge crush but only knows how to neg. Honestly, this is so common in BL it should be a seme character archetype.
This BL pulp acts like a show that came out 5 years ago (considering the source material I'm not at all surprised). It’s full of ALL the flaws & tropes:
faen fatale
stilted dialogue & bad sound
blushing maiden trope
awkward acting & stiff (in the wrong way) physical chemistry
nonexistent yet also convoluted plot
punching down humor
They even have the thing where the boys’ makeup on jaw line isn’t blended properly.
On the bright side, when the main couple starts liking each other, they communicate properly, talking about why they behave the way that they do, and why they flirt that way. It’s actually a really sweet relationship. They also both have nice wingman, and friends trying to be supportive and giving them good advice. The main couple gives me Nitiman vibes only with better resolution. No bad thing, frankly, I have a soft spot for Nitiman.
There’s a noted correction for dub con, permission around sex, and one of them is openly gay, and his not liking women turns out to be a defense and a plot point in a good way.
There is a lot of unnecessary manufactured drama and angst. For the sides this was basically the definition of their plots and they intersected not at all with the mains, so you can safely skip them. The plot is dumb.
That said, a small part of me enjoyed some of the drama around the twins and Tatch’s broken friendships prior to university, and I wish that was more of the whole plot and we got less of manufactured misunderstanding couple angst. That said it descended into some TharnType Mame level kidnapping nonsense at the end.
This will probably go down in history as one of the few BLs where I genuinely didn’t care about any of the side couples.
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Forgotten Plumbing - mafia, BDSM, only not really
Adapted from the y-novel Mafia's Bad Love, (originally featured both a gay poly triad and a GL sub plot). Stared Yoon (YYY, Paint With Love, My Ride) as a mafia Dom and Ton (Y-Destiny) as the accountant sub. Kim has a one night stand with a random stranger who becomes obsessed with him. Pretty soon into it I began to think this show should be called Forgotten Kink rather than Unforgotten Night. There isn't any. Mostly there's faucets left on and shower heads used for tie points (don't DO that). But honestly it was just bad. There is a moral to this show but I’m not sure what it is. Don’t combine your BDSM-but-not-really BL pulp with plumbing? In the end, this dumpster fire was extinguished by a garden hose and all we were left with was leaky pipes and the smell of damp trash. The only kinks were in the hose.Was this review helpful to you?
Viki lists this as HIStory 2: Ep. 5-8
This is a sports romance (volleyball) with a good boy/bad boy pairing. There no clear seme/uke dynamic which is nice to see in a BL. Ostensibly it's high school set but Taiwan doesn't care about age appropriate actors. It's a very soft sweet romance with some ridiculous easily overcome conflict. There's great kisses but it's medium heat. The side dishes are using the dreaded stepbrother trope but they’re very tame, and there’s no other triggers in this BL. It’s very soft for Taiwan. It's not just my favorite of the HIStory franchise, it’s one of my favorite BLs. HIGHLY RECOMMENDEDWas this review helpful to you?
TharnType 2: 7 Years of I Can’t Even
This was basically fan service. That is not necessarily a bad thing, but...I don’t get this author's writing and I never will. I don’t understand how she can consistently produce some of my favorite BL couples (AePete) and my least favorite - sometimes in the same series, sometimes in the same couple. It’s exhausting.
I had serious issues with TharnType but I do like MewGulf’s chemistry. It’s not the actors’ fault the story failed them. TT2 did it again, only with kidnapping and abuse instead of rape. *sigh*
TT2 also gave me Champ & Doc whom I adored, and hit us up with 3+ superfluous other couples. Like LBC and LBC2 the pacing in TT2 was uneven, the pairs confusing, and the side dishes with the most chemistry were given the least complexity and screen time. It was ultimately unsatisfying.
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One of my all time favorite fated mates BLs
Korean BL Color Rush leaped onto the scene at the VERY end of 2020 and blew my mind. Despite being a typical K-BL short run of short episodes, it was given more legs than 2020′s Mr Heart or You Wish with a strong core concept even with 8 episodes of only around 15 minutes each. Color Rush (with a total run time of c. 2 hours) felt more like a movie than a series and managed to satisfy me because of this cinematic approach.It drew heavily on yaoi manga staging and storyboarding, we can see this in many of the over the shoulder shots, actor stances and postures, and framing techniques. Since I love this style, it contributed to my enjoyment of the series without distracting me.
It also broke ground in many ways for BL:
1. It neatly avoided some of the pacing issues of K-BL with a magical realism component that forced intimacy in the first episode (in-world justified use of the fated mates or soulmates trope).
2. They cast a known (former) K-pop idol in the seme role - Hwall from The Boyz. Not all that unusual (see Wish You) but they gave that idol a near perfect role for him and he executed it beautifully. He is a dancer by training and the role required him to do most of his emoting via physicality.
4. It was concept driven, in that it had a strong fantasy component, like Cherry Magic. However, Color Rush used the fantastical as an aspect of visual story telling (Cherry Magic was audio) which allowed it to be less soft, sweet, cute and more tense, sinister, dramatic.
5. The narrative backbone was an insanely perfect allegory for queer first love and the coming out experience without beating us over the head with it.
Thai BL may be my stan, but Color Rush is my bias, and it topped my list of BLs to beat going in to 2021. Okay I’ll stop using K-pop lingo now but basically I really flipping LOVED COLOR RUSH.
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