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absolutebl · 4 months

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TOP 10 BL Trends of 2023

This is just me with my analysis hat on.

1. 2023 = the year EVERYONE went outside their lanes

Everything went topsy-turvy this year in BL.

For example, Korea gave us agonized yearning and outright queerness (The 8th Sense, The New Employee) while Japan served up soft office workers and tender family (Our Dining Table).

The BL world went askew for a while, especially in the spring of 2023.

Not that we still didn’t still get Korea’s soft angsty bubbles or Japan’s “what are you doing and why does it hurt?” kink-fests. But there were quite a few BLs that made us chronic watchers sit up in confusion and wonder if Korea was dabbling in Taiwan’s territory or Japan in Thailand’s. Then they fudged the kisses and we were like... okay, back in familiar territory.

In contrast, Thailand stayed course-correcting for the damage they’ve done in the past with tropes (2022) and self referential meta criticism (2021), but also almost aggressively returned to their BL roots after last year’s series of shockers. Certainly, they are reexamining those roots, transplanting some, aerating others. But they really went back to classic Thai university and high school BL and pulps in a big way in 2023.

Taiwan is always difficult to gage because they produce so few but they seem to have stuck with what they do best with no deviation while producing more this year than they have in ages. I’m happy for that, why change a good thing? But there is a tiny part of me that really wants them to hit it out of the part with a quality piece soon. For me, We Best Love still reigns supreme, but I would really like the HIStory franchise to give us that level but longer - like a happy version of Your Name Engraved Herein. I think Taiwan has the chops to give us something as good as The 8th Sense or Old Fashion Cupcake but in their style, and I would like to see them exercise their talent for good rather than just profit.

I know, what a very odd thing for me to say. But if any BL is going to break into the mainstream American market, I genuinely think it’s most likely come from Taiwan.

Vietnam and the Philippines are falling behind, in general. They just didn’t bring out very many shows in 2023, and what the brought out tended to fub the endings. This is forgivable in Japan (because of their style and quality) but not what watchers want in the lower production value propositions. In other words, if you do a pulp, you can’t mess up the ending (by romance standards). that doesn’t look to be changing anytime soon.

2. The Office Romance Dominated

After years of Thailand serving us an endless (and slightly bland) buffet of university (and a few high school) BLs, this year Korea was basically like...

Ofiice. We like the Office. It’s cheap to film we can use grown up actors, acting (mostly) their actual age.

And yeah... it totally worked.

To be fair, Japan has always given us office live action yaoi from the beginning (they had the source material) but this year everyone else, including Thailand, seriously started playing in this setting.

3. Boys Danced with Boys

The darling @heretherebedork was a big fan of this one, and I rather like it myself. Prior to this boys dancing together was very very rare in BL, but this year we got way more than our fair share. It was lovely.

Never Let me Go

My School President

Bed Friend

The Day I Loved You

Step by Step

Be Mine Superstar

Tie the Not

Dangerous Romance

I think there were a few more. These are the ones I remembered to write down.

4. Getting (even more) Meta With Tropes

BL has been getting more and more meta over the past few years but this year they really focused in on tropes specifically. Calling out their own biggest and most favorite tropes in a massive way, especially Thailand and especially GMMTV.

Like they tunneled in on damaging tropes with Bad Buddy and the like over the past 2 years, and now they are just having fun with us.

I mean they just started the dancing trope and already they are calling it out? That’s like rapid-fire regurgitated meta there, GMMTV.

5. Cameos are the norm now

Taiwan has always loved cameos but in the past the other countries have been show and steady with only one or two a year. (Unless Japan does a parody.)

This year Korea got in on the game.

Korea rarely starts trends but they do adopt smaller and lesser known existing ones and make them super popular.

This year they did that with cameo couple appearances, even borrowing a few of Thailand’s pairs (TutorYim and MaxNat traveled north). They did it so much I stopped tracking. Love Class 2, Why R U?, and Jun & Jun were the heaviest hitters.

Taiwan, of course, came back swinging. Kiseki was the gum-ball machine of pair cameos. (In Taiwan mafia = gay.)

6. We are entering the cross pollination age

The number of remakes picked up or started this year was startling, not just countries revisiting their own content (Thailand, Japan) but countries revisiting OTHER countries stuff.

Lemme explain...

Korea has started remaking Thai content (Why R U?) alongside cameo'ing Thai pairs.

Thailand is doing Korean IP (My Dear Gagster Oppa) and has 2 Chinese ones slated for next year.

GMMTV acquired a lot of Japanese IP (Cherry Magic, Ossen, and My Love Mix Up) - and then had problems distributing it.

This is probably the most surprising trend for me. Especially the Japanese stuff. I would have thought these properties well outside of Thailand's price range (even GMMTV's) not to mention Japan’s legendary IP issues (I swear I typed this pout before the pulled TayNew’s excellent Cherry Magic).

Also why not option some of the older popular manga instead? Bet that's much cheeper. (I did see a NEW Thai translation of Finder into Thai, which is 90s yaoi, so I have my fingers crossed on that front.)

I shouldn't be too surprised.

Thailand is running out of y-novel content. Their publication industry is just not robust enough (I was just talking to a friend about this at length recently). But I didn't think they had the funds to option, especially from Japan.

Perhaps the option deals are for peanuts?

7. Korea got cheeky

I’m not sure quite how else to put this.

After finally figuring out boys can kiss, Korea started to do not just higher heat but playful higher heat, with more aggressive word play and linguistic innuendo, like they are entering their racy rom-com teenage years (Why R U? Love Class 2 and Jun & Jun in particular.)

I guess: Welcome to your BL teens, Korea?

It’s cute of them. I am very much enjoying it.

And now that comedy is warming them up, we get to see them play with actual queer burgeoning physicality in shows like The 8th Sense.

It’s nice. I like seeing Korea stretch its wings. They still stick to their bubble, but that bubble seems to be expanding.

8. The Amnesia Trope is back

And I, for one, would prefer to forget about it.

9. BL got trendy

I’m not quite sure how to articulate this category but basically we started seeing a lot of “modern” romance trends out of the west (like a/b/o) show up in our BL. Not a ton and sometimes quite small, but there has a been a steady rise of things like: no seme/uke, femme gay, out gay, condom use, messy gay.

We also got an increasing range of sub genre frameworks (like mafia, office setting) that’s moved BL pretty firmly (even in Thailand) out of school and into the workplace, whether actual working is involved or not.

It’s not to the point where it feels like we get more non-school BL than school BL (if I include all countries in this assessment).

Japan, in classic Japanese fashion, quietly started moving in the opposite direction. It’s what they do.

10. The Vampires are coming

This is an announcement trend, which I don’t usually report on but it’s so CLEAR.

So last year we had a spate of announcements of possible Omegaverse (2 from China, 1 from Japan, 1 from Thailand - the only one that’s happened).

This year we got 5 Vampire (or vampire-esk) Thai BLs announced including one from GMMTV.

Whether all 5 will actually get made is unlikely, but having had (basically) none prior to this (Kissable Lips), I’m pretty confident that we will get at least 2 of them. And I wouldn’t be surprised if at least one other country made one as well. (Side eyes Taiwan with interest.)

Final thoughts

It feels like we are also seeing a decline in BL (both by quantity and quality) from Vietnam and the Philippines. As you all know, I don’t track or really watch either of these two very closely. But it feels like, now, no one else is either.

I think we have likely seen the BL heyday already in both places and their industries are now on the decline.

We might be witnessing a thinning in the players in the BL field.

FYI we had approximately

136 BLs in 2023

Previous Years

2022: 117

2021: 95

2020: 62

2019: 40

2018: 30

2017: 44 (China’s last gasp)

2016: 27

2015: 17 (50% micro)

2014: 17 (50% micro)

And that’s it! Let me know in the comments if you’ve spotted any additional trends you want to call out.

Last year, 2022′s trend report

2021′s Trend report

Last Year’s Stats & Predictions

(source)

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carnivalcarriondiscarded · 10 months

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watched Grease the other night with my buddy and. well. obviously i Had To

#this was a good warm up i think. kinda low quality cause its Small and Not Much Effort Went Into It #but i think the fuzziness adds to the charm. or something like that #ive always loved greasers as a concept and general Thing #anyway now im Thinking about what everyone's 'roles' would be #i think the little greaser group would be wally / sally / barnaby #except theyre the most unconventional greasers ever #sally is all bark and no bite. barnaby is no bark and no bite. wally is just there to look pretty #i think theyd fold frank into the group eventually due to Witnessing His Knack For Violence #i can picture them mostly hanging around a diner #where they all share the single milkshake they can collectively afford #scribble garnish #welcome home #in middle school i absolutely adored the outsiders #we even did a thing for the class where we were assigned 'greaser' or 'soc' and i was So Fucking Delighted to get greaser #assigned greaser by 8th grade english class #got to dress up and everything. i had a blast. so gender.#during that time i would even sit there in class thinking 'i was born in the wrong generation'. delusional? yes #one of my ocs is even a fuckin. universe-hopping assassin greaser #their vibe.... 50s punk...#loved the movie btw. made next to no sense. very charming

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biblically-accurate-dca · 25 days

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happy april fools here's a dumbass drawing i never finished

#my art #daycare attendant #dca fandom #ruin eclipse #yes they r in the magnet pose. and yes thats vital information #i thought it would be funny to have them not look at each other at all. unfortunately i got very bored with drawing the other hand #iirc i drew this around the end of last year? so its a few months old by now #anyway did u know there's gonna be a solar eclipse this month? this isnt even a prank you can look this up rn. april 8th solar eclipse. wow.#bw eclipse #eclipse

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bahbahhh · 6 months

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DAY 20 -HEAT

[title page] [previous] [next]

#the 8th heroine lore got me like 👀👀👀#linktober #linktober 2023 #loz #Gerudo #legend of zegend #link #legend of zelda #totk #totk spoilers #tears of the kingdom #bahbahhhart #the depths au

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m-u-n-c-h-y · 11 months

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They got into a bar fight ❤️

#preston garvey #porter gage #fallout 4 #fo4 #this is Gage’s 8th time at the stations this week #and it was only a tuesday #prestons just mad someone called the cops #before he could finish it #my art #fan art #got the munchy's?#arrested meme #barbie meme

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crystal-verse · 6 months

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god i want. an au where it dosn't work. where it's just arr g'raha who's woken up, and he doesn't have all these memories and all these people keep looking at him like they're mourning someone. the world has changed and time has changed and all the people he knows have changed, but he hasn't changed, he was just sleeping, just sleeping, and the world nearly ended several times and apparently he helped prevent yet another end but he has no memory of this. they want him to join the scions. he does not know these people. (he barely knows the warrior of light, now, but did he ever truly know them in the first place?) his little sister is alive and well. she looks at him like a ghost. she's changed, and she's older than him now. he acts bratty and loud and brash to cover up the fact that he does not know anything it seems, and he is tired but he was sleeping for so long, so how could he be tired?

he doesn't know these people. they seem to know him. he wonders if he'd killed someone, when it was him and not that exarch who woke up. he wonders if it should have been him who was "killed" in that way, if it is him that lives and not that man who had known and become friends with all these figures from legend. he wonders if he'll always be fated to be a historian one step back from everything, because he simply cannot be a hero.

#bound with thread | original posts #letters in verse | talking #g'raha tia #crystal exarch #hello everyone i am being Incredibly Normal about g'raha tia at -checks time- 12:02 am #you ever think about the fact that arr g'raha is basically killed/replaced when the exarch wakes up in 5.3. because i do. a lot #hi i have brainworms over this man he's SO tragic and i need to hold him gently in my hands like how you cradle a small trembling kitten #genuinely happy about his character growth and progression and happy ending and all but arr g'raha was the one who grabbed my focus #and i do miss a lot of that character sometimes yknow? post-shb g'raha isn't the same person as arr g'raha and that's intentional‚ i think‚#because he has gone through so much that we didn't see. so much trauma and pain because of the 8th umbral era and that loss he got hit with #and he's not the same person because he's *had* to change so much to keep himself and his people alive and i'm glad he's getting to #experience life to the fullest in endwalker onwards but just. i miss arr g'raha yknow #honestly the silliest thing about it is i miss his student of baldesion tattoo. was a fun little design element you know.#show us the tattoo again squeenix. give him back his red eyeshadow that he had.#give him his bow back i am begging #this has been: incomprehensible ramblings from simon at 12 at night

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junipum · 6 months

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the boy is HOMEEEE ignore old plushies my bookshelf is a mess rn. why does he look so sad

#can you tell i kept my books from middle school because i havent bought new ones in years #books look so good on a shelf until you see dork diaries and classic lit from school .#speaking of i HATE lotf and love a separate peace dearly #i wrote a 1k word essay on why they were gay as fuck but also had awful internalized homophobia in 8th grade #and got 100% so my teacher agreed !#house md #gregory house #hate crimes md #james wilson #hilson #they're on a date btw #shitpost

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nosferatufaggot · 3 months

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It's cuz you're always on that damn 1996 Doctor Who TV Movie DVD.

#THE AUDIO WASN'T WORKING AND I WAS SOOOOOO SCARED!#I got it to work though. I didn't burn a gaping hole into the side of it by having it play continuously.#Hey it's kinda gay that the Doctor has all those candles lit around where he was carrying the Master.#Just for that tag I'm tagging this Thoschei.#Because I don't want to make a seperate post. That was kinda really gay of the Doctor to do.#That's a few too many candles to be normal.#Doctor Who #Eighth Doctor #8th Doctor #Sentiments of a vampire.#I love tagging so much even though Tumblr's tagging system isn't the best.#Hell yeah I'll categorize my posts.

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silverfoxstole · 5 months

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I don't know if anyone else has been wondering why Big Finish have been using obviously photoshopped pictures of the younger Eighth Doctor on their covers of late but I've discovered the reason: though I don't know the ins and out apparently due to rights issues BF are no longer allowed to use images from the TVM (despite having done so for nearly twenty years previously) and have to photoshop other Paul pics instead, with varying results.

Naturally, me being me, once I knew this I had to go looking for matches, didn't I? Of course I did.

First we have very obvious photos from the Dark Eyes shoot, which often results in TVM Eight with stubble; not a great look.

From the cover of Lucie Miller:

and Doom's Day (whatever that is; I have no idea):

Incidentally, this one may have been used again, but this time mirrored and much more heavily photoshopped, on the just-announced Sontarans vs Rutans series:

Then there's the face taken from a bts photo dating back to the recording of Storm Warning that was spotted a little while ago on the cover of next month's In The Bleak Midwinter by @know-it-all-freak :

And the Night of the Doctor shot that has apparently just had the collar and cravat changed for Classic Doctors: New Monsters Volume Three:

I can't find an exact match for this one from Charlotte Pollard: The Further Adventuress but it looks similar to one used on the cover of Dark Eyes 4 so may also originate from that shoot:

The last couple, from Audacity and The End of the Beginning respectively, are stumping me at the moment, but I'm sure BF are probably sitting on quite a few photos they've accumulated over the years and never released. If anyone else recognises them (or the one above) feel free to jump in!

#i’m guessing and unseen dark eyes shot for that last one #it looks annoyingly familiar but i can’t match it against anything i’ve got #the other may be another bts pic #they’d need to be photos to which bf have the rights so it makes sense that they’re using their own #doctor who #paul mcgann #eighth doctor #8th doctor #big finish #sfs is playing paul photo detective again #most of these are pretty dodgy #imo at least #but they’re trying #they just need to get rid of the stubble and stop going overboard with the hair

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