BL Recs

Trapped is one of the great romance movies of our generation. HIStory is an anthology of BL short stories of various lengths and qualities, and Trapped is the best of the bunch. It’s so self-indulgent and trope-y, but in the best way possible.

            CW: copganda, child abuse, age difference, sexual assault, violence, death. 

Tang Yi is the leader of Taipei’s most prominent gang and Shao Fei is the cop determined to get him behind bars—can I make it any more obvious? 

Several years ago, Tang Yi’s adoptive father and Shao Fei’s mentor were involved in a fatal shooting, and Tang Yi was the only witness. Convinced that Tang Yi knows more than he gave in his initial witness statement, Shao Fei doggedly follows him for years – waiting for Tang Yi to finally slip up. Tang Yi is busy trying to reform the gang so its members can retire. The rivals are forced to work together when they get abducted by a rival gang. As more and more shenanigans happen, they find themselves actually forming a camaraderie that eventually turns into a heartfelt, but still cheeky, romance.

The 2nd pairing is Jack, Tang Yi’s right hand man, and Zhao Zi, Shao Fei’s friend and coworker. Their meetcute happens when Jack tries to kidnap Zhao Zi for info, but Zhao Zi is literally too ditzy to be interrogated, and Jack just ends up making him breakfast instead. They are so funny and sweet - my favorite part of the series. Jack is literally the sexiest man alive.

There’s a side het romance between Tang Yi’s younger adopted sister and the man pretty much helped raise her - so gross. They only hug, and after that hug happens they pretty much never get brought up again. It sucks because the sister is such a great character! 

 Also, there’s a scene later in the series where one of Tang Yi’s lackeys tries to drug and assault him. But Tang Yi escapes and ends up beating the shit out of him, so…

HIStory is an anthology of BL short stories of varying length and plots. Most of them are bad. But this is one of two that is actually worth watching. Every high school au and sports anime wishes they had what Crossing the Boundary has.

            CW: incest, internalized homophobia, mild violence.

Yu Hao is an ill-tempered slacker who spends most of his time in school just blowing off class. His natural physical abilities end up attracting the attention of the school volleyball team. While he initially rebuffs the club, he is struck by the manager of the club, Zi Xuan. When he joins the volleyball club, he discovers that Zi Xuan used to be a player before he suffered a knee injury.. Inspired by Zi Xuan’s passion he resolves to represent him through his own play. The two of them start out clashing, but have a natural chemistry and quickly develop a genuine friendship. Yu Hao’s crush feels like it develops really organically and its really quite sweet. The visuals and metatextual use of the volleyball court are also quite stunning. Seriously, it’s so good. Fantastic take on the whole delinquent/student council type dynamic.

I would have no complaints if it weren’t for the side couple being stepbrothers. Thankfully they are extremely in the background, the characters themselves are so bland and no kissing or anything really ‘relationshipy’ happens – so it’s easy to ignore and skip around.

Overall, highly recommend.

The first ten episodes of this drama are so good, but then the last three spit in my face. DONT WATCH EP 12. A bit all over the place, but the chemistry between the characters is so worth it.
CW: internalized homophobia, sexual harassment, and sexual assault.
WHY R U is a  fun enemies-to-lovers college drama. The two main relationships, play with familiar BL tropes without falling into them entirely. Really, the whole thing is a bit of a tongue-in-cheek homage 2 the genre.

The main character Zon starts to have gay visions of himself and his campus enemy, Saifah. This sends him into an anxious spiral, worsened by the fact that his sister also has these ‘visions’ and has been writing a BL novel based on them. I didn't like the fujoshi thing at first, but Zol and Zon have such a funny sibling dynamic that I ended up not minding. What starts as a petty rivalry ends up turning in a genuine friendship and romance. Sadly, becaues because of COVID19, Saifah/Zon kind of get shafted towards the end.

Tutor/Fighter are SWITCH rights. Tutor is one of my favorite characters ever—Saint does a fantastic job. He has such a great duality, he’s really polite and sweet, but also so sly and snarky. Fighter is the meathead engineering major who can’t process his feelings, so he just ends up trying to pulling at Tutor’s pigtails. But Tutor doesn’t take any shit, and pushes right back. When they actually get together, it’s so clear that Fighter is so happy to be able to express himself and his love for Tutor freely. They have multiple really sexy make out scenes too!

Disappointingly, in episode 12 theres a really upsetting scene where Fighter sexually assaults Tutor (EPISODE 12 SUCK MY DICK). The assault scene doesn’t go much further than kissing with shirts off and feels very ooc, but it really sours the whole show.

Would recommend but with disclaimers.