The Latest Type of Drama Making Waves in the International Market? Boy Love

Have you noticed the notation “BL” in the synopsis of some drama listings and wondering what that means? 

BL means “Boy Love” a sort of bromance meets romance storyline with two male romantic characters.

Boy love dramas were first created in Japan. Many of the most popular Japanese boy love dramas were based on hit anime and mangas. These stories were originally written by female anime writers as a pushback against the anti-female bias in many anime stories. These dramas were written by and often enjoyed by a large female readership. The boy love storylines took hold in Japan, but the genre soon spread to Thailand, Taiwan, and more recently Korea. 

Interestingly, the storylines are a reflection of gay rights in each country, and share the cultural norms of the culture they are written in.  Some more overtly sexual some less. Thai boy love dramas show openly gay characters and love scenes, while Korean boy love dramas mirror Korea’s more conservative culture, so you’ll find many accidental handholds or characters tripping and falling into one another and not having much overt sexuality. 

(If you want to try out a boy love drama. One of the most famous Japanese boy love dramas is TV Asahi’s “Ossan’s Love” with a funny, complicated office romance as the setting.)

Some of the most popular webtoons still focus on boy love storylines and often bridge sci-fi, horror, and other genres, as well as the high school and university settings common to Korean drama fans. 

I don’t know of any boy love dramas which have been optioned in the US market yet. Is this the next sort of English language remakes we will see?

If you know of an English language boy-love drama adaptation, let us know!