Chelsea’s 2023 BL Year In Review

This has been my most prolific BL-watching year since I began watching BL around 2014, and wow I’ve got a lot of opinions to share with everybody!

If you’re new to the genre, BL (short for Boys Love) is a growing and changing genre that generally consists of male-male romance and is typically used to refer to Asian media as opposed to western LGBTQ+ media. Many moons ago, I cut my teeth on Japanese content like Seven Days or No Touching At All because I was desperate for Queer Content and I wasn’t getting it elsewhere. However, since around 2016 my main focus in BL has been Thai television series. The first I watched was the famous 2014 Love Sick and it only continued from there. I have a few reviews on this site of Thai BLs, but today we’re getting a quick and dirty review of my 2023 BL watch list with some ratings, some lists, and I’m sure some controversy in the comments.

So let’s go!

To start with, here is my spreadsheet I kept track of the 30 BLs I watched this year. It is pretty self-explanatory

(I’m not sure why there’s a font issue with the spreadsheet but if you highlight the blank areas, it shows up)

As you see, I watched a lot of series and some were great, some were so bad I DNF (Did Not Finish), and a lot of them were very average. Really quick before I get into the lists, I will clarify my rating scale and how I rate things.

10	To get a 10, it has to be perfection. I have given less than 5 of these.
9-9.5	Damn near perfect, but not quite there.
8-8.5	Above average but not as good as 9-9.5.
7-7.5	From me, a 7 is average good. 7.5 is slightly better but not quite an 8.
6-6.5	This isn’t very good but it had potential to be good.
5-5.5	This is bad. It is just really not good. There is no redeeming quality.
4-4.5	It’s not just bad; it offends me how bad it is.

And if you’re wondering why my lowest is 4 when it’s out of 10, it’s because there’s always SOMETHING worthwhile in even the worst dramas I have seen. I’ve never seen lower than a 4, and the two 4s I have at least have decent main actors if nothing else.

Top BL by Country

Since I have watched BL’s from China, Japan, the Philippines, South Korea, Taiwan, and Thailand before, I like to pick my favorite from each country. Note: this year, I did not watch any Chinese or Filipino dramas, sadly, but in past years there have been some great ones (Go watch Gameboys if you never saw it).

Japan

Tokyo In April Is…

Tokyo In April Is… tells the story of Kazuma, a young man who has been in the United States and has returned to Tokyo to take a new position at work. When he starts, he runs into his old middle school best friend, Ren. A decade ago, Ren was Kazuma’s best friend and first love, but one day he vanished from Kazuma’s life after the incident that sent Kazuma abroad when he was fifteen.

The reason that this series is my favorite from Japan this year, and honestly one of my favorites all year, is that it slowly unravels the mystery of why Kazuma is confused when Ren treats him like just another old friend after their history, what drove them apart all those years ago, and why they both are the way they are as adults. It’s a very well-written and perfectly paced script that has a very satisfying and heartwrenching reveal, but also a warm conclusion.

I give Tokyo In April Is… 7.5 out of 10 and I DO recommend watching it.

South Korea

Love Tractor

Love Tractor follows Seon Yul, a young man from Seoul, as he goes to the countryside to stay at his grandfather’s home and look after things while his grandfather is in the hospital. While there, he meets Suh Ye Chan, a local farm boy who is kind and warm and beloved by everybody in the small rural town. He takes an interest in Seon Yul because he’s from the city and the two start to grow closer. This rom-com of the typical almost Hallmark Christmas Movie-esque trope of ‘big city boy comes to his grandpa’s small town and finds love’ is full of comedy and coo-inducing sweetness that could leave a lesser TV watcher with a toothache.

That’s what I love about it. It’s so genuine and honest about what it is and it does it really well. It’s a fluffy romance with minimal angst. This is a series that just makes you feel good when you watch it.

Because of that, I give Love Tractor 8 out of 10 and I DO recommend watching it.

Taiwan

Kiseki: Dear To Me

Kiseki: Dear To Me tells the story of two couples: Bai Zong Yi, a high school student who dreams of becoming a doctor, and Fan Ze Rui, an injured gangster who stumbles into Zong Yi’s life, and then Chen Yi and Ai Di, two young ruffians in the same gang as Ze Rui. Just when Zong Yi is taking care of Ze Rui and they start to fall in love the criminal side of Ze Rui’s life blows things off course. When everything unravels, Ai Di, who has been in love with Chen Yi since they were children, ends up taking the fall for something that takes both he and Zong Yi away from the men they love but allows them to grow closer.

I know that description is rubbish and makes no sense, but that’s because this series is one where ‘Chelsea loves it’ sorta strays away from ‘it’s amazingly good’. I’ll be honest and say this series has some really confusing parts to it that don’t really get satisfactorily explained. I am also not nearly as invested in a teenager and an adult falling in love as the series wants me to be. However, the reason this is one of my favorite series is the side pairing: Chen Yi and Ai Di.

Chen Yi and Ai Di are possibly my favorite couple of the year. They are only a side ship, but for a pair of violent criminals, their love is so pure and innocent in a way that’s absolutely touching. They were both taken in from the streets as orphaned children and have celebrated that day as their birthday all along. Ai Di has been in love with Chen Yi since they were boys, but Chen Yi has only ever had eyes for another, older man. However, when Chen Yi starts to lose Ai Di, he realizes what was in front of him all along. Their cat vs golden retriever relationship is adorable, the actors playing them have amazing chemistry, and I could watch them interacting over and over again without hesitation.

I give Kiseki: Dear To Me 8 out of 10 and I DO recommend watching it.

Thailand

I Feel You Linger In The Air

This was the hardest choice of all because, as you see from the table, the majority of the BLs I watch are Thai. There were a LOT of series to compete with this and I wasn’t sure I could really pick just one. However, I really sat down and considered what series made me care the most about it all year. The winner of that was I Feel You Linger In The Air.

When an architect named Jom is working on restoring an early 20th-century era house in Northern Thailand, he notices some strange things like a chest appearing seemingly out of nowhere with strangely familiar drawings inside, glances of figures out of the corner of his eyes, and most of all his own reflection in different clothes in a different moment in the mirror. Before he can figure out this mystery, however, his boyfriend he hasn’t seen since he left to study abroad is set to arrive back home so they can finally be together forever… only Ohm comes home with a pregnant fiancee he was cheating on Jom with all along. In his despair, Jom goes out to drink his pain away and the night ends with traumatic circumstances leaving him having traveled back in time and waking up in 1920s Chiang Mai.

With nothing else to do to get by in this strange past, Jom becomes an employee of a local wealthy family that just so happens to be the family that own the house he had been restoring in 2023. There he meets the owner of said house, Yai, as well as many people he recognizes the faces of but who are not in this world who they were in his. As he tries to survive and find a way to get back to the modern day, he and Yai begin a forbidden romance and discover they aren’t the only ones.

Simply put, this series is one of the absolute best series I’ve seen. It’s so detailed and so full of depth to the different characters’ stories that it’s astonishing that there are also so many subtleties and small moments that give so much more to every aspect of the drama. All of the characters are fleshed out, every plot line is handled well, and honestly, it’s incredible to see a lack of tragedy when this series could easily end in every character suffering terrible endings. The actual only reason this series was not perfect is because the very ending feels rushed and incomplete.

I give I Feel You Linger In The Air 9.5 out of 10 and I DO recommend watching it.

Special Mention Catagories

There are a few series that need to be mentioned because of one reason or another, so almost like a Senior Superlatives section in a high school yearbook, here we have some special mentions.

So Bad It’s Good

Chains of Heart got a 6.5 out of 10 from me mostly because it was so bad it was addictive. I commonly referred to it as being like a telenovela/daytime soap opera. It had the most ridiculous plot twists, the most over-the-top acting, and villains that seemed like they would be straight out of a cartoon. But for all of that, it was so fun to watch! Every week I couldn’t wait to watch the new episode of this absurd series. I couldn’t recommend it more than I do.

Charming Comfort Series

My School President was honestly in the running for my top Thai BL of the year because it is so dang charming. In a world full of high school settings that are far to adult to be believable, MSP got it right. The kids feel like kids for once. We all remember how big everything that as adults is trivial felt when we were teenagers. That first ‘real’ crush, the pining over a cute classmate, feeling like the world is ending because you embarrassed yourself in front of them, and friendships that felt like they would never end, all of that is portrayed so genuinely in this series. Nothing was more refreshing than to see a high school drama that was just regular old ‘I like a boy and I want him to like me’ childhood innocence. That is why I gave My School President 9.5 out of 10.

Awesomely Adult Actor

Step By Step was a real change of pace this year because for once there was an actor that was my age and played so! While there are a few Thai BL actors older than me, there ain’t many, and often they look younger and play young characters (looking at you, Kimmon!). Man Trisanu Soranun plays Jeng, the manager of the department where new hire Pat meets him, and their story beings. In real life, he is technically two days younger than me, but in the series, his character is clearly meant to be more like thirty-five. There have been a few more adult series in 2023, but Man stands out to me in Step by Step because the actor is an actual man (wink wink) this time. Though I only give the series a 6.5 out of 10 because it wasn’t the best, I definitely appreciate Thai-Danish actor Man showing up for the ’91 gang!

Great Cast, Gross Characters

Only Friends was basically like BL Stockholm Syndrome: I didn’t enjoy much of any of it, but I couldn’t bring myself to turn my back on it. The reason being? The cast. It was full of great actors, a few of which were some of the heavy hitters of the ‘middle’ generation at GMMTV right now, and all of them did a great job… at playing the most unlikeable characters ever. I didn’t like any of them. The lesbians were basically the only people I didn’t feel disgust towards at least once, and most of them I felt nothing but disgust towards. I felt like I needed a shower after every episode because I’ve never watched a series where absolutely all the main characters are unlikeable. I watched Hannibal where the main character is a likable serial killer cannibal, but I couldn’t bring myself to like anybody in this series. I give Only Friends 6.5 out of 10 because the acting is top tier, but I DO NOT recommend this series.

Most Underappreciated

Moonlight Chicken is easily the best-crafted series of 2023. It is a scriptwriter and cinephile’s dream. This series is pure art. There are scenes that make anybody who is fluent in the art of the human condition clench a hand to their chest because “yes, exactly, perfect”. However, that is also exactly why this series seems to be very underappreciated going by my own anecdotal observances. Too many people were bothered by the fact the writing supposedly changed from a cheating plot in the source material to a ‘falls out of love’ plot(I have no confirmation of this) even though cheating is lazier than something as hard and real as ‘it just didn’t work’. Too many people didn’t ‘get’ why someone would break up when their partner did nothing wrong. Not enough people appreciated the beauty of contrasting ‘young and idealistic about life and love’ with ‘older, tired, and jaded’ and considered the side story about the teens to be ‘unnecessary’ when it literally was there for the juxtaposition element. People who love this series love it. People who didn’t like it didn’t like it. I love it. I gave Moonlight Chicken 9.5 out of 10 and I DO recommend this series wholeheartedly.

2023 Verdict

I have never watched so many BLs in one year. The quality in BL series has been increasing for a long time now, but this year was the first where the quantity allowed so many options to choose from. I by no means watched ALL the BL series there were to offer. I would estimate I barely scratched the surface. There were some really popular series I wasn’t interested in seeing, there were some I didn’t want to bother getting into because they weren’t easily accessible, and there were some I just never got around to. There was so much on offer, that I really had just luck, availability, and time that got me to give these thirty series a shot.

I am so grateful to the level of quality coming out of Thailand especially these days. The culture around the genre has changed so much so fast. I’m no longer used to the ‘top/bottom’ label dynamics so strongly, nor the old ‘I don’t like men, I just like you’ stuff that still comes around every once in a while in some dramas. The old days of heteronormative pairings and actor choices are slowly slipping away. The ‘only students always’ thing has made way for plenty of adult series with adult plots this past year. The rise of other types of relationship dynamics such as GL (girl love/queer women) and different genders in these relationships is so nice to see as a queer enby (nonbinary person) in their thirties.

I can only say in the end that I have enjoyed 2023 as a BL fan, and I can only hope that 2024 brings even more and better series for us all to enjoy.