I rated 14 BLs from 2025 a 9/10 or higher. Making this a pretty good year, actually. 2024 I only had 10 BLs rated 9/10. 2023 was better than both, tho.
Someone asked me about 3 months ago how I felt BL was doing in 2025. Vibes, if you will. And this is what I said (without running any numbers). Turns out I was wrong, which means in part 2025 ended the year very strong. Japan, I think, helped a lot.
Anygay, without further ado, my hands-down (pun intended) favorite BL of 2025 was...
A relatively simple friends-to-lovers story about a boy who fell in love with another boy when they were kids, but got friend-zoned for most of their lives. Until, in university, it becomes too much for him and things escalate. A very domestic, very pretty, high chemistry, Taiwanese take on some ultra-classic BL themes, archetypes, and tropes. Basically a combination of two of my favorite BLs, I Cannot Reach You and We Best Love - two great tastes that tasted great together.
I dithered a little, there is a bit much dub-con for the modern age but for unexplainable reasons I did not care. Also this is such a quiet show it fell to the wayside during our collective Summer 2025 Fever Dream (thank you China), but eventually I decided that for me this is damn near perfect live action yaoi for Taiwan. I like but do not need my BLs to be original.
This is exactly the kind of show I love best. Yes it is quiet and simple but it is not bland or boring. This is a classic, like perfectly prepared Taiwanese chicken and rice. Sure, we all love a spicy curry, but sometimes, when the world is going to hell, we just want chicken and rice. And this was the BL equivalent. They embraced the genre and served it warm and sustaining when I needed it most.
Does it deserve a 10/10? Maybe not. It isn't as good as We Best Love (my only other 10/10 out of Taiwan) but in 2025 this was the BL I needed most. And it's my ranking system after all.
School Trip: I Happened to Join a Group of Cool Guys AKA Shugakuryoko de Nakayokunai Group ni Hairimashita
This was the most classic, pitch perfect, high school BL we’ve gotten from Japan since I Cannot Reach You. About a sophomore boy separated from his geeky friends adopted by a quad of popular boys one of whom has a mad crush on him. Somehow exactly that simple but also so much deeper and more special. This was charming and sweet and pining and everything I want in a JBL including first love spilling over into awkwardness, glorious friendship groups, and bonus elder gay rep (such a rarity).
Japan had a really good 2025, but this was an absolutely stand out.
The specials are currently airing and I reserve the right to bump School Trip into the 10/10 ranks if they do them as well as I hope.
Korea's best BL of 2025 by a landslide. After retiring from gymnastics a gold medalist, painfully shy Jiwon struggles to survive university. He gets adopted by a group of jocks and falls in love with campus heartthrob and basketball star JeongU.
I loved it. Of course I did. It’s great! It's charming, well executed, and prettily acted (especially from the actor playing JeongU who comes to us from the stage and we can tell).
Can’t go wrong with this one, I smiled the whole time I was watching.
I have already rewatched this BL the most of the 2025 offerings.
These were my top 3 BLs of the year. I'm still contemplating bumping School Trip up to a 10, and I really dithered over Ball Boy.
Thailand YouTube (now Viki?)
The boyband idol romance I've been waiting for from Korea, only Thailand did it instead.
Quintessentially Thai and very GMMTV with good production values, great chemistry, and a solid support cast. It also was a hyung romance (younger boy pursues older one) mostly driven by external conflict and a found family reunion trope, so I didn’t mind (too much) that the romance thread occasionally felt secondary. I loved it (except, of course, the singing).
It's just lovely and pretty and fun. And it has a fabulous series of ending scenes.
Narrowly squeaking in as my top Thai BL of 2025 this one wins on the strength of that truly killer ending and high rewatchability and production values. Plus this has a dynamite new pair brand.
As pulps go this is right up there with my favorite if all time, My Ride, but for different less complex reasons (and with better chemistry).
This is a relatively simple yet endearingly old fashioned university set story of a fake relationship between a sunshine sweetie and an older reserved rich kid who slowly fall in love. It's soft gentle low stakes leans on everything I love best about Thai BL, no damage no trauma.
This is a warm fuzzy robe of a BL that will not hurt you, featuring some of the greenest flags I have ever seen in the genre. Somehow it manages to be very much a 2025 ThBL while cosplaying with all the nostalgia of a decade prior.
Close second to ThamePo this ones only flaws come from it's pulp origins and green acting. It's still endearing and already a chronic rewatch for me.
Jojo directed this action romcom about assassin brothers (Khao & Joong) meets conmen: tattoo artist ex-booster (First) and very flirty mechanic (Dunk).
I dithered over how to rate this. It felt like an 8 show wearing a 9’s britches. There were dropped threads, forgotten characters, and unfinished plot lines even with a long run time. And, for me, it doesn’t have significant rewatch potential. HOWEVER it was so much fun (when one applies no expectations or logic) and I enjoyed the wildly unhinged relationships and, weirdly, music.
I mean nobody claimed that we needed Taming of the Shrew only with gay Thai hitmen, but we really needed it. And no one asked for Petruchio to be the bratiest queen ever to strut his perfect skin and croptops across our screen, and yet we loved him for it.
Sure it didn’t make sense and was utterly absurd, but it was terribly earnest and sexy about it. In the end this goes hand-in-hand with all these other bonkers crime pieces we’ve been getting since KinnPorsche, and frankly I like this one the best so far.
A darling little show that I genuinely couldn’t have enjoyed more. About a deaf care worker and his spoiled broken little prince.
A caretaker takes a job protecting and healing a mafia boy (in all ways). The boy is tortured and broken but still loving and earnest and willing to enter his beloved's world. Taiwanese BL at its softest and best.
This show basically said it was more important to do sign language and kisses properly then any silly mafia fighting bits. And they were absolutely correct. Highly recommended.
This one slid under the radar for a lot of people, don't let you be one of those people. A gem of a show.
Our Youth AKA Miseinen: Mijukuna Oretachi wa Bukiyo ni Shinkochu
Adapted from a Korean Webtoon I can see why this went to Japan, it's way too harsh for KBL. Essentially a story about two lonely boys from opposite sides of the track who fall madly in love in high school, despite the fact that one is neglected and the other physically abused.
This has a rough premise (all the trigger warnings) BUT is an oddly lovely little show. Darker than is my personal preference but sublimely stylish, turns out sometimes that combo works for me (see The 8th Sense). The word that springs to mind is “refined.”
I enjoyed the restful distancing feel of the beautiful filming style which made the abuse feel less intimate. Add to that Japan's signature utter thirst and some ostentatiously poetic dialogue and this became edgy pretty which unexpectedly worked for me. Plus a fantastic ending.
I get skipping this one especially in light of the bad publicity that followed. I forgive you if you don't watch it.
Close on the herculean strides of Revenged Love, China continued its historic 2025 run on the international BL market with the first true ABO mpreg piece. There is some semblance of story = about a boy who falls in love right before he manifests as an enigma (secret extra-special tippy-top of food chain) and then obsessively stalks/courts the object of his devotion though means both fair and foul (mostly foul). Why so secretive and manipulative? No reason, just is.
This show focuses on this most perfect sociopath ult babygirl being a violent, unchecked, conniving, psychotic monster so pretty he will hurt your teeth intent on possessing, owning, and sexing-up one increasingly confused alpha. And he wins and we like (so does the alpha). There is actual on screen kissing (yes, from China) combined with some of the world's hottest shirt suspenders and some the world's ugliest shirts. The end.
Oh… there is a nod at a intriguing side couple who ended up being mere set dressing. And there is also actual ON SCREEN mpreg. 2x. (Which broke Tumblr.) Plus China aired this by distributing through Hong Kong to a Taiwanese platform and if that isn't How Dare levels of malarkey I don't know what is. Wild times we live in.
I went tf OFF on this show. But yeah, I really did also love it.
A remake of 2015's Falling in Love with a Rival (AKA Counter Attack). From China ON Taiwan's GAGA distributed via Singapore? What alt-reality is 2025?
The story of a scrappy street urchin who, in order to get revenge on his ex-girlfriend, decides to seduce her current boyfriend. The boys fall in love but that's just the beginning. There’s also a side couple made up of their respective best friends, one of whom is a doctor.
The friendships are as important as the romances in this show, one of which is a blatantly queer quasi frenamies and the other of which is the "how to be gay" trope. The entire shows' love language is manipulation, and everybody is both good-looking and adorable. There’s a lot of "who falls first, who falls harder?" But they all fall very hard in the end.
My feelings? This was a GREAT BL and I enjoyed it partly because of the online enthusiasm for it, somewhat mitigated by the unpleasant "will it won’t it" tension around cancellation.
But something like this cannot be divorced from its time. And that’s part of my complex emotions with this one. If China hadn’t undergone such severe censorship over the past decade, we would’ve gotten shows like this sooner and those shows would have evolved. This is a peak BL… for 2019. We’re not in 2019 but I kind of feel like I have to rate Revenged Love as if we were.
Consequently it gets a 9/10, but it's for BL fans only, I wouldn't recommend this not non-drinkers of the pink milk.
Tumblr lost it's mind over this show. It will be The Show of 2025 going forward. Much as KinnPorsche was The Show of 2022.
Paranormal suspense-ish story about a prophetic fortune teller and a hot doctor. I think JimmySea are a solid pair who have been given short shrift on prior shows, but this one was great for a GMMTV throw-away.
Essentially, the psychic and the doctor whose life is threatened must team up to prevent his death. There are traumatic backstories and family drama, and a tasty cop/doctor side dish (who I could’ve used a bit more from). I enjoyed all the sinister characters, mild scenery chewing and the easy to digest plot.
It was a touch simplistic but that just forced everything to lean on the romance, and JimmySea shouldered that burden with aplomb, resulting in a low stress enjoyable light meal. Everyone seemed to know this brief and satisfied it. This one isn't going to make waves but it's a solid offering, easy for me to recommend, and rewatch.
This one didn't get much attention, and I am sad about that. But also I'm a JimmySea stan these days, and I think that accounts for 1/2 of why I enjoyed it so much.
A true BL lakorn about an established actor murdered on his big night who wakes up in his own pre-fame past and falls into the arms of the man who may have been there all along.
A strong lead pair, on point with both acting and chemistry, beautifully shot with a tight script, stunning tender sex scenes, no consent issues, a good dose of cheesy obsessed seme, and some scenery chewing evil makes this one of our best modern Thai BLs. This was an easy 9/10. Also, it's gotta be said, the lighting in this show was off the hook.
You should watch it. Any BL fan should watch it. It's great.
This one did get some attention (enough to juice the pair into brand deals) but here that was mostly for the fantastic NC scenes. And yes, they are Very Good. And very well lit.
AKA Khemjira Spirit Reborn AKA Kemjira Will Survive
The story of a boy laboring under a curse, haunted by ghosts and demons, who’s family, friends, and (eventual) lover all try to help him via spiritual and physical means. While very much a horror BL (not my genre), I’m very glad that I gave this a chance. This is a diaphanous magical BL of the kind that only really comes along once a year these days - with more lingering notes of I Feel You Linger in the Air than any actual gay horror I could name.
It’s not going in my personal rewatch rotation (which is why it's so low on this list), but I admire its (and its actor's) otherworldly beauty, stylish NC scenes, cultural relevancy, and elegant execution and impact. Full review here.
In a year where China DOMINATED the BL discourse, this was the Thai BL that managed to rise to the top of ThBL. And it deserved all the credit it got.
The son of a policeman tries to solve his father’s murder and uncovers an underground boxing ring. He gets involved with a champion boxer along the way. This is a solid story with near perfect casting, charming leads and excellent chemistry. The fight scenes are great, specially if you like Muay Thai, and it’s pretty well balanced in terms of plot and romance. Even if that plot is… wild.
High marks all around for this unexpectedly fun little show. But I have to say, it is carried by Keen, who may be one of the greatest main characters we’ve had in a really long time. Plucky, tough, smart, kind, sweet, loving, loyal, and explicitly very gay. While I am not sure it will get many rewatches from me because of the violence, it gets extra credit for such a remarkably un-BL main character.
Probably the only one I put on here knowing it should be getting an 8/10. But Keen is SO GOOD. It's had to get a 9/10 from me. But I understand why others won't be ranking it that high.
Incidentally, this means that for me Gaga was by far the best value subscription platform of the year. It also remains the cheapest (and was running a big end of year deal). So it stands as statistically my top recommendation to keep, if you're sub-cutting right now. Especially if you are not a huge fan of Thai BL.
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