The Rise of Verticals & BL
So this is in response to an ask from @poscardigan ... blame them.
They asked about QL but, so far, I haven't seen anything but BL in vertical format, so I'm gonna go with that. This may change, of course, and I could be missing a few QL and/or GL verticals, but for now, I'm sticking to my wheelhouse which is BL. (It's in my handle, after all.)
Vertical Micro Dramas In (not so) Brief
The origin of the current industrial level production of serialized episodic verticals aka micro-dramas (and certainly the current highest producer/consumer base) is Mainland China.
They exploded in popularity during the Pandy as a high-revenue generator that could be produced within a closed ecosystem (small cast, confined location, tiny crew). Coincidentally, the Pandy is also when Thai BL started to explode for similar reasons (including a trapped audience hungry for sensory input). Verticals, however, focus on content tailored to mobile consumption, BLs, thus far, have not. (It wasn't until Spring of 2025 that western news outlets (Washington Post, Guardian, Hollywood Reporter, Fast Company et al) began to report on this tsunami.
China remains the largest producer of verticals by a landslide. Chinese data is difficult to get hold of but last reports (as told by CCP) suggested a 7 billion revenue in 2024. That 7 billion is based mainly on apps (leaders include TikTok/Douyin, Kuaishou, WeChat Mini/Tencent) with a pay-to-play or tokens model (as opposed to the advertising/sponsorship model that is the bread-and-butter Mama Noodles of Thai BL). While other countries are jumping into the fray (DramaBox from Singapore and ReelShort from USA also China backed) China absolutely dominates.
The film industry, on the main, is being shaken by the avalanche of content coming out of Zhejiang, Zhengzhou, and Xi'an City. No one is really talking about it tho, because, frankly, they don't know what to do about it.
What Thailand is to BLs, China is to romance verticals, only massively scaled up.
Chinese verticals are rapid-fire, low-budget, highly dramatic stories (usually romances), hung entirely on a lose flailing of tropes - likes laundry off one of those octopus clothes hangers in a stiff breeze.
It reminds me a lot of 2014-2018 BL.
These verticals are commonly het romances in an office setting that glorify abuse, dub-con, and aggressive enforcement of a patriarchal agenda. Although occasionally they flip the script with something subversive (older woman younger man, gasp) or knkie. They are mixed in terms of decent chemistry and high heat for the lead pair. There can be historical elements, a rebirth narrative, and magical realism.
Essentially these are short form soap operas or telenovelas with actual endings. These are limited-run serials of only a few minutes each that repeat information regularly, designed to cater to short attention spans. They use (and reuse) the same plot points, motifs, characters, archetypes, actors, crew, settings, and costumes. Which is why they so often feel like the same show over and over again.
Behind the scenes they use confined sets, limited locations, small casts, and short production schedules (very like Korean BL). On average, verticals take less the 10 days to film (which reminds me that Semantic Error famously took only 2 weeks). They require limited resources, staff, post production, and budget.
Xi'an City is an interesting case as its evolving to specialize in full-chain production. They're likely to go all in on AI soon.
For lack of any other way of putting it, these are mass-produced Temu dramas. (I will note, for the record, they often suffer from similar issues in terms of labor abuse, unpaid talent, poor working conditions, no unionization, and so forth. Which I believe you can tell from the quality of the dramas, much as you can tell from the quality of that plastic Shein shirt.)
Corners are being cut. All the corners. There are no corners left. It's like the props in Battlestar Galactica.
Oh AND they steal IP rampantly, including popular IP from other countries which they remake into verticals. Japan and Korea are popular targets. (Which we know Japan, in particular, absolutely hates.)
Which is not to say some of these verticals aren't entertaining and enjoyable. Just, ya'know, kinda crappy in all ways.
I have only seen a few vertical BLs in Mandarin. Oddly (or maybe not?) only comboed on YT. No idea where it sprung from... so to speak. The current state of C-micro production is 3 prong (Zhejiang, Zhengzhou, Xi'an) and it is highly unlikely they'd dare film anything queer in those ecosystems/locations.
No one will say where Revenged Love was filmed but ABO Desire was primarily filmed in Taiwan and Hong Kong, and Love After Addiction in Taiwan.
With no where to film and get away with it, I doubt we will see many Chinese vertical BLs. But then I never anticipated the return of CBLs either and one Revenged Love later... here we are.
Off the bat I should say that there are not a ton of QLs in the vertical space at all. From anywhere. Partly this is our fault. Most QL watchers are on YT and prefer horizontal, so cheap content producers have opted for pulps that cater to us horizontal watchers, but that could change.
Just because there isn't a QL vertical audience being catered to, doesn't mean there isn't a QL vertical audience at all.
Neither Hong Kong nor Taiwan is currently set up for verticals, although it wouldn't be impossible to convert production in either place, it's not happened yet.
Taiwan is pretty careful never to take on any aspect of the Mandarin language film industry already dominated by China. In other words, Taiwan has (sensibly) no interest in directly competing with the Mainland for eyeballs in a film arena that Mainland already dominates, like Wuxia or... het verticals. And they're unlikely to set up a vertical ecosystem JUST to corner the (comparatively tiny) market on QL verticals, although that may not be a bad idea...
They also don't have the capacity in terms of revenue. Everything in the chain is much more expensive in Taiwan, and the thing that makes verticals most appealing (low production cost) is not in play in Taiwan.
Thus, I don't anticipate Taiwan entering the fray at all.
Be hella fun if they did tho.
There are comparatively few verticals from Thailand, but these are indeed mostly BL. But by comparison to Thailand's normal BL production levels, it's peanuts.
If you want an idea what's out there, there are several on iQIYI. Just got to the "Shorts" section and sort by country of origin. A few have also dropped on YouTube and TikTok. (Weirdly Thailand is putting out a lot of teacher/student dynamics in the vertical space.)
Bound to My Brother's Fiancé (YouTube) is probably one of the most Chinese verticals Thailand has ever made gay. It hits every trope, just BL style. And more recent offering My Boss, My Love, My Stepbrother! (iQIYI) is doing the same. Finally, Poison Rose (iQIYI) appears to be an actual one-for-one "only gay and in Thai" remake of the C-vertical of the same name on the same platform... Which is WILD.
In stark contrast to Korea (which we will talk about soon) and rather surprising to me,
Thailand's vertical BLs are more like gay versions of C-verticals than they are Thai BLs in vertical format.
Check out Marry a CEO (iQIYI) if you wanna understand what I mean by that.
Because marriage is legal in Thailand, they can pretty much do all the same C-vertical tropes. (Except perhaps secret baby. And I wouldn't put it past them to try that soon.)
Thailand with it's lakorn background keeps trying to straddle the divide with their BL verticals, making them more melodramatically soapy, and while I don't mind that, I think that it is the wrong tactic.
In trying to please both the verticals audience and the BL audience they are, in classic fashion, satisfying neither.
(I feel like currently airing Yesterday is kinda like a prestige version of these shows.)
At last gasp Vietnam actually produced a few vertical BLs (now they're not doing anything much) like The Servant and the Young Master. Which were about on par with their regular BL stuff in terms of quality and style.
There are a VERY few from Japan (30 Days Until You Become a Prince and Beyond Childhood Friends are the only ones I've seen). Which is a shame because I think they could have fun with this format but... never have expectations of Japan and never expect them to follow trends.
I have no idea if they will enter the fray in any significant way. And if they did, would it be with queer stuff? Never make predictions of Japan either.
I do know they are v annoyed by China stealing their IP for verticals, and they could blame the whole format for this misbehavior.
Some of the first vertical BLs to come on my radar were out of Korea. The fact is Korea just doesn't produce a ton of queer content in general, but it feels like they are pivoting towards pulps these days, and verticals are a kind of pulp. (Possibly the ult-pulp).
Also, never forget Korea's queer content production started early and it started SHORT, they have associated QL with short form for almost 20 years now. Verticals should seem like a comfortable move for them on all levels.
Thus Korea is the country that I would look to to dominate the vertical sphere in BL, if anyone is gonna.
KBLs are already ideally suited to being short form verticals. They already do many of the things necessary for survival in this space: small cast, closed filming locations, and fast filming times. In fact, we are already seeing KBL pulps on YouTube from studios like Lovememory, True Film, QueerDeep, and Strongberry (how the mighty have fallen). I'm frankly a little startled these are not verticals.
Still Korea seems to be leading the charge with BL verticals. They are doing a lot with the stepbrothers trope too, I'm not mad about that. Here is a selection of the ones I enjoyed (so much as I would use that word with a vertical show).
Falling For My Boss (2024) was the first vertical BL I remember watching and enjoying, about a happy-go-unlucky man who keeps losing flower-shop business because of romantically misbehaving employees (apparently it's a thing). When his best employee brings in a new boy, he's worried she's falling for him, but it turns out it's his own heart on the line. Boss is a clueless softy and The Boy is a lost broken sweetheart, making this a gentle little snippet of a show. There's a baby linguistic negotiation, some hung-slinging, awkward handholds, and everyone is very pretty. The absence of kisses and the vertical format were more annoying than the length, which felt fine to me but many others found too short. I enjoyed the 30 minutes of cute, even broken into 30 episodes.
The Killer Next Door (2025) features the "be gay do crimes" trope staring N of VIXX so I had to watch it. Ex-baseball player down on his luck, learns the guy he's shacked up with is a serial killer. Oh, and falls in love with him. It's not good. It's not bad either. But did you miss the bit where N kisses a boy?
Summer Indigo (2025) About a kid in a judo club who starts an online relationship with an older boy. Turns out that older boy is also the star of the club. So this is a sports BL with a catfish element, and there’s also some mistaken identity, bullying, hazing and abuse (althogh not within the context of the relationship which is very sweet and protective). There’s also homophobia. This show is decidedly not in the KBL bubble, so we are in FC Soldout meets 8th Sense territory. As a couple they are incredibly cute and the story was well acted and absorbing. As none of the triggers in this were mine, I actually really enjoyed it. I don't recommend a vertical BL often, but I liked this one. One of the better things to come out of Korea in 2025, actually.
No Dating in Boarding School (2025) I really enjoyed this one and you will too if you like uni BL and its component tropes and quirks. The story of shy studious Jinwoo who gets sucked into the drama of rebellious rich kid Eunhyeok at a boarding cram school. They fall in love despite their own, and everyone else's, objections.
Half of Me (2026) is a classy little vertical (I can't believe I typed those words either) about an office lackey who suddenly finds himself spending his nights working and his days in the body of a high school student whose teacher is his first crush. A little mystery unfolds along with a second chance at love. This was a cute reunion romance with a magical realism twist. Fun watch, I recommend it.
KBL verticals play more like BLs made in a vertical format than C-verticals that just happen to be gay.
Thus, as a BL fan, it should also make sense why I tend to like them best.
But will a vertical audience?
How popular are BL verticals?
But this is an interesting question.
Verticals are designed to appeal to a very specific demographic. How does that map against the demos of the average BL consumer? Hard to know of certain.
It's difficult to tell from within the fandom here on tumblr because we are notoriously anti vertical. BUT this could change. Especially if we got some really good performances. Or if we suddenly got hundreds of really crappy SUPER toxic vertical BLs of a style designed to appeal to very particular tastes.
MAME should start a vertical studio. She could RULE that space.
Where do I see verticals going?
I actually do see verticals coming to dominate the media landscape especially for specific genres (het romance) and demographics (Asia, female identified).
When it comes to BL, I'm genuinely not sure.
Our curse (and sometimes our blessing) is that despite our little echo-chamber here on this hellsite and the occasional outsized success of something like KinnPorsche or Heated Rivalry, we consumers of BL are not a very large market share (by comparison to the hets).
The fact that Thailand essentially developed a whole industry to cater to us is a marker of their desperation (particularly during the Pandy) not our consumer power. No offense.
I expect to see verticals continue their meteoric rise and then I expect to see this format largely taken over by AI generated content. And I think this will be within only a few years.
After that, who knows what will happen?
However, I do not expect to see a sudden surge in vertical BLs (although I also wouldn't be shocked if it happened).
And... yes we are getting AI generated BL but, interestingly enough, it's on YouTube. And since AI is a manifestation of ult-algorithm, it's interesting that horizontal is the format it's being released in.
Hi p’abl! You’ve mentioned having watched vertical dramas- do you expect the popularity of such content to increase in the ql space and how do you expect this new format to take over or shape the media landscape when it comes to ql (or maybe even in general)? Just wanted to know your thoughts on the vertical format :) (haven’t seen any yet but have been hearing about it)
I have to say this was a very perspicacious ask. Some of you may have registered my floating around time zones recently, and that's because my current contract is out of Asia and tangential to this sphere. Much as I'm personally not into verticals, the industry is certainly paying attention to them.
Noona & Knkie Chinese Verticals I Might Even Admit to Enjoying (with enough sake in me)
These have a flipped het power dynamic where the female is (nominally) in charge:
Desire's Dance, Fate's Chance
But be warned these shows aren't erm ya know good.
origamiaround
annaxmalina
turnnoffyourmind
dailybridgerton
pixelskylines
baratheonpilled
snowghoul
