Are we experiencing a BL wave? The Data
Waves by Country
Thai BL is growing exponentially.
In 2020 they increase their output from 2019 by 1/3, which in turn was a 1/4 more than 2018, which was 1/4 more than 2017, and so forth. If they continue at the 2021 pace for the rest of this year they’ll have increased by 1/3 again. If you chart starting in 2014 it’s a darn near perfect exponential growth curve.
Now THAT’S a wave.
Korea looks like they’re ramping up production.
Discounting microfilms, they only produced 4 BLs between 2006-2019. Then in 2020 they did 3 and now they’ve already done 4 this year and it’s only first quarter.
But it is kinda out of nowhere. So maybe more an ice-bucket dumping than a wave?
The Philippines & Vietnam are the newest to the scene, only entering the market in the last few years, increasing steady in output but too young to predict.
The Philippines is growing its production much faster than Vietnam, but losing quality. They are tending towards longer series of lower production values. Gameboys and My Day might have been their best offerings.
It’s a wave, but is it surf-able?
Vietnam is clearly ramping up production, but also production values, and leaning towards shorter runs, like Korea. I think this is a smarter choice for a nascent film industry. IMHO Vietnamese BL has also been improving steadily.
Not great yet, but consistently not awful, either.
Baby wave.
Not Waves
Taiwan has not increased output at all.
They spiked in 2017 and have been holding steady since then at 2-3 BLs a year (ranging in length). Don’t mistake the popularity of WBL for a wave, although if we are really lucky it might cause one.
(*updated they just announced 2 more this year, so maybe we are getting lucky!)
Japan is confusing.
They had a consistent pattern since 2007 of 2-4 a year. Then last year they suddenly did 7, yet this year ... crickets ... just Absolute BL and that doesn’t really count. Also no announcements or rumors of manga adaptations. It’s very odd.
Ripples, maybe?
The number of Chinese BLs has gone steadily down since 2016.
*this is my shocked face*
I’d put in pretty graphs but I’m too darn lazy to battle excel.
*final wave*
This is based on data from 2020. I intend to do end of year trend wrap ups including this data going forward.
(source)