2024 BL - Top 10 Trend Report
In last year's trend report I said:
"I think Taiwan has the chops to give us something as good as The 8th Sense or Old Fashion Cupcake but in their style, and I would like to see them exercise their talent for good rather than just profit."
And Unknown happened.
I asked for it, they gave it to me. I could not be more happy. So anyway, I just wanted to crow a bit.
And now...
2024's TRENDS!
1 Trope Subversion Levels Up
My Stand In went so far as to subvert the whole damn romance genre. But in general we saw a lot of BL recognizing, highlighting and calling out it's own absurdities and tropes. From Korea commenting on the Dead Fish Kiss to Wandee Gooodday actually promoting green flag behavior (the real deal).
It was an interesting year for meta commentary, it kind of whole scale left parody behind (say goodbye, Japan) and entered almost every BL from Thailand, even the ones who should have left it alone. (Side eyes Mame.)
2 Old Tropes Revisited
Unknown revisited the step-brother trope (as did Addicted Heroin of course). But there were other old ones we haven't seen in ages, like kidnapping for love, kissing on rooftops, and all the dub con (Blossom). Love Sick rebooted with very little modernization (except where it counted) right up to and including no kisses. Mix Up even did "trapped on the rooftop" which I haven't seen in over a decade.
And then Wimpy dropped. And it felt like I was reading yaoi in my tiny attic bedroom in the 90s.
3 BL Enters All the Workplaces
I love how many adult leads and sides we are getting, even from Thailand. By which I mean, BL outside of a school setting. We still have high school and university set stuff, but that used to be ALL we got. I don't mind school settings, but I like that we have some kind of balance going on these days.
We are starting to get not just cubicles and offices (as Japan foretold) but all kinds of workplaces from retail to authors to the film industry.
4 BL Passes the Sniff Test
He smells good has always been a trope that I love. It was one of my favorite things about Bad Buddy. But this year it felt like every third BL trotted this one out. I was delighted by it. Of course I was. But it happened A LOT.
Century of Love was a key use of it since smell is so coupled to memory, I thought they dealt with it particularly well. But even Japan and Korea deployed the sniff test.
(Seoul Blues)
(Blue Boys) Same actors, different characters.
Pitt Babe
Century of Love
Meet You at the Blossom
Soul Blues
Blue Boys
Dangerous Romance
This Love Doesn't Have Long Beans
Cosmetic Playlover
Sunset X Vibes
Monster Next Door
Secret Love
Perfect 10 Liners (technically a 2025 show, but the sniff happened in 2024)
5 Fewer Shipper Characters within BL
Negative trends are always harder to call (it's easier to track the presence of something over the absence) but I'm still calling this one.
In a discussion of The Shipper @heretherebedork and I got into a discussion about this. It really seems like both we are getting less "female shipper" characters and/or they are evolving into overly interested but very supportive female friends instead. Softening, if you will.
I think partly this is because there has been a general decline in this archetype in yaoi over the past 5-10 years, but also they tend to incur pretty bad reactions in fans, and Thailand (especially) tends to pay attention to that kind of thing.
Unfortunately this also means we are seeing a worsening of the "no female representation at all" backbone of BL. We Are, which I loved, didn't have a single female character. Not even a throw away.
6 The rise of the green flag seme!
The seme (active attacker in the relationship) got a lot of green flag action this year. We saw lots of Dommy boys, Daddy types, and players asking for permission, trying to communicate, talking about safe sex. Particularly out of Thailand.
To make sure this is clear, green flag means he communicates about the relationship and sex, takes no for an answer, asks for permission for (almost) everything, and doesn't do things like (just spitballing here) take a hotel room key and go into the other mans private room when he's not around (or asleep). Okay? Christ on a cracker. (When it comes to flags Mame has red/green colorblindness.)
Some examples:
Alan from Pit Babe
God from Monster Next Door (except for the one journal reading incident)
Sun from Sunset X Vibes (almost too far)
Yak from Wandee Goodday
Latte from Knock Knock Boys
7 Japan Came to PLAY
Japan came to play and will not leave the field that they built. I may not always like JBL, but when I love it, I REALLY LOVE IT, and when it hits it hit hard (pain or joy). And even when I don't like it, it always gives me a lot to think about.
We had 19 JBLs in 2024:
Sahara-sensei to Toki-kun
At 25:00, in Alaska
Dominant Yakuza and Wimpy Corporate Slave
I Became the Main Role of a BL
Love in the Air: Koi no Yokan
Takara's Treasure
Although I Love You and You
I Hear the Sunspot
Living With Him
Love is Better the Second Time Around
Love is Like a Poison
Perfect Propose
Cosmetic Playlover
Sugar Dog Life
0.5D
Let's Eat Together Aki and Haru 2
Mitsuya-sensei no keimakutekina ezuke
Happy of the End
Ossans Love Season 2
Japan had 18 total BLs in 2023.
17-15 in 2022 (a couple I couldn't get hold of and a couple I just don't think are BL, so 2022 is vague).
7 in 2021. <- THAT was when the big jump occurred, 3 years ago. Which might have more to do with the pandemic than anything else.
But back to now: 19 in 2024 means they are actually just increasing their production gradually and in a steady way, as might be expected. In round numbers we didn't see anything unusual.
BUT
The series they've been airing in 2024 are running longer (for them) and being aired over longer periods of time. Not to mention getting better and quicker distribution.
By which I mean, Japan used to have more shorts and movies, less actual series with full run times (by their & Korea's BL industry length standard) on streaming platforms. So I think it's JBL runtime and distribution that is experiencing real growth. And the consistency of that runtime.
In other words, it feels like there are more JBL airing because we have access to most of them (for a change) and they're running long enough to cross into each other (which has been rare in the past).
What's almost more interesting to me is...
8 What the hell happened, Korea?
Korea cut back on their BLs in 2024. I am not sure if that's money drying up, a crack down within the industry over there, the political situation, or something else.
Still, it was wild to see such a stark fall off in production. They had 18 BLs in 2024 but fully half of them were shorts, and more than half were poor production quality than is prior standard. By contrast they had 21 in 2023, but only 1 was a short, and most were very high production (getting 8/10 or higher from me).
Since Korea tends to produce some of my favorite shows, it's no surprise I had no 10/10 BLs at all in 2024 with so little KBL's stepping up to the plate.
I sure hope this isn't a trend but it feels like it might be.
9 Why the hell is the not-kiss back?
Korea doubled down on being a pain in 2024 by bringing back the "they don't actually touch lips and we pretend they did by panning around the back of the head" with the camera. (Jazz for 2 sides, example. Yes, I'm still mad.)
Then Thailand did the with Addicted Heroin. AND with Love Sick.
What is this, 2016?
Color me annoyed. I thought we saw the last of that nonsense with Make It Right.
I remind you all, if they would kiss if they het but they don't kiss when they gay, it smacks of a phobia and I'm salty about it.
Yes yes, there are actor (idol, age) excuses in play. But they should cast differently if this is going to be a problem.
End of discussion.
No really, I don't wanna talk about it. I just want it to go away.
10 The rise of Great Grandmas
We have had cool grandmas before in BL but in 2024 we had so many of them. The Sign, Love for Love’s Sake, Monster Next Door, Jack & Joker, Every You Every Me, The Rebound, Wandee Goodday.
(thanks to @small-dark-and-delicious for bringing this one to my attention)
See the comments for additional discussion of the "why" behind some of these trends as well as a few I missed.
(source)
2023's Trends report here.
