Looking through a lot of the throwaway BL posts I make on tumblr has made me realise that I fall into the trap of talking about my top 5 -6 BLs whenever I have to make a point [ esp in tag games ]. Which was kinda depressing when I realised it. So to make amends I've decided to rec 3 of my most underrated BL's because I need to remind myself that I can talk about something other than ITSAY and YNEH
While it may seem counterintuitive to start an underrated BL round up with SOTUS ; I do genuinely feel that even though SOTUS does get its due, we dont give enough attention to its sequel ? Honestly at times I loved SOTUS S even more than I loved the original.
Of course it has its negatives. After all, despite KongPob being extremely anti ragging in SOTUS we end up with him becoming the head of the hazing squad in SOTUS S with Arthit passing the baton down to his boyfriend [ in a very bizarro queering of a conservative trope] as the head of the squad.
However, outside of this very weird character transformation, SOTUS S does what very few sequels manage to do : progress the romance in a believable way. In so many BLs the entire conceit is about the couple falling in love and getting together. And once we have the big kiss and sweeping declaration of love , there isnt really anything more to dissect in the storyline. Which is why a lot of sequels have fallen flat on their face ; because the inbuilt tension of "getting together" does a lot of the heavy lifting when we are watching a couple fall in love for the first time.
This still remains one of my favorite first kisses ever though☺️☺️
SOTUS S however manages to nail its storyline as a sequel. Kong Pob and Arthit have so many new challenges to face. From the fact that they have less time for each other because Arthit has started working and Kong is still in college to how Arthit struggles with communication and emotional vulnerability [ which has never been his strong suit ] and the effect that has on Kong Pob who is quite emotionally open from the get go , SOTUS S does a good job of predicting the very real problems that Kong Pob and Arthit would face and have them have very understandable reactions to those problems. No one is a flawless boy friend here. Arthit messes up communicating many times with Kong Pob and we get to see how It makes him feel excluded and at the periphery of his boyfriends life. Kong Pob gets annoyed and hurt even as he tries to be understanding. Both of them end up pushing the person they love away, even if its done unknowingly.
However we also see Arthit try very very hard to break out of the patterns his behaviour naturally falls into. Kong Pob tries to involve Arthit in his career and personal decisions when he realizes that he ends up taking unilateral decisions many a time. And both of them have to learn to figure out the paradigm of their relationship now that theyre out of college and no longer have their senior-junior framing to fall back on.
No one here is perfect but thats also why SOTUS S works. Both of them remain very believably flawed but at the core of them you can see the care and love that they have for each other. SOTUS S asks what happens when young puppy love has to grow into a workaday adult love and honestly, it was an astonishingly beautiful thing to watch as it aired. I remember watching it and having so much hope for the future . For my future. That some day I too would be able to navigate a life for myself with the love of my life , even when the odds seemed to be against us. That we would be able to make a space for us in a world that seemed determined not to give us an inch.
SOTUS S is quietly extraordinary because it gives us what many other queer shows havent been able to : the belief that our lived realities can be just as extraordinary as our fairytale "endings" And for that I will always love it.
I truly love these two . like seriously 😭😭
Any BL whose meet cute is this random, honestly deserves to be watched just to see where they'll go with it. 😂😂
Perfect propose slots into the grander genre of Japanese media that talks very eloquently about burnout and how to make a life in the midst of this capitalistic hellscape we live in. Just like Bansan blues did recently , Perfect propose shows us how people are ground down to dust by the capitalist machinery that exists all around us . And it shows us how there is so much more to life than Work. That our lives have meaning not because of our bank statements but because of the people who save us , day in and day out. The community we create. The partners we come home to. The friends we keep through hell and high water. That these are what make a life worth living.
But while Bansan blues focuses more on the community and friendship of it all , Perfect Propose uses the scaffolding of this idea to tell a quietly beautiful love story.
Hirokuni is your everyday overworked over anxious salaryman who hasn't had a decent meal or a good nights sleep ever since he started his job. At the most rundown point of his life , he serendipitously meets Kai, a kid he knew from back home who has now grown up into a monosyllabic , dour introvert who keeps rolling his eyes at everything Hirokuni does. Realizing that Kai has no where to live because his boss has fallen sick and had to shut down the restaurant he worked at , Hiro invites him to live with him. Which leads to Kai trying to make it up to him by taking care of the house and Hiro in turn.
Perfect propose is a very quiet drama about two unremarkable people. The type of people that you remember only as kind co workers or helpful neighbours ... people who give texture to your life without being flashy or cool. Hiro and in his own way, Kai are unfailingly good and kind people who are propelled in all things, by a strong sense of duty and morality. You root for them even if theyre not the sort of characters that command a room when they walk into it. You root for them because you know that good and kind people deserve to get their happily ever after even in the face of insurmountable odds.
And when they finally do, the world feels like a better place because of it.
So ..this is omegaverse BL.
And while that seems like an excuse to just have a lot of over detailed smut ....Tadaima Okaeri instead stands out for how adorable it is. Its a story about two people who went against the grain of society and fell in love , trying to raise their son in a world that tries to remind them they are lesser than at every turn. This is a story of two people who fight for each other and their family at ever turn and my God , you'll be crying your eyes out with every episode.
I dont know if there was an underrated BL tag game going around but if there wasnt im tagging a couple of people [ mainly cause i really do want to know what they think ☺️☺️]: @mewsthumbring, @nutcasewithaknife, @hushedstars, @baseballmomlesbiandad , @lost-my-sanity1, @greenteadumplings and @chordassinationtechnique. Feel free to skip it if you've already done something similar,and if anyone else wants to go for it please tag me so I can see what you end up writing about ☺️
