BL Ratings

This show will probably forever and always be my favorite. It is flawless. Wei Ying and Lan Zhan will forever live rent free in my mind. 

My one complaint regarding this show is the weird Yin Iron plotline that has nothing to do with the original source material, but I can also understand why it was done when adapting MDZS into a drama.

Get you someone who looks at you like Wen Kexing looks at Zhou Zishu. I love them, your honor.  While this is not super close to the book, it is a fantastic adaptation of the original story.

Also, how the flippity flip flap paddiwhack did this get past censoring?! The showrunners had audacity in spades to present this as a totally hetero tale.

Enemies to lovers done right! In this show, we have a bisexual disaster and a gay autistic boy. The bisexual disaster wants to mess with the baby gay and ends up falling, while the poor little autistic baby just wants to keep to his routine (I can relate). 

I binged the crap out of this show and would probably watch it again.

I know that due to censoring, this show doesn't seem a lot like a BL, but I have been told and read somewhere that the original novel is a BL.

I loved all the characters for the show, and the mysteries in a lot of the episodes. The MLs going from place to place solving mysteries that all tied into the greater plot was amazing! I adored the "villain" character as well, and was happy when the three were all in one place.

I'm pretty sure the couple I was shipping is not the actual couple from the book, though... I'm sorry, but when a guy is as completely obsessed with the ML and his skills as much as that character was, I'm going to ship it. The other ML can be their child. He acted like it a lot of the time.

There is something about this show. I don't know what it is. But it's one that I can't get out of my head. The couples in this drama (there are two, and their stories are not told at the same time, btw) are amazing.

One of my big complaints about BL in general is how toxic and red flaggy it can be. We forget that consent is a thing when it's not straight. Yet somehow these couples seem to make it work in a way that you're still rooting for them the whole way through and appear wholesome.

Honestly? This was freaking adorable. I was kicking my feet and rolling around while watching it. 

Due to a miscommunication ML ran from the boy he had a crush on and hid for years. However, once his crush finds him, he's not willing to let him go. 

One of my favorite Korean BLs. The story was cute (though relationships that start with lies drive me up a wall), and the characters were fun! 

FWB to lovers is not my favorite trope, but BounPrem were freaking adorable in this show, and I was here for all of it. Except the guitar bit. If you've seen it, you know what I'm talking about. I literally couldn't with it and was wishing for it to be over or to die, whichever came first (the scene ended first, btw). 

We did have some of the best consent I've ever seen in a BL drama, which I appreciated a lot. It was very refreshing, and it made me far more invested in their relationship.

This drama was a lot darker than most Korean BLs. It had a very strong indie film feel, and was really interesting. It covered some darker themes that you don't usually see and the focus on mental health and depression was actually fantastic.

I think the one weakness of this show was that it was a little too slow at times. There were too many completely stationary scenes that broke the momentum of the show.

This story was great because of how well it addressed a lot of toxic BL tropes. There were multiple instances where characters pointed out the toxic fan behavior, the fan service, or the non-consensual issues that BL is infested with.  

While the love interest was a little toxic and obnoxious at times, and the ML wouldn't know open communication if it bit him on the butt, they made for a cute couple. 

My biggest complaint about Korean BL is that it's never long enough. However, this show actually managed to have a full story arc, which I'm happy about. Could it have still been longer to truly develop the plot? Absolutely. But it did a pretty decent job.

That said, not a whole lot happened once the couple got together. The Big Problem was easily solved, and involved nothing too taxing emotionally. However, we appreciate a ML who realized that he had behaved in a red flag way and regretted it immediately. 

This was a very cute show. It falls into the trap that most Korean BLs do, which is, too little time to truly develop the storyline, but it was satisfying enough and very, very adorable.

I think this story was full of plot holes, but I was really interested in the secondary couple. They were interesting.

I only watched season 1 of this show. Reviews for season 2 were not complementary, and I decided not to put myself through that.

Despite the rocky start to this show (Tharn, seriously bro? That was not cool. We must always get consent. Got it?), the MLs did manage to create a cute couple. Type needs to learn to control his temper, because Tharn does not deserve to be treated so terribly, but he did show growth throughout the show. 

I was shocked by the villain of the show. I picked up on part of it, but not nearly all the twists, and was sitting there with my mouth hanging open as it all went down. 

Now, did I make the mistake of watching Between Us first? Yup! Which meant I was very confused about what was happening with Dean and Parm. However, I did enjoy their show. My biggest complaint was the amount of angst in it. It was over-the-top angsty a little more angsty than I generally enjoy. 

I had a few eyeroll moments when the plot took very dramatic (and predictable) turns, but overall, I liked it.

One of the good things about Korean BLs is that they tend to be more light hearted and cute. However, the problem is that they are so short that you really don't have enough time for character development or even full story arcs. Which really hurts them in ratings! Sometimes I'll start a drama, and I can see that the story would be amazing, if only it had a little more time. 

I thought we were going to have a sad ending for a sec. While this ended very cute, there really wasn't much of a plot. 

The couple in this drama were pretty good together. They balanced each other well and besides one instance of one of them stripping the other while he was asleep, there was nothing non-consensual (and to be fair, he'd passed out in a puddle, so it would make sense for him to get changed), which was very refreshing. 

Storywise, however, the plot was lacking. I thought we were going to have a serious mystery, and everything just seemed like it was solved way too easily or was very predictable. So most of the rating for this is based on the relationship, which didn't even really get started until the second half of the show. 

This show has so many problems, and yet I watched it all and enjoyed it. A relationship begun on hatred and blackmail probably shouldn't last, but dang it if I wasn't rooting for them from the very beginning. They still lost a lot of stars for the red flags that were being thrown out on the field left and right.

Speaking of red flags........ These boys have more red flags than all of the people on Bachelor in Paradise season 9 (and that's saying something). The story was predictable and nothing special, but the chemistry between Kinn and Porsche was definitely there. 

I genuinely did adore Kinn's character (Porsche was a little idiot who gave me second hand embarrassment every time he turned around), and I thought his character arc was interesting. 

When you promise me enemies to lovers, I don't expect a sappy show where the enemies part lasts barely a third. There was really nothing dangerous about this romance. There just so happened to be debt collectors in a side plot that only affected the main plot at the very end (also, a Thai drama with debt collectors?! Definitely on my bingo card). 

This drama was alright. I'm not saying that because I'm not used to hearing Japanese (though that did throw me for a bit of a loop at first). The MLs, while adorable in their own right, didn't have amazing chemistry. The plot itself felt a little contrived and the romance seemed a bit forced. Friends to lovers is not my favorite kind of trope, but when done well, it can be adorable. There was a little adorableness in this show, but not enough.

Also, if I had a penny for every time one of the secondary characters said "did you tell him that" to one of the leads, I would... have about five cents? Miscommunication is NOT a superior trope, and I will stand on that hill until the day I die.

Seven different stories are told in this drama, most of which are BL, one is GL, and I think one was straight.  These short stories had potential, but I think they were too rushed to really feel truly alive. I don't think really any of these couples are going to survive longer than a year. 

I was also really disappointed in the GL episode. We so rarely get GL content, and the way it ended was not a win for the gays. 

BounPrem were really not enough to save this show from meh-ness. The plot was horribly contrived, and the relationship unbelievable. That said, the chemistry between BounPrem is always great.

This show needed to be far longer. The amount of plot they had was much more than the runtime allowed for. Not that the plot was all that logical. There were so many plot holes. If they were planning on having a show this short, then they needed to only have one couple, not two. 

The enemies to lovers for the first couple was not done well. Unlike Semantic Error, you really can't feel the push and pull with them at all. The second couple were more interesting, but they weren't given nearly enough time to even develop. They went from B1 likes girl, B2 is dating girl, B1 is mad about it, B2 kisses B1, then they're in love but not accepting it? 

There were some cute moments, but overall, there just wasn't enough time for the plot and characters to truly develop. Great promise, poor execution.

This was really nothing special. The chemistry was non-existent, the pacing was off, and the romance was hard to believe in. Both of the leads looked like they wanted to be anywhere else rather than making any sort of physical contact with each other. 

I was more interested in the villain of the show. He was interesting, and I wish he could've had his own spinoff where he ended up happy. I was only really interested in the plot when he was on the screen.

This was so awful. I didn't like it. There was ONE good character, and he did not deserve to die.

When I started this drama, I was furious and begging Yoh to leave him. As the show progressed, I kept hoping for character development that would allow me to root for these two. Alas, I did not get any sort of satisfaction. This was such a red flaggy relationship! They are both emotionally abusive toward each other. Yoh refuses to be happy, and Segasaki is controlling manipulative. Both of them refuse to have a civil conversation where someone doesn't purposely misunderstand something.

We almost got to a healthier dynamic in the later episodes, only to revert to the controlling, abusive behavior at the end. The only reason this wasn't a 1 star was because these two deserve each other.

Red flags upon red flags in this one. I didn't make it all the way through. Rak was a cute character, but the way he attracted only men who were red flags made it painful. His ex sexually assaulted him, and then Dino is the jealous, possessive type that will smother all life out of you. I just couldn't make it through the whole show.

I can't believe I finished this. I know this show was supposed to be making fun of all the BL tropes, but it was so cringey I could barely finish it. 

I made it like halfway through this show before I quit. I just couldn't keep going. The only possibly good person in the entire show was Mew, and everyone else was horrible and using everyone else. I was also rooting for another of the couples, but they just kept being stupid, and it annoyed me too much.

Minor spoiler alert: 

Once Top did the thing with Boston, I couldn't keep going. Mew was so trusting and hopeful about their relationship, and Top did not deserve him.