hello and welcome to the pawpyrus bl drama hall of fame. this is a place reserved for only the Best of the Best of bl dramas that i've seen, which is very few and far between, unfortunately.
requirements for membership within this list are as follows:
- 10/10 stars on my drama list
- i sit and say "yeah this deserves to be on the hall of fame list" after i watch it
- after a certain amount of time, i do not realize that 2 was just due to recency bias
- i say so :3
needless to say, i think it's clear that all of these dramas are at the tippy tippy top of all of my recommendations for dramas. if you ask for a recommendation, chances are all of them will be from this list. additional disclaimer: i wrote all of these post midnight so apologies in advance for incoherence and typos!
ok! without further ado, let's get into it! i won't be including a rating in hearts, but just know that all of these are 5/5! be warned, vague spoilers present within!
cherry magic
30 years of virginity
can turn you into a wizard?!
as said in japanese.txt, this is my favorite bl drama of all time. i genuinely believe it to be perfect (nothing is perfect, and neither is this, but it's about as close as i'm ever going to get). again, as mentioned in many of my reviews, i'm a big fan of toxic yaoi. you will not be finding that in here, however.
synopsis
cherry magic is about a virgin named adachi. when he turns thirty years old, he gains the ability to read minds of those he touches. within (what i believe to be) a week, he learns that his perfect coworker, kurosawa, has the softest, cringiest, warmest, fluffiest crush on him. adachi starts to navigate his changing relationship with kurosawa with the help of his mind-reading powers, and ends up falling for kurosawa as well. the show follows him as he learns how to use his powers, and then learns how to give them up.
thoughts !!
at its core, cherry magic is about learning how to love and how to be loved. adachi, the main character, is about as loser as you can ever get. he's never been in a relationship, so he's never learned how to be loved romantically. but of course he suddenly has to face this super hot sexy smart fantastic coworker of his is lovebombing him in his head, which is a less than ideal way to step into the world of dating.
adachi learns throughout the show that he doesn't have to be perfect to be deserving of love, and that he as an individual hold worth and sparks joy just for being who he is. he also learns that it isn't his ability to read minds that makes him deserving of love. in fact, the fact that he can read minds serves (in my opinion) as a metaphor for communication within a relationship. if one person does everything to ensure the other's needs are met without regard for their own, the relationship will fall apart.
it's like adachi says to kurosawa: both people should be having fun on the date, not just one. their relationship should be mutual, which is why the mind-reading is such a point of contention for them. aside from the obvious privacy issues, the fact that adachi was able to read minds meant that he was entirely focused on what kurosawa wanted. only when adachi comes clean about his mind-reading abilities and communicates with kurosawa is their relationship able to progress and deepen.
one of the reasons i love this show so much is because of this emphasis on how important communication is within a relationship. it is my biggest pet peeve in dramas when the main issue is a miscommunication which could be solved with one (1) conversation, so having a show go the complete opposite direction was really refreshing.
the second season (if you can really call it that, i'm pretty sure it was just an additional movie?) was also wonderful. i think it's so funny that they retconned them having sex so they could maintain the mind-reading gimmick and make it hard for adachi to "read" kurosawa long-distance. ooh drama! but anyways i think the second season/movie does really well in continuing the main theme of communication, because adachi is forced to take kurosawa at his word. and! it's practice for when they get freaky freaky for realsies this time, no retcon in sight.
i just really love this show. i think it's wonderful and i've seen it like five times. unfortunately, i have yet to read the manga (woah! crazy! insane!). i really don't have a good reason other than executive dysfunction strikes hard when it comes to manga (my various friends have tried to get me to read various manga over the years to varying degrees of failure). i will, however, one day own the boxset of cherry magic and i will make it everyone's problem. they don't even make a boxset in english! i will own it regardless. they will make it exclusively for me!
the thai adaptation of the manga is also wonderful. while they are different, their differences are able to highlight different aspects of the main themes present within the manga. i wrote an academic paper on this (yes i write about yaoi in my philosophy papers. what about it) that sums it up more succinctly so i'll be linking to it here later probably maybe.
on the topic of adaptations, i'm currently watching the anime adaptation. however, this is very slow going as i was watching it with my roommate. we are currently no longer living together because the semester ended. hopefully soon i will be able to resume because it was very promising :3
woah i typed so much more than i thought i would but that's all folks! at least for now. i'll have more thoughts later probably. anyways, go watch cherry magic! i showed it to my best friend and she didn't like it because there wasn't enough drama. obviously she is not a woman of culture.
eternal yesterday
ah eternal yesterday. i picked up this show on a random tuesday night, thinking it looked innocent enough. i was wrong. at 3am, when i finished it, i was irrevocably changed. i don't recommend reading the synopsis on my drama list, so here's a spoiler-free one instead! where my cherry magic rant discussed spoilers, i will try my best to avoid any for this show, as i believe it's important to the experience to go in blind! despite this, it's hard to talk about this completely spoiler free, so you have been warned.
synopsis
eternal yesterday is a show about mitsuru and koichi, two high schoolers who have opposite personalities. the first episode sets up the dark and somber atmosphere present throughout the whole story. the show follows these two boys as they navigate young love and loss.
thoughts !!
eternal yesterday took me completely by surprise. this show is a masterpiece about love (romantic and familial) and loss, and how you can heal one with the other. the two main characters are very compelling, and i enjoyed watching them develop and change throughout the timeline fuckery and flashbacks the drama utilizes to tell its story.
overall, it's a beautiful story that speaks on the importance of enjoying things while they last, and learning to let go when it's harmful to continue holding on. it covers topics nearly every other bl i've seen doesn't dare touch with a 10-foot-pole, for fear of upsetting the audience with a less-than-happy ending. i'm thankful that eternal yesterday filled a niche i didn't even know i needed.
HIStory3: Trapped
the HIStory series only has one thing going for it and it's titled HIStory3: trapped. i don't remember exactly when i first watched this, but it definitely was before HIStory3: make our days count came out, so around early-to-mid 2019. i remember being gobsmacked, flabbergasted, the whole works. up until that point, i had really only watched shitty Thai dramas (love by chance i'm looking at you), so to have something of actual quality come around was life-changing.
synopsis
HIStory3: trapped follows a police officer named shao fei and a mafia (mob?) boss named tang yi who is working on legitimizing his gang. the two are linked together through an incident that happened years prior, in which another police officer and tang yi's adoptive father are killed. convinced tang yi was the one behind it, shao fei has tracked him for years. after some fun forced proximity, however, the two become even more linked as they try to solve the mystery together.
thoughts !!
this show might not be all that anymore, but it certainly was all that for me when i first watched it, so here in the hall of fame it will remain. i remember being so amazed that a show could convey a genuinely healthy relationship where most of the drama is external instead of internal. i guess that makes sense when the story is about gun fights and murder. those tend to take the front seat over petty love rivals and misunderstandings over text message.
anyways, the relationship dynamic between tang yi and shao fei is one that i don't really see in many other bls. incredible chemistry aside, their relationship is incredibly mature. they communicate (somehow a foreign concept within many bls), they help each other grow, and they teach each other important lessons.
additionally, there is a very good mix of plot and romance, again a very rare find within the genre. this, however, i'm not really complaining about, since the romance genre is in fact defined by its romance. the plot is genuinely interesting, and there are some twists i didn't see coming! of course, there are also quite a few very predictable twists but hey we can't have them all can we.
overall, this show was my first experience with a bl of actual quality, so you can imagine my surprise when i was faced with the... curiosities of the other shows in the HIStory series. i'm planning on making a deep dive of the HIStory series, but not tonight. it's nearly 3am and i'm starting to see monsters in my room.