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Year In Review 2024
17 Plays1 month ago
Ben, NiNi and Shan discuss a weird year for QL and look ahead to 2025.
Episode transcript available here.
00:00 Welcome
00:55 2024 Headlines: Industry Consolidation
06:49 2024 Headline: Self-Censorship
13:52 2024 Headlines: Vertical Format Micro-BLs and Other Shit We're Anti
20:14 Festivus Airing Of The Grievances
36:51 2024 Fan Awards
55:49 QL Resolutions
01:04:45 Affirmations and Hopes for the Future
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Transcript
Introduction: Meet the Hosts
00:00:21
Speaker
Welcome to The Conversation, the queer media and brown liquor podcast. I'm Ben, the media critic. I'm Mimi, the vibes queen. And we're your drunk Caribbean uncle Ananti who is sitting on the porch in the rocking chairs. We're here to talk queer film and dramas with a special focus on Asian QL.
00:00:38
Speaker
So if you like deep dives into queer stories, if you like cracked out takes on art and commerce and queer media, if you just enjoy simping for attractive people, we believe in simping. Tune in.
2024 Review and Vibe Awards Introduction
00:00:56
Speaker
And we're back. Oh my God, it's time to review 2024 before we get to the Vibe Awards, or it's just non-stop us talking about our faves. Once again, we have brought Shannon to the booth because we have too much to discuss. Shannon, say hello. Hello. First,
Industry Trends and Challenges
00:01:16
Speaker
it's time for us to talk about the big ideas of the year.
00:01:21
Speaker
Nini as the person who loves Type B all the most on the conversation. Let's talk about how clearly the money is drying up and everybody is having to shuffle to whoever's got something to offer them.
00:01:36
Speaker
Is the money drying up or is it just being funneled all to the same place? Because it feels like more money is getting spent on fewer things. I don't think that's necessarily a good thing, but I'm not sure that I can put my finger up and say that's a bad thing either. We've seen some definite dips in quality. like We don't have as many faves this year as we did last year or even the year before.
00:02:04
Speaker
but what we did love, we loved loved.
GMMTV's Talent and Quality Issues
00:02:07
Speaker
So it's a complicated picture, I guess, but ah definitely there's been a consolidation and we wanted to talk about it a little bit because we predicted this in our very first set of episodes, although it was many, many, many, many moons ago, we predicted that there was a consolidation coming in Thai BL because everything just got so big, so fast, and that usually precedes everything starting to shrink back down a little bit.
00:02:34
Speaker
The big things we noted this year was GMM TV absorbing a bunch of free agents and in one case, basically the entire staff of a whole studio that they now hire to do production work for them. It's been wild. Like every week I feel like we've been seeing announcements of new talent acquired by GMM TV.
00:02:54
Speaker
barcode is now at GMMTV. That was a big get. All the Wabi Sabi boys this year too. Yeah, those were the two big headlines. Wabi Sabi getting folded into GMMTV was one and definitely barcode coming right at the end of the year. That was a big one. They also got Dimple Fluke. I mean, we love Dimple Fluke, but I don't know how big Dimple Fluke is in the general. You big in my heart, my heart.
00:03:21
Speaker
We thought this was coming when they got Sinkto to come back. Clearly trying to do it on his own didn't work. I don't know how I feel about it. Wabi Sabi's no longer doing talent management. BOC seems to be shrinking. BOC has said that they're backing off of talent management as well. They drop most of their roster. I think they only represent Umaa, Apo, and Bible now. Wow.
00:03:45
Speaker
GMM TV is the big studio that seems to want to be in the idle management game. And so that's where a lot of the talent is going. What feels concerning about it to me, and you know, we've talked quite a lot on this podcast about the increase in output, but not a commensurate increase in quality from GMM TV.
00:04:06
Speaker
Out of all of the BLs that they're putting out annually, which is around eight to ten, there may be only a couple that actually have really good scripts behind them. So they're acquiring all this talent. But we know they don't have enough good writing to support shows to support this much talent. They put out this year a script writing contest to the plebs to say, help us, we need help writing shows. I was just going to bring that up with hostile as fuck language, by the way.
00:04:35
Speaker
They literally went to the fans and said, can you write us some shows? Because we got nothing and we're acquiring all this talent. And that's just on the BL side. They've got this whole side of the house of these great talented actresses and very few projects to cast them in. So it's concerning to me to see all the talent going to this one place that clearly cannot handle everybody that they're taking on.
00:05:00
Speaker
It worries me too, because we've noticed a lot less sponsorship deals in most of their shows.
Censorship and Authenticity Concerns
00:05:06
Speaker
One or two shows per year will get the usual eight to 10 plus sponsor cards at the beginning, but that number has dropped off overall. It's very clear that there's maybe not as much ad money helping fund the production in the first place. Bestie, I haven't seen an Oishi ad in quite some time. Right? Where did Oishi go? so If the juice makers have given up, it's over.
00:05:30
Speaker
It is concerning to see this consolidation happening. There's a few people who are out on their own, who I think might be able to survive on their own. Like Jeff is out on his own. Belkin and PP are out on their own. And they're probably the ones who can sustain. Everybody else is either going to GMM TV or they're getting into the other side of GMM Grammy, like the 131 kind of liqueur inside. But even that is shrinking. We're given to understand people are moving into BL because that's the growing side of the market.
00:06:04
Speaker
Actors are moving into BL, who might not have done BL before. Big names got into BL this year, like Jesh Jessica did Four Minutes with Bible, Beyond Cloud Production. He's a big Le Corne actor, and then JJ and Tord, it's for me and Mercy at the end of the year.
00:06:22
Speaker
The headline on that really is these big liqueur doctors who nobody would have ever expected to do gay shit are doing, well, in the case of Sperry and Mercy, semi-gay shit, but just did gay gay shit in four minutes. That's one of the big, I think, headlines that we need to be looking at, looking at Ty Biel in particular, going forward.
00:06:49
Speaker
We need to talk about Thai BL starting to self-censor likely to reach specific markets. I wouldn't call it a trend yet, but we've seen a few examples of it in the last few months and it's making me nervous.
The Role of Romance in Storytelling
00:07:03
Speaker
What I'm talking about is productions that are publicly saying, admitting that they are censoring some of the more explicit romantic or sexual content from their BL shows.
00:07:17
Speaker
so that they can focus on reaching a wider audience with their message. We've seen statements like that from the Addicted Heroin creator. We've seen recently the screenwriter of Spare Me Your Mercy talk about the decisions to remove sexual content from the show for the same reason. We saw some of this related to Lovesick as well. If you're gonna do a Lovesick remake in 2024, the one thing you would expect them to approve on is not having censored kisses. But nope, they didn't do that.
00:07:47
Speaker
There's this drive and this stated intention by some of the creators behind these shows to create BL dramas that minimize the actual BL as much as possible. They want to take advantage of the market for BL. They want to take advantage of the fan interest and the fan engagement for BL while also getting away with keeping the actual queer romance in these stories as minimal as possible.
00:08:15
Speaker
That is pretty shitty. And they're coming out and they're saying this openly. This is not us just guessing.
Impact of Self-Censorship in BL Dramas
00:08:22
Speaker
I will just say that taking the romance out is why I left a lot of Western media. I'm so tired of seeing people say things like, oh, well, this doesn't have any plot. The romance is the plot. The relationship is the plot. And not recognizing that in a genre that is about romance is the part that kind of makes me go like, okay.
00:08:44
Speaker
The genre is literally called boy love. Where's the love? the love but while man How old is that song? Hold on, let me Google there real quick. no But this is what I mean, like Nini and I are refugees from Western romance. We came over to Asia for K-drama because we wanted to see a genre of television that respected romance, that took it seriously as its own storytelling that actually respected romance fans and people who like love stories. That is one of the best and most consistent features of Asian drama. And so to have now
00:09:22
Speaker
this subset of Asian drama creators who are specifically working in a queer love space that is even more hard for people to find, even less accepted by the mainstream, to have them intentionally self-censoring because they are trying to prove some kind of weird point It just completely misses the point for me of why people are here engaging with these dramas. Certainly, it doesn't seem to be helping in terms of pushing forward the social agenda in these countries where they're making these shows.
Supporting Queer Content Platforms
00:09:55
Speaker
This is the part that always stresses me out when we're trying to measure how gay can it be and still get funded. Because this happens to us repeatedly in queer viewer space. Netflix pulled this shit on us, where when they first wanted to go to digital streaming, they set up deals with all of the gay distribution houses. And we got to watch all of these movies that we had never had access to before.
00:10:20
Speaker
And it was great, and we all were like, hell yeah, I'm going to go on Netflix so I can watch my little gay shows. As soon as they get tastemakers, read queer and brown people, to pimp their shit, they try and immediately convert and get a bunch of normies in there. Yep. This is basically what happens. This is not shit I'm making up. This is what really happens. These are the patterns, and we've seen them play out so many times in so many places, and it's the pattern we're starting to see play out in BL.
00:10:50
Speaker
I mean, it played out on Tumblr. yeah The platform that we spend so much of our time on. This is exactly what happened. The people who built the shit got kicked out of the shit. It's been a actually a horrible year on Tumblr for queer people, especially trans people. It's a bad look that The gays who make the shit who seem like they're in an accepted enough space are either choosing to or being pressured to straighten up their act so that they could continue to get fed and make stuff. That doesn't feel great. It feels really worrisome as a sign ah about what may or may not be going on. Like it's only a few things right now, but we're seeing this everywhere else. What we're basically saying is support Gaga Oolala.
00:11:38
Speaker
ah so Please, if you're going to spend money on any of these platforms, spend your money on the queer platform hosted in Taiwan that actually cares about queer people. If you have spent significant sums of money on iQI in the last year for two shows,
Critique of Vertical TV and Viewer Experience
00:11:57
Speaker
and you haven't spent money on Gaga, reflect and then message us.
00:12:05
Speaker
And I mean, if you need yet another reason to subscribe to Gaga, their social media manager is like the greatest person in the world. They're my favorite person. They made fun of Kidnap. Kidnap, the show that's probably poorly named.
00:12:22
Speaker
yes
00:12:26
Speaker
Let's just get on our still thoughts about Gaga for a minute. Okay. They are the only platform that streams the vast majority of Japanese QL. Period. They are a platform that brings us Taiwanese BL. They are a platform that brings us Thai BL in increasing volume. A lot of the WeTV shows have been consistently airing on Gaga lately. GMMTV is also clearly trying to consolidate and are starting to put their shows behind the Gaga and IT paywall. It's a good platform that is worth supporting and it's far cheaper than any other streaming you're paying for. You should have it. You should subscribe. This is not an ad.
00:13:06
Speaker
being paid. We are not being paid. But if you guys want to hang out, I'm just kidding. Don't put that in there.
00:13:17
Speaker
Support Gaga. That's the only platform that when Park Sairam came out of the military, sent out a tweet saying, tell the world the bitch is that they deserve.
00:13:30
Speaker
She is us, we are her, and this is a non-binary she. We don't know the gender of the Gaga Wlala social media manager, but she's one of the girls. I'm using she in a gay way. It's very affectionate. She, non-gender specific.
00:13:44
Speaker
well
00:13:52
Speaker
While we're bitching about things, let's talk about all these stupid vertical TV shows that keep coming out and how we must continue to refuse to watch them. We have already seen one of the shows that Inukai was in is going to apparently be put on TV properly. Good job everybody in not watching that.
00:14:13
Speaker
Do not let this become a thing. We cannot tell them that we are willing to watch shows two minutes at a time on our phones only.
Korean BL Quality and Production Challenges
00:14:25
Speaker
Unacceptable. Not only two minutes at a time on our phones only, but only after burning through a huge number of ads. That's how you get to the shows. Gross.
00:14:36
Speaker
This is like Ben's little conversation in one of our more recent episodes about the BL TikTok filter. They're trying to get you used to the BL TikTok filter in like a million ways. I won't. I will not accept this. yeah Because the aim of this is to stop making actual dramas and just get us to watch a version of TikTok on our phones and call that BL. That's the endgame here, guys. Don't fall for it.
00:15:05
Speaker
Do not fall for it. We are here to support storytellers only. We are not here to make ad guys happy. I think that's a good segue. Speaking of ad guys who clearly don't like us, Kriya is not interested in BL right now.
00:15:22
Speaker
Oh my god. We got three good Korean VLs this year. At least they were all excellent. I know we talked about it on our recent How You episode, but now that the year is complete and the data has been crunched, just want to underline this. We got not necessarily fewer shows total from Korea, but we got fewer shows of a decent length. We got fewer shows of quality. A lot of what Korea put out this year was junk.
00:15:51
Speaker
frankly, these little vertical series, these small little web series that are really short episodes and very lacking in narrative. And then they also put out three of the very best things of the year. So it was a real dichotomy. In years previous, Korea was putting out a more steady churn of quality shows. and We saw a real drop off of that this year.
00:16:09
Speaker
Oh shit, did Strongberry even make anything? I was just about to say, this is the year that Strongberry pissed me off, because they made that happy ending thing that was neither happy nor an ending. And they made Lost to Campus, which was terrible. Strongberry let us down this year for the first time ever.
00:16:27
Speaker
I kind of feel it for them because the CEO of Strongbird has spent so much time telling us how hard it is to get shit made and to get money to get shit made. So I was just like, ooh, things must be getting like real rough if they couldn't put out anything good.
00:16:42
Speaker
Can we, though, just take a moment to shout out the CEO of Strong Bear for putting out his own little story about what happened with that show and basically being like, I told the writer not to fucking do that and he didn't listen to me. I did love that. I love that he just said, I told her if she ain't want to listen.
00:17:02
Speaker
He was like, this is not on me. Do not associate this with me. You love Strongberry. You will continue to love Strongberry. He basically did say it like that. but We were like, all right, girl. ah We'll let you have this one.
00:17:17
Speaker
It's
Japanese BL Consistency and Availability
00:17:18
Speaker
a year in which we had nothing good from Strongberry. And that to me is like, wow, we got other really good stuff. Some of it came out of absolutely nowhere. And I think that it had to come out of absolutely nowhere to get aired. Because as we saw when things are in the pipeline and they know about it, they're going to try to kill it. Yeah. Our last big highlight of the year we want to point out is that there was a Japanese BL airing almost every week this year.
00:17:48
Speaker
That is unprecedented. Usually, even if stuff gets made, we barely know about it, it gets no distribution, and the fansubbers are having people show up at their houses over it. So we almost never get a lot of the Japanese BL. But there was a significant amount that was just handed to us on legal platforms for us to support. Most notably, Gaga Oolela.
00:18:15
Speaker
I started JapaneseQL Corner in January of 2024 on Tumblr. It's just a weekly post that I do that tracks the JapaneseQL that's out. And I had things to write about every single week for the entire year. And we weren't always having to chase things down in the dark corners of the internet. We had things that we could watch on a regular streaming platform every week from Japan. And there were weeks when I was writing about six or seven shows at a time. That's how much was airing.
00:18:44
Speaker
Now, were those six or seven shows great? Not always. Not always. No, not always. But in terms of batting average, I think Japan did pretty well this year. I'd say still about half of the shows that aired from Japan this year were good to fantastic. And the other half were problematic here and there. There were only a handful that I thought were like bad, bad.
00:19:09
Speaker
My favorite thing about watching Japanese BL is that I am never mid about it. I either really liked it, or I was like, who is this for? I love that there's not all this wishy washy shit about like, oh, maybe it's kind of okay if I squint this direction.
Disappointment with Certain BL Shows
00:19:27
Speaker
I'd be like, no, fuck that show. A four for you, a three for you, a four for you. Stay away from the shows I love. All of you over here, my nines and tens, don't look at them. They're not worth it.
00:19:41
Speaker
Averages are not the most useful metric, but I really like that when I'm recommending or not recommending Japanese BL, I feel very firm about how I feel about these shows. I do think that there has been a lot more variation in quality with the high uptick in volume of shows, but the batting average is still pretty damn high. So I'm excited that it's going to keep going. That's it for the big highlights.
00:20:14
Speaker
Before we close out this year, we need to vent a little bit of grief. We need to talk about the things that we were super hype about that made us look like clowns. We're going to start with our biggest disappointments in no particular order, starting with the worst. Nini, wandi, good day.
00:20:37
Speaker
The absolute worst. I am so pissed off at this show. I talked a little bit about how pissed off I was with this show in our Mailbag episode, but friends, I still have more ire in me about this show. I was so stoked.
00:20:55
Speaker
And the show dragged me along for a solid five to six episodes and then literally dropped me on my face. And that's something that I do not forgive in any way. I will remain pissed off forever. This is not shipper level, but damn close. If you want to feel a little solidarity, David was actually bitching about this at brunch earlier this weekend. He said, I can't believe I wrote a whole post for the first time on Tumblr.
00:21:23
Speaker
I thought this show. I like to be made to look like a clown like this. They said he's never writing anything ever again. David's like, how dare you embarrass me? How dare you? It sucks, man. It was a huge letdown. And the thing is that it could have been It's all good. Did I had it all? I'm convinced that the first half and the second half were written by two different people. That's the only thing that makes any sense to me. Let's start talking about BL like Star Wars fans. Star Wars could be so good if it was good.
00:22:00
Speaker
Before you bitches come after me, my very first email address I made is a Star Wars email. Don't come for me. Don't come for us, period, okay? It was alone. It's been a long year.
00:22:14
Speaker
Speaking of a long year of disappointments, Shan, I'm letting you have the entire disappointment that was all of Semmon's collected work this year.
Critique of Dr. Simone's Projects
00:22:24
Speaker
Oh god, here we go. We're calling this the Semmon Omnibus entry in the disappointment list.
00:22:31
Speaker
This year, there were four different projects associated with Dr. Simone. and She screenwrote three out of four and was the original writer for one. These shows were a Dead Friend Forever, Four Minutes, Spare Me Mercy, and Petropore. All QLs, all with her attached, all very heavily promoted and very buzzy. I'm not gonna say that none of these shows were good at all or had any artistic merit. I actually really liked Dead Friend Forever until it fucked up the ending.
00:23:00
Speaker
Four minutes I found to be a very beautiful but ultimately incoherent mess. Spare me your mercy was just a flop. None of us finished this show after all of us putting it on our list of the most anticipated of the year. After JJ put his whole ass into Great Men Academy, I can't believe they embarrassed him like this.
00:23:22
Speaker
We have all seen Tor in JJ and other projects. You are lying if you claim that they were on their game in this show. I'm sorry. They have both done better with other people, with better material. This show did not live up to the hype. I did not even finish it. I can't believe we're saying that Tor was better in fucking Midnight Museum. He was. He was absolutely better in Midnight Museum. He better catch the tree with Gunn than he did with JJ in this BL.
00:23:51
Speaker
JJ was light yards better in Great Men Academy than he was here. I'm not trying to shade the actors. It's not their fault. It's the material. The writing was bad. The show was flat. They seemed not at all dialed into their characters. They seemed confused about what they were supposed to be conveying, probably because their relationship development arc didn't make any fucking sense. It's not the actor's fault. They are very good actors. And this show did not give them what they needed to succeed.
00:24:19
Speaker
I cannot believe what a let down the show was after all that hype. There's also petrichor, which is the first GL that has her attached to it. And I had to drop that one too. It was hard to watch.
00:24:33
Speaker
Simone is kind of considered one of the best screenwriters in the QL industry in Thailand. She wrote triage. She was attached to Manner of Death. She has a track record. She has all these novels that are very popular and well-liked. So there's a certain level of expectation that comes with her shows. But this year, her big year of four QLs,
00:24:53
Speaker
This was not it. Not a single one of these projects left me satisfied. I started the year as such a strong fan of her work, and I'm ending the year kind of throwing my hands up, like, well, girl, I guess triage was a fluke. I don't know what's been going on. But you have not even come close to meeting that standard again.
Failed Narratives in BL Shows
00:25:11
Speaker
I liked DFF in 4 minutes more than you guys did. We've talked about this already. But I will say that these are shows that they spent money on. I have no complaints about production quality on any of these shows. They pull up some quality actors. They got Eng Fa in Petrichor.
00:25:27
Speaker
They got JJ and Torres who mentioned Spare Me Your Mercy. The Bible just put it on a clinic in four minutes and the DFI boys, they put their whole pussy in. They acted these shows and they produced these shows. They look great, they sound great, but the writing just didn't pulled up to everything else that they were putting in, and it got progressively worse because the one that I enjoyed the most was Dead Friend Forever, that was the first one, and the one that I enjoyed the least was Spare Me and Mercy. We all dropped it. For different reasons, I think, but we all dropped it.
00:26:08
Speaker
it was not working on any level. So no matter what you were there for, there was just nothing to hold on to. If you were there for the romance, if you were there for the mystery, if you were there for the euthanasia discussion, it didn't really succeed at any of those. So
'My Love Mix-Up' Casting and Adaptation Issues
00:26:23
Speaker
let's move on, because we could talk about this forever. Oh, that's fine. It's time for me to go the fuck off. I've been holding this in for months. It's time to talk about my love mix up. Oh, God, here we go. hello Before I hurt people's feelings about this. I like 4th and Gemini a lot.
00:26:42
Speaker
I think they're both very charming. I think they are both real talents. And I am very much looking forward to seeing how they mature over the next decade. The way we got to experience with the original GMM TV BL boys. That being said, part about supporting your faves for me is wanting them to get work that uses them well. And I do not believe that my love mixup used anyone well.
00:27:10
Speaker
It's extremely disappointing to me that after doing such a good job on Cherry Magic Thailand, the GMMTV released a show that did everything I was afraid would go wrong with Cherry Magic Thailand.
00:27:26
Speaker
Cherry Magic Tylon managed to make the Cherry Magic story applicable to the Thai context in a way that we all loved. My Love Mix-Up was not a Thai adaptation of Kiena Hatsukoi. It was my school president in a terrible Halloween costume, clearly trying to sell more tickets for concerts for these boys. It was embarrassing and it was a waste of everyone's time.
00:27:55
Speaker
I am so mad about this because I had doubts about this the whole way into it, but really hoped that after the strong showing in Cherry Magic that there was going to be something really cool here. I had a lot of hopes about this. This sucked.
00:28:13
Speaker
And so much of it comes down to casting. As much as I like 4th and Gemini, I like them as individual actors, not as a branded pair. I think they work just fine together, but they were not the correct boys.
00:28:30
Speaker
to play these characters together. Just especially noteworthy because there were other boys in my love mixup who I think would have done better job. But Hongpao in the show and they didn't make him one of the leads. Hongpao would have yeah killed Ata. Hongpao would have done a way better job. And I think fourth should have played Edith's character.
00:28:52
Speaker
I watched one or two episodes of this before I dropped it. And to me, it was just such an obvious case of miscasting. They cast it based on wanting to shove a pre-existing branding pair into a set of characters that did not fit them. And so from the start, the whole production betrayed the story. They clearly did not understand the major themes either. They really
'Lovesick' Remake Critique
00:29:12
Speaker
fucked it up.
00:29:13
Speaker
I came at it from a different perspective than you guys because you guys had watched Keira Hatsukoi and I deliberately did not watch Keira Hatsukoi until after I had watched my love mix up because I wanted to be sort of a control. And I ended up in the same place on the whole thing that you guys did, watching Keira Hatsukoi afterward. They did not get this right at all. They didn't have the spirit of it. I'm really glad you were able to arrive at this conclusion with us.
00:29:40
Speaker
Kita Hatsukoi is really solid. I do not understand how they fucked that up that badly. We're not doing the whole review of that show. It pissed me off. It was disappointing.
00:29:54
Speaker
Speaking of chops, how did they reboot Lovesick in 2024 and then fuck it up this badly? I loved Lovesick as what felt like the tie de grassy.
00:30:06
Speaker
How do you make a worse version of that? In 2014, Lovesick was absolutely insane. They had girls two-timing dudes in the same bed with them in their own apartment complex. They had motherfuckers trying to drown each other in the pools and shit. And they had sex. They didn't show it on screen, but those characters had sex.
00:30:32
Speaker
I get much of the stuff that we saw in 2014. Lovesick may have been added stuff. And they may have been trying to be more true to the book by just making it into this boring ass GL and BL experience. But it just wasn't good. And I was pissed because they went in a cool direction by making AIM queer. That was really good. But it doesn't save the show.
00:30:54
Speaker
That was the only interesting thing I heard about this remake is that they made Aime a lesbian, which added a little bit of a layer to her desire playing on to her boyfriend, but everything else they did worse on than the original show. I don't want to be super mean to these boys because everybody was new in Lovesick and everybody's clearly new here, but goddamn, the new kid does not match Captain. And the way that they went so hard in making him look like Captain undercuts him constantly.
00:31:22
Speaker
You know, Ben, the moment I saw that buzz cut is when I knew that this production was doomed. That is so not the fucking point. That's not the part of him you have to get right. My whole thing about this is that to be disappointed, you have to have expectations. I was not disappointed in Love Sick 2024 because I did not watch it. And from the time I saw that they were remaking Love Sick, I remember, I think we said on this podcast, who needs it? Nobody. Nobody needs a Love Sick remake in 2024. We were correct. We asked why it was made and they had no answer.
00:31:58
Speaker
Speaking of why was this made, Yann and War had a great deal of fun with their friends and the show that they produced, Jack and Joker.
'Jack and Joker' Missed Opportunity
00:32:06
Speaker
I ended up dropping it because they killed Jenny and I refuse to accept that. Listen, Jenny Panhan is a goddess and you cannot kill her on your show. I'm sorry. you just They really shouldn't have. It was pointless and gratuitous and disgusting. But let me just say I did finish this show and I don't want to be super mean to Jack and Joker because here's the thing. It's not a real show. It is a self-funded
00:32:34
Speaker
vanity project from yin and war so that they could hang out on a set with their friends. And T. Bundit was there. T. Bundit was also there. I went into this show and I was like, I know this is not a real story. They cobbled this script together themselves. We're just having a good time here. That was my only expectation. This will be fun. It'll be entertaining. I have no expectations for a coherent story, for themes, anything like that.
00:33:00
Speaker
And even with that bar, the lowest bar I can possibly grant to a show, somehow this show disappointed me. It was a mess, but not a fun mess. It was boring. It was mostly sexless, which was the most shocking part to me. They had three pairings in this show, only one of whom actually kissed on screen. They had our boy P in this show.
00:33:26
Speaker
They put he fucking pirouette in this show and they didn't let him kiss anybody. I was pissed. I'm livid still. They had this great side couple that the fandom was super into. They never actually let them get together on screen. They did not become an actual romance. The most useful thing about that side pair is that Shan recognizes Mark Seward about 30% of the time.
00:33:50
Speaker
oh Mark Siwa, this is my fear of apology to you. Shana has a very specific Mark Siwa face blindness. What? Only face blindness? And I'm sorry, Mark Siwa. You don't deserve that from me. You were a delight in this show. And I'm so mad that your character did not get a proper story. The thing that frustrated me about this show is it's a fucking fan service project. So why aren't you serving the fucking fans?
00:34:21
Speaker
We spent 16 hours in this show and it was mostly boring nonsense. They stopped doing the capers halfway through for some reason and just made us sit in these endless plots about this stupid fucking mafia, whatever, rich families playing squid games. It was stupid. It was boring. Meanwhile, they didn't deliver on most of the things that the fans wanted. What a pointless use of so much money.
00:34:49
Speaker
Why, Yin and War? Why? We hadn't seen Mark properly in BL since Bite Me, so I was especially disappointed. I'm still mad about that. I'm still mad about Bite Me. Don't you worry. I'm still mad. This should have been the funnest thing of that happened this year, and instead, it was boring and sad. I'm so sorry that you were on two of our disappointments, Jenny. You didn't deserve that either.
00:35:13
Speaker
But that's an important thing to bring up. Like, where's the fun?
Fun Awards Introduction
00:35:17
Speaker
I feel like there were things that should have been fun that were just a slog. Where did the fun go? If this is gonna be a caper bill, then be a caper bill. You know that it's bad if you can't get me to watch a T-bunded show. I have not watched a minute of it. You know I feel about T-bunded. I love him even when everybody else hates him. Except for hidden agenda, the which we will never talk about again. But...
00:35:41
Speaker
This show didn't even compel me to watch it, which is saddening. It was lackluster. And it was truly only the fan sentiment for Yin and War that made it popular. It was just fans supporting actors that they like. And there's nothing wrong with that. But there's no there there with this show.
00:36:01
Speaker
Shout out to Warr's pottery videos. Siri, you are hyper competent and I find that very attractive. I really recommend just watching his pottery videos instead of this show. That's right. Just head to IG instead. Warr did good work and loved mechanics. That's why he's a fave. That doesn't mean I have to applaud everything he does after that, especially when it's not that good. I did like all of his outfits though. Clearly he had a great time.
00:36:28
Speaker
but No kids, so now that we have completed our Festivus airing of the grievances. I feel better. I really do. and um yes Let's move into our fun awards.
00:36:51
Speaker
In advance of our very important internet BL Awards, vibe awards that are coming up later this month for you guys, we just wanted to have a few awards that are just us having fun. And so we put the call out and we got some feedback. Ben, take us into it.
00:37:10
Speaker
We are finally awarding the Girl You Tried winner of the year. Girl
Awards for Potential and Charm
00:37:16
Speaker
You Tried for those of you who have been with us is something we like to award every season to shows that we think had really good ideas that maybe weren't executed as well as they could have been. We handed out quite a few awards this year. Sham, would you like to announce the winner?
00:37:33
Speaker
Oh, do I get to announce? How exciting. Okay. The 2024 Girl You Tried Award goes to Love Is Better the second time around from Japan. We've already covered this. I'm very happy about the Yucatoe Six, but not about episodes five and six. So close to being one of our favorite shows of the year, and that is why it gets this award.
00:37:57
Speaker
Agreed. ah I am in a hundred percent agreement. and Other shows that were up for consideration included The Sign, Living With Him, Iaka Is In Love With Hiroko, I Hear The Sunspot. Oof, I got beef with that show. And The Only One. Shan got beef with that one. I can't think of that show. Whoa.
00:38:18
Speaker
but Uh, I think we made the right choice in terms of the final winner though. I think of all of those, as the one that was close closest to actually making it. A bunch of those guys are in another MBS not BL right now, where they're all playing boxers, hugging each other without their shirts on and sweating and shit.
00:38:37
Speaker
Yes, more information. You're burying the lead here, Ben. Like, but but I need to know where I can find it. Nowhere, man. It's not in the Western circles right now.
00:38:52
Speaker
yes The fansuppers are letting me down. I got a couple of Japanese fans keeping me in the loop. They sending me like little clips and it's all like my favorite boys like wrestling on the ground and shit and like dark gems. Why don't they make more shows like that?
00:39:08
Speaker
ah what um my Let me tell you, Petty's been demanding this VL for like four years. yeah ah go I think we are actually getting a boxing VL next year. We are. yeah are i On to our next award. It's time to award our trash fave of the year. Nini, please describe the award.
00:39:32
Speaker
Trashfave is basically my favorite award. I cannot defend any of these shows, but I had such a good fucking time. Our Trashfave winner of the year is Jim Affairs from Wait for it. China. Did you all know that China put out a real modern BL with kissing on screen in it this year? Well, they did. And it's called Jim Affairs. And it's winning the Trash Babe Award. Because listen.
00:40:06
Speaker
This show is not a quality production. It was clearly filmed on some iPhones with just whatever guys they could find around. But you know what? I respect it because it had a narrative, it had a clear story, and they are doing what they can in China to get these queer stories out one way or another. It really spoke to guerrilla filmmaking. Like they just really popped up somewhere, or filmed what they needed to and got the fuck out of there.
00:40:33
Speaker
And it's a cute little show. It goes quick. Watch it on YouTube. It's free. It's a fast binge. It's charming. The actors are cute. It's a good time. We can't really call it a good show because the production quality is so low, but it's a fave. All of our friends who have seen it had a great time watching it. You should join in.
00:40:53
Speaker
Our other two shows for consideration were Kidnap and O.M.G. Vampire. O.M.G. Animation Point Vampire. but but I will say that y'all have very different definitions of trash than I do, because even though I haven't seen Jim O'Farrars yet from what I've heard about it, it is not trash, it is just produced on a shoestring, whereas Kidnap was actual trash.
00:41:19
Speaker
Yeah, Kidnap is super trashy. Like trashy as of like pulp novels. It's called Kidnap, but there's only like half a Kidnapping maybe. And Kidnapped and Kidnapped, that was a God sent out. At one point the guy Kidnapped himself, like there was a lot going on.
00:41:37
Speaker
This show is so stupid that I got bored with Ompawat and was like, I can't do this anymore. I know. I'm like, I could only sustain myself by looking at Omp's arms for so long. This is what makes it my trash fave. I watched it till the very end because my favorite two things were in it at Ompawat and being baby girl.
00:41:54
Speaker
You know what I think this is Nini? I think it's like when you open the trash can and you look inside, you sometimes find this gem of a thing that someone threw in the trash and that's what gym affairs is. Okay. And kidnap is all the actual nasty dirty trash around it. I think that's what it is. Oh, we love you on this podcast, sir. We love you so much. And that's all we're going to say.
00:42:20
Speaker
free Om from this trash. That's what I want. We love you. Even though all of Tumblr celebrated your character getting shot again, not like a few weeks ago. And I think, I don't any of us actually watched OMG! exclamation point Vampire, but our friends loved it. They had a great time with Lee and Frank's final show together.
00:42:41
Speaker
Several of our friends submitted it and they had a great time watching it. They highly recommend it if you're into vampires that are apparently very bad at being vampires. You should check that out if that's your thing.
00:42:56
Speaker
Onto my favorite award.
Recognition Awards for Supportive Roles
00:42:58
Speaker
It's time to award the best boy. The Nam goon, the best boy award, which I promise I'm going to watch lights on me this year. and mean I swear to God. All right. ah Shan, I'm putting this in my resolutions at the end of this. If Nini does not watch light on me, we are not doing this show next year. but I've had enough. I have a list of shows that are non-negotiable for the next award show.
00:43:25
Speaker
Light on me! and a Rainbow Prince. You will watch them. I will. I absolutely will. There will be no more arguing about this. We're not arguing. It was never an argument. It's just some more kind of, it always gets pushed down to the bottom of the list, but I promise you this year, Bestie, this year. Nam Goong is the best boy and is the reason why we have this award. And this year, the award for best boy who did everything he could for the gays goes to Yai from the sign. Congratulations, sir. We loved everything about you. We loved your arms. We loved your heart. We loved your wife. Mostly like wife the most. I definitely had a lot to say about those arms. I'm sorry I'm spacing out thinking about them, though.
00:44:16
Speaker
This award is for the best supporting male friend who is all about helping the couple get together. He was so great. Good job, Yai. Yai absolutely did that. What a mess of a show, but you had a clear through line. I just love Tim seeing. Where were you discussing the problem? The bed or the sofa? I think that was my favorite.
00:44:36
Speaker
he was mischievous other boys in consideration were re yoga from i became the main role of a b l drama for his feathers and his support of his friends by tricking them into having a date and also telling akafuji he was aggravating and then giving him useful advice but one He was helpful. He was the realist. Our last boy is Ryosuke from Fragrance You Inherit, a last minute addition to this list. The drama did technically end right before the end of 2024. Ryosuke is the lead sucker. up He's her bestie. He's been supporting her since college. He's the person who knows her and who props her up through all the hard things in her life, including her gay disappointment,
00:45:20
Speaker
her crushed, unrequited love, and and parenting her son, who is a perfect angel boy. He is there for it all. He is there to help her out. We love him. He is also played by Taka Dokohé. He sure is looking excellent, sir. I salute you. If you don't know who that is, you better ask somebody. You better not come ask me, because I'll get mad at you.
00:45:44
Speaker
On to my second favorite award, the Yee Wah Best Girl Award. Yee Wah? Oh, we love her over here. I absolutely love Yee Wah. I love that that show. All these years later spawned the Best Girl and Worst Girl Award. The Best Girl, like the best boy, goes to the girl who supports the boys the right way and is there for them and willing to scrap for them.
00:46:14
Speaker
Nini, please hand out the award to our best girl. Our best girl for 2024 is Luke Peach from Knock Knock Boys. Absolutely!
00:46:26
Speaker
yeah All she wanted in life was to spread good information about sexual health and behavioral practices, to support her boys and to write non-creepy fan fiction about them. I salute you, Ms. Malmus, you are the best. for her in all her endeavors I really like her as part of the evolution of the shipper character. I'm okay with them finding a way to write girls that really love gay boys and want them to have a good time.
00:46:54
Speaker
without it being creepy. Beyond Luke Peach, we also had Jane from Knock Knock Boys, Jew from Century of Love, and Pie from Cherry Magic Thailand on this list. I liked Pie a lot and she was a strong contender for this award, particularly because she stole a motorcycle to make sure those boys had the scene they needed to have, and then she left.
00:47:19
Speaker
She explicitly said that scene is for them. I got what I needed. I know my boys are going to make this happen. I was great at knowing the line between supporting and inserting herself where she didn't belong and she never crossed the line. What a great character. This was a pretty decent year for Fujo characters. That is one of the positive things I can say about this year and in terms of trope related stuff.
00:47:45
Speaker
We have introduced a new award this year. Well, it's exciting stuff. I'm going to let you award this one, Shan. This is our bridesmaid award. This goes to Hyun-ho from Let's See the Curse of Taekwondo.
00:48:01
Speaker
This award is for the second leads, the character that can never win. but that still manages to make you kind of want them to, and who makes you sympathetic for them when they inevitably lose. I think Hyun-ho was the platonic ideal of the K-drama second lead, and he is definitely a deserving winner of this prize-made award. Other people in consideration were Sangwon for love for love's sake, because he got to a whole fight for the gays, and then got mad that they kept asking him for help for the rest of the show.
00:48:36
Speaker
like like And Kurosawa from Osan's Love Returns, because this man has not won five times now. Incredible. We are once again awarding our favorite version of BGP. Ben, reminding people what BGP means. BGP is a term that we got from Bump Up Business.
00:49:00
Speaker
so not made that we had this term. A terrible VL from the boys of only one of a K-pop group whose entire business model is pretending to be gay. And they made a whole show about idols who had to work together in a what they called a business gay performance to sell records.
00:49:24
Speaker
And bri wanted us to pretend that it was a real romance. Do you believe this show happened? Absolutely insane behavior. Is our business gay performance over before it began?
00:49:38
Speaker
Oh my god. I watched that entire show specifically because they told me that line was in it. Nini was like Shannon Bennett just cackling. This has to be ridiculous if the two of them have completely lost composure over it.
00:49:54
Speaker
I'm so glad you watched it. She was not let down. I was
Standout Performances and Impactful Characters
00:49:59
Speaker
not. yeah We love the term BGP because it's about the performance of the relationship for consumption. Dan, please announce our winners. This year's BGP award goes to Daou and Off-Road, the only potential winners of our hearts.
00:50:19
Speaker
I have to agree, there wasn't even a question. This was definitely dull and off-road to lose this year, because sir, the performance is performance-y. They got a really solid outing with Century of Love, despite everything that we now know was happening on that set and around that production.
00:50:40
Speaker
And they have continued to make their music and handle their performances. And they're coming to America this year. That's a huge deal. They have a fan meet in the United States that is already sold out. These boys are making moves. I'm very excited for them. Also up for consideration where Chris Chiu, AKA, Modi and Kurt Wong for Unknown the series, because they went way hard on their VGP. Tumblr may not have been paying that much attention to it.
00:51:10
Speaker
Those boys were working very hard. And of course, we're going to acknowledge Yennen Warr, who got a whole show financed on BGP alone. Really impressive. That is impressive. Our final award, our most fun award.
00:51:27
Speaker
We are handing out the Blorbo of the Year award. This is for the character that took over your brain and you just could not let them go. Every time someone tried to take it from you, you just bit down harder and shook. yeah Ben, would you like to announce the winner? The winner of the Blorbo of the Year award goes to Goyoung from Love in the Big City.
00:51:53
Speaker
What a great year for us and that character. Here's the moment. Oh my god, Shannon, get out of my head. You owe me a Coke. Yeah, it's gotta be a Coke because you guys can't have any more drinks after Friday. Oh my god, no more, no more, no more drinks. Soda, non-alcoholic.
00:52:14
Speaker
Billy Young was so important to us. He is one of the most dynamic and complicated queer characters we got to experience this year, and I am so thankful that despite all of the drama, we were able to get Nami and Sue and Fran's perversion of these characters.
00:52:33
Speaker
I feel unbelievably blessed that they got an actor of Nam Yoon Soo's caliber to play him in the drama. I never, in my wildest dreams, could have expected that. and He put his neck, his back, his with yeah and his crock into that. Me and Nini are K-drama watchers. We have seen him in other work. He transformed himself for this role. It was impressive shit.
00:52:59
Speaker
Our runner up, who we had a great deal of discussion about and who almost won this award until like five minutes before this recording, was Dynamite from Cooking Crush, another complicated queer character with a ton of heart that we deeply loved. I've been thinking about this boy all year. As often is the case when a character you love is misunderstood by others, it makes you love them even more fiercely. That definitely came up for us with Dynamite.
00:53:29
Speaker
A lot of you don't watch anime, but Twig and I were not going to let this go unremarked. We wanted to acknowledge Hisashi from Twilight Out of Focus, along with Shion, who was my favorite boy. I love that Twig so much. He said, I'm going to high school and I'm going to give me a motherfucking boyfriend. And he did. He did. He did it all. Good job, Anime Twig.
00:53:55
Speaker
I think there is a missing person here. I can't believe that Ben left this one out considering how he started the year. Ayanagi
Character Recognition Discussion
00:54:06
Speaker
Hajime? He's not on my Blorbo list. I think about that boy a lot. But does he take over my whole soul like these boys? He does not.
00:54:16
Speaker
Ooh. Mmm, interesting. I admire him deeply, and I think Nachika did a great job with him, but they're getting a sequel, baby, so... but which We'll get stalked by him again. It ain't over yet. We're going to talk about them in 2024 and 2025. I'm winning. I might not see Go Young ever again, but I'm going to see my boy again this year. Excellent. Good job. A win for me. Congratulations to the winners of all of our fan awards and our runners up.
00:54:55
Speaker
These are not vibes, so you do not get a plate, but we will figure out something. We're going to send you a cup. A souvenir mug. if At least it's not a koozie. A koozie's just disrespectful. We discussed this before. I know that if we sent Gapjackering a mug that said best boy, he would absolutely show it on IG. He totally would. I believe that. I afford to present. He would totally do it. Maybe we should consider funding it a lot.
00:55:23
Speaker
Maybe he would even put it next to his bison.
00:55:28
Speaker
yeah
00:55:31
Speaker
And I would have a plot, small man. He's large, people. You know how I feel about the large ones.
00:55:49
Speaker
It's time for our QL resolutions. but Shan has pulled up the record on the things we said we would do for this year. It's time for
2024 Resolutions Review
00:55:59
Speaker
the callouts. We'll start with me. Shan, proceed. Alright, so Ben stated a couple resolutions last year. His kind of not that serious one was he said he will watch 100 shows in 2024.
00:56:13
Speaker
And his second, which he was more serious about, is that he would be backing off of shows when he's getting aggravated with them sooner than he used to, and just being more willing to stop watching shows. So Ben, you've definitely failed the first goal, but I think you did good on the second one. I did great. I engaged with 75 Asian QLs this year, but I dropped 26th set. That's big for you.
00:56:40
Speaker
That was a big mental wall that you had to move through this year, and you did a great job, bestie. For free and blind cocoa. Are you feeling better now that you started backing off shows you're not liking? Honestly, yeah. I feel way better.
00:56:55
Speaker
that I'm recognizing when a show is irritating me and I'm not forcing myself to watch it for this weird sense of ego. Like it's really important that I say something about this. Yeah, I don't care anymore. Who cares? It sucks. I'm not writing about this. The core of what I want to do is I want to convince uninitiated BL viewers to watch BL.
00:57:18
Speaker
There is no value for me in watching a show that I despise or just isn't working for me because I'm not using it as a reference to try and get people who might like BL to watch BL. I'm not going to ask them to watch a mid-tier BL. So it gets dropped. All right. Nini?
00:57:41
Speaker
In January, 2024, you said your resolution for the year was that you were going to stop picking on New Sowaj. Let's check in on that. How are you feeling? I definitely had a great time with the New Sowaj show this year and talked about it on the show.
00:57:59
Speaker
These resolutions do have power, so you've got to be real careful when you make them. I won't say entirely that I have stopped picking on New Swatch. I'm still going to pick on him if he deserves it, but I liked something that he did this year. Don't worry. He definitely deserves it. But you found something nice to say about him this year. I did find nice things to say about him this year, so I think that I have kept that resolution.
00:58:23
Speaker
We did great this year, guys, because my resolution was to be more aware of when I'm getting no joy out of a show and cut it off and not feel bad about not finishing it. And I did that this year. I also got better at not starting shows I didn't think I was going to like. And I think that that was a good and healthy choice, and I'm glad that I did it, because as we've been talking about, the genre just keeps getting bigger. There are so many shows.
00:58:50
Speaker
We can't watch everything and we can't make ourselves miserable trying to force ourselves to watch the things we're not enjoying. I'm real proud of us. I think we did good on our resolutions this year. Excellent. Good
2025 Resolutions and Viewing Plans
00:59:01
Speaker
job. So let's look ahead. What are the resolutions that we're all making this year, 2025? Ben? I have no fucking idea. What should I do? Do you have something about how you want to write or how you want to engage on Tumblr?
00:59:16
Speaker
I'm probably going to focus on writing more reviews this year. I stopped doing straight thoughts, but I don't want to stop writing about things I loved. I think I'm going to push myself to write more reviews and stuff. I think I'm going to start writing on Tumblr more about Western stuff. I think I'm going to start writing more reviews about more generalized queer work that I'm engaged with.
00:59:40
Speaker
That'll probably be my thing this year, writing more thoughtful pieces about work after it's done instead of yapping about it in real time. Okay. Sean, how about you? What are you resolving to do this year?
00:59:54
Speaker
I was thinking about this a bit. I think there's a couple things on my mind. I want to continue quitting shows if I'm really just getting no joy out of them. I want to continue being more selective about what I start in the first place. Another thing I've been doing more of lately that I think is working for me and that I want to continue is waiting to binge shows that I suspect I will not enjoy very much week to week. For me, it makes a real difference how I watch a show because if I'm watching weekly and participating in a weekly discussion,
01:00:23
Speaker
I'm going to naturally think more about the show. I'm going to dig into it more. And when these shows are kind of weak or mediocre, I'm spending an awful lot of time thinking about what isn't working. So I'm trying to identify those shows where I just can tell I'm going to have a better time if I get it over with quick instead of stretching it out. I also want to stay committed to continuing to have variety in my media diet.
01:00:47
Speaker
i want to continue to watch things outside of QL. I want to be better about continuing to mix in Western shows here and there. If you just watch too much of the same thing all the time, you really lose perspective. So I want to be attentive to that this year and make sure I'm changing it up. You heard it here, friends. Shana's joining me and watching over 200 movies a year.
01:01:12
Speaker
I'm not sure that's exactly what she said, Bestie. and like but She said she wants to mix it up. I got a great Indonesian film for you to watch. This is my big gap. I just don't watch many movies. I like long form stories. I'm challenging you, Shane. You're going to watch some of these movies with me. I watched a great Chinese film from 2015 last night.
01:01:35
Speaker
Ben's resolution is to force Shan to watch the movies this year. I hate movies. They just don't fill my soul the same way, you know? They're just here and gone so quick. Yeah. If I really love something, I definitely need to sit in it for a while. So I am definitely more of the long-form storytelling sort of things as well. A great film just stays with you forever. All right. We're starting with Ghost Dog. All right. You go ahead and make your little list. Mimi, what are your...
01:02:04
Speaker
My resolution this year is to finally watch some of the shit I have been meaning to watch. My watchlists keep growing and growing and growing, and I need to put some time and effort into actually watching some of this shit. Some of it because Ben is going to stop talking to me if I don't watch it. It's true, I'm glad you recognize that that is a real outcome.
01:02:31
Speaker
yeah There's definitely some things that are on the list. I think I've finally gotten past the uncanny valley effect so that I can watch light on me. And I'm going to watch Eternal yesterday, finally. I am going to watch Rainbow Prince. God, you haven't watched Eternal yesterday. I haven't. Oh my God. To be fair to me, I do not think that is the thing for me to have watched when I was in the mental state that I was in for most of last year. You need to wait for the right moment, but I'm excited for you to watch it.
01:03:03
Speaker
I am looking forward to know that I'm feeling mentally better to getting into some of the things that I have meant to watch, but just not been able to hit play on. Like I said, these resolutions have power. So it's definitely happening this year. I'm excited. My resolution is this torment, Shannon, the watching movies. That's great. I feel good about this one. yeah Ben, because I have fourth grade dramas and he's mad about it.
01:03:29
Speaker
You have gotten Ben to watch P-dramas, C-dramas. I watched Goblin. I watched Rebel Princess. What else did you fucking force me to watch? School 2013. School 2013. That is like 6,000 hours of TV. You owe me a few movies. How do you heal her again? Listen, the truth is that Ben likes the K-dramas. He hates that he likes them, but he likes them. They're just so fucking long. I just spent two hours on a fucking episode of a K-drama. I could have watched one of my fucking movies during this time.
01:04:03
Speaker
Speaking of movies, you'll have got to watch Paradise of Thorns as soon as you're able. I believe it becomes available very soon after we finish recording this. I'm excited to watch that one, and I still need to watch How to Make Billions When Grandma Dies. Have you not watched that yet? No.
01:04:23
Speaker
It was only in New York screens for like a few days and I didn't make it. I've been intentionally waiting because we know it's coming to American Distro. It's on that Oscar shortlist, so it's definitely coming. Yeah, we need it. It'll be in theaters and I'll go watch it.
01:04:45
Speaker
Okay, affirmations for the year.
Affirmations and Support for Productions
01:04:48
Speaker
Things that we really like that we would like to see more of. Number one, Kongtuk Productions. Good job this year, guys. We love them. We do. This is the studio that produced Knock Milk Boys, Monster Next Door. There was a GL. Apple My Love. Apple My Love, yeah. They have been a really fun breath of fresh air in the genre this year. And I really hope that whoever's having fun funding them is getting returns so that they can keep doing that.
01:05:17
Speaker
They are out here producing original scripts that are interesting and that have things to say. Next, despite how much I deeply despised my love mix-up Thailand, I would like to continue to see more of these cross-country collaborations. There were a lot of interesting results we got from that this year. We got Unknown, the series out of it. We got Love in the Air, Koi Noyokan. I loved it. We got Cherry Magic, Thailand.
01:05:44
Speaker
And we got a couple of interesting projects where it was kind of funded in both places, like Eccentric Romance, Meet You at the Blossom, Battle of the Writers. There may have been Chinese money involved in that one. There definitely was. It's very interesting seeing these sort of cross-cultural collaborations and even within the country's Oxen films and what is the other group's name?
01:06:12
Speaker
They teamed up and made Haunted Hearts. It wasn't good, but they worked with someone else. I'm interested in these productions adapting works from other countries in these kind of joint funding models. Love in the Air koi was great because the Mima and Wai team was deeply involved in that production and there was a lot of cross marketing. They had actors from the original Love in the Air Thailand cameo on the Japanese show. It was cool to see that kind of cooperation going on.
01:06:42
Speaker
Lastly, and we say this every year, more GLs. There needs to be way more lesbians in the genre than there are. And we need to get them good fories. Even though there was a ramp up on GL this year because there was actually quite a bit of GL this year. I can't point to one GL that I saw that really cooked me. She loves to cook to happen this year. I mean, yes. Yes. Okay. She loves to cook. She loves to eat it. That goes into the same category as what did you eat yesterday? It's eternal. It's everlasting. I'm sorry. You didn't think Chaser Game W changed the face of the game. No. There were a lot of GLs this year, but most of them had really terrible writing. What's wild to me, and this has been a really interesting thing that we've started seeing in the recent months, these shows, even when they're not very good in terms of the quality of the story, they're really popular because the fans are so thirsty for this content.
01:07:40
Speaker
the QL viewership wants GL. And these studios need to put some real resources behind making these shows and making them good because there is a lot of potential there. I think GL's kind of following the trajectory that BL followed, which is a shame because BL sort of set the trajectory already so they could have shortcutted all of that. Can we not just skip to the good content part?
01:08:07
Speaker
Well, they did try to make GL soda, so hang in there, girls.
Closing Remarks and Future Outlook
01:08:15
Speaker
That's going to end it for us. We will see you all in the coming weeks as we make our way through the Vibe Awards. And we have a little super special little treat for you before we get to the vibes, which I will not spoil, but it's going to be fun. That is going to wrap us up on our year in review. Oh my god, guys, another year. This is our third year in review. My goodness. Absolutely wild. This is our 50 something episode. We're getting up to 60. We're about to be retirees up in here. We love it. See you guys next time. We out. Say bye to the people, Cheyenne. Bye, people. Say bye to the people, Ben. Peace.