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alias_sqbrThis isn't even the next review post I was planning on lol, but got_quiet asked and it seemed like something other people might be interested in.
Viki is a streaming platform which mostly hosts East Asian live action TV dramas and movies. Some things are entirely free, while others are paywalled past a certain number of episodes. There's a fair amount of BL.
I watched a bunch of these elsewhere, but noticed them while I was making this post and thought I might as well add them. It's plausible that you may not have the same range of shows available if you don't live in Australia.
I watched all/lots and enjoyed (all m/m lol):
The Founder of Diabolism: the animated adaptation of The Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation, eg the inspiration for The Untamed. Really good Chinese fantasy with censored m/m romance subtext. I ran out of momentum on the last season since I knew the romance was censored, I hear the ending is a bit rushed but very shippy.
Scumbag System: The censored 3D animated version of the Chinese fantasy m/m rom-com novel Scum Villain's Self Saving System. It's about a modern Chinese guy who ends up transmigrating into a minor, doomed villain in his favourite cheesy fantasy webnovel, and is hilariously oblivious to how all his attempts to not be murdered by the Manly Heterosexual Hero are making the hero obsessively fall in love with him. This only covers the beginning of the story, so doesn't even have to censor much, and it's a pretty good and funny adaptation. But it ends pretty abruptly and... my god. The cgi. I eventually found it endearing and weirdly in character for the story but it is VERY ugly. My original review.
Old Fashion Cupcake live action Japanese m/m rom-com TV show about two business men. Very cute and fluffy.
Word of Honour A really good historical Chinese fantasy/xianxia romance/drama, with lots of intrigue and cool fights and so much m/m subtext that the creators got into trouble with the Chinese government. The main character is an angsty ex-assassin who is trying to live out his final days in drunken lassitude, but meets a mysterious and charming man and gets dragged into violent supernatural shenanigans. I stopped watching at the halfway point since the couple had basically gotten together and I could tell Bad Things were going to happen to secondary characters I liked, but I hear the later plot is good too.
HIStory 2: Crossing the line: Two Taiwanese m/m romances, I watched this ages ago and can't find my review. HIStory: Boundary Crossing: a pair of stepbrothers in highschool, moderately cute and they're not VERY brothery. HIStory: Right or Wrong: a college professor and a student, I vaguely recall not really liking it.
History 3: Trapped a great 10 episode enemies-to-friends-to-lovers Taiwanese m/m romance drama. The HIStory shows all have standalone plots, so don't be put off by it being the third one. The two leads are an adorkable yet driven police detective and the seemingly cold but secretly angsty mob boss Tang Yi he's been obsessed with arresting for the past four years. But then they have to work together! And save each others lives! And untangle the DARK TRUTHS OF THE PAST. AND THEN THEY KISS. The rest of my review.
Viki also has HISstory 1, 4 and 5 but I get the feeling they're not my sort of thing.
(note: I just posted a review of this)
Semantic Error: A cute Korean rom-com. An uptight rules obsessed computer science major, Sangwoo, gets into conflict with his impulsive extrovert fine arts major project partner, Jaeyong, after telling the professor that Jaeyong did no work on their joint assignment. This conflict quickly escalates to a rivalry fueled by repressed UST, before they become creative partners also still fueled by repressed UST. At first I was put off by what a jerk Jaeyong was being, especially when he deliberately disrupted the autistic coded Sangwoo's routine, but in the end decided these two weirdos were perfect for each other and made each other happy. It's sometimes a bit cliched with the red/blue personality clash, like a Wei Wuxian/Lan Wangji modern Korea AU (if Wei Wuxian was a 6'3" top), but overall I enjoyed it. Don't let the M rating fool you there's just a few chaste kisses. Interestingly, noone explicitly comments on it being a m/m relationship, and Jaeyong has an openly bisexual female artist bff. There's a slight love triangle with a girl into Sangwoo, but I thought this was handled in a not-too-annoying way.
Watched a little:
Bad Buddy: Thai m/m romcom about two young men who carry on the feud between their families before (I assume) begrudgingly realising they're in love. Seemed pretty cute but didn't grab me. I might give it another go one day.
A Good Day to be a Dog: Korean m/f rom-com about a woman who is cursed to turn into a dog and the dog-phobic uptight male coworker she needs to help her break her curse. I enjoyed the webtoon of this, and the little I watched of the show was a good adaptation, but I just kept thinking it would be easier to reread the webtoon instead. Still, it was fun to see everyone in live action.
Haven't watched yet:
You're My Pet: Japanese m/f romance about a 30ish woman who gets into an odd yet mutually rewarding quasi-platonic poorly negotiated petplay D/s relationship with a younger guy. I enjoyed the manga of this, I'm not sure I'll have the motivation to get over how hard I find watching subtitled tv shows but you never know.
A girl like me: M/f Chinese historical romance. I don't remember why I saved this to my list but someone probably told me it was good!
Fatal Journey: An Untamed spinoff about the Nie brothers. I hear it's really good but sad. Also I haven't actually watched the Untamed. But I do like the Nie brothers!
Sweet Bite Marks: Chinese m/f highschool vampire romance, I noticed it in the animated section and it looks trashy as hell but sometimes I'm in the mood for that.
Cinderella Chef: Chinese animation, plot appears to be "girl from modern China ends up in Ancient China and saves the emperor with cooking". I'm not sure I've ever watched Chinese transmigration with a female protag, so I'll give it a shot.
Dramasskygiants made sound really good but idk if I will personally watch:
Mr. Queen: Korean comedy about a guy who transmigrates into a historical queen and has a complex romantic arc with [his?] husband. I hear the ending is a bit of a downer but it's enjoyably Gender until then. Skygiants' review.
Hotel Del Luna: Korean m/f show. According toskygiants' very entertaining review: once upon a time, bandit leader Jang Man Wol reached a point of peak murderous despair, killed a whole lot of people, and was sentenced by God to remain in eternal supernatural stasis managing a ghost hotel.
Hello My Twenties I couldn't findskygiant's review but I did find January talking meme: Kdramas for beginners by meganbmoore which described it as "a slice of life series about 5 female college students who are roommates, except in this case, one or more MIGHT be murderers, there’s at least 1 Secret Lifestyle and 2 Secret Pasts between them, plus one who can see a ghost that may or may not be the ghost of a murdered person.". I actually did watch like 20 minutes of this on Netflix and didn't click with it. EDIT: Skygiants review!
Viki plausibly has a bunch of other cool kdramas on that list and inskygiants' kdrama tag, these are just the ones I noticed.
got_quiet asked and it seemed like something other people might be interested in. Viki is a streaming platform which mostly hosts East Asian live action TV dramas and movies. Some things are entirely free, while others are paywalled past a certain number of episodes. There's a fair amount of BL.
I watched a bunch of these elsewhere, but noticed them while I was making this post and thought I might as well add them. It's plausible that you may not have the same range of shows available if you don't live in Australia.
I watched all/lots and enjoyed (all m/m lol):
The Founder of Diabolism: the animated adaptation of The Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation, eg the inspiration for The Untamed. Really good Chinese fantasy with censored m/m romance subtext. I ran out of momentum on the last season since I knew the romance was censored, I hear the ending is a bit rushed but very shippy.
Scumbag System: The censored 3D animated version of the Chinese fantasy m/m rom-com novel Scum Villain's Self Saving System. It's about a modern Chinese guy who ends up transmigrating into a minor, doomed villain in his favourite cheesy fantasy webnovel, and is hilariously oblivious to how all his attempts to not be murdered by the Manly Heterosexual Hero are making the hero obsessively fall in love with him. This only covers the beginning of the story, so doesn't even have to censor much, and it's a pretty good and funny adaptation. But it ends pretty abruptly and... my god. The cgi. I eventually found it endearing and weirdly in character for the story but it is VERY ugly. My original review.
Old Fashion Cupcake live action Japanese m/m rom-com TV show about two business men. Very cute and fluffy.
Word of Honour A really good historical Chinese fantasy/xianxia romance/drama, with lots of intrigue and cool fights and so much m/m subtext that the creators got into trouble with the Chinese government. The main character is an angsty ex-assassin who is trying to live out his final days in drunken lassitude, but meets a mysterious and charming man and gets dragged into violent supernatural shenanigans. I stopped watching at the halfway point since the couple had basically gotten together and I could tell Bad Things were going to happen to secondary characters I liked, but I hear the later plot is good too.
HIStory 2: Crossing the line: Two Taiwanese m/m romances, I watched this ages ago and can't find my review. HIStory: Boundary Crossing: a pair of stepbrothers in highschool, moderately cute and they're not VERY brothery. HIStory: Right or Wrong: a college professor and a student, I vaguely recall not really liking it.
History 3: Trapped a great 10 episode enemies-to-friends-to-lovers Taiwanese m/m romance drama. The HIStory shows all have standalone plots, so don't be put off by it being the third one. The two leads are an adorkable yet driven police detective and the seemingly cold but secretly angsty mob boss Tang Yi he's been obsessed with arresting for the past four years. But then they have to work together! And save each others lives! And untangle the DARK TRUTHS OF THE PAST. AND THEN THEY KISS. The rest of my review.
Viki also has HISstory 1, 4 and 5 but I get the feeling they're not my sort of thing.
(note: I just posted a review of this)
Semantic Error: A cute Korean rom-com. An uptight rules obsessed computer science major, Sangwoo, gets into conflict with his impulsive extrovert fine arts major project partner, Jaeyong, after telling the professor that Jaeyong did no work on their joint assignment. This conflict quickly escalates to a rivalry fueled by repressed UST, before they become creative partners also still fueled by repressed UST. At first I was put off by what a jerk Jaeyong was being, especially when he deliberately disrupted the autistic coded Sangwoo's routine, but in the end decided these two weirdos were perfect for each other and made each other happy. It's sometimes a bit cliched with the red/blue personality clash, like a Wei Wuxian/Lan Wangji modern Korea AU (if Wei Wuxian was a 6'3" top), but overall I enjoyed it. Don't let the M rating fool you there's just a few chaste kisses. Interestingly, noone explicitly comments on it being a m/m relationship, and Jaeyong has an openly bisexual female artist bff. There's a slight love triangle with a girl into Sangwoo, but I thought this was handled in a not-too-annoying way.
Watched a little:
Bad Buddy: Thai m/m romcom about two young men who carry on the feud between their families before (I assume) begrudgingly realising they're in love. Seemed pretty cute but didn't grab me. I might give it another go one day.
A Good Day to be a Dog: Korean m/f rom-com about a woman who is cursed to turn into a dog and the dog-phobic uptight male coworker she needs to help her break her curse. I enjoyed the webtoon of this, and the little I watched of the show was a good adaptation, but I just kept thinking it would be easier to reread the webtoon instead. Still, it was fun to see everyone in live action.
Haven't watched yet:
You're My Pet: Japanese m/f romance about a 30ish woman who gets into an odd yet mutually rewarding quasi-platonic poorly negotiated petplay D/s relationship with a younger guy. I enjoyed the manga of this, I'm not sure I'll have the motivation to get over how hard I find watching subtitled tv shows but you never know.
A girl like me: M/f Chinese historical romance. I don't remember why I saved this to my list but someone probably told me it was good!
Fatal Journey: An Untamed spinoff about the Nie brothers. I hear it's really good but sad. Also I haven't actually watched the Untamed. But I do like the Nie brothers!
Sweet Bite Marks: Chinese m/f highschool vampire romance, I noticed it in the animated section and it looks trashy as hell but sometimes I'm in the mood for that.
Cinderella Chef: Chinese animation, plot appears to be "girl from modern China ends up in Ancient China and saves the emperor with cooking". I'm not sure I've ever watched Chinese transmigration with a female protag, so I'll give it a shot.
Dramas
skygiants made sound really good but idk if I will personally watch:Mr. Queen: Korean comedy about a guy who transmigrates into a historical queen and has a complex romantic arc with [his?] husband. I hear the ending is a bit of a downer but it's enjoyably Gender until then. Skygiants' review.
Hotel Del Luna: Korean m/f show. According to
skygiants' very entertaining review: once upon a time, bandit leader Jang Man Wol reached a point of peak murderous despair, killed a whole lot of people, and was sentenced by God to remain in eternal supernatural stasis managing a ghost hotel.Hello My Twenties I couldn't find
skygiant's review but I did find January talking meme: Kdramas for beginners by meganbmoore which described it as "a slice of life series about 5 female college students who are roommates, except in this case, one or more MIGHT be murderers, there’s at least 1 Secret Lifestyle and 2 Secret Pasts between them, plus one who can see a ghost that may or may not be the ghost of a murdered person.". I actually did watch like 20 minutes of this on Netflix and didn't click with it. EDIT: Skygiants review! Viki plausibly has a bunch of other cool kdramas on that list and in
skygiants' kdrama tag, these are just the ones I noticed.
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Date: 2024-01-19 06:33 am (UTC)xD I did not expect that ending. What a punishment?
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Date: 2024-01-19 07:19 am (UTC)Yes it's quite a premise!
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Date: 2024-01-19 10:50 pm (UTC)Ooh! I'm making a note.
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Date: 2024-01-20 02:08 am (UTC)Excellent :D
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Date: 2024-01-20 01:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-01-20 02:07 am (UTC)Thank you! And thank you also for all the entertaining review posts.
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Date: 2024-01-21 12:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-02-03 01:45 pm (UTC)I hope you find something you like!
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Date: 2024-01-21 06:20 am (UTC)I've really appreciate that Viki has expanded their offerings over the last year - there's a lot of great stuff on there for all tastes!
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Date: 2024-02-03 01:46 pm (UTC)Yeah as I started writing the post the list just kept growing.