Recs for Knox

This is my favorite show (of all time, not just of Thai dramas).  

A girl does a unicorn a solid and it grants her a wish. She wishes to find her love (bc she is in love with a medium tier famous boy) and the unicorn of course transes her gender, Ranma 1/2 style. She uses this to sneak into admission at her crush's famous all-boys school.

There are some very good friendship dynamics, and the love pentagon was fraught with identity shenanigans and divorces and the issue of what it means to be a protagonist in your own life, and I loved it! So much is communicated via lingering, complicated gazes, which gets more and more intense as the love polygon grows new angles. The family stuff in here is also really good and brutal and perfect.

FANTASY WORLDBUILDING: Almost none!! God, it’s delightful. It’s just a regular world except there’s a magical unicorn and magic-level VR technology I guess?? There’s a point where they talk about mind-reading and I was like “oh finally some more magic” but no they just meant like understanding body language. Don’t worry about it!

GENDERS: It is by no means perfect, gender-wise, but the fact that it’s multilayered and complicated and messy is why I personally loved it a lot. There is the magical gender wish fulfillment stuff AND dysphoria stuff AND fear of telling your family about your identity stuff AND identities misaligning and aligning romantically, which might not be some people’s idea of a good time, but it is very much mine. I kept waiting for things to be magically fixed in a disappointing transphobic way, but I actually found the ending super fucking satisfying. There are some really chewy difficult moments in there, but it is REALLY consistent tonally about both “your body does not dictate your gender” AND “sometimes you want your body to reflect your gender.” 

This one is about a supposedly straight guy who writes webnovels, and decides to dabble in BL. It's a hit, and the book gets a show adaptation, and now his manager wants more BL content out of him. UH OH he simply doesn't have the real-world experience for this!! Luckily, the guy who is cast as the lead romantic interest in his show is happy to help... shenanigans and romance ensue.

I thought of this one when you were talking about the behind the scenes romance stuff. War of Y isn't out yet, but this one is in the same vein! It's very fun. The only drawback for me is the constant damn sound effects. But it's ok, it's worth it. You get used to it.

This is Romeo and Juliet, except Thai and gay and a comedy with a happy ending. This one is Very solid, and a really common In to the genre for people these days. Ohm is one of my favorite Thai BL actors, and Nanon is REALLY good at subtle pained pining facial acting. It's killer. 

The finale wavered a bit for me in the 1st half but by the end it was super good. 

This one is kind of bonkers. I started it and gave up on it because the protagonist was stalker flavored and I didn't feel up to the challenge. BUT then I gave it another shot and it was actually insanely charming. Yes ok he is a stalker, but his love interest is actually very into it. Freak4freak romance. 

The friend group is really sweet and cute, the side romances are also very good, and there's a cute gender arc in there as well.

This one was produced by Saint Suppapong, who has STARRED in a lot of BLs, and you can really tell that the genre is shifting, telling stories with more weirdo queers in it. 

This is about twin magic meets leftist polycule. A guy finds out his twin has been beaten into a coma (bc twin magic. it's called twins look it up). He decides to investigate this by taking his twin brother's identity. And subsequently falling for the guy his brother hates in his little queer radical antifa motorcycle gang. 

This is one of my very favorite Thai BLs. I wanted to rec you mostly comedies, and this one has more of an edge to it, but it is also still VERY bliss chasing so you will still laugh and experience delight. 

The director is a trans woman and there are a lot of actual thai activists in side roles in the show too. It's really powerful imo, but also about gay twin identity shenanigans! Art. 

A rich brat with a congenital heart disease decides to turn over a new leaf when he receives a heart transplant. By continuing the volunteer teaching work his heart donor started. And also falling for the hardass forest ranger she had feelings for. Just delightful. This one is REALLY slow burn and pretty low heat, but it’s gorgeous, there is lots of pining, and Mix is there. Mix is the face haver of the century in my opinion.

Truly only adding this one because I feel you may have read the manga back in the day. I think this is a fun adaptation, but it isn't one of the BEST Thai BLs. I just like it. And also it deals with fame and behind the scenes romance.

Ahem. As we have discussed. Mafia BL. high budget and buckwild. Very R rated. Not finished airing yet but in a league of its own.

ok don't start with this one. This would be like the time I watched Ouran before I saw any other anime. You would need to see this AFTER you had seen a few others, because it is very genre referential. It's about a guy who thinks his sister cursed him, turning his life into a BL novel. 

She didn't, he is just extremely charmingly neurotic and i love him. This one got kinda screwed over by the plague, and the last like 1/4 of the show is not fully fleshed out, they just sort of cobbled together an ending with what they had shot before things went on lockdown. But the premise is very good and similarly to Lovely Writer i think fits with the sort of meta stories you're interested in. But also it can sit on the back shelf and if you like these shows enough to watch 2 or 3, this one can come into play. 

It is also very spicy if that is a draw for you.