This is a fascinating story just because of how weirdly good it is. It gets away way borderline gay and trans representation in a country where queerness is pretty censored. And there are a few reasons why it gets away with this.

The first is that this story relies heavily on it being inspired by anime. Because of the inherit bizareness in anime, its stories gets away with a lot of stuff that would otherwise be considered socially unacceptable. How else would My Girlfriend's Boyfriend get away with characters crossdressing for more than half of the time they show up on screen! Usually, the only way you can get a character to be cross dressing is by forcing them to hide their identity, or to be the center of a joke. But, in this drama, a character can crossdress just because they want to crossdress, and the excuse the show gives for being socially allowed to do so is that they're in anime club. They also excused gayness in a similar way by including a fujioshi amongst the characters. (If you don't know, a fujioshi is a woman who likes yaoi, a genre that is about gay men made for women to read/watch). This made it so the gay aspect was straight enough to be acceptable. I was impressed by how clever the show was in using stereotypes in order to get away with queerness. Is it the best kind of representation out there? No. Still, it's impressive in an odd way.

And it's not just stereotypes about storytelling. For the longest time it bothered me how much of an asshole the main character is. I could be reading into this more than I should be, but I started to realize, it's possible the show wouldn't have gotten away with as much as it did if the main character wasn't an asshole. Now, if you're queer, you probably already understand what I'm about to explain. Before you're ready to come out, sometimes you indulge in societal expectations for you. You might try to be super straight or you might try to be super cisgendered in order to cover up the fact that you're queer. Or maybe you do it in a desperate attempt to convince yourself you're not queer. In a similar way, the show has so many annoyingly toxic male tropes and ideas about sexuality! It bothered me so much.

At the same time, I realized that using those toxically masculine tropes is also a way to appease an audience (or maybe a television network) that is homophobic/transphobic. By indulging in patriarichal ideals of masculity that typically also encourage the rejection of gayness/transness, they imply that they also subscribe to the mainstream narrative about queerness. In doing so, the queerness is subverted, however it also becomes acceptable enough to be presented to the mainstream audience. When the show does become more queer, they start to dial back on other aspects of queerness (there's less crossdressing, and they make the more annoying parts of masculinity stronger in side characters). In a way, the show trades off queerness with mainstream masculine stereotypes. It's an impressive case of subscribing to societal standards and manipulating them to get away with what otherwise might have been censored. Kind of like kissing up to mainstream culture so they can be allowed to do what they want. In a way, it reminds me of politics and the idea of "give and take." Now I could be missing the mark compeltly, but if I'm not, then this show was actually more clever than I originally gave it credit for. The toxic masculinity still bothers me though. It's really annoying. Honestly, I just started skipping scenes after a certain point.

There's also a speech one of the characters gives that so obviously is about queerness while pretending to be about the anime club, that I literally gaped. I'm surprised they were able to get away with it, but again it's BECAUSE they take advantage of stereotypes. And it's so funny, because the story also very obviously doesn't care to belong to any societal stereotypes. I mean it ends with the main characters being in a committed long-term three-way relationship for goodness sakes! I'm a big fan of anything that manipulates tropes to tell a better story (which is why I'm a huge fan of the Reply series, especially Reply 1988), but now I realize that this can also be done in a way that manipulates stereotypes. What an intersting storytelling device. I'll have to look for it in the future as well.

In an ideal world, the writer wouldn't have to go through such lengths to tell a story as queer as this one. However, the amount of skill and cultural awareness that has to go into creating this story is impressive. I'm sorry I didn't realize any of this when I first watched it. I think I would have appreciated it better if I had. I remember thinking, if this show is going to be so gay, why is it also being so toxically masculine? I think I get it now. Sometimes I think of myself as a purist. If you're going to be pro-queer, go all the way! But, it isn't as easy to do so openly everywhere in the world. In the context of China's censorship, I do have to give it some respect. Although I think projecting toxicly masculine traits is a bad thing always and I honestly believe the story would have been better without being so toxicly masculine.

Also, I just wanted to say the main character is obviously straight, but it seems like he might also be panromantic (or something of that nature). Wow! I was not expecting that. Also I realized this is a queerplatonic relationship. I honestly didn't understand the concept very well until I watched this show.

Anyway, I'm a sucker for anything that subverts societal standards (especially in the name of love). I don't know. What do you think? Do you agree with my interpretation, or do you think I'm reading too much into it? Also if you know any storys that manipulate tropes and stereotypes in a clever way, please recommend them!