Japanese-style ‘boys love’ dramas captivate Thai women

BANGKOK — Gay love stories involving two impossibly pretty young men, a long-established literary genre in Japan known as yaoi, or “boys love,” have become a pop culture phenomenon in Thailand. The adapted Japanese import has captured the imagination of women and girls in Thailand.

Social media company Line has created “Y Series,” a group of boys love dramas produced in Thailand, winning over 20 million viewers in that country alone. The stories are also gaining fans elsewhere in Southeast Asia and China. “Y Series” stories are being imported back into Japan, creating a new ecosystem for the genre in East Asia.

Boys love stories are no longer a subculture, declared Norasit Sitivechvichit, chief commercial officer of Line’s Thailand unit at an Oct. 8 meeting held to pitch the company’s strategy to analysts and investors in Bangkok. “The [boys love] culture has recently…