there isn't a certain era where BL was objectively better than other eras, it's just your nostalgia talking. i remember finding rape/abuse in just as many stories back then as i do now. it's just the younger readers grew up, can recognise when a story has shittily presented rape/abuse now and don't try to justify it lol. this is like boomercore to have nostalgia affect how you remember the same things.
I wouldn't say everything is garbage but sure stories are so repetitive. As I say, same story but in different setting. I think bl manhwa's authors take inspiration from BJ Alex and Killing Stalking and keep making same stories but with different twist. Lol. But I will again say, there are really good bl manhwa also being produced right now.
As the other commenter pointed out abuse and rape are issues that plague the romance genre, so I’m not just talking about that, I mean from an objective writing standpoint they were better. I’ve since re-read the manwha from the time and not only do I have a better appreciation for it but I can compare it to what’s being pushed out today. I think a lot of manwha these days are made by artist who can draw, but don’t know how to write. And even at that these authors can’t write either, they can conjure up a decent plot but don’t know where to go after that.
I don’t consider KS to be a BL manwha but I’ll use it as an example, ever since it got popular so many manwha authors tried to recreate it without actually understanding it, many read it for shock value but when u detach the “BL” label from it u can see that it wasn’t that poorly written. Many people look over its writing bc of the smut that’s crammed into, but regardless KS had all these others people thinking “I can do that too” and they failed!!! Bc they didn’t know how to actually write, and now u end up with like 7 diff shitty clones of the OG
I could explain my point further but I don’t wanna bore u or anyone else who’s reading this comment
I think it’s just that in that era you can look back on it retrospectively because those stories have gotten time to simmer while forgetting about the messes of popular stories that happened, I felt the exact same way.
But honestly progressively speaking, I like how newer BLs are working towards removing weird homophobic troupes and going against them and actually speaking about other issues such as what happens after dating.
Not to mention, the ones they’re remembering are the good ones they liked, but there were def a bunch that they wouldn’t like since there is so much bl series that come out every year. Later on, they’ll probably remember the good series that populated this year and forget about all the miscellaneous mid ones(since if they’re not that good, most people don’t remember it)
Remembering the stuff that was coming out back then, I remember I was going through the same thing in going through now, for every bl I find and love, there’s like 3 more that I either dislike or just find “okay”
We also can’t fail to mention the fact that more stories come out every year due to the popularity of the genre and medium, so you get even a bigger pool of stories you’ll have to read through. It’s not a problem of quality in my opinion, but rather quantity. There are definitely real gems in the newer stuff and they honestly beat out the favorites I had a few years ago(better story and art). Its just that we feel there’s a lot of shit stuff because they’re still fresh in our mind.
Hwayoungs misery
Pons revenge
Shut line
The pizza delivery man
Our sunny days
Some others I can’t exactly think of off the top of my head. I think what I’m trying to say it was easier to find manwha that suit my preferences, I think theres a lot “trendy” manwha that are made with the intention of bandwagon if a certain trope. That’s the best way I can explain it, some manwha today feel like “trope soup” all trends and tropes without substance
This post was not made with the intention to discount current authors who are putting out great work, just my two sense on the current climate of BL. It’s similar to what’s going on with anime and Isekai, imo I’m just seeing alot of mid content that’s being pushed out bc the BL formula is bound to succeed.
Controversial take but BL manwhas peaked in 2016-2020 everything after that feels like hot garage