Most people don't wanna watch MC be with a dead beat man who can't afford to pay the bills. They want men who can provide for MC all needs without a fault, who can spoil him rot. Kr and Ch BL have oafs of influence from self-insert stuff, specially Chinese. That's why Japanese BL have more daily life, common office workers, even construction workers in there, jap BL have a longer tradition, they already over came it, if you look at the big names of late 90s it was about really rich men when they aren't student. But jap media as a whole have a looot of daily life media, where nothing huge happens, ex.: people just go out to eat and that's the plot, which is not as prominent in the other east Asian medias yet.
Kr BL is young, it follows the same recipe as straight dramas, for example, the poor girl meeting a rich CEO/high ranked manager/associate lawyer/top doctor who's rude and falls for her at some point.
Chinese BL has a longer tradition, but Chinese pop media do tend to focus on the life of the rich and powerful except when it goes onto supernatural (not fantasy, fantasy is also about rich and powerful), there are pieces about common life or daily life but it's not a romance, even if it follows a romantic pair.
Because it used to be a Prince now modern life upgraded to CEO.
I totally agree with you. I guess it's reflective of the societies we live in. But goddamn I guess with the amount of manhwa being made, there's so much of bad Korean BL. I guess one trope that frustrates me the most is this fantasy of "taming the beast" where the protagonist softens the borderline (if not even) psychotic ML. Especially when there is a perfectly fine option of a second ML nearby. I understand that dating culture in Korea is quite toxic and this is possibly a way for women to delve into their fantasies, it's just so goddamn frustrating reading the same repetitive storyline. (Which yes also used to be with the Japanese manga back in the day, but since these get drowned in the current of CEOs I don't actually mind anymore)
Can't we have both
After reading BL manhwa and manga for about 8 years now, I can proudly say I've read a good amount of content and have first handedly experienced the rise of manhwas in this genre. While at the beginning manhwas were definitely more rare and innovative with both bringing in colour as well as the digital format, I do have to say the market nowadays is oversaturated.
Don't get me wrong I love me some good old smut and kinky shit, and I am not really sensitive when it comes to certain taboo topics. WHYYYY is it though that every new manhwa I have read in the past two years or so must have a LITERAL PSYCHOTIC MALE LEAD, like a genuine psychopath who murders and kills and blablabla. I am soooo sick of it, like we get it he is a bad boy, sure, but WHY does he literally HAVE TO ENJOY MURDER. And it's always the innocent naiv bottom who is calming his guts.
As said I don't mind edgy stuff, I've read a lot of edgy stuff but ever since Killing Stalking suddenly everyone is a MURDER, PSYCHOPATH, CEO, MAFIA BOSS. Can we have some other types of bad boy?
And look I get even Japanese manga back in the day were also getting repetitive with the office/ highschool plotlines, but not EVERYONE suddenly turned out TO BE A CEO.
(I know there's also a few manhwa out there that have more original plot lines, but these are becoming quite rare)
Anyways, has someone else also experienced this frustration?