Back in the throes of the COVID-19 pandemic, I discovered the wonderful world of Boys’ Love dramas through GMMTV’s 2019 masterpiece, He’s Coming to Me. Dark Blue Kiss came next, followed by the global sensation that was 2gether.
But the story of GMMTV’s BL empire began a few years earlier with the 2016 release of SOTUS: The Series, starring Singto and Krist. The company’s first full-fledged BL production, it became a landmark in Thai Boys’ Love television, though few could have anticipated just how beloved it would become. More productions followed in 2017, including a sequel to SOTUS, and GMMTV’s investment in queer storytelling gradually grew.
Over the years, the company has cultivated an increasingly diverse catalogue of queer content, along with an audience eager to embrace it. From the bisexual tension and tangled relationships of 3 Will Be Free to the adorable, Saturday-morning sensibilities of the family-friendly BL My School President, GMMTV has explored queer romance in all sorts of shapes, sizes, and shades. What began with a single university romance has grown into an entire universe of stories, some of which allow their worlds to collide (Our Skyy 2).
2026 proved to be GMMTV’s biggest year yet for Boys’ Love, with 23 BL series announced. By comparison, the company had eight Girls’ Love (GL) series on its slate and just five other series, including heterosexual-led stories and bromances. The numbers paint a fascinating picture of how dramatically GMMTV’s programming priorities have shifted, with queer romance now occupying a remarkable share of its storytelling landscape.
At its annual announcement event, GMMTV NEXT: GENERATION HAPPY, the company unveiled an ambitious lineup of 19 confirmed BL series, alongside nine GL productions and nine other series, including heterosexual-led stories and at least three bromance-focused titles centred on friendship rather than romance. To put it lightly, fans were pissed.
Ignoring the shows we were getting and completely forsaking everything the company has done over the past decade, they focused on the three (as of now speculated) bromance series: 52Hz (starring Nanon and Jackie), Pit Stop (starring Ohm Pawat and Ing) and I Wanna Hold Your Hand (starring Hong and Nut of the group LYKN).
I Wanna Hold Your Hand follows Thun (Ongart Cheamcharoenpornkul, Chae), an elderly man who, following a serious health scare, finally opens up to his family about the man he once loved. His grandson Max (Hong) and Max’s friend Winton (Nut) set out to help him reconnect with the person who has never been far from his heart, despite the two breaking up and living very different lives.
It’s a queer love story spanning generations, exploring not only a love that was never forgotten but also the ways in which the experiences of one generation can resonate with another.
The series was conceived by Tichakorn Phukhaotong (JoJo), who also serves as director and has gone on record as saying the project is something he has wanted to make for years. It draws on real-life events about an elderly man who came out late in life and asked his grandchild to help find his former lover.
It’s also (in part) a reflection on the relationship between John Lennon and Paul McCartney: their lifelong creative partnership, complicated friendship, eventual separation and the things left unsaid between them.
So, it is queer. It may not follow the tried-and-true tropes of familiar BL storylines, but at its heart, it is still a queer love story. And yet, many fans are calling I Wanna Hold Your Hand, alongside Pit Stop and 52Hz, queerbaiting, while going so far as to call GMMTV homophobic.
GMMTV. The very company that helped bring Thai BL to a global Western audience.
Since 2024, the company has experienced a significant turnover in its established BL pairings. Regardless of the how, what, or why behind these departures, it’s a fact. Not every ship that sets sail is going to reach its happily ever after.
Not everyone can be EarthMix.
So, series that soft-launch pairings as friends can be a good way to test the chemistry between actors, gauge fan reactions, and see whether that partnership has the potential to develop into something more.
But there’s another point worth considering: not everyone in the queer community is destined to end up with the man they met in a bookshop or eventually realize they’re head-over-heels in love with their arch-nemesis since childhood.
I get it. BL is fantasy, for the most part, and it’s wonderful. Series like Vice Versa, Peaceful Property, and He’s Coming to Me are among my favourite comfort shows. But fantasy isn’t real life and, to be honest, representation matters.
Queerness is a spectrum. You have gay, bisexual, questioning, fluid, and so many other identities and experiences. And sometimes, men are just men who think with the lower half of their bodies and are in it because it feels good. Nothing more, nothing less. Not every encounter has to lead to a forever love. Not every connection has to become a relationship. And not every queer story needs a romantic happily ever after to be meaningful.
Sometimes being best friends is the best ending.
There’s also the fact that we know very little about some of these newly announced series. We’re judging productions based on a handful of promotional materials, preliminary synopses and casting announcements, without having seen the actual stories unfold.
Going back to I Wanna Hold Your Hand, I’ve seen discussions in which fans accuse JoJo of straight-washing a queer storyline. But this is his original story. You can’t straight-wash something that has never been released before. There is no previous version to compare it with, no established romantic storyline being rewritten or stripped of its queer identity.
Gay, straight, or somewhere in between, this is a story being told for the first time. JoJo has spoken about the personal influences behind it, including the relationship between John Lennon and Paul McCartney and the real-life story of an elderly man trying to reconnect with a lost love, but those were influences. It’s based on real events, not a true story.
This isn’t Advance Bravely.
We may have expectations about what the story should be, particularly when it comes from a company so closely associated with BL. But expectations aren’t the same as reality. Perhaps we should allow the creator to tell us what the story is before deciding what it isn’t.
We should be judging the stories GMMTV actually tells, not the stories we’ve already decided they’re going to tell.
There will be more reviews soon, so…
Stay tuned.
