#korea trend

[koreaguides]

8 Popular Men’s Fashion Styles Seen In K-Dramas

1. Kim Seon Ho 

In Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha, Kim Seon ho’s fashion is casual and practical. You will often see him wearing a t-shirt, plaid shirt, and jeans. 

The main point of his style is that he rarely buttons up his shirts. Because the checkered patterns are colorful and diverse, it never gets boring. 

2. Park Seo Joon 

In Itaewon Class, Park Seo Joon often wears oversized items, especially bomber jackets in deep tones, that show his masculinity. 

He completes this edgy, street look by layering with dark hoodies and wearing combat boots. 

3. Park Seo Joon 

Unlike the stubborn, hard Park Saeroyi, Park Seo Joon plays a seemingly narcisstic chairman with a luxurious, clean style in What’s Wrong With Secretary Kim. 

He often wears a full suit with a tie and completes the look with a very fancy pocket scarf. 

4. Lee Min Ho 

Lee Min Ho often plays a chaebol, a word used to describe the super-rich in Korea. 

In The King Eternal Monarch, he completes this look by wearing a long coat or trench coat paired with a turtleneck sweater, creating a classic and luxurious style. 

5. Gong Yoo 

In Goblin, Gong Yoo also dresses luxuriously in long coats and turtlenecks. 

Unlike Lee Min Ho, Gong Yoo is portrayed more warmly, and you will see many scenes of him wearing sweaters and cardigans to create a sweet, friendly look. 

6. Cha Eun Woo 

Cha Eun woo’s image in My ID Is Gangnam Beauty is a gentle, sweet, and almost perfect guy. That’s why his fashion style in this drama is quite simple and causal. 

His most worn outfit is usually slacks and a button down shirt. The shirt is neatly tucked in, making him look and professional. 

7. Hwang In Yeop 

Hwang In Yeop perfectly portrays the bad boy in True Beauty with his big leather jackets, chain necklace, and silver earrings. 

He looks extremely trendy and sets the standard for the bad boy style. 

8. Lee Do Hyun

The drama Youth of May is set around an extremely important event in Korean history - the democratization of Gwangju in May 1980. Lee Do Hyun recreated the style of the youth at that time. 

The most typical of Lee Do Hyun’s retro outfits is jeans with a button down shirt and belt. 

[0totenb]

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[eunjiahn]

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[doux-amer]

[imuerytired]

!!!SPOILERS squid games!!!!! I miss these two

[ev3alyx]

𝙏𝙧𝙞𝙜𝙜𝙚𝙧 𝙒𝙖𝙧𝙣𝙞𝙣𝙜𝙨

This course may include readings, media, and discussion around topics such as knife play, gore, violence, gun use/play, choking, masochism/sadism, mention of death and suicide, usage of drugs, rape, cnc, murder.

⊹ ࣪ ˖

4:30 a.m.

It was early, super early, in fact. You could feel your eyes wanting to stay closed each time you blinked. You were also starving, to the point that your stomach was in pure pain. Trying to find something to eat, you wandered throughout Gyeongju-si, searching the trash bins behind every restaurant. Usually, it was filled with leftover food that you couldn't comprehend why it was thrown away.

After 8 restaurants and 24 trash bins, all that was found is some bread and bones. You put it in your bag and headed to the subway to sit in some warmth. Even if it wasn't what's enough for your body, your body didn't complain and ate it anyway.

Suddenly, you heard a thud. It was loud, super loud, probably since it was 6 a.m., and the subway was almost empty in your city. Sitting on the bench, you leaned to the left to see what the sound was. That's when you saw a man in a suit playing Ddakji with a stranger. Each time the stranger lost, the man would slap him. You hissed through your teeth in agony. "Geez.. getting slapped this early?" You thought to yourself. Observing from afar, you see the stranger win. It was a young woman with long brown hair tied up in a ponytail along with two little braids that faded to light purpleish colour. She jumped in happiness as she reached her hand out to slap the man. When her hand was few centimetres away from his face, he grabbed it and shoved money along with a little card into her hand. She seemed confused at first but didn't ask the second money was put in her palm. The man then left.

Before watching the young woman leave, you ran after her, "Miss! Miss!". She waited, and once you arrived, panting you stood in front of her bent slightly over and supporting yourself with your hands on your knees. You gasped for air and stood up properly, "Oh, sorry... my name is Y/N. " You smile and bend over politely, her returning the bow. "I was wondering..what was the card that man gave you?" you said, pointing to the direction the man left. The woman chuckled, handing you the card. "Apparently, we can win ₩45.6 billion here. We just need to meet some guys at this address in two days." she smiles but then gasps. "Oh, I'm sorry, i didn't introduce myself." she bows as an apology and reaches out her hand. You shake it as she says,"My name is Hye-Won. Nice to meet you!"

Smiling, you accept her apology and ask, "Can i perhaps take a picture of the card?" while holding your phone out with the camera open. She nods, and you take a picture, the flash lighting the card up properly. It was a small rectangular and brown card with a symbol of an "o" rectangle and a triangle. Just by looking at it, it's felt weird, dark even. You thank her and leave, wandering off staring at your phone. No matter how good ₩45.6 billion sounded, it felt off. You shrug it off as you get ready in your apartment but fall asleep shortly.

2 days later ⊹ ࣪ ˖

Putting on your clean and freshly washed clothes, you make your way to the given address on the card Hye-Won gave you. Standing there anxiously, you pick your skin on your nails, checking the time every 30 seconds. It was cold, really cold. You weren't able to tell if it was from the fear and uneasiness or if it was actually cold. You were interrupted from your thoughts and worry by a car stopping in front of you. A man in a pink jumpsuit with a mask gets out and approaches you. He has a triangle symbol on the black mask, fully covering his face. Tilting your head in confusion, he places his hand on your back, walking you into the car. You felt very bad now. It felt like you were being kidnapped, but you tried to stay calm even though you felt like you were going to have a panic attack at any second now. You entered the car anyway. It was luxurious inside it made you feel like a famous person, the seats were leather black and red. There was a gold piggy bank placed in front of you with holes that speakers have. A man in a deep voice started talking, telling you the instructions "Welcome Y/N..." as ominous smoke started filling the car you could feel yourself passing out more and more each second. "do you agree to these terms and wish to join the game?" he says, as you were seconds away from falling asleep. "Yeah...." you mutter as you drift to sleep.

You woke up in a dark room, surrounded by tons of people. Streching you notice you're in different clothes. You look and see you're in a green jumpsuit with white stripes. Looking around, you see everyone has a number. Yours was 111, your favourite angel number. "Ew green." The room had given you bad vibes already. You thought to yourself. As you look around and see numerous bunkbeds, you spot to your right Hye-Won.

"Hye-Won!" You yell in excitement, walking towards her and sitting on the edge of her bed. "Oh hi, Y/N! You came!" she smiles as she welcomes you with a warm hug. On her left chest, you could see the number "196". You start a short conversation with her only to be interrupted by the big door sliding open, multiple guards walking in with MP5A3 sub-machine guns in their arms, strapped to their back. You stand up, causios and observing them closely from Hye-Wons high bunkbed. The door closes as now everyone is standing in a circle, curious. Everyone keeps quiet as the guard in front with a square mask starts talking, "We all welcome you warmly to the Squid Games and are grateful you've joined. Let me go over the rules." he moves his head to crack his neck quietly. "We will be going to play a single game every day. Fail, or break the rules, and you will be eliminated. For every eliminated person, we'll add ₩10 million to the piggy bank. The final price, as said, is ₩45.6 billion. The first game will begin shortly. Once again, we warmly welcome you."

You notice a timer for 20 minutes going off while everyone seems to be amused by the amount of money. They're looking around. Some are talking in big groups and some in small groups. You turn back to Hye-Won and give her a smile. "Well, good luck to you, Hye-Won," you say, warmly patting her shoulder.

20 minutes later

As the timer went off, guards came in once again to take everyone somewhere else. You follow everyone, Hye-Won, walking behind you. Looking around the stairs to different rooms seems like a maze. You couldn't figure out how the guards remember where to go. Eventually, you arrive in a big room, the walls imidiating the outside world with a blue sky. Some grass, along with some trees, drew on it. The ceiling was open. You could see the actual sky, and it made you feel a bit better to feel the fresh air. There was a big doll at the end of the room with two guards guarding it standing next to it with guns strapped to their back, two lines on the floor marking the start and the end. "Why do they allways carry guns?" You wondered out loud as a man appeared behind you. He had purple hair with a black dyed undercut. "Señorita i think they're trying to kill us." he says, seeming proud of himself. You knew him, you saw his face a few times on the internet. "Wow, Thanos? What are you doing here, hm?" You smile, tilting your head. He chuckles as he shakes his head. "That doesn't matter now, does it?" he leans over, placing his hand on your shoulder. Suddenly, you hear a loud buzzing sound from the speakers as a woman starts talking. "Welcome to Red light, Green light. The rules are simply to move towards the finish line in time when the light is green and stay still when the light is red. Whoever moves or doesn't make it to the finish line in time will be eliminated. Good luck, players.

Before the game begins, a man with the number 456 stands in front of everyone,

"Stop and listen to me! These games are no joke! If you lose, they will kill you!" he yells at the top of his lungs. Everyone is looking around, confused. The question is, "How do you know?"Are you high?" Fill the room as he tries to grab the Players attention again. This goes on for some solid minutes before the doll begins talking. "Green light!" it says loudly as everyone moves forward fast. The second the doll says, "Red light!" 456 yells, facing backwards."Freeze!" He was so loud, most of the players got scared. You could see a man that seemed related to him, whispering anxiously. "Cover your mouth or it will see you!" he yells. As the green light goes back on, everyone runs with 456 yelling "freeze" again, each time. You stood behind Hye-Won, Thanos slightly in front of you. "Hey..what is that?" Hye-Won says anxiously as a bee is sitting on her neck. Thanos chuckles, "It knows you're a flower. There's a bee on you." he smirks. "Ah a bee?!" Hye-Won yells as she jumps and moves around before looking at you. "Shit, i just moved, didn't i?" she says as she gets shot straight in the head and the speaker announcements,"Player 196 eliminated.". Your body stands still as her blood splatters all over yours and Thanos's face. You start shaking, trying to hold back all the screaming and crying you want to do. A few seconds later, people look at you slowly, immidently screaming and panicking, trying to run away but only end up getting shot as well. 456 covers his mouth and takes a deep breath before yelling, "Stop! Please don't move they will shoot you! Stay still and don't panic!." The amount of adrenaline rushing through your body was insane it made you feel so dizzy. As the green light comes on, you see Thanos opening his cross necklace and taking out a pill. You couldn't help but ask for one politely. Without hesitation, Thanos chuckles and uses his hand to open your mouth and place one on the top of your tongue. You blush slightly and swallow the pill, seconds in feeling much better. The rest of the game feels blurry as all it was for you was fun and a mess. Your brain starts remembering what you're currently doing around the time you're back where your beds are, everyone scared and immidently hiding themselves in corners as you sit on Hye-Won's bed. As the drugs wear off, you start feeling sad, your eyes tearing up and falling off your face as they mix with all the blood that was sprayed onto your face and body. Everyone smelled like blood, and it made you feel a little sicker each second as you tried not to cry on Hye-Won's bed.

⊹ ࣪ ˖

As you sat on Hye-Won's bed, you hear footsteps in your direction, getting louder and lift your head up to see Thanos leaning on the edge of the bedframe, looking at you. "Ugh, this is cringe, but.. are you okay?" he says worringly, cringing at himself being so caring towards you. You wipe your tears and smile at him "Yeah just a little shocked... She was such a nice girl and didn't deserve to die.". Thanos nods. "You're right." You then suddenly remember something. "Yeah, you're right. it's your fault!" You stand up quickly enough to make your head spin. You push him slightly against his chest. "If you would've just been quiet, she could've made it, you asshole! And here you thought you could be a good person asking me if i'm okay!" You yell loudly as people start to catch attention to you, turning around and staring. "God flower, calm down. You're causing a scene!" He says as he steps backwards, towering over you he looks down "Just...quiet down all right? Good grief..." he sighs, crossing his arms. You could almost explode from all the anger in your veins, rushing through your body all the way up to your heart, beating fast enough for you to get a heart attack. "Quiet down?" You scoff, moving towards him."You want me to quiet down?!" You yell, centimetres away from Thanos. You grab him by his shirt to pull him closer to you "Listen here you little shit i will make you fucking pay for what you've done even if it's the last thing i do in this asylum." Seeing Thanos smirk, it made you even angrier before he grabbed both of your arms and held them above you strongly. "Oh do you know who the fuck you're even talking to?" he chuckles in an angry way, it made you almost shit your pants seeing how he probably could break your wrists at any second but it also slightly turned you on and that's what he didn't know about. "What, are you going to hurt me now too hm? Is that what you're into?" you say smirking, leaning near him with your face. He returns the smirk, moving his face towards yours, your lips centimetres away from each other. "And what if i do, huh?" saying he holds your wrists together even harder. You smirk, trying to hald back your laugh. "Oh, you're a kinky one, aren't you?" You kick him away, turning around and sitting back in Hye-Won's bed. Thanos scoffs playfully as Nam-gyu (player 124) tried to go after you but was stopped by Thanos's hand. He pats his shoulder and says, "Leave it, she's a hard one to get, but I'll get her eventually. "

⊹ ࣪ ˖ -evealyx on wattpad (UNFINISHED!)

[absolutebl]

TOP 10 BL Trends of 2023

This is just me with my analysis hat on. 

1. 2023 = the year EVERYONE went outside their lanes

Everything went topsy-turvy this year in BL. 

For example, Korea gave us agonized yearning and outright queerness (The 8th Sense, The New Employee) while Japan served up soft office workers and tender family (Our Dining Table). 

The BL world went askew for a while, especially in the spring of 2023. 

Not that we still didn’t still get Korea’s soft angsty bubbles or Japan’s “what are you doing and why does it hurt?” kink-fests. But there were quite a few BLs that made us chronic watchers sit up in confusion and wonder if Korea was dabbling in Taiwan’s territory or Japan in Thailand’s. Then they fudged the kisses and we were like... okay, back in familiar territory. 

In contrast, Thailand stayed course-correcting for the damage they’ve done in the past with tropes (2022) and self referential meta criticism (2021), but also almost aggressively returned to their BL roots after last year’s series of shockers. Certainly, they are reexamining those roots, transplanting some, aerating others. But they really went back to classic Thai university and high school BL and pulps in a big way in 2023. 

Taiwan is always difficult to gage because they produce so few but they seem to have stuck with what they do best with no deviation while producing more this year than they have in ages. I’m happy for that, why change a good thing? But there is a tiny part of me that really wants them to hit it out of the part with a quality piece soon. For me, We Best Love still reigns supreme, but I would really like the HIStory franchise to give us that level but longer - like a happy version of Your Name Engraved Herein. I think Taiwan has the chops to give us something as good as The 8th Sense or Old Fashion Cupcake but in their style, and I would like to see them exercise their talent for good rather than just profit. 

I know, what a very odd thing for me to say. But if any BL is going to break into the mainstream American market, I genuinely think it’s most likely come from Taiwan. 

Vietnam and the Philippines are falling behind, in general. They just didn’t bring out very many shows in 2023, and what the brought out tended to fub the endings. This is forgivable in Japan (because of their style and quality) but not what watchers want in the lower production value propositions. In other words, if you do a pulp, you can’t mess up the ending (by romance standards). that doesn’t look to be changing anytime soon. 

2. The Office Romance Dominated

After years of Thailand serving us an endless (and slightly bland) buffet of university (and a few high school) BLs, this year Korea was basically like...

Ofiice. We like the Office. It’s cheap to film we can use grown up actors, acting (mostly) their actual age. 

And yeah... it totally worked. 

To be fair, Japan has always given us office live action yaoi from the beginning (they had the source material) but this year everyone else, including Thailand, seriously started playing in this setting. 

3. Boys Danced with Boys

The darling @heretherebedork​ was a big fan of this one, and I rather like it myself. Prior to this boys dancing together was very very rare in BL, but this year we got way more than our fair share. It was lovely. 

Never Let me Go

My School President 

Bed Friend 

The Day I Loved You 

Step by Step

Be Mine Superstar

Tie the Not 

Dangerous Romance

I think there were a few more. These are the ones I remembered to write down. 

4. Getting (even more) Meta With Tropes 

BL has been getting more and more meta over the past few years but this year they really focused in on tropes specifically. Calling out their own biggest and most favorite tropes in a massive way, especially Thailand and especially GMMTV. 

Like they tunneled in on damaging tropes with Bad Buddy and the like over the past 2 years, and now they are just having fun with us. 

I mean they just started the dancing trope and already they are calling it out? That’s like rapid-fire regurgitated meta there, GMMTV. 

5. Cameos are the norm now 

Taiwan has always loved cameos but in the past the other countries have been show and steady with only one or two a year. (Unless Japan does a parody.) 

This year Korea got in on the game.

Korea rarely starts trends but they do adopt smaller and lesser known existing ones and make them super popular. 

This year they did that with cameo couple appearances, even borrowing a few of Thailand’s pairs (TutorYim and MaxNat traveled north). They did it so much I stopped tracking. Love Class 2, Why R U?, and Jun & Jun were the heaviest hitters. 

Taiwan, of course, came back swinging. Kiseki was the gum-ball machine of pair cameos. (In Taiwan mafia = gay.) 

6. We are entering the cross pollination age

The number of remakes picked up or started this year was startling, not just countries revisiting their own content (Thailand, Japan) but countries revisiting OTHER countries stuff.

Lemme explain...

Korea has started remaking Thai content (Why R U?) alongside cameo'ing Thai pairs.

Thailand is doing Korean IP (My Dear Gagster Oppa) and has 2 Chinese ones slated for next year. 

GMMTV acquired a lot of Japanese IP (Cherry Magic, Ossen, and My Love Mix Up) - and then had problems distributing it. 

This is probably the most surprising trend for me. Especially the Japanese stuff. I would have thought these properties well outside of Thailand's price range (even GMMTV's) not to mention Japan’s legendary IP issues (I swear I typed this pout before the pulled TayNew’s excellent Cherry Magic). 

Also why not option some of the older popular manga instead? Bet that's much cheeper. (I did see a NEW Thai translation of Finder into Thai, which is 90s yaoi, so I have my fingers crossed on that front.)

I shouldn't be too surprised. 

Thailand is running out of y-novel content. Their publication industry is just not robust enough (I was just talking to a friend about this at length recently). But I didn't think they had the funds to option, especially from Japan. 

Perhaps the option deals are for peanuts?

7. Korea got cheeky

I’m not sure quite how else to put this. 

After finally figuring out boys can kiss, Korea started to do not just higher heat but playful higher heat, with more aggressive word play and linguistic innuendo, like they are entering their racy rom-com teenage years (Why R U? Love Class 2 and Jun & Jun in particular.) 

I guess: Welcome to your BL teens, Korea? 

It’s cute of them. I am very much enjoying it. 

And now that comedy is warming them up, we get to see them play with actual queer burgeoning physicality in shows like The 8th Sense. 

It’s nice. I like seeing Korea stretch its wings. They still stick to their bubble, but that bubble seems to be expanding. 

8. The Amnesia Trope is back

And I, for one, would prefer to forget about it. 

9. BL got trendy 

I’m not quite sure how to articulate this category but basically we started seeing a lot of “modern” romance trends out of the west (like a/b/o) show up in our BL. Not a ton and sometimes quite small, but there has a been a steady rise of things like: no seme/uke, femme gay, out gay, condom use, messy gay. 

We also got an increasing range of sub genre frameworks (like mafia, office setting) that’s moved BL pretty firmly (even in Thailand) out of school and into the workplace, whether actual working is involved or not. 

It’s not to the point where it feels like we get more non-school BL than school BL (if I include all countries in this assessment).

Japan, in classic Japanese fashion, quietly started moving in the opposite direction. It’s what they do. 

10. The Vampires are coming 

This is an announcement trend, which I don’t usually report on but it’s so CLEAR. 

So last year we had a spate of announcements of possible Omegaverse (2 from China, 1 from Japan, 1 from Thailand - the only one that’s happened). 

This year we got 5 Vampire (or vampire-esk) Thai BLs announced including one from GMMTV. 

Whether all 5 will actually get made is unlikely, but having had (basically) none prior to this (Kissable Lips), I’m pretty confident that we will get at least 2 of them. And I wouldn’t be surprised if at least one other country made one as well. (Side eyes Taiwan with interest.) 

Final thoughts

It feels like we are also seeing a decline in BL (both by quantity and quality) from Vietnam and the Philippines. As you all know, I don’t track or really watch either of these two very closely. But it feels like, now, no one else is either. 

I think we have likely seen the BL heyday already in both places and their industries are now on the decline. 

We might be witnessing a thinning in the players in the BL field. 

FYI we had approximately 

136 BLs in 2023

Previous Years

2022: 117

2021: 95

2020: 62

2019: 40

2018: 30 

2017: 44 (China’s last gasp)

2016: 27

2015: 17 (50% micro)

2014: 17 (50% micro)

And that’s it! Let me know in the comments if you’ve spotted any additional trends you want to call out.

Last year, 2022′s trend report

2021′s Trend report

Last Year’s Stats & Predictions

(source) 

[udon-udon]

KRxJP yuri

[vollkornbot]

ah yes

feminism

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Io Aiueo lensed by Park Jongha for Harper’s Bazaar Korea May 2024

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Felix Chicken

[maesnotes]

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[imuerytired]

!!!!!SPOILERS Squid game!!!!!! is not the same without her…