I have good news for you and I also have even better news!
The good news is that you have many excellent options for watching Boys’ Love videos. The better news is that most of them won’t cost you so much as a single penny extra.
If you don’t know what the Boys’ Love media genre is, check our first blog post, Boys’ Love is what we needed but never knew we could have.
Now let’s explore your choices.
Major streaming platforms
If you already subscribe to a paid streaming platform, there is a good chance that it offers BL content. In fact, some offer exclusive content that they have produced, or co-produced, themselves; companies like Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, and Disney took a look at the meteoric rise in popularity of BLs and decided to get in on the action in recent years.
Do a search for terms like “BL series” or “LGBT” and you may find some great series or movies to watch … without paying any additional fees.
You can also search for specific titles. For suggestions, head over to My Drama List (MDL) and browse the BL titles there or check out this curated list of popular series and movies.
The major streamers have lots of general content but usually not a large number of BLs.
Generalist video sites
You probably won’t be surprised to find that the world’s biggest provider of video content also has the largest catalog of BL content. Yep, it’s Youtube.
Search for “BL series” and you’ll get tons of results … but it’s kind of a mess; there will be some series but also videos about the subject, such as fan videos about BL actors. You’ll do better finding some titles that interest you at My Drama List, above, and then searching Youtube for the titles.
Look before you leap! I have occasionally found a series on Youtube only to discover too late that the final episode is missing. MDL will tell you how many episodes there should be and then you can verify that they are all available on YT before starting the series.
Many times you can find not only the individual episodes (often broken into smaller segments, like “Episode 6, Part 2 of 4”) but also playlists, such as this one for a true masterpiece of the BL genre, Until We Meet Again. There you can click the “Play all” button and Youtube will automatically play all the episodes (even in parts) in order (check that the order looks right, I have found a few playlists with incorrect order).
Another option is to find the title you want on World of BL. They do a great job of maintaining Youtube links for episodes, plus they will often have free-viewing links for other video sites as well.
What if an episode is missing? Then you go to your backup generalist, like DailyMotion or Vimeo. Their BL catalogs aren’t as extensive as Youtube’s but they are still a good resource to check out and use.
Break time!
Let’s watch a short video from the Philippines, just 3 minutes long. Ours is a group about BL videos, after all. I think you deserve a little break from reading so you can do some watching instead.
Aw, a bit of cute flirting and a budding romance. Who could ask for anything more? It’s part of an ad campaign blending creative media with product placement; toothpaste combined with a clip that hints the boys will be kissing soon is a great pairing. Kudos to CloseUp for supporting love for everyone!
Back to our regularly scheduled programming ...
BL specialist video services
These services are treasure troves of BL content. Some are specialists in LGBQT content and others specialize in Asian video content, including BLs.
As well as huge catalogs of BL series and movies, most of them are also producers and you can often view their in-house content before it gets released to other video services.
They all have both free and paid tiers. Monthly subscriptions vary, depending on the site and your country, but they generally range between US $3 and $8. Paid subscriptions usually include these benefits:
- larger catalog of videos
- ability to watch on multiple devices simultaneously
- view at higher resolutions, like 1080p or 4K
- no ads
However, you will find there is an incredible amount of BL content that you can view for free on the various sites, assuming some ads and 720p resolution are acceptable to you. Seriously, between Youtube and the free tiers of the services listed below, you will probably never run out of available BLs; of course, if you really want to watch a specific BL series, you might need to subscribe.
Some, like IQiyi below, let you look around, find a video designated as free, and just click to view. However, most of them require you to sign up via Google, Facebook, or email (but you don’t need to enter your credit card info or anything like that).
If using the free versions, most will require you to disable any ad-blockers, either native to your browser or as a browser add-on.
Sometimes you can disable them solely for a particular site (check the Settings or Preferences menu of your browser). Most likely, it means copying the URL (address) of the video service and adding it to a “whitelist” of sites that are not blocked for ads.
If that doesn’t work, you may need to open a “private window” to watch the videos and then disable ad-blocking features in that window only for all websites (it’s temporary and you will need to do it again the next time you open the private window).
BL video Services
| Website |
Notes |
| IQiyi |
Lots of free content and no sign-up required for free tier. Based in China, it doesn’t appear to censor BL content for international viewers. Depending on where you live, you might need to use a VPN for access or for specific series that are geo-blocked for some countries |
| Rakuten Viki |
Huge catalog of BLs and offers more free series than any others in this list (there were over 80 free BL series when I checked recently). Requires sign-up for their free tier and is fussy about VPN use (see below). Viki usually has very good subtitles that are crowdsourced by teams of volunteers
|
| GagaOOlala |
Unlike the others here, which specialize in Asian content, Gaga’s specialty is LGBQT content, including BLs. You will find lots of gay and lesbian themed movies and series from all around the world |
| WeTV |
WeTV is a significant BL producer as well as a streamer. Based in China, which censors BL content, yet it doesn’t appear to do that for international viewers |
| Viu |
It offers a lot of content but is available only in selected countries, mostly in Asia, so you will need to use a VPN to pretend that you are in Thailand, for example, to use their services |
I suggest that you begin with IQiyi. It has a lot of free content and no sign-up is required so it’s really easy to get started. When you’ve seen all of the free content that you want there, move to another site … rinse and repeat and by the time you get back to IQiyi, they may have new series in their free tier.
A few tips
I suggest getting a throwaway email address to use only for signing up for stuff. whether related to BL or not. Why clog up your real email inbox with junk sent by everyone who has purchased your email addy? Try Proton Mail or Mail.com or just create another Gmail account.
If you don’t already use a password manager, get one like KeePassXC. It will make it easy to keep track of all these accounts, passwords, and the URLs of the video sites.
You should try Vivaldi browser if you will spend much time in the realm of BL. It is available for all major operating systems, has easy to use private windows and it’s simple to enable/disable ads and tracking in private windows.
Vivaldi has tools for translating, something very useful as we navigate sites based in Asian countries. You can click a button in the address bar and automatically translate the entire page; you can also right-click on any text you have highlighted and choose “Translate selection” to translate just portions of a page.
Virtual private networks (VPNs)
Often, content — both BL and general — is limited to viewers in selected countries … even on Youtube, the global behemoth of video services. One way to get around this restriction (geo-blocking) is to use a virtual private network (VPN).
A VPN is pretty simple, conceptually. Imagine that your friend john is annoyed with you and won’t speak to you. So, you ask Mary to help. You speak to her, she speaks to John, and Mary gives you John’s reply. That’s how VPNs work. Rather than your computer or cell linking directly to a video service, you connect to your VPN and it then connects to the video service. The service believes that it is communicating to whichever country the VPN server is in … and most VPN services have dozens and dozens of countries in which they provide servers for you.
I use Surfshark, a VPN that is highly rated for both speed and privacy. It’s quite cheap with its two-year plan, about $2 per month.
You can see how easy it is to use. I just scroll through the list of countries on the left and click on one to connect. You can see on the right that I connected to the VPN in Thailand. That means every website I visit, including video services, will think that I am connecting from Thailand.
At any time I can easily switch servers/countries or disconnect from the VPN entirely. Seriously, it’s hard to get any simpler than a point-and-click app.
It’s not perfect; sometimes sites/services have found ways to figure out that a VPN is being used, so your mileage may vary on how successful a VPN will be in letting you get around geo-blocking restrictions. Also, you may need to disconnect for other sites and purposes; for example, your bank might reject your login if it thinks you are connecting from a foreign country.
VPNs also provide you with increased security and privacy online. Hackers aren’t likely to get through the VPNs defenses to attack you directly and most VPNs keep no records of where you visited or what you did there — unlike your internet provider who logs everything you do. When the MAGA inspectors try to prove your online disloyalty to the Great Leader, they won’t find anything incriminating.
That’s it, folks! You should now have enough information to find some interesting BLs to watch and know where to go to see them. If you have questions, please ask in the comments and we will do our best to help.
Happy viewing … but stay tuned for an announcement below this break!
What’s coming up on the BoysLove blog
In addition to articles about the BL genre — and BL-adjacent topics like Girls’ Love or gay media in general — we will write reviews of series and movies. That can be quite tricky for both authors and viewers: how much can we write — and you read — without spoiling any surprises about the events and characters?
Although we will indicate “spoilers ahead!” for major spoilers in our reviews, we can’t avoid every spoiler. So we might say that Ricky and Fred develop a romance (obvious because it shows them smooching on the promo poster) but we’ll warn you before revealing that they split up at the end and go back to their girlfriends, Lucy and Ethel.
It will be more interesting for you, as readers, if you can read the entire story and join in the comments without worrying about spoilers. So, in every story on our blog, we will post a schedule of the BLs or other video content that will be discussed in upcoming stories. You will have plenty of time to view them before the stories come out.
Our first series suggested for viewing is My Engineer, a Thai BL from 2020. A link for watching it for free is provided in our calendar below. We will look forward to you joining us to talk about this popular Boys’ Love series in February.
BoysLove group publishes stories every Tuesday at 1 pm Eastern / 10 am Pacific. We are looking for authors to join us. Please contact Krotor if you want to write stories for our group!
Watch the videos below before upcoming stories about them so you can avoid spoilers and participate in discussions in the comments section. When possible, we include links where you can watch the videos for free.
BL series and movies in upcoming stories
| Story date |
Series or Movie |
Episodes |
Where to watch |
| Feb 18 |
My Engineer (2020) |
13 |
Youtube playlists |
| Mar 11 |
Until We Meet Again (2019) |
17 |
Viki or Youtube playlists
|
