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Media & Entertainment

Japanese-style 'boys love' dramas captivate Thai women

Line TV's 'Y Series' gains 20m viewers and fans across Southeast Asia

Line TV, a unit of the Japanese social media company, distributes more than 30 "Y Series" dramas in Thailand.

BANGKOK -- Gay love stories involving two impossibly pretty young men, a long-established literary genre in Japan known as yaoi, or "boys love," have become a pop culture phenomenon in Thailand. The adapted Japanese import has captured the imagination of women and girls in Thailand.

Social media company Line has created "Y Series," a group of boys love dramas produced in Thailand, winning over 20 million viewers in that country alone. The stories are also gaining fans elsewhere in Southeast Asia and China. "Y Series" stories are being imported back into Japan, creating a new ecosystem for the genre in East Asia.

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