The Boys Love genre, which deals with the story of a web novel and a webtoon between a web novel and a webtoon, is gaining popularity due to the success of the BL drama semantic error.
Contrary to preconceived notions, BL-related content, which had a dominant evaluation of lack of popularity despite its high mania, has recently gained popularity and continues to receive love calls from the content industry.
Due to the success of the Semantic Error drama, the accumulated transaction volume of the original web novel is increasing significantly. The photo is an image related to the original web novel of Semantic Error. [Photo = Lidy]
According to the related industry on the 19th, Watchas original drama Semantic Error, based on the web novel Semantic Error of the same name by writer Jeo Soo-ri, was released on the 16th of last month and took the top spot on the weekend for three weeks in a row and succeeded in popular box office success.
Thanks to the success of the drama, the transaction amount of the original web novel and related webtoons also increased significantly. According to Lidy, the transaction amount of the original web novel on the first day of the drama’s release surged 916% compared to before the airing commemorative event, and the transaction amount in the first week after that also exceeded 576%, proving the popularity of the drama. The webtoon of the same name also saw a 312% increase in transaction volume for one week after the drama was released compared to the same period the previous month.
Until now, BL has been consumed only in limited areas such as web novels and webtoons, and web novels of various genres such as romance, mystery, horror, and fantasy were produced as videos. It is because of the genre characteristic that deals with stories between the same sex. However, as the demand for BL increases due to the full-fledged flowering of the web novel market, the industry is also increasing related investments.
In fact, Kidari Studio is also planning to produce the BL sitcom Boarding House Oh!Bungee based on Tom Toons popular BL webtoon Boarding House 5 in collaboration with Emotion Studio and release it in the first half of the year. Contents media group NEW is also going to produce a total of 4 BL web dramas, including Blooming, Follow Wind, Bon Appety, and Tractor with Love.
An industry official said that the demand for BL genre is very high not only in Korea but also in Southeast Asia such as Thailand, and the competition for content is getting fierce due to competition for multiple online video services, and the market size will expand further.
