Very exciting news via BL scholar Thomas Baudinette today! Thai Yuri novel GAP āļāļĪāļĐāļāļĩāļŠāļĩāļāļĄāļāļđ is being adapted into a live-action story, āļāļĪāļĐāļāļĩāļŠāļĩāļāļĄāļāļđ GAP The Series, in English, Pink Theory GAP The Series.
The synopsis on MyDramaList says: “Mon, a newly graduated student from university, starts working as an intern in a big company because she admires Sam, the super rich chairwoman since young age. However, when Mon met Sam again, her image of her completely crashed, since she was not like the media shows her.”
Thomas adds, “Technically, it’s one part of a broader series primarily focusing on BL, but it’s adapted from an original Thai-language GL novel. The two actresses gained attention for featuring as supporting cast in some BL series but this move is designed to grow their fanbases. Series seems to be marketed to the same base as BL.
There have been some prominent GL sub-plots in recent series but usually not the series focus. This GL couple is getting equal billing to the two BL couples in the show.” The show this is part of is, according to Thomas, called Secret Crush on You.
Thomas was kind enough to nab a bunch of promo pics for us, so I thought I’d share them with you.
chao_planoy, the author, considers their work “Yuri” and there is a #GAPYuri hashtag on Twitter for more pictures and news. According to a commenter on MyDramalist, an English translation for this book is being planned. Of course, I’ll be sure to let you know when it is available.
Update: There’s a promo on Youtube. ^_^
Thomas also says, that “both Secret Crush on You and GAP The Series will be released internationally, in high definition, through select streaming services. Everyone’s best bet is to follow Idol Factory’s YouTube account for updates.”
While on the Idol Factory YT account, I found this interview with the actresses. It has English closed captions.
Thank you Thomas for thinking of us, and congrats to chao_planoy for having their work adapted into the very first Thai live-action Yuri series!
Although I was already somewhat familiar with Thai cinema, it was interesting to know that Thai dramas (I apologize in advance if there is already a term for this in Thai slang) already have full queer shows. Not really my cup of tea, but now thanks to your post I found out about new titles that I can recommend to my friends who are interested in the genre. Thanks for the informative material!
This is excellent news! I’ve been hearing from a while from my Thai friends how the country is relatively pro-LGBT+ (only reason Thailand doesn’t have gay marriage yet is the junta government, they say) and we’ve seen how BL has gone more mainstream than any other country, so I was wondering when we might see some Thai Yuri.
Interesting that this new series and Yuri subplots in BL shows are being aimed at the existing BL audience. Ofcourse, if you get involved in Yuri or BL fandoms you’ll know there’s a big audience and creator overlap, but its easy to imagine that might not be so obvious to a marketing department, so this is an encouraging sign.
Fingers crossed there’s a western streaming option. Thomas said its confirmed there’ll be international streaming but could that just mean streaming in Asian countries… otoh, from what I’ve seen of Thai BL licensors seem to be getting more proactive in putting out some form of legal English option so I guess there’s a decent chance.
Looking forward to the Chinese Yuri piece – with Seven Seas opening up to Chinese works with their MXTX licenses recently and there’s even a webcomic section on their licensing form now, I’m looking for series to suggest to them ^_^
thanks for this rec! I’ve had a Thailand trip postponed two years running but maybe this will make me feel at least less sad about it. Do you know anything about the comic version? It looks like a pretty substantial book, just thickness wise, in the pictures which kind of surprises me for a spinoff series!
Also just personally pleased about more coworker premises on the whole :)
The book in the pictures is, as far as I understand, a novel, not a comic. As I get more information, I’ll update everyone. ^_^
Gotcha thanks!
I want to buy kind of this book
The link for the book is here: https://arnbook.com/gap-limited-edition-%E0%B8%97%E0%B8%A4%E0%B8%A9%E0%B8%8E%E0%B8%B5%E0%B8%AA%E0%B8%B5%E0%B8%8A%E0%B8%A1%E0%B8%9E%E0%B8%B9-18