Netflix will next month upload its first Japanese same-sex dating reality TV series, “ The Boyfriend .” The show takes nine men to a beach house in order to find love. For a month, they live together and take turns working shifts at a coffee truck, forging deep friendships and learning about themselves along the way.
The show will also be hosted by an eclectic mix of personalities including Megumi, Horan Chiaki, Thelma Aoyama, drag queen Durian Lollobrigida and Yoshimi Tokui. Starting July 9, new episodes will be released every Tuesday, with a total of 10 episodes over four weeks. “We started out wanting to highlight the young men’s friendships and personalities.
Our focus wasn’t just on romance but also on spending time together and experiencing personal growth,” said Dai Ota, executive producer of live action originals at Netflix Japan . The topic is a challenging one in a country that remains largely socially conservative, and which is generally considered less LGBT -friendly than most other developed countries. The last few years, however, have seen several legal challenges to the established order.
Tokyo’s metropolitan government issued special same-sex partnership certificates from November 2022. But, these certificates do not completely mirror the legal benefits of marriage, such as automatic inheritance. In June 2023, the Japanese government went on step further and passed a law which aims to ‘promote understanding’ of LGBTI people.
In March this yea.
