When I first began watching BLs, I wasn't aware of the common criticisms of the subgenre. When I started to see people say that BLs are written by girls for girls, it struck me as odd that m/m romances were written more for girls than gay males. Despite that, I always felt that even gay males can write stories and relationships similar to the one in BLs. I often argue that the common BL criticisms are a little too harsh.

But TharnType is the first time where I felt like this story appeals to girls more than boys. The plot is driven by extremely toxic behavior. TharnType is popular for the same reason that movies/books like After, Fifty Shades of Gray, Twilight, 365 Days, etc. are popular: romanticization of abusive relationships. Only difference here is that the physical abuse is brushed off completely because it's a male-on-male offense.

Nearly every review mentions it but in the first few episodes, Tharn makes some hella rapey decisions. It took me a while to not snarl at him every time he appeared on screen. But eventually, I stopped snarling because Type is such an abusive boyfriend that I started to feel sorry for Tharn.

And even outside of the glorification of the abuse and sexual assault, the writing still left much to be desired. I never really felt like Type got over his homophobia. Even while he was in a committed relationship with Tharn, he still openly admitted to hating gays and even expressed his homophobia to his GAY boyfriend, as if it was a cute interaction. Type never fully processed his homophobia at any point in the show. That storyline feels just as incomplete as Seo and Klui's; and whose genius idea was it to close out their arc with a love confession? It feels like a dropped storyline rather than a purposeful storytelling choice.

I couldn't watch TharnType back-to-back, and it wasn't because I didn't care enough about the story but because I just wasn't rooting for titular couple. Sure, there are some individual scenes that (when disregarding the history of abuse and toxicity) I thought were either heartwarming or heartbreaking. Truthfully, I didn't absolutely despise TharnType's relationship and that in itself is a triumph. Both characters have given me so many reasons to HATE them and their relationship, but I didn't. I still didn't like them or root for them, but I didn't hate them.

I think a lot of that is because the leads are great actors. They really bring these character's emotions out and it makes me feel for them in individual moments. The entire cast gave a solid performance, which helped soften the blow with some extremely melodramatic material in the last couple episodes.

The music also played its part in making the show somewhat enjoyable despite the writing that only seemed to care about making exciting drama for TharnType's relationship instead of holding them accountable for shitty personality traits like homophobia, physical abuse, and rapey tendencies.

Simply said, the show had potential, but the writing just needs to be ironed out.