Japan’s first same-sex dating reality show The Boyfriend kicks off on Netflix on July 9

TOKYO – Japan is the only country among the world’s wealthiest democracies that has not legalised same-sex unions.

Few celebrities are openly gay. Conservative groups oppose legislative efforts to protect the LGBTQ+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer) community.

But now, streaming service Netflix is introducing the country’s first same-sex dating reality series.

Over 10 episodes of The Boyfriend, which will be available in 190 countries beginning July 9, nine men gather in a luxury beach house outside Tokyo. The format evokes Japan’s most popular romantic reality show, Terrace House (2012 to 2020), with its assembly of clean-cut and exceedingly polite cast members, overseen by a panel of jovial commentators.

The vibe is wholesome and mostly chaste. The men, who range in age from 22 to 36, operate a coffee truck during the day and cook dinner at night, with occasional forays outside for dates.

One of the biggest, among very few, conflicts of the series revolves around the cost of buying raw chicken to make protein shakes for a club dancer who is trying to maintain his physique. Sex rarely comes up, and friendship and self-improvement feature as prominently as romance.

With The Boyfriend, executive producer Dai Ota wanted to “portray same-sex relationships as they really are”.

Ota – who was a producer of Terrace House, which was made by Japanese television station Fuji TV and licensed and distributed globally by Netflix – said he had avoided “the approach of ‘let’s include people who cause problems’”.

The Boyfriend, he said, represents diversity in another way – with cast members of South Korean, Taiwanese and multi-ethnic heritages.

The show is not meant to offer overt political or social commentary, he added.

Cast members were not advised against speaking about the social challenges of being gay or bisexual in Japan, he said, but during the audition process, he reminded prospective participants that “ultimately it will be streamed, and a wide range of viewers will be able to hear those thoughts”.

Mr Soshi Matsuoka, founder of LGBTQ+ advocacy group Fair in Tokyo, has watched the series. He said its mere existence “shows a change in the society”, but wished that the cast members talked more openly about their sexuality and the social context of the LGBTQ+ community in Japan.

While The Boyfriend may be the first same-sex reality dating show set in Japan, there are a growing number of queer dating shows, such as The Ultimatum: Queer Love (2023), also for Netflix; and I Kissed A Boy (2023) and I Kissed A Girl (2024) on BBC.

Taiki Takahashi, a gay model and social media influencer who served as casting director on The Boyfriend, had “a lot of expectation and hope” for the show.

“I won’t say we can change society,” he said in an interview at Netflix’s offices in Tokyo. “But I do want many people to feel some kind of impact.”

About 50 men auditioned after Takahashi put out casting calls on social media and recruited from his own networks. He said he chose “people who would be loved” and that he avoided men who “feel the pressure of ‘I have to become a certain character because I am going to be on TV’ or ‘since I am gay, I have to act gay’”.

Whether The Boyfriend lays the groundwork for political change is questionable, said professor emerita of anthropology Jennifer Robertson at the University of Michigan, who has written about LGBTQ+ culture in Japan.

She acknowledged that the sweet, low-drama cast members could make for heart-warming viewing. In many ways, they offer an idealised contrast to “heteronormative couples who are squabbling about kitchen clean-up and kids”, she said.

Indeed, several of them – not just the professional chef in the cast – appear to be talented home cooks, and they all work to keep the house clean, qualities not typically associated with most men in Japan.

But if the goal was to encourage less tolerant Japanese viewers to become more accepting of gay and bisexual men, she wondered whether such people were likely to watch a show like The Boyfriend.

“Cutesification in a show to garner support among people who are probably supporting LGBTQ is not going to be a push in any direction towards political ratification of gay marriage,” she said. NYTIMES