The 2022 series Plus & Minus (Taiwan) offers one of the stronger interpretations of the “friends to lovers” tropes that a BL connoisseur is likely to encounter in the ever-growing pantheon of BL series. The series pairs these friends with a delightful side couple. But the factor that distinguishes Plus & Minus from that BL pantheon is its ability to comment on the human condition generally, specifically on the emotionally fraught topic of how our romantic relationships succeed or fail. One could say there’s a cognitive dissonance in having a BL series, which usually focus on people falling in love, spend so much time pondering how relationships end. But full credit to the writers: that disconnect works poetically in this story. Plus & Minus merits watching for its literary attributes alone—treat the BL romances as a happy bonus in this instance.

“Fluffy” is a frequent descriptor of the BL genre. The term has both positive and negative connotations. On the plus side, “fluffy” bespeaks the cheery, hopeful romanticism that infuses many BL series and makes them a fun, pleasurable ride. On the negative side, “fluffy” connotes an absence of solidity or lack of substance. Fun and pleasurable, the typical BL series may be, but they seldom offer any meaningful insight into the human condition. Offering perceptive nuggets into humanity’s foibles and follies or our potentials and proficiencies is more typically a hallmark of fine literature or prestige film and TV productions. When present, such literary merits supersede any story’s specific points of plot and character to examine the generic human experience. Plus & Minus delivers both delightful BL fluff but also has some meaningful things to say about love and romance. That combination in a BL is rare, and it elevates Plus & Minus into a near-masterpiece.

The previous two paragraphs will suffice as an endorsement in favor of sampling this series. The rest—lengthy!—offers a more detailed analysis. In most reviews, I’d favor presenting my ideas in an essay format. But it seems to me that the title of this series warrants a wholly different approach. So please forgive the bullet pointed, pluses and minuses in this analysis of Plus & Minus. Note that the +’s outnumber the –‘s. Caution: some light spoilers lurk inevitably ahead.

+ The lead characters work as divorce lawyers, and that makes the series a prolonged meditation about why some relationships persist and others fail.

Guest characters seeking out the professional services of these barristers briefly enter into the story, offering our leads ample opportunity to discuss what makes some relationships fail while others succeed. In examining their clients’ failing relationship dynamics and helping those clients to navigate romantic disentanglement, Fu Li Gong and Cheng Ze Shou also must confront what leads two people to commit to one another in the first place. Friends since kindergarten, Li Gong and Ze Shou have a markedly close relationship themselves. Flashbacks (and lingering glances) make it abundantly clear that Fu Li Gong harbors a longstanding crush on his best friend. These office conversations about their clients’ reason to disentangle also serve as commentary to mirror the growing awareness of their mutual (?) feelings toward one another. (These are BL characters, after all. They are going to move from friends to lovers.) Adding another layer to the theme “why relationships fail and how do we deal with it?” is a subplot revolving around Ze Shou’s family. His mother abandoned her husband and two children when Ze Shou and his sister were quite young. Ze Shou bears a grudge, the sister seems prepared to let by-gones be by-gones, while Ze Shou’s father (as an abandoned spouse rather than an abandoned child) has issues specific to his own situation. Those issues build gradually from the start, then reach a head at a critical point in the story. I think this character backstory amplifies and accents the thematic elements introduced by having the leads work as divorce lawyers.

If Plus & Minus enters the class of “great BLs” whose stories and characters hold up over time, these conversations about the nature of long-term romances will be a chief reason why the series stands out from the pack.

+ Both the lead couple and the side couple are actual adults leading adult lives.

Lawyers, obviously, are older than high school age or college age students. Thus, Plus & Minus is a welcome addition to the growing trend of building BL plots around actual adults rather than kids. (To be fair, Taiwan has been good at this for a while.) Any BL fan who desires a reprieve from school-based series will appreciate the more adult outlook on offer here.

+ The three “guest couples” who become clients for 2-3 episodes each.

The writers did a good job of presenting married couples in different stages of marital collapse. The first relationship depicted was so toxic that no one would dispute divorce was necessary. The second couple really needed marriage counseling rather than divorce lawyers. And the third couple had simply reached the end of the line after a 30 year marriage. Li Gong and Ze Shou spent bits of two episodes coming to terms with the idea that sometimes relationships fizzle out and, simply, there is NO REASON why. (They did so while just embarking on their own adventure.) I found that sequence to be one of the more poignant discussions in a series that handled poignancy with aplomb.

Taiwan, as all BL fans ought to know already, is the one Asian country to ratify same-sex relationships with the privilege of marriage. Thus, it was gratifying that the second of the three couples happened to be a gay couple. (Happily, the one couple they saved from divorce was the gay couple.) The series does not belabor the fact that gay marriages fail just as straight ones do; rather, the lawyers just processed these clients the same as they would any other. Representation begets normalization, folks! Representation matters!

- The transition from friends to lovers was a bit too glib.

Fu Li Gong and Cheng Ze Shou have been best friends for over 20 years. One of them has had a semi-secret crush since at least adolescence. I’m not fully sure what triggered Li Gong to suddenly confess, which means the moment could have been portrayed in more dramatic, exciting fashion. When the confession did arrive, the moment felt anti-climactic. Then, the part where they shift from friends to boyfriends was too quick and way too easy. These two already have one type of deep connection, and the nature of that connection would seemingly make the conversion to lovers difficult. Such a profound change to an established interpersonal dynamic ought to have required either a sudden surrender to long-repressed passion and emotion (like a dam breaking) and/or a series of awkward exchanges as they try to recalibrate their customary interactions to accommodate their new, emerging dynamic. So, for me their actual conversion seemed a little too easy.

+ The transition from friends to lovers begins in the middle of the series.

Plus & Minus has 12 episodes, and the shift from friends to lovers begins just past the halfway point. (About the same time as the duo favorably resolves the divorce case for the gay couple, suggesting that the example of that same-sex couple might have triggered Li Gong’s abrupt confession.) Structurally, the series neither shifted them into romance mode too early nor waited so long that there was no time to investigate the transition.

I suspect a certain segment of BL fandom will find the lead couple’s progress to have been too slow. Such fans also likely will wail at how much time is wasted discussing divorcing straight couples. I, however, believe that the writers played this scenario exactly right. Yes, their romance is assuredly a slow burn, but I will argue that that pacing fits the story and characters. In a series that takes "the evolution of relationships from start to finish" as one of its themes, playing slow with the main relationship's beginning is an astute choice.

- Uncertainty about Cheng Ze Shou’s awareness of Li Gong’s crush.

At times it felt like Ze Shou was aware of Li Gong’s unspoken attraction. At other times, the series seems to hint that Ze Shou was aware of his own attraction to Li Gong. Notably, in both flashbacks to high school and in the present, he plants drunken kisses on his friend’s face. Li Gong neither reacts to these overtures (if they were overtures), nor does he push the issue when Ze Shou fails to remember these drunken kisses the morning after (if he really did forget). I dislike the “drunken kiss doesn’t count” gambit anyway, but if the writers wanted to play that card anyway, they should have made those moments matter by having consequences attached.

+ The side couple was outstanding.

Jian Ying Ze is a divorced man who owns a laundromat and occasionally has custody of his daughter. At some point prior to the series, our two leads handled his divorce case; subsequently, they became regular clients at his laundromat. Below the laundromat, is a dive bar that employs Yuki as a bartender. It’s also the watering hole favored by the lawyers; so, Li Gong and Ze Shou have personal connections to both Yuki and Ying Ze even before the latter duo meet each other. Yuki attracts female clients to the bar, who swoon over his long locks and beautiful face. A caretaker type, Yuki soon develops an interest in the broken human being who runs the laundromat. Their relationship takes flight much earlier than the lead couple’s probably to distract the audience from the fact Li Gong and Ze Shou haven’t figured themselves out yet. These two eventually sort out their issues. Like the divorce clients mentioned above, I think interacting with this nascent gay couple helps demonstrate to Li Gong and Ze Shou that same-sex relationships can work. The inevitable drama in their relationship feels a bit contrived, but not nearly at the level of Li Gong and Ze Shou.

- That time Li Gong and Ze Shou break up.

Ok, it’s a BL tradition that our lead couple must endure some sort of existential threat to their relationship, one that might even tear them apart so that the finale has something to do besides just exist. It’s just that the execution of this subplot is uncommonly stupid even by BL standards. Li Gong just spent 10+ years pining away for his best friend. He confesses. They get together. They profess eternal love and exchange versions of “I will always be by your side.” Then, two episodes later, for no reason that has been earned via character development or prior dialog, Li Gong initiates a break-up. The moment felt flimsy and forced when it happened—drama because a drama series has to have drama for the sake of having drama, right? Having seen the end of the series (the “why” gets explained after the fact), I still think that plot development feels indefensible. Egregiously so. I dropped the MDL score for this series a full point just for this bit.

+ / - The female side characters are a mixed bag.

On the bright side, the archetypal jealous female villain is absent. In place of that stock character is an array of other women orbiting our two lead couples. While Nikita, the bar owner, has a longstanding crush on Li Gong, she also recognizes that his heart is set on Ze Shou. After making her own confession, she even pushes him back toward Ze Shou after the idiotic break-up. (I liked that she took her shot, and that getting her feelings out into the open helped her.) Ze Shou’s sister seems aware the boys ought to be together before they do, and she supports them fully. The bar has a second female employee who remains on the fringes of the story. All three of these adult women feel underwritten as characters. The fourth female character is Ying Ze’s precocious daughter. I could nitpick how worldly she is for her tender age, dishing out sophisticated relationship advice to her emotionally damaged father, but I will overlook that. Her function in the story is to act as a muse for Ying Ze as he contemplates his failed prior marriage and the scary, scary business of starting over with someone new. She actually plays a pivotal role in helping both Yuki and Ying Ze negotiate their blossoming romance.

+ / - The two dads are a mixed bag.

Fu Li Gong’s father is the managing partner at the law firm that employs the two leads. Cheng Ze Shou’s working class father owns a restaurant. Let me acknowledge up front that I understand and accept that Asian parents often play an overt role in their adult children’s romantic choices. And, I understand and accept that the older generation may have little preparation to deal with same-sex romances. Thus, it’s not particularly surprising when Papa Cheng becomes an obstacle to the blossoming romance between his son and Li Gong. But too many series (not just BL!) rely on "parental interference" to create tension in the plot. I am bone weary of watching series where parental interference drives a wedge into the main relationship. If Papa Cheng had been more fully developed; if the interference had arisen from character or story context; if the series had telegraphed this development ahead rather than springing it on us; if this parental interference had felt fresh and original rather than cliché and convenient; if any of those, then I might not have minded. But his attitude felt like drama for the sake of drama. Other than that, Papa Cheng is actually a compelling figure as he insists to his bitter son that he should forgive the absent mother. His take on why relationships fail adds a contemplative element. But all that means his disapproval of Ze Shou and Li Gong felt inconsistent with his prior characterization.

Papa Fu is even less sketched out, but his support of the relationship proves pivotal. He is the one who tells Li Gong to pull his head out of his ass and go reverse the idiotic break-up before it’s too late. However, I think that speech would have been even more effective (and the character more interesting) if it had been delivered seven episodes earlier, before the CONFESSION. Papa Fu seems like the kind of dad who would have spotted his son's crush. He could have been a catalyst for the initial union rather than for the re-union. It was a nice grace note, however, that when Papa Fu offered to go talk to Papa Cheng on the couple’s behalf, Li Gong declined the offer in favor of taking care of his own business.

+ + + + + Effective use of cameo appearances from actors who appeared in other BL roles.

These cameos are pure audience service, of course, but BL afficionados will be absolutely delighted at the unexpected appearances of familiar faces, some of them (unofficially) playing familiar characters. There’s one + above for each BL series I counted.