Thank you for your insightful take! I grew up with... actually, both a lot of eastern media and a lot of older stuff, films and shows from way before western media could put gay couples or characters front and center outside of tragedies or Very Special Episodes (and... those were usually pretty tragic, at least the stuff coming out of the 80s). I'm used to this kind of close reading and to assuming that these stories were the product of creators wanting to give us gay characters in spite of the types of censorship (voluntary on a studio level, when not literally due to the MPAA-- or before that, the HUAC).

I can understand being frustrated with shows that could do more (like BBC Sherlock) but only seem to tease and then deride, I'm frustrated by those, too, but there have ALWAYS been people doing what they could to create these stories for those of us who are looking for them. And I've seen the changes in western media's depictions of gay characters/relationships over time and know what it looked like before we were where we are-- I think it's interesting to watch the progression in eastern media, and how close to the subtle depictions of heterosexual romance some of these stories are getting.