I know I just missed bisexuality visibility day but I’ve been wanting to make this post for awhile. 2 Moons is one of my favorite series and the relationship between Ming and Kit is one of my favorites. Keep in mind that I have yet to find an English translation of the novel (if you have a link hit me up) so this will all be based off of season one of the television series. Also I know that several other characters in this show are bisexual but I love how Ming and Kit are portrayed the most.
Ok so let me begin with the main reason I wanted to make this post. How the writers of this show portrayed bisexuality with Ming is my favorite thing ever.
When I first started watching 2 Moons I had little idea of the plot. While yes, in the opening theme and on the cards between scenes, Ming and Kit look to be in some sort of relationship, I just assumed this was some fanserivce and the only real couple would be the main couple, Phana and Wayo (another lovely couple I could write a post about). And needless to say, when in one of the very first scenes of the show Ming says
I just assumed that he was going to be the straight best friend character who gave relationship advice to his angsty gay friend. Based off this and his lack of interaction with Kit in the first episodes, I took my assumption to be true. It didn’t help that Ming would say stuff like
when confronted about liking guys. Throughout the first several episodes all you ever see is Ming flirting with girls and whatnot. Him and Kit don’t ever interact. Then suddenly things change during episodes 6 and 7 when Ming and Kit start having interactions and Ming starts flirting with him. Now there’s a lot of moments I could mention here but the one that particularly stood out to me was when Ming basically suggested that he and Kit should date
Honestly I was expecting Ming to have some sort of identity crisis/internalized homophobia thing before he would ever considered being with a guy, and with Ming there wasn’t a single bit of it. It was honestly surprising to see him go from flirting with girls and denying being gay to flirting with guys who kept trying to push him away. To be honest, I wasn’t convinced that he wouldn’t go through some of that later on in the story. After all, Ming hasn’t admitted to liking Kit beyond his teasing. But then once again the show surprises me. During episode 8, possibly one of my favorite scenes of all time happens. Ming tells Wayo that he likes Kit. And when he tells him there’s no, nervousness or fear about telling his best friend that he likes a guy and Wayo doesn’t freak out that his friend who had only shown interests in girls is now suddenly admitting to liking a guy. Instead Wayo has the most normal and relatable reaction to the news
he asks for the deets. Following this, probably one of my most favorite lines in the show that isn’t talked about enough happens.
The thing about this line is that it means that Ming has a type when it comes to guys (tall guys might I add). This means it’s not like he’s thought he was straight his whole life and now he’s met some guy who’s made him reevaluate his sexuality. It means that he’s been into guys this entire time he just likes girls too. I love this because it normalizes bisexuality. Just because he has dated a bunch of girls and flirts with them all the time, it doesn’t mean that he can’t like boys too. He doesn’t need to come out or always flirt with people from both sexes. He doesn’t go advertising it everywhere but he doesn’t try to hide it when he finds a guy he likes. And everyone else sees it as something normal too. Instead of making a big deal over the fact that he likes a guy, they make a big deal over the fact that he likes someone. And because of this I love the writers of this show.
Moving on to Kit, there’s a bit less when it comes to him because there’s more of a focus when it comes to Ming than to Kit but his is just as good.
Kit at the start of the story is like Ming in the aspect that he is only shown flirting with girls and there’s no indicator that he even remotely likes guys. But then in episode 5, there’s the iconic scene where Kit is basically just checking Ming out.
Kit has more of the in denial/internalized homophobia thing going on that I was expecting for Ming. It doesn’t help that he’s a little tsundere who basically insults Ming and pushes him away the more Ming tries to flirt with him. Despite him being in denial about his feelings, he’s not very good at acting like they don’t exist.
Even though he’s constantly staring at Ming or getting flustered when he flirts with him, he still denies that he likes Ming, or even guys in general for that matter. It seems kind of hopeless for Ming since his crush seems to be dead set on keeping heterosexual. Then one of my favorite scenes of the whole series happens. Kit’s friends (Phana and Beam) confront him about liking Ming, Kit of course gives the standard answer
Kit says the classic “you guys have seen that I like girls why would I like a boy now” line. This was the stuff I was expecting from Ming’s side. But even then. the show didn’t handle it how I thought it would. Instead of dragging this “I like girls so shut up about me liking a boy” thing for too long, immediately after Phana says the best line of the entire show
cause in reality that’s all that matters. Ming and Kit’s relationship isn’t about two boys falling in love. It’s about two people, one more reluctant than the other, falling in love. They don’t make some big deal over the fact that two guys are the ones who fell in love and besides Kit’s own little comment about liking girls in the past, nobody cares that both of the guys like girls too. Bisexuality is shown as being normal and nobody cares if you’ve always liked girls, if some cute boy is flirting with you, you should go and get him. That’s why I love this show and the relationship between Ming and Kit. The writers don’t need to give them each a character arc where they discover that they’re not as straight as they thought and they really have feelings for each other. They just need to have a few conversations with their friends where they talk about their feelings (or deny them in Kit’s case) to establish their sexual orientation. I think more shows should adopt this approach to sexual orientation topics. It normalizes it and shows that in reality, it doesn’t matter what somebody’s gender is, what matters is if you like them.
I thought it would be a good idea to put together a list of lgbt+ fiction and stuff I have found. This list is far from complete and there are plenty more out there, these are just a few of some I enjoy. Feel free to add some of your own.
*Most of these are centered around gay guys. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to find many lesbian centered works.
Welcome to Night Vale(podcast/book)
Imagine a town where every conspiracy theory is true. That's Night Vale. Radio host Cecil Palmer reports on the weird happenings in this small desert town and falls in love with a scientist named Carlos (and his perfect hair). There are five-headed dragons running for mayor, dogs that are literally Satan, mystic beings named Erika (who are definitely not angels), civilizations underneath bowling alleys, and so much more. There is a really diverse cast of characters and several lgbt+ characters (besides the main two). It has some horror elements but it’s more science fiction.
Yuri!!! On Ice(television show)
Japanese figure skater, Katsuki Yuri, comes in last place at the Grand Prix Final and returns home defeated. After a video uploaded of him skating to his idol Viktor Nikiforov’s (a Russian skater with 5 Grand Prix gold medals and considered to be the best out there) routine goes viral, Viktor himself shows up at Yuri’s place and becomes his coach. With Viktor’s help, Yuri attempts to win gold at the next Grand Prix Final and they both sort of fall in love along the way. Features a pretty diverse cast and doesn’t play into stereotypes. It’s considered to be in the sports genre but it has some romance moments in it.
Always Raining Here (webcomic)
Carter wants to get laid. Adrian is heartbroken. After Carter fails to get Adrian to have sex with him, the two end up becoming friends and have misadventures together. This is one of the cutest and most pure relationships I’ve seen (even though one of the very first things Carter says to Adrian is “We should bang”). There is some slight sexual content but nothing too major.
Check Please!(webcomic)
Eric Bittle joins the Samwell Men’s Hockey team but quickly realizes that this is way more intense than his Georgia hockey team and the team captain Jack Zimmermann isn’t making things any easier for him. There are lots of pies and you’ll end up learning about hockey. Lots of healthy relationships and does a wonderful job at portraying characters with mental illnesses. They’re also good friends with the Yuri!!! On Ice fandom.
Alice Isn’t Dead(podcast)
By the makers of Welcome to Night Vale, a woman becomes a truck driver in order to find her wife, Alice, who has been considered dead (she isn’t look at the title). She encounters a not-quite-human serial murder and ends up being chased by him wherever she goes. She learns more and more about her wife and finds out things better left unknown. Another wonderful portrayal of mental illnesses. It’s much darker and scarier than Welcome to Night Vale and I would not recommend listening to it at night.
Knight’s Errant(webcomic)
Wilfred is on a quest. However, being imprisoned in a city under siege puts a halt on their quest. Fortunately, they have a prison guard on their side. This one is different from the others since the main character so far isn’t in a relationship of any sorts (and doesn’t show to be in one anytime soon). There is a side relationship that will make your heart melt and Wilfrid is just a really likable character (they also don’t have a confirmed gender yet. It’s pretty likely they’re non-binary though). Also despite being set in a medieval European town it does feature some pocs which is nice.
Requiem of the Rose King(manga)
The previous ones have featured very healthy and loving relationships but this one is a bit different. It focuses on Richard the third of York who is intersex in this case. This causes some really messed up and really confusing love triangles. There is some incest (not very large at least for now) in it and large age differences so if that bothers you then I would advise against this. Despite all this Richard is in a pretty cute relationship but it’s pretty tragic at the same time. If you want happy gays stay away from this. Also features gore and violence.
19 Days (manga)
The adventures of Jian Yi and his best friend Zhan Xixi. This one is another cute one. Their relationship goes at a believable pace (but sometimes it feels like it’s taking forever) and there is a pair of very lovable side characters to go with it. Some sadness but nothing life ruining at this point.
Kyo Kara Maoh! (Novels, Manga, Anime) A teenage boy in modern Japan ends up in another dimension, never having known that he was born and raised to be the king because of demonic powers. This becomes an issue, because there are customs and wars that he thinks are trivial and stupid for the most part. (Not stupid, as in insulting, but stupid, as if you really don’t freaking have to start a damn war.) One of these mistakes ends in him accidentally proposing marriage to another boy, who he then proceeds to stay engaged to for the entire series. The anime isn’t very explicit, and plays it off as conic relief with serious connotations, but in the manga it’s more serious, and in the novels, the two of them actually admit feelings for each other. The adopted a daughter together.
Hannibal(show) Hannibal Lector is the nefarious Chesapeake Ripper, and many more serial killers in this modern take on the novels, who becomes obsessive over an FBI consultant who’s trying to catch him, later on in the series, falling in love with him, which is later on reciprocated in the last episode of the third season… the two of them also metaphorically adopted a daughter together…
Kashimashi - Girl Meets Girl(manga/anime) After being accidentally killed by friendly and well meaning aliens, a boy’s body is reconstructed and sent back to Earth, but unfortunately, the aliens didn’t know how to make a boy, and so they put him back together as a girl. Oddly enough, as a girl, she’s not any different than she was before, leading me to believe she’s genderfluid, especially since her only actual issue is adjusting to how others treat her and how she’s expected to act. This features a girl/girl/girl pairing between three high school aged girls who are main characters in the show.
Jellyfish Princess (anime/manga) A series about a girl who makes friends with a boy, who likes dressing like a girl, even though he insists he’s male, he feels most comfortable with girls clothes. Slice of life fiction.
Dramatical Murders(game/anime/manga) If you play the game, there are multiple routes you can take to enter a romantic relationship with multiple male characters, while also playing a male character yourself. I personally, cannot find an English version of the game though, so I actually suggest that you either watch the anime (which has no actual murder or even explicit violence in it, so it’s actually very tame) or watch the youtube gameplay videos of them, because they’re actually really good. Now, this is a series about a boy Aoba (the main character that gets to be romanced by all the cute boys) who experiences a lot of headaches because of unknown reasons, who lives on an island that is actually VERY technologically advanced, to the point where they have a game system where you battle other characters in a mental realm, leading Aoba to realize that he has a lot of covered memories when he’s pulled into a battle, and goes looking for the answers to them, romancing boys along the way, because he a smol gay.
Camilla (youtube series??) I’ve never actually watched this one myself, I keep forgetting to start it, whoops, but it’s about a vampire who ends up waking in this century and going to college, only to fall madly in love with her female blogger roommate, who is DEF okay with that. (Please don’t hate me if this is a wrong summary, I have not seen it myself, but it looks amazing.)
Queer As Folk(show) Warning - not for kids, sex scenes all over the place in this one. Don’t watch with your parents. The gayest of the gays are in this one. It’s literally only got like, ten heteros in it, it’s about being gay.
Snowpiercer (movie/horrible comic series) Not many people know this about the movies, because it had to be confirmed by the directors, but apparently, there are basically no straight characters in this, all the Tail Passengers are mainly gay men. Not only that, but it’s honestly one of the most amazing movies I’ve ever seen, I still think of it sometimes.
Love Stage!!(manga/anime) A series about a family full of celebrities, but unfortunately, the youngest son of the family, is VERY shy, to the point of being terrified of people filming him, or even too much attention, so he keeps trying to stay away from being in commercials and stuff like that, no matter how much his family urges him to. 10 years ago, he was in a commercial for a wedding company, and caught a bouquet, starring with another boy, because he was actually filling in for a girl that hadn’t shown up. His co-star didn’t realize he was a boy, and fell in love with him. Ten years later, he’s still in love, even after realizing he’s not a she. This is the story of how they got together.
Eh, that’s all I can think of for now.
2 Moons: The Series (television show/book)
Wayo gets into the college that his long-time crush from high school, Phana, attends. Phana is extremely popular at school and is the Campus Moon of the previous year (basically he’s the school representative, picked from competing in a beauty pageant like competition.) Wayo is nominated to become this year’s Campus Moon, along with his best friend, Ming. Because of this, Wayo gets to spend more time around Phana, but what can he do when his crush not only doesn’t remember him, but also hates him and treats him horribly? Despite this premise, the show is actually one the most adorable shows I’ve ever seen and the relationships are so cute and pure it will make your heart melt. Lots of bisexual characters (seriously the main cast is almost entirely bi) and homophobia is almost nonexistent. This show will leave you squealing from how cute it is. It was based off a book, however the book was written in Thai and no English translations exist of it yet.
