General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

Gameboys

Gameboys is a Philippine Boys' Love (BL) web series about two young online gamers, Cairo (Elijah Canlas) and Gavreel (Kokoy de Santos), who begin a romance over video calls during the COVID-19 lockdown in Manila.¹ Produced by The IdeaFirst Company and directed by Ivan Andrew Payawal, it premiered on YouTube on May 22, 2020 as the first Filipino BL series and became one of the earliest local productions completed safely under pandemic restrictions.¹^•²

Key fact	Detail
Genre and firsts	The Philippines' first BL series and the show that popularized the Boys' Love genre in the country²^•¹
Premiere	May 22, 2020, on The IdeaFirst Company's YouTube channel¹
Leads	Elijah Canlas as Cairo ("Cai") and Kokoy de Santos as Gavreel ("Gav")¹
Production method	Filmed entirely from home on iPhones operated by the actors, with direction over Zoom and footage previews through Telegram¹
Episodes	Season 1: 13 episodes plus one special (May 22 to September 20, 2020); Season 2: 9 episodes (May 22 to June 12, 2022)³
Streaming	Picked up by Netflix for global release by the end of 2020; later also on Tubi and OUTtv¹^•⁴
Recognition	International Emmy nomination, Kids Live Action (October 2021); Best Web Series at the Seoul Indie Short Awards¹

Spoilers

Premise

The story follows Cairo, a popular game streamer known online as "Caimazing," and Gavreel, the previously unknown gamer "Angel2000" who beats him in an online match and then asks him out.⁵^•⁴ Season 1 plays out almost entirely through video calls, instant messages, and social media posts filmed from the actors' own homes, with the two leads physically separated by quarantine.⁶ The series treats the pandemic not just as backdrop but as plot: it addresses mental health and even deaths from COVID-19.¹ Critics and audiences noted its progressive portrayal of LGBTQ love and family relations.¹

Franchise and legacy

The series expanded across formats: a direct film sequel, Gameboys: The Movie (released July 30, 2021), shown on digital platforms KTX and Ticket2Me; a special "Alt Gameboys: Episode 13.5" (September 20, 2020); and a second season of nine episodes airing May 22 to June 12, 2022.³^•¹⁰ The movie and second season were international co-productions with Tokyo-based 108 Japan Inc., Aeon Entertainment, and Hakuhodo DY Music and Pictures.¹ Season 2 also shifted form: with restrictions relaxed, the story brought Cairo out of his province to stay at Gavreel's house, and the leads' first unmasked kiss came only after both tested negative for COVID-19.¹¹^•¹²

Its commercial success helped start what scholars call the First Wave of Pinoy BL, a set of pandemic-era series including Hello, Stranger, In Between, Quaranthings, and Gaya sa Pelikula, all following the Thai hit 2gether into the Philippine market.¹³ Analysts of the genre note that Pinoy BL, led by Gameboys, rejected some Thai BL tropes, such as villainizing female characters and trivializing coming out, a difference attributed partly to queer creators and actors being directly involved in production.¹⁴ Commentators have also read the series through its use of the home as the center of queer engagement, a narrative mode made possible precisely because lockdown kept the characters indoors.¹²

Production under lockdown

A remote pipeline. When strict lockdown made physical gatherings impossible, The IdeaFirst Company, run by executive producers Jun Robles Lana and Perci Intalan, built the series around remote filming: the actors held iPhones that could shoot 4K video and operated them themselves, starting with an iPhone SE, then an iPhone 10, and later two iPhone 11s, while the director and production team monitored everything on Zoom and received each take over Telegram.¹ Even after quarantine restrictions eased and on-location filming resumed, the team continued to use iPhones.¹

The constraints shaped daily work. Director Ivan Payawal rehearsed leads Elijah Canlas and Kokoy de Santos over Zoom, an adjustment he described as difficult since he was used to a personal, in-person approach with actors.² The team shot the Season 1 pilot five times to get "the right flavor and the right frame."² Quarantine rules limited locations, so Elijah Canlas filmed using his own house as the set, with production designer Nestor Abrogena sending him four large crates of materials that the actor learned to set up himself under Zoom instruction.² Executive producer Perci Intalan described the core challenge plainly: film as safely as possible with what people had at home.¹

Reception and reach

The series quickly outgrew its modest scale. After just two episodes it had drawn more than 1.5 million YouTube views, with viewers in the United States, Europe, and Latin America, and its first episode carried subtitles in 17 languages.⁷^•⁸ By the end of 2020 Netflix picked it up for global release, and in October 2021 it received an International Emmy nomination in the Kids Live Action category.¹ Intalan reported fan messages from the USA, Canada, the UK, Spain, the Netherlands, Brazil, Mexico, Australia, the Middle East, Indonesia, Malaysia, India, and Nepal, plus press coverage in Teen Vogue, Digital Spy, Pink News, and Harper's Bazaar Taiwan.¹

Journalist Howie Severino, interviewing the team in 2021, called the series a cultural artifact of the pandemic: a record of how Filipinos lived under strict protocols when almost no new shows were being made.⁹

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Series and fictional screen worlds › Unscripted, reality, and web-native series › Web-native and streaming-original series › LGBT-related web series

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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