Well, know that I think about it, it does have a sort of "asshole master & abused slave" dynamic I could compare to Royal Servant & Moritat.
Yes! I have noticed this too. I actually stopped reading manga & watching anime in 2012 & when I came back after getting bored of MMOs, this seems to be the case for things. Like Free! Iwatobi Swim Club & Yuri on Ice it was especially noticeable. & it's not just the BL comics for Lezhin but most if not all of their stuff. Is it just trendy or is it a budget tactic that saves time & money?
Oh no, i feel dumb but what does MMO mean?
Massively Multiplayer Online, a type of streaming online game with millions of people all playing at once, usually an MMORPG, MOBA, or MMOFPS.
I'm noticing a LOT of trends in these Lezhin BL webtoons. Sets of them will have very similar plots, very similar background stories...I suspect these "contests" the creators won probably gave them general concepts for what the general plot or relationship dynamic was supposed to be.
This one is the most DIFFERENT from all of them, but it does still have one REALLY big thing in common....With the exception of the character's heads, almost ALL of the art is traced & painted over photographs. That's cheating in my book, but these days, all anime studios are doing it too; tracing & painting over stock footage. It kind of messes with my head when I watch or read these things, knowing that there's a real person underneath it all.