back in my days, this was peak angst bl 😂😂😂

Now that you mention it looks like things really change like every 20 years, in the 90's we had things like
https://www.mangago.zone/read-manga/ai_no_kusabi_the_space_between/ (real dark thing) or https://www.mangago.zone/read-manga/ai_no_kusabi_the_space_between/
Then there was restrictions in Japan and manga became more tame an censored
But now we have Harada and Omega verse (that is slowly changing directions to become cakeverse and others