6 BL Titles to Get You in the Mood for Spooky Season

~ sou ~ Leave a comment
R-kun, king of snacks (courtesy of our friends at the BL Brunch)

Spooky Season is in full swing, and we’re making the most of it here at Renta! HQ. Ames and I secured our copies of Inuno Mageyuishi’s latest doujinshi, featuring sexy cosplay time (where BOTH the uke and seme are dressed up!!), among many others at J.GARDEN60, treats have been shared among the team to the point our already unhinged workplace conversations are growing even more sus than usual thanks to the added sugar rush, and our localization team group chat name (the tradition of which we infamously expounded upon at our Citrus Con Q&A panel earlier this year) is now the seasonally appropriate EJACULANTERN 🎃 — another brainchild of the sickeningly creative Takochan. So, yeah. We’re having a good time over here.

Costumes and candy are great and all, but an equally worthwhile Halloween pastime is devouring as much yaoi that can be classified as “spoopy” as humanly possible. What better way to focus your time and energy while those pesky gremlins knock at your door all night? Sorry trick-or-treaters, NOTHING gets in the way of Yaoi Time 😈.

There’s a plethora of BL manga centered around monsters, vampires, and things that go bump in the night (😏) if you’re in the mood for something hauntingly thrilling — from established fan favorites such as Monster and Ghost and FANGS to newer hits like I Wanna Savor You and Vampires Don’t Go For Party Boys. In fact, there’s so much of it that it can be overwhelming — that’s why I thought I’d write up a list of some particularly ~spooky~ releases from the past year or so, just as a starting point for your Halloween reading! Maybe you’ll find a new favorite, or discover a trope that resonates with you and sends you down a whole new rabbit hole of BL discovery.

🧛 VAMPIRE THIRST NOTICE 🧛 I do wanna preface this list with a note that the world is just too horny for vampires, and as such, there were about a billion vampire stories that would also definitely belong here… but the list would simply go on forever, and I wanted to make space for other spooky beings as well! So if you’re in the mood for some bloodsucking goodness, I recommend exploring our Vampire BL tag, which is growing by the day. I still included a few vampire recs here, though. As a treat 🍬.

Without further ado, let’s get into some spooky recs!! 🦇

Continue reading “6 BL Titles to Get You in the Mood for Spooky Season” →

Otome Road: How Ikebukuro Became a Hub for BL, Joseimuke, and Oshikatsu

~ ames ~ Leave a comment

For as long as this BLog has existed, the conceptualization of this article has been a common talking point:

“Should we do an article on Otome Road?”
“Do people care about Otome Road?”
“Do people even know what Otome Road is?”
“If we do talk about Otome Road, how can we make the article interesting?”

In the past couple years, the answer to the first few questions has become obvious. With the continuing weak yen, many overseas otaku are jumping at the chance to visit Japan for relatively cheap. We’ve seen more and more otaku-centric tours, and people coming in groups specifically on a pilgrimage to visit common otaku shopping districts. Akihabara has been a common tourist destination for years, with Nakano Broadway also consistently cited in sightseeing handbooks. But in recent years, through the power of social media, the lesser-known Ikebukuro has become a hot topic as the hub for female otaku and fans of BL, joseimuke, and oshikatsu.

So this 8/01—the most auspicious of days for all fu-oriented folks, Yaoi Day—we wanted to do a full introduction to Ikebukuro and Otome Road, starting with a history lesson on how Ikebukuro became the joseimuke hub, and followed by our own “A Day in Ikebukuro” report!

Continue reading “Otome Road: How Ikebukuro Became a Hub for BL, Joseimuke, and Oshikatsu” →

BLT (Boys’ Love Tokyo) 2026

~ ames ~ 2 Comments

Back in early January, I met up with two industry friends for New Years coffee at Akha Ama near Waseda, and suddenly one of them asked “have you heard of this BLT thing??” Of course, we have to get the joke out of the way: “Like, the sandwich?” I asked, and she was like “nooo it’s this massive BL event they’re supposedly planning…” while showing me their website. At the time, there wasn’t much info aside from a homepage with a bunch of “coming soon” markers. I was interested, but skeptical.

A week or two later, they announced a massive list of extremely popular artists who they said would be participating. “But, participating how?”

Then they announced a list of book signing events. “Okay, so it’s just a really big book signing thing?” I thought to myself. But, all the participating artists weren’t doing book signings, so there had to be more.

Then they announced a bunch of talk events, but still not all the participating artists were included.

“Just what the heck is this god damn event!?”

Well, on June 27th, I went to BLT 2026 Day 1! So I’ll tell you a little bit about my experience.

Disclaimer: I went as a fan first and foremost (as in, I did not get paid to go, so I didn’t take extensive notes or photographs and just enjoyed my time attending), so this is going to be a more casual report just using my memory and the photos I took for my own personal enjoyment. So apologies if none of your favorite artists or series are represented here!

Continue reading “BLT (Boys’ Love Tokyo) 2026” →

(Extremely Late) Citrus Con 2026 Q&A

~ Admin ~ 2 Comments

We’re back, baybee! …Kind of! The second half of 2025 moving into 2026 was pretty crazy at Renta! HQ, and BL Team has been kept busy with lots of projects and new manga we can’t quite talk about yet (soon! hopefully!). This term, however, we’re hoping to make more time for the BLog and other forms of community outreach—partly because we want to give back to show appreciation for everyone’s support, from the Manga Planet move to all of our mangaka projects to Citrus Con—but also because, well… it’s one of our favorite parts of the job, too, as BL fans and community members ourselves.

Which brings me to today’s BLog post! At Citrus Con 2026 we did THREE panels this year: Guri Nojiro Drawing w/ Q&A, our “Day In The Life of a BL Manga Editor” industry panel, and an hour-long Q&A. However, as those who attended may remember, we VASTLY underestimated both the number of questions we’d get and our ability to yap at length about our job and BL recs, so we got through… maybe 1/3 of the questions?? We promised we would post the rest later as a BLog post, but then one project after another after another hit us in-house, and I’m finally getting round to writing this now.

We are so sorry… 🙇‍♀️ Trust me when I say there are also lots of BL reviews I want to write and share, and more cultural stuff as well. Hopefully 2026 will be our comeback year!

Also, a sad note: for those who’ve paid attention to the members of BL Team, Yomogi—our lover of yandere and thick eyebrows—will be leaving us this month. So, this will be the last BLog post he’ll be included in. A huge otsukaresama deshita to him, and a thank you for all the fun times he’s given BL Team! We will be staying in touch and continuing to talk about wonderful BL together, even if it’s now outside of work. 🖤

Without further ado…! This is going to be an extremely long post, so strap in.

We’ll also be re-answering all the early questions for everyone who missed the panel, since the Q&A didn’t get recorded. The answers also may have changed in the last four months depending on new series we’ve gotten into recently.

I’ll be answering the vast majority of the questions since I’m the one writing the BLog post, but Yomogi and Sou will also jump in where appropriate! I’ll make sure everyone’s answers are marked clearly.

Continue reading “(Extremely Late) Citrus Con 2026 Q&A” →

The Alpha’s Bride: Returning Home

~ ames ~ Leave a comment

Read on Renta!:
The Alpha’s Bride -Love’s Resonance-
by Kaoru Iwamoto & Kanae Yukimura

Japanese:
Alpha no Hanayome -Kyoumei Renjo-
αの花嫁　共鳴恋情

Links:
Kaoru Iwamoto Twitter
Kanae Yukimura Twitter
Taiyoh Tosho Twitter
Taiyoh Tosho Official Site

Content Warning: non-con, dub-con

Sometimes you want something new—a new fusion on an old dish, a new coffee house rather than the usual stop, a change in routine, a new twist on old tropes. But there’s also the opposite: sometimes you yearn for the old, tried and true thing you’ve always loved. You long for comfort. You long for home. That’s what I think of when I read The Alpha’s Bride. As a BL “fandom old” (is that what the kids are calling us these days?) sometimes I yearn for the tropes that originally drew me to BL manga back in the early 2000s.

Authored by Kaoru Iwamoto and illustrated by Kanae Yukimura, The Alpha’s Bride is a four-volume series (with a spin-off currently on volume two) that brings in many of the traditional BL and omegaverse tropes and cradles them lovingly in its arms. Kaoru Iwamoto—a powerhouse author who originally debuted in the late 90s, having written many hit novels and manga—wrote in their volume one author’s note “I wanted to write an age gap story” and they hit the ball out of the park. It’s also incredibly clear why Kanae Yukimura was chosen to visually bring these characters to life, their intricate, elegant art style suiting the theme of high society and passionate yearning perfectly.

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February in Review: Couple Dynamic Polls, Citrus Con Prep, and More!

~ sou ~ Leave a comment

Henlooo :3

It’s been a while! Our last BLog post was back in 2025, which feels like ages ago by now. I know we’re starting to sound like a broken record, but the reason for the silence here as of late is… we’ve been busy! A good busy for sure, but it nevertheless pains us to leave the wonderful readers of our long-form BL ramblings hanging… so we figured we’d share a quick update on the things we’ve been working on lately, and reassure you that we’re still alive and kicking (our feet at cute ukes/size difference/problematic age gap yaoi).

The BL team starting off 2026 like

Valentine’s BL Couple Dynamic Duel

For Valentine’s Day (or, rather, the week leading up to it since it fell on a Saturday this year), we decided to hold another daily poll event over on Twitter!

Also, Sou made cookies for the localization team. (Please clap)

The theme this time? BL Couple Dynamics.

Continue reading “February in Review: Couple Dynamic Polls, Citrus Con Prep, and More!” →

Renta! Staff BL Awards 2025

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2025 was another big year for Renta!—a bit of a whirlwind, really! We’ve been so busy, in fact, I couldn’t remember 99% of what we did, and Sou and Yomogi had to step in with a bunch of ideas. So here’s a quick year in review!

We did multiple BL projects over the course of the year! We were able to do two more mangaka interviews: Jiro Kawaii and Nobiru Hoshi. One thing you might not know is that the BL Team actually gets to choose who we interview, and we get to write the questions as fans of the artist, so these are always very exciting for us with many an afternoon meeting where we just go through Sensei’s socials and reread their work and jot down our burning questions. So we really hope you all enjoy the interviews as much as we do!

We also did a fanletter campaign for the wonderful Yamayade! A HUGE thank you to Sensei for being willing to participate in the project while they were working hard on the OmaKiss continuation (which we’re in the process of translating and getting into your hands ASAP 😎). Staff member Agedashi mentions it in one of their award picks, but Sensei’s illustration of UeKan in high school was too cute. I can’t recommend checking out the linked page enough! You can also read the handwritten mini Q&A!

We were able to do some really fun mini events on our socials this year, which gave us a wonderful opportunity to interact with our users a lot more! It’s been so fun getting to know some of you! In March we hosted the BL Trope Tourney, pitting popular BL tropes against each other, which was a blast. We actually wrote an entire retrospective, but just know that we heard you all loud and clear: you want more older guys (and more mutual pining)! We also did Kinktober on the Twitter, where we decided to go all in on some more raunchy stuff, so we really appreciate everyone being so supportive! Hopefully our fellow perverts got some good recommendations.

For conventions, in 2025 we went all in on Citrus Con! We participated both as major sponsors and with more panels than ever, and tried to stay active all weekend in our Discord chat. We played the BL Sugoroku we made for our users, discussed 2025 BL trends, and hosted a Live Drawing by the wonderful Pokerou-sensei! You can read our full retrospective here: CLICK! We also participated in our FIRST EVER in-person convention with a booth at AnimeNYC where we also debuted the wonderful R-kun! It was such a joy to finally get to meet so many of our users in person, not to mention all the wonderful fellow industry people who stopped by, and we really hope we can go back again next year!

Closer to home, this year was also our parent company‘s 30th anniversary, and we’re so proud to continue as part of the larger Renta! family. We refreshed our BL Homepage this last spring, and have also have started dabbling more and more with lightly censored (and—soon!—entirely uncensored) licenses in-house! We also attended J.GARDEN 58 as the full BL Team (Yomogi’s first time!), and then met up with some great BL industry friends afterward, which was a blast!

As for what’s coming in 2026… 😇 Just know that we have a lot of amazing BL waiting in the wings, and some projects we worked on ALL through 2025 that we can’t wait to debut this coming year. Trust me when I say the BL team—and the entire English Renta! staff—have been working extremely hard behind the scenes. Thank you so much for all your support through 2025, and we can’t wait to bring you more and more wonderful BL in 2026!

Anyway, enough about what we did in 2025—what about BL manga we loved? We have the usual categories with some new guest stars. You can either click the links below to go directly to each section, or just read the full recommendations.

Favorite New Series
Favorite Continuing Series
Favorite Seme
Favorite Uke
Favorite Up-and-Coming Author
Amazing Art
Favorite Renta! Title
Favorite Cover
Favorite Couple

Don’t forget to check out the previous years as well: 2023 ＆ 2024!

Continue reading “Renta! Staff BL Awards 2025” →

What We’re Thankful For This Year

~ sou ~ Leave a comment
It’s never a bad time to take a moment and appreciate all that yaoi has given us…

It’s that time of year again — at least for the folks who celebrate Thanksgiving 🦃 — where we fill our bellies with all kinds of festive delights, spend just enough time with family for some sort of decades-brewing drama to surface, and promptly retreat to a secluded space to continue reading that BL you’ve been meaning to get around to.

Sou after Thanksgiving dinner, or after a large serving of big tiddy BL

Whether it be personal relationships or developments in the world at large, there’s never a shortage of sources of stress and despair. Luckily, I’ve found that BL is a reliable mood lifter in both the good times and bad — it’s just the thing I need to make me go, “Maybe this Chungus life isn’t so bad after all.” (Well, that and pumpkin pie piled high with Cool Whip, but sadly neither of those things are exactly common in our corner of Japan.)

When I proposed this post theme to my fellow BLog members, they asked whether “things to give thanks for in the BL sphere” meant BL tropes, changes in trends, specific BL series or characters, or recent BL news. I decided not to limit the theme so as to release as much BL gratitude from the depths of our hearts as possible — so get ready for our unfiltered gracious yaoi ramblings.

Continue reading “What We’re Thankful For This Year” →

Discovering Passion: Guri Nojiro’s “It Was The End Of Spring”

~ ames ~ 1 Comment

Read on Renta!:
It Was The End Of Spring by Guri Nojiro

Japanese:
Sore wa Haru no Owari ni
それは春の終わりに

Links:
Guri Nojiro Twitter
Taiyoh Tosho Twitter
Taiyoh Tosho Official Site

Have you ever had one of those moments where you think about all the people around you, and you just feel different? Everyone else feels such strong emotions, gets attached to people and things and ideas, laughs loudly and shouts in excitement and yells when they’re angry. But, not you. You’ve never felt anything that big before—nothing in the world has ever moved you or made you possessive or made you yearn for something more. But what if something—or someone—could show up in your life and teach you what it feels like to truly desire something, to feel frustration and sadness and longing?

That’s the main premise behind Guri Nojiro’s It Was The End Of Spring. Released in early 2021 as Nojiro’s first ever compiled commercial work, It Was The End Of Spring has all the characteristics of a Guri Nojiro manga—stunning, soft linework, gentle and realistic characters, and a penchant for slow-paced, warm storytelling mixed with occasional humor and bittersweet emotion.

Continue reading “Discovering Passion: Guri Nojiro’s “It Was The End Of Spring”” →

Renta!’s BL Team Sorts BL Tropes

~ ames ~ 3 Comments

One thing that I really love about our current BL Team is that we have all the bases covered. While there is some overlap between the three of us, we all have pretty different taste in terms of characters, stories, and tropes—to the point where sometimes if I’m completely uninterested in something, Yomogi knows that he should probably check it out. This vast difference in our taste means we can give a variety of recommendations to a much larger audience. I’m sure those who’ve been watching our socials, have attended our panels, visited us at conventions, or sat down to business lunch with us already have a fair understanding of what we like: Sou likes “milfs” and mpreg, Yomogi likes strong eyebrows and ojisan uke, and I (Ames) like my characters ultra femme, a little sad, and extremely slutty.

So when I saw this tier maker going viral while I was making my daily coffee break Twitter rounds, I thought it would be fun/interesting to have each BL team member make their own so we could see just how different our tastes really are.

One thing I’d like to note: we generally try not to talk about manga/characters/tropes we personally don’t like, since we try to avoid anything negative and don’t want to bring down those who do like it. We feel very strongly that all BL is “for” someone even if it’s not to our personal tastes. So please know there’s no judgement from us if you adore the tropes we’re personally not big on. Please fly your freak flag high—there’s nothing we love more at Renta! corp than people who unabashedly love the manga they read. Not to mention, as I already said, chances are someone on the team likes it even if someone else doesn’t.

Continue reading “Renta!’s BL Team Sorts BL Tropes” →