Citrus Con 2025: Going All Out!

The heat and humidity has cranked up in Tokyo, June is coming to an end, and with it Citrus Con 2025 is officially over! 😭 We’re so sad! The lead-up to Citrus Con was so stressful, but the weekend was just amazing.

This was our third year with Citrus Con; we also wrote event reports in 2023 as attendees, and in 2024 as panelists. Every year we have so much fun and it’s such a wonderful experience that we want to crank it up a notch, so this year for Citrus Con 2025 we did MULTIPLE panels on top of being major sponsors, and also tried to be in the Discord as much as we could (timezones notwithstanding… 🙃), since this is a rare and vital opportunity to actually interact with our users.

Being in Japan, it’s unfortunately incredibly difficult for us to stay on top of the Western convention scene—which is much more vital for participation in the English manga industry than you might expect. Not only are many big announcements planned around convention season, with it being an amazing opportunity to showcase your service and wares and drum up hype, but it’s one of the few chances to get face to face feedback by interacting with your actual customers.

However, since Citrus Con is an online convention—and ALSO currently the only large-scale English-based convention focused solely on the BL community—this one we can attend! We MUST attend! And so we did. 😎

In this report we’ll talk about about Renta!’s history with the convention scene, what it’s like on the industry side preparing for a convention, and our experience this year! So, without further ado, let’s hop into it!

Citrus Con Homepage
Citrus Con Twitter

Before we get too far, let’s give a short summary of what Citrus Con actually is! From their website:

One thing that’s really wonderful about Citrus Con is that it’s aggressively inclusive. So long as you have no intention of being a judgmental prick to other attendees, you will be welcome in the space. It’s so much fun getting to see people be so open and unabashed about their interests, and because the #1 rule is just “be nice,” the space is incredibly positive. Everyone is just so kind and happy and excited to be there. As the world feels more and more like it’s burning down around us (pls help), these kinds of community spaces are more important than ever.

As we often say on the BLog, Renta! also feels very strongly about shame-free enjoyment of BL/yaoi, as well as uplifting femme and LGBTQ+ spaces, so we love this aspect of Citrus Con. We’re so honored we get to take part every year.

That being said, Renta!—and this might be highly obvious to anyone who’s interacted with us or attended one of our panels—actually doesn’t have a lot of experience with conventions. Aside from maybe Takochan, we’re all kind of reclusive nerds at Renta! HQ. We don’t really have anyone who knows how to stream or film or entertain, nor anyone who’s good at public speaking. Everything that we do is essentially the staff pushing ourselves out of our comfort zones to do it out of necessity. In previous years, we’ve only gone to conventions for networking or for market research. So, Citrus Con is essentially Baby’s Big Night Out.

Thankfully, panel planning, scripting, and execution was MUCH less stressful this year now that we actually had some experience under our belt from Citrus Con 2024. I also felt much less nervous after doing a few other fan and community outreach events, such as a SWET “talk shop” about working in localization for a Japanese company with my wonderful friends Emma (Manga Planet/futekiya) and Melanie (woman of many hats).

Plus, Sou does an amazing job presenting and has grown immensely into the role that’s been thrust upon them. I initially was incredibly unwilling to participate in any way other than research and scripting and prep. But last year, when I jumped in to assist with the end-of-panel Q&A, it was such a rush getting to interact with everyone that the nervousness just melted away. For that reason, our panels expanded a bit more, with our newest member—Yomogi—being pushed into the fray. He, too, was initially incredibly nervous and unsure about participating, but—while he’s out today so I can’t ask for confirmation—he also seemed to have an wonderful time through the entire weekend getting to share his love for BL with everyone. (Edit by Yomogi: I DID have an amazing time at the Con and already cannot wait for the next one :-D. I truly enjoyed interacting with BL fans!)

Fun stuff aside, let’s talk a little bit about the build-up for participating in a convention like this. Disclaimer that I’m only speaking for Renta! here, since other companies will all have different infrastructure or staff handling different things. For Renta!, we’re a relatively small staff with an already quite stacked workload. The translation team, for instance, handles between 90 and 120 chapters of manga to be released on any given month, on top of which is English-related assistance as the only native English speakers on staff, all BL social media, market research, freelance coordination, project management, etc. etc. The list goes on.

And, in the end, we had THREE panels we wanted to do:

★ Drawing Process and Q&A with Pokerou
★ Renta! Industry Panel: Japanese BL Trends
★ Game Panel: BL Sugoroku with Renta!

We also had a fourth “joint” panel with Citrus Con as a sponsor. Since we didn’t have much room left on our plates, we handed all the creative liberties over to the Citrus Con staff. I’m glad we did, too, because—as those who played it can attest to—they created such a ridiculous, silly, fun game and were able to dig DEEP into the ancient texts to find BL even I didn’t know we had on the site.

While putting together these panels on top of everything else was pretty stressful, we were intent on making this Citrus Con a huge success. The Sugoroku panel, in particular, was up in the air for a long time because we were worried the workload of putting together the board might be too much. Originally, we weren’t sure how interested people would even be in the panel, especially since—unlike the industry panel, where we share our insider expertise—in the Sugoroku panel we were only sharing ourselves. Previously, we hadn’t shared much of ourselves as individual BL fans, so we wondered: would anyone actually want to sit through an hour of us chatting? Would the amount of work outweigh the benefits of a panel like that?

But in the end, since I’d played 推しカプ (oshikappu, or shipping) Sugoroku with my friends at many a BL get-together, I really wanted to play and create a board we could share with everyone at Citrus Con. So I told Sou and Yomogi that if they were willing to play with me, I would take the responsibility of creating the board. Of course, they still ended up helping me extensively, for which I’m super appreciative. (Sorry for always being such a 自分勝手 leader…) And I’m so happy we went through with it, because it was such a blast getting to be gross and weird and openly ourselves with everyone, even as representatives of Renta!

The entire sponsorship process was handled by our marketing team, the Pokerou panel coordination and video editing as well as all of the approvals for any manga art that was shared was handled by our licensing team, and banners and website set-up and various campaigns and administrative tasks (such as coupon code approvals) were handled by our web team. As you can see, a lot of coordination between the various teams was required. There were frequent meetings and check-ins and many an email and team chat left on read. My huge apologies to the Citrus Con staff if any of you are reading this, because many emails went unanswered for way too long as I tried to juggle the rest of the workload. 😵 I’ll try harder to be on top of everything next year!

On top of all that, decisions have to be made months in advance. Anything that needed approval from the publishers needed upward of a month’s advance notice so we could make sure they had plenty of time to look everything over, and they needed to be ready and in their final form before the approval process could even begin. Because of this, we were having meetings about BL Trends all the way back in February and March, deciding on Sugoroku questions through April and early May… Which says nothing of how far in advance the entire Pokerou Q&A video needed to be done.

For those wondering why we chose “Japanese BL Trends” as our theme this year, it’s because being highly connected to the Japan side and on top of BL trends is one of our strengths! While last year’s panel was really popular (thank you to everyone to watched it!), we were worried that if we recycled that panel or did something too similar it would disappoint people who’d already been to the previous panel. Hopefully it was still interesting and informative in its own way!

Last year I helped out more with the presentation, but this time Sou did almost the whole thing themselves with me and Yomogi only contributing our respective recommendations. I think they did an amazing job creating a super fun and eye-catching presentation. (“We have jersey maid at home.” Jersey maid at home: …) This is why I usually refer to Sou as the “fun dad.” I’m the boring dad who does all the “necessary” SNS like posting product updates, but Sou is a much better shitposter than I could ever dream of being.

And while Yomogi had fewer concrete tasks, he contributed tons of ideas during the meetings that were all implemented within the panels, as well as helping out with all the tech stuff! The reason the Sugoroku board is as cute as it ended up being is because Yomogi suggested we cover it in citrus. I also have to say, I really appreciate how much we all balance each other’s BL tastes—with the three of us, we have nearly the whole spectrum covered and were able to give such a great variety of BL recs. 🥰 I’m so happy I have such a wonderful team.

Anyway, after MUCH stress, it was time…! Citrus Con weekend!

Our Pokerou panel thankfully had no hiccups—a huge thank you to the Citrus Con staff for making sure everything ran smoothly! Our panel had a few more hitches, but everyone was incredibly kind and patient in the chat. In the end we didn’t have time for the Q&A, but our wonderful con volunteer Vii made sure we got the chat transcripts and Q&A questions so we could answer them in our Renta! BL Corner chat. (Initially we planned to answer them in the Sugoroku panel instead, but that one also went too long… Sorry…)

In our off time, we sat in the Renta! BL Corner and chatted with other con goers, looked through the various other amazing chats, or sat in on other panels and voice chats. Unfortunately the time zones continued to be an issue for us (though I think Sou was listening in on their personal account even off the clock), but the panels we were able to catch included:

“The Lack of Empathy in Fandom Spaces”
“Yaoi Bingo at Citrus Con”
“Live drawing with Q&A Featuring Otonoha (麻都乃葉) Sensei!”
“DLsite garumani Industry Panel: Naughty Niche Doujin Works”
“The false equivalency of Propaganda to narrative fiction in the “Fiction Affects Reality” debate”
“Why We Thirst for Monster Boys: The Science Behind Monster/Human Love in Omegaverse BL”
“Kemonā and furries and bears, oh my!”

Some were for market research purposes, and some were for personal interest. Well. It’s actually all for personal interest, I suppose, when you’re sincerely very interested in the content related to your career.

I absolutely also would have watched “Maid Mayhem: The Beauty of Maid Outfits II” but alas… 😭 It was time to go home and the air conditioner in the building had been turned off.

I’m also very sad we couldn’t be there for the Emoji Guessing Game…! We got to see how it was implemented during rehearsal, and it looked so fun! The Citrus Con staff did an absolutely amazing job on it. Unfortunately, it aired at 4AM and I am one of the so-called Fandom Olds. So many of the super early morning panels looked amazing, and I can’t wait for some of them to hopefully pop up on YouTube!

Onto our day 2 panel!

I’ll be honest, day 2 was a bit more nerve-racking, since we had a lot more set-up for the Sugoroku panel and I was sincerely worried no one would show up. Thankfully, Yomogi is pretty good at getting tech situations under control, and though we could definitely use some more practice getting a nice, clear picture, livestreaming with the camera worked out! Plus, lots of people showed up to the panel!! Thank you so much for listening to us talk about mac n’ cheese sounds in BLCDs, and Mpreg, and weird yandere stalker manga!! It was unbelievably fun.

For the rest of the day I sat in the BL Corner chat and replied to the Q&A, while Sou meandered through the rest of Citrus Con’s panels and Discord offerings. It honestly cannot be overstated the sheer amount of FREE content you get through a weekend of Citrus Con. I spent two full work days (plus overtime) toddling around in the Discord and I still feel like I barely scratched the surface. Thankfully the Discord is still up, so I was able to take even more time today to look for feedback for Renta! (stealth 😏) or just take in what other BL fans like and are looking for.

In closing, I’ve said it many times before, but a massive thank you to the Citrus Con staff and volunteers. Every time we’ve worked with Citrus Con it’s been such a wonderful experience—we couldn’t ask for a more fun, creative, professional team! Every time I’ve had a question or request, they were on it super quick! Sincerely, thank you so much for making the experience exponentially less stressful by always being on top of everything—even when WE weren’t!

And, of course, thank you SO much to everyone who attended our panels, interacted with us in our chat or other parts of the Discord, provided feedback, recommended or pushed our service or our localizations, new users who only heard of Renta! NOW through Citrus Con, continuing users… EVERYONE who helped make this a special and fun experience to participate in, from start to finish. A special shout-out, too, to all the people we finally got to interact with more directly who we see frequently on our other socials. It was SO fun to see regular names we already know well through Twitter, Bluesky, and the BLog (and whom we gush about lots within the team chat 🤭).

Thank you all SO much; thanks to everyone who attended, it was truly a summer festival to remember!
And NOW, we can’t wait to see you all again next winter…!

And onwards! https://t.co/ONKB1bHloX pic.twitter.com/YVUyraLyKZ

— Citrus Con (@CitrusCon) June 22, 2025