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

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.

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Renta!’s BL Team Sorts BL Tropes

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.

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