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.
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.
Sou
It’s raining MILFs
I recently outed myself in this BL Trope Tier Ranking post as having a special place in my heart for older, cool, beautiful ukes (hereafter referred to as “MILFs”), and I stand by my tastes. The emotionally unavailable ones especially get my engines going — maybe it’s that “I can fix him” appeal, where “I” am of course replaced with a loving seme determined to tear the uke’s metaphorical walls down and fill his lonely heart and body to the brim.
But, my enjoyment of BL MILFs isn’t limited to the standoffish type — the demure, silently pining type with self-confidence issues (see: Rei from Alpha Held Down By A Hungry Sigma) is also enticing. All in all, I’m very thankful for all the mesmerizing MILF characters I’ve been introduced to lately, and I hope there will be many more to come! (Heh 😏)
Uncensored BL
It feels like ages since Renta! too was locked in lightsaber jail, but after a long and hard (🥴) battle behind the scenes, the floodgates were opened — and our Uncensored BL catalogue has only been growing since.
I must reiterate, I have no hard feelings toward “censored” BL manga — the mangaka still give us plenty to work with, and a little left to the imagination’s no hurdle for my enjoyment of a steamy scene. But when the mangaka’s gone the extra mile to give us lovingly rendered dongs and glistening holes, and that full artwork is revealed just for the international edition?? Sign me TF up.
All three of my recent Uncensored recs are praiseworthy regardless of how much 2-D genitalia they contain, but the stunning beauty of all the ~extra~ bits and pieces we’re treated to make for some panels you just can’t take your eyes away from. Lovely story and art, plus some deliciously juicy ero scenes make for a satisfying BL meal!
Doujinshi
You may be asking, am I really gonna use all three of my slots to hornypost? Maybe. And am I sorry? Hell nah 😎
It’s never a bad time to appreciate doujinshi, a staple of BL culture and longstanding way for artists to unleash their freakiest side.
One noticeable trait of these originally self-published works is that they tend to be rather straightforward — you can often tell what you’re in for from the title and cover alone. This makes sense, as the usually-lower page count than your typical BL series necessitates some more, shall we say, efficient storytelling. PWP, smut, whatever you want to call it — we know what you’re here for, and the artist is here to deliver it in droves.
When you just want to turn your brain off and watch a cute guy get fucked by a yakuza stud, a busty maid service his master, or a vampire get it on with a dude with a womb tattoo (sigil? Whatever you call it, it’s hot as hell), our doujinshi corner is here for you.
Ames
Setsunai Sweetness
For a while now I’ve been keeping a list of BL manga that have made me cry at work for one reason or another—maybe they deal with topics like queerness that deeply touch my heart, or maybe they’re about found family, or maybe the ending is just so sweet after the couple overcomes so much. Either way, I’ve cried in the office an embarrassing number of times because of BL. Thank god for our massive monitors and people usually being focused on their own manga checks.
I’m admittedly not a Bad End girlie—I tend to avoid titles and series that look like they might be too dark and emotional for me. I have a stressful job and a hard life (WOE IS ME); I just want to unwind with something gentle and sweet (and disgustingly perverted). The above series all landed at that perfect line of being emotional in a way that didn’t feel gratuitous or heavy. With the help of these series, it was a good year to connect with some more emotional tropes and themes that didn’t feel too torturous to read—to soak in the empathy for the characters without feeling like it was adding too much to my mental load.
TOKYOPOP
I’ve talked a lot on here and in panels and round tables about the difficulty of being a digital-only localizer, one of the biggest reasons being that many of the large publishers want the promise of a print release when they sign over a license. Unfortunately we don’t offer print releases, which closes off a lot of opportunities to share some of the more popular titles from big publishers. While I don’t massively mind this—I take great pride in the fact that Renta! regularly plays host to a big chunk of the Chill Chill Awards’ Up-And-Coming nominees, and it makes me extremely happy to introduce newer names to a global audience—it still means there’s a lot of stuff that’s difficult for us to license.
However, that’s where wonderful partners like TOKYOPOP come in.
Through TOKYOPOP (and similar publishers like Animate International and Kodansha) we’re able to get some of those bigger, more popular titles—and luckily for me, this opens the door for me to share and recommend some of my favorite larger BL works. Sadly, there’s a lot of BL I love that I can’t really talk about since it’s from a competitor company we don’t host on the site, so me babbling about it doesn’t really benefit Renta! (I must save that for my free time…) But now, through TOKYOPOP, I can talk about my sweet Mayo-chan to my heart’s content… on the clock… uncensored…
Thank you. 🙏
Special Booklets
Over the last year we’ve been working hard to listen to lots of user feedback—another thing I’m very grateful for in 2025! One of the things that comes up time and time again is that people want to read the tankoubon extras—they feel like they’re missing out on content because we usually release the chapter-by-chapter rather than the full compiled version. However, we usually license the chapter-by-chapter versions as they’re releasing, so it’s a bit of a conundrum—release things later and wait for the tankoubon release, or release things earlier and miss out on the extras.
So our amazing licensing team has been looking into lots of different solutions to bring the extras to our readers while still being able to release chapter-by-chapter, and more and more we’ve also been able to license the special booklets that were originally released as special storefront extras. If the booklet is released on the JP Renta! as a digital version, generally we’re able to license it as well.
While we haven’t been able to release too many of the special booklets yet, we have LOTS more in the works that we’re so excited to share with fans of many of our older series. We’ve also been working on getting some of the extras for ongoing series (regardless of chapter-by-chapter status) and hope to continue bringing everyone as much BL as humanly possible.
So please keep the feedback coming so we can continue to bring you even more great manga!
Yomogi
Thicc brows
If you were at this year’s Citrus Con, you know I have a soft spot for characters with THICC brows (“thicc brow-kun,” as I like to refer to in our BL Team work chat). If they have prominent eyebrows, I will root for them, take them under my wing, financially support them, adopt them, etc. Art style is one of the major things I take into account when I’m looking for manga to read, so when I saw the cover of Brat Tamer / King with Aoha’s beautiful brows, I was instantly drawn in. The same goes for Businessman Love Battle by one of my favorite mangaka. Finally, Sou recommended that I check out It’s Time For A Snack!!, which features a thicc-brow uke and a comedic storyline.
Darker BL
I must’ve entered my emo BL era this year. Ever since reading 心中するまで、待っててね。(Shinjuu Suru Made Mattete ne) in Japanese earlier this year (which was the first Merry Bad End BL I’ve ever read), I’ve been on a hunt for stories that revolve around unhealthy amounts of obsession, despair, and even death. Sure, I love stories that feature lovey-dovey couples, mutual pining, and/or super passionate ero scenes between characters, but sometimes, I’m just in the mood to get emotionally destroyed and quite literally be struck in awe. I enjoy sitting in silence after reading these manga, which feels similar to processing everything that happened after watching a heart-wrenching movie.
Unfortunately for me, the repertoire of darker BL on Renta! is not that extensive as of now, so I hope we will get to deliver more of them to you all in the future!
J. GARDEN
I had my first J. GARDEN experience this year, and it was AMAZING. If you’re not familiar with what J. GARDEN is, take a look at Ames’s blog post on her and Sou’s experience, as well as its importance in the Japanese BL ecosystem. To explain it VERY briefly, it’s a convention where artists sell original doujinshi. While waking up early and waiting in line outdoors under the sun for 2.5 hours was not fun, as soon as the doors opened, I felt a rush of adrenaline course through my body. I got to buy all sorts of original works (I got about 12 — sorry, my wallet), meet some of my favorite mangaka in person (including Jiro Kawaii, whose works we sell on Renta!), and tell them how much I love their art and storybuilding. I went together with Sou and Ames, and we demonstrated amazing teamwork in lining up separately in long lines, purchasing works for each other before they sold out.
While I was pretty tired at the end of the day, being at a venue with hundreds of BL creators and fellow fans allowed me to have a renewed appreciation of the industry!
The Reason For The Season
BL truly is the gift that keeps on giving, and there’s never a shortage of reasons to be thankful for it. Whether it be character types that make us feral, or experiences in fandom that become lifelong memories, BL has a way of making our lives fuller and richer. No matter how hectic our days can get here at Renta!, the fact that we’re able to work so closely with the genre on a professional level is something we’re sure to appreciate whenever possible.
Not to get too cheesy here, but it also can’t be understated just how grateful we are for our audience. Whether it be comments on the BLog, interactions with our social media posts, or a review left on Renta! by a passionate reader, we honestly treasure every little reminder that our work, in one way or another, has reached someone and left an impact. We love chatting with you guys about our favorite series and learning which ones you’re into, so please don’t be shy! Sharing and spreading the global love for BL makes all this worth it.
Thank You!!
rentaBLog 