Tag: Asahina Mashiro

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.

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Renta!’s BL Team Sorts BL Tropes

~ ames ~ 2 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.

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ChillChill Awards 2025!

~ ames ~ Leave a comment

Make sure to cast your vote! ChillChill Awards 2025 nominees dropped this last Friday, and boy is the competition intense. Around this time last year I wrote about the ChillChill BL Awards and why they matter so much—about ChillChill’s rise from a review and indexing site into essentially the community hub for all lovers of BL manga in Japan—so I’ll spare you from having me write too much here. Nonetheless, I still wanted to make a quick index of all the nominees from the 2025 BL Awards that you can read on Renta!

Last year we had quite a few, and thankfully this year is no different. Also, not just in regards to Renta!, this year’s BL Awards are a testament to how big BL is getting in the West because many of the nominees are licensed by a variety of other localization companies—both digital and print. It’s so wonderful to see how many BL get brought to an international audience now, not to mention so fast. It used to take much longer before BL was licensed for release in the West, and the options used to be so few and far between. It’s such a testament to Western BL fans who keep showing up pushing that BL isn’t just some niche genre—it’s got a massive and excited fanbase ready and willing to support the genre and its creators in any way they can. I love that so much, both as a fan and obviously as someone who works in the field. I can work my dream job only because of the BL fans who show up to support its creation. Thank you so much!

Another thing that’s a bit of a pride point for me is that two years in a row, now, most of our associated BL Awards nominees (particularly our own licenses and localizations) are in the up-and-coming category. That’s honestly so exciting! I talked a little bit in my post about the benefits and drawbacks of being a digital licensor about how we’re able to take more risks on lesser-known, up-and-coming talent due to the lower entry fees of digital versus print, and it fires me up every time I think I get to play even a tiny part in bringing these new artists to a wider audience. And this year’s BL Awards have a particularly good mix of super popular, established artists and rising stars!

Anyway, without further ado, here’s the list of the 2025 ChillChill BL Awards titles you can find on Renta!—including some sneak peaks into exciting upcoming licenses! 🤭

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