Tag: BL

Renta! Staff BL Awards 2025

~ Admin ~ Leave a comment

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” →

After A Year At The Yaoi Factory, These Are The Five Things I Learned

~ Yomogi ~ Leave a comment

For those who have been following our BLog for a while, you’re probably well-acquainted with my beautiful colleagues Ames and Sou, who have been central on the BL Team here at Renta! I, on the other hand, only joined the team last summer, so some of you may have not seen me around quite yet (unless you were at Citrus Con 2025…!).

A beautiful rendition created by Sou.

Before coming to Renta!, while I had done on-and-off freelance translation, my career was in a completely different field. Therefore, despite having been a BL fan for a while, there were so many things I’ve learned on the job. Now with my first year of working at the Yaoi Factory (™️heh) under my belt, I figured this would be a good time to recap what my experience has been like. Compared to many people on our team, I’m still a newbie, but I feel like I’ve gotten a grasp of the basics related to localization, manga platforms, and the Japanese working culture. And, since many of our users are interested in the industry, why not share my experience with you all?

So, without further ado, here are the five things I learned during my first year at Renta! Of course, these are all from my personal point of view, so please don’t come after me if you don’t completely agree😅

Continue reading “After A Year At The Yaoi Factory, These Are The Five Things I Learned” →

Cuteness Overload: “A Lonesome Wolf As Sweet As Honey”

~ Yomogi ~ Leave a comment

Read on Renta!:
A Lonesome Wolf As Sweet As Honey by Dozaki

Japanese:
はちみつとオオカミ
Hachimitsu to Ookami

Links:
Dozaki Twitter
Tulle Twitter (Publishing line)

One day in the Renta! office, my colleague was excited to share that they were working on a very sweet and fluffy BL. Because it had been a while since I read a wholesome BL manga, my curiosity was piqued, and I just HAD to find some pockets of time between tasks to find out what all the BUZZ🐝 (bees… honey… get it?) was all about. And, as you might’ve expected, it didn’t take long for me to fall in love with this beautiful story.

This BL is the epitome of cuteness overload. I felt a light tugging at my heart with every chapter. Not only are the characters’ emotions depicted with subtlety, the story also struck a chord for me as someone who found himself quite lonely in high school due to his sexuality. So, if you’re looking for a series that features the themes of loneliness, friendship, and romance, read on.

Continue reading “Cuteness Overload: “A Lonesome Wolf As Sweet As Honey”” →

#OldManYaoi Never Gets Old

~ Yomogi ~ 1 Comment

Earlier this year, I was overjoyed to come across this post on X from the mangaka account アライグマ社 (@AraigumaSha) regarding one of the finest phrases known to humans: old man yaoi. The thread of posts features a moment of discovery by the artist, accompanied by wholesome interactions between them and English-speaking BL fans chiming in to explain how the term is used to refer to works of BL featuring older characters. Several users also added to the conversation—whether to reassure アライグマ社 that the term has a positive, endearing nuance, or to let them know how, in Western fandoms, works featuring anyone older than 30 or so could be categorized as old man yaoi. Personally, I absolutely love seeing moments like this, where fandoms from across the world connect over a shared interest, teaching and learning from each other. It truly demonstrates the ways in which communities grow and evolve through curiosity and genuine interactions ☺️

At the same time, as an old man yaoi lover myself, I could not simply sit still in the office. I had been meaning to work on doing an oyaji (term described below) blog post, so I took it as a sign from the universe that now is the time to work on it…! I know many of you are already well-versed in this sub-genre (if I can call it that), but I will start off with an overview of different ways in which old man yaoi may be referred to in Japan, followed by some recommendations.

Continue reading “#OldManYaoi Never Gets Old” →

Don’t Judge a Book By Its Cover: Ayaka Matsumoto’s “Unexpectedly Naughty Fukami”

~ ames ~ Leave a comment

Read on Renta!:
Unexpectedly Naughty Fukami by Ayaka Matsumoto

Japanese title:
やたらやらしい深見くん
Yatara Yarashii Fukami-kun

Links:
Screamo Twitter (publisher)

I was first introduced to this manga when my friend who worked at Coolmic said “you’ll love this series; you have to read it.” And while I usually take his recommendations, since he knows me well, for some reason I put off reading it—maybe because my “to-read” list is already massive, or maybe because I’m usually not that into megane characters. But, his recommendation aside, I kept seeing it in the trending and top rankings of the various online bookstores I go to for intel, and I eventually was like “FINE, JEEZ, I’LL READ IT!”

And, boy howdy, am I glad I did. I feel like you’ll see my experience replicated in the reviews for the series on Renta! as well: almost everyone who reads this reports being kind of blown away by how enjoyable it is. It’s cute. It’s funny. It’s very sexy. So, what exactly is the magic of Unexpectedly Naughty Fukami? Let me explain.

The story follows Kaji. Loved by his coworkers, admired by women on the street, and just overall seen as the pinnacle of capability and manhood, Kaji seems like a great guy. In reality, however, Kaji’s a total piece of shit. He’s arrogant, callous, and incredibly calculating. He fakes his Nice Guy™ personality at the office while looking down on his coworkers, thinks lowly of anyone who isn’t appropriately “attractive” by his standards, and gives every man he sees a score from 0 to 100, judging their worth on their status, style, and looks above all else.

Granted, all of these aspects of his personality are because he’s desperately hiding his sexuality from those around him and trying his best to keep people from ever knowing him on a deeper level. If he’s perfect, no one will ever question him. Still, this has left his personality completely twisted to the point where he sees everyone around him as objects to fit his needs at any given time.

Enter Fukami, a coworker from the tech department at Kaji’s company. Fukami is frumpy, unsociable, and bland, hiding behind uncut hair and thick glasses. Thus, when he’s paired with with Fukami for an overnight business trip to clear up a bug in another prefecture’s system, Kaji’s incredibly judgmental. While they’re on their business trip, Kaji secretly leers at Fukami and rates him a “total 0.” However, at the hotel that night, Fukami walks out of the shower and—he’s stunning!??? Dressed in the skimpy hotel nightshirt, bare legs in full view, and hair finally out of his face, Fukami is incredibly, 100% Kaji’s type—from 0 to 100 in an instant. So shocked, Kaji drops his phone—leaving the gay hookup app he was previously browsing in full view.

Continue reading “Don’t Judge a Book By Its Cover: Ayaka Matsumoto’s “Unexpectedly Naughty Fukami”” →

Renta! Busts Onto The Con Scene: Citrus Con 2024

~ Admin ~ 4 Comments

This past weekend, for the first time ever Renta! was able to take part in a convention: Citrus Con 2024. In previous years we’ve been able to attend conventions as either industry or as sponsors, but never as actual panelists or participants. It’s admittedly a bit hard for us to stay on top of the convention game from all the way in Japan and with a relatively small English-speaking staff, so opportunities often come up only once they’re too late to jump on. But this year, we wanted to participate, and since the Citrus Con staff was so on top of everything and gave us plenty of time to get our ducks in a row, we were able to pull it off!

What is Citrus Con, you ask? Well, Sou already wrote a wonderful report on last year’s convention, if you want something more in-depth. For the tl;dr version, I’ll let Citrus Con’s about page speak for itself:

Citrus Con is a virtual 18+ convention dedicated to BL/queer media, shipping, fan works, and honoring how fan culture has grown in the past two decades.

Citrus Con is one of the few English anime/fandom conventions where BL a is not only welcome, but is actually the main focal point. Another wonderful selling point of Citrus Con is that it’s highly inclusive—fans of all types of ships, fandoms, and content are welcome and celebrated. Plus, since it’s online (and free!) you don’t have to break the bank traveling across the world to attend!

In this Citrus Con 2024 con report, we want to discuss the process of preparing for Citrus Con, all the activities that were available for the weekend of the convention, some of the panels we attended, and our final thoughts about attending as participants and panelists. If any of that interests you, read on!

Just like this bakery display case, Citrus Con is filled with many a delectable treat… (Shoutout to Citrus Con staff for providing their official graphics for us to include here…! They’re all so beautiful Heart eyes)
Continue reading “Renta! Busts Onto The Con Scene: Citrus Con 2024” →

The good, the dark and the gritty: omegaverse

~ Admin ~ Leave a comment

Blooming cherry blossoms be damned, Japan has been in a rainy mood lately. It’s probably the kind of situation when most people would like to indulge in something uplifting, like a comedy or happy song; but, if you’re anything like me, you prefer to consume media that affirm the rainy season tenfold. That’s sometimes the appeal of sad, dark stories, after all. Which is why this humble purveyor of angst embarked on another exploration through the Renta! catalog, not to find our many cute, sweet, domestic, sexy omegaverse manga, but the stuff that shows people utterly under the thumb of a society governed by biological urges.

Which means of course, here’s a hefty content warning for the most ruthless things omegaverse might offer—if you’re looking for something to scatter the rainclouds rather than darken them, how about Sou’s April Fool’s post?

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World’s First “Yaoi Cruise” to Set Sail Spring 2025

~ sou ~ 1 Comment

Get your yaoi paddles ready, because you’re in for the seaborne adventure of your life やったね

Have you ever wanted to get away from it all and enjoy a relaxing and luxurious vacation… where you can revel in all forms of BL media in a judgment-free zone, surrounded by other fans? Sounds like a dream, doesn’t it?

Well, starting next year, Bophades Cruises is making the dream come true with the world’s first ever “yaoi cruise” — an all-inclusive vacation plan catering to BL fans from all over the world.

This 14-day cruise will stop at 3 countries, giving passengers the chance to explore several IRL locations that have played a significant role in the yaoisphere. Each of the selected spots is guaranteed to have wonderful sightseeing and shopping opportunities.

No, no THAT kind of bingo! Unless…? 赤面 (Also, please read Nipple Bingo パーティの翌朝)

There will also be exclusive fan events with special guests — including star talent and creators from the BL world — such as special talks and autograph sessions.

And, the cruise ship itself? Extravagance incarnate.

When you’re not chilling your luxury suite or enjoying the gourmet buffet and open bar, there’ll be plenty to keep yourself occupied with at all hours of the day — including a massive BL manga library, karaoke rooms, BL anime screenings in state-of-the-art theater rooms, a cosplay masquerade ball, bingo (with fabulous prizes!), and more!

If all this sounds too good to be true and you wanna know how on earth it came to be — or, if it sounds like another 火 Festival in the making and you’re asking, “Why??” — you’ll want to keep reading, because Renta! BLog has the full scoop — along with a special chance for you to win FREE tickets!

All aboard the S.S.B.L.!!!

Continue reading “World’s First “Yaoi Cruise” to Set Sail Spring 2025″ →

Fuyu Touji’s “Pain, Sweet Pain” and a dive into the Dom/Sub-verse

~ Admin ~ Leave a comment

Read it on Renta!: Pain, Sweet Pain by Fuyu Touji

Japanese title:
スウィート・ペイン・セラピー
Sweet Pain Therapy

Links:
pixiv
ChilChil page

It’s not like I have a particular preference for omegaverse. I don’t really go out of my way to find it. It finds me. That’s how I’ve come to review omegaverse works twice on our sweet BLog. So, I guess, why not also tackle one of its many offshoots, the Dom/Sub-verse? I mean, as an afficionado of the darker stories that romance has to offer, clear-cut dom/sub dynamics aren’t just music to my ears, but the additional element of mind-control is the cherry on top of the fucked-up yet oh-so-delicious cake that this trope could be.

So, considering that I recently discovered Fuyu Touji’s “My Bias is a God!?” (coming on English Renta! soon) I decided to explore the Dom/Sub-verse through their previous work, “Pain, Sweet Pain” which has been in my reading list forever. Just as the title implies, this story is both sweet and painful, so join me if you’re down for that.

Continue reading “Fuyu Touji’s “Pain, Sweet Pain” and a dive into the Dom/Sub-verse” →