Boys Love Manga – rentaBLog

We’re back, baybee! …Kind of! The second half of 2025 moving into 2026 was pretty crazy at Renta! HQ, and BL Team has been kept busy with lots of projects and new manga we can’t quite talk about yet (soon! hopefully!). This term, however, we’re hoping to make more time for the BLog and other forms of community outreach—partly because we want to give back to show appreciation for everyone’s support, from the Manga Planet move to all of our mangaka projects to Citrus Con—but also because, well… it’s one of our favorite parts of the job, too, as BL fans and community members ourselves.

Which brings me to today’s BLog post! At Citrus Con 2026 we did THREE panels this year: Guri Nojiro Drawing w/ Q&A, our “Day In The Life of a BL Manga Editor” industry panel, and an hour-long Q&A. However, as those who attended may remember, we VASTLY underestimated both the number of questions we’d get and our ability to yap at length about our job and BL recs, so we got through… maybe 1/3 of the questions?? We promised we would post the rest later as a BLog post, but then one project after another after another hit us in-house, and I’m finally getting round to writing this now.

We are so sorry… 🙇‍♀️ Trust me when I say there are also lots of BL reviews I want to write and share, and more cultural stuff as well. Hopefully 2026 will be our comeback year!

Also, a sad note: for those who’ve paid attention to the members of BL Team, Yomogi—our lover of yandere and thick eyebrows—will be leaving us this month. So, this will be the last BLog post he’ll be included in. A huge otsukaresama deshita to him, and a thank you for all the fun times he’s given BL Team! We will be staying in touch and continuing to talk about wonderful BL together, even if it’s now outside of work. 🖤

Without further ado…! This is going to be an extremely long post, so strap in.

We’ll also be re-answering all the early questions for everyone who missed the panel, since the Q&A didn’t get recorded. The answers also may have changed in the last four months depending on new series we’ve gotten into recently.

I’ll be answering the vast majority of the questions since I’m the one writing the BLog post, but Yomogi and Sou will also jump in where appropriate! I’ll make sure everyone’s answers are marked clearly.

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Read on Renta!:
The Alpha’s Bride -Love’s Resonance-
by Kaoru Iwamoto & Kanae Yukimura

Japanese:
Alpha no Hanayome -Kyoumei Renjo-
αの花嫁　共鳴恋情

Links:
Kaoru Iwamoto Twitter
Kanae Yukimura Twitter
Taiyoh Tosho Twitter
Taiyoh Tosho Official Site

Content Warning: non-con, dub-con

Sometimes you want something new—a new fusion on an old dish, a new coffee house rather than the usual stop, a change in routine, a new twist on old tropes. But there’s also the opposite: sometimes you yearn for the old, tried and true thing you’ve always loved. You long for comfort. You long for home. That’s what I think of when I read The Alpha’s Bride. As a BL “fandom old” (is that what the kids are calling us these days?) sometimes I yearn for the tropes that originally drew me to BL manga back in the early 2000s.

Authored by Kaoru Iwamoto and illustrated by Kanae Yukimura, The Alpha’s Bride is a four-volume series (with a spin-off currently on volume two) that brings in many of the traditional BL and omegaverse tropes and cradles them lovingly in its arms. Kaoru Iwamoto—a powerhouse author who originally debuted in the late 90s, having written many hit novels and manga—wrote in their volume one author’s note “I wanted to write an age gap story” and they hit the ball out of the park. It’s also incredibly clear why Kanae Yukimura was chosen to visually bring these characters to life, their intricate, elegant art style suiting the theme of high society and passionate yearning perfectly.

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