Tag: Boys Love

VTubers and BL Trends

~ ames ~ 1 Comment

As someone who spends a lot of time in Japanese 女性向け (joseimuke, or female-oriented) spaces and also consumes a lot of BL, one thing I really enjoy is how BL manga very frequently reflects what’s going on in those circles—what themes are popular, what fashions are getting big, social concerns women are dealing with (have you ever wondered why JP Omegaverse is significantly more about social issues than hot breeding kink sex…?), etc. But it’s not just these themes and styles, but overarching trends in popular culture that suddenly start showing up as well. And in this case, the one I want to talk about is:

Shikinagi Akira and Hayase Sou discuss their fav BL tropes

Vtubers.

I’m not super open about it, but I’ｍ a Vtuber fan. I’m not as big into them as I used to be—back during the pandemic it was my (and many other people’s, I believe) main fandom. My cat is named after Saegusa Akina. I cried so hard and for so long on the day Mayuzumi Kai graduated that I wished I could call into work the next day but instead went in looking like I’d been punched in the face. I attended the Nijirock concert back in 2021 as well as Fantasia in 2022. Unfortunately, I’m not super acquainted with the newer gens, and I have much less time to watch them now that we no longer work from home, but Vtubers and streamers still hold a special place in my heart for making living alone during the pandemic significantly more bearable.

And the fun thing for me is that many BL mangaka seem to feel the same. When they aren’t drawing Vtuber fanart on their side accounts, BL manga about streamers (and Vtubers to a lesser degree) has exploded in the last couple years, so I wanted to write about the collision of these two things I love.

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BL NON-Guilty Pleasures

~ Admin ~ 1 Comment

When the idea of a “guilty pleasures” blog post was floated during one of our BL meetings, I (Ames) was originally not super into it. While the intention was good—creating a space to talk about less-common or accepted niches within the BL sphere—I’m not someone who likes the idea of ‘guiltily’ or ‘ironically’ liking things. (I know, I know—perhaps I’m a bit too serious and sentimental.) In my honest opinion as an ancient BL fan, just enjoying the things you love with your whole ass is most often the way to go.

There’s already so much shame in fan spaces as it is for just enjoying BL on its own, so I’m not so big on adding even more shame by referring to things as “guilty pleasures.” We already agreed this blog would be a positive space for and by BL fans, and I want to uphold that at all costs. So rather than making a post about guilty pleasures, Sou and Alice have shamelessly gone whole-hog talking about the aspects of BL and MLM media they love that maybe gets a little flack sometimes—but who cares? If you love something, love it.

I admittedly wasn’t able to participate in this post this time around, but maybe someday. パーティの翌朝 Nonetheless, I hope you all enjoy Sou and Alice baring their “rotten” souls to the world discussing Mpreg, and assholes.

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ChillChill BL Awards 2024, and their Importance in the BL Landscape

~ ames ~ 4 Comments

It’s that time of year again! This past Friday, ChillChill opened voting for the 2024 BL Awards! But I figured there might be some of our readers asking:

“What is ChillChill?”
“What are the BL Awards?”
“Why does this even matter?”

…which is why I’ve decided to write a post about ChillChill, the BL Awards, the recent history of year-end BL best-of compilations, as well as this year’s nominee pool and what you can actually read on Renta! So let’s just jump right into it!

What is ChillChill (ちるちる)?

I feel like anyone even vaguely versed in Japanese BL fandom has heard of ChillChill—that’s the level of impact and importance the site has in the Japanese market. You can barely search a BL artist or title without the site popping up as one of the top results.

ChillChill came onto the scene in 2008, starting out as an indexing and community site. Essentially, it was the BL version of sites like MyAnimeList. You could build a profile, share your favs, post reviews, take part in discussions, find new recommendations through their intense tagging system (which I’ve also discussed briefly in my post about why our community tagging system is important), make friends with similar tastes, etc.

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“Look at Me.”: Identity & Acceptance

~ ames ~ Leave a comment

Read it on Renta!:
Look at Me. by Momose An

Japanese Title:
俺を見て。
Ore wo Mite.

Links:
Momose An Twitter
Doodle Twitter
Momose An Pixiv

When I heard we’d be getting a Momose An title on the site, I was personally ecstatic. I’m not sure how well-known she is in the West, but Momose An is currently an incredibly popular BL mangaka in Japan. She has two smash-hit, long-running series, Naka Made Aishite (Yuzuriha, my love… I use your LINE stamps every day…) and Osananajimi ja Gaman Dekinai, and her series Shitasaki kara Koi was highly influential for the cakeverse genre. I haven’t seen much fanfare for her overseas, and from what I can tell none of her other stories have been licensed.

Look at Me. is actually one of Momose An’s earliest titles. Published in 2017, you can tell she was still coming into her art style at the time, as this is quite different from the angular and boyish characters she currently draws—but the essence of her style still remains (particularly when she draws the side-views of characters). The art is softer and rounder, but still equally a joy to look at.

The story of Look at Me. centers around childhood friends Kyosuke and Saku. Saku was beautiful from birth, with a gentle and feminine face, so Kyosuke initially mistook him for a girl. Most people, in fact, mistook him for a girl—and were often disappointed to find he wasn’t. Not Kyosuke, though—young and blunt, Kyosuke didn’t care one way or another if Saku was male or female. But unfortunately, Kyosuke was too young to save Saku from an adolescence of trauma, isolation, and loneliness.

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Reunion & Inspiration: Sorato’s “Fill in Color”

~ sou ~ Leave a comment

Read it on Renta!:
Fill in Color by Sorato

Japanese Title:
フィルイン・カラー

Links
Sorato Twitter (author)
Sorato Pixiv
comic picn Twitter (publisher)

Next up in our series of reviews spotlighting some of the manga included in our “Stunning Art Sale” is a manga that’s all about art and finding the beauty in life.

Sorato’s Fill in Color is a nice blend of cute and awkward boys, fun dramatic irony, and steamy goodness all wrapped up in some gorgeous art.

Our story opens with Saki (the blonde dude on the cover there), a young man working as a freelance designer, trying to drink his woes away after a disappointing meeting with his latest client. Anyone who’s worked in a creative field where your own personal vision is constantly at the mercy of the demons of capitalism should be able to relate to his struggle 泣き笑いしている顔

On his way home, he runs into a beautiful young man with stunning red hair — stopping him right in his tracks.

Read on to find out how the spontaneous romance between these two develops into something beautiful and meaningful — just like a work of art.

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“Studio of Longing” by Haruyosi Hiro

~ ames ~ 1 Comment

Read it on Renta!:
Studio of Longing by Haruyosi Hiro

Japanese Title:
憧憬のアトリエ
Doukei no Atelier

Links:
Haruyosi Hiro Twitter

“Will you imagine I’m a woman and touch me?”

Touched after seeing Masafumi Tsurumi’s painting, “Prostitute in Agony,” in the hallway of their art high school, Kei Higuchi seeks out the other boy to get to know him and pick his brain. While Tsurumi is struggling to paint his vision for his graduation project of the same theme, Higuchi is willing to do anything in his power to assist, hopeful to see Tsurumi’s art at its peak. But Tsurumi is a virgin high school boy—how in the world is he supposed to understand and express the feelings of a proustite as she’s in the throes of passion, being sexually dominated and overcome by pleasure? Thus, when Tsurumi drags Higuchi to the nurse’s office, Higuchi should have seen it coming when Tsurumi requests, “touch me like you’d touch a woman.”

Thus starts their mutually beneficial relationship. By fooling around together, Tsurumi gets to feel what it’s like to be dominated by a man—constantly asking Higuchi to go further and further with him—and perhaps they’ll both find some further inspiration for their upcoming graduation projects while also experiencing real sexual pleasure for the first time.

As Higuchi finds himself catching feelings, though, he’s not sure what to do. Tsurumi is very free-spirited (and honestly rather dumb) and entirely focused on his painting, so he doesn’t seem like the the type to involve his emotions in this kind of situationship. Meanwhile, Tsurumi is secretly finding himself yearning for Higuchi less as an object of inspiration and more as simply an object of desire—at what point does his LARP as a female prostitute end, and his real sexual appetite as a young man begin?

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