Fuyu Saikawa – rentaBLog

J. Garden 55

Six months went by in a flash, and it’s already time for J.GARDEN 55! Regular readers of the BLog likely already know, but we attended J.GARDEN 54 as a business trip of sorts. This time I’ll be attending by myself just as a regular BL fan, so I won’t be writing another attendance report, but I figured I could still update everyone on who’ll be there, and which artists and books I’m personally super excited for.

Because the pamphlets sold out within a week last fall, I was careful to leave for Akihabara at 8AM on February 18th—I was going to be there at store open on the morning of the pamphlet being released, and I was going to get the damn thing. I went to Akihabara because it’s less popular with fujoshi than my usual haunt of Ikebukuro (land of the infamous Otome Road), and last year Akiba took way longer to sell out, so I wanted to go to Shosen Book Tower, an incredibly popular (and old) bookstore in Akihabara. However… the pamphlet wasn’t there lol. Ope. So I asked the staff, and they confirmed they WERE supposed to get a shipment in, but something went wrong and it was delayed.

Which was fine. Because you could also buy the pamphlet at Animate, and Animate Akihabara was only a few blocks away. (And I could look at Genshin goods while I was there…)

Tip that I actually didn’t know at the time (I spent a good ten minutes combing each floor with no sign of the pamphlet before asking the staff): pamphlets like this are actually generally kept behind the counter of the main floor. So if you’re ever in Japan and looking to purchase an event pamphlet, ask the staff first before wasting a bunch of time looking for it! (They’re very nice and helpful, and if you don’t speak Japanese just show the image on your phone and they’ll understand!)

Anyway, pamphlet obtained! Onto the actual content for the upcoming J.GARDEN 55!

2/22 and Bottom Supremacy

Happy Cat Day! Or 猫の日 (neko no hi) as it’s called in Japan! As we’ve discussed previously on the blog, Japan loves to play word games with numbers (i.e. 8/01 or Yaoi Day, 11/29 or Good Meat Day, etc.), and 2/22 in Japanese can sound like nya-nya-nya, or the sound a cat makes. So, everywhere you look in Tokyo is currently covered in cats: the convenience store has tons of cat sweets and snacks and cat-related campaigns, department stores are hosting pop-up shops for cat-themed goods and toys and accessories, and shelters are obviously taking advantage of the cat festivities with fundraisers and adopt-a-thons! The weeks leading up to 2/22 are a very good time to love cats in Japan.

Family Mart mofusand cat coffee cups for Cat Day.

“What in the world does this have to do with BL manga?” you’re asking? Is this going to be a special about cat boys? How about beasts? Cats who can shape-shift into cute boys and fall in love with other cute boys? Or maybe about boys who love boys but who also love cats? BL where cats are heavily featured?

BZZZZT. You are incorrect.

Highly in-the-know people will probably already see where this is going: this is a post about bottom supremacy.

あまり変わらない宇迦野氏 pic.twitter.com/0H0O6I5RP8
— はなさわ浪雄 (@namiohana) February 22, 2023

As quite a few of you may know, the slang for someone who bottoms during gay sex, which originated in gay circles before slowly meandering into the BL consciousness, is neko (ネコ)—or, cat! Well, we actually can’t be certain if cats are the one-to-one reason for “neko” being used. When preparing for this post, I was reading quite a few theories online as to why neko is used to refer to bottoms. This article about gay slang points out the two most common reasons: it could come from pussycat/pussy (as in… women’s genitals… lovely), but it could also come from the Japanese word for a wheelbarrow, nekoguruma (because this is the way you might hold someone’s legs while you’re… umm… y’know). This article by drag queen and TV personality Mitz Mangrove about cats (in general) also discusses how cats are often seen as feminine in Japan which possibly is what led to neko having become the universal phrase for a man who bottoms.

【らくがき🐱】　#猫の日 #強気な鬼様はオレだけのΩ pic.twitter.com/kUlcoWEwmj
— 九マ５６４ (@kumakuma564) February 22, 2024

It appears the true reason neko has turned into the slang for ‘bottom’ is unknown, but the fact still remains: cats and bottoms are now linked.

As the resident number one cat lover and bottom absolutist in this town, I figured I would celebrate Cat Day by discussing uke archetypes, my favorite uke characters that are available on Renta!, and slip in a little cultural/language lesson for good measure.

Renta! Staff BL Awards 2023

New Years is the perfect time to look back on the last twelve months and think to yourself… “What was the best BL manga I read in 2023?” Best-of lists are common this time of year, so we wanted to get in on the action and make a list of our staff’s favorite BL titles a la Chill Chill’s BL Awards. However, our list is less a ranking of the absolute top popular titles as voted by our users (you can find that by checking the “best sellers” list), and more just us—as a team of BL fans—wanting to celebrate some of our favorite titles that were added to the Renta! site this year. (The 2024 Chill Chill BL Awards should be happening again in march, with people already discussing the nominees, so let’s look forward to that in the coming months!)

Without further ado, the categories are…

Favorite New Series
Favorite Continuing Series
Favorite Seme
Favorite Uke
Favorite Up-And-Coming Author
Amazing Art
Favorite Renta! Title
Favorite Cover
Favorite Couple

To make sure it wasn’t just our main blog team pushing our favs we’ve already talked about at length, we also invited Nan, Agedashi, Anne, and Snow from our Japanese side to share some of their favorite titles they got to work with this year!

For each category there’s a good mix of responses, showing just how varied BL fans are in their tastes. However, in the spirit of not making this post too ridiculously long, we’ll just highlight two or three staff comments for each and then list the rest of the choices below.

“Hotaru Dies Tomorrow” by Fuyu Saikawa

Read here:
Hotaru Dies Tomorrow

“Saneatsu, about Hotaru, she doesn’t exist.”

Have you ever fallen in love with a fictional character? Chances are, if you’re reading this blog, it’s not so foreign of an idea (I would hope). Hotaru Dies Tomorrow tells the story of a high school student, Saneatsu Asada, whose parents give him a novel he becomes engrossed with; it’s a dreamlike Murakami-esque book about a girl, Hotaru, who could be straight out of a Sylvia Plath novel.