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?
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!)
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.
When our campaign team decided to hold a fan-letter campaign in honor of HANASAWA NAMIO’s “The Foxy Mouse’s Romance”, I read it to find out more—and then I threw a curse on my colleague that’s been blessed with preparing it for our website, because damn, do I wish I had his luck.
Writing this review to introduce more and more people to the sheer beauty that is this manga, I’m seriously struggling. There are just no words to describe how perfect it is. All I can think to write is an endless string of squealing. It’s that good.
Omegaverse meets the Food Chain
For the uninitiated, ‘omegaverse’ revolves around the idea of a ‘secondary genre’—omega, alpha, beta—based on as-of-now debunked animal behaviors around mating. Betas are the ordinary majority; alphas are bold, aggressive and at the apex of social hierarchy, while the rare omegas suffer through a phenomenon called ‘heat’ that causes them to exude pheromones that make them sexually irresistible to alphas.
Now, throw humans originating from various animal species that retain predatorial/prey dynamics into that mix and you’ve got HANASAWA-sensei’s “The Foxy Mouse’s Romance.”
It follows the story of Sachio, a mouse omega working as a manga artist in a young men’s magazine, and Ukano, a fox alpha and his editor. The dangers implicit in a mouse omega and a fox alpha having to work together are not lost on either of them, especially Sachio who’s painfully conscious of his place in the bottom of the social ladder—and the food chain. Not only is he a sexual target for the alphas around him, but also actual food for predators—especially to Ukano, as mice constitute a fox’s main meal.
But, while Sachio may have his guard up against his editor, Ukano seems unyieldingly determined to pursue Sachio for love rather than for his stomach.
But first, let’s rant about that world-building
I cannot—cannot—overstate that it’s HANASAWA NAMIO-sensei’s world that stole my heart above all else. There are elements familiar to any reader of omegaverse (pheromone blockers, neck guards, secondary-gender clinics, the concepts of a ‘heat’ and a ‘rut’, etc.) but sensei’s animal-kingdom spin on it elevates everything to a different level.
Laws govern peoples’ animalistic, voracious tendencies. Omega-only spaces offer a safe night out. When someone is in their animal form, humans can understand their words only if their own animal ears are out—and, there are even little cards that state, “I have my ears out because I’m looking after someone, thank you for your understanding” to be worn in public in such cases. Grooming salons cater to one’s animal-form fur. Cab drivers must state their species and secondary gender on an ID card for the safety of their passengers. Diseases and phenomena surrounding the animal families or one’s secondary gender also exist, as do various intricacies surrounding sex between predator and prey.
All of it is proof that this universe exists beyond our two characters. HANASAWA-sensei could easily write other stories featuring this same world; and, on this point, the characters that surround our two protagonists are interesting on their own, too. The treacherous civet could have an extra tidbit, Sachio’s two mangaka friends, Tomo and Momoi, could have their own side-stories; I’m personally intrigued by the head editor of the publishing house.
That’s the beauty of this world; every detail that jumps out of the pages amuses and intrigues, and every panel serves the purpose of delving deeper into it all. Which also brings me to the matter of the art—besides being GORGEOUS, it’s also masterfully used to the utmost to tell this story. The paneling is on point. The expressions are fantastic as it is, but it’s the attention to detail that makes this world and the characters come alive, such as Ukano’s eyes dilating when he gets turned on. Anytime Sachio is hand-held in mouse form, you can almost feel the weight of his tiny, pudgy body in your own palm. The art accompanies the writing and dialogue perfectly, which is what makes this world so believable and the characters so relatable and easy to understand.
From (natural) enemies to lovers
Have you ever tried to sleep, only to end up staring at the ceiling with bloodshot eyes, wondering why the Hell you said x-y-z that one time? Then you’re bound to somewhat relate to our mouse protagonist. Who hasn’t wallowed in negativity at least once?
Though cynical at first glance, Sachio’s core is kindness. Despite a traumatic situation with his college friend Tomo, Sachio had always been willing to forgive him. Similarly, he comes to love Ukano, so even when a dire misunderstanding occurs in ch.4, Sachio is ready not only to forgive him, but also to get closer to him. His negative mind twists everything to take others’ mistakes onto himself, not just because he’s self-deprecating to a fault, but also due to his love for others.
Now is the part where I will do my best to describe Ukano without rambling incomprehensibly. I’ve written in other posts that dark stories and vaguely yandere characters are my forte, and, let me tell you, Ukano strikes a perfect balance between being a normal, loving boyfriend but also having this menacing, darker side to him. His loving devotion to Sachio doesn’t override his ‘foxiness’. The art itself often reminds us of his more devious nature via a grey shadow over his eyes. Sachio, at the start, is constantly on his toes around him, and we see that even others get an uncanny feeling from the wily fox.
But, it’s when we see Ukano’s perspective that we get, in my biased opinion, some of the greatest gems in this story. In a scene that explores what it’s like being a predator in this world, Ukano recalls a time that Sachio, too exhausted to keep his guard up, transformed into a mouse in front of him. Ukano transports him home in a bed made of his handkerchief (so. cute.) and that’s when we get this beautiful internal monologue: “Life is sacred, and I was holding someone’s whole life in my hands. That’s how humbled I felt. At the same time… I thought about how I could crush him easily if I wanted to. The sadist in me reared its ugly head. ‘I want to eat him.’ ‘I want to protect him.’”
Compare this to the time that Tomo surrendered to his wolfish instincts and you’ll see how Ukano shines: he’s deeply aware of his nature, but he understands it’s in his own hand to curb his urges. Just like a quote from a certain anime I love goes, “Taking responsibility for oneself is the basic qualification for being human” and truer words have not been spoken when it comes to this universe of beings teetering between human and animal. The line that divides the two is exactly this capacity for taking responsibility, and Ukano’s always on top of that. Contrariwise, when Tomo and Sachio reunite for the first time, Tomo literally runs away from his responsibilities, forcing Sachio to shoulder the blame for everything instead. Ukano could and would never.
Darkness, more darkness, and fluff
Whether or not I realized it at first, perhaps the thing that personally drew me to this story is that it hits that perfect sweet spot between tooth-rotting sweetness and grim darkness. The art is adorable, the interactions hilarious, the romance is great and the love between our two characters is true, but it all coexists with the bleak implications of an omegaverse world and the danger that one could lose control and literally eat their loved one. And, perhaps the best/realest thing about it is that those dangers don’t magically disappear after Sachio and Ukano become a couple; even if it’s through humor, the reader is constantly reminded of that possibility, just as Sachio and Ukano themselves are.
From the first few pages, the manga doesn’t pull any punches. Starting with a kid-friendly show explaining animal families and secondary genders in a squeaky-clean manner, the story soon contradicts this cheaply manufactured narrative with Sachio’s mother calling to tell him that his mouse omega sister got fired from her part-time job for getting into heat in front of an alpha customer and almost getting assaulted/eaten. Our mouse protagonist himself works as a mangaka because it allows him to stay cooped up at home (mostly), away from danger. And the story continues with various examples of how perilous, inconvenient, and downright unfair it is to be born as a mouse and as an omega.
Nowhere does it get more obvious than in the juxtaposition between our two main characters, not just in their obvious difference in status, but also in their thinking. When Ukano stands up for Sachio and the latter thanks him, Ukano thinks anyone would have done the same, but Sachio corrects him that no one would. ‘Foxiness’ aside, Ukano’s mindset is positive, proactive, that of someone who’s strong and therefore able to act for others without weighing any consequences first; Sachio, on the other hand, has had no other choice but to see the world—and his place in it—in the most negative light, existing as literal prey.
Due to his trauma and negative worldview, Sachio takes the blame and compromises on everything, out of love and the idea that it’s his justifiable place to act that way. While that mindset might seem odd to a lot of readers, it makes sense for Sachio as a character to think so, and it’s very pleasingly contrasted with Ukano’s worldview. “The onus is on me as an alpha.” he tells Tomo, his most direct foil in the narrative. While Sachio surrenders to the possibility that he could be devoured at any given moment (and it would be his fault, according to him), Ukano actively takes steps to ensure that he’d never hurt the one he loves, to embrace that danger and then boldly defy it.
At this point it’s rather obvious that I’m rambling, but I can’t help it because there’s so much I could say about “The Foxy Mouse’s Romance”, even going into every single scene I adore (the horrible misunderstanding in ch.4? The jump in ch.5? the hand-holding heavy with implications in ch.7?? The fur-grooming session in ch.8???). If you enjoy elaborate worlds and multifaceted characters, if you fancy a dose of angst in your fluff, if you love stories about (dangers aside) wholesome couples, please give “The Foxy Mouse’s Romance” a chance. And, while we’re at it, why not show HANASAWA NAMIO-sensei your love through Renta!’s fan-letter campaign? All you need to do is either fill in the form here or tweet using the hashtag #SqueaksForSensei. I’m deliberating on sending something too (after I find out a way to convey my admiration in fewer words than this long blog post).
If you’ve read “The Foxy Mouse’s Romance”, what do you love most about it? What are your thoughts? Favorite character? Join me in rambling about it in the comments!
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