Renta!’s BL Team Sorts BL Tropes

One thing that I really love about our current BL Team is that we have all the bases covered. While there is some overlap between the three of us, we all have pretty different taste in terms of characters, stories, and tropes—to the point where sometimes if I’m completely uninterested in something, Yomogi knows that he should probably check it out. This vast difference in our taste means we can give a variety of recommendations to a much larger audience. I’m sure those who’ve been watching our socials, have attended our panels, visited us at conventions, or sat down to business lunch with us already have a fair understanding of what we like: Sou likes “milfs” and mpreg, Yomogi likes strong eyebrows and ojisan uke, and I (Ames) like my characters ultra femme, a little sad, and extremely slutty.

So when I saw this tier maker going viral while I was making my daily coffee break Twitter rounds, I thought it would be fun/interesting to have each BL team member make their own so we could see just how different our tastes really are.

One thing I’d like to note: we generally try not to talk about manga/characters/tropes we personally don’t like, since we try to avoid anything negative and don’t want to bring down those who do like it. We feel very strongly that all BL is “for” someone even if it’s not to our personal tastes. So please know there’s no judgement from us if you adore the tropes we’re personally not big on. Please fly your freak flag high—there’s nothing we love more at Renta! corp than people who unabashedly love the manga they read. Not to mention, as I already said, chances are someone on the team likes it even if someone else doesn’t.

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VTubers and BL Trends

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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