Tag: manga

Artist Spotlight: The Brilliant Eccentricity of Jake Akahoshi

~ sou ~ Leave a comment
So adorbs I LOVE THIS STORY. It’s about a guy who grows apples in his ass りんご
青リンゴ

One of our favorite topics to talk (write?) about on this BLog is the discovery of series and artists that we first come into contact with through our job — whether it’s in the process of quality checking, advertisement creation, hearing our coworkers rave about something they’re working on, or sometimes just clicking around on our site and servers.

One such artist that’s made a big impact on me since I discovered their manga is none other than Jake Akahoshi.

Akahoshi-sensei’s been in the BL game for over a decade, and in that time they’ve earned quite the reputation for their outlandish plots, beautiful depictions of the male body, and moving romance writing.

For the uninitiated, I’ve picked out a handful of their manga currently available in English on Renta! that I believe encompass the spirit of Jake Akahoshi’s unique approach to BL manga, which I personally find utterly delightful.

I’ll also be assigning them ratings 1 thru 5 on each level of the “Jake Scale” — a system I made specifically for this article, since I really believe Jake Akahoshi is on a level of their own when it comes to these three aspects:

Spiciness: 唐辛子How much sexy action can we expect?唐辛子

Unhingedness: パーティの翌朝How “out there” is the setting/plot?パーティの翌朝

“Aww”-worthiness: 涙をこらえた顔Likeliness to hit you right in the feels?涙をこらえた顔

Hopefully this will help you find a title (or titles) most likely to match your personal tastes, so you too can start your journey into Jake Akahoshi’s whacky BL world. Now, without further ado, let’s get right into it!

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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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BL Anime to Look Forward to in 2024

~ sou ~ 2 Comments
Gay edit of this meme by u/olafl on Reddit. Animu added by yours truly

Anime has been an important piece of BL fandom for decades, and thanks to online streaming services, it’s now more accessible to overseas fans than ever! Plus, the popularization of simulcasts in recent years has made it so that fans the world over can watch shows basically in real time together each week, and revel in the joy of screaming their reactions with fellow fans over social media.

As much as I love reading the original manga of my favorite series, there’s just something so special about seeing the world in full color, hearing the characters speak, and getting new tunes in the form of those catchy OP and ED songs to add to your playlist each season!

When it comes to BL anime adaptations for television or the big screen, sadly the number of new works coming out each year is but a teeny tiny fraction of the plethora of manga being released, and they’re typically but a blip on the radar to anime fandom at large. However, that just makes it extra exciting when a new BL anime is released! Not only is it fun for established fans of a manga to see their favorite characters and scenes animated, but anime adaptations are also a great way to introduce even more people to the original series, thus adding to the overall hype for a title and growing the BL community as a whole. A win-win for everybody!

It’s a new year and a new anime season is upon us, so I figured I’d give a quick rundown of all the BL anime we can expect this year — as well as a few potential projects in the works that are definitely worth keeping your eye on 目

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