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.
The heat and humidity has cranked up in Tokyo, June is coming to an end, and with it Citrus Con 2025 is officially over! 😭 We’re so sad! The lead-up to Citrus Con was so stressful, but the weekend was just amazing.
This was our third year with Citrus Con; we also wrote event reports in 2023 as attendees, and in 2024 as panelists. Every year we have so much fun and it’s such a wonderful experience that we want to crank it up a notch, so this year for Citrus Con 2025 we did MULTIPLE panels on top of being major sponsors, and also tried to be in the Discord as much as we could (timezones notwithstanding… 🙃), since this is a rare and vital opportunity to actually interact with our users.
Being in Japan, it’s unfortunately incredibly difficult for us to stay on top of the Western convention scene—which is much more vital for participation in the English manga industry than you might expect. Not only are many big announcements planned around convention season, with it being an amazing opportunity to showcase your service and wares and drum up hype, but it’s one of the few chances to get face to face feedback by interacting with your actual customers.
However, since Citrus Con is an online convention—and ALSO currently the only large-scale English-based convention focused solely on the BL community—this one we can attend! We MUST attend! And so we did. 😎
In this report we’ll talk about about Renta!’s history with the convention scene, what it’s like on the industry side preparing for a convention, and our experience this year! So, without further ado, let’s hop into it!
Recently we’ve been trying to brain storm how to change our BL Twitter so it’s more fun and interactive! Over the past year, through conversations with readers and community members, we’ve been doing a lot of trial and error regarding what our followers do and don’t like about our social media presence. “Stop posting the same series over and over and over again”? Got it. “We want more culture and recommendation posts”? Working on it! We want to make the BL Twitter as fun to follow as it is to run.
As part of our push to have a more engaging Twitter presence, this last spring we hosted the “BL Trope Tourney”! This was our take on the incredibly popular March Madness men’s college basketball tournament, which we’d wanted to do for a while. Initially, we wanted to face specific popular series off against each other, but that was understandably shot down by our licensing team since it could potentially be upsetting/negative to the publishers and artists. So we shelved the idea for some time—until we realized there were other ways to have a fun bracket without making our wonderful partners uneasy!
Thus, the BL trope Tourney: 16 popular BL tropes were pitted against each other, and over the course of 15 days we held a poll to slowly eliminate the tropes one by one until only a single trope reigned supreme.
Make sure to cast your vote! ChillChill Awards 2025 nominees dropped this last Friday, and boy is the competition intense. Around this time last year I wrote about the ChillChill BL Awards and why they matter so much—about ChillChill’s rise from a review and indexing site into essentially the community hub for all lovers of BL manga in Japan—so I’ll spare you from having me write too much here. Nonetheless, I still wanted to make a quick index of all the nominees from the 2025 BL Awards that you can read on Renta!
Last year we had quite a few, and thankfully this year is no different. Also, not just in regards to Renta!, this year’s BL Awards are a testament to how big BL is getting in the West because many of the nominees are licensed by a variety of other localization companies—both digital and print. It’s so wonderful to see how many BL get brought to an international audience now, not to mention so fast. It used to take much longer before BL was licensed for release in the West, and the options used to be so few and far between. It’s such a testament to Western BL fans who keep showing up pushing that BL isn’t just some niche genre—it’s got a massive and excited fanbase ready and willing to support the genre and its creators in any way they can. I love that so much, both as a fan and obviously as someone who works in the field. I can work my dream job only because of the BL fans who show up to support its creation. Thank you so much!
Another thing that’s a bit of a pride point for me is that two years in a row, now, most of our associated BL Awards nominees (particularly our own licenses and localizations) are in the up-and-coming category. That’s honestly so exciting! I talked a little bit in my post about the benefits and drawbacks of being a digital licensor about how we’re able to take more risks on lesser-known, up-and-coming talent due to the lower entry fees of digital versus print, and it fires me up every time I think I get to play even a tiny part in bringing these new artists to a wider audience. And this year’s BL Awards have a particularly good mix of super popular, established artists and rising stars!
Anyway, without further ado, here’s the list of the 2025 ChillChill BL Awards titles you can find on Renta!—including some sneak peaks into exciting upcoming licenses! 🤭
The Renta! BL team wanted to do a Christmas special again this year, and we were racking our brains on what we could possibly post. Last year’s Christmas BL rec post was actually shockingly time-intensive (two whole 10+ hour work days on top of my regular workload…), so I didn’t have it in me to do it this year. And a manga like A Gift From Santa Claus only comes once a lifetime, and I obviously wasn’t going to review it twice. We spent about an hour in the BL meeting just going in circles—BL recs based on Christmas songs? How about based on popular holiday foods?
But then the glorious Sou was like “well… how about which BL characters will get coal in their stocking?” And thus the “Naughty x Nice” Christmas BL Special was born! For this, the Renta! BL team got together and thought of three recommendations for the following four categories:
・Nice Seme x Nice Uke ・Nice Seme x Naughty Uke ・Naughty Seme x Nice Uke ・Naughty Seme x Naughty Uke
Some boys will be getting a lump of coal and a spanking (😘) this Christmas season, so to see who’s on Santa’s shit-list and who’ll be getting exactly what they asked for, read on!
I was first introduced to this manga when my friend who worked at Coolmic said “you’ll love this series; you have to read it.” And while I usually take his recommendations, since he knows me well, for some reason I put off reading it—maybe because my “to-read” list is already massive, or maybe because I’m usually not that into megane characters. But, his recommendation aside, I kept seeing it in the trending and top rankings of the various online bookstores I go to for intel, and I eventually was like “FINE, JEEZ, I’LL READ IT!”
And, boy howdy, am I glad I did. I feel like you’ll see my experience replicated in the reviews for the series on Renta! as well: almost everyone who reads this reports being kind of blown away by how enjoyable it is. It’s cute. It’s funny. It’s very sexy. So, what exactly is the magic of Unexpectedly Naughty Fukami? Let me explain.
The story follows Kaji. Loved by his coworkers, admired by women on the street, and just overall seen as the pinnacle of capability and manhood, Kaji seems like a great guy. In reality, however, Kaji’s a total piece of shit. He’s arrogant, callous, and incredibly calculating. He fakes his Nice Guy™ personality at the office while looking down on his coworkers, thinks lowly of anyone who isn’t appropriately “attractive” by his standards, and gives every man he sees a score from 0 to 100, judging their worth on their status, style, and looks above all else.
Granted, all of these aspects of his personality are because he’s desperately hiding his sexuality from those around him and trying his best to keep people from ever knowing him on a deeper level. If he’s perfect, no one will ever question him. Still, this has left his personality completely twisted to the point where he sees everyone around him as objects to fit his needs at any given time.
Enter Fukami, a coworker from the tech department at Kaji’s company. Fukami is frumpy, unsociable, and bland, hiding behind uncut hair and thick glasses. Thus, when he’s paired with with Fukami for an overnight business trip to clear up a bug in another prefecture’s system, Kaji’s incredibly judgmental. While they’re on their business trip, Kaji secretly leers at Fukami and rates him a “total 0.” However, at the hotel that night, Fukami walks out of the shower and—he’s stunning!??? Dressed in the skimpy hotel nightshirt, bare legs in full view, and hair finally out of his face, Fukami is incredibly, 100% Kaji’s type—from 0 to 100 in an instant. So shocked, Kaji drops his phone—leaving the gay hookup app he was previously browsing in full view.
When I was lucky enough to attend the ChillChill BL 2024 Awards Ceremony and meet up with the head of Futekiya, they told me their coworker often attends little business seminars put on by ChillChill. This was the first time I’d heard of such a thing—business seminars specifically catered to people looking to spread the gospel of BL manga? Sign me up!
These seminars, aptly titled Fujoshi Marketing Kenkyuujo (or “Fujoshi Marketing Lab”), are run by SANDIAS, a BL marketing research firm associated with ChillChill. SANDIAS’s aim is to understand fujoshi and BL culture, and as such, they host seiyuu events, assist with the BL Awards, and help push other types of content (oshikatsu, idols, etc.) that might appeal to fans within that realm. The seminars can be watched via their YouTube channel as well. I highly recommend them if you can understand Japanese—they’re honestly fascinating, especially if you’re the type of dork who loves to look at the figures behind the things you love. Also, since ChillChill is one of the most well-known BL sites and is trusted and beloved by the BL community, it’s a bit easier for them to get interesting and varied stats from their surveys.
That being said, I wasn’t able to attend one until earlier this month, which we definitely had to set aside time for: Foreign Fans and Japanese BL Manga. ChillChill surveyed over 600 BL fans, half of which were English-speaking (EN) and the other half Chinese-speaking (CN), both from a multitude of different countries, and asked questions about their tastes and interests in BL, as well as their reading and spending habits. Originally, I wasn’t going to write a BLog post about it, but there was some information presented that I found really interesting, so I wanted to share that with our readers.
I’ll only be sharing a few of the slides to make my points, since I want to make sure ChillChill and SANDIAS get all the proper credit for their work. However, you can actually request the full presentation on their downloads page for free, along with previous seminar materials. For those who want to see all the data, please make sure to check that out! One video for the presentation is linked above, but be sure to check in on their YouTube channel regularly (and maybe even drop a sub) in case they continue to post content from this seminar as well as other interesting content in the future.
It is the era of 純情ビッチ! Well. Not really. It’s just always the era of 純情ビッチ in my heart.
For those who don’t know, 純情ビッチ (junjou bitch) or “pure-hearted slut” is a BL trope that has always existed, but has been on the rise in recent years. You can see this trope in the form of characters like Nao from Hotaru Dies Tomorrow, or Hajime from Junjou de Nani ga Warui, or Haru from Kabukicho Cat Honey—the most important factor is that they’re actually quite innocent and pure-hearted in terms of emotional love, but are either mistaken for being promiscuous, or just see no issue with sleeping around or otherwise using their body while secretly wishing for true love to come their way. Personally, this is one of my favorite tropes because it’s a really easy way for a story to contain pure, sweet, innocent love with lots of really raunchy ero scenes (hehehe), so I get excited every time I find a BL manga that has this premise.
Thankfully, Custom Togii’s Asphyxiating First Love is one such BL manga. I was tasked with proofreading a single chapter for Sou since they were drowning in other deadlines, and I got so into it that I ended up proofreading the entire series in one go, other deadlines be damned. You’re welcome, Sou.
Sometimes you’re just in the mood to hurt a little bit. A little hurt/comfort with yourself, if you will. As a treat. Except the thing that’s going to hurt you this time is a BL manga about sexuality and human relationships between college boys because, at its core, Jiro Kawaii’s We’ll Get Our Happy Ending is about human relationships—about how it’s not necessarily about being gay or bi or straight, but about finding someone you care about, learning to treasure and open up to them, and trusting yourself and your feelings—and the difficult path to cultivating a relationship with someone you love as you move on from the past. So, just how does this wonderful manga handle these themes?
It’s been two years since college senior Wataru broke up with his high school boyfriend, Jin. While he’s dated since the breakup, he still sees Jin as special; while Wataru openly considers himself bisexual, Jin’s the only guy he’s ever truly had feelings for. Nonetheless, when he meets college freshman Soma—who’s openly gay—he thinks he’s found someone he can open up to. Soma, however, has other plans—not taking Wataru’s bisexuality seriously (accusing him of “hopping on the bi trend,” no less) and shutting him down by saying he’s already got a boyfriend and isn’t interested.
It’s back to school season! While most people reading this might not be in school anymore (and I hope the one who are still in school are in college… /stares), we can all still enjoy this wonderful time of change and growth and new experiences (and the back to school section at the store, which always smells nostalgically like pencil shavings and freshly-cut paper…) in the form of… BL recs about teachers! We’ve picked seven great titles that run the spectrum of sweet, soft, sad, and spicy, so there should be a little something for everyone!
This early Hon Toku masterpiece sums up what makes Hon Toku great: stunning, sensual art, incredibly dirty sex scenes, and incredibly light on the plot. The himbo gym teacher Mr. Yamano can’t keep his eyes off the super sexy math teacher Mr. Kiyono, so when Mr. Kiyono comes on to him after a couple drinks during night duty, how the hell is he supposed to resist? There are some small side plots, like a love rival and Mr. Kiyono’s supposed husband. But I know why you’re here, you pervert. You can’t lie to me. We’re both ass men, here, you and I—and from one ass man to another, you really need to read this manga. Hey, if he was my teacher (in Minecraft), I’d probably be a weird pervert about him, too.
Math teacher Mr. Miyata hates jocks, so when he meets gym teacher and kendo coach Mr. Samehara, he makes a bunch of snap decisions about him—that he’s arrogant, strict, and likes to boss people around. However, the more he gets to know Mr. Samehara, the more intrigued he becomes—Mr. Samehara is easy to get along with and to be around, but it always seems like he’s hiding his true self behind a wall. Not one to back down from a challenge, Mr. Miyata makes it his goal to break that wall down. But while this is all in good fun for Mr. Miyata, he’s threatening to unravel an entire lifetime of Mr. Samehara’s decision to remain eternally closeted and avoid his sexuality, something he feels a remarkable amount of shame over. This one’s more bittersweet and plot-heavy, which is in line with Jiro Kawaii’s other work, so I highly recommend reading this if you’d like to have your heartstrings tugged. Just in the first two chapters I found myself feeling an intense protective instinct toward Mr. Samehara, and I’m sure you will, too!
If you’re on the lookout for something a little more dark, a little more sadistic, this one might be right up your alley. High schooler Leo hates homemade food—he’s weird about germs, and doesn’t like not knowing how sanitary the giver’s kitchen is, or if they washed their hands. He’s spent much of his adolescence distancing himself from other people, because he’s ashamed to be tossing people’s good will in the trash. Sick of him lashing out, Leo’s new school counselor Mr. Sakashita uses Leo’s secret against him to have his way with Leo’s body. Mr. Sakashita has his tender moments, however, so Leo finds himself slowly trusting him more and more. This one leans a bit into Dead Dove territory because of the imbalanced relationship between Mr. Sakashita and Leo, but it caught my interest since usually teacher/student BL has the student topping, so I still wanted to rec it to those who might be interested!
High school teacher Toma has been dating his highly capable businessman boyfriend Rei since they met back in college. As both their careers ramp up, they need to find new ways to make time to love and support each other. This one is pure fluff, and shows the difficulties both men face: Toma struggles to connect to his students and find his place as a teacher, and Rei overworks himself and forces himself to shoulder things alone due to past trauma. But, whenever they’re together, Toma and Rei are able to talk through their problems and find comfort with each other—and they fully intend on being there for each other for the rest of their lives. This story is just pure comfort—Toma and Rei love each other tremendously, and it just so nice watching two adults talk things through and be there for each other when they’re having a hard time. It’s rather short and simple, but a wonderful manga for those who just want something light and gentle after a hard day.
Get ready, class, ’cause we’re goin’ on a feels trip with this one . Hiyori’s a cheerful high schooler who’s a people pleaser to a fault — desperate to make those around him happy even if he gets burned in the process. When this leads to him getting dumped in the most mortifying way, he’s understandably upset and seeks solace in a dog cafe. There he meets the kind and encouraging Makoto, who offers him some much-needed words of comfort, giving him the strength to move on from his heartbreak. Their chance encounter doesn’t end there, though… the very next day, Hiyori’s shocked to find out that his new student teacher is none other than Makoto! And he’s got his heart set on making the gentle and hardworking man his. This series is a bit of an emotional rollercoaster from start to finish, and really develops Hiyori and Makoto’s relationship in a way that’s heartwarming and touching — emphasizing just how much they care for one another. Plus, it has some valuable life lessons sprinkled in along the way, so you might get even more than an adorable love story from it too! Who said BL couldn’t be educational?
The answer is yes. Yes, he can . The titular demonic teacher, Tsuzuru Toujou, has earned a reputation among his students as being incredibly strict and merciless. Little do they know, however, that the relentless hardass Mr. Toujou likes to get dicked down at a gay brothel in his free time! Tsuzuru’s looking forward to a night of fun with a new cute guy when he’s taken aback at the discovery that his top for hire is Miyamoto, a former student of his! Upon hearing that his now college-aged student has taken up the job in order to earn some extra money, Tsuzuru’s inner teacher can’t help but want to watch out for his former student — so he decides to do so by ordering his services as much as he can! But as they spend more time together, some feelings beyond those of client and worker start to bloom… The series does a good job showing how Tsuzuru’s hard exterior is a result of his genuine concern for others, and doesn’t paint Miyamoto’s choice to do sex work as an inherently foolish or despicable thing, which is refreshing. Plus, there’s plenty of smut featuring a skilled younger top and a cute, nerdy bottom — so if that sounds like fun to you, check it out for yourself!
We opened this list with a pick for all the Ass Men (of all genders, ofc) out there, so I think it’s only fair we close it out with one for all the wonderful Titty Folks reading. This one’s a little unique in that it features a beefy, buxom guy on the bottom, and to great effect. In this story right out of a hormonal teenager’s wet dream, Riichi is known as a troublemaker at school, but his new teacher Mr. Oshima is determined to set him on the right path. After being mamboo(b)zled by Mr. Oshima’s attempts to give him some extra attention at school, Riichi comes across a gay porn video starring a buff bottom who looks eerily familiar… Confrontation leads to some good old-fashioned blackmail, with Riichi promising not to spill his teacher’s “secret” if Mr. Oshima will let him enjoy that naughty body of his a bit . Spicy scenes of a bodacious himbo getting railed by his extremely enthusiastic student aside, this series is silly and surprisingly sweet at times, which makes it a pretty fun read. Plus, it features the elusive and highly sought-after (by people…. it’s me, I am people) BL titty fuck . So there’s that too.