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.

Continue reading “Renta!’s BL Team Sorts BL Tropes”

Renta! Staff BL Awards 2024

It’s already that time of year again, and boy howdy was 2024 a wild ride here at Renta! We changed our logo! We opened a Bluesky! There was much emotional (and physical) edging to be had! We participated in our first ever actual panel! The dongs were unleashed! We collected some samples! We saw beastmen in heat, many a delinquent on the brink, and men impregnated chivalrously! We released our very first cakeverse! We fostered brotherly love! We saw some knot-y boys and some nice ones! And many a popular series saw its end!

As we get ready to make 2025 an even more successful and exciting year filled with tons of great manga, we still wanted to look back on our favorite BL of 2024! That’s right, it’s once again time for our BL Staff Awards!

This time we have the usual Ames (hello), Sou, and Yomogi from the localization team, and then the wonderful Pochi, Snow, and Ann from our sales and marketing teams! So if you want to see what we enjoyed having the opportunity to work alongside this year, please read on!

Same as last year, we have the following categories:

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

Feel free to click on each category to go directly to that section, or you can meander through from start to finish to get that full 2024 BL experience! We also decided everyone only had to fill out the sections they have an actual response for, so just know you’re getting our true recommendations!

Continue reading “Renta! Staff BL Awards 2024”

BL Awards Light: The ChillChill BL Character General Election!

If you follow a lot of BL artists and publishers, there’s a good chance you’ve been seeing the #BLキャラ総選挙2024 hashtag floating around Twitter over the last couple weeks, along with little profiles of BL characters belonging to the artist or publisher. When I first started seeing them about a week and a half ago, I initially assumed it was just a fun new Twitter trend among mangaka, but boy was I wrong (and also super behind on commercial BL news—I guess you can really tell the Renta! office has been super busy these last couple months).

BLキャラ総選挙2024, or the “2024 BL Character General Election,” is another effort by the wonderful BL site ChillChill to spread the love for commercial BL. It was initially announced in early May with the following blurb (loosely translated by yours truly):

For the amazing commercial BL characters who make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside!

This BL election was brought forth in order to shine a spotlight on those wonderful BL characters, spread the love of the BL series they’re from, and introduce new stories to an even wider audience!

This is really interesting, since the ChillChill BL Awards already used to have a seme/uke character section. So in this BLog post I’ll give a brief rundown of the ChillChill BL Awards character ranking history, before showcasing the BL characters whose stories you can read on Renta!, how to vote, and a little chatter about some of my personal Best Boys.

Continue reading “BL Awards Light: The ChillChill BL Character General Election!”

The Dongs Are Free – Uncensored BL Now on Renta!

Well, RentaBLog readers, on this Yaoi Day of the year 2024, have I got an announcement for you.

Via Platinum Blood by Mor Ichigaya

Last year, I made a post about censorship in BL manga, breaking down the legal restrictions and cultural precedents that have led to scribbled out assholes and light saber dicks galore in Japanese BL.

I also briefly touched upon the fact that, unfortunately for fans hoping to peep a fully rendered peeper in their BL, at the time of the post we had no uncensored manga available on Renta! due to, let’s say, ample caution (we are located in Japan, after all). However, it’s been a continuing discussion, as we’re always striving to provide BL fans with the Content they Want — and a sizeable portion of the fandom has spoken loud and clear: “Free Those Dongs.”

It’s been a long, hard battle, but internal discussions finally reached a climax, and a decision was reached that we think many of you will be pleased with: Renta! will now offer uncensored BL series!!!! Alongside the “censored” BL we’ve been dishing up since our early days, we now have a selection for the fans who’ve been wanting a little something “more” — a special treat just for overseas fans, because it’s too spicy to even sell in Japan!

And, what better day to unleash the hogs onto the Renta! sales floor than the day fans all around the world celebrate “yaoi” and all the gifts it’s given us?? I think it’s poetic, reallyRelieved

Jump to Dong

Uncensored BL tag on Renta!

How to Access The Dongs

First, let’s go over the simple steps to viewing our Uncensored selection, so that you don’t find yourselves forever asking, “Where’s the Dong??”

Continue reading “The Dongs Are Free – Uncensored BL Now on Renta!”