Yaoi manga reviews and fujoshi ramblings
This was one of the first BL titles I ever read, and I remember really liking it. I even replaced my crappy used faded copy that looked like a dog had chewed on the dust cover with a nicer one. However, now that I have hundreds of BL under my belt and I just read another title by this mangaka, I decided to see if it still held up.
Continue reading “LOVING GAZE (Akira Kanbe)”
…in which two teachers hook up in an empty kindergarten classroom. Do you think that’s a themed room option at love hotels?
Continue reading “EVERLASTING LOVE (Ryoko Chiba)”
The back of this book actually says, ‘Cute Beast is sure to please the most jaded of yaoi fans.’
Ohhh boy, I can’t wait to put *that* statement to the test. Feels like a challenge! I’d put on some brass knuckles except that would make it hard to type…
Continue reading “CUTE BEAST (Amayo Tsuge)”
Hinako Takanaga is one of the most well-known BL mangaka in North America, thanks to the huge success of the Tyrant Falls in Love in the 2010s, as well as the more recent Finder series – whether you got into BL then or more recently, she’s probably one of the first artists whose work gets in your radar since it’s so widely recommended. She had a strong debut in 1996 with the four-part series Challengers, which the long-defunct publisher DramaQueen released here. Her super talent for great characters and stories gave her a rather fast rise within the fandom, of which she is still a fixture today. Sadly The Tyrant Falls in Love, probably her best work, is stuck with DMP here in North America, the ultimate tax writeoff zombie of BL pubs that keeps coming back to life no matter how dead it is.
This story takes place in a reality in which there are humanoid robot ukes that look like cute little “teenagers.” I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling a brilliant idea coming on, which is: we can give them to pedophiles to keep them from hurting real kids! Just let them diddle androids all day! Unfortunately our real world technology hasn’t reached the level of this manga but I believe in the future, guys. A future of sex androids for pedophiles. Well, and the rest of us too, obviously. Because I want a Giyu Tomioka android who will fuck my brains out and I don’t care what strangers on the internet know it (mom? you haven’t found my blog yet, right?). Seriously, why is Elon Musk screwing around with social media and electric cars and rockets when he could be making sex androids? Talk about wasting your time…
Continue reading “LOVE MACHINE (Amayo Tsuge)”
When I first got into the world of bishounen buttsecks comics, I was looking around on online for recommendations and distinctly remember Kirepapa being on several people’s lists and referred to as some kind of scandalous age gap romance. It was already older by that time, having been done around 2003, but it got an OVA in 2008 and thus Deux Press licensed the manga. Whether it’s actually the manga or just the OVA they remember, the crowd who came of age with Junjo Romantica seemed to remember it fondly. I would have been the right age to be included in this group, but I didn’t really get into yaoi until later than most people. Before that I only watched anime or played video games and mostly imagined Fire Emblem characters hot anime guys naked but not with each other. The angel of yaoi hadn’t come to me and pointed me down the path of light yet. Wow, it’s so bright! Look at all the trees and clouds shaped like dicks! And all the unrealistically beautiful 2D men having hardcore sex! Waaaaaiiit a minute…are you really an angel?
Well, there’s no sex, but there’s…ramen. And yakuza. rakuza? yamen?
Kakeru is the son of a local ramen shop owner, who is forced to take over the restaurant after the Osakaki yakuza took both his parents from him. Ukyo, the heir to the Tatsumori yakuza family, falls in love with Kakeru at first sight and desperately wants to make him his. Only one problem – Kakeru hates yakuza for ruining his family. Ukyo then decides to go undercover and help Kakeru with the restaurant to try to steal his heart and show him that not all yakuza are bad guys.
Continue reading “NOODLE SHOP AFFAIR (CJ Michalski)”
A much better and more descriptive title for this book would be “The Cure for Insomnia.” Badum-tisch. Unless you really love bad and boring shounen-ai in which case, come on in ye olde blog post, I’ve got something for you. Or if you were the seme of this book you’d say “I got sumthin’ fer ya.” Yeah, they really made him talk like that the whole book.
Continue reading “THE DEVIL INSIDE (Rico Fukiyama)”
The most interesting thing about this manga is that one character’s love interest is a garbage man and you learn interesting tidbits about how dangerous of a job it is. I’m not sure what that says about the actual romances that that’s what I found most interesting, but hey, always wrap chopsticks in paper when you throw them away or else they could break and turn into little mini daggers and kill someone.
Continue reading “A PLACE IN THE SUN (Lala Takemiya)”
I literally reviewed about 20 old forgotten June titles in a row in the past couple months, so it’s time to read some other imprints for a change (June just happens to have the largest back catalog of yaoi published in English by miles, which is why I always seem to be reading their stuff). Let’s pick one from the vault of the current top dog in BL publishing – SuBLime!
Shockingly, this is the very first SuBLime title I’ve talked about on this blog, (mainly because I usually talk about older or sucky titles and they have neither), so I thought I should start with one of their first ones, Honey Darling from 2012. This is a fan favorite with enduring popularity, in fact just yesterday I let a fujo I was selling some stuff to online pick a free BL from my box of 20 or so doubles and she immediately and enthusiastically chose Honey Darling (over much newer titles like Twilight out of Focus and even Dick Fight Island, mind you).
Continue reading “HONEY DARLING (Norikazu Akira)”