#FreeThem

For the blissfully unaware: this ask is probably in reference to a controversy from the past few weeks surrounding the English-language version of Fata Morgana, a visual novel from 2016 (original Japanese release in 2012).

Here is a handy thread by Kastel on Twitter explaining the whole debacle. In short: nerdy fanboys weebs who don’t give two flying fucks about Fata Morgana, and who never noticed this before, blew up at the English translators because they think they incorrectly translated a line that contained the word “tsundere”. Most of these angry guys have never played the game before, aren’t fluent in Japanese, and have no translation or localization experience.

Furthermore, they think this is all part of the translator’s “foreign feminist anti-man agenda”, even though the Japanese developers themselves stand by the translation and stated that it’s closer to their original intent than the usual, literal meaning of “tsundere”.

I think it’s extremely arrogant of Western fanboys to harass the translators for doing their job, and to assume that they have more of an authority on the developers’ intentions and artistic vision than the devs themselves.

Are you looking for something to read while at home during social isolation? Do you want to read free manga but still support the authors?

The official English-language manga licensing services, Manga Planet and Futekiya, have made access to their online manga library FREE for the month of May 2020, for their #ReadMangaTogether at home campaign!

Manga Planet Library is an online subscription service for general manga. They have a modest library of 22 titles so far, including a collection of manga adaptations of H.P. Lovecraft’s stories.

I don’t use this service myself, so I can’t comment much on it, I’m afraid. But the titles do look interesting, and it’s free this month! You can also preview pages for free without needing to create an account or sign up.

Click here for more info!

Futekiya Library is an online subscription service specialized in Boys’ Love (yaoi) manga. They have over 100 BL titles of diverse genres, art styles, and ratings.

I’m a big fan of BL, and I really like Futekiya. Normally, it’s $6.99 US/month for access to their whole collection, which is a steal compared to buying physical manga (especially if you need to import it, like I do). As with Manga Planet, you can preview pages for free without creating an account or signing up, to see if it interests you.

I personally liked the reader and the site interface, and it also has some very nifty features. The level of explicit content is indicated by a “spicy” score of 1-5 little pepper icons, and you can search and filter titles by tags and content warnings, so you can find what you want and exclude what you don’t want to see!

Click here for more info!

Both Manga Planet and Futekiya have blogs where they regularly post about the manga and anime industry, and hold community surveys. They also do community activities and announcements on Twitter and Instagram.

To get access to the libraries, follow the links above for Manga Planet or Futekiya, and follow the instructions to create an account and sign up. Unfortunately, you do need to enter your credit card information to complete the sign up process.

Payment is carried out by Stripe. Access to the services is free until May 31st, 2020. After that, it will revert back to being $6.99/month for each service. Note that the subscriptions for Manga Planet and Futekiya are separate.

If you sign up for the free month but don’t wish to continue using the paid service afterwards, make sure to cancel your subscription before midnight on the 31st!

Obs: I am not affiliated with Fantasista, inc., Manga Planet, or Futekiya in any way. I just really like Futekiya and am really happy to have more accessible and affordable ways to read BL manga! And this free month is a great opportunity to read titles that you normally wouldn’t.

That’s so awesome! By the way, if you’re looking for more manga to read during this time, the subscription sites Manga Planet (general manga) and Futekiya (BL) are making their service available for free this month (May 2020)! I’ll make a separate post about it soon.

It’s very hard to choose favourite manga, especially since I read most of them a long time ago, and I don’t know if they would still hold up. But some of my faves are:

Devilman by Nagai Go 💖

Akira by Otomo Katsuhiro

Sailor Moon by Takeuchi Naoko 💖

Meitantei Conan by Aoyama Gosho 💖

Monster by Urasawa Naoki

Inuyasha by Takahashi Rumiko

Hunter X Hunter by Togashi Yoshihiro 💖

Fullmetal Alchemist by Arakawa Hiromu 💖

Ouran High School Host Club by Hatori Bisuko

Bakuman by Ohba Tsugumi and Obata Takeshi

Mob Psycho 100 by One 💖

I’m very much a normie when it comes to non-BL manga and anime, as you can probably tell. I also feel the need to point out that Devilman is trashy as hell, and especially the first chapters are of questionable quality, but it’s so important to me and to the history of manga that I would be remiss not to recommend it.

I’m so glad! It’s an amazing manga, but it’s hard to recommend it unless I know the person really well and know that they can handle it.

Here are some of my personal recs, but if anyone reading this post has recommendations for similar manga (psychological horror, monsters, demons, artsy guro, etc.), please share them!

Jimba (Horse-person) by Sumiyoshi Ryo (not BL)

Covers of Jimba vol. 1 and 2, showing Matsukaze and Kohibari.

Another of Suzuri-sensei’s series, under a slightly different name. It takes place in an alternate-universe Sengoku period Japan, in which centaurs (called “jimba” in this world) are captured and enslaved by humans. A centaur named Matsukaze is captured by humans with the help of Kohibari, a centaur servant who had his arms amputated to make him more docile. Secretly, Kohibari plans to use Matsukaze’s help to escape their human captors.

It’s not BL, but it has Suzuri-sensei’s signature beautiful creature design and vibrant art. The first two chapters are available for free here (in Japanese)! I’ve only read those so far, but I’m already in love with this series. Sadly, it looks like it’s only been published in Japanese and French (under the title “Centaures”) so far, and it hasn’t been scanlated.

TW: violence, coercive body modification (may have other things in further chapters).

Mokuren (Magnolia) by Sumiyoshi Ryo (not BL)

One-shot in the Ishu Renai Monogatarishuu (different-species love story collection) anthology. It’s a short and bittersweet tale about a magnolia tree and a boy who love each other, but can’t be together. It’s a lot less gruesome than MADK, but many of the same themes are present here, and the art is gorgeous as usual. The anthology hasn’t been officially published in English, but this chapter has been scanlated.

TW: none that I can remember.

Karyuudo to Mamono (The Hunter and the Monster) by Suzuri Ryo (BL)

One-shot in the R-40 BL anthology, a BL anthology dedicated to おっさん (middle aged men)! In this story, a hunter named Alvin makes a living hunting beast-men called “lupin”. One day, he finds the child of a lupin he killed, and decides to name him “Reuben”, raise him, and protect him from other hunters. When Reuben grows up, their relationship becomes more intimate.

Even for a monster-fucking story, this one is a lot more messed up than usual, seeing as Reuben is basically Alvin’s adopted son/hunting dog...? He understands human language and is a half-human, but aside from speaking, he mostly behaves like an animal. Alvin is very conflicted about the nature of his relationship with Reuben. I think the acknowledgement that it is a messed up situation is what makes this story compelling.

The anthology hasn’t been officially published in English, but this chapter has been scanlated.

TW: pseudo-bestiality (human/half-human monster), adoptive parent-child incest, animal death.

Color Recipe by Harada (BL)

Cover of CIEL magazine illustrated by Harada, showing Shoukichi and Fukusuke.

Shoukichi works as a stylist at a hair salon, but he struggles with customers due to his unfriendly personality. One day, the charming Fukusuke starts working at the same salon, and immediately starts provoking Shou. Fukusuke keeps pushing his boundaries, but he always manages to find an excuse for it. As the two grow closer, he begins to control more and more of Shou’s life, until his grip on it appears inextricable.

I haven’t read a lot of psychological horror BL (I’m not even sure if there are many to begin with), but when you asked for manga with similar themes to MADK, I immediately thought of Harada. Almost all of their works have dark themes to some degree, but Color Recipe has a story filled with mind games, manipulation, and twisted affection that I feel is the closest to that.

It escalates in a masterful way, and Harada-sensei’s art is a feast for the eyes. As far as I can tell, it hasn’t been officially licensed in English yet (though it appears to have been in French and Polish), but it has been scanlated.

TW: abuse, manipulation, stalking, kidnapping, sexual harassment, rape.

Gesshoku Kitan (Mysterious Tale of the Eclipse) by Syundei (BL)

Cover and colour page of Gesshoku Kitan.

I have only just begun reading this one, but it was recommended to me by Pachi from Blyme-yaoi. It’s by the author of Ganbare! Nakamura-kun!!, and has her signature, charming art style.

Rather than a light-hearted fluffy story, this one is a BL supernatural murder mystery. It focuses on Terumichi, a high school student who has dreams/visions of murders that happened in the Taisho period, almost a century ago. He and his classmates get caught up in a mystery involving a serial killer and a long-dead novelist.

It’s one volume long, and is officially licensed in English by Seven Seas Entertainment under the title “Total Eclipse of the Eternal Heart”.

TW: violence, blood, death, sexual abuse of a minor (may have other things in further chapters).

— Makoto’s last words before he was destroyed by a fuzzy demon lord.

I admire your courage in the mighty quest for the beans. Bards shall sing of your bravery for centuries to come!

That’s a real shame. Fortunately, I know that some publishers in English-speaking countries and in Brazil are making an effort to know more about the culture surrounding the manga and anime they localize and distribute, but it’s still largely an uphill battle.

This nasty man deserves none of your head-pats... but you feel compelled to give him some anyway.

In this tweet, Suzuri-sensei highlights the importance of using references in art: J’s toe-beans are so good because they’re based on the wonderful beans of their cat!

Looks very problematic.

I’ll be honest, I haven’t read or watched it. My friends (some of whom liked it) have explained at length exactly how problematic it is, but I can’t remember the details. Incest age-gap aside, it sounded like a relatively uneventful slice-of-life BL, and that didn’t catch my interest at the time.

I’m not surprised it got so popular. Adoptive-family-to-lovers is a prevalent trope not only in BL, but romance stories in general—look at the sheer number of step-sibling and adoptive sibling erotica and porn out there. Nevertheless, I imagine that Super Lovers probably sparked a lot of controversy in the English side of fandom while I wasn’t looking, due to those themes. It came at a time of relative peace for Latin BL fandoms, and caused at least a few of them to explode with discourse.

I don’t have any thoughts on it beyond that, to be honest!

If you want my personal recommendation for a very problematic BL series, I’ll put it under the readmore. Edit: Tumblr is completely fucking up this post’s formatting. I’m sorry, everyone. You’re going to get MADK on your dashboards, whether I like it or not.

Yes, I know that incest is already way problematic by most people’s standards, but when I’m longing for something truly harrowing, I read MADK by Suzuri Ryo.

TW: from the very first chapter, it features extremely intense and graphic gore, blood, torture, animal death, and disturbing sexual imagery. Later chapters also include abuse and sexual violence. AFAIK, the main character’s age is left ambiguous, but he is a high school student at the start.

It’s the story of Makoto, a boy who summons a demon, J, and exchanges his life for the opportunity to eat J alive. J takes a liking to Makoto, and after their deal is completed, decides to take Makoto under his wing and make him into a demon.

This manga doesn’t pull its punches. It’s shamelessly twisted and brutal, and the humour is thoroughly macabre, but that’s what makes it so great, in my opinion.

I love pretty much everything that Suzuri-sensei makes. Their style is elegant, expressive, and gorgeously detailed, and they draw inspiration from so many eclectic sources (including old Japanese homoerotic art and photography).

Plus, they draw the absolute best demon toe beans.

It’s my first time using this poll website, so apologies if there are any complications ^^;

Which of the following topics should I write about next?

More top/bottom discourse.

BL terminology (BL vs. yaoi vs. shounen-ai).

Japanese furry (kemono) glossary—with pics and examples.

Don't worry, I will eventually cover all these topics! This poll is just to figure out in what order.

You can also vote on my Twitter, if you prefer.

Edit 2020/04/22: