bluzo

pro-daishou

[63choux]

ok, decided i will no longer be actively posting here at least for the time being! if anyone would like to keep up with me elsewhere, please check out my bsky or my website. (i'll still keep this page open, in case i decide to come back though!)

[oldshortcomics]

Hawaii 1997, a comic by Sam Alden

[ealdwyne]

Sam Alden, Hawaii 1997

[dovemans]

Amazing comic by Sam Alden, but this is just the tip of the iceberg. If you click through his tumblr, you’ll find many such gems.

[g-oblincat]

🐚plastic coquina is a narrative dress-up game about reassembling yourself alongside a doll

Made for the Doll & Kigu jam with Bluzo, Zeno, and Jemi

[crazy-shot]

i like that gaku looks up to takumi as a symbol of idealized masculinity when takemaru is Right There and is often percieved as a 'better choice' due to his more macho(?) perfermance of masculine gender. there seems to be a gap between takemaru and gaku - they never seem to get very close, despite gaku's desire for acceptance from other men, and i think there's a few reasons for this.

for one, their backgrounds are opposites in every aspect except class. gaku is parentified due to his parents' neglect and raised his younger sibling seemingly mostly on his own; on the other hand, takemaru is an only child who had an involved but busy single mother, so he was raised by the old people in his neighborhood. i think part of the distance between them is jealousy of takemaru's situation: sure he's not rich, but he's not as broke as gaku, AND he doesn't have to take care of a gaggle of kids! (maybe gaku also subconsciously relates to takemaru's mother, and that scares him and/or makes him uncomfortable.)

secondly, i think gaku perceives takemaru as a threat. he's larger and stronger and has anger issues, and he explicitly states that he tends to 'punch first, think later,' and that he only doesn't punch women, children, and the elderly. this is probably not a huge selling point for gaku, who hates pain and isn't very strong; he likely approaches at least some of their conversations very guardedly.

thirdly, takemaru's expectations of masculinity are more... outwardly prescriptive than gaku's. gaku has internalized standards of normative masculinity, but he ultimately doesn't like performing them, and he doesn't enforce them upon others (his idealization of takumi is because he perceives takumi as 'naturally having' those traits, which he feels he cannot perform adequately due to his class). on the other hand, takemaru Does enforce his standards of masculinity on others: he talks about what 'real men' should do, he makes all of the guys work out to protect the girls (even though the girls don't 'need protecting,' and a few of them can kick his ass!)...

as a result, gaku probably feels like he can't approach takemaru as an equal; he's being held to someone else's standard that he feels like he can't live up to, and he feels scrutinized and threatened on top of that!

[63choux]

should i post here again… i have so much 100 line stuff i never uploaded… maybe this weekend

[crazy-shot]

gaku maruko could do das kapital, but karl marx couldn't do lalalulala

[snivyartjpeg]

For that one person that asked about Gakuzomi, here's how takumi feels after that happens (just for the joke lol):

i was so inspired i had to do this on my phone as quickly as possible

[worldlymatters]

abundance, absence, and everything in between

Hello, and welcome to the blog. It feels only fitting that my first post be dedicated to Boys’ Love – a genre that has given me immense joy, comfort, and meaning over the past few years of engaging deeply with it. And let’s be real: you probably wouldn’t even be here if not for BL… Fortunately, my affection for the genre remains unwavering! Yippee! Even without a main Twitter BL account (which existed initially just to follow BL mangaka and magazines), my love for this medium continues to transcend platforms, timelines, and algorithms.

Last October, I finally crossed off a long-standing item on my bucket list: attending J.Garden, a large-scale doujinshi convention devoted entirely to original BL works. While several well-known commercial mangaka were in attendance, what truly stunned me was the sheer number of independent circles participating. Even a month later, I still find myself in awe of the creative energy that filled that space.

The highlights of my J庭 experience were twofold: (1) meeting Fumi Yoshinaga, and (2) winning the giveaway for the J庭58 aioiuo poster. My interactions with these mangaka are something I’ll keep close to my chest - too precious to share publicly - but I can admit that I cried three separate times within the four hours I was there. If you’re looking for a guide to attending J.Garden, this isn’t it. Think of this post instead as a reflection on a genre that continues to evolve and defy expectation. Still, if you ever get the chance to go, I highly recommend attending with friends: plan ahead, debrief afterward, and revel in the shared euphoria of it all.

So, where am I going with all this, you might ask? Probably toward expanding on a quote from a Twitter mutual: “There are as many reasons to love BL as there are fujoshi.” Having experienced J.Garden firsthand, I can say with confidence that this statement is both factual and profound. Whether you’ve been reading BL for three years or two decades, you will probably never exhaust its depths. The sheer abundance of self-published works (many of which will probably never reach commercial circulation) proves how vast and untapped the genre’s creative potential remains. It’s no wonder, then, that the BL Sommelier Exam is notoriously difficult, even by veteran fujoshi standards.

This diversity also explains why BL discourse resurfaces almost every week online. The genre consistently resists being boxed into binaries; its origins were all about defying labels, and it remains a subgenre that can be truly mind-boggling to the unenlightened non-fujoshi brain. All of this makes it a constant topic of conversation in countless online corners. But here’s the thing: there really is a BL for everyone. Even if you’ve never picked up a single title, there’s almost certainly one out there that will speak directly to your tastes, curiosities, or heart. Trying to squeeze BL into pre-set labels does the genre a huge disservice. That kind of reductionism ignores both its complexity and the multiplicity of the people who love it. 

—

Recently, Chise Ogawa (Caste Heaven, Red Theatre, vs LOVE) aired their frustration on Twitter:

“Sigh. I feel so frustrated. At times like these, I want to draw erotica. But commercial BL has shifted its focus to being healthy, decent, and appealing to everyone, so there are fewer opportunities to draw erotica. The atmosphere in which manga like Caste Heaven can be drawn no longer exists. I know that. But there are times when I want to draw heart-wrenching erotica...”

I was genuinely stunned. This cannot be… A world without Chise Ogawa’s ‘morally challenging’ BL is a world I could not imagine inhabiting. And I say this as someone who also has affection for ‘more wholesome,’ feel-good works by mangaka like Shikke, Minta Suzumaru, and Amamiya. Yet BL is not BL without the likes of Harada, Asada Nemui, or Psyche Delico. It is what it is because we allow Asumiko Nakamura to create both The Inheritance of Aroma and Doukyuusei. Around the same time, I saw a few people online claiming that Japanese BL was “all about non-consent” and that  they had abandoned it entirely in favor of Korean BL webtoons. The uninformed fujoshi might nod in agreement, but the more discerning one might counter, “Isn’t Jinx the most-read BL webtoon on Lezhin US?” But I digress. 

Why shouldn’t hardcore erotica, morally challenging narratives, and wholesome, sweet stories coexist within the same creative ecosystem? Why do we keep imposing editorial boundaries on a genre that was born precisely because it refused them? BL has always existed at the fringes, shaped by the tension between desire and taboo. The friction between artistic freedom and commercial marketability is nothing new, but it’s disheartening to see the balance tip so sharply toward safer choices, and consequently, sanitization. 

Interestingly, during my recent trip to Tokyo, I also had the opportunity to visit the Pink Heart Jam and Momo and Manji exhibitions, two titles that, while both successful in their own right, are often situated at opposite ends of the contemporary BL spectrum. On a global scale, Pink Heart Jam enjoys broader recognition and readership, largely because it aligns with what is now considered as wholesome storytelling within the genre. Momo and Manji, by contrast, remains stuck in digital hell with the impending shutdown of Futekiya early next year. 

Do not get me wrong. Momo and Manji is by no means devoid of warmth or tenderness. In fact, it’s anything but. Despite the heaviness of both protagonists’ pasts, the story ultimately centers on healing, companionship, and the quiet act of building a shared future, moving forward with the one you love and finding a place to belong, even if that place exists only in each other’s arms. Yet, as an Edo-period BL title, it occupies a particularly precarious position within the English-language market. Historical settings are rarely prioritized for translation, and when combined with the semi-niche status of BL itself, my hope of reading Momo and Manji in its entirety (even digitally…) feels almost futile given the limitations of the current North American manga publishing landscape.

—

These thoughts have been circling in my head for months now, especially as I’ve watched BL fandom spaces shift. Enthusiasm has become almost indistinguishable from promotion. Social media has commodified passion, and the result is a strange loop: readers perform joy for traction, while publishers and creators capitalize on that performance. Yet, fandom, at its heart, was built on a culture of exchange, not advertisement: fans writing fics, sharing recommendations, and reactions without the mediation of algorithms. To reclaim that authenticity is to remember that love for certain works doesn’t have to be optimized or monetized. It can simply be.

There is now an overwhelming number of accounts dedicated to BL updates and news, but fewer spaces for personal, reflective engagement. The genre is being documented more than it is being lived. This, I think, marks a key difference between Japanese BL readers and their English-speaking counterparts. In Japan, fujoshi culture still revolves around community and connection, finding others who share similar tastes. Circles form organically around mutual curiosity and conversations emerge from shared experience rather than algorithmic visibility. By contrast, the English-speaking BL sphere often leans toward performance. Readers strive to be the first to discover, categorize, or recommend the next breakout title. The focus shifts from participation to presentation. Of course, this difference is not entirely self-imposed. Unlike Japanese fans, who can physically gather at doujin events, pop-up stores, or author signings, English-speaking BL readers are dispersed across countries and continents. Without a shared physical space for community-building, engagement tends to manifest through influence and speed, metrics that social media readily rewards.

Still, the result is a subtle erosion of the slower, more personal ways of engaging with art. What we lose in the mechanics of digital fandom is a sense of intimacy – an element vital to the genre itself. The messy, unpolished, and deeply personal conversations that once animated fandom have become rare. When every new release is reduced to a press kit, we forget that behind every title lies a reader’s experience. It reminds me that the most meaningful forms of engagement often remain the quietest ones: conversations between friends, late-night pings about favorite scenes, or the simple act of rereading something that once moved you because a friend is reading it, too. What was once a communal exchange of affection has, in many corners, transformed into a performance of expertise. I long for a return to the era of personal blogs and forum discussions when mere love for a story guided what we shared and not analytics.

But of course, it would be naïve, and frankly, silly, to pretend that clout doesn’t shape the BL world today. Popularity metrics now dictate saleability: determining which mangaka are published, which titles are extended, and which are prematurely axed. In some ways, clout has saved series that would otherwise vanish. In others, it has curtailed the kind of creative risk that once made the genre so unpredictable and exciting. This dynamic creates a kind of cognitive dissonance within me that I struggle with everyday: I crave recognition for certain BL, yet mourn the homogenization that popularity brings. The irony is that BL, once considered a niche genre, now wrestles with the same capitalist pressures as mainstream media. The question becomes: Can we sustain sincerity in a system where connection is measured by virality?

And so, if we want to preserve the creative freedom for artists like Chise Ogawa - to ensure that works like Caste Heaven can still exist - we have to keep talking about BL personally. Not as content nor data. But as something that genuinely moves us. To speak about BL from a place of intimacy — what it made us feel, what it made us question — is to resist its reduction to mere products (as with all other genres of fiction, actually!) that we mindlessly consume. I think that having sincere conversations like this is the only way we can preserve a genre’s soul. Whether online or in small offline circles, our discussions weave the collective memory of BL’s ever-evolving form. I, too, have my share of complaints about the current BL landscape. But for every complaint I have, I stumble across three more works that remind me why I love it. The genre’s vitality lies in this endless cycle of reinvention – each new discovery reaffirming that BL, in all its contradictions and chaos, is still one of the most fascinating, emotionally resonant genres out there. 

[amphibianshaped]

Hey I really love the atmosphere of your artwork, even when it’s all in B/W! How do you select values to convey a mood for your art? Everything feels so concise and intentional im not sure how to describe

thank u!! i think the easiest way to sum it up is: depending on how u lay out the scene/composition, things can feel radically different. so i like to always put down blobs and figure out the layout first before i go back in to refine! i usually stick with 2-4 values because i like to think if you can get it all down in just 2-4 values and it looks good/readable, the foundation is sturdy and you can color/render/polish to your hearts desire lol

in regards to mood/atmosphere, i really recommend the book Picture This by Molly Bang (link to PDF). reading this really helped me understand how shapes/values/composition can play a huge part in setting a tone/emotion! there are a lot of tricks in filmmaking/cinematography as well that im always pulling from (every frame a painting is an amazing resource, and watching a loooot of movies lmao), plus also straight up just copying artists in the past (i tried to be edward hopper 2.0 for years)! this is mainly bc i really hate drawing facial expressions, so i opted for trying to make the environment emote instead of the characters lol

i think color can play a huge part in setting tone/mood obviously, but again if you can achieve this in BW, you're pretty much free to go buck fucking wild with color. like no longer does yellow have to indicate "happy", yellow can now be the saddest color ever !!! anyway end rant

[63choux]

some sprites for along an extremity

[ginsays]

Stellar Rodeo 🌟

[63choux]

should i start posting again here... maybe... who's to say...

[g-oblincat]

along an extremity is a dentist x vampire narrative game made with @63choux for the TWG summer game jam!

🦷 Play it here 🦷

[luchsyy]

moreeee attacksssss for @amoebeau, @very-small-giant & @jelliribbons

my art fight

[oawhirpa]

I ended up playing 80h of Sandland, such a good game... So peak, so Toriyama. (please don't reupload my art on different sm, thank you ^^)

[oawhirpa]

(please don't reupload my art on different sm, thank you ^^)

[qwi13]

鳴門 ／ 第八班