Tan Eito x Noumi Masataka (The Apology of Noumi-senpai/Noumi-Senpai no Benmei)
Kuro x Luka (Omega of the Divine/Aijitsu to Hanayome)
Kitayama Yuuki x Minamiya Ayumu (Kitayama & Minamiya)
Yamasuge Ryuuji x Kaido Amane (If It's You, I Might Try Falling In Love/Kimi to Nara Koi wo Shite Mite mo)
Ogino Hiroki x Sugawara Mayo (My Noons and Midnights Are For You/Mayonaka no Ore wo Mite)
Yao Hayato x Fujita Riichi (Shinai Shinai mo Ai no Uchi)
Hirota Kousuke x Ayase Natsuki (Mijinko's original characters)
Seo Taeoh x Moon Dobin (Scent and Sensibility)
Liu Weikun x Seo Yeehyeon (Diamond Dust)
Ryu Ian x Baek Eunsan (Melting Point)
SPINACH BOUQUET. I cried for like 20 episodes straight oh my god. Also literally yesterday I cried while reading Little Mushroom so I'll say that too.
2. Oh man... there's a LOT that have made me laugh... I'll try to narrow it down to the funniest ones!
Punch Drunk Love... obviously
Red Thread Quest
Kill Me If You Can
Happy Crappy Life
Ando is New to Drinking (Osake ni Yowai Andou-san)
Tashiro-kun, Why're You Like This? (Tashiro-kun, Kimitte Yatsu wa.)
3. My first reaction to reading this question had me trying to think of something bizarre in a bad way, but actually I'm gonna use the opportunity to just name two series I love but also think are strange in a good way: Wet Dream Aquarium and Be My Baby!
Wet Dream Aquarium is definitely cuter and more wholesome than you'd expect from the cover but I'd definitely still call it bizarre (in a good way)! And Be My Baby is like... not only is the premise ridiculous, the way visual design is utilized by the artist is super interesting, plus the inclusion of meme references... it's definitely one of a kind to me LOL
4. I don't want to name my favourites for this because it feels like a cop-out, so...
Lullaby of the Dawn (Yoake no Uta)
Dear Gene (Shinai naru Gene e)
One Room Angel
5. The main ones that come to mind for "I'm only here for the sex" are Love Remedy and Omega Complex... though honestly there's a lot of manhwa that I mostly just read for the sex lol...
6. When I think of guilty pleasure reads I think of stuff that I personally run to read every week but also wouldn't recommend to other people because I don't think they're objectively good??? And for that it's gotta be When Pear Blossoms Bloom and Feel My Benefit because I am sooo locked in with both of them but... like... are they good...????
I was thinking about putting Jinx on here since I read it every 10 days like it's my job but I don't think it even falls under guilty pleasure to me. Guilty torture. Guilty self-hatred
This is a scary question LMAO please don't hate me hehe
The Alpha's Bride -Love's Resonance- (α no Hanayome - Kyoumei Renjou): Since it has 4 volumes and the sequel (Omega no Kashoku) was nominated for best BL comic this year I had high expectations but oh my GOD IT SUUUUUCKSSSSS. The sequel actually is really good though!!
The Feisty Omega and His Twin Mates (Tsuyogari Omega wa Bokura no Tsugai): Blind bought this because yayyyy 3P omegaverse with an apparent Feisty Omega but I thought it sucked. Plus the fact that it has a whopping FIVE volumes also pisses me off, but maybe I'll try reading more to see if it gets any better??
My Personal Weatherman (Taikan Yohou): I had high expectations for this one because it got a live action adaptation AND WON BEST BL COMIC IN 2023 which is actually fucking insane to me considering it beat out PINK HEART JAM? AND LOSS TIME NI HANAMUKE WO???? So when I read it and thought it was just extremely "fine" I was so disappointed. I wouldn't say it was bad, just that my expectations were way too high because of the hype.
You Are My World: I was so excited for this one when the preview dropped and I'm still reading every episode as it comes out but wow I am so not feeling the story, if I'm honest... At this point I'm pretty used to noncon in Lezhin series but... man. Man.
One Summer Day: This used to be a guilty pleasure read for me but I think it's just downgraded to disappointment level. Girl I'm bored let's progress the story in any way
AU: This life is a curse! Soon it will break and you will go back to the way life really is. You will be trapped in a cage on Neverland by a monster named Peter Pan.
I would laugh at you but Elizabeth says it's mean to do that, so I won't. There's no curse and I won't be trapped by anyone, I wouldn't let that happen, Elizabeth wouldn't let that happen too.
To Dee and Wendy: Recently I got in a debate with a friend as to whether there is a female equivalent to the term balls dropping. Is there or are we just stupid? On a related note, is the semantically correct version of grow a pair of balls for women grow a pair of ovaries?
I’d say y’all are being stupid.
“Aaaaand Dee’s walking away. Okay, I guess I’ll take this one. I’d agree the debate is kind of dumb; there’s a lot of ways to say grow up or toughen up without referencing genitals-- and honestly, balls aren’t that tough? They’re like... the main weakpoint of anyone who has them. Balls are weak as shit and can actually rupture if kicked hard enough, and incapacitate the person they’re attached to. The idea of growing a pair being a term for toughing up is specifically because we’ve been raised to associate tough with male, and males tend to be the ones with testicles in the understanding the majority of us were raised with.... but if you’re asking about this, I’m guessing you’ve already realized that is bullshit.
“My suggestion is to get gender out of your turns of phrase entirely-- instead of grow a pair, say suck it up. Anyone can suck it up. Instead of man up, just find more colorful ways to say jump back on the horse-- Really, depending on old gendered phrases is just kinda lazy, and defending the lines of patriarchy that they were built upon is a waste of energy when you could be using all that time spent arguing to come up with new and interesting things for people to say.
“Also, if someone ever does tell you to grow a pair and you’re of the persuasion that has breasts, tell ‘em that you have balls, and that they’re so big that God had to move them to your chest to prevent chafing.”
So is vitriol actual magic that the humans use or the shards that were found by Cartman's dad and father?
Wendyl: I am pretty sure none of these people can answer this so I will. So the humans look at magic differently than us elves. They see their magic as more of alchemy, even though it isn’t true alchemy because they don’t give something in return. They have a magical ability to change, bend, or bring life to the things that they use. Vitriol to them is an element. It comes in three different forms: solid vitriol, pure vitriol, and raw vitriol. Solid vitriol is the metals that they use to make anything. I.e. gold and silvers. When they use it the items will have a glow. Pure vitriol is the melted down versions of the metals that they use. It is the liquid that is pumped through the horses that they have. It has a red glow to it. I have heard that they use pure vitriol in the bullets they make for their weapons of war. Raw vitriol is newly discovered to them. From what I have studied at the castle, it seems to be a crystal that glows purple. They don’t know what to use it for since it is poisonous to those who are near it. I am hoping to study it more while I am here.
Starting off with one that made me cry (in a good way) and I can't remember if I responded to it on twitter but I wanna make sure I respond to it
THANK YOU!!! I was really upset about... something...?? I can't even remember what it was about but I remember I was upset and I got this message and started crying LMAO it means a lot looking at it now too but at the time it made my day and also my week, so thank you very much to the anon who sent me this ; w;
Well I do call stuff lezhinslop sometimes but... I dunno? I think the same kind of sentiment can be and does get applied to all sorts of genre fiction, comics or not. For example, certain thriller or romance novels; a lot of those books get CHURNED OUT at a very fast pace and often fit a cookie cutter mold (i.e. books by Freida McFadden or Ali Hazelwood) and are basically just junk food reads. They'll also often have that trope-first marketing that focuses more on reflecting AO3 tags than marketing it as a thoughtful piece of literature. I don't think there's anything wrong with them, but I also don't think it's unfair to view them as having less artistic merit than, for example, literary fiction by authors who only publish a book a couple times a decade.
There's definitely "auteurs" in the BL world that deserve to have their work held above others, and then there's the authors who do one or two series a year and have them run in digital publications that focus heavily on smut. I wouldn't necessarily call them SLOP by default, but I think we can all agree that those two categories aren't exactly equal lmao...
Anyway. I enjoy slop, I think we all do sometimes; the appeal of "beach reads" is that they're easy to read and don't require a lot of focus/can be put down and picked up easily. As long as people aren't categorizing all BL (or all manhwa, which I do see a lot!) as slop or consider this a uniquely BL-related issue, I don't really think it's bad.
tl;dr i guess it depends on the intent/tone of how they're saying it, I don't think all works are equal, and I also like stuff that I consider slop.
I'm studying global management! Before going back to school I worked in category management and I plan on aiming for that sort of job once I graduate again, but not necessarily the exact same. What I REALLY want is to be the manga category manager at my current company, but that's extremely specific and extremely unlikely lol... But if not working as a buyer for books, I'd like to work as something like an account manager for a publisher, manga or not.
My more long-term goal is to move to Japan and probably work in category management/account management there, maybe for an international company? I went back to school specifically to get a degree so I could try to get a Japanese work visa, so that's my ultimate aim.
On the side from that, I want to hone my skills to be able to do some sort of freelance manga work as well :) it'd be really awesome if that could tie into a full-time job as well somehow, but for the sake of stability I'm focusing on category management work as my career with the hopes of establishing some sort of side gig.
No but I keep meaning to!!!! The bunny uke is SO cute... Maybe I'll read it tonight as penance for not responding to this sooner, lmao
Hmm... This might be low-hanging fruit but Happy Kuso Life probably? Everything about it is fucking insane, but it's supposed to be over-the-top ridiculous. Also maybe Be My Baby because unhinged really is the best word to describe it lol
there's probably a lot of others I could answer but I've been sitting on this question for a bit and still just keep thinking of Happy Kuso Life and nothing else (many such cases)
Don't kill me but I've never read BJ Alex....... Maybe I will someday but everyone just keeps telling me not to bother lol
Also one time I was talking to a customer at work and said in passing that I've never read it and she said "how can you call yourself a BL fan if you've never read BJ Alex?!?" and it pissed me off so much it made me want to never read it #lol
I've actually never properly read or watched a sports shounen... (which pisses my husband off because he's a Prince of Tennis oldhead + really into Blue Lock, so he keeps dissing my fujoshi cred because I haven't read any LMAO)
That said!!! We started watching Haikyuu back in December when I was basically bedridden with the flu and wanted to just watch anime while I was dying, but we ended up putting that on pause to keep up with several seasonal anime instead. I wanna go back to at least finish season 1 though, and then probably keep going with the manga!
I know who my favourite character will be though (Kenma, if anyone was wondering lol)
HMMMM... I dunno if I have a strong preference, the ones that come to mind are the Dare ones but I doubt they're the best. I kinda want to do a taste test now... Watch this space
No literally... baby fever is such a powerful force...
I wasn't super interested in reading Don't Lie To Me but then I saw whatever the hell is going on in the side-stories right now and was like. Alright added to my TBR. I'll read it when lezhinus gets to the side-stories LOL
LIKE, WHAT IS THAT??? WHAT IS GOING ON
For Given it's definitely Mafuyu! I also really really like Uenoyama and Hiiragi :3
Sasaki is my favourite from the ssmy/hrkg universe, but I like Kagi a lotttt too
Omg, please do if you want to!!! I put a lot of effort into maintaining and curating the section, and I specifically order in BL so I'm reallyyyy happy when people come to my store specifically for the BL selection (and manga in general)
If you're asking because you don't know where I work specifically, I avoid saying the exact place to maintain plausible deniability and cover my ass, but I work at a certain bookstore that's in a mall directly in the heart of downtown Toronto. (winking)
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I also got two questions about idol BL recs but I think I'm gonna answer it as its own post, so that'll be soon.......... #watchthisspace
