Welcome, one and all, to an unusual book day post! You see, it’s LGBTQ History Month here in the UK, which means plenty of celebrations – and indeed, learning opportunities – are going on. For me, I wanted to use this as a way to make a request.
When it comes to LGBTQ Manga, I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with it all. There are some really nice series out there. Shimanami Tasogare: Our Dreams At Dusk is a fine example of a realistic portrayal of being LGBTQ, for example. At the same time though, it’s pretty widely accepted that manga as an art form doesn’t always have the best history with this type of story.
Now, I’m not primarily a romance reader. I do, however, like a nice, sweet love story. When it’s come to LGBTQ manga, that mostly seems to fall into the yuri category. Series like After Hours, Bloom Into You, Goodby My Rose Garden, and Octave all tell great stories with FF pairings. Most importantly, they don’t litter them with negative lesbian stereotypes.
On the flip side though, I find it a lot harder to find yaoi that works along the same lines. MM attraction in manga seems to come with certain tropes attached that I’m not fond of. The worst of these for me is the ‘character A forces themselves on character B, now character B loves character A’ arc.’ To be clear here, being queer does not make you a predator.
So, here’s what I want: recommendations. I want people to recommend me some sweet, wholesome titles featuring MM pairings or trans and non-binary characters. Hit me up in the comments below, and I’ll look at each recommendation with a view to buying a few. Cheers everyone!
Matt Doyle Media 
I have a few suggestions for BL manga that’re more on the sweet side: Our Dining Table, Don’t Call Me Dirty, Don’t Call Me Daddy and The God & the Flightless Messenger.
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Ooh, thank you. I think I’ve heard of Our Dining Table. The rest are new titles for me.
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Replied to the tweet, but will copy-paste here
What was the last BL you tried? Or that you’ve enjoyed? Knowing what you’ve read (and how long it’s been since you’ve read it) gives a better idea on recs. tbh it’s quite easy to avoid problematic BL nowadays, if you know where to look
BL:
Our Dining Table
Go For It, Nakamura!
That Blue Sky Feeling
Seven Days
I Hear the Sunspot
Mr Mini Mart
10 Dance
Given
Even So, I Will Love You Tenderly
Deko-boko Sugar Days
Don’t Call Me Dirty / Daddy
Cherry Magic!
Classmates
Star Collector (OEL)
Love Stories has grown on me too, but not necessarily as a romance.
futekiya’s catalogue has a great selection too
Trans manga:
I Wanna Be Your Girl
Boys Run the Riot (not romance, but own voices)
The Bride was a Boy (more so an edumanga memoir, but v sweet)
NB:
Love Me For Who I Am
♥️ with major queer themes:
Blue Flag
Mine-kun is Asexual
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Thank you! That gives me plenty to look into.
In terms of past reads, I haven’t read anything specifically BL recently. I think the last I read was the Finder series, years ago. I was hoping for sweeter than that. The closest I got was Our Dreams At Dusk, which was excellently queer.
Love Me For Who I Am, I’m enjoying. I reviewed the dust two volumes and have the third on pre-order. Other than The Bride Was A Boy and Our Dining Table, I think all the ones you listed are new to me too. I’m going to enjoy pitching a few, I think 🙂
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Hooboy, Finder is infamous for being notorious, so if that’s your benchmark, I’d say 95% of any BL currently being released would be better reads (well, 100% actually, but there are still some mildly tropey &/or purposefully dark/dramatic series out there that don’t fit your ‘sweet’ wants)
And comparing to Our Dreams at Dusk (which is written by a LGBT mangaka) is the complete other extreme [excellence], haha
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LOL, they are like night and day, aren’t they? Our Dreams At Dusk is just so beautiful, and really hit home for me on a personal level.
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Hands down the title I recommend the most is My Brother’s Husband by Gengoroh Tagame, not only because it is one of the most wholesome mangas I have ever read but because it is a manga about the stigmatization of homosexuality in Japan written by a gay author who has experienced much of what is talked about in the series. From family isolation and estrangement to views of seeing homosexuals as a bad influence on children.
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Now that sounds interesting. Wholesome and realistic is a great combo.
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it sounds pretty cool. ill need to see like a movie of it or something. lmao
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There is a TV series
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That I didn’t know. Live action or anima
ted?
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Thanks the post matt, i didnt know they made mangas that were gay or anything other then straight.
I will thanks again, it was a good read, check my page out as well and see if you like some of my posts.
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Of aye, there are tons. Quality varies though.
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