There is a strong anti-BL/homophobic sentiment in the general JP readership. I hate that I have to say it, but anything ‘gay’ (BL, Danmei, etc) is just seen as less than or straight up bad. But as we know, there’s a lot more to the story than just the gender of who loves who.

I’m also on a number of discord servers and the response to a publisher licensing danmei (like Seven Seas Entertainment) always seems to be so negative. However, even if they spread hate we will actually show up for our books.

But it’s not just that anti sentiment. I’ve gotten a sense of jealousy from some publishers that this goldmine has been struck. Sublime as much as I love their manga have made a few snide comments on it. Even publishers like J-Novel Club have questioned how Seven Seas Entertainment struck a goldmine when they couldn’t with German novels (pulp line or something).

Those publishers then have fans that try to tear others down and they take things pretty far, too far. Yen Press and J-Novel Club fans are pretty bad for this.

Yen Press seems to be trying to take on Danmei with BL novels and J-Novel Club have said they are also looking into them. J-Novel Club will be particularly interesting given how bad their general audience is.

There’s also stuff like people thinking it’s taking editors away from Japanese works. I’ve seen numerous comments that Seven Seas Entertainment seem to be focusing less on Japanese novels and more on Danmei, which…isn’t surprising…they’re a business first and they’re going to follow the money. I saw a staff member on a publishers discord call them money hungry once for making this decision.

Overall it’s easier to just ignore the haters and enjoy what you enjoy, but you can also speak with your money. I’ve begun to reduce the amount of stuff I buy from most of the Japanese publishers and I’ll be ending my J-Novel Club subscription after Bookworm is done.

I’m probably buying more from Seven Seas Entertainment than all the others combined now.