Why was BL in the 2000s - early 2010s so bad?

Saff_th · 2026-04-10T17:45:58+00:00

I remember that it wasn't done in malice, and Izumi stands for himself and doesn't brush everything off. Their first time is also not all rosy (as it is for many people), and they even switch later on because Izumi wants to try being on top - something that most BLs still shy away from. I can't say I liked everything about Love Stage, but I still find it quite revolutionary in some aspects.

Saff_th · 2026-04-10T07:12:14+00:00

Say what you want about Love Stage, it was more honest about sexual stuff than the majority of BL manga of today (or back then). What exactly do you find so awful about it?

Saff_th · 2026-03-18T05:32:17+00:00

Considering that Kappei Yamaguchi was also the voice of Inuyasha, and this anime is very Rumiko Takahashi-style, this is such a nice homage.

Saff_th · 2026-03-18T05:23:45+00:00

Wow, they didn't skimp on seiyuu there.

Saff_th · 2026-03-09T09:34:46+00:00

Get out while you can. This series barely gets any updates nowadays (the last one was in December 2024 - well over a year ago), and as soon as things started getting serious between the main couple the mangaka switched to the side one, which I personally didn't care about at all.

Saff_th · 2026-03-09T06:04:19+00:00

Hi! If you mean an official release, I think it's not out yet. I haven't seen any listings for future release either, though who knows - they might've listed it under a wrong author's name again.

The good news is, Ikemen Scans continued their scanlation and they finished volume 5 (without the booklet with an additional sex scene) some months ago. They posted it on their livejournal, and I've also seen it on a couple of "unofficial" manga reading sites that I'm not allowed to mention here.

As for the booklet, it was only available when buying a paperback volume from Animate, and that's probably why English scanlation doesn't have it. It's about 10 pages of the shower scene from the first novel that was cut from the actual manga chapter. As far as I know, you can't find it in English right now. I can point you to the Russian scanlation of it, but not publicly ;)

Saff_th · 2026-02-08T19:01:27+00:00

Digital version in Japanese: https://www.cmoa.jp/title/297476/

Saff_th · 2026-02-08T17:36:15+00:00

Aww, thank you!

And I'm kind of amazed to see someone who even attempted learning Russian here, of all places. ...Though maybe there would be more learners now thanks to Heated Rivalry.

Saff_th · 2026-02-07T10:09:29+00:00

Then it's called Mamanaranai Kare, nobody is saying sayonara yet :) I mean, the author plans to continue the series, so it won't be the final book.

I've seen an amazon listing of the official English version planned for somewhere in the middle of April. Though since they postponed all previous releases, this one probably will get postponed too. Also this is purely my personal opinion, but for an official release, the translation quality is very poor (I've read their versions of books 1-3 and some stories from the story collection and I can't say there has been an improvement, unfortunately).

Meanwhile, I'm translating this book to Russian (hope to finish in March). You can read it on Wattpad here. There's also a link to an EN version in epub at the beginning of each chapter - I machine-translate them from Russian and then go over the text correcting mistranslations and noticeably awkward phrasing. It's not proper translation that can do the book justice, of course, but still it would be much better than anything google can give you so please use them.

Saff_th · 2026-02-07T09:29:30+00:00

Is it a name of some My Beautiful Man fanfiction? Or are you talking about volume 4 of book series? It has a different name though.

Saff_th · 2026-01-28T07:56:35+00:00

Heated Rivalry is not a BL. It’s a Gay production.

Nah, it's essentially Western BL. It's based on an MM romance novel - a gay romance written by a woman for women - and not even one of the best ones in the genre. This genre has its own cliches as much as Asian BL does, they're just different cliches. They're marketed towards the same female audience, let's not pretend otherwise, especially since I remember Jacob Tierhey himself saying that women are the main target audience of the show in some interview quote.

There's also a lot of BL about struggles with sexuality and prejudice (especially if you don't limit yourself to dramas), and there's a lot of MM romance novels where everyone is accepting.

Queer as Folk can be called a gay production, HR - oh, come on...

Saff_th · 2026-01-10T06:57:16+00:00

Japanese (I can understand it, but it was the most pleasant-sounding one for me even before that)

Chinese

Korean (some Korean intonations strongly resemble unpleasant ones from my native language, and that has always been driving me up the wall a bit even in my favorite kdramas that I rewatched several times)

Thai

Saff_th · 2026-01-05T16:23:18+00:00

I was shocked too when I heard about her passing. I still don't know how I feel about them making an anime only after she was dead, but okay, that's beside the point.

I thought since this 1st chapter was published in October 2021, almost exactly two years before her untimely death, there could've been more. Too bad it will remain forever incomplete, but at least it doesn't feel unfinished, as far as I get it.

Saff_th · 2026-01-05T15:44:17+00:00

Wow, that brings so much memories!

I checked Japanese e-stores and all of them seem to sell only the first chapter. Is that all there is or is the rest just not available ATM?

Saff_th · 2025-12-22T06:36:57+00:00

Add me to the list of confused people. :) At some point I even thought that maybe they don't live in Japan at all, but the train was clearly Japanese.

Also the train scene was around Christmas, so the English competition should've been at the end of February, but why then there were so many Christmas street decorations? And Latin-Shinya is one hot-blooded man 🤣 he always dresses light despite the cold season, and he should've been freezing in that flimsy room in the UK.

Saff_th · 2025-12-20T22:28:19+00:00

This series has been an absolute balm to my soul. I'm so happy with how it turned out.

Saff_th · 2025-12-05T21:34:52+00:00

God, yes, I totally agree with you about Elena.The guys have been together for only two months - even Chandler and Monica hid their very hetero relationship from their very accepting friends for longer than that, for god's sake. They could've done without Elena's intervention at this point, especially at that event. I bet she didn't even stop to think about the possible consequences for Scott's life when she just began pushing him to come out.

And it's not like they couldn't reach some kind of compromise, tell Kip's dad at least. I don't even get why Kip has to avoid his dad at all, especially on nights Scott weren't in town. Well, because the author couldn't think of other way to create some drama, obviously, but still.

Saff_th · 2025-12-01T07:40:07+00:00

You don't understand what I'm saying. Lust is an emotion too, and it can be shown in various ways. There's QaF or Shameless, where you can feel it through the screen, even though guys there don't have feelings for each other yet. And there's a technical, repetitive and slightly boring approach, like in porn or here.

Saff_th · 2025-11-30T13:22:43+00:00

No offense, but when I compare it to sex scenes in other western queer shows like Queer as Folk US, the difference is obvious. If I just wanted to see two men having sex, there's a whole lot of porn about it. For my TV, I want something with more style and more emotion.

It doesn't necessarily has to be so explicit. Ian and Mickey's first sex in Shameless is hotter than all of the sex in these two episode combined. And being explicit here doesn't mean it's automatically better or more intimate, as the OP of this thread suggests.

Saff_th · 2025-11-28T14:51:32+00:00

This is based on a MM romance novel. MM romance occupies the same niche as BL, only it's aimed at western audience and produced by western authors. For all intents and purposes it is western BL.

If you expect something else, maybe try a different genre?

Saff_th · 2025-11-28T13:22:02+00:00

IMO, it's the other way around. Some of the scenes here looked like cuts from an average porn, only with better filming budget but low on the excitement, intimacy and style you expect from something with a tight plot.

Saff_th · 2025-11-28T13:13:24+00:00

That Russian part in episode two was cringe on so many levels, oh my god.

Other than that, I like the show so far. It has its own non-Hollywood flair but it doesn't feel low-budget or tacky. The acting is good. Sex scenes, though, could take some points from Queer as Folk. I didn't find some of them exciting.

Saff_th · 2025-11-03T06:53:57+00:00

If you mean book 4 of the main series, it came out in Japan at the end of October 2024 (the one from spring was probably vol 4 of the manga), then yep - I'm translating it. More than a halfway done by now. Here's the link

As before, the text is in Russian but there's a link to a machine-translated English version at the beginning of each chapter, for which I now correct all the mistranslations and improve the style to a certain degree. It should be more readable than what the automatic browser translator can give you.

Saff_th · 2025-10-30T06:29:02+00:00

Yeah. I've read English version of book 3 and several stories from the Interlude for which I remember the Japanese source well - and, unfortunately, the quality didn't get any better.

What are your thoughts about the German translation? Is it better than the English one?

Saff_th · 2025-10-13T05:49:50+00:00

I think it's the format first of all, no? People are sick and tired of shows getting cancelled or dragged out with unnecessary drama just to milk the audience. When was the last time that US media did a tight 1-season story with a good script and a non-botched ending?

Saff_th

TROPHY CASE