Advertorial

Some of the best BL today comes from Taiwan

Readers of queer romance already know that there are more options out there than Japanese BL. In the Western romance landscape, the genre is rapidly expanding, and that's branching out into Western comics as well. Korean manhwa offers M/M options for readers as well, and now the horizons are broadening yet again with the partnership between Media Do and Taiwanese nonprofit TAICCA (Taiwan Creative Content Agency), who have joined to release Taiwanese BL on Media Do's Yuzu imprint. As of February 6, four BL e-books have been released through Yuzu, two by award-winning creator Gene, who, among other prizes, has won the two top prizes at the 2020 Kyoto International Manga Anime Awards. Another creator, Rancha, is the recipient of the Gold Prize-winner in the BL category at the second-ever Glory Original Comic Competition. In other words, these are creators who know what they're doing.

Of the four releases, probably the strongest is Confessions of a 35-Year-Old by Tei. More a slice-of-life piece than a romance, the story follows Jason, the eponymous 35-year-old of the title. Jason has been struggling with his romantic life and sexuality ever since a junior confessed to him in college; unsure what to do with the confession from another man, Jason turned him down, and now years later is stunned by the revelation that the other man has married a woman. Jason doesn't know what to do with this information: was the confession false? Did he somehow ruin the other man's chance for same-sex romantic happiness by turning him down? And what does it say about him that he's been hung up on this one confession for so many years? Things get even more confusing for him when a new co-worker is hired, and a friend suggests that Jason rent him the extra bedroom in his apartment. Frank is about eight years younger than Jason, and the two manage to strike up a friendship, despite Jason's worries about work-life balance and sharing his space. The story follows the growth of their relationship as Frank guides Jason in realizing that “happiness” and “normal” are what you make of them, and that he doesn't need to do the same thing as everyone else – or even what everyone else in society expects of him. It's quiet and understated, and Tei's art is gently atmospheric. While it is the story of a romantic relationship between two men, it's also more about learning to accept and understand yourself, and how Frank can help Jason to do that. (The way the men use their English versus Chinese names to show intimacy does a lovely job helping to show it.) Tei mentions in the afterword (called an “epilogue” in all four volumes, which is a bit odd) that this story is very personal to them, and that does come across in the writing – it's an emotionally resonant book.

Confessions of a 35-Year-Old is available on BOOK☆WALKER.

Along the same lines, Rancha's Three Seconds After Our Eyes Met follows the slow growth of a more overtly romantic relationship between two college students. Hezhun is the outwardly perfect president of the student union, but it's all a façade that he carefully maintains to ensure that people like him. He's horrified (and confused) when a student a year behind him, Shunwen, figures him out, and most of the book is about Hezhun (emotionally) fleeing Shunwen out of fear of his curated performance of kindness being destroyed. We know a lot more about Hezhun than Shunwen, which is a little jarring when Shunwen finally gets to be the point of view character towards the end of the book, but Hezhun's situation is easily understood and at least a little relatable. His experiences in grade school traumatized him; it wasn't until he met a girl who always projected a warm and happy front that he figured out a way to leave his days of being bullied behind him. He's desperately afraid of being in that position again, and Shunwen, in his mind, risks shoving him right back down to his lowest point. What he doesn't understand is that he's allowed to be himself, and it's okay to mix the curated nice guy act with his own very real feelings and temper. Much like Tei's book, the focus here is on learning that “normal” is something that's up to you to decide, and that's a rewarding theme to read about. The fly in the ointment is that it can be hard to follow the panels. Rancha's art is delicate and beautiful, but you can tell that this was originally written to be read vertically, an issue not present in the other three books. It's readable, but sometimes it's tricky to parse things, which is a shame.

Three Seconds After Our Eyes Met is available on BOOK☆WALKER.

Both of creator Gene's works mix romance with light humor in science fiction and fantasy settings, which in some ways makes them the most easily accessible of the releases. Loving You When the World Ended is the stronger of the two, but that may very well be because The Light Conjurer is the first of three volumes, and it doesn't really get going until the end of the first book. It takes place in one of those ubiquitous fantasy settings where everyone has levels and magical professions, but Gene uses a light touch with that – it's not quite tongue-in-cheek, but it's clear that he knows that he's playing on well-trod ground. Robin, the main protagonist, dreams of becoming a top conjurer (a variation of the more common “summoner” class) so that he can live up to his famous father's legend, but the problem is that he doesn't appear to be any good at it at all. Naturally, there's more to the story, as we begin to see when his attempt to summon a princess results in Kyle, the pint-sized prince of a nation no one's ever heard of. Kyle is fascinated by Robin even as he sees through his boasts and manages to get him to join in on a dragon-killing quest, much to Robin's horror – especially when he realizes he's stuck. The volume is filled with misdirections and misunderstandings, all handled with mild humor that's rarely, if ever, at the expense of the characters; the closest it comes is with cross-dressing Boa, but it falls short of meanness because Boa is pretty darn open about who he is and what he likes. Without giving too much away, I will say that this isn't shota-con, although it would be easy to get that impression, and overall, this is simply a fun read with some surprising emotional content thrown in for good measure.

The Light Conjurer is available on BOOK☆WALKER.

The single volume Loving You When the World Ended also manages to blend humor, romance, and emotions, although the focus is much more on the former two. The story opens in a high-class hotel, where ex-military man Yu is working as a waiter. He walks in on the fight between Nuowen and his girlfriend when Nuowen decides to end the argument by telling his girlfriend that if she was the last woman on earth, he'd still rather be with Yu than her, and kissing him. Promptly, the world ends, and when Nuowen wakes up three days later, he and Yu are all alone in a post-apocalyptic city. A lot of the humor revolves around how utterly unsuited Nuowen is to survive in a world with no internet or other modern conveniences, and while he can be a little much, Gene generally knows how far he can push a joke before it gets decidedly unfunny. Yu and Nuowen's growing emotional attachment to each other builds organically for the most part, although the addition in the second half of a rival for Yu doesn't feel strictly necessary; it feels more like a way for Gene to force Yu to understand his feelings for Nuowen in the allotted page count. Still, when you have some excellent deadpan delivery from Yu contrasted with the manic high energy of Nuowen, it's hard to complain, and it feels like the goal of the book is to be more a romantic comedy than anything else. This is also the raciest of the four books, featuring open-mouth kissing and a fade-to-black sex scene, so if you're looking for your BL to be overtly sexy, this is the one to check out.

Loving You When the World Ended is available on BOOK☆WALKER.

On the whole, Yuzu's first four e-books ought to be a success; the stories are interesting, the art varied and attractive, and the plots both familiar to the genre and entirely the product of their place of origin. But more importantly, they're good books, solid entries into the library of BL titles available in English. It's always a good thing to have more books to read, and if you're looking to expand your reading into another part of the world, these are very much worth checking out.

All four e-books are available now on BOOK☆WALKER.