The story after サンルームにて is just a couple of pages long, but 武宮先生 is breaking barriers all over again:
@bibliothecary I also recommend you read 雪の日に in the 武宮恵子 collection; I think you’d like it. It’s fairly short; only 12 or so pages.
Started reading the first story in 11月のギムナジウム | L24??. The panels are all pretty small so far, leading to squinting at text. 
And unfortunately everyone’s got a case of same-face syndrome; I’m hoping it eases up a bit once the main character(s) better establish themselves.
Edit: Odd, I can’t seem to get my Kindle version to show me my percent progress. 
Finally finished the title story! I’m not 100% sure if this is BL title I should be looking for/if it’s the only BL title in the collection, so I’ll be reading on.
It was…interesting. Definitely has BL elements, though I don’t know if there’s really anything more than that. We have three main characters in this one: Erik, a new transfer student who’s parents are fighting and likely to divorce soon. Thomas (トーマー) is the school idol: golden-haired and sweet. And finally Oskar, an older boy who’s protective of Thomas. Erik and Thomas look eerily alike, and Erik’s got a short fuse, leading to issues between him and the other students.
(Warning: full story spoilers)
So it turns out that Erik and Thomas are twins, separated at birth. Those BL vibes the author was putting in there were just vibes, calm down guys. Honestly the ending felt a bit rushed to me; Thomas just drops dead of pneumonia one day, that’s all she wrote. I’m curious how the story is expanded in トーマの心臓 | L24??.
Honestly the BL feels so close to modern-day baiting that it’s another case of, “I’m having trouble as a modern person putting myself in a reader’s shoes reading this when it was published”. The whole thing felt very tame and not really “serious”, to the point where I wouldn’t call it properly BL. It does make sense to be on a list of early BL though IMO.
I actually have this still sat in its shrinkwrap on my bookshelf - I picked it up from Mandarake years ago… Maybe I’ll finally get round to reading it.
Just as a follow-up to this: that was indeed the only BL story for those looking for that in particular in that volume. I still plan on slowly but surely making my way through most, if not all of the reading list. 
Setting up a short list of stuff that, as of this post, doesn’t appear to be available digitally for my own reference:
| Title | Author | Series? |
|---|---|---|
| ゲッシング・ゲーム | 山岸 凉子 | No |
| 変奏曲 | 竹宮 惠子, 増山 法恵 | Yes |
| アロイス | 萩尾 望都 | No |
| リセアン | まつざき あけみ | No |
| イブの息子たち | 青池 保子 | Yes |
| ハピィトォク | 伊東 愛子 | No |
6 out of 17 items is really good! Especially considering how old these all are.
ゲッシング・ゲーム | L29 finished! I am a very slow student, haha; this is like book three of the curriculum.
Anyway, I more-or-less enjoyed this. Full story spoilers below:
We follow protagonist ミシェル, a young French man who’s hated by his half-brother ルパート for some reason. Turns out Michel’s mother died while he was young, and he had basically no other (caring) family growing up, so he comes across as pretty maladjusted. He’s both skittish and standoffish to strangers and invested way too emotionally in those, like Rupert (okay, it’s pretty much just Rupert) he considers family.
That emotional investment is where we stray into the BL part, but this is, like the other works, definitely not the BL of today. There’s no romance of any kind of in the book; it’s mostly just alternating scenes of “why is Michel such a weirdo” and “tragic story flashback”. Michel needs a therapist more than anything.
Anyway, surprisingly we didn’t end with tragedy; I was expecting Michel to commit suicide at the end, having still not obtained his brother’s acceptance, but instead of was left as pretty open-ended, insofar as Michel still had a chance at an accepting family with Rupert, which surprised me.
I’m curious how the author’s early yuri works compare; I wonder what early yuri is like compared to early BL? I would expect similar themes, since I would expect them both to be offshoots of the same early shoujo, but I’ll have to wait until @暁のルナ can read some and let us know.
トーマの心臓 | L24?? next! (Edit: wait, why is this ¥1100 digitally?)
Mine is a paper copy (still in the shrink-wrap from when I bought it years ago…), but I’m halfway around the world from it for the next four weeks…
If you’d like to read together four weeks is like nothing for me at the slow rate I’ve been going, haha.
I’ve only read the title story of 白い部屋のふたり 山岸凉子作品集3 | L21 so far, and they sound pretty different (though that’s also a tragic story). The setting is a cloistered all-girls private school, and it’s definitely a romance. It’s much more akin to a Class S story.
The perspective character does also have a dead parent, and was taken in by relatives for the support check - but they don’t seem to be otherwise bad. The love interest also had shitty parents, and became the rulebreaker “bad girl” bc of it. So basically it’s “blonde, short, sheltered girl” x “tall, beautiful, dark & mysterious girl” (the Yamamoto Nadeshiko, except in this case, she’s a “bad girl”). The main conflict of the story has to do with accepting their own romantic feelings, and the taboo of being a lesbian within the all-girls school (but also the broader world). The perspective character is unable to accept their mutual love and solidify their relationship, due to word getting around the school - and it leads to tragedy in the end
I’m curious to read the one you linked, but looks like it’s physical only, and I can’t even find a scanlation of it to check in the meantime - so I won’t get to it anytime soon. I’d guess the art style and visual language will be somewhat similar. Also the use of European (especially French names). Any chance you could post some photos? Shiroi Heya has a scanlation here, if you want to compare. I can certainly see commonalities btwn Shiroi Heya & おにいさまへ... | L25 - so will be interested to know if that’s also the case with this book or not
If you’re ok with waiting it would be nice to read together, I think. (Incidentally I arrived at this from the “I liked some of 萩尾 望都’s other works” angle rather than the BL one. Though the other ones I’ve read have been SF so this will probably be somewhat different 
)
Wow, how interesting. Of the two other early BL I’ve read (the title story of 竹宮惠子作品集 サンルームにて | L29 and title story of 11月のギムナジウム | L28), I feel like I would only classify the first as romantic. …Maybe.)
For sure; do you want pictures of anything in particular?
Sounds good, then! I might use the pause to procure my own physical copy; I’ve found digital scans of these older works to be more difficult to read on a small screen in general.
One of the things I like about Mokuro is that it’s usually better at reading blurry text than I am (as long as it’s perfectly vertical or horizontal… once you get handwriting going at angles, good luck). I’m in the habit of just Mokuro-ing everything at this point, even if I don’t think I’ll need it for the lookups, bc it helps with recognition too.
My paper copy is one of those bunkobon sized editions; those are IME also a bit of an awkward read too…
Not particularly - just a few pages or something that would give an idea of the art style, paneling, visual language, etc
The art quality is a fair bit nicer than 白い部屋のふたり (they’re a year & 9 months apart in publication).
The male character designs in ゲッシング・ゲーム honestly make me think of something like おにいさまへ (which features male characters and some very masculine female characters), and are much more interesting than the (briefly appearing) male side characters in 白い部屋のふたり. Also it may just be the particular pages you chose, but the paneling feels a lot less crowded. 白い部屋のふたり usually has pretty busy backgrounds - sometimes physical settings, and often some form of emoting - or calling attention to something particular in the scene, or character’s thoughts (in that regard, I think it shares some in common with おにいさまへ - though that really takes it to a whole other level, and also has much freer paneling)
What works of hers are sci-fi, by the way?
The ones I have read that are scifi are:
