The History of BL Manga: 1970s Origins 🎓 BL University

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:

Last page unmarked spoiler

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@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.

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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. :face_with_monocle:

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. :thinking:

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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.

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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.

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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. :muscle:

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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.

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