#ZENIKO SUMIYA COME BACK

[obstinaterixatrix]

[listless] if only I could convince a good bl writer to write bl and just change it last second to women

[yaoinonconformist]

koideki eng TL released and wow. i really liked it. i think coming off of ikideki it might not be for everyone with how much more messy it is, which is fine, but i thought it ironed itself out pretty well and personally really adore miyoshi and aogiri as characters. they’re really interesting and funny and entertaining. it’s still a zeniko sumiya narrative, so there’s still parts that feel so real and grounded about them and i’m so excited to see more of them in the future. (even if i have to wait since ikideki vol5 is releasing…but they do make appearances in there so !!!)

(under a read more because i just want to ramble)

i felt so bad for miyoshi though now that we’re shown more of his backstory… music seems to have been something that has both positively and negatively deeply affected his life in both negative and positive directions. it’s so formative to His Being but because of the contrast in his experiences with it, of course it’d be hard to accept liking it.…. and his latching onto shizuki because that’s someone who made him remember why he likes music :( no wonder he was so adamant on jun’s talent being that he loves music.

i really love aogiri though. in general. he’s just really funny and sorta shameless in a way that really itches my brain (not surprising coming from user yaoinonconformist). and also i liked how they talk his crossdressing deal. i feel like that trope in BL can be a bit precarious but it’s really just a he likes it, looks good in it, his dick is too big to just stick to just wearing pants LOL. i mean, i’m sure they’ll develop him more down the line because i feel like there’s a lottt under the surface. especially when he’s been relatively easygoing and we haven’t seen him express any really strong emotions. other than lusting after miyoshi. lol. for someone who wants to see miyoshi’s full spectrum of emotions i feel like he might hit them first. or at least definitely at some point. the extra where he was cleaning up miyoshi was really interesting to me. he definitely doesn’t entirely run on his own whims and has his own mix of complicated emotions to sort through. seeing him take a moment to ground himself before finishing up with miyoshi seems to maybe contrast with miyoshi’s reflex of arrogance/denial/fighting back

they definitely have a more complicated weird relationship that can’t just be unstrung the way yanoshizu’s was but i’m sooo here for it. holy fuck. i totally get if people think aogiri’s month of stalking is a bit much for them but i feel like they made it work. reading a proper english translation made me see some of the situations that felt like they might be a bit more dubious were sillier with properly conveyed dialogue. and i admit i laughed when aogiri agreed like, yeah that cop was horrible! can’t believe he said that to you just because you’re tall lmaooo 😭

[absolutebl]

Please allow me a little manga shoutout~

I just found out that the English edition of Iki Dekinai no wa Kimi no Sei (which I am reading in Japanese) by Zeniko Sumiya has been out for a while already as Breathless Momentum!

(I also haven't heard of any translations scandals, so here is hoping this isn't going to come biting me like OtoTsuku did.)

I feel like the author and their works deserve some mention:

They appear to really be set on to dwarf those old trodden uke/seme expectations, as well as its conflation with the top/bottom stereotypes. It happens in all of their BL works, and they once said on twitter that they don't like people/characters be seen as uke/seme, but also mentioned the woes and dilemma over tags out of a sales perspective to make readers pick the works up. So sounds like a very aware, intentional choice.

They don't do your usual explicit bed scenes. The tweet of theirs makes it sound a lot like they are also going out of their way to avoid them as part of the uke/seme trope avoidance. Which is, I think, a really bold stance, given that some subjectively perceived 90% of the BL manga genre lives from being literal porn.

That being said, they don't go the forced sanitized sex negative, innocent-pure fluff instead either. Physical attraction and intimacy is very much a thing for their characters to deal with, and it gets very much shown. Some of their adult characters are depicted as quite horny for and palpably in it for wanting to bone each other on the regular. All the while, it never goes porny. Which seems to be a pretty darn noteworthy skill, given how rare works like that exist out in the wild.

Sometimes some visual allegories for the spice get employed, and I thought them to be quite hilarious.

They also like to have their characters get to have healthy conversions about themselves quite quickly, or have side characters pushing them to have them. Admittedly, especially in Breathless, it sometimes comes at the costs that the climax comes off as a bit anticlimactic. As in, "That was all it took? So simple?" And then to stop for a moment and go "Sure, so simple if folks actually TALKED." (Which another subjectively perceived 90% of all romance never seem to manage.)

Some titles went to be about couples in already in a relationship, so it goes and explores some domestic settings. (Also very rare in romance in general.)

What I personally also think is interesting is how some of their works has protagonists being "sexual deviants" (the characters' own words). Like in Breathless both main characters get the hots from playing music, and it gets more intense the better the performance gets. Usually any sort of such deviancy tends to be framed as something creepy, shameful or something to cringe over or is abused as a throwaway joke. This series instead rolls with it with a sense of practicality that is used in a comedic way, but doesn't feel like it's judging, and later chapters in the Japanese release even pick it back up as something they have, always will have and need to live with.

(The author also has a fantasy GL work called 5 Seconds Before a Witch Falls in Love that's also been released in English. It dodges your typical Yuri tropes, but is imo a bit too short story-styled (it also has two completely separate narratives collected in there) to really go anywhere in terms of fleshed out character development.)

I also haven't heard of any translations scandals, so here is hoping this isn't going to come back biting me like OtoTsuku did. 💦

Ooo thanks for the rec, I'll check it out. I just finished I Cannot Reach You and I have to say I found it a bit boring. So I'm intersted in something new. I'll put Breathless Momentum on my watch list (right now there's no print edition and I don't read graphics in digital, so Imma haffa wait.)