The big news in the yaoi corner today is last night’s announcement from DMP that Hinako Takanaga will be appearing as their special guest at this year’s Yaoi-Con.
I’ll admit I’m ambivalent on Takanaga. Though I enjoyed You Will Fall in Love (sequel You Will Drown in Love somewhat less so), my greatest criticism of it was the same as the first work of hers I read, Little Butterfly. I know everyone loves Little Butterfly, but my impression of it when I first read it (when I had not yet read a lot of yaoi) was that the main relationship was too rushed to be truly believable. Though Kate Dacey’s recent review has inspired me to put Little Butterfly back on my list for another try, I can’t help but wish that I could experience Takanaga over the course of a much longer series.
As you know, I have a few chronic complaints about yaoi in general, but the one that frustrates me most often is the fact that the genre (and I don’t know who to attribute this to… publishers? fans? both?) doesn’t take romance seriously enough. It is hard to write good romance, with the right balance of careful pacing and giddy excitement, and there are not all that many instances in which this can be accomplished in under five volumes.
People have done it. Fumi Yoshinaga manages better than most (Ichigenme… The First Class is Civil Law is one of my favorite short yaoi series) and Korean manhwa-ga Rakun (aka Yeri Na) even managed it in a single volume with U Don’t Know Me. But these successes are rare, at least in my experience reviewing yaoi manga over the past couple of years.
The point I’m slowly coming around to here, is that I’ll soon get my wish! Hinako Takanaga’s The Tyrant Falls in Love stands at five volumes (and counting?) and though there are things I’ve read about it that suggest it may not be quite my kind of story in other ways, I’m pretty interested in seeing what Takanaga does with something longer than three volumes. (Question to fans: do I need to read Challengers first?)
Check out my post at Examiner.com for the official word on Takanaga’s appearance at Yaoi-Con. Here’s the info from DMP on The Tyrant Falls in Love:
THE TYRANT FALLS IN LOVE, VOL. 1, Rated M+ (for ages 18+), MSRP: $12.95, Available: August 18, 2010, B6 Size, June’ Imprint
University study Tetsuhiro Morinaga has been in love with his homophobic, violent and tyrannical sempai Souichi Tatsumi for more than four years now. Even though he’s told Tatsumi how he feels and even managed to steal a kiss, expecting anything more seems like nothing more than the stuff of dreams… That is until the long-oppressed Morinaga gets his biggest chance ever. Might his unendingly unrequited love finally be returned?
Etrangere says
May 20, 2010 at 10:52 amwell, the biggest problem with Tyrants falls in love is that it’s one of those “fall in love with your rapist” story, depends how much tolerance you have for that. Otherwise, it’s actually pretty good. I don’t think Challengers is required reading.
Melinda Beasi says
May 20, 2010 at 10:56 amYeah, that’s kinda what I’d gathered from the little I’ve read about it. My tolerance for that is generally quite low, but I figure I’ll give it a shot to see if the writing can rise above the content for me. Thanks for the answer on the Challengers question as well!
Robin says
May 20, 2010 at 12:28 pmI agree with you about the lack of solid romance in most yaoi, and about the shortness of most series being a barrier to building tension. I’m curious, though — are there really any long yaoi series? The only few I can think of are Fake (which holds a dear place in my heart, but is totally silly), Gravitation (which I admit, I kind of loathe), and you could count both Embracing Love and Kizuna, except we didn’t get all of those released here. Shout Out Loud! is one I think of as both longer and as more appealing, personally.
I wonder what the trends are — are most yaoi readers just in it for the immediate gratification? Do they not like long romances? Imagine an Emma-esque (in style and length) period romance — now that I could totally get behind.
Melinda Beasi says
May 20, 2010 at 1:33 pmI have wondered that as well. I feel like I don’t have enough knowledge of what’s available in Japan to really get a grasp on it. Are there many more long yaoi series that we’re just not seeing in translation? I don’t know. I do like series like Wild Adapter which isn’t marketed here as BL. And one of the things I’ve always said about Banana Fish was that I wish there was yaoi out there like that.
This is one of the things that’s drawn me to Korean BL. Granted, my entire experience with it has been shaped pretty much by NETCOMICS, but they have published some longer series that I’ve enjoyed a lot.
Cait says
May 20, 2010 at 9:03 pmChallengers is not required reading for understanding Tyrant, but to be honest, Challengers is a fantastic series (four volumes) and I recommend it all on its own if you’re looking for something from Takanaga that actually has decent pacing and storytelling. I don’t know if Tyrant is really for someone who isn’t completely invested in the BL genre, its tropes and cliches.
As for the genre as a whole, yes, it is much like trashy romance novels in that it is often designed for that instant gratification, unrealistic portrayal of romance. It is the rare gem that has the opportunity to shine beyond the premise, confession and happily-ever-after. But there are many longer-running BL series out there, some even in English (to so many of the best ones remain unlicensed in these tough economic times): Kizuna (which will be rereleased by DMP soon), Junjo Romantica, Gravitation, Love Mode, Ze, Let Dai. Those are just the ones that come immediately to mind.
I think the problem with longer series, though, is the tendency to do one of two things: either fall into the trap of episodic set-ups of the same sort of formulaic garbage that long-running shojo series (ala Boys Over Flowers) suffer from (Junjo Romantica is headed in this direction), or they get themselves so invested in multiple pairings and insanely large casts that they fall into the shonen action trap (ala Bleach) of trying to keep up with them all instead (like Love Mode and Ze suffer from at times).
The magic number of volumes has got to be somewhere between 4 and 9 for most series, in my opinion, and many series get to 4 or 5 when they stop (Yellow, breath, Shout Out Loud), which is generally a good place for a well-paced and thoroughly executed plot to run its course.
Personally, though, I would have liked more to see Kazuma Kodaka be DMP’s guest of honor this year, but I think their thinking is Tyrant was a “bigger” license rescue (Yamane having already been invited) since more than half of Kizuna had already been released previously, so sales for it might end up being down.
As a long-time fan of the BL genre, on a more personal note, I have exhausted my patience for one-off titles, and particularly anthologies. I could go the rest of my life without reading another anthology. Though, I will say this: Toko Kawai’s Bond(z) is one of the best and only anthologies I have read where I thought someone actually succeeded in creating believable one-chapter romance stories in the BL genre.
Melinda Beasi says
May 20, 2010 at 9:12 pmAs a long-time fan of the BL genre, on a more personal note, I have exhausted my patience for one-off titles, and particularly anthologies. I could go the rest of my life without reading another anthology.
YES. Exactly THAT. The fact that those freakin’ anthologies seem to dominate the market (at least here) makes me INSANE. Occasionally a one-shot can feel substantial but those anthologies offer me nothing. Nothing at all.
Cait says
May 20, 2010 at 9:24 pmThe be fair to the English licensees, anthologies were far more dominant in the earlier licensing days than they are now. They selected the shorter series for license back then to test the waters with safer titles that they didn’t have to get too financially invested in. They’re finding now, as DMP has mentioned specifically, that a lot of fans share your and my sentiment. These anthology series offer nothing in the way of satisfying entertainment, particularly for mangaka that are not already well-established. I could say that about Toko Kawai, as well. There were already two successful titles of hers licensed here (the two volume series Loveholic and Our Everlasting, which, in opinion accomplish in two volumes what many fail to do in twice that many), and I would say the relative success of Bond(z), at least for me, was that I already had a feel for her style. Basically, anthologies work when they are for mangaka that people already like. They don’t work as a test for the market of unknown artists, and I believe the English BL industry understands that now.
As for one-shots, the market is still hit-and-miss. I feel like the industry has replaced the safe-bet anthologies for the safe-bet one-off titles. I wish a happy medium could be found to introduce new artists without investing too much in a longer license. Save your money on one-shot titles for artists you already know you like.
Melinda Beasi says
May 20, 2010 at 9:30 pmMaybe it is just the luck of the draw, but of the yaoi manga I’ve personally been sent to review, I have to say the majority of it has been anthologies, and that’s all in the past couple of years. And I have yet to genuinely enjoy a single one.
Cait says
May 20, 2010 at 9:57 pmYes, but change comes slowly. There is up to a two year lag between when a title is licensed and when it gets released, so for DMP to decide “we’re not going to license as many anthologies anymore,” doesn’t translate into an immediate halt on anthology releases. Firstly, they are still going to push them if they think they can sell them, and secondly, they’re not going to abandon a license they’ve already paid for to implement a new policy.
Why you’ve personally been sent anthologies is a mystery to me, really. There are plenty of multi-volume series coming out regularly. Perhaps they reserve their review copies of longer series for the reviewers they know are specifically yaoi fans/bloggers, or that they know are already invested in those series? It would be a little awkward to be asked to jump into a series that is already established. Also, I think the publishers want to push the anthologies as much as possible, even in the hope that if they get reviewed poorly, the attention will still garner enough sales to justify the license to begin with, but with multi-volume series, most people read the first volume and then have already decided whether they will continue to read future volumes. I don’t know how much sense that makes…
Melinda Beasi says
May 20, 2010 at 10:02 pmOh, no, it’s not pubs who have sent me mainly anthologies. I mean, they’ve sent me *some*. But most of the anthologies I’ve reviewed have been for websites where I am assigned titles to review (that’s what I mean by luck of the draw). What I’m trying to say is that, from my perspective, it’s been a lot of freakin’ anthologies.
DMP lets me choose what I want to review for my own website. Ditto with NETCOMICS, and any other publisher you see represented here (though I think those are the primary publishers of BL whose books I regularly review here).
Cait says
May 20, 2010 at 11:30 pmThen I guess those sites you review for are dumping the anthologies on you. Poor you. Maybe you can ask them to stop sending the anthologies because, really, no one wants to review the anthologies. I can see it being like writing a form letter. Fill in the blanks with the appropriate character/chapter names and they’re pretty much all going to be the same (with the exception of the very rare decent offering).
Melinda Beasi says
May 20, 2010 at 9:38 pmOh! And then there was the time I chose to review Physical Attraction because it was listed as a one-shot, and it turned out to be an anthology. I love DMP, they are lovely, lovely people, but that is a truly unfortunate mislead.
Cait says
May 21, 2010 at 12:09 amOh, I skipped that one entirely. In fact, I skipped all of that mangaka’s licensed titles through DMP. I even passed them over on eManga because they just don’t look appealing to me at all. If they want me to appreciate this mangaka, they’re going to need to license something that is more than one volume long.
I’ve noticed that about the DMP titles section of their site, though. On eManga they clearly list which offerings are anthologies, but on the main site they tend to only list them as one-shots.
Melinda Beasi says
May 21, 2010 at 7:24 amEven on eManga they have it incorrectly listed as a one-shot. It’s definitely an error that has permeated all their listings of the book.
Kris says
May 21, 2010 at 12:29 amSomeone mentioned it’s a rape story, but that’s nearly every yaoi title out there. Almost every yaoi relationship begins with rape. I don’t really get it….
I’ve seen mangaka write about trying to get to the sex scenes faster. Or that readers are disappointed when there isn’t a sex scene in every chapter. Or the creators themselves actively attempting to put one in every chapter, and then getting disappointed when they weren’t able to for whatever reason. So that seems like a good vote toward instant gratification. And a lot of these stories are written creating situations that get the characters in bed, and there’s little else going on.
It takes a bit of weeding to get to the books with real substance, and even then they sometimes go a little wacky. So many of them are formulaic as well, so again, you really have to search for the unique titles. That so many of them are one-shots is part of the problem, because it’s so hard to develop a proper relationship between characters in a couple of chapters. (You get the same effect reading the Harlequin manga adaptations, which have a rushed feel to them, because they’re cramming a whole novel into a little comic.) But there have been some nice one-shots. Color is very sweet. So was How to Seduce a Vampire (though that one definitely leaves you feeling like it’s missing quite a bit).
The ones I really don’t like, are the HS titles, where it’s an all boys HS, and all the guys are all gay for each other (and sometimes the teachers too). It’s very hard for me to buy that situation in any capacity, and it kind of annoys me.
Melinda Beasi says
May 21, 2010 at 7:26 amSomeone mentioned it’s a rape story, but that’s nearly every yaoi title out there. Almost every yaoi relationship begins with rape. I don’t really get it….
Now, that’s a pretty broad generalization. If that was actually true I wouldn’t even bother reading the genre.
The ones I really don’t like, are the HS titles, where it’s an all boys HS, and all the guys are all gay for each other (and sometimes the teachers too).
I tend not to like these either, though I’ve read quite a few lovely titles set in HS that aren’t like this.
JRB says
June 3, 2010 at 4:11 pmRe Tyrant: Challengers is not necessary but is highly, highly recommended. It’s excellent, utterly hilarious, and very different from Tyrant. Tyrant is… kind of strange. It switches rapidly between slapstick physical comedy and angsty relationship melodrama, with occasional detours into shmoopy sentimentality and/or smutty smutty smut. I personally love it to death, but then I’m kind of strange myself. :)
Re the bias to one-shots and anthologies in yaoi: I think it’s partially related to yaoi magazine publication frequency, but it’s also related to the American market.
In the magazine serialization stage, weekly or bi-weekly magazines are considered best for telling continuing stories, with monthly magazines being somewhat less suitable. There’s a fear that if chapters come out less than once a month the readers won’t remember what happened earlier in the story, so bi-monthly or quarterly magazines tend to prefer one-shot stories or stories with episodic chapters that can stand alone.
There are next to no weekly or bi-weekly yaoi magazines, and there’s a comparatively high percentage of bi-monthly, quarterly or bi-annual magazines, so there’s many more opportunities to publish a yaoi short story than a series. Some of the less frequently published yaoi magazines do run series, but overall there’s a higher percentage of shorts and episodic stories than in, say, shoujo.
Now I think we see even less series as a percentage of the yaoi market in the US, and I think this is related to the fact that (according to DMP), except for the fan-favorite authors, series sales drop off sharply after the first volume and they usually end up losing money. So there’s a disincentive to license series, especially longer ones.
Melinda Beasi says
June 3, 2010 at 4:13 pmHey, thanks for all of this info! I always feel really in the dark about the yaoi market in Japan as it relates to the market here. Also, Challengers recommendation noted! :)