yaoi recs, courtesy of your friendly neighborhood eng. lit. major

for a spin-off to be superior to its near-flawless source material is an astonishing feat. there's much to love here—how onoda remains an object for deguchi's unrequited love for half the story, so we as readers have the privilege of learning WHO they are by following their dynamics as friends and their interactions with the supporting cast, as well as onoda's gradual path to reciprocation. this is a story with emotion written into its marrow, and revelation in its margins.

Eisner Award and Lambda Literacy Award Nominee | A 500-page epic navigating sexuality, adulthood, drugs, poverty, race, class, courage, and love. Amal comes out to his old-fashioned Indian family and flees the ensuing storm. By serendipity or foul luck he meets TJ, a weed-smoking, dreads-toting career hitchhiker who proposes a mutually-beneficial roadtrip to Providence.

COMPLETED

domesticity. kids. relationship negotiation. kink negotiation. a well-matched couple with equal power. a rare, rare jewel of the medium, which seems allergic to keeping the tone serious. the only other author i know who keeps the tone consistently measured is yoneda kou, and well. she's already established in the annals of yaoi canon (and rightfully so).

a comedy of errors wherein every trope about miscommunication is taken to its logical extreme. as always i am completely in awe of ogawa's ability to write actually likable dumb blonde narcissists, which is likely owing to the presence of taisei's two friends (and long-suffering classmates), who act as foil to his brand of unbridled silliness. and it's hard to hate an earnest character in earnest.

this starts off delightfully and whimsically, very much like in tone to amelie. and yet it also doesn't shirk away from grief and insecurity, and so has a potent emotional arc. perhaps a bit too easily resolved for my liking, but this work is meant to be simple, broad-strokes, so I understand the author's narrative choices. i particularly enjoyed the consistent use of the line as a device to explore fate, desire, attachment, and hope.

Check:
2. (ice hockey) an act of hampering or neutralizing (an opponent) with one's body or stick.

Eric Bittle is not your average Southern belle (though he does bake and say “bless your heart” a lot). A poignant, momentous coming-out webcomic—the lovechild of Ao3 hockey RPF denizens, lovelorn closet-sick chameleons, vlog diarists, and endless 4th-wall-breaking amusement.

COMPLETED

this is a really unlikely candidate. full-colored korean webtoons are gorgeous, but pacing usually suffers for lack of an editor.

so i was pleasantly surprised with how tight the writing is. the relationship feels organic, and the story never veers into melodrama. i'd describe the pacing as indulgent, but measured.

features the only asexual character i've read to date represented fairly in yaoi.

any romance literature that takes the time to explore more relationships than just the principal pairing is literature worth reading. the incipient feelings between ume and take develop not in a vacuum, but in a petri dish—kou leaves space and matter for the characters to grow flesh and bones. in fact, the whole story is populated by immensely likable, and personable, characters, each with their own interwoven romantic woes.

Lucian’s afraid. Nikita is fat, disabled, and unrepentant.

asexuality is actually treated with the respect it deserves. there's no magical "fixing" of "broken" people—attempts are addressed. and this comic has some of the best surreal allegorical dream sequences i've ever seen illustrated.

this is NOT:
your usual yaoi fix with hunks/bishies
a fetishized LGBTQIA+ relationship
pretty art. (in fact, it's deliberately ugly.)

COMPLETED

Kou breaks conventions with Yashiro, part Byronic hero, part Dorian Gray—a masochist at ease in his tortured skin, irreparably broken and indomitable. Doumeki is broken too, more vehicle than agent; stoic and susceptible as a shadow. In Yashiro, he glimpses beauty. He asks to be Yashiro's exacting hand, his sword of lawless justice. Together, they form something volatile, unhinged—something that threatens to tear them down and build them back up together, atom by atom.