Manga Review, Blade, Oct. 2009: Adventures in Boys Love

MANGA REVIEW:  Blade, Oct. 2009, Gakuen Heaven and an Interview with Lillian Diaz-Przybyl of TokyoPop

I interviewed Lillian Diaz-Przybyl of TokyoPop about her yaoi-themed BLU line and reviewed the yaoi manga Gauken Heaven for The Orange County & Long Beach Blade in Oct. 2009. I titled the story Adventures in Boys Love but it was published as Adventures in Boys Land and below is the story as it ran. -- Lyn Jensen

When Lillian Diaz-Przybyl began working for TokyoPop almost six years ago, the America-based publishing company of translated-Japanese comics was considering starting up a separate line for a then-new genre known as yaoi (pronounced ya-oh-ee) or Boys Love (BL for short). "TokyoPop is primarily a publisher of licensed Manga, which is comics in the Japanese style," Diaz-Przybyl said. "We're the largest American-owned Manga publisher in the U. S."
The company had published a couple of series [Fake and Gravitation] that fit the BL genre, and "they were tremendously successful here, both of those series just exceeded everyone's expectation."
The economy during the past five years has hit TokyoPop hard, but BLU, the genre line that Diaz-Przybyl edits, remains consistent. She talked to the Blade about how BLU's fan base apparently knows exactly what it wants and is happy to keep buying yaoi or BL manga.
She defines the genre as, "stories about romance between two male characters but they're usually [created] by women for a primarily female audience, so they're a little different from what you usually think of as gay comics.
"They're definitely mid-list but while the rest of [TokyoPop's] mid-list has really disappeared the last couple of years, BLU has been very consistent," Diaz-Przybyl continued.
BLU (short for Boys Love Unlimited) debuted in November 2005 with two series, Earthian by Yun Kouga and Love Mode by Yuki Shimizu, along with the single-volume Manga, Shinobu Kokoro:  Hidden Heart by Temari Matsumoto.
The line was created because Manga and graphic-novel sections in bookstores usually offer everything from children's comics to mature fare and, "we wanted it to stand out a little bit from the TokyoPop line," Diaz-Przybyl said. "We wanted to make something a little different so that people who were looking for this kind of content knew exactly where to get it, and people who were not interested in this kind of content wouldn't pick it up by accident."
BLU  boasts nearly 70 manga volumes, with more on the way. The biggest hit may be Junjo Romantica:  Pure Romance by Shungiku Nakamura. The 10th volume of the series made the New York Times best-seller list in July 2009.
"That was the first time a Boys Love title had got anywhere near that list," Diaz-Przybyl said, adding that she's looking forward to the release of volume 11 in December this year.
Junjo  "in some ways calling it an anthology series makes sense," she said. "There's a main couple you start out following through. One is a socially maladapted writer and his roommate, who becomes his boyfriend. Then it starts to branch off more with the side characters. It's not a single continuous plot; it's all these overlapping characters and overlapping relationships. You have a balance of sexy fun and good, romantic drama."
Another popular BLU series is Gakuen Heaven by You Higuri. It's based on a video game that's also called a "visual novel" because the player's decisions directly affect how the plot develops.
"Depending on the choices you make, you get a different ending, so each of these volumes basically follows these characters through different endings," Diaz-Przybyl said.
BLU has published two volumes [Note:  of Gakuen Heaven - Lyn Jensen], with two more expected soon. Visit blumanaga.com more information.
[Link is down as of 9/30/19, but BLU manga may still be purchased on retail sites. -- Lyn Jensen]