Have Yourself a Bishonen or Two!

'Tis the season of curling up with a nice, warm blanket, a mug of hot chocolate, and a couple of BL titles to lose yourself in. Here are some more BL for Beginners titles!

Alcohol, Shirt, and Kiss - This is one of my all time favorite BL titles. Naruse's girlfriend just dumped him. To drown his sorrows his fellow police officer, Kita, takes him drinking. After waking up in Kita's apartment three days in a row in various states of undress Naruse is thoroughly. The third night Naruse is completely naked, in Kita's bed, and no memory of the night before. Did they sleep together? This is a fun story. It's a cop story like Fake, but much more fuzzy. Yuko Kuwabara-sensei's art is very clean and beautiful. You get very passionate kissing and when they do finally consummate their relationship the art and situation is handled delicately. It's not shocking in any way. Like I said at the beginning this in one of my favorite titles. I love it so much I have the English version and two copies in Japanese (one is the original BIBLOS release and the other is the LIBRE release with a different cover image.) I know pretty pathetic.

Kyo Kara MAOH! - On a normal day Yuri confronts some bullies that are picking on a fellow classmate. The classmate escapes but Yuri doesn't. The bullies decide to give him a swirly (you know where they force your head in a toilet bowl and flush) but somehow he gets sucked into an alternate world where he is the King of the Mazoku, a demon race. He's in an unfamiliar land surrounded by beauty everywhere. This is a fairly new series being published through TokyoPop. It's written by Tomo Takabayashi and illustrated by Temari Matsumoto. Matsumoto-sensei is a notable BL artist whose work is beautiful. There are slight BL vibes in this manga but nothing overpowering. No kissing, touching, just vibes. There is only one volume out now, the second volume comes out at the end of the year, and there will be more coming out in the future. In Japan there are currently 6 volumes out and it is ongoing.

I hope that you will enjoy these two titles. I have a few more that I want to highlight and I need to dig through my piles and piles and piles of manga that I have to find more great titles for beginners!