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Jason Thompson's House of 1000 Manga - Hinako Takanaga

Takanaga Hinako is one of my favorite BL mangakas alongside Fumi Yoshinaga, but I've read a lot more of the former's output.
I really love all her WAFFy works (with the blasphemously naughty Akuma no Himitsu being a fave) but strangely enough, the Takanaga manga that I consider her best work is the 2 chapters short story "My First Love" at the end of Croquis. It's an atypical BL story and pretty unsatisfying plotwise spoiler[(Mutual unconfessions due to misunderstanding that remains unresolved till the end, only one panel of imagined intimate scene and *GASP* one guy ends up loving and marrying a girl)] but the bitter bitter sweet tone really left an impression.

This is quite relevant to my interests. Thanks to Jason for his insight and opinions on this subject. It's nice to know that there are heterosexual men out there willing to openly express their appreciation of boys-love as a genre like any other-- I sometimes dislike the term itself since I feel it tends to place restrictions on any manga involving a plot with homosexual romance between men where that connotation may not be entirely appropriate in describing the material, but that's another matter.

I also found Fumi Yoshinaga's self-characterized outburst regarding her work very interesting, indeed. I enjoy BL as pornography, specifically pornography with (generally) a context and background that give me a reason to be invested in the characters and their relationships and subsequently allows the sexual payoff to be that much stronger, but I am so wary of the exploitation that goes on with "gay themes" in the media that I almost always catch myself thinking something along the lines of what she said. I'm always remembering how unrealistic it is and noting how blatantly obvious it is that it isn't being written by a gay man about gay men, but rather by a straight woman about a heterosexual fantasy regarding the lives of gay men. In that sense, no matter how believable and personable (and mouthwatering-ly attractive) the characters may be, objectively, I subconsciously cringe whenever the seme/uke scenario begins to play out and think, "I really hope no one takes this seriously. It isn't meant to be taken seriously. Is it?" Unfortunately, I've met more than a few "yaoi fangirls" who seem to think it is; every time, my communications about my relationships and my gender and my sexuality seem to become entirely susceptible to their straight-for-gays fantasy land. So while I personally love BL, I have this massive socially conscientious beef with BL. Oi vey.

Anyhow, fantastic article, once again. :]

I also found Fumi Yoshinaga's self-characterized outburst regarding her work very interesting, indeed. I enjoy BL as pornography, specifically pornography with (generally) a context and background that give me a reason to be invested in the characters and their relationships and subsequently allows the sexual payoff to be that much stronger, but I am so wary of the exploitation that goes on with "gay themes" in the media that I almost always catch myself thinking something along the lines of what she said. I'm always remembering how unrealistic it is and noting how blatantly obvious it is that it isn't being written by a gay man about gay men, but rather by a straight woman about a heterosexual fantasy regarding the lives of gay men. In that sense, no matter how believable and personable (and mouthwatering-ly attractive) the characters may be, objectively, I subconsciously cringe whenever the seme/uke scenario begins to play out and think, "I really hope no one takes this seriously. It isn't meant to be taken seriously. Is it?" Unfortunately, I've met more than a few "yaoi fangirls" who seem to think it is; every time, my communications about my relationships and my gender and my sexuality seem to become entirely susceptible to their straight-for-gays fantasy land. So while I personally love BL, I have this massive socially conscientious beef with BL. Oi vey.

Yes, maybe we should ban fiction all together just because some stupid people might mistake if for reality.