my top 10 favourite BL manga

the cream of the crop

10. テンカウント/ Ten Count

Japanese difficulty: ♥︎♥︎♡♡♡

Perhaps the most well-known work in this list, Ten Count is about a man with a neurosis about germs so severe that he has to wear gloves everywhere he goes. He lives a life of strict limits, minimising contact with others in order to feel safe. But….. this story is not really about germs, or diseases. Its about the dichotomy of clean vs dirty; pure vs corrupted; chaste vs sinful— and Shirotani’s struggle to overcome his demons with the assistance of a wildly unethical therapist. If you like your BL served with a healthy dose of Psychological Problems, I can wholeheartedly recommend.

9. ほんと野獣/ Honto Yajuu/ Like the Beast

Japanese difficulty: ♥︎♡♡♡♡

He was an upstanding, amiable cop. He was the hot-headed son of a yakuza boss. Can I make it any more obvious? Opposites-attract stories are always so irresistible and the way this one unfolds is particularly compelling (and adorable). I think this is the easiest read on this list, and it was the first manga that I was really able to binge in Japanese. It's fluffy and sweet, and a really nice palate cleanser if you've been reading darker stuff.

8. 鬼と天国/ Oni to Tengoku

Japanese difficulty: ♥︎♥︎♥︎♡♡

Aoki is a depressed high school teacher, unlucky in love and haunted by memories of his traumatic childhood, who finds himself suddenly embroiled in a toxic game of cat and mouse with the sweet-faced but strangely sadistic school nurse, Tengoku.

This is my absolute favourite flavour of BL: an electrifying combo of trauma, violence, and dysfunctional psychosexual stuff. Crushingly sad at times, with a tiny bit of sweetness at others, and ultimately with a thread of irresistible catharsis running through it. The only reason it's not a bit higher in the list is that I think the first volume is a lot stronger than the following two.

7. 僕のおまわりさん/ Boku no Omawarisan/ My Pretty Policeman

Japanese difficulty: ♥︎♥︎♥︎♡♡

A story about a long-unrequited love finally coming to fruition! Policeman Shin has been harbouring a crush on his friend Seiji for over a decade, until one heady summer night when he finally confesses his feelings. This is such a delightful little series, super wholesome and an absolute minimum of angst, just feel-good vibes and beautiful art. I love the way Niyama-sensei writes about slightly older romances: Shin and Seiji are 30 and 39 respectively at the start of おまわりさん. There’s something so cosy about the passing of the seasons in this story: going to the summer festival in yukata, an onsen getaway in autumn…. New Year’s Eve fireworks, all the good stuff. It’s a delight seeing stoic Shin make a life with the impish Seiji.

The final volume includes an arc where Shin uses his policework skills to try and find out the name of their cat’s new boyfriend. If that isn’t the cutest thing ever…

6. カーストヘヴン/ Caste Heaven

Japanese difficulty: ♥︎♥︎♥︎♡♡

This manga is set in a high school where a dark game is played: a deck of cards are shuffled and hidden around the school, and whichever card you find determines your social rank for the following months. Kings and Queens at the top. The Joker: the lowest of the low, an acceptable target for any and all unpleasantness. Everyone else slotted inbetween. Its a story transparently about power struggle and betrayal, and the ways in which a race to the top brings out the most despicable traits in humanity. It gives me death game vibes, although it’s not technically a death game: but the strict nonsensical rules, emotional intensity, and constant backstabbing reminds me of a Danganronpa or a Squid Game type situation.

As the manga continues, it portrays the same school term from multiple perspectives, and you get to see how different ranks in the caste are managing their roles. It raises questions about the masks we wear: about what point the mask becomes the wearer, and vice versa.

5. ヤリチン☆ビッチ部/ Yarichin Bitch Club

Japanese difficulty: ♥︎♥︎♡♡♡

On his first day at Morimori Academy— a school for the sons of elites, nestled in the mountains— exchange-student Toono nervously enters the photography club. However, the scene that greets him makes it apparent he's made a dreadful mistake. This manga follows Toono as he tries to muddle through his new school life as a reluctant member of the school's infamous Yarichin Bitch Club.

This is probably the entry on this list I feel the need to give the most disclaimers for: no bones about it, this series is really, really stupid. But if you are able to leave your brain at the clubroom door, you will be rewarded with a super fun story and an unexpectedly lovable cast: before you know it, you've made real connections with the characters and you love them dearly, despite the fact that the story is unrepentantly vulgar. It's a kind of あほエロ (horny.. idiot...?) comedy, definitely not to everyone’s taste, but in my opinion absolutely worthy of a spot on this list.

The drama CD is also absolutely stellar, the whole ensemble cast put 100% into it, and it's a delight to listen to. Just… maybe wear headphones.

4. 心中するまで、待っててね

Japanese difficulty: ♥︎♥︎♡♡♡

This was a total surprise to me, as I went into it knowing nothing beforehand. It's a very disturbing and crushingly sad little two-parter.

Cheerful Fukuta is surprised to come home from work one day to find his beloved friend Aoi-niichan — who he hasn’t seen since they were children— waiting for him outside his flat.

However… Aoi ought to be six years older than Fukuta, making him 28, but the Aoi that’s waiting for Fukuta is a child. And what’s more… he’s not like Fukuta remembers at all. He used to be kind and gentle; now he’s tyrannical and controlling. Who is this Aoi? And why are Fukuta’s memories of their days together so hazy?

If you like Harada you might vibe with this. It left my stomach churned in knots, and I cried so hard through the second volume that I couldn't see through my glasses properly.

3. カラーレシピ/ Colour Recipe

Japanese difficulty: ♥︎♥︎♥︎♥︎♡

Pretty much any Harada-sensei manga could go in this spot— I think she's a genius— but Colour Recipe is the one that I love so much I have a page from it framed on my wall, so if I had to pick one, it would be this one. I nearly went for Yatamomo instead, which will crush your heart into tiny shards too, but also has a bit of a lighter comedy vibe in some parts too. Colour Recipe doesn’t.

Colour Recipe is about two hairdressers with opposite personalities: Shoukichi is introverted and awkward, whereas Fukusuke is charming and seductive. The two constantly clash, until a sequence of events where Shoukichi ends up attracting a stalker, which breaks down a barrier between him and Fukusuke. It's a yandere story. It's not feel-good.

２．憧れた人は42歳の娼夫でした

Japanese difficulty: ♥︎♥︎♥︎♥︎♡

A doctor, your boss, even your father… Dandy will be whoever you want him to be. He’s a pro at his job and nothing can shake him— that is, until a figure from his past turns up one day.

This is the only one-shot manga in this list, and also the only one without a drama CD, so you know I'm serious about how good it is. This got under my skin in the best possible way. It's got everything: yakuza, unrequited love, desperately painful moments, and cathartic reconciliation. And daddy issues!! So many daddy issues.

Dark, sordid, and very sexy, the story is so cleverly put together and every new revelation is like a punch to the gut. A masterwork of a single volume.

1. 囀る鳥は羽ばたかない/ Twittering Birds Never Fly

Japanese difficulty: ♥︎♥︎♥︎♥︎♥︎

Now I've got to my absolute favourite, I almost feel like my words have dried up. Let me try my best to do it justice.

This is a gritty series about a charismatic young yakuza boss and his unlikely relationship with his mysterious, stoic bodyguard. Yashiro is a man moulded by the abuse he faced in childhood, now a hardened and misanthropic gangster who deftly juggles his yakuza business commitments with his one solace: masochistic casual sex, the riskier and more degrading the better. When disgraced ex-cop Doumeki comes into his life, Yashiro finds him an interesting novelty: Doumeki is impotent, and therefore can't help him scratch the itch he usually requires of his subordinates, but maybe for that very reason, he feels able to get emotionally close to him.

It's a story about adults with baggage, a complicated and ambitious tale that can't be reduced to simplistic tropes. Expect angst, unhealthy relationships, violence, and traumatic backstories: I really recommend you check it out!

This is also my favourite drama CD of all time, by a long way, as well. Shingaki Tarusuke’s performance as Yashiro is by turns heart-breaking, cynical, and touching.

Thank you for reading this far! I’d love to know if your favourite is on this list, or if it gave you any new ideas for what you might read next.

A note about the difficulty ratings:

Japanese language difficulty is totally subjective, but I've rated it depending on a few factors: specialist language or jargon; puns and wordplay; unusual kanji; length of sentences; and nonstandard grammar or speech patterns which are hard to look up. 囀る鳥 has all of these, but it didn't stop me trying to tackle it when I was a Japanese beginner anyway. It just took me a lot of passes to decipher everything. Niyama-sensei likes to use puns and hard kanji in 僕のおまわりさん, but no one in her books is slurring words together like the yakuza bosses in 囀る, so I think it's relatively easier to tackle. I lent on the drama CDs hard to help with comprehension in the beginning— reading while listening really makes a difference!