Oof, Golden Week is always such a slow news week! But there’s still some occasional tidbits of US news: a friend of mine pointed me to this post on 801 Media’s forums, in which mascot 801-chan teases the forumgoers with a new, not-yet-contracted license.

All I will say is that you all asked for it. So you had better buy it. Like seriously, a bunch of people didn’t want to do the book for various reasons and I went out on a limb on this one. (Like, we mentioned it in confidence to a few people and they tried to talk us out of it!!!)

Some of the usual guesses appear: Okane ga Nai (which is a little shota-tastic, but hey, Kitty Media already put out the OVA…though 801 has said previously that they don’t have it), Under Grand Hotel (no one would have to be convinced to do that title– EVERY yaoi publisher wants it).

….And then they start fantasizing that 801 might try to bring over one of the hardcore doujinshi of a popular series (such as Antique Bakery and Gravitation, both of whose creators have created smutty doujins for). As for me, I have no clue. But among all the other things they enjoy, I happen to know that yaoi fans like guessing games and speculation. So, hop to it.

Just another quick LOOK-IT’SA-ME!: this month’s issue of The Escapist is themed “It Came From Japan,” so of course I submitted an article. And what topic could be better than yaoi? Hence, “It’s a Yaoi Thing: Boys who Love Boys and the Girls who Love Them.” Anyone who’s actually interested in the article probably knows most of what’s in it, but thought I’d also let you know.

But it’s not just me! Japanator’s Zac Bentz also wrote an article called “Big in Japan,” about various Japanese artists who may be poised to hit American sales charts. Also: Erin Hoffman’s “Hail to the Kitty” (about Hello Kitty, natch); Emily Dettmar’s “Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic” (about what shoujo series say about Japan’s ideal girl), and Khristopher L. Kirkland’s “Konnichi wa, Nihon!,” about his introduction to otaku-dom via a Japanese class.

It’s good stuff. Check it out! (And if you wanna vote for The Escapist in The Webby Awards, hey, go for it.)

BL fans in the US have been extremely patient with Drama Queen, a young yaoi publisher with a number of anticipated licenses that have still not been put out over a year after their announcement (such as Tyrant Falls in Love and Naked Jewels Corporation), and the next issue of their own OEL BL anthology Rush).

Publisher Tran Nguyen, who I will personally vouch for as being one of the cutest people in this business, chatted with Publishers Weekly about the status of the company, who haven’t put out a book in some time (since September 2007, actually). The company has a new financial partner and has a new round of books (including all of those mentioned above) going to the printers. The good news is that during the downtime of not publishing things, the staff have worked on a number of books, so they have a healthy backlog of things to put out now.

I dunno about you, but I’m looking forward to finally seeing Tyrant.

Got a new press release from Juné announcing five new yaoi novel licenses:

• Passion - Forbidden Lovers by Shinobu Gotoh and Shoko Takaku who, yes, also did the manga.
• The Guilty by Katsura Izumi and Hinako Takanaga– Takanaga illustrations? Yes please! It’s also allegedly “reminiscent of Love Recipe,” which is funny since a title like The Guilty doesn’t match up with a wacky comedy like Love Recipe at all in my head.
• All You Need is Love by Jinko Fuyuno and Noboru Takatsuki. No licensed titles from either of these, but apparently Takatsuki has done a bunch of work for boys love eroge like Silver Chaos and Fuyuno is pretty proliferate.
• Dark Walker by Hikaru Yura and Hirotaka Kisaragi; no talk about the creators, but it sounds like a supernatural romance to me (vampires plzkthx?).
• Secret Moon by Siira Gou and Sato Tomoe, more newcomers to the US BL industry. And hey, this one DOES feature a vampire. Score!

Western BL took another hit today: the small-press publisher of BL books, Yaoi House, and its sister site, Yaoi Underground (which sells e-chapters of the owner’s fiction), are reportedly both up in the air after owner Kira Takenouchi announced that Yaoi Underground LLC will be terminated and money returned to investors, while she is surrendering her own shares of Yaoi House LLC and leaving it up to the investors to do what they want with it.

When I came across the post it reminded me to check up on Iris Print, another US-based BL publisher (of both comics and prose) that ran into some trouble a while back. They have managed to get two of their prose books, the novel A Strong and Sudden Thaw and the short story collection Connections up and available on Amazon’s Kindle; regular ebooks are also pending, according to owner Kellie Lynch.

In an effort to continue the spectacular coverage that YaoiSuki maintained until just recently, I’ve heard word of several items that make me wonder: has yaoi hit its sales peak in the US?

One of the reasons I wonder this is that very few of the licenses at Yaoi Con 2007 were very exciting– most of the big stuff that can be picked up has been.

On top of that, TOKYOPOP’s yaoi line Blu Manga is releasing fewer books this year than in the previous two: they plan for 19 in 2008 and 20 in 2009, as opposed to 24 in 2007 and 22 in 2006. Not a major difference, but Blu– unlike TOKYOPOP –isn’t a big-volume publisher, so it could be significant.

Seven Seas announced at Anime Expo that they were expanding their line to include yaoi, starting with the title In the God’s Arms. The book never came out and has been removed from their website, with no word on the forums as to whether it will ever come out.

Juné, Digital Manga Publishing’s yaoi line, continues to churn out a half a dozen books per month, but they’re increasingly…similar. Even the fans seem a little quieter these days, if you ask me.

Iris Print, a western boys’ love publisher (but not a yaoi publisher) has hit a major financial snag that it’s working its way out of. And in the mean time, Central Park Media has, well, a now-long-standing and major legal snag it’s still working on.

So. Could yaoi have hit its peak in the US, at least in terms of its market? It grew very quickly because, let’s face it, women like the stuff– and there was a whole bunch of big-name popular titles that hadn’t been licensed. Now that they’ve (almost) all been licensed and released in English, what’s left to be excited for? Of course it’ll continue to be popular, but maybe it’s already reached its maximum growth?

Well, we’ll see!

Now, THIS should be interesting. YaoiSuki has caught wind that Youka Nitta, the mangaka behind Haru wo Daiteita (an extremely popular BL manga about a couple of male porn stars who try to become mainstream actors who also have lots of sex with each other) is going to be a guest at this year’s Yaoi Con.

Some of you may remember that I chatted with Central Park Media’s John O’Donnell for YaoiSuki back during NYAF. CPM is the licensor that has been releasing Haru wo Daiteita (as Embracing Love), as well as two of Nitta’s other titles, Boku no Koe (Sound of My Voice) and Casino Lily.

So. Youka Nitta’s works are licensed by Libre. Libre is the company that CPM has been having this legal battle with. O’Donnell specifically mentioned that he had contacted mangaka to see what they felt about what was going on and that they were sympathetic to him. So it should be interesting to hear what Nitta thinks about it– if anyone asks her. (I’m sure YS will if they get a shot at it.)

So my friend Jen, who runs YaoiSuki, begged me on her hands and knees and offered sexual favors to sic me on Central Park Media, the beleaguered parent company of Be Beautiful, a rather troubled yaoi publisher. So of course I did as she asked. If yaoi’s your thing and you wanna know why CPM wasn’t at Yaoi Con this year or more about their troubles with Japanese yaoi publisher Libre, you can check it out here.

And if you don’t, well, don’t worry about it.

So, ICv2 reported that they’ve “confirmed” that TOKYOPOP’s Blu imprint is bumping its price up from $9.95 to $12.95, starting in 2008. As a result, everyone ELSE reported it as being “confirmed” as well.

But no one mentions the original report came from a Blu editor on the official Blu forums on October 10th. It was then posted by YaoiSuki on the 17th, and that’s where a good batch of news sites picked it up from.

Hmph!

Heisei Democracy reports that Hobby Japan is going to release a series of 4koma “nonfiction” comics by shoujo and BL manga creators detailing the “real lives” of fujoshi (yaoi fangirls). Me, I think it can all be summed up in one comic:

Speaking of manga, ComiPress has a nice round-up of recent new manga news, including a new work by the maker of Elfen Lied, among other things.