The Yaoi Review » Hinako Takanaga

YAOI NEWS: Hinako Takanaga Announces End of Tyrant

Jennifer LeBlanc AKA Asami's Girl — Sun, 15 May 2011 04:48:01 +0000

Hinako Takanaga just announced via twitter her plans on ending The Tyrant Falls in Love. Here are the numerous tweets compiled together as one complete message:

"Because I received so many questions if the series of "Bokun" ends by vol.7, here is my answer below. Actually, I would say this is the final story for this series. The reason for anouncing this so sudden is that even though I was planning to end off the series at first, I always get off the track while making a story and wasn't sure myself if it ends or not. Although, the series ends this time, I still have some additional episodes for "Bokun" that I'm planning to make a one-shot, or some short stories from now on. Therefore, please keep supporting me and also this "Bokun" series as so far. At last, I always appreciate for your messages from foreign countries. Thank you so much. Lots of love, Hinako Takanaga"

So although she stated in her interview with me that it would continue past volume 7, ~~it appears it will not be~~ (KudouUsagi clarified in comments below that based on how Sensei's latest arc is going, it should be going through 8 volumes and then the extra stories after that).

EDIT: Here is a little more explanation that was posted on her LiveJournal Community.

~Jennifer LeBlanc

YAOI AMV: The Tyrant Falls In Love

Jennifer LeBlanc AKA Asami's Girl — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 09:38:09 +0000

~Jennifer LeBlanc

YAOI INTERVIEW: Hinako Takanaga, Part 3 of 3

Jennifer LeBlanc AKA Asami's Girl — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 02:12:02 +0000

Part 1 can be found here…

Part 2 can be found here…

Here it is… the last part to the YaoiCon interview I did with Hinako Takanaga. Lots of good stuff so hopefully this makes up for the long wait.

Jenny: Are you going to draw a separate story for Masaki and Kunihiro.

Sensei: Yes, yes, yes!

Jenny: Yay! I hear the cheering.

[Evan speaks to Sensei]

Evan: [Laughing] I’ve only read volume 1, it’s like, who are you talking about?!

Jenny: Will you ever draw a story with an older man in the pairing?

Evan: Older man?

Jenny: Older man based on Japan [laughing.. meaning ‘older’ by yaoi standards] That could be like, in their thirties!

Evan: Like 60?

Jenny: No, not that old, like 30’s… 40’s.. what’d they’d consider an older seme.

[More clarification of what ‘older’ means]

Sensei: I hadn’t really thought of that much, no. But I don’t think it’s something I don’t want to do. So there may be a time when I’m like, hey I’ll try that. Oh, but there are times that I did do drawings of 30-something, 40-something characters for books, like novels.

Jenny: Do you read boys’ love and if so, do you have a favorite book or a favorite story type?

Evan: Well, we know she reads boys’ love…

[Some discussion commences and Sensei writes down the name of two authors she enjoys… Kusama Sakae and Yamanaka Hiko]

Jenny: So these are two of her favorite authors?

Evan: Yes. That she’s reading right now. Tsundere stories are kind of her favorite though. [Some discussion of tsundere occurs here and how best to describe it but we were all at a loss] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsundere

Jenny: Do you have any new projects on the horizon that you can talk about?

Sensei: Right now obviously there’s the stuff that I’m doing with Kaiosha with Tyrant Falls in Love. We talked about the spinoff of the two characters from volume 5 so there’s that coming up on the horizon. For Libre, Awkward Silence, there’s actually a spinoff with Kagami and Sagara, [they] are going to be involved in a spinoff in the future. There’s another one I can’t tell you too much about but there’s something that I’m working on with Katokawa, it’s going to be something related to the series You Will Drown in Love.

Jenny: Oh, they’ll like to know that because they did ask about that, too.

Jenny: This is my own question because I love Tyrant. My question is what you think the reason is behind why fans love Tatsumi so much when he’s so mean?

Sensei: Well, setting aside what he does to Morinaga, there’s a bit of a difference there in how he treats other people. I think that one of the appeals to his character is that he is who he is and that he is sort of a person who finds himself bound by rules and constructs but he can be childish at the same time, which is something that people can relate to. There’s also a bit where you know that if a family member was in danger, if people he was related to were in trouble, he would be mean on their behalf or he would get belligerent with people. So I think that a lot of people can relate to that. He does some really awful things to Morinaga but I think he’s trying to ignore the fact that he’s really getting to like him.

Do you think your fans just have a thing for sadistic semes? [Catch my mistake here? Evan does… wait for it…]

Evan: How do I say sadistic because I can translate it that way but it doesn’t quite capture the right feelings? [Starts translating] Wait… isn’t he the uke? [Ha! A sign of a good translator is one who knows which character is which!]

Jenny: Sorry, yes… the uke… yes.

[I hear ‘violent uke’ somewhere in the translation!]

Evan: They both (Sensei & Editor) think that there’s a little bit to the mood there, kind of the setting where it’s that the seme loves the uke so much even though he’s a complete bastard. She also thinks that there’s definitely an appeal, that people just like that kind of a violent character. She brought up that there’s a Korean movie out about a girlfriend type who’s very, very violent towards other people and her boyfriend. [Sensei] realized while doing the story that there are people that are very, very into that kind of characteristic. But they both think that it’s like when you see a character or a person who is kind of rude and there’s still a seme or someone who will love them that much, that creates a different, special kind of appeal.

Jenny: Sometimes I think it may be that when they are sweet that 1% of the time that it’s just that much sweeter, you know?

Sensei: Ahhh… we’re working on creating more situations like that.

Jenny: Do you know if any of your other works will be animated?

Sensei: Absolutely no idea. I’m still surprised that Tyrant was made into an anime in the first place. I mean, the fact that people are looking to animate boys’ love is really sort of a recent occurrence, too. So that’s really something that we like to see but there’s nothing we can say about it. There’s absolutely no idea if one will be picked up for an anime again.

Jenny: Someone wanted to know the status of Kimi ga Koi ni Oboreru?

Sensei: The story is over. Next year there’s the thing I can’t comment too much about. There’s a series that might get started up so that’s going to be in the works.

Jenny: Have you ever considered a cross-over one-shot of Kimi ga Koi ni Ochiru & Kimi ga Koi ni Oboreru?

Sensei: Katokawa is a publisher that definitely aims for a younger audience. I think it’s a point where bringing in older characters for a younger audience… a lot of the people are young and they are just encountering this sort of thing for the first time, they won’t understand who these characters are. So I don’t think there’s too much of a chance for a crossover there but lots of things could happen, things could change.

Jenny: [No photos were allowed at YaoiCon so I asked for some clarification on that so that fans who DID take photos know why it’s so important that they NOT post those online]

[Lots of discussion takes place over this question]

Evan: What I was telling her is that it’s actually something I know a little bit about too. There are people out there who have done bad things to other mangaka with their images and there are also people who want to keep their private lives private and their published lives published so there’s a bit of a cultural difference here. Because I know a lot of Americans don’t worry about it and the worst you have to worry about is being made fun of on 4-chan, the American attitude is just like, whatever, f*ck them.

It’s not like she minds people taking her photo just because they were at YaoiCon. That’s cool, it’s a memory for you but she was really worried because there was one time she went to an event in

Germany

and they took her photo for an interview. She was like, well it’s

Germany

, they’re not going to care but it still ended up on the Japanese network and people were being assholes about it. She’s like, I don’t care, I have a good self identity but I’m busy enough as it is, it’s something I don’t want to have to deal with. A lot of Japanese mangaka feel that way and what she said was that’s her personal thing. “I don’t mind if people take a personal picture of me but I don’t want it to end up on the net because that’s a whole problem that I don’t want to deal with.”

Jenny: Wow… that sounds terrible. [We had to wrap up the interview at this point] Well, if you could tell her I say thanks so much and for being so patient and answering so many fan questions. They will be very, very happy. The response was overwhelming!

My thanks again to Digital Manga for giving me the opportunity to interview such a talented and giving mangaka as Hinako Takanaga and many, many thanks to Sensei for taking so much of her limited time to answer all of these questions (1 hour 20 minutes!). I thank you and I know your fans thank you, too.

~Jennifer LeBlanc

YAOI INTERVIEW: Hinako Takanaga, Part 2 of 3

Jennifer LeBlanc AKA Asami's Girl — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 05:39:16 +0000

Part 1 of 3 can be found here.

As a reminder, this was transcribed with the conversational approach in mind. I edited a little more on this one but it's still written as close to how it was spoken as I could. This was the approach chosen by readers when I polled them on Twitter as it gives a more personal feel. Enjoy!

Part 2:

Jenny: I have some questions [that are] more towards the drawing process. [Fans] were asking an average drawing time for a typical page of manga or if it’s easier to answer it, how many pages in a week or a month that you may average?

Sensei: If you were to put it all together in the process of just getting the storyboards and everything ready and then doing [the] finished product, I’d say for about 30-32 pages it would take about two weeks.

Jenny: Wow… that’s a lot! [laughs]

Sensei: Usually 32 pages is like the monthly cycle for a magazine but there are also times that an artist would be doing two cycles in one month and so 32 pages here, 32 pages there, because 30 pages is the typical length for a magazine serialized chapter.

Jenny: And that actually goes into another question I had. I’d like to know how you handle drawing more than one story at a time, I’m sure it’s difficult. It sounds like you do one then do the other or do you work combined on them?

[Sensei laughs]

Sensei: You definitely have a point; it’s difficult to switch between the two. One of the things I do if I’m working on two projects at one time is… well, personally I say that I forget things easily so there’s that. Then there’s also the point where if I do a chapter of one project and then I have to do a chapter for another project, I’ll always go back and I’ll read the previous chapter and I’ll sort of remember it all and I’ll be like oh, ok… here’s where we are. Then I will go on with making the storyboard sort of outline and then write the final pages and that gets me back into it. So it’s not like I’m constantly thinking of the other while I’m working on one. I tend to focus pretty specifically on each.

Jenny: Have you ever had to censored yourself after writing or drawing something, something you felt was a little too hot for the story?

[Lots of discussion with her editor!]

Sensei: In terms of editing and everything like that, there’s always the process of storyboarding that comes first and in that process that’s when I usually am like this is what works and this is what doesn’t and I usually go through everything and so when I get to the actual drawing stages there’s nothing where I’m like, nah, and I cross it out or erase it.

Technically, there is a spoiler to volume 4 in the following paragraphs but not one that I think is major. However, read at your own risk and I’ll mark with asterisks when it is ok to read again if you wish to skip ahead.

Sensei: There was one episode in the fourth volume of Tyrant where I was really, really not sure. There’s a fire and I wasn’t sure if the uke should help the seme or if Morinaga should actually go help the “tyrant” character and I was really, really, really, really, really wondering. I asked my supervisors, I asked my editors, but then I thought which one is more “BL”-esque and it really does have to be like well, the uke’s going to go to save the seme. So uke goes and saves the seme and that’s how it went and in the end I was happy with that.

Jenny: That’s good… that’s a good answer. [laughs]

[Translated, and more laughs. Evan asks her a question.]

Evan: I was just asking her if she did it the other way, how would it be? What would be different?

Sensei: One of the things that I was really worried about and wondering about with that particular scene is that if I did have the seme going and saving the uke, if I had Morinaga going in then we could have that sort of moment of clarity where Tatsumi is thinking to himself, wow… I might die and that sort of causes him to think over everything in regards to Morinaga. Then when he sees Morinaga come to save him, there’s that moment in his heart, that “oomph” and he’s like, oh, here he is… he’s here to save me. That I thought was interesting and that’s why I thought about doing that and exploring that avenue but eventually I decided it would be better to do it the other way around because it’s more "BL"-esque.

No more spoilers beyond this point

Jenny: This is a fan question and it makes me giggle but I’m going to ask it. Do you ever get embarrassed drawing intimate love scenes?

[Funny/adorable side note, this was one of the few parts I clearly understood… I heard both Hinako Takanaga and her editor nearly in unison say “love scene!”, which sounded phonetically a lot like “labu sheeeeen!”.]

[A lot of discussion and laughing among the three commences]

Evan: It’s gettin’ good! [laughing]

[More lengthy discussion and additional laughing]

Evan: It’s a long response but it’s filled with good sh*t! [Insert me cackling in the background here]

Sensei: For me when I draw scenes of people, you know, “getting it on”, it’s work to me because my goal is how can I make it as erotic as possible? And that’s when I just shift into a business mode where I’m like, ok, which tone is best for expressing this, which is best for this, what is going to get a reaction from the reader. So I don’t look at it like, oooo! oooo! They’re going at it! They’re f*cking!

[Apparently ‘f*cking’ is quite understandable because the room erupted in laughter! Or it could have been the hilarious way Evan said it]

Sensei: How can I get people into it? When I started doing my style, my style was very shoujo manga so I didn’t really see myself as applying that to sort of an erotic way because it was very "shoujo"-esque. But I loved reading stuff that was kind of erotic so one day I was like, hey, I’m just going to go ahead and give this a shot. Even though my stuff was kind of "shoujo"-esque and I didn’t feel it to be my style, I fought it and I decided I’m going to do this, I’m going to do this, I’m going to do this. Then I figured if it makes people happy then this is what I want to do and that’s why I started drawing more “into it” sex scenes.

There was one happening, one of my editors at Kadokawa said that you’re definitely our current erotic leader. You’re our "head pervert" [loud laughing and then “head pervert” in Japanese]. That was because there was one [time] where there was a special in a magazine where you have to cut the page to open it up. It’s a presentation style where people, if they read the magazine. they have to buy it so they can cut this thing open.

Jenny: Ooooh… to see the good stuff?

Sensei: Well the theme was newlyweds, and I thought it’s this "thing" (presentation style) so of course I’m going to make this as perverted as possible, I’m just going to slather it on. So I get the magazine back and everyone else, because everyone in the magazine contributed one with their characters, so I drew two guys in the tub, you know, sharing that first night of love with each other. I looked at everyone else’s drawings and some were making a meal together for the first time, they’re kissing each other goodbye and I look at it and was like Oh My God, what did I do? Then my editor calls me and says, “Hey Takanaga… good job”. [lots of laughing] That was a good moment but at that point I was a little embarrassed. That was when I was like, oh ok… that was a little embarrassing.

Jenny: Oh, I suppose. [laughing] But that’s ok… we enjoy it.

Sensei: “Congratulations… you’re a good pervert.”

Jenny: [Laughing] Now I forgot where I was going to go after that one!

Continued in part 3

~Jennifer LeBlanc

YAOI INTERVIEW: Hinako Takanaga ~ Part 1 of 3

Jennifer LeBlanc AKA Asami's Girl — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 00:23:57 +0000

It's finally here! After many hours slaving over my digital recorder, I've finally finished transcribing the whopping 81 minutes of interview I recorded. If you don't think Sensei loves her fans, think again! She answered nearly every your of my questions [WAY more than I ever thought she would] and her answers were lengthy and thoughtful.

Before we get to the interview, I want to thank a few people that made this possible for me as well as for all of you. Of course, the biggest thanks to Sensei for taking the time out of her busy and I'm sure quite taxing schedule to answer all of these questions. A big thanks to Digital Manga for even thinking of my site and giving me the opportunity to meet and interview the gracious Hinako Takanaga. Michelle Mauk, who has since moved on in her career, was the one to contact me and give me the opportunity. Thanks Michelle!

After Michelle left, Evan Miller stepped in and without missing a beat got in contact with me and took care of scheduling the interview as well as giving me proper interview etiquette when I asked and providing his services as interpreter for the actual interview. Wow! What an interpreter! Not only does he sound like a native [I couldn't stop staring at him as he was speaking Japanese XD Creepy, I'm sure. ], but he was very thorough with the answers and at no time did I feel like he was just condensing the answers down to make his job easier. If you've ever had to listen to interpreters at YaoiCon panels, you'll appreciate this trait. If there was anyone else at DMP responsible for giving me this opportunity, I and my readers will be forever grateful [Hi Yoko!].

Without further adieu, let's get into the interview. Just to give you some insight, I literally transcribed straight from a digital recording of the interview. Keep this in mind when reading as it is very conversational, which means proper sentence structure sometimes goes out the window [guilty as charged]. I also included some personal notes to give you a feel for the interview itself, like when there was laughing or extra discussion about something. I included those parts in brackets like [this]. Lastly, the interview was very lengthy so I have broken it down into three parts to make for easier reading. There's so much good stuff in here, you do not want to miss out! Ok, I'll stop talking now… enjoy!

[In the room is myself, Evan Miller who translated, Hinako Takanaga and her editor, Mayumi Murata from Kaiousha]

Jenny: Well first, of course, I want to thank you for doing the interview.

Sensei: Thank you very much.

Jenny: I just want to let you know that I asked the readers of my website to provide questions for you so they’re all fan questions and I took the most popular questions so… the fans are very eager, there was a big response to ask you questions.

Sensei: Ahhhh…

Jenny: So the biggest question they were asking is if volume 7 of Tyrant… this one [I had the book next to me!] is the last volume, and if not, is there an end in sight?

[Giggling from her editor, what I think is an explanation to Sensei, an “Ahhh!” and then laughing]

Sensei: Seven won’t be the final volume. It’s definitely going to go into a 7^th and 8^th volume based on just how long it’s going to be serialized. From there it’s… we’re trying to figure that out.

Jenny: They wanted to know if there’s any chance of an art book of your work

Sensei: Ahhhh…. Mmmmm….

Jenny: They would love one.

[Laughing from all three]

Evan: This is her editor from Kaiousha [gestures towards her editor who is sitting to her right]

Jenny: Yes, please… they really want one! It was the second most popular question.

Sensei: We’re not to the proposal stage yet but we are getting a lot of the same requests from Japanese fans and we know that a lot of people are interested in it so we’ve definitely talked about it, but we’re not at the point where we’re ready to just start in and work on it.

The other thing is that I’m a freelancer 'technically', I do my work with a lot of different publishers, Kaiousha, Libre, Kadokawa and other things so getting the rights to sort of pull everything into one book is going to be a little tricky. Japanese legalities are not fun but that’s something that I’m still… that I really am interested in doing.

Jenny: I heard already [that you] kind of touched on the scanlation question. Some of the fans had asked how you feel about scanlators who use the excuse that they’re helping by getting your work out there so their question is how you feel about that reasoning.

Sensei: Mmmm…. They do have a point there that there [are] definitely people that are going to read a fan scanlation and they are going to think, well this is awesome! I’m going to go buy the book. I’m not going to go as far to say that there aren’t people that do that because quite clearly there are, but I can’t say that it’s really the best way to help the industry. It isn’t what the creators want first and fore mostly, and I think that there’s a happy medium, like by putting a little bit up and then telling people to, you know, if you want to check out more read the actual book or telling people to write publishers and saying you should pick this title up and things like that.

Other than that, we have to be honest that there are going to be people that if the whole series is available, they’re just going to read the whole thing and be done with it. People are different, some people are going to want to actually go out and buy a paper copy and other people are just going to just view it on their computer and close their browser and be like, ok, I’m done. And they need to remember that there are rights associated with this and we do put a lot of time into creating that and that’s something that we want to be respected. We don’t fail to understand the other point of view; we just want people to sort of strike a balance between the two so that both sides can be happy.

I draw my own doujinshi so I am familiar with the kind of problem and a lot of Japanese fans, even though some American fans might not know this, that we understand that because doujinshi in and of itself, unless it’s an original piece, is something where you’re essentially taking your work that already exists and you’re doing your own spin on it. Because it is your own spin, because it is something new it’s something that we sort of are allowed to get away with and people don’t make a whole lot of money off it so it’s not like we don’t understand where fans are coming from. I’d say on the contrary that we really do, but again going back and reading the whole thing is bad.

What we want to say is that if you really want to support my work you should tell us. Share your feelings, contact us, contact publishers, ask them to publish these works, share your feelings and your support with us by buying the books, supporting the titles that are out there because that’s the way that we can finally understand where the fans are coming from.

Jenny: That kind of leads into my next question. You recently had Awkward Silence released straight from Japan on KINDLE so we can see it here on Amazon, it’s still in Japanese though. Kind of a two part question, will more of your works… and it may be more of a publisher question… will more of your works be put into English in the digital format, and do you think perhaps this is the next step to stop some of that scanlation, and their reasons for why they do it, by making it available online and in English for a lot of the fans who can read it… and then they can pay, obviously, for it.

Sensei: [I think] that there’s always going to be people that are just like, well, it’s free [via illegal download] and I can get it so I’m just going to get it. It would be foolish for us to ignore the fact that a lot of people, they go online and if they have that manga available [legally]… I mean it’s already in their own home and it’s easy to get, they don’t have to go to a bookstore or anything like that, and I think that maintaining that sort of a close connection is crucial and it would be fantastic to have more of my work… I would love to have more of my work available in that kind of a digital format where it’s a legal route where people are available to get the work digitally. Perhaps have a version that’s a little cheaper than the paper version that they can download and I think that if that kind of method is available and people can get it that way legally and it’s easy to use then I think that the number of people using it will pick up.

Jenny: Do you know if any of your titles maybe going in that direction with being translated into English straight from Japan and put on a digital format?

[Some discussion with her editor]

Sensei: I think that right now it’s really great that there are a lot of people doing more, going a more digital route and actually she [editor] commented that yeah, Digital Manga, is also going a digital route and there’s going to be a future in that but right now it’s kind of in a weird spot where it’s… everyone is hand over foot trying to get into the digital distribution game and I think among the companies that are getting into it there are a few that are just not that good and so I think it’s going to take a little time, not forever of course, a little time before things sort of shake out and we find companies that we can work with and you’re kind of weeding out the bad apples from the bunch so to speak.

There’s a lot involved with rights or rights that were held for certain properties. Rights were held by one and now they’re held by another and so things like that can be complicated. Right now for Tyrant Falls in Love in

Japan

they’ve got it up to volume 4 on cell phones, cell phone distribution. PC’s are coming along, not quite as fast of a pace but coming along and so it’s the sort of thing that we’re going to be working on more and it’s definitely going to, we’re going to see a whole lot more of it as time goes on.

Jenny: Great! That’d be great.

Sensei: Thank you, thank you…

Jenny: It’s very exciting. I don’t know if you can answer this or if you can just be vague about it to give fans a little something, are any of your other titles not currently licensed in English… let me back that up… are you working on anything being licensed in English, any new titles, even if you can’t give the information of what, but is there anything in the works to be released over here in English?

Evan: That we don’t know about yet?

Jenny: Yeah, that the fans wouldn’t know about yet.

Sensei: Actually I’m pretty sure that everything that I’ve been working on is already out or it is in the process of coming out in Engligh. There’s nothing that I don’t think hasn’t been announced. Libre has their player that they’re trying to pioneer, Challengers is already available, Little Butterfly, Tyrant Falls in Love, Devil’s Secret, other things like that. I don’t think that there’s anything that the fans actually don’t know about.

Jenny: Somebody asked, and I didn’t see this one put out, Awkward Silence, the one we talked about early, I don’t think is actually out in English.

[Some surprise]

Sensei: I gave the ok to Libre to do it. I don’t know if Libre hasn’t put it out or if Libre hasn’t licensed it out, that would be something that I don’t really know about. I know that it’s already available in

Germany

. There’s also a possibility that I gave them the ok to do it, that they’re in the middle of producing it. Plus it’s also very limited to the companies that we can publish with in

America. R

ight now it’s Digital Manga and TOKYOPOP, their BLU line. I pretty much leave a lot of that up to the publisher. I’m sorry that it’s not out yet [laughing] if it’s not.

[More discussion]

Evan: They actually think that Libre may be doing an English download of Awkward Silence.

Jenny: You mean like with the KINDLE?

Evan: Possibly in the future with the KINDLE. Libre’s platform is KINDLE, right?

Jenny: Yeah, they put it out in Japanese already on KINDLE.

Evan: They think that they are probably working on one in English and it’s weird that it hasn’t, she’s a little surprised that it’s not out because the thing that she did after that is Devil’s Secret and that’s already out from DMP, 801.

Jenny: Yeah… yes, the fans were very interested in that title. [laughing]

Sensei: I’ll ask somebody over at Libre. [laughing]

Click here to read part 2!

Click here to read part 3!

~Jennifer LeBlanc

Ask Hinako Takanaga a Question!

Jennifer LeBlanc AKA Asami's Girl — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 13:39:59 +0000

How would you like the opportunity to ask your favorite mangaka a question? Well, if that mangaka is Hinako Takanaga of Tyrant and Little Butterfly fame, now you can! DMP has been gracious enough to give me the opportunity to interview Ms. Takanaga at YaoiCon this Saturday and I thought what better interview than an interview of fan submitted questions? All you have to do is submit your question in the comment section below and I will pick a choice few to ask Sensei during the interview. I'll of course interject here and there with follow up questions to keep it coherent.

Time is limited! I need to organize my questions Friday night so hurry and good luck!

~Jennifer LeBlanc

YAOI NEWS: Hinako Takanaga Guest at YaoiCon!

Jennifer LeBlanc AKA Asami's Girl — Thu, 20 May 2010 03:42:14 +0000

Gardena, CA (May 19. 2010)- Digital Manga Publishing is excited to announce their special guest for Yaoi-Con 2010, the prolific and fan-favorite yaoi mangaka-Hinako Takanaga! The creator of numerous manga, including Little Butterfly, The Devil's Secret, Challengers, Croquis, Love Round!!, Liberty Liberty, and the soon to be released The Tyrant Falls In Love, Hinako Takanaga has been one of the most popular yaoi mangaka in the US, and will be making her second appearance at Yaoi-Con!

So come up to San Francisco in October, and meet the immensely talented Hinako Takanaga in person, and hear her answer questions about her process and her work!

Yaoi-Con takes place over the Halloween weekend, October 29-October 31, and at a brand new location in Burlingame, CA! For more information on Yaoi-Con, including location, hotels, and registration, please visit their site at: www.yaoicon.com

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THE TYRANT FALLS IN LOVE, VOL. 1, Rated M+ (for ages 18+), MSRP: $12.95, Available: August 18, 2010, B6 Size, June' Imprint

University study Tetsuhiro Morinaga has been in love with his homophobic, violent and tyrannical sempai Souichi Tatsumi for more than four years now. Even though he’s told Tatsumi how he feels and even managed to steal a kiss, expecting anything more seems like nothing more than the stuff of dreams… That is until the long-oppressed Morinaga gets his biggest chance ever. Might his unendingly unrequited love finally be returned?

Who's a big Takanaga fan? Excited? Going? TELL ME!!!

~Jennifer LeBlanc

YAOI NEWS: Attention “Croquis” Purchasers…

Jennifer LeBlanc AKA Asami's Girl — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 10:04:38 +0000

A couple of days ago I received an email from Marco Pavia, Associate Publisher at TokyoPop asking me to alert you all to a misprint that occurred in some of the copies of the recently shipped Croquis and what you should do to get a new copy. Here are the details:

"Due to a perfect storm of technical and human error, some editions of CROQUIS were printed with German text in approximately twelve word balloons. We discovered the problem too late to recall all editions, so some stores will have a book with a German word or two at the end of the English, in about a dozen word balloons."

If you have on of these copies, here is what you need to do to get a corrected copy:

"…mail proof of purchase — cut out the barcode on the back cover from the book — to TOKYOPOP, 5900 Wilshire Blvd, Los Angeles, CA, 90036 ATTN: CROQUIS, along with [your] mailing address, and [they'll] send a clean copy."

He finishes up with his sincerest of apologies to all those affected. Personally, I think he's just afraid we'll get him with the yaoi paddles at the next YaoiCon. We forgive you, Marco… THIS time. *polishes paddle*

YAOI MANGA REVIEW: You Will Drown in Love

Jennifer LeBlanc AKA Asami's Girl — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 06:33:35 +0000

You Will Drown in Love – Hinako Takanaga – Manga

You Will Drown in Love is the follow up story to You Will Fall in Love but these two stories are actually happening at the same time. If you haven’t yet read You Will Fall in Love, this one will be a touch confusing. In fact, it’s been awhile since I read the prequel and found I was even getting confused.

You Will Drown in Love involves Reiichiro, who is Tsukasa’s brother and Haru’s former best friend and rival in archery, and Jinnai, his employee when he takes over the family business. Jinnai was certain he was next in line to become manager and is none too happy when the owner’s son waltzes in out of nowhere to take over his coveted position. To make matters worse, Reiichiro is a terrible sales person and continually drives away the customers. The rest of the story revolves around these two and Reiichiro dealing with the budding relationship between his brother and best friend, which is occurring in You Will Fall in Love.

Plot wise, it’s a cute story but if I’m being honest, You Will Fall in Love was better. After reading “Fall”, I really wanted to read “Drown” to see what happens with Reiichiro. I don’t really feel all that fulfilled. If you read “Fall” and found yourself curious about Reiichiro’s story, then go ahead and pick it up but I don’t feel like you’re missing much. If you haven’t read this series at all, go read my other review and decide from there if you want to invest in it. I did find this follow up to be a bit more explicit than the prior but I wouldn’t call it an “explicit” title. The characters are definitely sexy and seeing Reiichiro in his archery gear and his kimono definitely sexy! Translation and readability seemed on par with the prior release.

Plot = C

Characters = B

Illustrations = A-

Sexual Content = C+

Translation = A

Overall Grade = B

Buy Now!

YAOI MANGA REVIEW: You Will Fall In Love

Jennifer LeBlanc AKA Asami's Girl — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 22:44:30 +0000

You Will Fall In Love – Hinako Takanaga – Manga Review

You Will Fall In Love is yaoi fluff at its finest. The story revolves around three main characters: Haru Mochizuki, a substitute teacher and former archer; Reiichiro Shudo, his former best friend and archery rival; and Tsukasa Shudo, Reiichiro’s brother and Haru’s archery student. Haru was madly in love with his best friend Reiichiro four years earlier, so much so that he gave up archery and moved away to go to college in order to protect their friendship. The only thing is that he left without any real notice and did not keep in contact with Reiichiro. Four years pass and he is now a substitute teacher at a private high school where he runs into Tsukasa, Reiichiro’s younger brother and rather quickly develops feelings for him. So what will Haru do when he unexpectedly runs into Reiichiro at Tsukasa’s archery tournament? Does Tsukasa stand a chance in the competition for Haru’s love?

This is a very typical yaoi plot, one boy runs away from his true love only to run into him again years later, forced to confront his feelings. Throw in a brother vs. brother twist and you have the makings of a typical yet surprisingly sweet story. I didn’t hate it and I will probably read the follow up to this book, You Will Drown In Love, which I won’t go into as it would give away the ending to this story.

So let’s get into the mechanics of this one, shall we? As discussed, the plot is typical. However, I did like that it involved archery as seeing the boys in their traditional Hakama (archery gear) was really rather enticing. I did think the mangaka jumped a little too fast into the story as it almost felt like there should have been a prequel to this book. The book itself is nicely put together with a pretty illustrated cover but no inside color pages. The black and white illustrations are nicely done and the character design, although pretty standard yaoi are attractive and varied. The translation into English was fine and I had no real trouble following the speech bubbles. That just leaves one thing, the sex. This is a soft yaoi all around so no explicit sex although they do have sex once in the book. You won’t see any frontal nudity or “bits ‘n pieces”. At best, you get some wonderful kissing and groping and sometimes there just isn’t enough kissing in yaoi, know what I mean? If you’re in to cutesy sweet yaoi, this is the title for you. If you like your yaoi with a little more substance and a lot more sex, I would pass on this one.

Character Design = B+

Plot = B-
Illustrations = A-
Translation = A
Sex = C

Overall Grade = B

Buy Now!