It’s Sunday, a day that we like to stretch out a little and look at things beyond the Yuri landscape on Okazu, from time to time. Today I wanted to take a look at a series that is wholesome, but isn’t really queer or even queer adjacent. Let’s call it queer tangential. BL Metamorphosis by Kaori Tsurutani, out from Seven Seas isn’t really about Boy’s Love so much as about fandom and the enjoyment of having connection with people through that fandom.
In BL Metamorphosis, Volume 1 we meet Urara, a high school girl who embraces her separateness and self-identifies as “strange” for her enjoyment of BL. She ends up introducing Ichinoi, an elderly neighborhood calligraphy teacher, into the world of BL. Almost reluctantly, Urara gains a comrade and a friend…
In BL Metamorphosis, Volume 2, Ichinoi embraces BL with a gusto that embarrasses Urara as much as it thrills her. Despite Urara’s desire to cling to being a weirdo, Ichinoi becomes a role model for Urara, as she simply refuses to be at all ashamed or secretive about her new hobby. In this volume, there is a scene which is 100% on point for the two characters: At a comic market event, they are separated and half out of concern and half out of fear, Urara just stays put, while Ichinoi throws herself into the noise and confusion of the event happily, exploring different groups’ work without the shame Urara feels.
This, to me is a critical lesson. So many people seem to desperately cling to some wrongness they feel in themselves, and never think to just reinvent themselves at all, like Urara. And here’s Ichinoi happily opening up a new chapter in her life with no baggage at all. To some extent, we’re supposed to see this as a feature of Ichinoi’s age and maturity – she has nothing to lose by doing this, but…neither does Urara.
Almost reluctantly, Urara takes the advice of her new friend and picks up a pen to start work on her own BL story and it becomes clear to us that this was never a tale of Ichinoi’s metamorphosis at all, that Urara is the one that is stuck in her cocoon. It is Ichinoi who can fly already and Urara who has yet to grow wings. Hopefully, she’s about to start creating the Urara she wants to become.
It is very lovely to see a manga star an older woman as a lead, generally. This manga features what is being sold as an “unusual” friendship, because it spans generations, but I can attest to the fact that anime and manga fandom pretty much does away with the idea of chronological generations and instead has it’s own generations, as determined by which series was your first obsession. American anime fans are Ranma generation or Naruto generation or My Hero Academia generation, Yuri fans can be Sailor Moon, or Utena or Strawberry Panic! or Bloom Into You, etc… generations. Ichinoi and Urara are years apart…but they are the same BL generation. ^_^
Tsurutani’s art has a gentle quality to it.. As you know, I’m not a BL reader myself, but the art didn’t not feel at all to me to be BL-ish – which is a wholly ridiculous statement, I’m well aware. BL is of course not one style. But this feels more like an artist’s diary sketchbook, than a dramatic narrative. One expects random drawings of flower gardens and landscapes, if you know what I mean. It lacks tension, in a good way.
On a wholly personal note, setting the comic event in Sunshine City set all my “I miss Ikebukuro” bells and whistles off, so that was a joy. I remember that people mover and know exactly where those pillars are and that bench(!! That bench has seen some things) and …and…. ^_^ I can hear the noise of the comic market, as I presume, can the bulk of the Japanese audience.
This is another lovely bit of work by the team at Seven Seas. I want to especially bring your attention to the series logo, designed by Ki-oon. That is pretty fab work, vastly different from the Japanese logo, but is speaking differently to a different audience, as a different symbolic construct for a different title. The Japanese title is メタモルフォーゼの縁側, Metamorphose no Engawa, Margins of Metaphorphosis, which I think focuses on the liminal spaces of change, while the English title and logo are more about community and finding one’s self.) I give it top marks for translation and design.
Ratings:
Art – 9
Story – 8
Characters – 9, certainly Ichinose is.
Service – 0.5 The story itself has none, but it circles the discussion of BL service sometimes.
Overall – 9
BL Metamorphosis is a sweet story about finding friendship in BL fandom, but it’s also about pushing yourself out of the limitations you create for yourself. And for that, I think it’s absolutely worth reading. What is life for, if we’re going to stay the person we were as a child all our lives?
Volume 3 in English is slated for a winter release, with a fourth volume in Japan released this past March. This June, creator Tsurutani-sensei said there is a little bit remaining of the series, as reported by Jennifer Sherman on ANN.
Thanks to Seven Seas for the review copies!
🎼❤️💐thank you so much for putting this on my radar! I am so glad to see a manga with an intergenerational friendship. Books and media tend to erase older people and I think that is such a pity. I wouldn’t say I get along completely with my grandparents (I cannot imagine them ever sharing my joy of reading yuri) but they’ve always got my back and they have such confidence from having lived through it all. Childhood diseases, Great Depression, WWII, Vietnam, Korea, Cold War…that they went through all that and still are optimistic about the future is just amazing to me. I’ll definitely get this one on my next manga buy!! 🐚🐳🦋
I hope you find it as relaxing as I did. ^_^
I haven’t read this manga yet, but your and ANN reviews reminded me of the old “Women in BL” anthology, which consisted of stories about male gay relationships from the perspective of supportive women.
Engawa is the veranda-like platform typically facing to the garden which does appear a lot in anime w/ rural or period settings. That’s exactly what the two protagonists are languishing on in the cover for the volume 1. It’s got all these quaint and nostalgic coziness associated with it where you eat watermelons and shaved ice and whatnot with your grandparents. Or with your youkai buddies if you prefer.
On another note as I mentioned the engawa has direct access to the garden, which on one hand often is a metaphor for a secluded, private and safe space while on the other hand the engawa and the garden are an open air place, implying the invigorating sense of freedom you have when you free yourself from mental blocks you’ve either internalised or created for yourself. I might totally be reading too much into it but the thing is it’s such an evocative title.
Looks like the localised version puts more emphasis on discovering a new hobby and friendship through it that has a transformative effect on both of the young woman and the elderly woman, whereas the Japanese one focuses more on the specific (symbolic) place where that process takes place.
Thank you very much for that perspective.
With regards to BL artstyles – I see where you’re coming from, until pretty recently most BLs had art styles inspired to some degree by shoujo, the infamous ‘Yaoi hands’ style. But along with the overall diversification of BL in recent years there’s been a growing variety of art styles too. Some titles licensed in English that come to mind include Go for it Nakamura, Sasaki and Miyano, and recently Momo and Manji which was just licensed by Futekiya.
That being said, I can’t think of a BL manga with art very similiar to BL Metamorphosis, but then again it’s quite distinctive as a manga in general. Looking at the cover and insert colour page I ended up wishing for an artbook from this author!
Yes, exactly. The June’ style was an actual house style, but of course as more publishers picked up titles, and as fashion and…art, of course, changed, so does manga.
I also would not mind an artbook or even an illustrated sketchbook from the author.
You forgot about the equally famous “pointed chins” lol. But yeah, as a person who mainly reads seinen and shonen, I can say that lately BL manga art is getting better and better, and even not every male-focused manga can boast such a high-quality drawing of male characters.
Pointy chins for male characters isn’t only a BL artifact, it’s fairly common on shoujo and jousei wok as well. Most of the artistic tropes of BL come from those demographic genres…including “BL hands.” If one looks at shoujo work from the 80’s and 90’s, you’ll basically see the roots. All of the demographic genres in manga have stylistic tropes. Even Yuri has a few visual tropes….something I talk about in my most recent video. THIS is why I talk about understanding Art, beyond just liking a thing. When we understand what we are looking at, we can understand why it is there, how it got there and understand when it’s not of BL or Yuri, but of a genre style that was popular earlier and has now fossilized.
It makes sense. I have often seen cases where a complex meaning or misunderstanding of Japanese cultural tropes has generated heated discussions and controversial impressions about the show. This motivated me to think more about what I see in anime or manga, although I myself am also often categorical or overestimate my knowledge about a particular trope.