Smells Like Green Spirit

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BL/Yaoi/Shounen Ai manga are fiction but some hit too close to home for how realistic the situation, environment, and/or characters they have. Because of this, they tend to be on the mature side and tackles the situations that people in same sex relationships experiences in real life.

For all my bitches and bros and non-binary hoes. 🏳️‍⚧️

Focus here is on manga where either a main character is trans or a significant story arc focuses on trans characters and issues of trans identity. Otoko no ko and crossdressing series will be ignored unless there are explicit trans messaging in there. Likewise, gender-bending series that approach sex change on supernatural terms (Boku Girl) or through sci-fi mechanics (11-nin iru!) will likely be ignored unless there's some sort of grounding element that makes queer identity explicit. Finally, any series that's just like, blatantly transphobic (F. Compo) will be ignored. Some wording will be vague to avoid spoilers.

In order:
- Claudine! (1978) - Transman protagonist
- Stop! Hibari-kun (1981) - Transwoman love interest/deuteragonist
- Paros no Ken (1986) - Transman protagonist
- Double House (1998) - Transwoman protagonist
- Hourou Musuko (2002) - Everyone's trans
- Boku wa, Onnanoko (2003) - Transwoman protagonist in titular story
- Homunculus (2003) - Important transwoman character
- IS - Otoko Demo Onna Demo Nai Sei (2004) - Trans and intersex protagonists
- J no Subete (2004) - Transwoman protagonist
- Ai no Shintairiku (2004) - Transwoman protagonist
- Densen Complex (2006) - Transwoman love interest/deuteragonist in Love Horizon
- Mascara Blues (2007) - Transwoman protagonist in "So I Can Be Myself - A Long Dream"
- Yuureitou (2010) - Transman protagonist
- Smells Like Green Spirit (2011) - Transwomen protagonists
- Bokura no Hentai (2012) - Transwoman protagonist
- Kodomo wa Wakatte Agenai (2014) - Important transwoman character
- Shimanami Tasogare (2015) - Multiple trans characters
- Umareru Seibetsu wo Machigaeta! (2016) - Transwoman autobiography
- Kono Koi ni Mirai wa nai (2016) - Transwoman protagonist
- Hanayome wa Motodanshi. (2016) - Transwoman autobiography
- Boku ga Watashi ni Naru Tame ni (2016) - Transwoman autobiography
- Fukakai na Boku no Subete o (2018) - Non-binary protagonist, everyone's trans
- Kanojo ni Naritai Kimi to Boku (2018) - Transwoman protagonist
- Boys Run the Riot (2020) - Transman protagonist

Growing up sucks lmao

One thing I've noticed over the years is the sheer amount of people that want recommendations based on a handful of titles that get the whole "being a teenager is physical and emotional hell" angle down pat. You know the ones, we've all been there.

The listed series all deal with the relationships between youths and their bodies, the bodies of others, and the difficulties of becoming an adult. I tried to select series that are more grounded, but ones that capture that same mood and themes will be considered as well.

Manga featuring characters who dress like the opposite sex either as a hobby or in everyday life. This will include both women and men.

Quite a few of these are not tagged as Crossdressing by MAL, that's one of the reasons for this list.

The manga that also have an anime adaptation will not be featured here.

~~~~~ Over 50 ~~~~~
Itoshi no Vanilla-chan

and their lengthy notes on why i adore these mangas anyway

Mangas with a naturalistic approach to backgrounds.
Not only are they drawn in excruciating details, or extremely well documented, but by simply looking at the panels you can conjure in your mind how the air smells or how the ground feels as if you remembered your own hometown.

I tried putting the ones that you can try finish in a sitting.

Manga involving different sexualities and gender identities, aside from heterosexual, lesbian, gay & cisgender.

Important mention: I am only including manga that focus on the sexuality/gender of the queer characters (at least quite a bit) or their journey to discovering themselves. So just having a queer character in a manga is not enough.

If you're looking for short reviews for each one, I do have a post on my blog discussing them. Unfortunately, I can't provide a link here, but you can find one on my profile.

A list of disturbing mangas where the queerness of the protagonists holds a central place in the plot, because i am personally growing increasingly frustrated and/or bored with the innocuous queer representation in utterly sterilised mainstream medias.

These queer mangas are ambivalent, some of them might deal in harmful tropes, but they are interested in queerness, and won't treat it as fragile porcelain or unstable explosive.

TW everything you can think of, like this stack is not a most-hardcore-stuff-you-can-read marathon list, but honestly the only reason it's not classified +18 is because i didn't include any Gengoroh Tagame.

-Manga that deals with real life problems of gay people.
-Some of the manga in the stack are just fluffy that are portrayed in a more realistic way.

PS: Ao No Flag and Shimanami Tasogare are queer/lgbt themed manga not BL but I still added it here so it could get more recognition.

bls that made me want to cry/made me actually cry (aka the name of the stack is a lie, some of these are very tragic)

Manga about protagonists that's lives changed for the better due to a change in how they see the world, themselves and those around them, though there are some that must go through hardships before they are able to change.

The change in these protagonists aren't instant and some of the included protagonists take a long time to change or just have a more natural gradual change that is more apparent once you have gotten further into the story.

Manga I would consider LGBT rather than a specific genre like BL or GL. I also included lesser-known stories I enjoyed that had LGBT characters whose identities are not made to be major plot points.

I'll continue to update this as I find more!

PART 1: /21985
PART 3: /22067

From puppy love to twisted minds, Boys' Love has a variety of flavors to choose from, and I'm determined to taste it all!

Join me in diving into different facets of BL by picking one of the titles below!

I tried to compile interesting titles I have yet to read, so these are as much as a surprise to me as it is to you :3

part 2: https://myanimelist.net/stacks/38365

part 3: https://myanimelist.net/stacks/38380

manhwa: https://myanimelist.net/stacks/38362

Some stand out (for being good) BL from all I've read.

Hopefully I'll write actual reviews for these someday

collection of top quality BL manga

what to expect from this list ::

≫ masterpiece BL
≫ my personal favourite BL of all-time
≫ the very best in all aspects of story, characters, etc.
≫ BL that I have reread the most times