So this next series has two things in common with our last review: a title that begins with "bl" and a story about people unexpectedly falling in love with a kind of art.
BL METAMORPHOSIS (Metamorphose no Engawa), by Kaoru Tsurutani. First published in 2017 and first published in North America in 2020.
PLOT:
Ichinoi is a 75-year-old widow who up to this point has been content to while away her days with household tasks, teaching calligraphy classes, and plenty of reading. While browsing the local bookstore, she finds herself picking up a BL manga. It turns out that Urara, the teenage clerk at the bookstore, is also quite the secret fujoshi and is a particular fan of that series. Together, the two forge a cross-generational friendship that brings some necessary comfort and support to both their lives.
STORY:
There's a lot of manga out there about fujoshi, but most of them feature very young and fanatical heroines. The big hook for this series is that its main character is retirement age, but is she really the actual lead?
Don't get me wrong, the part of the book that's about Ichinoi is good. It's a very sweet, low-key story of how Ichinoi discovers not just a new form of fiction, but a whole new world around it that expands and brightens her life. It's really good stuff. Yet the character here that's really carrying the narrative weight is Urara, who is a more typical sort of fujoshi, right down to her messier looks.
The big difference with Urara is that her passion for BL is burdened with a lot of shame. It's hard to tell if she was explicitly bullied for being a fujo in the past or not, but she's clearly internalized the idea that this particular interest is something to be ashamed of, something that has to be hidden under beds and avoided in conversation with others. Her attempts at appearing 'normal' and suppressing herself are clearly eating away at her and it's hard not to feel bad for working so hard at something that's frankly so unnecessary.
Still, it's their friendship that allows them both their personalities to bloom, and the best moments in the books are often the points where the two quietly talk about their favorite series or plan out a trip to Ikebukuro to attend a meet-and-greet with the mangaka. So many manga about fandom are big - they focus on big emotions, big events, on collection and consumption. I wish more took the route BL Metamorphosis does, on how fandom can sometimes be the simple pleasure of meeting others who share an interest and turning that into friendship.
ART:
There's something so delightfully light and airy about Tsurutani's art here. There's something almost casual about their linework that captures the tranquil, ordinary beauty of Urara and Ichinoi's world. They're also good at making Ichinoi actually look old. Too many mangaka can't draw old people that don't either look like tiny wizened cartoons or their standard young characters with a few wrinkles slapped on. Here, Tsurutani captures all the little details from the boniness of her fingers to the papery quality of elderly skin. Even her posture and body language captures the slowness of her movement.
It's also fun to see them draw the excerpts of the BL manga the two are obsessed with. There is a subtle difference, as the linework is both finer and a little more polished. Still, it comes as the sort of gentle, chaste BL romance that anyone could potentially stumble upon.
RATING:
BL Metamorphosis is a charming and gentle take on cross-generational fandom that serves as a lovely antidote to the more typical, manic, and shallow takes on fandom. It's another charming addition to Seven Seas's library and an easy recommendation.
This series is published by Seven Seas. This series is ongoing in Japan with 4 volumes available. 2 volumes have been published and are currently in print.
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