Best BL Manga With Official English Translations

Key Takeaways

• BL manga genre offers diverse sub-genres, catering to varying preferences.
• Best BL manga blend emotional depth, complex themes, and captivating art.
• BL manga selection ranges from pure romance to deeper societal issues.

Boy’s Love (BL) manga is a unique genre that tells stories about same-gender relationships. Among this genre are various sub-genres ranging from action and fantasy to slice of life and pure romance. While BL can be known for its sexualized storylines and racy themes, the genre provides fans with an assortment of stories, many of which don’t contain such content.

The best manga in this genre represent a mixture of different sub-genres and age-ratings, and offer something for everyone. That being said, it’s difficult to pinpoint “the best” anything, so some favorites might be missed here. BL fans can expect some timeless classics, as well as some new faces, among these recommendations.

Updated on November 5, 2024, by Rie Takumi: The best BL manga either explores complex emotional or psychological topics, deep emotional connections, or the larger world the story is set in. Fluffier works balance their comfy characters and relationships with profound insights into these elements; adult works are gorgeously illustrated to elevate their darker subject matter. Yaoi manga licensed in English play around this range. SuBLime and boys love-focused publishers tend to carry more adult works, whereas larger publishers like Seven Seas go for works that non-BL regulars can go for. If the current crop of BLs isn’t enough, readers can look forward to more English-licensed boys love manga scheduled to come out.

20 Links

Independent Stories Of Varied Gay Experiences

Links is another Natsuki Kizu BL manga that follows the lives of multiple couples that are all interlinked with one another. It uses flashbacks prompted by the line, “Do you want to hear my story,” in order to show how each couple was linked in the past, while also showing how the couples relate in the present.

This slice-of-life manga mixes sub-genres and themes like music, yakuza, school life, and home life. It’s a beautifully told one-shot for those looking for a quick binge.

19 Only the Flower Knows

Straight Man’s BL Story Blooms In Lab

Youichi Arikawa’s living the good life at university. His grades are fine, his friends are fresh and flowing, and his girlfriend Minami is good for him. But chance encounters with Shouta Misaki lead Arikawa to have romantic dreams about the man, even if he couldn’t recognize him without glasses.

Only the Flower Knows follows Arikawa as he learns more about Misaki and realizes that he has truly fallen for him. Though it falls for some BL tropes, like Misaki attracting unwanted physicality due to his feminine looks, it’s a sweet story about boys drawing each other out and coming into bloom.

18 My Summer Of You

Cinephiles Spark Conflicted Summer Love

Chiharu Saeki and Wataru Toda love movies. So much, in fact, that they go to the theater almost every weekend to catch a flick. Their mutual love of movies tides them through Chiharu’s love confession to Wataru, as he assures Wataru that he doesn’t need to return his feelings, as long as they go on their summer trip to tour filming locations.

My Summer of You or The Blue Summer and You is a cute story about boys digesting their changing feelings for their friend. Chiharu and Wataru’s journey through Japan, their evolving relationship, and cinephilia are packed into summers from high school to college and make for a comforting read.

17 I Think I Turned My Childhood Friend Into A Girl

Rom-Com’d By Teen Boy Interest In Make-Up

Kenshiro Mido is a teenage boy who loves makeup. Luckily for him, he’s got sisters to practice his art on. When he gets the urge to practice on others, his childhood friend Hiura Mihate agrees to be his practice makeup dummy. The experience changes them: Hiura discovers a love for cross-dressing, and Kenshiro finds out that he might like Hiura as more than a friend.

The first run of I Think I Turned My Childhood Friend Into A Girl in English was subject to controversy. Seven Seas Entertainment’s translator initially misgendered Hiura as a trans woman despite Hiura explicitly identifying as a man. Subsequent releases corrected this, with the latest volume slated for release in 2025.

16 Our Dining Table

Learning To Connect With Others Through Shared Meals

Mealtimes for Yutaka Hozumi are complicated. On his own, he’s fine, but with others, he’s awkward and plainly uncomfortable. Four-year-old Tane Ueda, in all his innocence, unknowingly ignores Yutaka’s discomfort when he finds the salaryman eating alone at the park.

Yutaka gives Tane a rice ball, the most delicious that the kid’s ever had. The fateful onigiri leads Tane and his brother Minoru to ask Yutaka to teach them how to cook. Through their cooking lessons, Yutaka works through childhood trauma associated with mealtimes and finds kinship with Minoru over loneliness.

15 I Cannot Reach You

Gay Boy Confesses To Straight Best Friend

It’s a story familiar to many LGBTQIA+ folk: queer folk keeping their feelings for their friend a secret to avoid jeopardizing their friendship. Kimi ni wa Todokanai or I Cannot Reach You flips the premise a little by having Kakeru realize that his childhood best friend Yamato may be deeply in love with him.

His hunch is nearly confirmed when Yamato nearly confesses to him after Kakeru gets close to a girl at school. Yamato backs off out of fear, but the stage is set for Kakeru to think about their friendship, and if he feels the same way for his friend.

14 Crossplay Love: Otaku x Punk

Cozy Romcom BL Full Of Misunderstandings & Gender Bending

Crossplay Love: Otaku x Punk’s story can be gleaned from its Japanese title: It’s troublesome when a gloomy (nekura) kid and delinquent (yankee) who crossplay (cross-dressing cosplay) fall in one-sided love with each other.

The gloomy kid, Yuuma, works at a cross-dressing cafe where the punk, Shuumei, sees and falls in love with him. Since Shuumei’s too scared to approach Yuuma, who he believes is a woman, he decides to crossplay as a girl to hang out at the cafe. Yuuma starts to fall for Shuumei too, except he also thinks the other boy is a woman.

Yuuma and Shuumei’s struggles with keeping up their appearances have gone on since 2018. The comedy of errors has seen progress between the two, along with the side characters, but they’ve yet to cross the threshold and get together.

13 Minato’s Laundromat

Tired 30 Y.O. Finds Self-Love & Young Love

Akira Minato’s had enough of city life. He quits his job in Tokyo and legs it back to his hometown. As the new proprietor of his grandfather’s coin laundry, he meets all kinds of new people. One of them is Shintaro Katsuki, a teen who doggedly pursues Minato after he accidentally reveals he’s gay.

Minato’s Laundromat or Minato’s Coin Laundry is a slice-of-life romance BL focused on Minato and Katsuki’s age-gap romance. The manga takes pains to have Minato deny Katsuki’s advances, shifts focus on the characters’ introspection about their emotions and choices and takes time to sketch out Minato and Katsuki’s individual conflicts.

It’s a slow burn without eroticism, though it’s still best suited for an older audience that can work through its themes and messy LGBT experiences. It also has a fairly well-received live-action adaptation with two seasons.

12 My Boyfriend Is A Dog

Cute Furry Gag Comic About a Sweet Adult Couple

Kentarou is a literal dogman with a face that can scare off kids. But his regular human boyfriend Inukai can see through his stoicism, mostly because of his expressive tail. The fluffy couple are as sweet as can be, even through Inukai’s clumsiness and Kentarou’s sensitivity.

Their cute dynamic and sweet daily life form the basis of My Boyfriend is a Dog or Inukei no Kareshi, a manga where human and Beastars-like animals co-exist. Kentarou and Inukai are a perfectly sweet adult couple, while Inukai’s workmates, the human Nekomiya and tiger Shimada, are adorably argumentative.

11 Welcome Home

Fluffy ABO Parenthood

Although the omegaverse trope started as an excuse for writers to get characters to bone together forever, it’s old enough now to have writers weave in healthcare and real-life concerns. Welcome Home or Tadaima, Okaeri is one such BL, as Hiromu and Masaki Fujiyoshi have to deal with the realities of discrimination.

Hiromu or Hiro is an alpha, whereas Masaki is an omega. In a world where the norm is to stick with one’s type, they had to move to a less discriminatory relationship to raise their son Hikari. Their fresh start isn’t so perfect, as they must still contend with prejudices against their relationship and secondary sexual characteristics.

Unfortunately, there’s only one volume published in English. Medibang has also seemed to drop the title. Fortunately for fans, Crunchyroll has an English-subbed version of the anime in circulation.

10 Given

Amateur Rock Band BL About Teens Struggling With Feelings

Given is a Natsuki Kizu classic that follows the members of a band and their relationships with one another. When Ritsuko Uenoyama finds Mafuyu Sato clutching a broken Gibson guitar, the two connect, though not instantly, and Ritsuko starts teaching Mafuyu the guitar. This introduces us to Ritsuko’s band members, Akihiko and Haruki, who become an important part of the story.

Given mixes school-life and music sub-genres to create a masterpiece that is great for new BL fans. It has been adapted into an anime and a live-action show, both of which are available on Crunchyroll.

9 Until I Meet My Husband

Memoir Of IRL Gay Activist & Japan’s First Religiously-Recognized Gay Marriage

Until I Meet My Husband is unique for a BL manga as it’s an adaptation of real-life gay activist Ryousuke Nanasaki’s self-penned memoir. Although most of the text is condensed, the manga adaptation stays true to Nanasaki’s experiences as a gay man in Japan.

It doesn’t shy away from Nanasaki’s struggles as a kid who hasn’t realized he’s gay, to discovering the gay community in Tokyo, and all the heartbreak and self-loathing in between. Until I Meet My Husband’s manga adaptation also covers Nanasaki’s emotionally abusive relationship and recovery to find a man he’d finally married.

8 Seaside Stranger (Series)

Spontaneous Couple Confronts Reality Of Familial Estrangement

Seaside Stranger or The Stranger by the Beach is a series following Shun Hashimoto, a novelist disowned by his parents for being gay, and his struggles with finding love and acceptance. The first series, L’etranger de la Plage, chronicles Shun’s misperception that he somehow turned orphan-turned-smitten adult Mio Chibana gay.

The sequel series L’etranger du Zephyr sees Shun accepting love in the form of Mio and confronting his family’s homophobia. Shun and the cast are fleshed out for all their complexities, never shown as one-sided caricatures. Seaside Stranger also doesn’t shy away from emotional confrontations with LGBTQIA+ issues, nor practical discussions about sexual boundaries.

7 I Hear the Sunspot

Deaf Boy & Starving College Kid Builds Friendship, Falls In Love

Although Kohei Sugihara is doing his best, his deafness unfortunately causes others to misunderstand him as antisocial and haughty. Outgoing Taichi Sagawa is undeterred by his undue reputation and offers to take notes for him. Their blossoming friendship helps Kohei reconsider his college life, and Taichi his feelings for his new friend.

Kohei and Taichi’s love story takes time to get going, as they both have personal issues to sort through. Their slow road to love is paved by thoughtful and youthful conflict and works through several sequels. I Hear the Sunspot has sequels in I Hear the Sunspot: Theory of Happiness, Limit, and Four Seasons, an ongoing series. The manga also has a live-action film on top of a TV drama.

6 Cherry Magic! Thirty Years of Virginity Can Make You a Wizard?!

Japanese Urban Legend Of 30 Y.O. Virgins Becoming Wizards In BL Form

According to a Japanese urban legend, people who reach the big 3-0 without popping their cherry become wizards. Unfortunately for Kiyoshi Adachi, the legend comes true and rewards him with the petard-hoisting power of touch telepathy. Alas, instead of his new power netting him a girl, he discovers that office idol Yuuichi Kurosawa is head-over-heels in love and lusts for him.

Cherry Magic is now one of the most popular BL manga, anime, radio, and live series even with mainstream audiences. Kiyoshi’s confusion over Yuuichi’s fawning over him, coupled with Yuuichi’s gap moe, adorable beta couple, and a great side female character, made it a sure hit.

5 Classmates

Pure High School Romance

Doukyuusei, sometimes referred to by its English name, Classmates, is a high school romance by mangaka Asumiko Nakamura. It follows Rihito Sajo and Hikaru Kusakabe as they get to know each other, fall in love, and graduate from high school. Their relationship is healthy and pure, as these opposites find comfort in each other, communicate their woes, and support each other through big life changes.

This BL is a great read for newcomers and devoted BL fans alike. It’s a sweet and tender slice-of-life story for fans of wholesome romances, and can now be watched in the hour-long film adaptation by the same name.

4 Ogi’s Summer Break

Sweet Summer Romance That Touches On Disabilities

Not only is Ogi’s Summer Break a great example of disability representation in manga, but it is an endearing love story of two young men who find each other at the right time. This manga tells the story of Ogi, a unique college student who likes cute and pretty things despite gender norms, and Tago, a blunt blind boy in his last year of high school. Ogi is immediately attracted to Tago, but Tago has never liked boys before. Together the two explore their sexualities and build a relationship like no other.

This one starts off kind of rough, and Tago comes across as a bit creepy. Readers should push through and get to know Tago before making too much of a judgment on author Koikawa’s story as a whole.

3 Our Not So Lonely Planet Travel Guide

Pre-Wedding Honeymoon For Cute Couple

Asahi and Mitsuki romantically decided to travel the world together even though neither of them had done it before. Our Not So Lonely Planet Travel Guide is a story about travel, getting outside of one’s comfort zone, and above all else, love. Asahi and Mitsuki are already a couple at the beginning of this story, but Asahi has qualms about being openly gay in public. As they travel they meet all sorts of people, each one impacting the couple in different ways.

This title by Mone Sarai is a great option for people looking for an adult story that doesn’t revolve around sex. It’s a gentle story full of healthy communication and beautiful scenery.

2 Sasaki And Miyano

Slow Burn But Sweet Romance Between Believable Teenage Boys

Yoshikazu Miyano is a meek kid who gets teased for not looking quite boyish enough. He’s also anxious about people finding out that he’s a fudanshi or guy who loves BL. That’s why, when his upperclassman Shumei Sasaki protects him from a fight and expresses interest in his Yaoi books, Miyano thinks he’s found a new friend. Little does Miyano know that his strange acquaintanceship with Sasaki will turn into something more real than his favorite stories.

Sasaki and Miyano is a BL iyashikei that takes its sweet time establishing the main couple and their classmates. It deals with sexual preference the way teens do: according to how they feel, and how they feel toward their crush. The cast rounds up the romance nicely, with comfortingly nice family members and cheeky teens acting their age.

1 What Did You Eat Yesterday?

Realities & Sweetness Of Middle-Aged Gay Couple

Shiro Kakei is a lawyer and gourmand, while Kenji Yabuki is a hairdresser who loves helping his customers out. Although Shiro’s reserved and stoic at work, he’s affable and incredibly considerate, especially when it comes to cooking for Kenji. They spend their days sharing meals, splitting up chores, and opening their relationship up for others to see.

What Did You Eat Yesterday? is a long-running BL series with more than 21 volumes, a live-action series, and movie, and a spin-off series. It’s beloved for its portrayal of an older LGBTQIA+ couple, issues faced by the community, and comforting, mundane scenes of daily life in a loving relationship. Shiro and Kenji age in real-time, and their life reflects their changing domesticity, masculinity, and willingness to be open about their relationship and sexual orientation.