Best BL Anime Series For Beginners

This article lists the best BL anime for beginners, who want to use nuanced and well-represented media to fulfill their rom-com craving. Boys’ Love, also known as BL or yaoi, has a tumultuous history in this subgenre of media. While representations of queer romance are important, the genre has also perpetuated some extremely damaging tropes over the years.

Given this, most of the yaoi’s criticism is justified, and many of the relationships depicted in manga and anime have hurt the queer community. Thankfully, BL has grown alongside anime as a whole. Positive LGBTQ images are becoming more common.

Stereotypical themes that used to be characteristic of BL are becoming less common in BL mangas and anime. The strange, gender-specific character archetypes for “seme” and “uke” have become less apparent in recent years.

In other words, it is more difficult to distinguish who is the seme and who is the uke in a relationship now that height and body type are not as important as in previous works and as they rightly should be because older works had a very misogynistic view of femininity and masculinity which were presented in the “uke” and “seme” respectively.

More realistic coming-out stories that focus on what it’s like to really question your sexual orientation replace the overly exaggerated cliche about gay panic often portrayed by heterosexual authors.

1. Yuri!!! on ice

Yuri!!! On Ice deserves all the credit, even after five years since its debut. Yuri!!! On Ice has taken a commercial win, a sports anime that never shied away from its queer themes and allowed its characters to grow and develop with complexity. Despite the fact that the program was directed by a woman and featured a central relationship between two male characters, it also managed to pay tribute to the professional sport of figure skating.

Finally, the show presented a meaningful portrayal of two men forming a deep and reliable loving bond, giving LGBTQ viewers the view of gay people being happy above all else, something we desperately need.

2. No.6

Despite its flaws, the No. 6 series is still revolutionary. Rarely does anime find a plausible balance between queer romantic components and a bigger, bolder story, and queer representation amid sci-fi dystopia is even rarer. No. 6 recognizes that queer characters should be characters in their own right and that their sexuality should not be the only factor that defines them.

Shion, a wealthy resident of No. 6, lives in a delusional utopia until he meets Nezumi, a fugitive from outside the city walls. Years later, a cynical Shion reunites with Nezumi and helps him, sacrificing his comfortable life to see the truth of the world. Shion and Nezumi have made it their mission to heal what has been damaged in an unfair world, and their friendship stems from a common purpose and hope.

3. Banana Fish

Half of what makes Banana Fish so brilliant is that it’s not easy to look at. The story follows Ash Lynx, a young gang leader in New York City, as he searches for answers about a mysterious drug that led to his brother’s murder, and Eiji Nakamura is a young Japanese man who joins Ash along the way.

The main characters in Banana Fish are clearly in love, and the original manga quickly attracted a diverse mainstream audience as an action series rather than a love story, despite being written before BL was recognized as its own genre. The manga is now considered a precursor to a good BL representation. It took Banana Fish three decades to get an anime adaptation, and the final product, heartbreaking as it is, is a masterpiece. Banana Fish can be streamed on Amazon Prime Video.

4. Given

Given was the first BL anime to be shown in prime-time on Japanese television when it was released in 2019. Furthermore, Given is the crème de la crème of the BL genre, a true novel about grief and trauma. The series finale episode is deeply therapeutic, capturing exactly the ways in which loss can change one’s life forever.

Mafuyu Sato, a high school student, meets Ritsuka Uenoyama, a classmate who helps him tune and play his guitar. Despite Mafuyu’s denials, the guitar belonged to his first love, who committed suicide. When Ritsuka hears Mafuyu sing, he urges him to join his band, and the frustrated, lost young men begin to find their way forward again through music. Ritsuka and Mafuyu quickly established themselves as one of the anime’s best LGBTQ+ couples, and their bandmates Haruki and Akihiko followed suit.

5. Sasaki to Miyano

When Miyano and Sasaki first met, it was love at first sight for these two high school students. Miyano has been a fan of BL manga all his life and Sasaki is instantly captivated. Miyano was drawn to Sasaki’s candor and determination to leave him alone. Sasaki, on the other hand, was grateful for their newly discovered shared interest.

Sasaki and Miyano’s strength lies in their characters and central relationship. Sasaki’s internal monologues that reveal his direct physical attraction to Miyano, as well as his intention to let Miyano teach him about manga so he can spend more time with him, are accurate for how relationships evolve in high school.

The benefits of media normalizing gay relationships through well-portrayed protagonists and positive support networks are perfectly demonstrated by Sasaki and Miyano. This anime is relatively new, but still worth seeing. It is currently available on Funimation.

6. Beryl and Sapphire

Despite the fact that each episode is only 8 minutes long, Beryl and Sapphire manage to make significant progress. The growth of love between two boys who are constantly thrown into unexpected situations is depicted in this donghua.

In some situations they are young schoolboys, but in another situation one is an unlucky knight in dazzling armor who can only regain his king’s favor if he defeats the devil, you guessed it, happens to be his love interest. to be. The show has a number of mini arcs, all of which are explored among other arcs, keeping viewers on their toes. However, one thing that remains static in the series is that love will always prevail.

7. Devilman crybaby

For all readers who are fans of extremely surreal and sort of demented media, this one is for you! The series walks a fine line between staggeringly disturbing and ridiculously over-the-top, but it manages to strike the perfect balance the only way it could: with a multicolored surreal carnage scene quickly shifting to a fine school day, which you’re holding your toes as you wave your emotions around. The ridiculous photo serves to distract you so that you are oblivious to the emotional thrusts that are coming your way.

Separately, each of the characters in Crybaby, not just the two main protagonists, embodies aspects of a negative stereotype associated with LGBTQ people – cowardice/lack of masculinity, the need to die in the service of heterosexuals, being corrupt and manipulative, but combining them all and labeling them as heroic or tragic results in a spectrum of humanity rather than a single proclamation. Plus, instead of the straight characters coming up with happy endings on the backs of corpses, everyone dies for change.

8. Hitorijime My Hero

Masahiro has a less ideal family situation, with a mother who works in a shady industry. He eventually joins a gang, where his troubles begin. Masahiro works for the gang as an errand boy and is constantly bullied by the other members. Masahiro’s life is turned upside down when he meets Kousuk. Masahiro’s hero is Kousuke, who saves him from a life in the gang and promises to protect him. However, the two realize that they are more important to each other than they are willing to accept.

Hitorijime My Hero stays on the safe side and never goes too deep into something too dark. The comedy can be a little overbearing at times, but there are moments of genuine laughter. Hitorijime My Hero features conflicts that can be easily resolved within one or two episode arcs, rather than relying on unnecessarily dramatic storytelling. It’s a cute slice-of-life BL series that you can enjoy a break, the themes are standard with slice-of-life series and that’s the beauty of Hitorijime My Hero.

9. Ghost Pact

Tanmoku Ki is a formidable and well-known exorcist. Keika is a naive boy who is killed in a tragic accident. Tanmoku makes Keika an offer: he becomes his ghost shadow, allowing Keika to maintain his connection to the human world, even in his ghost form. Keika accepts, and a difficult relationship develops between two strong-willed, stubborn men, with one more willing to give in than the other. There are regular fights, but the friendship that develops between them over time in these extraordinary circumstances turns out to be stronger than either of them expected.

While Spiritpact is far from perfect, and many fans would advise beginners to start with the manhua, the character interactions are subtle enough to give the series a distinct place in the BL series genre. Spiritpact is a great example of the modest progress shows are making in adding queer characters to genre stories. It’s more shounen-ai than yaoi.

10. Official Blessing of Heaven

Heaven Official’s Blessing of Tian Guan Ci Fu, is an animated series based on a series of novels of the same name written by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu, the same author who wrote The Untamed, a live-action drama. Heaven Official’s Blessing is a wonderful blend of mythology, romance and mystery that appeals to a wide range of readers. The way these three elements of the story work together creates a story that is both epic in scope and deeply personal and human.

The Heaven’s Official Blessing series is a riveting fantasy story centered around a number of extraordinarily non-human characters with incredibly human personalities. It will take the animators years to complete this epic journey, but it is well worth the wait. This story has something for anyone who believes in the potential of humanity, and the narrative rewards are amazing. This is only the first step, but every journey must start with a single step.

Read more: 5 Best BL Anime To Watch Right Now On Crunchyroll