Where to Find Legal Translated Manga Online: Boy's Love/Yaoi Edition
(This post has been updated to reflect new development as of October 2019)
Hello! First post here! Today I'm going to talk about finding English-language, officially-licensed Boy's Love ("BL" or also known as yaoi) manga online in ebook form.
As a consumer of media, we need to be aware of our consumption habits and how it affects the industry that facilitates the works we hold dear in our hearts. The rise of internet usage combined with the ease of distributing contents online created a culture where people can greedily consume whatever media they can get their hands on - for the price of zero! This practice of consuming free pirated content, however convenient, has real consequences. When we consume pirated content, we are cheating the creators from their rightful earning. This would then discourage the creators and the publishers that depend on that income from creating more content, which we definitely don't want!
So, in order to be a responsible consumer of media - specifically BL manga - I looked around for legal ways to enjoy this particular genre, and here I am to share the things that I found! Please note that this post will focus on where to legally read English-translated Boys Love/BL/”yaoi” manga online (not where to buy hard copy English BL manga - although there are some overlap). I choose to focus on digital BL manga because it is more accessible by global readers, since physical books have the added element of shipping cost, shipping time, and other barriers such as customs process. Although, if you fancy physical books to digital publications, please continue your ways! We all have our preferences in enjoying media and supporting our favorite creators :D
For non-BL (shonen, seinen, and other various genres) legal English-translated manga, please head here and here. The posts I link to are not very new, but the links are still active. There might be newer sites they haven’t got around to featuring, though. Some of the sites featured there might offer some BL titles, so check them out too!
Also to note is that I am based in Indonesia, Southeast Asia, so the information written here might not be universally applicable due to licensing barriers or other possible causes, such as government censorship.
So far, the sites I found vary in terms of content - there is some but not too much title overlap between sites. The thing is, Google search results for “read yaoi/bl online” and “read yaoi/bl online legally” does not show ANY of these websites in the front page, which is disheartening :( Please step up your SEO game, publishers and licensees!
A general warning for all the websites is the search function in many of the websites are not very sophisticated, and most of them use the English translated title of the manga, which leads to confusion if you’re already used to the Japanese title. To make things easier, if you have a particular title in mind that you want to purchase, find out in Mangaupdates.com first – is it licensed in English? Who is the English publisher? From there, you can go to the publisher’s website and purchase your title of interest. Mangaupdates is a goldmine of information, bless them.
Each site will be reviewed in 3 aspects:
BL-specific/BL-focused websites
Futekiya
Futekiya is the only one on this list that functions as a subscription-based library. Think of it like a Netflix, but for BL Manga! Due to the nature of the site, it only takes credit card payment. A month's worth of subscription is priced at 6.99 USD, an extremely economical deal considering you can read all their titles with that price! If you're not subscribing, you'll only be able to access the first chapter of each title.
Futekiya's existence is still quite young - it was launched in mid-2019 - so the sites are still in beta (or, they call it "Omega") version. It's functional, but there will be changes here and there as they are still improving the site as they go. However, they have daily updates and unique title offerings that you can't find anywhere else!
Notable titles: Marukido Maki's "Pornographer" and "Mood Indigo" (Indigo no Kibun); Kumota Haruko's "Shinjuku Lucky Hole", Tamekou's "You're My Sex Star" (Boku no Sex Star). In 2020, they will be adding more titles, notably Takahashi Hidebu's "Yuki to Matsu."
SuBLimemanga.com
SuBLime manga is a VIZ Media imprint. They sell both digital and hardcopy manga, however, the availability depends on the title – some titles are digital only, some are hardcopy only, and some are available in both formats. Their website accepts both credit card and PayPal.
The site layout feels kind of old school, and there is no filter function when browsing. It works OK since the title offering is still quite small, but it’s still kind of inconvenient. Aside from buying on the site, readers can opt to buy on Amazon, Google Play, Nook, Kobo but it seems all the other options are region-locked for USA/North-American users. You can read online in the website (requires Flash) or download the file in the PDF format.
Prominent titles include: Ayano Yamane’s “Finder” (Viewfinder), Nekota Yonezou's “Don’t be Cruel” (Hidoku Shinaide), Yoneda Kou’s “NightS”, Rihito Takarai’s “Ten Count.” Upcoming titles include: Zariya Ranmaru’s “Coyote” (to be released in October 2018) and Ogeretsu Tanaka’s “Escape Journey” (to be released September 2018). For complete 2018 release schedule and offerings, check out their site!
Junemanga.com
June offers hard copy manga and digital options, although availability varies by title. June accepts credit card payments, but it seems like PayPal is not an option. The site uses the English title of the manga – the Japanese title is available in the content page but is NOT searchable. Author name is also not searchable, which is kind of bothersome at times. My opinion of June's website is that it is clunky, but pretty. It takes a bit of patient clicking to really find what you're looking for.
June offers a variety of digital formats to download. One thing to note is that it takes a long time to download for some reason? Maybe because I'm not located in the US, so YMMV. June sometimes have discount codes on popular holidays/celebration (Valentine's Day, White Day, 4h of July, etc) so you might want to watch out for that!
On title offerings, my overall impression of Junemanga are “classics," popular BL titles that are considered "must-reads" by many. Yoneda Kou’s hits such as “Twittering Birds Never Fly” (Saezuru Tori wa Habatakanai), “No Touching At All” (Doushitemo Furetakunai), and “Even So, I Will Love You Tenderly” (Soredemo, Yasashii Koi wo Suru) are available here. Some of Est Em’s works (strangely not the ones with horse/centaur motifs she seemed to be fond of) are also available here. Other notable titles include Asumiko Nakamura’s “Classmates” (Doukyuusei), Shoko Hidaka’s “Does the Flower Blossom?” (Hana wa Saku ka), and Haruko Kumota’s “Wild Rose” (Nobara).
Non-BL-specific sites
Ebookrenta.com
Unlike June or Sublime, Renta! only offers digital manga. The manga titles you buy (or more exactly, rent) must be read through Renta website or app (iOS/Android) - you can't download it to your PC. The Renta! app (iOS and Android) is not available in all regions, but the mobile site is user friendly and easy to navigate. Renta! is unique because they a Japanese company based in Japan, and not an American publisher/subsidiary.
The rental system is as such: you can rent individual titles directly with your credit card, or you can buy “points” which you then can use to purchase titles. Renta! accepts both credit card and PayPal payments. 100 Renta! points is priced as 1 US Dollar or 100 Yen. Credit card transactions will be charged in USD, while PayPal transactions will be charged in JPY. Because of this, one method of payment can be slightly cheaper than the other, depending on your currency's exchange rate against USD and JPY, so make sure to check beforehand. On Wednesdays, Renta! has a recurring promotion in which you can get 1000 points for the price of 900. They also periodically offer free first chapters of select titles - really nice if you're interested but not ready to fork out some cash!
Unlike the others, which sell the manga titles they display, Renta!’s business model is to "rent" via their website/app (hence the name) - no PDF downloads. You can rent titles for 48 hours, or unlimited (aka kind of like owning, but you can only access it through their website/app). The price and rental period varies by title - some titles are available in 48 hour rent period and unlimited rent period, and the rest are only available for unlimited rent period - this decision comes from the manga’s publisher, not Renta!. When you select the 48 hour rent period, you also have the option of extending the rent to unlimited, in case you really liked the title and would like to re-read it in the future.
Being based in Japan, Renta boasts the fastest update rate - it adds new titles/chapters twice a week (Tuesdays and Fridays). With some titles, the fast update cycle already caught up with Japanese release, which is awesome!
As for title availability, Renta’s offerings skews newer and trendier, with an overall more current aesthetics. Harada’s “Yatamomo” and “Negative” and "Positive" anthology is available to read here. Other popular titles include Niyama's hit manga "Boku no Omawari-san" and its sequel. Other notable BL mangaka whose works are available on Renta include: Ikuyasu, Scarlet Beriko, Unohana, Kurahashi Tomo, Rie Honjoh, Asia Watanabe, and many others. Being based in Japan, Renta! also have access to new and niche titles and authors that might not be popular in the rest of the world yet, so you can find gems that are not be available in English anywhere else!
Update 02/11: some of June's offerings are slowly being uploaded into Renta!
Manga.club
The wonderful thing about Manga.club is that all first chapter are FREE! Other chapters can be read either with Tickets or with Coins. Tickets can be gained simply by signing up and logging in every day, and they have special tickets promotion through their twitter or during certain times. For chapters that require Coins, users must purchase coins in increments of 100, the minimum being 100 coins, priced at 0.99 USD. Purchases under 9.99 USD are only available via credit card payment, but purchases 9.99 USD above have a Paypal option as well.
Notable titles are: Rihara's "Public Sex", Haruta's "Welcome! To the BL Research Club." Notable authors include Unohana, Nanameguri, Emi Mitsuki.
Coolmic
Unlike all the other sites, Coolmic's library can ONLY be accessed through mobile browser. If you open it from a PC browser, it won't show the library or even the sign up/login page - just a generic landing page that tells you to open it via mobile web. Due to this, Coolmic optimizes their content to be readable on on mobile devices, so the format is different from most manga, which is displayed in ebook form. In Coolmic, the manga is converted into scrollable panels, similar to Korean webcomics a la Line Webtoon or Lezhin.
Following a popular model seen in Renta! and Manga.club, all titles' first chapter can be read for free. However, I noticed that 1 chapter in Coolmic is not actually the entire manga's first chapter, which I guess was because of the optimization of webtoon format. In approximation, 1 manga chapter is broken into 2-3 Coolmic chapters.
To read, you need to buy Tickets. 10 tickets are priced at 1 USD, and payment can be done through credit card or PayPal. The price of Coolmic chapters differs by title, but most are in the 5-8 ticket range.
Notable titles: Serina Seo's "Even A Dad Still Wants It" (Papa Datte, Shitai).
BookWalker Global
Similar to Renta!, Futekiya, and Manga.club, BookWalker is also based in Japan. However, they only offer transactions in US Dollars.
Title availability is quite limited, but it seems to be slowly adding more titles. From what I have observed, BookWalker titles have some overlap with Manga.club, June, and other ebook sites. The advantage of BookWalker is that they host a wide range of genres, such as shonen, seinen, and shojo, including popular mainstream titles. That way, you can get access to a wider selection of manga with only one account.
Amazon.com (US Store)
Can't mention "where to find books" without Amazon, can we? In Amazon, availability depends on the title – some are digital only, some are hardcopy only, and some are available in both digital & hardcopy forms. However, some digital-only offerings are region-locked for USA/North American users.
Amazon accepts credit card and Amazon gift cards. It does not take PayPal as a payment method. They also has a free Kindle reader for Windows/Mac you can download, and then when you buy a digital book it will automatically download onto your Kindle reader. This comes in handy for pre-order titles: you can pre-order the manga and it'll automatically download your purchase at the date of publishing.
Amazon categorizes BL in the “Yaoi, Gay and Lesbian Manga” category, not a dedicated “BL” only section, so if you're interested in LGBTQ manga outside of BL, Amazon is your buddy! However, some titles are region locked for US/North-America only so it’s not available for international purchase. In that case, it might not mean that the titles are totally not available internationally – just not through Amazon. You'll have to dig around a bit if the titles you are interested in are not available in Amazon because there is a chance they're sold elsewhere.
Google Books
If you have an Android phone, you can buy ebooks from Google Books (downloadable from the Google Play store). Typing "yaoi" or "boy's love" in the search bar will turn up a few results. The title selection is not the most extensive, and some titles might be available in multiple platforms already. But it's super convenient as Google books is part of Google Play system and you don't need to make new accounts.
The beauty of Google Books is that you don't need a credit card. To buy items in the Google Play system, you can buy vouchers or top-up your phone credit instead - convenient for people who don't have easy access to credit cards. Of course, the credit card option is also there for people who prefer it. However, bear in mind that this might not be the case in your country.
iBooks
iBooks is the equivalent Google Books is for iOS users. It should work similarly, and I believe that the title availability will overlap since it makes more sense to the publisher to sell in both demographics (Android and iOS users).
Phew, that was quite a long post! As comprehensive as I tried to be, I might not have captured all the information. If I have missed something, or made a mistake, or miss a site or seven, please do inform me and I will update the post! Hopefully this helps you find your favorite titles in English and direct them $$$ to your favorite manga creators :D
Update: edited 21/7/2018 to add information on BookWalker, Manga.club, Google Play store, iBooks and revised information on Renta!.
Update: edited 02/11/2018 to revise information on Renta!
Update: edited 20/10/2019 to add Futekiya & Coolmic, revise outdated information on Renta!, add more information on Manga.club, and rearrange the list.
Hello! First post here! Today I'm going to talk about finding English-language, officially-licensed Boy's Love ("BL" or also known as yaoi) manga online in ebook form.
As a consumer of media, we need to be aware of our consumption habits and how it affects the industry that facilitates the works we hold dear in our hearts. The rise of internet usage combined with the ease of distributing contents online created a culture where people can greedily consume whatever media they can get their hands on - for the price of zero! This practice of consuming free pirated content, however convenient, has real consequences. When we consume pirated content, we are cheating the creators from their rightful earning. This would then discourage the creators and the publishers that depend on that income from creating more content, which we definitely don't want!
So, in order to be a responsible consumer of media - specifically BL manga - I looked around for legal ways to enjoy this particular genre, and here I am to share the things that I found! Please note that this post will focus on where to legally read English-translated Boys Love/BL/”yaoi” manga online (not where to buy hard copy English BL manga - although there are some overlap). I choose to focus on digital BL manga because it is more accessible by global readers, since physical books have the added element of shipping cost, shipping time, and other barriers such as customs process. Although, if you fancy physical books to digital publications, please continue your ways! We all have our preferences in enjoying media and supporting our favorite creators :D
For non-BL (shonen, seinen, and other various genres) legal English-translated manga, please head here and here. The posts I link to are not very new, but the links are still active. There might be newer sites they haven’t got around to featuring, though. Some of the sites featured there might offer some BL titles, so check them out too!
Also to note is that I am based in Indonesia, Southeast Asia, so the information written here might not be universally applicable due to licensing barriers or other possible causes, such as government censorship.
So far, the sites I found vary in terms of content - there is some but not too much title overlap between sites. The thing is, Google search results for “read yaoi/bl online” and “read yaoi/bl online legally” does not show ANY of these websites in the front page, which is disheartening :( Please step up your SEO game, publishers and licensees!
A general warning for all the websites is the search function in many of the websites are not very sophisticated, and most of them use the English translated title of the manga, which leads to confusion if you’re already used to the Japanese title. To make things easier, if you have a particular title in mind that you want to purchase, find out in Mangaupdates.com first – is it licensed in English? Who is the English publisher? From there, you can go to the publisher’s website and purchase your title of interest. Mangaupdates is a goldmine of information, bless them.
Each site will be reviewed in 3 aspects:
- Payment method
- Notable plus and minuses
- Title availability/prominent titles of interest
Futekiya
Futekiya's existence is still quite young - it was launched in mid-2019 - so the sites are still in beta (or, they call it "Omega") version. It's functional, but there will be changes here and there as they are still improving the site as they go. However, they have daily updates and unique title offerings that you can't find anywhere else!
Notable titles: Marukido Maki's "Pornographer" and "Mood Indigo" (Indigo no Kibun); Kumota Haruko's "Shinjuku Lucky Hole", Tamekou's "You're My Sex Star" (Boku no Sex Star). In 2020, they will be adding more titles, notably Takahashi Hidebu's "Yuki to Matsu."
SuBLimemanga.com
SuBLime manga is a VIZ Media imprint. They sell both digital and hardcopy manga, however, the availability depends on the title – some titles are digital only, some are hardcopy only, and some are available in both formats. Their website accepts both credit card and PayPal.
The site layout feels kind of old school, and there is no filter function when browsing. It works OK since the title offering is still quite small, but it’s still kind of inconvenient. Aside from buying on the site, readers can opt to buy on Amazon, Google Play, Nook, Kobo but it seems all the other options are region-locked for USA/North-American users. You can read online in the website (requires Flash) or download the file in the PDF format.
Prominent titles include: Ayano Yamane’s “Finder” (Viewfinder), Nekota Yonezou's “Don’t be Cruel” (Hidoku Shinaide), Yoneda Kou’s “NightS”, Rihito Takarai’s “Ten Count.” Upcoming titles include: Zariya Ranmaru’s “Coyote” (to be released in October 2018) and Ogeretsu Tanaka’s “Escape Journey” (to be released September 2018). For complete 2018 release schedule and offerings, check out their site!
Junemanga.com
June offers hard copy manga and digital options, although availability varies by title. June accepts credit card payments, but it seems like PayPal is not an option. The site uses the English title of the manga – the Japanese title is available in the content page but is NOT searchable. Author name is also not searchable, which is kind of bothersome at times. My opinion of June's website is that it is clunky, but pretty. It takes a bit of patient clicking to really find what you're looking for.
June offers a variety of digital formats to download. One thing to note is that it takes a long time to download for some reason? Maybe because I'm not located in the US, so YMMV. June sometimes have discount codes on popular holidays/celebration (Valentine's Day, White Day, 4h of July, etc) so you might want to watch out for that!
On title offerings, my overall impression of Junemanga are “classics," popular BL titles that are considered "must-reads" by many. Yoneda Kou’s hits such as “Twittering Birds Never Fly” (Saezuru Tori wa Habatakanai), “No Touching At All” (Doushitemo Furetakunai), and “Even So, I Will Love You Tenderly” (Soredemo, Yasashii Koi wo Suru) are available here. Some of Est Em’s works (strangely not the ones with horse/centaur motifs she seemed to be fond of) are also available here. Other notable titles include Asumiko Nakamura’s “Classmates” (Doukyuusei), Shoko Hidaka’s “Does the Flower Blossom?” (Hana wa Saku ka), and Haruko Kumota’s “Wild Rose” (Nobara).
Non-BL-specific sites
Ebookrenta.com
The rental system is as such: you can rent individual titles directly with your credit card, or you can buy “points” which you then can use to purchase titles. Renta! accepts both credit card and PayPal payments. 100 Renta! points is priced as 1 US Dollar or 100 Yen. Credit card transactions will be charged in USD, while PayPal transactions will be charged in JPY. Because of this, one method of payment can be slightly cheaper than the other, depending on your currency's exchange rate against USD and JPY, so make sure to check beforehand. On Wednesdays, Renta! has a recurring promotion in which you can get 1000 points for the price of 900. They also periodically offer free first chapters of select titles - really nice if you're interested but not ready to fork out some cash!
Unlike the others, which sell the manga titles they display, Renta!’s business model is to "rent" via their website/app (hence the name) - no PDF downloads. You can rent titles for 48 hours, or unlimited (aka kind of like owning, but you can only access it through their website/app). The price and rental period varies by title - some titles are available in 48 hour rent period and unlimited rent period, and the rest are only available for unlimited rent period - this decision comes from the manga’s publisher, not Renta!. When you select the 48 hour rent period, you also have the option of extending the rent to unlimited, in case you really liked the title and would like to re-read it in the future.
Being based in Japan, Renta boasts the fastest update rate - it adds new titles/chapters twice a week (Tuesdays and Fridays). With some titles, the fast update cycle already caught up with Japanese release, which is awesome!
As for title availability, Renta’s offerings skews newer and trendier, with an overall more current aesthetics. Harada’s “Yatamomo” and “Negative” and "Positive" anthology is available to read here. Other popular titles include Niyama's hit manga "Boku no Omawari-san" and its sequel. Other notable BL mangaka whose works are available on Renta include: Ikuyasu, Scarlet Beriko, Unohana, Kurahashi Tomo, Rie Honjoh, Asia Watanabe, and many others. Being based in Japan, Renta! also have access to new and niche titles and authors that might not be popular in the rest of the world yet, so you can find gems that are not be available in English anywhere else!
Update 02/11: some of June's offerings are slowly being uploaded into Renta!
Manga.club
The wonderful thing about Manga.club is that all first chapter are FREE! Other chapters can be read either with Tickets or with Coins. Tickets can be gained simply by signing up and logging in every day, and they have special tickets promotion through their twitter or during certain times. For chapters that require Coins, users must purchase coins in increments of 100, the minimum being 100 coins, priced at 0.99 USD. Purchases under 9.99 USD are only available via credit card payment, but purchases 9.99 USD above have a Paypal option as well.
Notable titles are: Rihara's "Public Sex", Haruta's "Welcome! To the BL Research Club." Notable authors include Unohana, Nanameguri, Emi Mitsuki.
Coolmic
Unlike all the other sites, Coolmic's library can ONLY be accessed through mobile browser. If you open it from a PC browser, it won't show the library or even the sign up/login page - just a generic landing page that tells you to open it via mobile web. Due to this, Coolmic optimizes their content to be readable on on mobile devices, so the format is different from most manga, which is displayed in ebook form. In Coolmic, the manga is converted into scrollable panels, similar to Korean webcomics a la Line Webtoon or Lezhin.
Following a popular model seen in Renta! and Manga.club, all titles' first chapter can be read for free. However, I noticed that 1 chapter in Coolmic is not actually the entire manga's first chapter, which I guess was because of the optimization of webtoon format. In approximation, 1 manga chapter is broken into 2-3 Coolmic chapters.
To read, you need to buy Tickets. 10 tickets are priced at 1 USD, and payment can be done through credit card or PayPal. The price of Coolmic chapters differs by title, but most are in the 5-8 ticket range.
Notable titles: Serina Seo's "Even A Dad Still Wants It" (Papa Datte, Shitai).
BookWalker Global
Similar to Renta!, Futekiya, and Manga.club, BookWalker is also based in Japan. However, they only offer transactions in US Dollars.
Title availability is quite limited, but it seems to be slowly adding more titles. From what I have observed, BookWalker titles have some overlap with Manga.club, June, and other ebook sites. The advantage of BookWalker is that they host a wide range of genres, such as shonen, seinen, and shojo, including popular mainstream titles. That way, you can get access to a wider selection of manga with only one account.
Amazon.com (US Store)
Can't mention "where to find books" without Amazon, can we? In Amazon, availability depends on the title – some are digital only, some are hardcopy only, and some are available in both digital & hardcopy forms. However, some digital-only offerings are region-locked for USA/North American users.
Amazon accepts credit card and Amazon gift cards. It does not take PayPal as a payment method. They also has a free Kindle reader for Windows/Mac you can download, and then when you buy a digital book it will automatically download onto your Kindle reader. This comes in handy for pre-order titles: you can pre-order the manga and it'll automatically download your purchase at the date of publishing.
Amazon categorizes BL in the “Yaoi, Gay and Lesbian Manga” category, not a dedicated “BL” only section, so if you're interested in LGBTQ manga outside of BL, Amazon is your buddy! However, some titles are region locked for US/North-America only so it’s not available for international purchase. In that case, it might not mean that the titles are totally not available internationally – just not through Amazon. You'll have to dig around a bit if the titles you are interested in are not available in Amazon because there is a chance they're sold elsewhere.
Google Books
If you have an Android phone, you can buy ebooks from Google Books (downloadable from the Google Play store). Typing "yaoi" or "boy's love" in the search bar will turn up a few results. The title selection is not the most extensive, and some titles might be available in multiple platforms already. But it's super convenient as Google books is part of Google Play system and you don't need to make new accounts.
The beauty of Google Books is that you don't need a credit card. To buy items in the Google Play system, you can buy vouchers or top-up your phone credit instead - convenient for people who don't have easy access to credit cards. Of course, the credit card option is also there for people who prefer it. However, bear in mind that this might not be the case in your country.
iBooks
iBooks is the equivalent Google Books is for iOS users. It should work similarly, and I believe that the title availability will overlap since it makes more sense to the publisher to sell in both demographics (Android and iOS users).
Phew, that was quite a long post! As comprehensive as I tried to be, I might not have captured all the information. If I have missed something, or made a mistake, or miss a site or seven, please do inform me and I will update the post! Hopefully this helps you find your favorite titles in English and direct them $$$ to your favorite manga creators :D
Update: edited 21/7/2018 to add information on BookWalker, Manga.club, Google Play store, iBooks and revised information on Renta!.
Update: edited 02/11/2018 to revise information on Renta!
Update: edited 20/10/2019 to add Futekiya & Coolmic, revise outdated information on Renta!, add more information on Manga.club, and rearrange the list.
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