>Hugz<

Jinjin is a Korean TV soap which was aired December 8, 2013 via KBS .  Jinjin is title of the soap and also the pen name of the woman on the left- Yujin - uses for her novel.  Back in high school, Yu jin was a transfer to Ha jin (on the right)'s school.  Yujin seemed to be eager to be friendly with Hajin and her two best friends, one of which Hajin secretly loved.  After a tragic accident which was triggered by Yujin 's suggestion, Yujin left school.  But years later, she asks her three former  friends to meet again in their high school and one day after that day, she was found murdered.  What was the stories of these former friends? And who's the murderer? And I can say Yujin doesn't use her pen name without a reason. 

Manga on a salary man who is expecting retirement but out of nowhere assigned to a CEO of a BL publishing company. *BL means (mostly) manga(comics) dealing with love affairs between male characters. He has to deal with women-only employees and explicit BL manga. But he tries to blend in anyhow. The whole story evolves a little bit different than I expected. I expect he would find it hard to be accustomed to BL itself but mostly he finds it hard to blend in all-women staffs, especially who have very clear views on BL manga and are very confident. They say that this manga is loosely based on a real story.

Garouzuki (ガロウ好き) is a Japanese Bara artist. And I love his art. *At first I thougt his penname is pronounced as " Garousuki ", but it is " Garouzuki ." Garou means a wolf, suki means "love-it." *Here, it is sounded as " zuki ." He sells some of his works under the name, Oyajijigumi (オヤジジ組), which I suppose is the name of the group which he belongs to. As you can see, he is very talented in drawing daddies. Oya means parent(s) and Oyaji is used when you refer your own father to others. Jiji means grandfather and Gumi means a club or a group. So I guess Oyajijigumi means a father-grandfather club or something, though I can be sure.

Korean "openly-gay" filmmaker, Gwang-su Kim-jo married his parter, Seung-whan Kim on 7th of September, 2013. For several days, the wedding was one of the most-frequently-searched key words on the net. They told they would submit the legal document as a marriage and conduct further steps like starting legal claims for equal rights to get married. Wow. I hope this would be one small step to lead a grand finale.

The title, Tada Ima Koujichuu , means 'under construction.' Several years ago I had a chance to read one of His works.  It was about two detectives on surveilance duty. They were watching gang members secertly. The thing they didn't expect to see was sex scene between gangs. Anyway the characters are were not typical handsome men but the story and the characters seemed so real. Recently I could get the writer's comic compilation, maybe the only compilation according to Wiki. 

Couples of months ago, a man standing in front of me wore a t-shirts with these pandas.

1st comic anthology by Puu suke Kuma da. Kuma means a bear and Puu sounds like one of the most famous bears in the world, Winnie the Pooh. He has published his comic strips through Japanes gay magazines for years till now. And this is the 1st comic anthology. (After this book, he released two more anothologies.) This book is out of print in many Japanese bookstores, but luckily I could purchase new book recently. The unfortunate thing is that I can't read Japanese that well to enjoy this comic 100 %.

I visit Seoul LGBT Film Festival almost annually. This year I visited for a film on the first openly gay bishop, Gene Robinson, Love Free or Die . I found him very familiar not knowing why. Couples of days later, I watched another documentary on Christianity and sexual minorities, For the Bible Tells Me So , to find that Robinson is one of the main characters.  I watched the latter years ago, which is why I found Robinson familiar but didn't remember where I had seen him. 

Another queer comics by Byunchun(Angel Crazy). I bought at Seoul LGBT Film Festival(selff) booth the other day.  This is comic anthology of comic strips and gay-themed parodies of famous paintings. Some of them are hilarious. 

During recent years, many cock-and-bull soaps were big success in Korea. The writers seem to focus on the most absurd and extreme stories ever and the ratings are better as the stories are more extreme and more absurd. Many people say that they watch even though they dislike the stories. Anyway, this is another cock-and-bull soap, people say. The husband's being gay may only serve one of many obstacles the heroine(wife) has to deal with. But it is what matters that the show is gay-themed anyway. I have never had the chance to watch the show. Maybe I will catch up with the previous episodes soon. Or not?

(c) 真熊太志 Recently  I put my eyes on some bara artists who regularly upload their art through Pixiv (very similar to deviantArt ). One of them is Maguma Taishi . As you can tell from his works above, he's very very talented. I don't know how to purchase any of his works but I'm trying now. Below is the site where you can get info of his doujinshi( self-published work ) works. http://doujinshi.mugimugi.org/browse/author/73838/Maguma-Taishi/

Recently I purchased two famous Japanese gay novels. One is Kinjiki by Yukio Mishima . And the other is Nansyoku Ookagami by Saikaku Ihara . Both books were translated into English Books.

I loved Madonna even more when she released "American Pie" music video which contains a gay kiss scene. I loved Christina Aguilera when she released "Beautiful" music video. Japanese dance diva(I suppose), Ayumi Hamasaki has released a song called "How beautiful You are" with a music video which has very similar theme( You are beautiful no matter how you look, who you love and so on ). Couple of years ago I saw a music video of a girl duo, which has a very similar format. Many couple are shown to be unhappy because they are not accepted as they are and in the end they smile and kiss each other. I'm not saying that I don't like that Hamasaki's music video resembles its precedents. To the contrary, I want to point out why it took so long till a Asian diva made music video with a gay kiss scene.

Several years ago, I found the Volume 1 of Gay Erotic Art in Japan at a second-hand bookstore. I think that Mr. Tagame did a good job to collect these arts from many Japanese Artists and publish them. Who could have done this job besides Mr. Tagame in Japan? All the artists have their own styles. And by collecting and making these arts be remembered and cherished, Mr. Tagame has made good influence on many gay Asians who are still at the boundaries in the gay world. Recently I purchased the Volume 2.

(C) Leslie Kee I surfed the net to find that one Japanese pornstar named Masaki Koh has died only two days ago. I have never known him before that. But I felt very sorry for him and after watching the short documentary he had starred with his boyfriend, We Are Out EP. 2 , I even felt thankful for him because it seemed quite obvious that he had given courage to many gay people. Rest in peace.

Another movie by the director of "No Regret". It's about a victim of hate crime (the one in black) who visited Korea after years for revenge. The other one (in red) hoped for just one night stand with the former but got involved more than he expected.

Two short queer movies from the director of 'No Regret'. The first one is named after one of the oldest gay-themed movie(although the gay character was not shown, nor he is referred as gay). It's about a student and his teacher. The student met his teacher in a gay bar and followed him around and threatened him to go a short boat trip. What could happen afterwards? The second one is about an affair between soldiers. The one finished his time and left army. The other thought that there something left between themselves and contacted  the former in the last vacation before the end of his time in army. What would happen on their way back to the base? The director, Hee-il Lee-song, seems to like to portray very intensive love affairs, like the characters think that their love is the only thing that has left to them.

Comics compilation by Kazuhide Ichigawa(市川和秀). Various affairs were portrayed in this book: those of between sports team mates, between colleagues and so on.

Original title is "同性パートナー生活読本―同居・税金・保険から介護・死別・相続まで", which means "Same sex partner life handbook : from living together, tax and insurance to care, bereavement and inheritance". I bought this book while I was visiting Tokyo two years ago. The book is written by a Japanese gay activist, I suppose. I hope for a Korean version of this book, 'cause laws are different per countries.

Recently, I had a chance to visit Japan briefly. During the stay, I took very very short time off to visit Convoy , one of the Japanese rainbow shops, which sells new goods and used goods. Below are the books I found. I can't say that I bought them at very cheap price. At Amazon market place, they sell these books at extremely low price. But they usually don't ship used goods to other countries. I am not sure if Japanese seller are not familiar with selling goods overseas or they are just reluctant because they think that they have to use English when to sell things overseas. Not like sellers in Japan, there are many sellers who are willing to ship things overseas. For example I have bought several times from the sellers of Amazon UK or Amazon US. Anyway, it's not easy for me to buy these used goods from Japanese sellers. They usually don't ship items overseas. I am not sure if proxy shipping service companies would dispatch these gay-related items ,

Project Woong, group of Korean gay comic writers, released their 6th compilation recently. The book is also called "Project Woong". Woong means 'bear'. This book is filled with gay bear comics and illustrations and one novel. There are many BL comics and novels. But these are usually done by woman writers and for woman readers. Realistic comics and novels are so hard to find. So it means a lot this talented group keeps on releasing its work annually.

Like a Virgin(Chun-ha-jang-sa Madonna, which means "Madonna, the champion of Korean Wrestling") will be released soon as Bluray Disc. Chun-ha-jang-sa means the most powerful man under the sky. But in Korea, it also means the champion of Korean wrestling, Ssirem(see the painting above). The main character is a high school boy who wants to be a woman. He secretly loves his Japanese teacher(played by one of the most famous Japanese Idol stars, Tsuyoshi Kusanagi), has to deal with his troubled father and earn the money to become a woman. He hears the news that the prize money for the Ssireum championship for high school students is big enough to cover the money for surgery to become a woman. And he enlists himself as the newest member of Ssirem team in his high school. When I watched the movie in the theater, I got so moved the way the directors portrayed the main character. All the episodes seemed so real. Good to hear that they release this good piece of work as

Suk-chun Hong is the first out Korean celebrity. After his coming out in 2000, he was banned from TV for 3 years. But he survived it and became owner of many famous restaurant in Itaewon(one strict of Seoul where there are many gay places), father to his nephew and niece(he adopted his sister's siblings after she got divorced) and iconic figure in Korean queer community. He appeared one of the famous talk shows, Healing Camp recently and shared his love story, the reason of coming out and how he dealt with the result. He got emotional several times during the show but he also shared his experiences which many Korean gay people can relate to, I suppose.