>Hugz<

Another Korean bara arist that I came across at X (former Twitter), Unspoken . As you can see, he's very skilled in drawing and using colors and such. He seems to upload his steamy comics in Patreon from time to time. When I first found his artwork at Twitter, I thought he and Huntersmell  are the same person. ( Click  "Huntersmell" above to read my previous posting on Huntersmell. ) I detected some similarities in their drawing styles. But who can be sure? Thank that I have found another talented bara artist. That's what matters.

This is Mr.  Pontaro 's cover art for Samson March, 2003. Since he stopped contributing his mastery in any gay scene, at least I believe so, all I can do is to search anyting left. (C) Pontaro Luckily, I had a chance to read through some pages of his comics, Urisen , which were not included in the version found in the web. The web version indicates that some episodes are missing, for the characters seem to know each other in the first scene. Still, I have not found whole part of the comics. Hope to have a chance to read the whole comics soon.

The following is the cover art of Samson , a Japanese gay magazine, which Mr. Pontaro drew more than two decades ago. (c) Pontaro Mr. Pontaro  does not seem to be active anywhere in the Japanese gay scene, therefore I cannot find any new work of his, or hear any news about him. Could I come across other fans who can share their knowledge on this talented artist, if I keep on posting articles about him? Maybe. Who would know? At least I can make more people get to know about this master of daddy illustrations. If you know any news of the artist, leave a reply here, please.

Though beloved by Bara fans, Mr. Pontaro does not have any Wikipedia page. Even the information on his contributions to the Japanese gay magazines such as Samson (サムソン) or Sabu (さぶ) is very limited. I tried to dig up any info from the DB files from now-closed Doujinsh and Manga Lexicon , but the better result could be found at the "Back Issues" pages of Samson . You can search the infos in the following link and you can search infos on the back issues from different years. http://www.kaimeikan.co.jp/samson/samson_bk2004.html   Following is the list of his works, the best that I can offer right now. 1. Cover arts for Samson Mr. Pontaro drew covers for Samson from 2003 to 2004. His first cover for Samson is as follows. (c) Pontaro The man in the cover wears a Santa Claus hat, for Japanese publishers tend to issue magazines months earlier. The January issue featuring the cover must have been out in the stores in November or December of 2002. 2. Comics Though incomplete, these...

  Jiraiya has released his new comic, Shichifukutou , roughly translated as Seven-luck Island, once again through a doujinshi called Otokomatsuri . Teppei (right) and his senior cameraman(left) find themselves on the way to Shichifukutou to cover the secret ceremony of this remoted island. They have no clue that the coverage comes with being nude, drinking and having sex with audiences. Jiraiya has teased his Instagram followers for more than a year with some drawings of this work. Otokomatsuri Vol. 19 , the doujinshi  featuring the comic, began to be shipped at the end of this October. Good news: As of 8 November, 2022, some copies are still available. 『漢祭（おとこまつり）』第１９号 - mitsuwabldg - BOOTH Bad news for Jiraiya fans overseas: They do not ship the item overseas and you should find way to have it delivered to an address within Japan and then be delivered to your home. The site recommends transfer service such as Tenso or Buyee. However, you can also find other companies cha...

In Juta 22 Y.O. , 2017 comic by Jiraiya , a young salaryman ( Masaru ) gets a gay porn VHS from his friend to find that the cover model resembles his married-with-three-kids co-worker ( Kousuke ). In this setting, Masaru would usually confront and end up having sex with Kousuke . The writer, however, twisted the story a little bit and put Masaru to travel across time and/or universe. Who would Masaru meet in the alternative universe? What would happen to these two co-workers?   The comic is only available through comic compilation called  Kansai (Otoko-matsuri) #2 , which is out-of-print and is found only at a few second-hand bookstores in Japan . I can guess that Kansai is a male-themed festival, otoko-matsuri , and the book was sold during the festival in 2017.

In Otonarisann , which means a Mr/Ms Neighbor, by Osamu Kodama , Yoshio (left) and and his living-next-door neighbor Kenzou (right) find themselves bumping into each other after they lose wives by the same accident. (c) Pontaro How would they manage to keep their lives straight? What would happen to these two middle-aged men? Only text version with no illustration is available in the Kindle store of Amazon Japan .

Jiraiya 's 2019 comic, Yokozuna Sensei , which can be translated as Sir Yokuzuna  or Yokozuna Teacher roughly, is on sale again through BigGym Online Shop . (https://www.biggym.co.jp/bg-online/co-bgo-j003.html) One thing I cannot be sure is if they ships the item overseas. I remember they only explain shipping and handling fee for dwellers of Japan . (c) Jiraiya (2019) The uncensored French version of the comic by Gachimuchi-Editions is, unfortunately, out-of-stock already. This is the story of Morita Kingo a.k.a.  Sir Yokozuna (left), elementary school teacher and undefeated Sumo champion in the neighbor and three local men he encounters:  Sumiyoshi the osteopath, Urashima the painter, and Momouchi the police officer (left to right). To my understanding, in Japan, the national Sumo champion is called Yokozuna . That is how the teacher is called such in this story.

Good news! Jiraiya's comic, Tokyo 1964 is still available for free if you purchase certain Jiraiya goods, mostly t-shirts, from Nippondanji Shop (nippondanji.net). Read details from the magazine section of the site. Kazushi (left) is a wrestler and  Kirio (right), a weightlifter. Both of them are on the Japanese national team for the summer Olympics held in Tokyo . They are supposed to concentrate on each's game. The fact they are thrown into one dorm, however, does not do good in their practices, yet.  (c) Jiraiya (All images are used for informational purpose.)

Twitter has been an amazing source to come across amazing artists. Tooboshoo is, as you can tell from one of his works, very talented in drawing bulky and muscular men. Not sure if he is Chinese or Taiwanese. All I know is he's refering himself as Tang Bing in his instargram. Hoping to keep on seeing his works from now on. (C) Tooboshoo (picture taken from his Twitter)

About two weeks ago, I came to know that Mr. Yamada’s art exhibition was being held in Tokyo. And that they were selling the Art Book!!! Even though it is a shame that all of his works are somewhat censored for the book, I still feel lucky to have the book before it goes out of print. 

Recently I had a chance to read Ramuneikki by Sansuke Yamada. If you have read my previous posts, you would know, by now, how I love his artwork. His artwork, though seemingly raw and simple, is very lively and well-proportioned. (c) Sansuke Yamada, photo from Amazon(Japan) I almost bought this book just because he drew some figures for the book. Anyway, Ramuneikki is filled with short stories which were previously published through magazines. Each time I turned the page, I was suprised to see how freely his mind goes when he creates. I ENVY him!!

I did not know till today that Jiraiya released his newest comic, Two Hoses, a story about two firemen, through Big Gym (in Japan) and Massive (in US). The picture above is from Big Gym (a gay store chain in Japan) twitter. As you can see, this comic seemed to be based on his previous artwork, which was used for several items. (I really love this artwork, even though I generally love his artwork. Actually I love all of his artworks.)  The 2nd image seems to be a promotional postcard. And the 3rd image is the US version of the comic. The image is from Massive.

For last month, my article about Pontaro was the most popular one among my posts. See the link. Click the link That's why I decided to post another article on Pontaro . I found that he draw covers of Samson , a Japanese gay magazine, all through 2003 and 2004. I could not find wikipedia page of his in Japanese wikipedia so all I could find about him is from Doujinshi & Manga Lexicon. I guess that he chose his penname ' Pontaro ' from a Japanese word, ぽん太郎(written as pontarou, but sounded as pontaroː with long "o"), meaning a fool, as a joke.