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Dopey is a Korean Bara artist, who is regularly posting his works via Twitter (ID: DoPq). (c) Dopey I am using the word, " Bara artist" to refer Asian artists who draw gay erotic art. However, I have come to know that some artists, including Mr. Gengoroh Tagame , the King of Japanese gay erotic art, prefer to be called "gay erotic artist." Using the word does not mean that I am not aware of the ambivalent meaning of " Bara ". Still, using the word can save time, considering this blog is written in English. Back to the artist Dopey , I found that he has provided his artworks for iSHAP , Korean AIDS prevention center for LGBTs, so that the center can make various goods to promote awareness of AIDS. Talented and serving for the community, how nice of him!👍

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.

This is the cover of Samson , another gay magazine published in Japan. Samson is focused on elder, chubbier gay adults when compared to other gay magazines in Japan, G-men or Badi. Pontaro is known to draw the covers for Samson for two years from 2003 to 2004. Above is the cover drawn more than 10 years ago. As you can see, he is very talented and skillful in drawing chubby characters. I am sorry that he seemed to stop contributing his talent to any gay magazines.

(c) 山田参助(Yamada, Sansuke) In 2005, Sansuke Yamada drew all the covers for SAMSON , Japanese gay magazine. I ran into his works years ago but I did not know his name or anything about him. But as you see, he is very talented in drawing chubbies. He contributed many of his works to gay magazines but recently he has serialized his latest work, Areyo Hoshikuzu (あれよ星屑) through a major comic magazine. The first volume was published this April. It portrays lives of Japanese people right after World War II. (c) 山田参助 Some of his past works are compiled into some comic books like Wakasa De Mun Mun ( 若さでムンムン)  and  Yamada Sansuke no Muda na Teikou Yamemashou (山田参助の無駄な抵抗やめましょう), which are out of print.

(C) 村田ポコ Muratapoco is another Japanese Bara Artist. Recently the work he contributed for AIDS awareness was posted as billboard in a gay-friendly area of Tokyo but it was censored because one of the characters was shirtless. What a shock.

(c) 熊八 Kumahachi is a talented Taiwanese bara artist. His works are so amazing and I was instantly fascinated. He seemed to sell his works as Doujinshi(self-published book).

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.

(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/

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.