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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.

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...

Recently I found a fascinationg drawing by Mr. Daisuke Takakura . *Beware that there is another Daisuke Takakura , who is a renowned photographer. I had the chance to look through his works before. But those works did not fascinate me much like the following drawing, even though all his works are very skillfully drawn. Some of his works are very realistic, almost like he drew or traced from real pictures. (c) 高蔵大介(Takakura, Daisuke) (detail) But other works are drawn like comics, which makes it hard to realize that all those works are from the same artist. He did not have any Japanese Wikipedia page, so I don't have much information about him. He is just introduced as an artist who from time to time contributed illustrations to the Japanese gay magazines such as  Samson and Sabu . Some of his works can be found in the Gengoroh Tagame 's erotic art compilation book, Gay Erotic Art in Japan Vol. 3 . (c) 田亀源五郎(Tagame Gengoroh) et al I hope to have more chance to see vintage...

  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.

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.)

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!!

According to Japanese Wikipedia, the most recent comics from Jiraiya are following: 青い空 入道雲 通り雨【前編】（216号 2014年1月） 青い空 入道雲 通り雨【後編】（217号 2014年2月） 恋人たちのありふれたやりとり（236号 2015年9月） (c) Jiraiya (from his personal blog) This seems to be the cover page of first comics (part 1 and 2), whose title seems to mean "blue sky, fleecy clouds, and passing rain." Jiraiya explains on his blog that A(on the left) lives with C(on the left) and B(in the middle) is a father of C. I don't know how the story would go. And the following image is one of scenes of second comics, whose title seems to mean "lovers' very common give and take" or something. (c) Jiraiya (from his personal blog) As you can see, it has been a while since he published new comic. But my post on his comic is one of the most popular posts among mine and this motivated me to write this article. He regularly updates his works and everything on his personal blog but only in JAPANESE. :) Happy new year, guys.

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.

I found this gorgeous illustration while surfing Jiraiya. The illustration is from Brute & Brawn . (Click to visit the site.) I don't know how to call him but his work is magnificent. He is kind enough to post his drawing and painting steps. Go and visit his blog from the link.

George Michael (1963-2016) He's gone too soon. I couldn't believe that he's gone. He will be remembered by his beautiful songs and performances. Even though he was outed by accident, since then he was so visible as a gay artist. I will miss him.

Ramunne Ikki(ラムネイッキ) is a now out-of-print short stories compilation of Sansuke Yamada(山田参助). Some of his previous works are newly published by major publishers after he got more famous after his Areyo Hoshikuzo . But this one is not yet. Ramune refers a bottled lemonade widely sold throughout Japan. Ikki means "at once" or in this context, "bottoms up," I guess. The book is described as "hard cover" in Amazon Japan. And one of the customers reviewed that "cover is not the only thing that is hard..." Maybe Japaneses also refer something extreme as "hard" as Koreans do. This is how "Ramune" looks like. By the way, I want the book so badly. Maybe Mr. Yamada re-release the book.

Recently I had a chance to read some of Howard Cruse's works. He is renowned for his work, Stuck Rubber Baby , but instead, I grabbed From Headrack to Claude , thinking short stories would be easier to understand, which turned out to be a huge mistake. The stories were somewhat hard to get it. I didn't know where to laugh and why the stories went that way.. I found some hard time to relate to the stories. Anyway, it was a pleasure to see each frame. He used dots to express shades and it could have taken some time, I suppose. Unique. This time, I am thinking of trying Wendel, one of his comic strip series.

Recently I came to know a webcomics site where only gay-themed comic strips are posted. It's called Kaman Bongji, which means black (plastic) bag literally.  m.kkatoon.com I don't know it is universal or not, Koreans use black plastic bag when to carry purchased items which they want to hide.  Maybe this site is named such as a metaphor for Korean gays who are closeted.  Anyway, Gom Kim is a one of the comics writers on the site.  His comics is based on his interviews with gays who had come out.  I like the way he portrays the interviewees' lives and I love his artwork so~~~ much. 

John Grant is an American singer-songwriter who came out some years ago. I came across his song, Glacier and I could detect something that I could call 'gay-themed' from the lyrics. And when I watched the promotion video of the song, I could understand it is actually about the pain that any gay person can relate to. Enjoy the video which covers many important queer scenes throughout culture and politics.

De-Lovely is the movie portraying American composer and songwriter, Cole Porter . I don't know since when and from what I have had interest in him. Was it from a Monroe 's song? Or a Sinead O'Connor 's rendition of You Do Something to M e? Anyway I got a thing for him. When I watched this movie, I realized that he was very talented and loved, especially by his wife, Linda . But when I saw her embracing her husband's sexuality, I couldn't tell how to react to it. So this is real love? Friendship? Should I be moved by it?

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 %.

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.

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.