>Hugz<

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...

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...

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 found numerous artworks by Sansuke and Pontaro , which were used for novels by Osamu Kodama . Some of the novels are included in the Kindle Unlimited category (Amazon Japan), which lead me to subscribe Kindle Unlimited. (c) Pontaro The image above was used for one of the novels I found at Kindle, BANKCRUPTCY , when it was published originally in print. Sadly, the works by Kodama I found at Kindle have zero illustrations. The man in the left recently had to close his company due to economic crisis, borrowed money from a bar owner, where he had frequented for years, and was seduced to have sex with him in return. He turned it down.. for a while, but after he was helped again in finding a new job at a onsen where he found gay customers and got caught by the bar owner while trying to have his first experience with a man, he couldn't find any excuse to refuse.. (Of course, he still CAN refuse.. but we know that is not how the story goes.) The man in the right, who is a CEO ...

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.

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.

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.

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.

Jiraiya is releasing another comic anthology. But it is a kind of "updated" version of the comic book which was released years ago (see below). The newer version contains 3 more comics which were released after the 1st version's release. And it also contains various new stuffs, says Jiraiya.

During my short trip to Japan, I found this book unexpectedly. The cover caught my eyes instantly. And from the word "forbidden" I could guess this book is about homosexual desires. So I bought it but I haven't finished the first chapter. When I looked back, I couldn't remember finishing any English novel besides Maurice . Maybe I just like collecting gay-themed things. Anyway, this book is about a man who uses young lover to hurt women's feeling because he dislikes women.

Long ago, I heard from someone or read from somwhere about a Japanese writer who killed himself. He was Yukio Mishima. This novel is his semi-autobiographical novel. He confesses his sexual desires to workers on the street or a classmate from his childhood in this novel. But the protagonist didn't do anything sexual with any man, even not a brief kiss in this book. Rather than accepting himself, he tried to sleep with a prostitue, in vain or pretend to be straight all along. Not like "Queer", I could read and enjoy this novel without any efforts. Maybe I feel more comfortable when reading Japanese literature.