Gazing at the Azure - Oneshot

[MangaDex]

 

[bakasennin]

Yashiro really captured the June aesthetics with this story. I love the panels with the spirit and Syra. Thank you so much ❤️

 

[Regular_user2]

Thank you for sharing this with us. It's a beautiful work. I wonder if it was a bit inspired by the myth of Narcissus.

 

[rustbird]

This comes off as very incestuous in the emphasis on Ogna needing to tell Syra he’s beautiful to win him back from the spirit. It’s not framed as romantic competition explicitly, but Syra sure acts lovesick, and them running away together to parts unknown is awfully elopement-coded.

 

[a12]

This comes off as very incestuous in the emphasis on Ogna needing to tell Syra he’s beautiful to win him back from the spirit. It’s not framed as romantic competition explicitly, but Syra sure acts lovesick, and them running away together to parts unknown is awfully elopement-coded.

This was in the proto-BL magazine June, and while Yashiro herself was never part of the proto-BL/June sphere, she was very well aware of the magazine's target demographic. The work is deliberately structured to have different readings depending on who goes through it; the general public can view it as a story between two very close brothers, whereas the proto-fujoshi could enjoy the tanbi (aesthetic) atmosphere and relish in the brothers' relationship in full, even if it's not outright incest. It is intentional.

 

[rustbird]

This was in the proto-BL magazine June, and while Yashiro herself was never part of the proto-BL/June sphere, she was very well aware of the magazine's target demographic. The work is deliberately structured to have different readings depending on who goes through it; the general public can view it as a story between two very close brothers, whereas the proto-fujoshi could enjoy the tanbi (aesthetic) atmosphere and relish in the brothers' relationship in full, even if it's not outright incest. It is intentional.

Thank you for the additional context, this was enlightening! I'm trying to delve into older manga and get a sense of the development of various genres. I suspected this was a deliberately teasing piece, and it's interesting to know it was definitely a part of that transitional period to full-on BL.

 

[a12]

@rustbird No problem I was thinking about including that in my comments initially but felt that'd be forcing my own opinion on the work - I want it to speak for itself. Something with a similar duality can be found in Nanae Sasaya's A Silent Morning. June in its early days had a decent variety of works, even including non-proto-BL works, m/f stories. But you'd still of course get works with explicit proto-BL (works from this period outright just being called 'June-kei'), one example being Adieu. It really just depended on the mangaka and their leanings. I believe June shifts to having completely June-kei/proto-BL works by the mid-80s but that I'm not super certain on.