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Good news on the yaoi front!
MangaBlog reported yesterday that DMP will be publishing Kizuna, which had been out of print in the US since BeBeautiful went out of business. This is very welcome news, since it's one of my favorite yaoi series--maybe now I can get that missing 6th volume! I have volumes 1-5 and 7-8 of the BeBeautiful editions, but wasn't able to get 6. I found a used Japanese version, but I haven't had time to translate it, so I still haven't read 7 and 8 yet. I found a summary online, and I think I'll probably just flip through and look at the pictures, then go on and read 7 and 8, since it's kind of dumb to just leave them sitting on my bookshelf, unread; it just really bugs me to read a series out of order. It sounds like DMP will be publishing them in double-volume omnibus form. Of course I want to get the volumes I don't have, but I'll have to think about whether I want to buy the ones that I already have--if it's a nice edition and/or has extras, then maybe I will. I do want to support the publisher for picking up this series, after all.
Also, Deb Aoki at Manga About.com posted a reader's choice list of must-read yaoi manga. Some of my favorite titles are on here, along with a few that I don't really like, and some that sound interesting that I haven't read yet. Definitely worth taking a look at.
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Which ones don't you like? I didn't care for FAKE; its preposterousness doesn't work for me considering its setting in the NYPD. I was surprised Brother x Brother or some other work by Kisragi (if I remember his name correctly) wasn't included either. I was also surprised not to see Descendants of Darkness on the list, or is that technically not a BL/yaoi title?
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Actually, I love FAKE--I can understand that it's difficult to suspend belief at times, but I really like the characters. I'm guessing that Descendants of Darkness isn't considered a "real" yaoi title, though there's plenty of BL overtones.
Looking at the list again, I guess the only one that I really can't stand is Desire. If you haven't read it, the main character Toru is secretly in love with his best friend, Ryoji, who has a girlfriend but sleeps with Toru on the side. For Ryoji, it's a purely physical relationship, and to be fair, he doesn't know how Toru really feels, but I thought he was a creep for (1) cheating on his girlfriend, and (2) using Toru for sex. Toru goes along with it at first because he wants Ryoji so badly, but soon he finds that it hurts too much to sleep with someone who doesn't love him. He wants to break it off, but doesn't want to tell Ryoji the real reason why, so an older student who's befriended him offers to pretend to be Toru's new boyfriend so he has a good excuse. However, the new friend eventually confesses that he likes Toru for real, so Toru stops their fake romance because he doesn't want to hurt his friend the way that Ryoji hurt him. Meanwhile, Ryoji gets jealous of Toru's "boyfriend," and realizes that he loves Toru, after all. He apologizes to Toru for treating him badly before, and they get together, but by that point, I didn't really want to forgive him. The other guy was much nicer, and I wanted him and Toru to get together although I knew it wouldn't happen--it felt like the old cliche about nice guys finishing last.
Moon and Sandals was okay, but not great, though I love most of Fumi Yoshinaga's other titles. I haven't actually read any of the Yaoi Press titles, but the art generally looks a bit too cartoonish for my tastes. They're not "real" manga, but yaoi-style graphic novels by American or European artists, so maybe that's why it doesn't look right to me. Although there are non-yaoi OEL manga titles that I like, such as Megatokyo and Dramacon.