In a few of my posts, I mentioned some titles have ranked in the 2025 Chill Chill BL Awards. So today I’ll finally talk about them!

In short, Chill Chill is a database and community site dedicated to BL. (Please note the site is all in Japanese.) Users can browse recent releases, rate and review them, discover titles through extensive filters, read author and artist interviews, log your bookshelf, and more! Users can also choose their favorite authors, artists, and works. This information in turn can be used to find recommendations through their BL Sommelier service, which does utilize some type of AI. Chill Chill also has several social media accounts outside their main site.

Please Note: Chill Chill has non-explicit mature content on the site.

On their front page, they list the top 10 rated works over the last 10 days, with options to change the time range. This ranking is determined by how many ratings the work has received in that time. While there’s a primary focus on commercial BL manga, Chill Chill’s extensive database also includes novels, drama CDs, and doujin/self-published works. It also includes some non-BL works and works translated into Japanese, such as M/M novels like Captive Prince.

Now, the BL Awards is an annual event that ranks the top works of the previous year, primarily focusing on manga. This only includes commercial BL works that were released as a volume/tankobon. For 2025, they also have categories for best webtoon, novel, and drama CD. Ratings on Chill Chill determine which works are nominated, and then users vote over the course of about 10 days. The results were then released in April, showing the top 20 for most categories. As long as they have a Chill Chill account, anyone can vote! The page is mostly in Japanese, but there are some parts of the site that have translations available.

🎊✧˖°The Result Announcement°˖✧🎊#BLAWARD2025
💎𝗕𝗘𝗦𝗧 𝗖𝗼𝗺𝗶𝗰𝘀💎

Top Authors Commented on Results Page🏆💌

🔽Check "Best Comics" results:https://t.co/Vlrg8fRg9A
🔽Full results:https://t.co/kmPkgZMuNs pic.twitter.com/2un9fgG28B

— Chill Chill English (@chillchill_gr) April 18, 2025

While I mentioned the BL Sommelier service earlier, these people can actually become a Chill Chill certified BL Sommelier through an exam! This exam is in two parts and offered once a year! The exam has a 1.4% pass rate, with only 36 of 2,508 test takers becoming certified BL Sommeliers as of 2024. The next exam takes place in October of this year. Sommeliers work with Chill Chill for a variety of online projects and events, now including the Chill Chill BL Awards! The BL Sommelier Recommendation category was a new category for this year, where Sommeliers nominated and voted on works. As this is not based on general popularity in comparison to the other categories, I hope they continue to have this category in future BL Awards.

🎊✧˖°The Result Announcement°˖✧🎊#BLAWARD2025
🍷𝗕𝗘𝗦𝗧 𝗕𝗟 𝘀𝗼𝗺𝗺𝗲𝗹𝗶𝗲𝗿 𝗿𝗲𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗺𝗲𝗻𝗱🍷

Top Authors Commented on Results Page🏆💌

🔽Check "Best BL Sommelier recommend" results:https://t.co/E250iAvys4
🔽Full results:https://t.co/kmPkgZMuNs pic.twitter.com/D95MpyWWpB

— Chill Chill English (@chillchill_gr) April 18, 2025

While Chill Chill is primarily for Japanese audiences, they have begun to connect with international fans. Their English X (Twitter) account has been growing over the last year. It’ll be interesting to see what they’ll do in the future! Japanese and international audiences in general do have different tastes, but Chill Chill and the BL Awards is still a valuable resource to those who are interested in the Japanese BL world.

To be honest, I would adore an English version of Chill Chill. But with the cost of hosting a database and website and then maintaining, it is rather costly. There was a project called Ouendan Blue that was similar to Chill Chill for English licensed BL but unfortunately ceased updating a few years back. (The site seems unreachable now too.) General English manga and anime databases like anilist and MyAnimeList already exist, so I am unsure of the need. (I personally would love to participate in making one dedicated to BL manga…)

To end this post, I will refer to two more blog posts from Renta!’s BLog for further reading on Chill Chill. Renta! in Japan is a well-known e-book platform, and the English version of Renta! differs a bit from the Japanese site, as it’s not only a platform but a digital-only English publisher as well. And while the Japanese site has all genres, the English site focuses more on romance and BL. The BLog is run by the localization team and a neat resource for information on BL culture within Japan, which I feel is rarely available in English! Note: There may be discussions of mature content on the BLog.

ChillChill BL Awards 2024, and their Importance in the BL Landscape
♡ Gives an overview and history of Chill Chill and the BL Awards

We Attended the ChillChill Fujoshi Seminar!
♡ Introduces Sandias, Chill Chill’s parent company and their BL market research
♡ Discusses Sandias’ seminar that focused on international fans and BL

Last edited: 2025.07.16

Many publishers in the US (and overseas!) have been licensing more and more BL in English in recent years! Tokyopop’s LoveLove imprint is overwhelmingly BL. Seven Seas Entertainment‘s weekly Wonderful Wednesdays licensing announcement often have BL, occasionally making up nearly half of the announced titles. They have been known for licensing many Chinese BL novels (danmei) since late 2021. Indie publisher Denpa has been releasing BL manga under their imprint Kuma. YenPress introduced their imprint Ize Press, whose lineup includes Korean BL manhwa and novels. Penguin Random House now has Inklore, which has also released some BL. More recently, J-Novel Club announced their BL imprint Knight last year, and plan to announce titles soon. These publishers have been announcing a great number of BL, with catalogs that may one day rival long-time BL publishers such as SuBLime and Juné (imprint of Digital Manga Publishing).

Japanese companies and publishers have also started to join in the English market, though digitally. Japanese publisher Takeshobo has their own in-house team and ShuCream previously released their own titles before working with publishers like Tokyopop, who has licensed many titles from ShuCream’s BL magazine from RED. Animate International, a company which mainly focuses on importing goods to Japan, also began to license manga. There are also companies who are both publisher and platform, such as Futekiya (which is now a part of the service Manga Planet), Renta!, and MangaPlaza. Though I said they were mainly digital, Futekiya/Manga Planet and Animate International have actually started to print some of their titles. In the United States, books from both of these publishers are currently available for purchase from Kinokuniya USA.

While there has been an increase in BL overall, there have been little updates on Juné’s releases and ongoing titles. This includes the second edition print of Even So, I Will Love You Tenderly by Kou Yoneda, which released digitally last summer. There has been no announcement regarding the physical print since then. Juné has been licensing BL for over two decades now, but no longer release as much…

As for the types of BL being published, Japanese manga continues to be the largest. However, novels and print versions of webcomics have also been increasingly popular. As previously mentioned, Chinese BL webnovels, known as danmei, has been very popular. Even manhua have been released. Indie publishers of danmei include Hai Tang, Rosmei (Singapore) and Via Lactea (Canada). While Via Lactea books are available through major retailers, Rosmei books can only be purchased through select partner retailers. For indie publishers and manhua, Aloha Comics has published two: the Taiwanese manhua Day Off and Chinese manhua Here U Are. Similar has happened with Korean BL manhwa and webnovels. While Korean BL is primarily released digitally in English, some have been printed. One indie publisher called Publang has recently announced print releases for some of their novel titles.

Outside East Asian BL, Thai BL has also been gaining traction. In particular, novels SOTUS and The Red Thread have gotten Japanese manga adaptations. Both titles are available in English through YenPress.

As a fan, the BL boom is real! And keeping up with titles is definitely costly… In addition to larger US publishers releasing BL novels and comics, there are many smaller publishers whose titles may be worth checking out as well! Hope this was a slightly helpful rundown, even though it may have been information overload.

2025.05.17 Edit:
I forgot to mention indie publisher Star Fruit Books! They have a few BL manga available too, including a self-published series called When Pink Rain Falls.

2025.05.26 Edit: I also forgot to mention BLoved Publishing, another indie publisher who has licensed the Korean BL novel and manhwa adaptation of Dear Benjamin and Japanese BL novel series Deadlock.

2025.07.08: I’ve added more publishers to the list not previously mentioned in this post, including BluPetal, another new publisher staffed by people who have experience at other publishers.

I’ve created a table of publishers that have published BL! Hope to keep this updated.
Here’s a preview:

Last Edited: 2025.07.08