{"id":1879,"date":"2014-10-15T20:24:01","date_gmt":"2014-10-15T12:24:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.punkednoodle.com\/champloo\/?p=1879"},"modified":"2014-10-15T13:34:48","modified_gmt":"2014-10-15T05:34:48","slug":"harlequin-japans-new-bl-line-starts-with-roomate-and-ranryouou","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.punkednoodle.com\/champloo\/2014\/10\/15\/harlequin-japans-new-bl-line-starts-with-roomate-and-ranryouou\/","title":{"rendered":"Harlequin Japan’s new BL line starts with “Roomate” and Ranryouou"},"content":{"rendered":"

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I’m actually writing this out of massive fangirling for Nakamura Asumiko and silent weeping that I can’t enjoy these lovely covers in their English editions.<\/p>\n

Today, Harlequin Japan announced that they’re starting a new BL line called Harlequin Lovesick which focuses on the translation and novelization of popular M\/M romances from Japan and abroad. One of the titles they’re bringing in is Lana McGregor’s His Roommate’s Pleasure<\/a><\/em> which has been retitled to Roommate<\/a><\/em> and is translated to by Hayakawa Mayuri, localized by BL novelist, Yukishiro Marie, and illustrated by Nakamura Asumiko. The collaboration appears to be an all-out effort to bring in a lot of English gay novels in the Japanese market. Now this isn’t exactly new as Dear+ Bunko has managed to successfully bring in Josh Lanyon’s novels to Japan. His Adrien English novels were actually illustrated by Kusama Sakae<\/a>!<\/p>\n

However, unlike the translations of Josh Lanyon’s novels, Harlequin is even teaming up with popular BL novelists to localize and spin these stories for their loyal Japanese fan base. Just take a look at this sample from Harlequin Lovesick’s video promoting the Roommate.<\/p>\n

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