I thought the author was trying to get rid of any shounen ai/yaoi stuff, especially with t...

from what i know, it was never actually marketed as a BL in japan but it was over here because of the heavy implications of yoshiki's feelings towards hikaru. you could even interpret their relationship as a unrequited love straight away in the first few chapters so it made sense to advertise it as such even when it wasn't the intention for it to be a BL outright

Wait so it's not a bl and won't be a bl??

an anime adaptation is still the same story as the manga. so you should go off of what u think it is. but yes, it was never marketed as a BL in japan. i mean something can have a gay character without making it a BL

correct, this isn't a BL. you could call it a queer/gay story but primarily it's a supernatural horror mystery! it's just that yoshiki happens to be gay (implied but... c'mon lol we all know)

Except the artist made art if hikaru and yoshiki kissing. Then the day the bl tag was removed, she proceeded to delete all the arts from her twt

actually, it never had a BL tag on the official website. so the story in specific isnt a BL. its still obvious that yoshiki had feelings for hikaru, but that doesn't make it a BL story. we can only hope that the adaptation doesn't take away yoshiki's queerness. and i mean, hikaru was dead from the beginning, so theres no actual BL story between the two. just yoshiki reminiscing his unrequited love. only unofficial websites took away the BL tag so thats where everyone gets confuses or unknowingly spreads misinfo

Obviously if the bl tag is taken away the author doesn't want us to take it as bl. But the reason all queerness was stripped away in a matter of days is because she received backlash after it was published in a magazine (a few months ago around the time the anime adaptation was to be announced). And she deleted her arts of them kissing.

We can't just ignore that

yeah, but the BL tag never existed in the first place. so that cant be an example of the queerness being "taken" away if it was never there. the story still has its queerness and its not like it was removed or censored. the art of them kissing wasn't in the actual story so it supposedly being deleted didnt remove anything. the kissing scene is from a oneshot that came before the story, so its likely the idea was scrapped or something similar. maybe the author wasnt sure whether they wanted it to be a BL or not. i mean the manga was going on for a long time before the announcement so i dont think the art being deleted effected the story. the art being deleted could effect the outcome of the anime so we can only hope that the backlash wasnt bad enough to remove all queerness from the anime entirely

A manga can have queer characters without being a bl/yaoi

I think that art was of what could have been between Yoshiki and Hikaru not ‘Hikaru’, I don’t think anything was ever going to happen between Yoshiki and ‘Hikaru’, it could never be a BL because Hikaru has died, it’s more about a queer/gay kid grappling with the grief and loss of his best friend, his love that could never begin, and the homophobia, internalized or otherwise around him. How could he sincerely, or possibly, fall in love with the entity that’s a walking reanimated corpse of his love and best friend and it not be him trying to be in denial and get through his grief to some extent? Of course, the author has been consistent with reminding us, since the beginning, that ‘Hikaru’ is an incomprehensible entity that literally cannot fully relate to or be on the same page on death, love, or intimacy as humans, because it does not have the same concept of those things, it might not even have a concept of those things. And that’s not wrong or sad, it’s just different, humans aren’t the epitome. It sucks she had to remove that art though because of the backlash.

Also, how can the queerness be stripped away when Yoshiki is literally still queer and his grappling with the acceptance of his sexuality still? Just because we aren’t going to see romance doesn’t take the queerness away from the story

Queerness now is only implied. Regardless of whether or not the story has romance, it is not bl although the author hinted it at the start. That's what I meant by the statement not that yoshiki is now straight or anything because he might still be gay.

But yes, because of the backlash, it is sad that the author stripped away the bl-ness from her story. That's what I'm saying.

That’s so disappointing :(

Everything doesn’t need to be a BL man, there are thousands of BLs everywhere, it would be weird and if Yoshiki and ‘Hikaru’ end up together because Hikaru is the one Yoshiki truly loves anyways, why can’t it be about a kid grappling with his sexuality and grief and the way he copes surrounded by interesting creepy supernatural shit

I didnt say it needed to be BL. And no it won't be weird why would you think that? It's already a weird story. I never said it can't be about grappling with his grief and sexuality you're jumping to your own conclusions. The fact is it's sad that the author had to change her tags and delete their bl posts due to the larger Japanese audience once it started getting traction. That's light censorship and any censorship of any artistic work is sad to see, not just bc its bl

There was already a debate about this in the comment section, there was never any real BL tag on this, it was only put on sites like this one and others like it

You are aware that the author drew them kissing. In her twitter account. Not to mention the heavily implied references in the material itself. Just because I express a woe that it is sad that everything has been deleted doesn't mean you can't enjoy it in your own way

And? Doesn’t mean it was ever meant to be a BL or was ever published with those intentions. There can’t be any real romance between an elderitch horror whose concepts of anything is so different from humans that it simply cannot ever understand or know what humans want or feel. And the author also mentioned how close to death Yoshiki came to multiple times precisely because of these differences, “Hiakru’s” “existence” is literally beyond comprehension. The BL died with Hikaru, unfortunately. I really wished Hikaru lived, man he really is one of my fav characters. It would have been massively fucked up if Yoshiki and “Hikaru” did anything and it would have also been predictable. What was implied? The complexity of grieving someone you loved while having their body reanimated walking around near you occupied by an incomprehensible eldritch horror who can also access their memories and mimics him as much as possible? Of course anyone, let alone a kid in a homophobic society, would be confused and want to live in denial and have confused sexual feelings and etc etc. What exactly is implied?

Also are you sure the kiss wasn’t with Hikaru and not “Hikaru”? The only person Yoshiki ever loved romantically is Hikaru and the base fact is is that “Hikaru” isn’t him. And being with a being that wears the skin of the one you loved and doesn’t really understand the concept of being with someone just cheapens that, and that’s why this is a queer horror story and not a bl.

I thought this conversation died a long time ago. it's frustrating seeing people still not understanding that this isn't a BL. I thought it was pretty obvious that "hikaru" isn't hikaru. I mean, if you understood the story u would know that. Why would there be romance between a character and some entity that isn't actually his friend hikaru. Plus the BL tag is a false rumor, wild that people are still spreading it. It just feels like people are too focused on the non existent romance instead of what actually makes this story queer. The main character loses the friend he had a crush on and it's tragic. He's also grieving the death of his friend all by himself for most of the story. Sorry if I'm just repeating what you said but I thought I might add, since apparently I already had this conversation awhile ago.