Boys Love, or BL for short is a genre that depicts romantic and/or sexual relationships between men. It’s a rich genre with stunning variety in its themes and due to its popularity, the English market gets a satisfactory number of localized titles. The trends and tropes change and evolve over time, however, certain broad strokes or fan favorites remain.
The word ‘trope’ has a negative connotation among anime and manga fans, but it is merely a tool whose outcome depends on its implementation. The romance genre especially runs on tropes, but it’s either a setting or a dynamic that helps the reader decide whether to invest in a series or not. In this corner, I want to highlight 5 Boys Love VSC that share the same trope. Today’s theme is countryside!
Farming for Love
Writer & Artist: Tarang
Platform: Lezhin (Mature)
Working as a pharmacist at a hospital saves Hyeon-woo the trouble of Google’ing his symptoms. His pulmonologist friend advises him to cut back on smoking and stay away from stress as much as possible, offering he run his uncle’s pharmacy in a village for a couple of months to recuperate. Hyeon-woo accepts. Right off the bat trouble strikes him, and a young man named Do-won helps towing his car. In retrospect, Hyeon-woo has led a relatively easy, successful, problem-free life, save for his trashy ex-boyfriend collection. So he doesn’t know how to navigate his relationship with this stoic but earnest farmer who keeps coming to the store every day.
Under the name of Tarang, the artist has two commercial series; Farming for Love and Maison de Maid, a Girls Love VSC. Under the pen name of Yaggug (or Yakkuk) however, they have a wider array of works, one of them being a guide on how to draw manhwa, Korean comics, licensed in English by Ulysses Press. The variety!
Unlike many other VSCs, Farming for Love is fully black and white, and having 28 chapters in total makes this series easy to give a shot! Having no color and wide gaps between the panels sometimes gives the impression that the pages are empty. However, the art style is expressive enough, the rural backgrounds are pretty, and the series has a lot of charm… so the rest doesn’t stick out to me that much.
One detail that works is how amusingly the narration is written! The author doesn’t hold back from roasting their characters or exposing them. Since the series is short, the exposition has to do the heavy lifting when setting the respective backgrounds of the characters or the events. And Tarang’s narration turns reading the exposition into a fun experience.
While “the older city boy is charmed by the younger country boy’s sincerity (and huge pecs)” is a formulaic setup, Farming for Love manages to explore it in an interesting and entertaining manner. This series would be best for readers who love pathetic older men running away from their problems and freezing at the sight of one (1) genuine emotion.
Our Sunny Days
Writer & Artist: Jeong Seokchan
Platform: Lezhin (Mature)
Sung Ho is surprised to see his ex-girlfriend, whom he broke up with over a year ago, visit him in the army. But nothing could top the fact that she got pregnant when he was dating Ho, gave birth to a baby girl, and is now leaving her to Ho’s care. He is free to either take her in or leave her at foster care, she tells him. Thus Ho decides to leave the U.S., buy a house in a rural village in Korea with the remainder of his savings, and finds himself a single dad with no child-rearing experience. The last thing he wants on his plate is an overly involved village head, suspicious of his motives for moving. But as is often the case, that’s exactly what he gets.
As someone who’s not all that interested in the single-father trope in BL, I passed Our Sunny Day when it was first introduced to Lezhin’s library. I randomly decided to give it a chance during a sale, and let me tell you: lives were changed that day! Now it’s become one of those VSCs where the chapters are never enough and waiting another week for an update proves impossible.
Being an orphan himself, fathering his daughter isn’t a difficult decision for Ho to make despite his worries. He joined the army and was then dispatched to the U.S. because he had no other ambitions in life. Now that he is to shoulder this responsibility, he chooses to settle in a rural village in Korea to raise his daughter in a peaceful environment. He does get off on the wrong foot with the rumored head of the village, Kwon Haebom, but he quickly becomes an essential part of Ho’s life.
Ho’s abandonment and desire to form a family is one of the central pieces of Our Sunny Days, so the the other villagers situations he witnesses are all family-related incidents as well, including the past misfortunes Kwon faced. Some of these arcs are more emotionally charged than others, so I won’t say this series is always a walk in the park. However, it’s a beautiful exploration of the notion of family.
Our Sunny Days is Jeong Seokchan’s most recent VSC, with Unromantic Romance, Rain Again, and A Thousand Cranes fully available in English. I would recommend this series to readers who are looking for emotional depth and great comedy to balance an interesting premise with lovingly crafted characters. And it’s a big bonus if you adore bulky leads!
Love Tractor
Writer: HmmYongYong
Artist: AngryMonster
Translation: Stacy Chi
Platform: Tappytoon (All-ages), Tapas (All-ages)
To Sun Yool, his grandfather collapsing is a blessing in disguise. He’s in the hospital and there’s no one to take care of his farm. Meanwhile Sun Yool is tired of life weighing him down, in need of a place to run away from his problems. Perfect. He has his share of hardships upon arriving in the countryside: his car gets stuck in the mud, he’s doused with water and accused of being a dog thief. All these mishaps lead to Sun Yool unintentionally getting entangled with the neighbor’s son and a close friend of his grandfather, Yechan.
Love Tractor is a collaborative work between HmmYongYong and AngryMonster. This is the only commercial title for HmmYongYong, while AngryMonster has two other VSCs. Oh! My Assistant was licensed in English and available on Tapas, however, it’s not available on any legal platform for now.
I started Love Tractor solely to find a suitable title for a BL Challenge four years ago. At first, I thought I was captivated because I expected nothing in the first place. As I kept on reading though, it was impossible not to grow fond of these lovable characters with depth and dimension to them, the carefully crafted plot that touches on important topics and be coerced into giving that cottagecore life a shot for real.
One of the reasons Sun Yool is feeling overwhelmed is briefly touched upon at the very beginning: his relationship with his lover back in Seoul is basically over, but they haven’t openly talked about breaking up yet. We find out the true weight of his circumstances later on and why he wasn’t ready to cut ties. Yechan, on the other hand, is the happy-go-lucky, spirited, young and healthy one of the two. They clash in certain areas and fit in others, and this makes Love Tractor so satisfying to read.
I cannot recommend this series enough! This series has anything you would expect from a comic. Lots of meme-worthy panels, funny moments that’ll make you yell out loud and emotional arcs you won’t recover from for a week: it’s all here!
Bongchon Bride
Writer & Artist: Son Gaepi
Platform: Manta (All-ages) Lezhin (Mature)
Bongchun is a farmer who lives with his blind and almost deaf mother, having no contact with others except to sell his produce. Others stay away from him as well: the man has a huge build and is almost two meters tall with very long and unkempt hair. One day during his visit to a merchant family, the head abruptly decides that it’s time for Bongchun to own a slave, and he just happens to have one he can use. Pitying the battered and unconscious Soongap, he buys him out for 50 sacks of rice.
And that is equal to 20 years of work for Bongchun. Son Gaepi is another artist who dabbles both in BL and GL, Bongchon Bride being the only VSC they are the sole creator of. The series is completed with 92 chapters.
Another black and white period piece on the list, Bongchon Bride is set in a time that is reminiscent of Joseon. The series’ pace seems a bit slow and the plot gives off the feeling that nothing much happens. Life in the mountains is indeed slow; Soongap is badly injured, Bongchun has to continue farming, and the mother thinks Bongchun has finally brought in a bride to marry. Hence the most they do is get up, eat, farm, eat and go back to sleep.
To balance the pace, Gaepi interjects flashbacks, dreams, and sometimes new characters to keep the reader engaged and the plot lively, which also works as exposition. We get to know Soongap and Bongchun and the unfortunate circumstances that bring the two to this day. It’s a poignant series with an equally evocative and mesmerizing art style.
Bonchon Bride would be perfect for readers who want to see a size difference between the leads, are in for an emotional ride and are a sucker for the historical dynasty backdrop.
Hotel Pharus
Writer & Artist: BINGO
Translation: yw740030
Platform: Tappytoon (All-ages & Mature)
First, his long-term friend-with-benefits dumps Daniel to marry a woman. Then, he hears that the bar he’s working at will soon close. The same night, he gets a phone call to learn his estranged father has passed away and Daniel is unexpectedly the heir to the Hotel Pharus. Even when the hotel manager says his late father intended to sell the hotel, Daniel can’t bring himself to lose this place he remembers fondly. He knew taking over wouldn’t be easy given his inexperience, but soon notices there’s something… amiss in this place.
Creepy countryside BL, anyone? Hotel Pharus is Bingo’s second commercial BL to hit English-language platforms after Alien in My Wardrobe on Tapas. Both series are completed and under 60 chapters.
Hotel Pharus does a good job of establishing the uncanny air in the hotel early on. There’s a west wing that’s built much later on, but for some reason, it aged much faster than the rest of the hotel. Unless one of the workers is tasked to clean the wing, no one is allowed to enter there except the manager and the owner. The guests are advised to walk away if they’re to “see someone there”.
Daniel also finds out that this remote hotel is used by the rich to send their “troubled” kids to basically isolate and prevent them from tarnishing the family’s reputation. One such “problematic child” is our other male lead, Alexander Creston. The person who places the reservation in his stead pays a hefty sum and expects reports on Alexander’s behavior from Daniel in return.
What attracted me to this series was the beautiful character designs and soft hues. I especially loved the way this series was colored. While I still haven’t finished the whole comic, murder/mystery/uncovering the past types of stories are always fun to read. I also found the bit about wealthy families neglecting their kids who fail to fit in quite compelling.
I’d recommend Hotel Pharus to readers who are looking for a completed VSC, would enjoy period pieces and solving mysteries, and prefer their BL super steamy!
Boys Love: Country Boy uses sincerity. It’s super effective!
If the isekai genre has trucks hitting its main characters, countryside BL has cars getting stuck in the mud! What a great way to meet your fated boyfriend-to-be.
Fictional stories in rural places are often stereotypically about the main character finding “their true self” or a “heartwarming, unassuming community,” which leads to a superficial countryside romance. However, it’s interesting to see that even when introducing a setting that seems cliched at first, BL creators can construct stories that are diverse, gripping and thought-provoking!
Catch up with previous entries in K-Comics Beat’s Boys Love for Life series by clicking here!
