It won't do to criticize genre fiction for being formulaic -- even symphonies, not to mention Shakespeare comedies, can be formulaic -- better to ask, what's so different about this version of a story we've seen before?

New BL manga (which I wish had been available to me when I was growing up queer) keep crossing my desk, including the stunning SEASIDE STRANGER, Vol. 1 (Seven Seas, 2021), story and art by Kii Kanna. Rich kid Shun, disowned by his parents after coming out to them on his wedding day, is exiled to a rural island where he lives with his aunt, and where he meets gloomy high school kid Mio. There's a spark between them, but Mio abruptly leaves the island, returning three years later as an adult. Can the boys pick up where they left off?

It's the usual slow dance of misunderstandings, our couple hesitant to believe they're really worthy of one another, but with dialogue as richly nuanced as Kii's drawings: so seemingly simple, yet gorgeously detailed in her depiction of clothing, architecture, landscape, and native flora. Kii is an artist with an eye on which nothing is lost: she can make even a character's sandaled feet convey emotion by devoting a panel to them. If the story veers into melodrama with the arrival of Shun's ex-fiancée, so what? It's nuanced melodrama, and I appreciate that.

Now, back to Earth. Kyohei Azumi's KATAKOI LAMP (Tokyo Pop, 2021) is by-the-numbers BL: café manager Kazuto is smitten with cute college student Jun, but just when he thinks he has a chance with the boy, Jun confides that he's interested in someone else. How awkward! The plot turns into a roundelay of four frustrated lovers, each pining after someone they can't have, but isn't resolved organically: it feels rushed to half a conclusion, providing the obligatory happy ending, but to only one couple. Kind of a dick move on the author's part. The art is functional, conveying information without unnecessary detail (and with minimal visual interest).

Both KATAKOI LAMP and SEASIDE STRANGER include brief but explicit sex scenes (the one in SEASIDE STRANGER has all the charming awkwardness of RL sex). No such concern with THAT BLUE SKY FEELING, Vol. 1 (Viz Media, 2018), which takes us back to high school, where popular jock Noshiro can't stop thinking about his standoffish gay classmate Sanada. His attempts to make friends with the guy aren't going anywhere, 'til they take Noshiro to an emotional space in which he never expected to find himself. The manga's a reboot of a 2009 - 2012 webcomic by Okura, redrawn (with an elegance in its simplicity) by Coma Hashii. The story's not about erotic love, but about the agonies of adolescent confusion, and how kids deal with the reality that you don't get to choose who you're attracted to. Whether they like you back is another matter.

https://www.amazon.com/Seaside-Stranger-Vol-Umibe-Etranger/dp/1648275842/ref=sr_1_3?crid=2PZGZGJBSCSOM&dchild=1&keywords=seaside+stranger+manga&qid=1634363206&s=books&sr=1-3

https://www.amazon.com/Katakoi-Lamp-Kyohei-Azumi/dp/1427867542/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3EMX7PC2V6EBU&dchild=1&keywords=katakoi+lamp+manga&qid=1634363253&s=books&sr=1-1

https://www.amazon.com/That-Blue-Sky-Feeling-Vol/dp/1974701603/ref=sr_1_2?crid=C5OGJTPGU9S4&dchild=1&keywords=that+blue+sky+feeling&qid=1634363287&s=books&sr=1-2