Author Reveals She STRUGGLES to Write Male Friendship: “It Always Seems Like BL”
A Japanese author revealed how difficult it is for her to write male friendship without making it look like BL/Yaoi. Author Tsukumo Kokonoe said that the more she tries to write a friendship between male characters, the more the “temperature” of the scene seems to rise.
Author Reveals She STRUGGLES to Write Male Friendship: “It Always Seems Like BL”
In a tweet published in November 2025, Kokonoe said that even when she has no intention of doing so, scenes between male characters end up developing an atmosphere that strongly resembles the BL genre.
She even joked that perhaps attending an all-girls school made it difficult for her to write male friendships. She said that she can write female friendships without running into the same problem, but whenever she puts two men together as friends, everything somehow starts to feel strangely more “romantic,” even though that was never her intention.
The post caught the attention of other Japanese users, who began sharing suggestions for different works and their own interpretations of what true male friendship looks like.
Some recommended looking at relationships such as Lupin and Jigen, while others mentioned works such as ARMS, Scryed, and Hana no Keiji as references for understanding this kind of bond.
Others argued that friendship between two men does not necessarily have to be based on constant displays of affection.
One person suggested that longtime friends can simply talk and act almost on instinct, without constantly verbalizing their feelings.
Another user suggested that relationships between men can also involve a mixture of friendship, rivalry, competition, and mutual recognition.
The Author Explained What She Was Writing
After the tweet gained quite a bit of attention, the writer decided to explain the situation in more detail.
She revealed that she is writing a story set in an isekai romantic fantasy world, focusing on the youth of two men who eventually become adversaries in the main story.
In other words, they are not exactly two inseparable best friends. The idea is to show a period when they had “something resembling friendship” before eventually going their separate ways.
I wonder if this happens to other authors too. They have no intention of adding Yuri or Yaoi to their works and simply want to portray friendship between the characters, but in the end, it somehow comes across as romantic.
Tsukumo Kokonoe began writing web novels, but one of her stories eventually received a physical publication. The work is titled Haikei, Konyakusha-sama. Watashi wa Kaibutsu Henkyouhaku to Nakayoku Yatte Iku no de Anata wa Mou Iranai.
The story follows Natalie, the president of a huge trading company, who discovers that her fiancé is cheating on her. She decides to break off the engagement and proposes marriage to the feared “Monster of the North” in exchange for helping restore the finances of his territory.
However, what awaits her is a financial crisis far worse than she imagined, along with a maid who makes no attempt to hide her hostility. And to make matters worse, her former fiancé continues to follow her around and refuses to leave her alone.