Newly published in English, Reibun Ike’s Dick Fight Island – a mix of fighting and yaoi manga – tore through the manga charts on Amazon.
Despite a rich and important history in the manga industry, yaoi and/or Boys Love (BL) has always been ranked, culturally, as inferior in customs and traditions – but the genre of yaoi or boy love still thrives despite bad reviews. And when it comes to boy love, there’s probably no better series than Reibun Ike’s Dick Fight Island.
First published in Japan in 2019 by Libre, the first volume was recently released in English by SuBLime, Viz Media’s BL imprint, and received a huge backlash in the media. society. Of course, the name of the manga alone is enough to shock one and attract a few curious clicks, but those who purchased the book were also pleasantly surprised to discover that the “Island” aspect fight” in Ike’s work is also endowed with the “Dick” part.
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Set in a fictional collection of eight islands known as Pulau Yong’Unda, the fighting element revolves around a tournament held every four years: “The Great Wyrm Tournament.” The indigenous clan of each island nominates a male boxer to participate in a series of one-on-one matches, the outcome of which will decide Pulau Yong’Unda’s next king.
How does one win a match? Well, that’s where the ‘love’ part of this BL adventure story, er, comes into play. In essence, Dick Fight Island has turned sex into a spectator sport, with participants – wearing body-hugging gloves – fighting for domination of each other until the loser is completely defeated. full … pepper. Think the race of the classic shonen tournament meets the X-Rated sex erotic . But despite the old adage that ‘prostitution’ applies here, not every yaoi work has been named a bestseller. However, Dick Fight Island quickly fought to top the Amazon bestseller list for both the Manga Romance and Yaoi & LGBTQ+ categories. At the time of writing, 84 percent of the nearly 200 book reviews were five stars, and the English copies sold out quickly.
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As you can imagine, its success caught Viz Media off guard. “Dick Fight Island sales were somewhat of a surprise and exceeded expectations,” Vice President of Publishing Sales Kevin Hamric told CBR. “In fact, it happened so quickly that we had to have a reprint! Sales like this and so fast often mean we’ve gone beyond our target audience and picked up the right ones. readers don’t usually read yaoi. This could be due to the title itself or the humorous and romantic aspects of the plot that appear so quickly in the first volume of the series.”
At least one Amazon review titled, “I generally don’t like yaoi” certainly proves Hamric’s suggestion that the book is outpacing its expected demographic. “The title and premise are so completely absurd that I have to satisfy my curiosity and pretty much laugh and smile throughout the manga.”
Humor is really a manga booster – it’s hard to dismiss the title as soon as you see it, not to mention the cover art, which features a faceless man, muscular with a giant armored penis. But so are the word-of-mouth factors. Others who have purchased and loved Dick Fight Island praise its unexpected world-building and distinctive characterization, which is not immediately apparent from the cover.
The island itself has something of a Thymiscera quality to it, not so much in the idea of a single-sex society (women do exist and play prominent roles, very rarely welcome for BL) but in nature isolationism, warrior culture in the eyes of outsiders. The unique histories and subcultures of each race are explained in profound but incomplete detail when they come to compete, while each fighter is chosen with a fighting style, personality, and emotional baggage. own for the tournament. All of this does what it shouldn’t: create a comedic premise that’s really believable.
Above all, Dick Fight Island is, for all its silence, as compelling to read as its statues, its topless cast. Ike himself explains it best in the ending of the first volume: “It’s a fighting manga, but it’s also a touching story.”