Information for the Boys’ Love exhibition at the Edit and Art Gallery in the Kadokawa Musashino Museum¹, in Tokorozawa Sakura Town, in Summer 2023. Like all exhibitions at Kadokawa Museum, they recommend that you purchase a ticket in advance, particularly for a weekend.
Boys’ Love Exhibition
An exhibition dedicated to the ‘BL’ Boys’ Love genre. The exhibition, which has been named ‘BL evolution: from pioneers to global phenomenon’ in English, explores the 50 year history of the genre. The BL genre is intricate in the Japanese manga culture. But it is also well known outside Japan. The genre focuses on the romantic (not sexual) relationships of men. Mari Mori is recognized as the first female author in Japan to write about male love in the 1960s. But it was not until the 1970s that they coined the term “shonen-ai”, romantic relations between boys. Moreover, they launched the first male love magazine ‘JUNE’ in 1978. One whole section of the exhibition is dedicated to JUNE.
What to expect
Displays of:
- Valuable original artworks
- Video works including exclusive trailers for upcoming BL movies
- Derivative fan made BL works
- Popular BL magazines
- Satellite site collaboration
Information
Exhibtion: BL Evolution Exhibition はじめてのBL展
Date: Saturday May 20th to Sunday July 16th 2023.
Time: 10 am to 6 pm on weekdays and until 9 pm on Saturday and Sunday. (Closed on the 1st, 3rd and 5th Tuesdays of the month).
Cost: A Kadokawa Culture Museum (KCM) ticket costs 1400 yen for adults, 1200 yen for Junior High School students, 1000 yen for Elementary School kids. Free for children under six years old. A one day passport ticket also includes access to this exhibition – prices start from 4000 yen per person.
Venue: Edit and Art Gallery, Kadokawa Culture Museum. The Edit and Art Gallery is on the fourth floor of Kadcul, located in what is called “Edit Town”. The “Aramata Treasure House” is also on the same floor and also two lecture rooms. For a complete floor to floor guide please do see the Kadokawa Museum post. View on Google Maps.
Access
About an eight to ten minute walk from Higashi Tokorozawa station. Look out for the Anime Manhole covers on your way! Parking available – it costs 200 yen for 30 minutes, but capped at 600 yen on weekdays and 1800 yen on weekends.
¹Kadokawa Musashino Museum is also known as the Kadokawa Culture Museum or Kadcul for short.
Other exhibitions upcoming at Kadokawa include
Previous Exhibitions
The very first exhibition at the Edit and Art Gallery was from June 12th 2020 to early 2021. It was a Japan first exhibition by Ken and Julia Yonetani. Due to its popularity the period they extended the event from one month to half a year! The next display was “The Power of Earth, The Power of Association” from early 2021. In 2022, there were two consecutive cat photo exhibitions by Mitsuaki Iwago. The Lucky Star exhibition, possibly the most popular to date, was on from December 10th 2022 to Sunday February 26th 2023.
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