At times, boys love visual novels are adapted into other media such as drama CDs, stage plays, and manga. Sometimes they are turned into animations, which is what we'll look at today. Here are some examples of yaoi visual novels that became anime or Original Video Animations.
2002's Enzai, the first boys love visual novel ever to be translated from Japanese to English as Enzai: Falsely Accused, was adapted into two OVA episodes in 2004. The OVAs are as graphic and explicit as the game. The ending combines elements from several routes, but features the Lusca romantic pairing.
Also from 2002, Gakuen Heaven: Boys Love Scramble! was adapted as the anime Gakuen Heaven: Boys Love Hyper! in 2006 with thirteen episodes.
As it is a broadcast anime rather than OVAs, it does not contain any sexually explicit content, and the only boys love content comes at the end of the series as the main couple realise they have feelings for each other. The anime focuses on the Keita/Kazuki pairing from the game.
The 2003 boys love visual novel Angel's Feather was adapted into two OVA episodes in 2006. Despite being OVAs like Enzai, the Angel's Feather animation is not sexually explicit like its original game is – though the adaptation remains boys love.
Instead of including sex scenes, the Angel's Feather OVAs have only kissing, holding, and many suggestive shots of shirtless characters.
2005's Togainu no Chi, released in the west as Togainu no Chi - Lost Blood -, was adapted into a twelve-episode anime series in 2010 titled Togainu no Chi - Bloody Curs -. The anime is not boys love, which required removal of many of the game's original plot developments, which are replaced with anime-original scenes.
These scenes allow the anime to flesh out incidents which are only referred to in the original game, such as the murder of Rin's Bl@ster team by Shiki.
The Togainu no Chi anime also allows the physicality of the original story – which centres around violent street fights between athletic men – to come to the fore in a way not afforded by static visual novel imagery.
The 2012 hit DRAMAtical Murder was made into a twelve-episode anime series in 2014, with an additional OVA being released after the series had aired. While the original visual novel is explicit boys love, the main twelve episodes of the anime remove any sexual or romantic content (except for one kiss from Noiz, because Noiz cannot be contained). The storyline combined all the routes of the game, as well as additional anime-only characters and scenes (such as Ryuho and Mizuki meeting) and culminated in the 'true' ending scene.
The DRAMAtical Murder OVA, unlike the twelve episodes of the main series, is explicitly BL and features all the 'bad end' scenarios from the game. Which means that the only sex in the DRAMAtical Murder anime is in very dark and violent scenarios, while all the happier explicit scenes are gone.
