How to introduce a friend to Boys Love visual novels? I mean, I guess you could do what my friends did: many years ago, about a year after DRAMAtical Murder originally came out in Japan, when they decided to Chromecast Clear's explicit scene onto the TV for me to watch. Talk about getting thrown in the deep end!
It obviously worked out okay for me, as it motivated me to go from my comfortable inner-city desk job to the wilderness of working in BL VNs myself, but I'm not sure they took what you'd call the considered approach in how to get someone interested in playing Boys Love visual novels for themselves. Hopefully this guide will offer a more moderate set of tactics!
Boys Love visual novels vary widely as a genre, from intense psychological thrillers like Slow Damage to sex comedies like The Patient S Remedy. If you're looking to introduce a friend to BL VNs, the best method I can recommend is to think about what other media they enjoy and try to find something similar to that. Do they like tokusatsu? Obviously, UuultraC is going to be your first port of call.
If your friend is a BL newbie, you may be introducing them to the genre because they've previously shown a love of slash fanfic, Chinese danmei, or another related genre. If your friend likes stories where boys kiss, Boys Love visual novels are a natural fit for them – it's just about finding the right way to get them to try something different and new.
Boys Love as a genre, be it visual novels, anime, or manga, has specific tropes, so think about your friend and how they'll react to those tropes. Should you go for something that subverts the traditional seme/uke dynamics of the genre, like Lkyt. with its younger seme and older ukes? Will they be comfortable with the lack of consent in the majority of sweet pool's explicit scenes, or should you go for something more romantic to ease them in?
An important thing to consider when working out the best way to introduce your friend to BL visual novels is how familiar they are with Boys Love otherwise: are they, as offered as an example above, completely fresh to anime and manga, but enjoy slash fanfic or danmei novels and the tropes these media include?
Have they seen anime such as Yuri!!! on Ice or No.6, fitting into another genre but still with a gay male romance at its heart?
Or are they already deep in the yaoi trenches when it comes to anime and manga, but new to visual novels?
Let's take DRAMAtical Murder as a potential game to show each of these audience categories, and what the starting positions will mean in terms of how it's received.
If they come from slash fanfic or danmei, your friend will enjoy the slow-burn romances on each of the routes, but will miss out on some of the genre jokes that require a familiarity with anime and manga tropes.
An example is the scene where Clear is cooking in nothing but an apron – moments like that with wives naked save for an apron in the kitchen show up often in raunchy Japanese media, which is something your friend will have no framework for knowing.
The joke with Clear still lands, of course, but it doesn't land as hard as it might have done.
If your friend has seen Yuri!!! on Ice, No.6, or other gay-but-not-BL Japanese media, DRAMAtical Murder's story-driven elements coexisting with the developing romance will feel familiar... though honestly, a No.6 fan is going to be much less shocked by the dark cyberpunk turns of DRAMAtical Murder than a Yuri!!! on Ice fan might be – maybe if you're dealing with a Yuri!!! on Ice fan, you might want to ease them in with the Light route of Sorcerer's Choice: Angel or Demon? or something equally gentle, lest you risk scaring them off visual novels forever.
Boys Love tropes are in many ways distinct from the wider genre of gay romance, and may take a little getting used to for an audience member not familiar with them. I'd suggest encouraging a newbie to play the routes in the order Koujaku - Noiz - Clear - Mink - True, so that they ease into the genre's mainstays rather than starting with the more intense aspects of BL.
If your friend is already familiar with Boys Love from reading manga or watching anime, your main hurdle is getting them comfortable with visual novels – luckily, this type of game has a very low barrier to entry, requiring no gaming prowess to advance the story.
DRAMAtical Murder is makes for a good choice for a first game for this audience, as its choice system is straightforward – something like sweet pool or Slow Damage, with a more oblique choice system, is more suited to someone who has played at least one, more straightforward, visual novel already.
A potential audience already familiar with Boys Love also removes the problem of trying to ease the player into tropes that less experienced readers might grapple with. A slash fanfic or danmei reader will have encountered their own set of tropes in the past, and while they may not be familiar with BL's specific narrative mainstays, they'll probably be all right dealing with them.
The one group who may be severely put off are those who've come from anime like No.6 and Yuri!!! on Ice, and as I mentioned earlier, depending on your friend, you may want to disregard my suggestion of DRAMAtical Murder in favor of the Light route of Sorcerer's Choice: Angel or Demon, which – provided they get the good ending – avoids BL's more problematic genre tropes.
In the end, introducing a friend to BL visual novels comes down to catering to their specific interests, whatever their level of familiarity with the Boys Love genre may be. Show them a CG or two that you think might interest them, and offer to help them through the first few choices of playing a game. Soon enough, they'll hopefully be enjoying the riches that Boys Love visual novels have to offer. Good luck!