Seven Seas Entertainment’s Recent BL Licenses Highlights Several Concerning Issues
Seven Seas Entertainment’s licensing of two BL series from known problematic creators has made them a publisher with questionable morals.
Trigger Warning: This article discusses racism, transphobia, homophobia, and sexual assault.
Seven Seas Entertainment was a fairly minor publisher until August 2021, when they announced their first foray into Chinese Boys’ Love (BL), otherwise known as danmei. The publisher sent the danmei community into an excited frenzy when they revealed they had licensed three of the most popular series from one of the most popular danmei writers, Mo Xiang Tong Xiu’s The Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System: Ren Zha Fanpai Zijiu Xitong, Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation: Mo Dao Zu Shi, and Heaven Official’s Blessing: Tian Guan Ci Fu.
As the new kid on the danmei block, Seven Seas took a few steps to build trust with the community, who were, rightfully, protective of the genre (publishers in the West generally don’t have a good track record when it comes to publishing works from POC creators). The publisher hired highly trusted and skilled fan translators as the official translators, and brought on board talented artists to provide the illustrations and cover designs. They published uncensored material and reassured fans that their money would definitely support the authors. They included footnotes, a glossary, and a pronunciation guide for every volume.
Understandably, Seven Seas encountered some stumbles along the way. The danmei community has long been established, thanks to fans who took the time to translate the Chinese text into English, and readers were quick to notice there were translation discrepancies and errors. The publisher thus issued an errata on their website with page numbers and the corrected translation for all affected volumes.
Thanks to the fans’ love, all three series landed on the New York Times Bestseller List, with the first volumes of Heaven Official’s Blessing: Tian Guan Ci Fu at number 8, Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation: Mo Dao Zu Shi at number 9, and The Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System: Ren Zha Fanpai Zijiu Xitong at number 14. By debuting three of the most popular danmei novel series as their debut, Seven Seas had firmly established themselves as one of the major players in the danmei publishing space.
Seven Seas continued to expand its danmei label, licensing three of Meatbun’s series, The Husky & His White Cat Shizun: Erha He Ta De Bai Mao Shizun, Thousand Autumns: Qian Qiu, and Case File Compendium: Bing An Ben. The publisher also licensed two of priest’s series, Stars of Chaos: Sha Po Lang and Guardian: Zhen Hun and Meng Xi Shi’s Thousand Autumn’s Qian Qiu.
However, the publisher effectively shot itself in the foot (for the second time since it had earlier refused to recognize their union) when it announced the license of You’ve Got Mail: The Perils of Pigeon Post – Fei Ge Jiao You Xu Jin Shen on July 12, 2023. They went on to shoot themselves in their other foot when they licensed KinnPorsche on Feb. 21, 2024.
Seven Seas’ History of Licensing Highly Problematic Authors
Anti-LGBTQ2SIA+ Creators Writing BL
On July 12, 2023, Seven Seas added to its growing danmei library Blackegg’s You’ve Got Mail: The Perils of Pigeon Post – Fei Ge Jiao You Xu Jin Shen. When reading the synopsis, it seemingly had the makings to be another one of Seven Seas’s successful licenses. It had comedy, sexual content, and a memorable plot.
But Seven Seas had chosen to license a work from a transphobic and homophobic author.
Blackegg had written a number of posts in August 2023, establishing themselves as a bigot. In light of Taiwan’s news that it will now be legal for same-sex couples to adopt, Blackegg was strongly against it, saying this would just be another way for gay men to exploit women’s bodies. Aside from writing homophobic comments where she accused gay men of being rapists, she has also written and shared numerous trans-exclusionary radical feminism (TERF) posts. When the live-action adaptation of The Little Mermaid came out starring Halle Bailey, she had also shared a racist video criticizing the production casting a Black actor.
Ironic, right? How could a bigot write danmei, a genre explicitly about men in romantic relationships? Therein lies the problem and why many fans are so wary of BL going mainstream.
Governments and bigots may hate men being in love, but their ardent love of money means they can look slightly the other way when men kiss (whilst simultaneously passing laws that deny the LGTQ2SIA+ community their rights). The sad truth is that BL makes a lot, a lot of money, and many homophobic creators take advantage of this and profit off of the genre. Case in point, the three Mo Xiang Tong Xiu novels landed on the New York Times Bestseller List.
Fans instantly protested online and launched a petition for Seven Seas to cease publishing You’ve Got Mail: The Perils of Pigeon Post – Fei Ge Jiao You Xu Jin Shen but to no avail. Seven Seas still has the series listed for release in August 2024. The publisher also did not acknowledge the controversy surrounding the author.
One of KinnPorsche’s Authors Is an Abuser
On Feb. 21, 2024, Seven Seas Entertainment announced it had licensed its first Thai BL novel, KinnPorsche, by the writing duo Daemi, composed of Patchayamon Theewasujareon (Poi) and Sitthichai Panya (Yok). KinnPorsche gained fame with its live-action adaptation starring Mile as Kinn, Apo as Porsche, Bible as Vegas, and Build as Pete. KinnPorsche was initially set to be produced by Filmania with Daemi involved in the adaptation but was dropped after the creators left the project in July 2021 due to “creative differences.” Thanks to Mile’s efforts, the project moved to the production company Be On Cloud and underwent some significant changes. The series launched in April 2022 and gained praise and popularity quickly.
During her time on KinnPorsche, Poi has admitted to grooming one of the actors under the guise of “teaching him how to be a good actor.” There is evidence of Poi sexually harassing the actors from the live-action series. No legal action was taken against the writing duo. The writing duo has also attempted to make merch off of a line from the book spoken before the character sexually assaults another character. The author has also accused one of the actors of abusing her, only to admit that she lied about his infidelity, abuse, and trying to scam her. Poi is currently embroiled in a criminal case where she has been accused of defamation, coercion, abuse, and extortion.
In her interactions with fans online, Poi has also insulted various religions and cultures, insulted international fans for not understanding Thai, spewed inappropriate language, posted inappropriate images, and cursed at and cursed fans. Fans have also noted that the book seemingly romanticizes sexual assault.
So, why is Seven Seas publishing the works of two known problematic creators? One word: money.
“All Asians are the Same”
Seven Seas has also, strangely, put KinnPorsche under its danmei label. Danmei is Chinese BL written in the Chinese language. Although the publisher has amended their category on their website from “Danmei” to “Danmei (BL from China and beyond),” thus giving them a little more wiggle room in that regard, it is, nonetheless, still deeply problematic to file Thai BL under danmei.
Asia is enormous. As in more than 44 million square kilometers, 48 countries, and more than 2,000 languages spoken, enormous. Asia isn’t just China, Japan, and South Korea. Asia covers India, Malaysia, Singapore, Palestine, Syria, Indonesia, Lebanon, and Vietnam, just to name a few. Lumping in Thai BL and any other Asian BL under the category of “danmei” only fuels the racist rhetoric that “all Asians are the same.”
Not to mention, this move to seemingly publish all things Asian under “danmei” blatantly disregards all of the unique cultural nuances Thai and Chinese people have.
Seven Seas will license more BL series from Asia and is evidently looking to expand into the Thai BL sphere, especially since they have done a call-out for Thai translators. It is unclear whether or not the publisher will rebrand and simply call themselves “Seven Seas BL” (Seven Seas, is it really that hard to do?). But whatever good will and trust Seven Seas built in 2021 has effectively gone down the drain due to their lack of responsibility and moral integrity as a publisher in the BL space.
