Soubi Yamamoto is an absolutely criminally underrated director, and all four of her OVAs are available for streaming if you’re in the US/Canada. A must-watch of positive BL.

Soubi Yamamoto is a wunderkind who could fit right in as an anime protagonist: premiering as a director at just 20 years old, Yamamoto hit the ground running and hasn’t let up, becoming well-loved among fans of indie BL for her This Boy…series of OVAs. She describes herself as trying her hand at a little bit of everything, from manga to radio dramas and movies, but ending up in anime because “[it] was the only thing I managed to properly finish.”

Almost always working on a project—she calls herself too busy to consider romance, though admits that she “likes cute girls”—Yamamoto is one of the few anime directors who could truly be called an auteur. With one major exception, she’s been the director, writer, storyboard artist, and primary animator on all her projects.

Yamamoto nods toward three major influences on her work: the works of Makoto Shinkai, particularly Voices of a Distant Star; BL manga; and the sekai-kei sekai ron genre (in fact, the genre provides the name of her very first short). Sekai-kei is a somewhat fluidly defined genre, but Yamamoto discusses it like this:  “I do enjoy sekai-kei works where only a ‘you’ and an ‘I’ exist and the world comes to an end around those two, and really think that they’re beautiful.”

Read it at Anime Feminist!