Citrus Con 2026 - Day 1
- 19 hours ago
- 6 min read
A Fujoshi Attends a BL Convention
(NOTE: Citrus Con is an 18+ Event. This post is for 18+ Only! 🔞)
You may recall my post from 2024, well, I'm back at Citrus Con again. And, we're live! As I write this the con is still going. The con started Friday, February 27 at 3 PM EST and will end Sunday, March 1 at 9 PM EST. This is my fourth year attending Citrus Con, and by coincidence, this is Citrus Con's 4th year in operation. Unlike the previous three years, Citrus Con has moved from a summer June/August date to a winter February date, and they said it will be permanent from this year forward. This year's theme is winter, specifically Hot Springs. We're all fujoshis, fudanshis, and fujin just chilling in a hot spring this year, but I'm getting ahead of myself.
What is Citrus Con?
From February 27 to March 1, fujin, a gender-neutral term for Boys' Love enjoyers, converged online at Citrus Con. Citrus Con is an online-only adult convention dedicated to Boys' Love and queer media where old and new fans can mingle in a safe space. Admission has been free since Citrus Con's inception in 2023. The con takes place over Discord, Twitch, and Zoom with select panels being uploaded to YouTube at a later date.
Like many in-person conventions, Citrus Con hosts games, fan meetups, cosplay contests, watch parties, fan panels, industry panels, academic panels, and special guests. Most notably, Citrus Con has a lot of sponsors this year. The con is powered by Renta!, but other sponsors include industry giants like Yen Press, Seven Seas, and Viz's SuBLime as well as smaller pubs like Red String Manga (new sponsor this year!), Rotten Blossoms (returning sponsor), and Irodori Comics (also a a returning sponsor). A full list of sponsors can be found on the Citrus Con website here. (I am hopeful that more sponsors equals more good things, i.e. manga and anime licenses, for BL and queer media enthusiasts.)
In regards to the con's moniker, older fans will recognize the name as a nod to the citrus scale "spice" rating system, and true to its name, Citrus Con has a rating scale for its programming. The scale is below:
ORANGE - pretty mild content, zero overly sexual themes.
LIME - explicit, but no below the belt nudity & no sexual acts visible on screen.
LEMON - explicit content containing below the belt nudity &/or sexual acts visible on screen.
GRAPEFRUIT - EXTREMELY explicit material. Examples: Monsterfuckers, Dead Dove, Gore, etc.
Programming ran from Orange to Grapefruit with Lime being the average. Citrus Con was truly a con for all 18+ fujin. You will find programming for you, I guarantee it. Well, with the con currently underway, you can no longer get a ticket. Tickets stopped being "sold" late Thursday night EST. (They were free but contained the discord server link, goodie bag, and con pamphlet.) This is done to ensure the safety of all attendees, mainly to prevent raids or harrassment from outsiders on the server. With that said, let me tell what you missed on Day 1 of the con. That's right. I'm going to do a day-by-day breakdown this year.
Day 1
Twitch was the least valuable "room" on Day 1. No panels or other programming was scheduled for that "room." All for the best, lest that channel gets banned before the weekend is through. The majority of the con stayed in Discord with industry and special guest panels taking place on Zoom. There were three watch parties. Yuri On Ice kicked things off, followed by Ultraman Orb, and ended with Midnight Occult Civil Servants. There were five industry and special guest panels, and they were the Q&A with Joshua Waters and Jonah Scott, Tokyopop LoveLove imprint panel, drawing and Q&A with Guri Nojiro (courtesy of Renta), Renta industry panel, and Kuma industry panel. (I attended both Renta panels and Kuma. They were standard. Although, I wish the Guri Nojiro drawing was done live.)
Fan panels and other programming included a Gengoroh Tagame panel (yes, the geicomi stuff was the focus, and I learned a lot!), a BL Pinoy panel, horror in BL, book rec panels, a DIY doujin/zine panel, a ribbon/paper badge workshop, a Kamen Rider panel, visual novel game playthroughs, multiple BL-flavored game panels like cardsharks, and a Yana Toboso panel. If I only attended one day and that day was Friday, I'd honestly have gotten my money's worth. I had fun. Including the opening ceremony, I attended 8 panels, and my faves are Mister Versatile: Gay Superhero Visual Novel, The Yaoiful Career of Yana Toboso, and Merging Flesh, Merging Hearts: Body Horror and Intimacy in BL.
Mister Versatile: Gay Superhero Visual Novel
So, the Mister Versatile panel (rated Lemon) was a playthrough of the game. The game follows the titular character as he solves problems and puts bad guys away. Along the way, he has sex. A lot of it. Created and distributed by Y Press Games (also a sponsor of Citrus Con), Mister X is partially voiced and fully complete. Sadly, I did not win a copy of the game in the panel. (Curse you, DIOOOO!) However, the game was so fun that I might get it. The chat was hysterical, many hall of fame moments were had via this panel.
The game has DC vibes as Mister Versatile is a billionaire superhero; Chihuahua is like his Robin, and Jake/Lascivion is Eddie and Venom. I'm still trying to decide what Driller is. Maybe his Joker? In the short time we played the game, we saw various sex scenes, animated and uncensored. The characters are diverse. Chihuahua is Mexican, and I think Driller is supposed to be a black guy... Okay these character names are a little on the nose, and Driller read as a little sterotypical to me. It did not help that whoever his voice actor was went hard as mf. But still, all enjoyable. You can learn more about the game (and play a demo!) via Y Press Games' website here (NSFW!!!).
The Yaoiful Career of Yana Toboso
The Yaoiful Career of Yana Toboso (rated grapefruit) is a fan panel about Toboso's BL career and how it probably influenced her most well-known, non-BL work Black Butler. The panelist Kai took us on a journey from Toboso's humble beginnings as a doujin artist doing Soul Hunter, Gackt, and Prince of Tennis fanworks to her published works in Kousai Shoubou magazine to writing Black Butler for GFantasy. It's a confusing timeline involving multiple penname and circle changes, websites, and lots of Japanese. (The slides were a little wordy for my liking. I wished it was more visual---like a chart or some graphic---as many things were happneing simultaneously. Yana was doing doujin, commerical BL, and writing non-BL oneshots for GFantasy all at once. She stays busy.) The panel covers her work from the early 2000s to the early 2010s.
Besides getting major spoilers for Black Butler (IDGAF. I'm anime only so it's okay), I learned a lot about Yana Toboso. She is definitely into some kinky shit, and we're unlikely to see her BL licensed in English because of the content. Nonetheless, Yana is an amazing artist, and I'll look forward to more Black Butler adaptations when we get them. Amazing panel and it's awesome that Kai has archived his own research on his website.
Merging Flesh, Merging Hearts: Body Horror and Intimacy in BL
Last, but certainly not least, Merging Flesh (rated grapefruit because duh) is a panel looking at body horror as a "love language" and how it's presented in BL works. The panel covered a lot of definitions, theories, and other terms so I'm happy that this panel will be available on YouTube later. The panelist Noodlefish did an excellent job researching and compiling the information into a leture. I just wished that she had fewer wordy slides. The slides were very detailed. She used The Summer Hikaru Died and MADK as case studies and presents yet another reason for me to check both works out. Keep your eyes peeled for this panel when it drops on the Citrus Con YouTube channel in the coming weeks.
Conclusion
Day 1 was a blast, and Day 2 is almost done. If you're interested in learning more about the con, check out the YouTube channel and the website. More updates soon!