The First Church of Hayao Miyazaki Announces
BISHONEN APPRECIATION DAY

Well...the end of January has just passed us here in the Church.  This, of course, means that Bishonen Appreciation Day is fast approaching.

Bishonen Appreciation Day is the first official holiday for the First Church of Hayao Miyazaki, which falls on February 15th of every year.  We have no set way to celebrate Bishonen Appreciation Day, so any action you deem appropriate for the holiday is good!  Whether you choose to celebrate the occasion by quiet viewings of Anime featuring them (or perhaps punctuated with the odd sound of approval at appropriate times if things--or the Bishonen--get really hot), writing Yaoi fanfiction, staring longingly at the Bishonen of Anime or recovering from the hangover of the celebrations the day before--it is all good.

So, take this holiday as an excuse to gaze upon as many Bishonen as possible!  Hug one!  Kiss him!  Go even further if local laws allow!  Or better yet, look into some Bishonen-specific series that you may have overlooked in the past.

Notable series featuring Bishonen are numerous, but perhaps you might have overlooked Bishonen-laden series such as Saiyuki, Weiß Kreuz/Knight Hunters, Fake or Gravitation for too long.  They are all wonderful series (and readily available to North American society on video, or are scheduled to be released here soon).  People of Science have found after extensive study that women respond to textual stimuli more than visual, so even the lesser of these series tend to have strong plotlines that their predominantly female fans follow closely (between bouts of drooling, that is).

But Bishonen are not only present in modern series.  Old favourites such as The Heroic Legend of Arislan, Haunted Junction or Fushigi Yuugi are also good sources of your required dosage of Bishonen!

Now, it is here that I must point out that Yaoi or Bishonen-prominent titles are not necessarily Hentai.  Not that there is really anything wrong with that.  But there are many Otaku who will purposefully avoid titles because of Bishonen.  How many times has Yami no Matsuei/Descendents of Darkness been overlooked by Macho Otaku?  Likely more often than not.  If you can overcome any queasiness about just how close the Bishonen get to each other every now and again whilst trying to unravel the latest mystery, you would find an exciting series with excellent character development and plenty to enjoy.

Some special attention must now be paid to the great Bishonen.  Nuriko of Fushigi Yuugi comes to our attention the most.  We here at the Church--especially Sister Kourin--wish to give Nuri-sama the official (and now annual) Bishonen Lifetime (and Beyond) Achievement Award, for cutest cross-dresser in an Anime series.  Whilst Nuriko has earned his/her Award through her/his bravery, strength, daring, sense of humour and abilities to look good as a woman and make mixed drinks that would paralyze lesser mortals, we here at the First Church wish to make it clear that we give Bishonen everywhere the official salute!

Bishonen and Fans--Live, love (again, and again, and again), laugh, loaf and watch more anime!

BROTHER KOUTOKU and SISTER KOURIN (with consultation by Brother Kouyasu and Brother Kael-san)
for The First Church of Hayao Miyazaki