Sanrūmu Nite
The story is a loosely adapted and condensed version of Takemiya's later manga series "Kaze to Ki no Uta", and follows the relationship between a Roma teenaged boy and the son of a wealthy family. Takemiya faced difficulties in finding a publisher for "Sanrūmu Nite" due to its homoerotic subject material. Upon its publication, "Sanrūmu Nite" was a critical success; it is credited with establishing male–male romance as a discrete category of manga, and launching Takemiya's career as a manga artist in earnest Plot. , the teenaged son of a Roma fortuneteller, regularly visits an abandoned  mansion to spend time in its sunroom. During one such visit he encounters and , and learns they are respectively the son and daughter of a family that has recently taken up residence in the mansion. The siblings befriend Serge, and invite him to continue visiting the sunroom. Serge and Étoile gradually grow closer, though Étoile becomes deeply depressed and falls ill after Serge demurs from his romantic advances. Étoile's mother forbids the two from seeing each other, prompting Serge to infiltrate the mansion to visit him. Reunited, Étoile asks Serge to kiss him, which he obliges; Étoile then commits  suicide by grabbing Serge's hand and using it to plunge a knife into his own stomach. Production. Context. Keiko Takemiya made her debut as a manga artist in 1967 in the context of a restrictive manga (girls' manga) publishing culture: stories were marketed to an audience of children, were focused on uncomplicated subject material such as familial drama or romantic comedy, and favored Cinderella-like female protagonists defined by their passivity. The 1970s saw the ascendance of a new generation of artists who introduced a greater degree of narrative and thematic complexity to the genre, collectively referred to as  the Year 24 Group. The group, of which Takemiya was a member, contributed significantly to the development of manga by expanding it to incorporate elements of science fiction, historical fiction, adventure fiction, and same-sex romance: both male–male ( and ) and female–female (). Development. Takemiya grew up reading manga (manga for boys), and became interested in creating works that featured male rather than female protagonists. She took particular interest in works depicting intense friendship and romance between male characters, and sought to create her own work depicting a "delicate friendship" between two boys. By the early 1970s, Takemiya had already  conceived of the plot and characters for what would become her acclaimed 1976 male–male romance series "Kaze to Ki no Uta", but faced difficulty finding a publisher; at the time, manga depicting romance between male characters did not yet exist as its own editorial category. Faced with these barriers, Takemiya sought to publish a "compact" version of "Kaze to Ki no Uta" in the form of "Sanrūmu Nite". Knowing that a male–male romance story was likely to be heavily edited or rejected by her editors, Takemiya adopted a twofold strategy: first, she included the character of Angel, which  gave the story the impression of a love triangle narrative. By having one of the central characters be a young girl, "Sanrūmu Nite" was able to "barely maintain the appearance of a manga", with Takemiya remarking that Angel's inclusion "made it easier to tell the story. If there were only two boys, there would be no way to tell the story." Second, she attempted to avoid revisions to the story by submitting "Sanrūmu Nite" to her editor immediately before the publication deadline for its magazine "Bessatsu Shōjo Comic". Though Yamamoto expressed displeasure that the content of the story differed  vastly from Takemiya's original pitch, there was no time to input edits, and the story was printed as-is. Release. The 50-page one-shot was published under the title "Yuki to Hoshi to Tenshi to..." in the December 1970 issue of "Bessatsu Shōjo Comic". In all subsequent releases, it has been published under the title "Sanrūmu Nite". As did not yet exist as a category of manga, the story was marketed as "a manga with as the main characters"; manga featuring (literally "beautiful boys") as central characters were rare in female-centric manga of the era. In 1976 , Asahi Sonorama published an anthology of short stories by Takemiya titled "Sanrūmu Nite" under its Sun Comics imprint, which contains the titular one-shot manga. In 1978, Chikuma Shobō also published an anthology containing "Sanrūmu Nite", as part of its Keiko Takemiya Collection in the short-lived (, "Complete Collection of Modern Manga") series. The one-shot was similarly included in anthologies of Takemiya's manga published by Kadokawa Shoten in 1990 and Media Factory in 2002. In 2010, released an e-book anthology titled "Sanrūmu Nite", featuring the titular one-shot and five other short stories by Takemiya from the  early 1970s. The e-book was the third of fifteen short story volumes released as part of the company's digital Keiko Takemiya Collection. Legacy. "Sanrūmu Nite" was the first work in the genre that would become known as . It played a significant role in establishing male–male romance as a discrete category of manga, and is credited with launching Takemiya's career as a manga artist in earnest. Takemiya has described the one-shot as the "foundation" of "Kaze to Ki no Uta", with both works sharing common narrative and thematic elements. Both stories focus on a Roma teenager  named Serge Battour, and his relationship with a blonde boy who dies at the end of the story; Serge and Étoile have been described as "prototypes" of Serge and Gilbert, the primary couple in "Kaze to Ki no Uta". A character similar to Carl Maïsser, a secondary character in "Kaze to Ki no Uta", also appears in "Sanrūmu Nite".