The Mystery BRONZE Page

This is not the first BRONZE page on the net.

It was a while ago, in July 1998, when I was doing some late night webcrawling. I'd recently finished reading Zetsuai 1989, but I had no particular inclination to get the sequel. I was just satisfied with having finally experienced this shounen ai classic for myself.

Then I came across a new BRONZE site, linked off Boys' Heaven: The Yaoi Slash Webring. I was curious because I hadn't seen it before during my perusal of other Zetsuai/BRONZE sites.

This site contained lots and lots of detailed commentary about many aspects of Zetsuai/BRONZE. There was an essay about the ambiguity of roles in Koji and Izumi's relationship, an analysis of the imagery used, and other fascinating stuff. The creator of this site had no hesitation in recommending BRONZE, whereas some of the other sources I'd heard from felt it didn't live up to Zetsuai.

I spent a long time browsing through this site, increasingly absorbed. By the time I logged off, I felt encouraged to take a look at BRONZE.

A few days later, I decided to visit again. I went back to the webring, but the link to the BRONZE site wasn't there. Bewildered, I went through all the listed sites, clicking on any which even mentioned Zetsuai, BRONZE or Minami Ozaki. No luck. I checked some other yaoi webrings; I checked the Anipike; I checked the existing Zetsuai/BRONZE sites for any links or mentions.

But there was no sign at all. It was as though it had vanished off the face of the net.

I cursed the fact that I hadn't written down the URL. The webring owner couldn't offer much information about how to locate the site owner, other than that the page was on GeoCities.

Since that day, I have bought and read the first few volumes of BRONZE. I've started working on translations and putting up my own website. But I am still searching for that nameless, elusive site. I want to reread the stuff on that page, and tell the creator how much I enjoyed it.

I'm starting to feel like Koji, hoping desperately for another glimpse of young Izumi - the Izumi he saw only once, but now imprinted forever in his memory. I hope I don't have to wait another six years before I find this site again.

If you are the creator of this site, or if you know where it is, please let me know! Then I can stop wondering if what I saw was only a fever dream.