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lead=yes is a Japanese manga one-shot written and illustrated by Keiko Takemiya. It was originally published in the December 1970 issue of the manga magazine Bessatsu Shōjo Comic under the title 'Snow and Stars and Angels and...'. It is the first work in the genre, a genre of Gay romance manga aimed at a female audience.
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 Romani people teenaged boy and the son of a wealthy family. Takemiya's publishers had declined to publish Kaze to Ki no Uta, owing to its homoerotic subject material and their refusal to publish stories focused on male protagonists. She was ultimately able to publish Sunroom Nite by submitting the story to her editor at Bessatsu Shōjo Comic immediately before the issue's publication deadline, thus foreclosing any attempts to edit or reject the story. Upon its publication, Sunroom 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.
The manga (girls' manga) publishing culture into which Takemiya made her debut was highly restrictive, (2025). 9781628461190, University Press of Mississippi. ISBN 9781628461190 and her editors at Sho-Comi refused to publish stories featuring male protagonists. stories in general were marketed to an audience of children, were focused on uncomplicated subject material such as familial drama or romantic comedy, (2025). 9781606993774, Fantagraphics Books. ISBN 9781606993774 and favored Cinderella-like female protagonists defined by their passivity. (1993). 9781895686272, Fernwood Publishing. ISBN 9781895686272 (1999). 9780847691364, Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 9780847691364 Over the course of the 1970s, a new generation of artists would emerge who would introduce 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 ().
In September 1970, Takemiya began drawing a manga tie-in for the television series in Shūkan Shōjo Comic, though she was unenthusiastic about the series because she found the material uninspiring. A one-shot (single chapter manga) adaptation had been publicly announced for publication in the December 1970 issue of the supplemental magazine Bessatsu Shōjo Comic, which Takemiya had little interest in writing. Masuyama suggested that she instead submit a story, which Takemiya agreed to.
Takemiya has described Sunroom Nite 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 Sunroom Nite.
Sunroom Nite contains nudity and scenes of male characters kissing each other, which was considered radical for manga of the time. The story begins and concludes with a monologue by Serge mourning Étoile, a narrative structure similar to that of Kaze to Ki no Uta. This narrative structure is also used in Takemiya's other works, including ほほえむ少年 and 20の昼と夜. Takemiya had rarely used this technique prior to Sunroom Nite; manga scholar Miki Ishida suggests that Takemiya's depiction of the inner lives of her characters evolved along with her development of the theme of .
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 Sunroom 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 Sunroom Nite under its Sun Comics imprint, which contains the titular one-shot manga. In 1978, Chikuma Shobō also published an anthology containing Sunroom Nite, as part of its Keiko Takemiya Collection in the short-lived (現代まんが全集, '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 Sunroom 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 comic Keiko Takemiya Collection.
After the publication of Sunroom Nite, Takemiya says that was separately contacted by manga artists and Ryoko Yamagishi through the editorial department at Shogakukan, both of whom had read the story. Yamagishi told Takemiya that she too was interested in drawing a manga, but that her editors at Shueisha only permitted her to draw conventional manga.
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