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In discussing the coupling between characters, readers talk of “ uke ” (受け) – meaning to receive – as the traditional female role, and “ seme ” (攻め),” meaning to attack, as the male one. The phrase emerged in the early 2000s among anime and gaming fans on the 2channel online community that was popular in Japan at the time, as a self-deprecating label that acknowledged the inappropriateness in the mainstream culture of a woman who enjoys imaging romantic relationships between men. This term takes the word for “women and girls” and changes the first kanji character so that it reads as “rotten girls.” Key among both boys’ love and yaoi is the word fujoshi (腐女子), which is used to describe female fans. Manga writer Keiko Take m iy a played a key role in establishing the BL genre and her 1970 work “In the Sunroom” (サンルームにて) is said to contain the first male-male kiss in a manga for women.Īs is the way with subcultures, a range of words specific to the genres has developed.
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These tales of romance between beautiful androgynous boys release women from a judgmental gaze and create a world that frees them from the constrictive social norms of reality. Then amateur female writers started writing subversive, sexualized parodies of mainstream anime and manga for boys, with male characters recast as gay lovers. Some began creating a genre of highly aesthetic depictions of relationships between boys that were known as shonen ai, literally “boys’ love” in Japanese, which also often referenced classical literature. The term “boys’ love” emerged in the early 1990s, but the material began being created in the 1970s as female writers started to break into the male-dominated world of writing manga for girls. This was the self-deprecating name that writers used back in the early days and was derived from the initial sounds of the Japanese words “ ya manashi o chinashi i minashi, ” (山なし、落ちなし、意味なし) which mean “no climax, no point, no meaning” - in other words, a really dull, dud of a manga.Ĭurrently in Japan, the two terms refer to different genres: boys’ love focuses on romance and is less extreme, while yaoi goes all the way with explicit sex scenes. In the West however, it is still predominantly known by the older Japanese name of yaoi. The Japanese genre is currently known by the katakana name ボーイズラブ ( boizu rabu ) or the abbreviation BL (ビー・エル). Around 60 percent of them are aged between 15 and 29 years old. In contrast, BL has some gay and bisexual - as well as heterosexual male - readers, but its fan base is predominantly heterosexual young women. The majority of readers of both categories are women, but most female fans of slash fiction identify as other than heterosexual.
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This is “boys’ love,” (BL) the Japanese genre of manga, novels, anime, movies, and now computer games, that features love relationships between young men, but, to our surprise, are not made for a gay audience.īoys’ love is similar to the West’s slash fiction in that they both depict homosexual relationships and have emerged in large part due to the amateur creations of the genres’ fans. Here, alongside softer images of romance on titles for elementary school girls, you will find glossy covers featuring only pretty boys - some of them closing in to kiss each other. Now go to the part of the manga section that is furthest from the entrance. Even before one brushstroke of word or picture is written, the assumption is clear that girls exist to titillate men, whether they be characters, readers, or the wider patriarchal society as a whole. Walk into the manga section of your local Japanese bookstore and the overwhelming image you will see is one of a wide-eyed girl with impossible melon breasts in an available position. In a nation where patriarchy remains strong, Boys' Love homoerotic manga and other fictional media give women and girls a world of escapism from societal constraints.