Jump to content

Boys' love

This is a good article. Click here for more information.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from Shoonen-ai)

An example of BL-inspired artwork. The svelte, semi-androgynous physical features of the characters are typical of bishōnen (literally "beautiful boys") common in BL media.

Boys' love (Japanese: ボーイズ ラブ, Hepburn: bōizu rabu), also known by its abbreviation BL (ビーエル, bīeru), is a genre of fictional media originating in Japan that depicts homoerotic relationships between male characters.[a] It is typically created by women for a female audience, distinguishing it from homoerotic media created by and for gay men, though BL does also attract a male audience and can be produced by male creators. BL spans a wide range of media, including manga, anime, drama CDs, novels, video games, television series, films, and fan works.

The genre originated in the 1970s as a subgenre of shōjo manga, or comics for girls. Several terms were used for the new genre, including shōnen-ai (少年愛, lit. "boy love"), tanbi (耽美, lit. "aesthete" or "aesthetic"), and June (ジュネ, [dʑɯne]). The term yaoi (/ˈji/ YOW-ee; Japanese: やおい [jaꜜo.i]) emerged as a name for the genre in the late 1970s and early 1980s in the context of dōjinshi (self-published works) culture as a portmanteau of yama nashi, ochi nashi, imi nashi ("no climax, no point, no meaning"), where it was used in a self-deprecating manner to refer to amateur fan works that focused on sex to the exclusion of plot and character development, and that often parodied mainstream manga and anime by depicting male characters from popular series in sexual scenarios. "Boys' love" was later adopted by Japanese publications in the 1990s as an umbrella term for male-male romance media marketed to women.

Concepts and themes associated with BL include androgynous men known as bishōnen; diminished female characters; narratives that emphasize homosociality and de-emphasize socio-cultural homophobia; and depictions of rape. A defining characteristic of BL is the practice of pairing characters in relationships according to the roles of seme, the sexual top or active pursuer, and uke, the sexual bottom or passive pursued. BL has a robust global presence, having spread since the 1990s through international licensing and distribution, as well as through unlicensed circulation of works by BL fans online. BL works, culture, and fandom have been studied and discussed by scholars and journalists worldwide.

Etymology and terminology

[edit]

Multiple terms exist to describe Japanese and Japanese-influenced male-male romance fiction as a genre. In a 2015 survey of professional Japanese male-male romance fiction writers by Kazuko Suzuki, five primary subgenres were identified:[1]

Shōnen-ai[b] (少年愛, lit. "boy love")
While the term shōnen-ai historically connoted ephebophilia or pederasty, beginning in the 1970s it was used to describe a new genre of shōjo manga (girls' manga) featuring romance between bishōnen (lit. "beautiful boys"), a term for androgynous or effeminate male characters.[3] Early shōnen-ai works were inspired by European literature, the writings of Taruho Inagaki,[4] and the Bildungsroman genre.[5] Shōnen-ai often features references to literature, history, science, and philosophy;[6] Suzuki describes the genre as being "pedantic" and "difficult to understand",[7] with "philosophical and abstract musings" that challenged young readers who were often only able to understand the references and deeper themes as they grew older.[8]
Tanbi[c] (耽美, lit. "aesthete" or "aesthetic")
Tanbi as a term and concept predates male-male romance manga that emerged in the 1970s, having originated to describe erotic highbrow literary fiction by authors such as Yukio Mishima, Jun'ichirō Tanizaki, and Yasunari Kawabata. By the 1980s, magazines aimed at shōnen-ai fans were using the term to describe fiction by both amateur and professional writers published in those magazines, as well as to designate literature with themes of homoeroticism and implied homosexuality by authors such as Oscar Wilde, Jean Cocteau, Tatsuhiko Shibusawa, and Mishima. Tanbi in this context is primarily used to describe prose fiction, but has also been used for manga and visual art.[10]
June (ジュネ, Japanese pronunciation: [dʑɯne])
Derived from the eponymous male-male romance manga magazine first published in 1978, the term was originally used to describe works that resembled the art style of manga published in that magazine.[11] It has also been used to describe amateur works depicting male homosexuality that are original creations and not derivative works.[12] By the 1990s, the term had largely fallen out of use in favor of "boys' love"; it has been suggested that publishers wishing to get a foothold in the June market coined "boys' love" to disassociate the genre from the publisher of June.[2]
Yaoi[d] (やおい)
Coined in the late 1970s by manga artists Yasuko Sakata and Akiko Hatsu,[16][17] yaoi is a portmanteau of yama nashi, ochi nashi, imi nashi (山[場]なし、落ちなし、意味なし),[e] which translates to "no climax, no point, no meaning".[f] Initially used by artists as a self-deprecating and ironic euphemism,[15] the portmanteau refers to how early yaoi works typically focused on sex to the exclusion of plot and character development;[7][19] it is also a subversive reference to the classical Japanese narrative structure of introduction, development, twist, and conclusion.[20]
Boys' love (ボーイズ ラブ, bōizu rabu)
Typically written as the acronym BL (ビーエル, bīeru), or alternately as "boy's love" or "boys love", the term is a wasei-eigo construction derived from the literal English translation of shōnen-ai.[21] First used in 1991 by the magazine Image in an effort to collect these disparate genres under a single term, the term became widely popularized in 1994 after being used by the magazine Puff [ja].[12] "BL" is the common term used to describe male-male romance media marketed to women in Japan and much of Asia, though its usage in the West is inconsistent.[12][22]

Despite attempts by researchers to codify differences between these subgenres, in practice these terms are used interchangeably.[21] Kazumi Nagaike and Tomoko Aoyama note that while BL and yaoi are the most common generic terms for this kind of media, they specifically avoid attempts at defining subgenres, noting that the differences between them are ill-defined and that even when differentiated, the subgenres "remain thematically intertwined."[21][23]

In Suzuki's investigation of these subgenres, she notes that "there is no appropriate and convenient Japanese shorthand term to embrace all subgenres of male-male love fiction by and for women."[1][21] Yaoi has been used as an umbrella term in the West for Japanese-influenced comics with male-male relationships,[11] and was preferentially used by American manga publishers for works of this kind due to the belief that the term "boys' love" carries the implication of pedophilia.[21] In Japan, yaoi is used to denote dōjinshi and works that focus on sex scenes.[11] In all usages, yaoi and boys' love excludes gay manga (bara), a genre which also depicts gay male sexual relationships, but is written for and mostly by gay men.[11][20]

In the West, the term shōnen-ai is sometimes used to describe titles that focus on romance over explicit sexual content, while yaoi is used to describe titles that primarily feature sexually explicit themes and subject material.[24][25][16] Yaoi can also be used by Western fans as a label for anime or manga-based slash fiction.[26] The Japanese use of yaoi to denote only works with explicit scenes sometimes clashes with the Western use of the word to describe the genre as a whole, creating confusion between Japanese and Western audiences.[22]

History

[edit]

Before 1970: The origins of shōnen-ai

[edit]
Mari Mori, whose tanbi novels laid the foundation for many of the common genre tropes of shōnen-ai

Homosexuality and androgyny have a history in Japan dating to ancient times, as seen in practices such as shudō (衆道, same-sex love between samurai and their companions) and kagema (陰間, male sex workers who served as apprentice kabuki actors).[27][28] The country shifted away from a tolerance of homosexuality amid Westernization during the Meiji Era (1868-1912), and moved towards hostile social attitudes towards homosexuality and the implementation of anti-sodomy laws.[29][30]

In the face of this legal and cultural shift, artists who depicted male homosexuality in their work typically did so through subtext.[31] Illustrations by Kashō Takabatake [ja] in the shōnen manga (boys' comics) magazine Nihon Shōnen formed the foundation of what would become the aesthetic of bishōnen: boys and young men, often in homosocial or homoerotic contexts, who are defined by their "ambivalent passivity, fragility, ephemerality, and softness."[32] The 1961 novel A Lovers' Forest by tanbi writer Mari Mori, which follows the relationship between a professor and his younger male lover, is regarded as an influential precursor to the shōnen-ai genre.[4][33] Mori's works were influenced by European literature, particularly Gothic literature, and laid the foundation for many of the common tropes of shōnen-ai, yaoi, and BL: western exoticism, educated and wealthy characters, significant age differences among couples, and fanciful or even surreal settings.[33]

In manga, the concept of gekiga (劇画) emerged in the late 1950s, which sought to use manga to tell serious and grounded stories aimed at adult audiences. Gekiga inspired the creation of manga that depicted realistic human relationships, and opened the way for manga that explored human sexuality in a non-pornographic context.[34] Hideko Mizuno's 1969 shōjo manga (girls' comics) series Fire! (1969–1971), which eroticized its male protagonists and depicted male homosexuality in American rock and roll culture, is noted as an influential work in this regard.[35]

1970s and 1980s: From shōnen-ai to yaoi

[edit]
Moto Hagio, a member of the Year 24 Group and a major figure in the shōnen-ai genre

Contemporary Japanese homoerotic romance manga originated in the 1970s as a subgenre of shōjo manga.[21] The decade saw the arrival of a new generation of shōjo manga artists, most notable among them the Year 24 Group. The Year 24 Group contributed significantly to the development of the shōjo manga, introducing a greater diversity of themes and subject material to the genre that drew inspiration from by Japanese and European literature, cinema, and history.[36] Members of the group, including Keiko Takemiya and Moto Hagio, created works that depicted male homosexuality: In The Sunroom (1970) by Takemiya is considered the first work of the genre that would become known as shōnen-ai, followed by Hagio's The November Gymnasium (1971).[37]

Takemiya, Hagio, Toshie Kihara, Ryoko Yamagishi, and Kaoru Kurimoto were among the most significant shōnen-ai artists of this era;[38][17] notable works include The Heart of Thomas (1974–1975) by Hagio and Kaze to Ki no Uta (1976-1984) by Takemiya.[38][39][40] Works by these artists typically featured tragic romances between androgynous bishōnen in historic European settings.[3][35] Though these works were nominally aimed at an audience of adolescent girls and young women, they also attracted adult gay and lesbian readers.[3][41] During this same period, the first gay manga magazines were published: Barazoku, the first commercially circulated gay men's magazine in Japan, was published in 1971, and served as a major influence on Takemiya and the development of shōnen-ai.[42]

The dōjinshi (self-published works) subculture emerged contemporaneously in the 1970s (see Media below),[43][44] and in 1975, the first Comiket was held as a gathering of amateur artists who produce dōjinshi.[45] The term yaoi, initially used by some creators of male-male romance dōjinshi to describe their creations ironically, emerged to describe amateur works that were influenced by shōnen-ai and gay manga.[46][47] Early yaoi dōjinshi produced for Comiket were typically derivative works, with glam rock artists such as David Bowie and Queen as popular subjects as a result of the influence of Fire!;[45] yaoi dōjinshi were also more sexually explicit than shōnen-ai.[48]

In reaction to the success of shōnen-ai and early yaoi, publishers sought to exploit the market by creating magazines devoted to the genre. Young female illustrators cemented themselves in the manga industry by publishing yaoi works, with this genre later becoming "a transnational subculture."[49][50][51] Publishing house Magazine Magazine [ja], which published the gay manga magazine Sabu [ja], launched the magazine June in 1978, while Minori Shobo [ja] launched Allan in 1980.[52][53] Both magazines initially specialized in shōnen-ai, which Magazine Magazine described as "halfway between tanbi literature and pornography,"[54] and also published articles on homosexuality, literary fiction, illustrations, and amateur yaoi works.[55] The success of June was such that the term June-mono or more simply June began to compete with the term shōnen-ai to describe works depicting male homosexuality.[42][56]

By the late 1980s, the popularity of professionally published shōnen-ai was declining, and yaoi published as dōjinshi was becoming more popular.[57] Mainstream shōnen manga with Japanese settings such as Captain Tsubasa became popular source material for derivative works by yaoi creators, and the genre increasingly depicted Japanese settings over western settings.[58] Works influenced by shōnen-ai in the 1980s began to depict older protagonists and adopted a realist style in both plot and artwork, as typified by manga such as Banana Fish (1985–1994) by Akimi Yoshida and Tomoi (1986) by Wakuni Akisato [ja].[38][41] The 1980s also saw the proliferation of yaoi into anime, drama CDs, and light novels;[59] the 1982 anime adaptation of Patalliro! was the first television anime to depict shōnen-ai themes, while Kaze to Ki no Uta and Earthian were adapted into anime in the original video animation (home video) format in 1987 and 1989, respectively.[60]

1990s: Mainstream popularity and yaoi ronsō

[edit]
The manga artist group Clamp, whose works were among the first yaoi-influenced media to be encountered by Western audiences

The growing popularity of yaoi attracted the attention of manga magazine editors, many of whom recruited yaoi dōjinshi authors to their publications;[61] Zetsuai 1989 (1989–1991) by Minami Ozaki, a yaoi series published in the shōjo magazine Margaret, was originally a Captain Tsubasa dōjinshi created by Ozaki that she adapted into an original work.[62] By 1990, seven Japanese publishers included yaoi content in their offerings, which kickstarted the commercial publishing market of the genre.[5] Between 1990 and 1995, thirty magazines devoted to yaoi were established: Magazine Be × Boy, founded in 1993, became one of the most influential yaoi manga magazines of this era.[63] The manga in these magazines were influenced by realist stories like Banana Fish, and moved away from the shōnen-ai standards of the 1970s and 1980s.[63][64] Shōnen-ai works that were published during this period were typically comedies rather than melodramas, such as Gravitation (1996–2002) by Maki Murakami.[65] Consequently, yaoi and "boys' love" (BL) came to be the most popular terms to describe works depicting male-male romance, eclipsing shōnen-ai and June.[59]

An increasing proportion of shōjo manga in the 1990s began to integrate yaoi elements into their plots. The manga artist group Clamp, which itself began as a group creating yaoi dōjinshi,[66] published multiple works containing yaoi elements during this period, such as RG Veda (1990–1995), Tokyo Babylon (1991–1994), and Cardcaptor Sakura (1996–2000).[67] When these works were released in North America, they were among the first yaoi-influenced media to be encountered by Western audiences.[67] BL gained popularity in mainland China in the late 1990s; the country subsequently outlawed the publishing and distribution of BL works.[68]

The mid-1990s saw the so-called "yaoi debate" or yaoi ronsō (や お い 論争), a debate held primarily in a series of essays published in the feminist magazine Choisir from 1992 to 1997.[69] In an open letter, Japanese gay writer Masaki Satō criticized the genre as homophobic for not depicting gay men accurately,[33] and called fans of yaoi "disgusting women" who "have a perverse interest in sexual intercourse between men."[69] A years-long debate ensued, with yaoi fans and artists contending that yaoi is entertainment for women that does not seek to be a realistic depiction of homosexuality, and instead serves as a refuge from the misogyny of Japanese society.[33] The scholarly debate that the yaoi ronsō engendered led to the formation of the field of "BL studies", which focus on the study of BL and the relationship between women and BL.[70] It additionally impacted creators of yaoi: author Chiyo Kurihara abandoned yaoi to focus on heterosexual pornography as a result of the yaoi ronsō, while Hisako Takamatsu took into account the arguments of the genre's critics to create works more accommodating of a gay audience.[33]

2000s–present: Globalization of yaoi and BL

[edit]
Otome Road in Ikebukuro became a major cultural destination for yaoi fandom in the 2000s.

The economic crisis caused by the Lost Decade came to affect the manga industry in the late 1990s and early 2000s, but did not particularly impact the yaoi market; on the contrary, yaoi magazines continued to proliferate during this period, and sales of yaoi media increased.[64][71] In 2004, Otome Road in Ikebukuro emerged as a major cultural destination for yaoi fandom, with multiple stores dedicated to shōjo and yaoi goods.[72] The 2000s also saw an increase in male readers of yaoi, with a 2008 bookstore survey finding that between 25 and 30 percent of yaoi readers were male.[73]

The 2000s saw significant growth of yaoi in international markets, beginning with the founding of the American anime convention Yaoi-Con in 2001.[74] The first officially-licensed English-language translations of yaoi manga were published in the North American market in 2003 (see Media below);[75][76] the market expanded rapidly before contracting in 2008 as a result of the global financial crisis of 2007–2008, but continued to grow slowly in the following years.[74] South Korea saw the development of BL in the form of manhwa, notably Martin and John (2006) by Park Hee-jung and Crush on You (2006) by Lee Kyung-ha.[77]

The 2010s and 2020s saw an increase in the popularity of yaoi and BL media in China and Thailand in the form of web novels, live-action films, and live-action television dramas (see Media below). Though "boys' love" and "BL" have become the generic terms for this material across Asia, in Thailand, BL dramas are sometimes referred to as "Y" or "Y series" as a shorthand for yaoi.[78][79] Thai Series Y explicitly adapts the content of Japanese BL to the Thai local context and in recent years has become increasingly popular with fans around the world who often view Thai BL as separate to its Japanese antecedents.[80] Thai BL also deliberately borrows from K-pop celebrity culture in the development of its own style of idols known as khu jin (imaginary couples) who are designed to be paired together by Thai BL's predominantly female fans.[81] For cultural anthropologist Thomas Baudinette, BL series produced in Thailand represent the next stage in the historic development of BL, which is increasingly becoming "dislocated" from Japan among international fans' understanding of the genre.[82]

While BL fandom in China traces back to the late 1990s as danmei (the Mandarin reading of the Japanese term tanbi),[83] state regulations in China made it difficult for danmei writers to publish their works online, with a 2009 ordinance by the National Publishing Administration of China banning most danmei online fiction.[84] In 2015, laws prohibiting depictions of same-sex relationships in television and film were implemented in China.[85] The growth in streaming service providers in the 2010s is regarded as a driving force behind the production of BL dramas across Asia, as online distribution provides a platform for media containing non-heterosexual material, which is frequently not permitted on broadcast television.[79]

Concepts and themes

[edit]

Bishōnen

[edit]
David Bowie
Björn Andrésen
Bandō Tamasaburō
Musician David Bowie, actor Björn Andrésen, and kabuki actor Bandō Tamasaburō influenced depictions of bishōnen characters in shōjo and BL manga.

The protagonists of BL are often bishōnen (美少年, lit. "beautiful boy"), "highly idealised" boys and young men who blend both masculine and feminine qualities.[86] Bishōnen as a concept can be found disparately throughout East Asia, but its specific aesthetic manifestation in 1970s shōjo manga (and subsequently in shōnen-ai manga) drew influence from popular culture of the era, including glam rock artists such as David Bowie,[87] actor Björn Andrésen's portrayal of Thaddeus in the 1971 film adaptation of Death in Venice, and kabuki onnagata Bandō Tamasaburō.[88] Though bishōnen are not exclusive to BL, the androgyny of bishōnen is often exploited to explore notions of sexuality and gender in BL works.[87]

The late 2010s saw the increasing popularity of masculine men in BL that are reminiscent of the body types typical in gay manga, with growing emphasis on stories featuring muscular bodies and older characters.[89][90] A 2017 survey by BL publisher Juné Manga found that while over 80% of their readership previously preferred bishōnen body types exclusively, 65% now enjoy both bishōnen and muscular body types.[91] Critics and commentators have noted that this shift in preferences among BL readers, and subsequent creation of works that feature characteristics of both BL and gay manga, represents a blurring of the distinctions between the genres;[90][92] anthropologist Thomas Baudinette notes in his fieldwork that gay men in Japan "saw no need to sharply disassociate BL from [gay manga] when discussing their consumption of 'gay media'."[93]

Seme and uke

[edit]
Artwork depicting a seme (top) and uke (bottom) couple

The two participants in a BL relationship (and to a lesser extent in yuri)[94] are often referred to as seme (攻め, lit. "top", as derived from the ichidan verb "to attack") and uke (受け, lit. "bottom", as derived from the ichidan verb "to receive").[86] These terms originated in martial arts, and were later appropriated as Japanese LGBT slang to refer to the insertive and receptive partners in anal sex.[95] Aleardo Zanghellini suggests that the martial arts terms have special significance to a Japanese audience, as an archetype of the gay male relationship in Japan includes same-sex love between samurai and their companions.[95] He suggests that the samurai archetype is responsible for age differences and hierarchical variations in power of some relationships portrayed in BL.[95]

The seme is often depicted as restrained, physically powerful, and protective; he is generally older and taller,[96] with a stronger chin, shorter hair, smaller eyes, and a more stereotypically masculine and "macho"[97] demeanour than the uke. The seme usually pursues the uke, who often has softer, androgynous, feminine features with bigger eyes and a smaller build, and is often physically weaker than the seme.[98] The roles of seme and uke can alternatively be established by who is dominant in the relationship; a character can take the uke role even if he is not presented as feminine, simply by being juxtaposed against and pursued by a more dominant and masculine character.[99] Anal sex is ubiquitous in BL,[100] and is typically rendered explicitly and not merely implied;[101] Zanghellini notes that illustrations of anal sex almost always position the characters to face each other rather than "doggy style", and that the uke rarely fellates the seme, but instead receives the sexual and romantic attentions of the seme.[95]

Though McLelland notes that authors are typically "interested in exploring, not repudiating" the dynamics between the seme and uke,[102] not all works adhere to seme and uke tropes.[103][104] The possibility of switching roles is often a source of playful teasing and sexual excitement for the characters,[105] indicating an interest among many genre authors in exploring the performative nature of the roles.[25] Riba (リバ), a shorthand for "reversible" (リバーシブル), is used to describe couples where the seme and uke roles are not strictly defined.[106] Occasionally, authors will forego the stylisations of the seme and uke to portray both lovers as "equally attractive handsome men", or will subvert expectations of dominance by depicting the active pursuer in the relationship as taking the passive role during sex.[97] In other cases, the uke is presented as more sexually aggressive than the seme; in these instances, the roles are sometimes referred to as osoi uke (襲い受け, "attacking uke") and hetare seme (ヘタレ攻め, "wimpy seme").[107]

Diminished female characters

[edit]

Historically, female characters had minor roles in BL, or were absent altogether.[108][109] Suzuki notes that mothers in particular are often portrayed in a negative light; she suggests this is because the character and reader alike are seeking to substitute the absence of unconditional maternal love with the "forbidden" all-consuming love presented in BL.[110] In dōjinshi parodies based on existing works that include female characters, the female's role is typically either minimized or the character is killed off;[109][111] Yukari Fujimoto noted that in these parodies, "it seems that yaoi readings and likeable female characters are mutually exclusive."[112] Nariko Enomoto, a BL author, suggests that women are typically not depicted in BL as their presence adds an element of realism that distracts from a fantasy narrative.[113]

Since the late 2000s, women have appeared more frequently in BL works as supporting characters.[114] Lunsing notes that early shōnen-ai and yaoi were often regarded as misogynistic, with the diminished role of female characters cited as evidence of the internalized misogyny of the genre's largely female readership.[18] He suggests that the decline of these misogynistic representations over time is evidence that authors and readers "overcame this hate, possibly thanks to their involvement with yaoi."[18]

Gay equality

[edit]

BL stories are often strongly homosocial, giving men freedom to bond and pursue shared goals together (as in dojinshi adaptations of shōnen manga), or to rival each other (as in Embracing Love). This spiritual bond and equal partnership is depicted as overcoming the male-female gender hierarchy.[115] As is typical in romance fiction, couples depicted in these stories often must overcome obstacles that are emotional or psychological rather than physical.[116] Akiko Mizoguchi notes that while early stories depicted homosexuality as a source of shame to heighten dramatic tension in this regard, beginning in the mid-2000s the genre began to depict gay identity with greater sensitivity and nuance, with series such as Brilliant Blue featuring stories of coming out and the characters' gradual acceptance within the wider community.[117] BL typically depicts Japanese society as more accepting of LGBT people than it is in reality, which Mizoguchi contends is a form of activism among BL authors.[117] Some longer-form stories such as Fake and Kizuna: Bonds of Love have the couple form a family unit, depicting them cohabiting and adopting children.[118] It is also possible that they marry and have children, as in Omegaverse publications.[119] Fujimoto cites Ossan's Love (2016–2018) and other BL television dramas that emerged in the 2010s as a "'missing link' to bridge the gap between BL fiction and gay people," arguing that when BL narratives are presented using human actors, it produces a "subconscious change in the perception of viewers" towards acceptance of homosexuality.[120]

Although gay male characters are empowered in BL, the genre frequently does not address the reality of socio-cultural homophobia. According to Hisako Miyoshi, vice editor-in-chief for Libre Publishing, while earlier works in the genre focused "more on the homosexual way of life from a realistic perspective", over time the genre has become less realistic and more comedic, and the stories are "simply for entertainment".[121] BL manga often have fantastical, historical or futuristic settings, and many fans consider the genre to be escapist fiction.[122] Homophobia, when it is presented as an issue at all,[103] is used as a plot device to heighten drama,[123] or to show the purity of the leads' love. Rachel Thorn has suggested that as BL is primarily a romance genre, its readers may be turned off by political themes such as homophobia.[124] BL author Makoto Tateno expressed skepticism that realistic depictions of gay men's lives would become common in BL "because girls like fiction more than realism".[125] Alan Williams argues that the lack of a gay identity in BL is due to BL being postmodern, stating that "a common utterance in the genre—when a character claims that he is 'not gay, but just in love with a man'—has both homophobic (or modern) temporal undertones but also non-identitarian (postmodern) ones."[126] In 2019, BL manga magazine editors have stated that stories where a man is concerned about coming out as gay have become uncommon and the trope can be seen as outdated if used as a source of conflict between the characters.[127]

Rape

[edit]

Eroticized depictions of rape are often associated with BL.[115] Anal sex is understood as a means of expressing commitment to a partner, and in BL, the "apparent violence" of rape is transformed into a "measure of passion".[128] Rape scenes in BL are rarely presented as crimes with an assaulter and a victim: scenes where a seme rapes an uke are not depicted as symptomatic of the violent desires of the seme, but rather as evidence of the uncontrollable attraction felt by the seme towards the uke. Such scenes are often a plot device used to make the uke see the seme as more than just a good friend, and typically result in the uke falling in love with the seme.[115]

While Japanese society often shuns or looks down upon women who are raped in reality, the BL genre depicts men who are raped as still "imbued with innocence" and are typically still loved by their rapists after the act, a trope that may have originated with Kaze to Ki no Uta.[128] Kristy Valenti of The Comics Journal notes that rape narratives typically focus on how "irresistible" the uke is and how the seme "cannot control himself" in his presence, thus absolving the seme of responsibility for his rape of the uke. She notes this is likely why the narrative climax of many BL stories depicts the seme recognizing, and taking responsibility for, his sexual desires.[129] Where the uke is raped by a third party, the relationship is shown to be emotionally supportive.[130] Conversely, some stories such as Under Grand Hotel subvert the rape fantasy trope entirely by presenting rape as a negative and traumatic act.[131]

A 2012 survey of English-language BL fans found that just 15 percent of respondents reported that the presence of rape in BL media made them uncomfortable, as the majority of respondents could distinguish between the "fantasy, genre-driven rape" of BL and rape as a crime in reality.[65] This "surprisingly high tolerance" for depictions of rape is contextualized by a content analysis, which found that just 13 percent of all original Japanese BL available commercially in English contains depictions of rape. These findings are argued as "possibly belying the perception that rape is almost ubiquitous in BL/yaoi."[65]

Tragedy

[edit]

Tragic narratives that focused on the suffering of the protagonists were popular early June stories,[132] particularly stories that ended in one or both members of the central couple dying from suicide.[133] By the mid-1990s, happy endings were more common;[133] when tragic endings are shown, the cause is typically not an interpersonal conflict between the couple, but "the cruel and intrusive demands of an uncompromising outside world".[134] Thorn theorizes that depictions of tragedy and abuse in BL exist to allow the audience "to come to terms in some way with their own experiences of abuse."[135]

[edit]

Bara (薔薇, "rose"), also known as gay manga (ゲイ漫画) or gei komi (ゲイコミ, "gay comics") is a genre focused on male same-sex love, as created primarily by gay men for a gay male audience.[136] Gay manga typically focuses on masculine men with varying degrees of muscle, body fat, and body hair, in contrast to the androgynous bishōnen of BL. Graham Kolbeins writes in Massive: Gay Erotic Manga and the Men Who Make It that while BL can be understood as a primarily feminist phenomenon, in that it depicts sex that is free of the patriarchal trappings of heterosexual pornography, gay manga is primarily an expression of gay male identity.[137] The early 2000s saw a degree of overlap between BL and gay manga in BDSM-themed publications: the yaoi BDSM anthology magazine Zettai Reido (絶対零度) had several male contributors,[18][138] while several female BL authors have contributed stories to BDSM-themed gay manga anthologies or special issues,[138] occasionally under male pen names.[137]

Shotacon (ショタコン, shotakon) is a genre that depicts prepubescent or pubescent boys in a romantic or pornographic context. Originating as an offshoot of yaoi in the early 1980s, the subgenre was later adopted by male readers and became influenced by lolicon (works depicting prepubescent or pubescent girls);[113] the conflation of shotacon in its contemporary usage with BL is thus not universally accepted, as the genre constitutes material that marketed to both male and female audiences.[65]

Omegaverse is a male-male romance subgenre that originated from the American series Supernatural[139] and in the 2010s became a subgenre of both commercial and non-commercial BL.[140][141] Stories in the genre are premised on societies wherein humans are divided into a dominance hierarchy of dominant "alphas", neutral "betas", and submissive "omegas". These terms are derived from those used in ethology to describe social hierarchies in animals.[142]

The "dom/sub universe" subgenre emerged in 2017 and gained popularity in 2021. The subgenre uses BDSM elements and also draws influences from Omegaverse, particularly the use of a caste system.[143]

Media

[edit]

In 2003, 3.8% of weekly Japanese manga magazines were dedicated exclusively to BL. Notable ongoing and defunct magazines include Magazine Be × Boy, June, Craft, Chara, Dear+, Opera, Ciel [ja], and Gush.[16] Several of these magazines were established as companion publications to shōjo manga magazines, as they include material considered too explicit for an all-ages audience; Ciel was established as a companion to Monthly Asuka, while Dear+ was established as a companion to Wings.[144] A 2008 assessment estimated that the Japanese commercial BL market grossed approximately ¥12 billion annually, with novel sales generating ¥250 million per month, manga generating ¥400 million per month, CDs generating ¥180 million per month, and video games generating ¥160 million per month.[145] A 2010 report estimated that the Japanese BL market was worth approximately ¥21.3 billion in both 2009 and 2010.[146] In 2019, editors from Lynx, Magazine Be × Boy, and On BLUE have stated that, with the growth of BL artists in Taiwan and South Korea, they have recruited and published several of their works in Japan with expectations that the BL manga industry will diversify.[127]

Fan works (dōjinshi)

[edit]
BL dōjinshi are typically derivative works based on existing media, as in this fan art of Harry Potter and Severus Snape from the Harry Potter series.

The dōjinshi (self-published fan works) subculture emerged in the 1970s contemporaneously with BL subculture and Western fan fiction culture.[43][44] Characteristic similarities of fan works in both Japan and the West include non-adherence to a standard narrative structures and a particular popularity of science fiction themes.[86] Early BL dōjinshi were amateur publications that were not controlled by media restrictions, were typically derivative works based on existing manga and anime, and were often written by teenagers for an adolescent audience.[44][147] Several legitimate manga artists produce or produced dōjinshi: the manga artist group Clamp began as an amateur dōjinshi circle creating yaoi works based on Saint Seiya,[66] while Kodaka Kazuma[148] and Fumi Yoshinaga[149] have produced dōjinshi concurrently with professionally-published works. Many publishing companies review BL dōjinshi to recruit talented amateurs; this practice has led to careers in mainstream manga for Youka Nitta, Shungiku Nakamura, and others.[150][60]

Typically, BL dōjinshi feature male-male pairings from non-romantic manga and anime. Much of the material derives from male-oriented shōnen and seinen works, which contain close male-male friendships perceived by fans to imply elements of homoeroticism,[19] such as with Captain Tsubasa[20] and Saint Seiya, two titles which popularized yaoi in the 1980s.[44] Weekly Shonen Jump is known to have a large female readership who engage in BL readings;[151] publishers of shōnen manga may create "homoerotic-themed" merchandise as fan service to their BL fans.[152] BL fans may "ship" any male-male pairing, sometimes pairing off a favourite character, or create a story about two original male characters and incorporate established characters into the story.[20] Any male character may become the subject of a BL dōjinshi, including characters from non-manga titles such as Harry Potter or The Lord of the Rings,[153] video games such as Final Fantasy,[154] or real people such as actors and politicians. Amateur authors may also create characters out of personifications of abstract concepts (as in the personification of countries in Hetalia: Axis Powers) or complementary objects like salt and pepper.[155] In Japan, the labeling of BL dōjinshi is typically composed of the two lead characters' names, separated by a multiplication sign, with the seme being first and the uke being second.[156]

Outside of Japan, the 2000 broadcast of Mobile Suit Gundam Wing in North America on Cartoon Network is noted as crucial to the development of Western BL fan works, particularly fan fiction.[157] As BL fan fiction is often compared to the Western fan practice of slash, it is important to understand the subtle differences between them. Levi notes that "the youthful teen look that so easily translates into androgyny in boys' love manga, and allows for so many layered interpretations of sex and gender, is much harder for slash writers to achieve."[158]

English-language publishing

[edit]
Shelves of BL books and magazines at Books Kinokuniya in San Francisco in 2009

The first officially-licensed English-language translations of yaoi manga were published in the North American market in 2003; by 2006, there were roughly 130 English-translated yaoi works commercially available,[75] and by 2007, over 10 publishers in North America published yaoi.[159] Notable English-language publishers of BL include Viz Media under their SuBLime imprint, Digital Manga Publishing under their 801 Media and Juné imprints, Media Blasters under their Kitty Media imprint, Seven Seas Entertainment, and Tokyopop.[43][160] Notable defunct English-language publishers of BL include Central Park Media under their Be Beautiful imprint, Broccoli under their Boysenberry imprint, and Aurora Publishing under their Deux Press imprint.[98]

Among the 135 yaoi manga published in North America between 2003 and 2006, 14% were rated for readers aged 13 years or over, 39% were rated for readers aged 15 or older, and 47% were rated for readers age 18 and up.[161] Restrictions among American booksellers often led publishers to label books conservatively, often rating books originally intended for a mid-teen readership as 18+ and distributing them in shrinkwrap.[162] Diamond Comic Distributors valued the sales of yaoi manga in the United States at approximately US$6 million in 2007.[163]

Marketing was significant in the transnational travel of BL from Japan to the United States, and led to BL to attract a following of LGBTQ fans in the United States. The 1994 original video animation adaptation of Kizuna: Bonds of Love was distributed by Ariztical Entertainment, which specializes in LGBT cinema and marketed the title as "the first gay male anime to be released on DVD in the US."[164] The film was reviewed in the American LGBT magazine The Advocate, which compared the film to gay art house cinema.[165]

A large portion of Western fans choose to pirate BL material because they are unable or unwilling to obtain it through sanctioned methods. Scanlations and other fan translation efforts of both commercially published Japanese works and amateur dojinshi are common.[166][167]

Original English-language yaoi

[edit]

When yaoi initially gained popularity in the United States in the early 2000s, several American artists began creating original English-language manga for female readers featuring male-male couples referred to as "American yaoi". The first known commercially published original English-language yaoi comic is Sexual Espionage #1 by Daria McGrain, published by Sin Factory in May 2002.[168] As international artists began creating yaoi works, the term "American yaoi" fell out of use and was replaced by terms like "original English language yaoi",[169] "global yaoi", and "global BL".[170][171] The majority of publishers creating original English-language yaoi manga are now defunct, including Yaoi Press,[172] DramaQueen,[173] and Iris Print.[174][175] Digital Manga Publishing last published original English-language yaoi manga in 2012;[176] outside of the United States, German publisher Carlsen Manga also published original yaoi works.[177][178]

Audio dramas

[edit]
Tsuzumigafuchi, the first yaoi audio drama, was released on cassette in 1988.

BL audio dramas, occasionally referred to as "drama CDs", "sound dramas", or "BLCDs", are recorded voice performances of male-male romance scenarios performed by primarily male voice actors. They are typically adaptations of original BL manga and novels.[179] The first BL audio dramas were released in the 1980s, beginning with Tsuzumigafuchi in 1988, which was published as a "June cassette".[180] BL audio dramas proliferated beginning in the 1990s with the rise in popularity of compact discs, peaking at 289 total CDs released in 2008, which dropped to 108 CDs in 2013.[180]

Live action television and film

[edit]

Japan

[edit]

While Japanese BL manga has been adapted into live action films and television dramas since the early 2000s, these works were marketed towards a niche audience of BL fans rather than towards a general audience.[181] When these works were adapted for a general audience, same-sex romance elements were typically downplayed or removed entirely, as in the live-action television adaption of Antique Bakery that aired on Fuji TV in 2001.[127] The development of Japanese live-action television dramas that focus on BL and same-sex romance themes explicitly was spurred by the critical and commercial success of the TV Asahi television drama Ossan's Love (2016), which features an all-male love triangle as its central plot conceit.[120] While Ossan's Love is an original series, it influenced the creation of live-action BL works adapted from manga that are marketed towards mass audiences; notable examples include the television dramas The Novelist [ja] (2018) on Fuji TV, What Did You Eat Yesterday? (2019) on TV Tokyo,[g] Cherry Magic (2020) on TV Tokyo, and the live-action film adaptation of The Cornered Mouse Dreams of Cheese (2020).[181]

In 2022, Kadokawa Corporation employee Kaoru Azuma established Tunku, Kadokawa's label for publishing live-action BL drama series, partnering with MBS TV to create the programming block Drama Shower.[182] The label was created to promote Japanese BL dramas based on existing BL novels and manga due to the growing popularity of BL caused by Ossan's Love.[182] While creating Tunku, Azuma stated that she noticed that prejudice against boys' love has dwindled, and that many people have seemed to accept the genre as "normal".[182]

Thailand

[edit]

The Thai romantic drama film Love of Siam (2007), which features a gay male romance storyline, found unexpected mainstream success upon its release and grossed over TH฿40 million at the box office.[183] This was followed by Love Sick: The Series (2014–2015), the first Thai television series to feature two gay characters as the lead roles.[184] Cultural anthropologist Thomas Baudinette argues that Love Sick: The Series represented a "watershed moment" in the depiction of queer romance in Thai media, exploring how the series adapted tropes from Japanese BL to create a new genre of media.[80] While Japanese BL manga attracted an audience in Thailand as early as the 1990s,[185] the success of Love of Siam and Love Sick kick-started the production of domestic BL dramas: between 2014 and 2020, 57 television series in the BL genre were produced and released in Thailand.[186]

Major producers of Thai BL include GMMTV, a subsidiary of GMM Grammy, which has produced 2gether: The Series (2020), A Tale of Thousand Stars (2021), SOTUS: The Series (2016–2017), Dark Blue Kiss (2019), and Theory of Love (2019);[187] and Line Corporation, which produces BL dramas in Thailand for distribution on its Line TV platform.[79] The genre has seen some backlash from conservative elements in Thai society: in 2020, the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission introduced new guidelines around material containing "sexually explicit or suggestive" scenes, while public broadcaster MCOT cancelled the BL series Love by Chance in 2018.[78] Thai BL dramas are noted as having gained popularity in Indonesia, where LGBT representation in domestic television is less common;[186] as well as in the Philippines, where many fans view BL as an originally Thai form of popular culture.[82] The coming-of-age BL series, I Told Sunset About You (2020) was awarded by the Seoul International Drama Awards as the International Drama of the Year in 2021.[188] It has been suggested that BL dramas could become a source of Thai cultural soft power in Southeast Asia and beyond.[184]

China

[edit]

There are no specific censorship policies in China concerning depictions of LGBT subject material in media; nevertheless, Variety reports that such material is "deemed sensitive and is inconsistently but regularly removed" from distribution.[85] Addicted (2016), the first Chinese BL web series, accumulated 10 million views before being pulled from the streaming platform iQiyi.[189][187] In reaction to state censorship, Chinese BL works typically depict male-male romance as homoerotic subtext: the web novel Guardian (2012) depicted a romance between its two lead male characters, though when it was adapted into a television drama on the streaming platform Youku in 2018, the relationship was rendered as a close, homoerotic friendship.[190] The 2015 BL xianxia novel Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation was adapted into an animated series in 2018 and a live-action series in 2019, both of which similarly revise the nature of the relationship between the lead male characters. Consequently, fans of both Guardian and The Untamed discussed the series' male homoerotic content under the hashtag "socialist brotherhood" or "socialist bromance" to avoid detection from state censors.[191]

Other countries

[edit]

In South Korea, the web series Where Your Eyes Linger launched as the first domestically-produced BL series in 2020.[192] The BL genre didn't receive much traction in the country until 2022, when the series Semantic Error achieved a major domestic success and became a social phenomenon in South Korea.[193] The unexpected success of the series introduced the BL genre to the mainstream South Korean audience, which subsequently resulted in a rising production of South Korean BL dramas and films.[194]

In Taiwan, the BL anthology series HIStory premiered in 2017.[195]

In the Philippines, BL television dramas gained popularity through the broadcast of foreign BL dramas such as 2gether and Where Your Eyes Linger.[196] This spurred the creation of domestically-produced BL dramas, such as Gameboys (2020),[196] Hello Stranger (2020),[197] and Oh, Mando! (2020);[198] the 2020 film The Boy Foretold by the Stars billed itself as "the first Filipino BL movie".[199]

Video games

[edit]

BL video games typically consist of visual novels or eroge oriented around male-male couples. The first BL game to receive an officially-licensed English-language release was Enzai: Falsely Accused, published by JAST USA in 2006.[200] That same year, the company published Absolute Obedience,[201] while Hirameki International licensed Animamundi; the later game, although already nonexplicit, was censored for US release to achieve a "mature" rather than "adults only" ESRB rating, removing some of both the sexual and the violent content.[202] Compared to BL manga, fewer BL games have been officially translated into English; the lack of interest by publishers in licensing further titles has been attributed to widespread copyright infringement of both licensed and unlicensed games.[203]

Demography

[edit]

Suzuki notes that "demographic analyses of BL media are underdeveloped and thus much needed in yaoi/BL studies,"[204] but acknowledges that "the overwhelming majority of BL readers are women."[204] 80% of the BL audience is female,[205][206] while the membership of Yaoi-Con, a now-defunct American yaoi convention, was 85% female.[207] It is usually assumed that all female fans are heterosexual, but in Japan there is a presence of lesbian manga authors[18] and lesbian, bisexual or questioning female readers.[208] A 2008 survey of English-speaking readers of BL indicated that 50-60% of female readers self-identify as heterosexual.[209]

Although the genre is marketed to and consumed primarily by girls and women, there is a gay,[75] bisexual,[210] and heterosexual male[211][212][213] readership as well. A 2007 survey of BL readers among patrons of a United States library found about one quarter of respondents were male;[214] two online surveys found approximately ten percent of the broader English-speaking BL readership were male.[162][209] Lunsing suggests that younger Japanese gay men who are offended by "pornographic" content in gay men's magazines may prefer to read BL instead.[215] Some gay men, however, are put off by the feminine art style or unrealistic depictions of LGBT culture in Japan and instead prefer gay manga,[18] which some perceive to be more realistic.[20] Lunsing notes that some of the BL narrative elements criticized by homosexual men, such as rape fantasies, misogyny, and characters' non-identification as gay, are also present in gay manga.[18]

In the mid-1990s, estimates of the size of the Japanese BL fandom ranged from 100,000 to 500,000 people.[18] By April 2005, a search for non-Japanese websites resulted in 785,000 English, 49,000 Spanish, 22,400 Korean, 11,900 Italian, and 6,900 Chinese sites.[216] In January 2007, there were approximately five million hits for yaoi.[217]

Female fans of BL are often referred to as fujoshi (腐女子, lit. "rotten girl"), a derogatory insult that was later reappropriated as a self-descriptive term.[218] The male equivalent is fudanshi (腐男子, lit. "rotten boy") or fukei (腐兄, "rotten older brother"), both of which are puns of similar construction to fujoshi.[219][220]

Analysis

[edit]

Audience motivation

[edit]

BL works, culture, and fandom have been studied and discussed by scholars and journalists worldwide, especially after translations of BL became commercially available outside Japan in the 21st century.[221] In Manga! Manga! The World of Japanese Comics, the 1983 book by Frederik L. Schodt that was the first substantial English-language work on manga, Schodt observes that portrayals of gay male relationships had used and further developed bisexual themes already extant in shōjo manga to appeal to their female audience.[222] Japanese critics have viewed BL as a genre that permits their audience to avoid adult female sexuality by distancing sex from their own bodies,[223] as well as to create fluidity in perceptions of gender and sexuality and rejects "socially mandated" gender roles as a "first step toward feminism".[224] Kazuko Suzuki, for example, believes that the audience's aversion to or contempt for masculine heterosexism is something which has consciously emerged as a result of the genre's popularity.[225]

Mizoguchi, writing in 2003, feels that BL is a "female-gendered space", as the writers, readers, artists and most of the editors of BL are female.[2] BL has been compared to romance novels by English-speaking librarians.[96][123] In 2004, Paul Gravett summarized the dominant theories for the popularity of BL with a female audience: that Japanese women were disillusioned or bored with classic male-female relationships in fiction, that the bishōnen populating the genre were a backlash against male sex fantasies of a feminized ideal of adolescent girls, that the genre offered a safe space for sexual fantasies with the free choice of identification figure in the relationship, and that the male characters in BL are interpreted by female readers as girls, thus making the stories expressions of readers' same-sex fantasies.[226]

Other commentators have suggested that more radical gender-political issues underlie BL. Parallels have been noted in the popularity of lesbianism in pornography,[100][75] and BL has been called a form of "female fetishism".[227] While early approaches to the popularity of the genre often referred to the role of women in patriarchal Japanese society, to which the genre offers a resistance and escape, this approach has been rejected by others who note that BL and BL-like media became popular outside of Japan in other social circumstances, such as slash fiction in the west. Against this background, theories emphasizing pleasure gained support: BL could be compared to pornography or even considered a specifically female form of pornography, appealing to desires for eroticism, voyeurism, or a desire to push against established gender roles.[228] Mariko Ōhara, a science fiction writer, has said that she wrote Kirk/Spock fiction as a teen because she could not enjoy "conventional pornography, which had been made for men", and that she had found a "limitless freedom" in BL, much like in science fiction.[229]

In 1998, Shihomi Sakakibara asserted that yaoi fans, including himself, were gay transgender men.[230] Sandra Buckley believes that bishōnen narratives champion "the imagined potentialities of alternative [gender] differentiations",[231] while James Welker described the bishōnen character as "queer", commenting that manga critic Akiko Mizoguchi saw shōnen-ai as playing a role in how she herself had become a lesbian.[232] Dru Pagliassotti sees this and the yaoi ronsō as indicating that for Japanese gay and lesbian readers, BL is not as far removed from reality as heterosexual female readers like to claim.[162] Welker has also written that boys' love titles liberate the female audience "not just from patriarchy, but from gender dualism and heteronormativity".[232]

Criticism

[edit]

Some gay and lesbian commentators have criticized how gay identity is portrayed in BL, most notably in the yaoi ronsō or "yaoi debate" of 1992–1997 (see History above).[18][33] A trope of BL that has attracted criticism is male protagonists who do not identify as gay, but are rather simply in love with each other, with Comiket co-founder Yoshihiro Yonezawa once describing BL dōjinshi as akin to "girls playing with dolls".[100] This is said to heighten the theme of all-conquering love,[108] but is also condemned as a means of avoiding acknowledgement of homophobia.[233] Criticism of the stereotypically feminine behaviour of the uke has also been prominent.[104]

Much of the criticism of BL originally rendered in the yaoi ronsō has similarly been voiced in the English-language fandom.[103][234][235][236] Rachel Thorn has suggested that BL and slash fiction fans are discontented with "the standards of femininity to which they are expected to adhere and a social environment that does not validate or sympathize with that discontent".[237][238]

[edit]

BL has been the subject of disputes on legal and moral grounds. Mark McLelland suggests that BL may become "a major battlefront for proponents and detractors of 'gender free' policies in employment, education and elsewhere",[239] while BL artist Youka Nitta has said that "even in Japan, reading boys' love isn't something that parents encourage."[240] In Thailand, the sale of unauthorized reproductions of shōnen-ai manga to teenagers in 2001 led to media coverage and a moral panic.[241] In 2006, an email campaign pressuring the Sakai City Central Library to remove BL works from circulation attracted national media attention, and promoted a debate over removal of BL works constituted a form of discrimination.[239] In 2010, the Osaka Prefectural Government included boys' love manga among with other books deemed potentially "harmful to minors" due to its sexual content,[242] which resulted in several magazines prohibited from being sold to people under 18 years of age.[243]

Anhui TV reported that in China, at least 20 young female authors writing danmei novels on an online novel website were arrested in 2014.[244] In 2018, the pseudonymous Chinese BL novel author Tianyi was sentenced to 10+12 years in prison under laws prohibiting the production of "obscene material for profit".[245][246] Hu, Ge and Wang summarise the trajectory of consorship over danmei from 2004 to the present, and suggest that the Chinese party-state has endeavoured to boost a discourse as regard danmei hatred in particular since 2021 as exemplifed in the ban of danmei-adapted web dramas and media representation of male effeminacy in September 2021.[247] Zanghellini notes that due to the "characteristics of the yaoi/BL genre" of showing characters who are often underage engaging in romantic and sexual situations, child pornography laws in Australia and Canada "may lend themselves to targeting yaoi/BL work". He notes that in the UK, cartoons are exempt from child pornography laws unless they are used for child grooming.[95]

See also

[edit]

Notes

[edit]
  1. ^ Works featuring homoerotic relationships between female characters are referred to as yuri.
  2. ^ The term "bishōnen manga" was occasionally used in the 1970s, but fell out of use by the 1990s as works in this genre began to feature a broader range of protagonists beyond the traditional adolescent boys.[2]
  3. ^ In Chinese male-male romance fiction, danmei (the Mandarin reading of the word tanbi) is used.[9]
  4. ^ In Japan, the term yaoi is occasionally written as "801", which can be read as yaoi through Japanese wordplay: the short reading of the number eight is "ya", zero can be read as "o" (a Western influence), while the short reading for one is "i".[13][14][15]
  5. ^ Kubota Mitsuyoshi says that Osamu Tezuka used yama nashi, ochi nashi, imi nashi to dismiss poor quality manga, and this was appropriated by the early yaoi authors.[15]
  6. ^ The acronym yamete, oshiri ga itai (やめて お尻が 痛い, "stop, my ass hurts!") is also less commonly used.[18]
  7. ^ While What Did You Eat Yesterday? is not a BL series, it is often discussed in the context of live-action BL media as it focuses on a gay male couple and series creator Fumi Yoshinaga has authored multiple BL and BL-influenced works, notably Antique Bakery.[120]

References

[edit]
  1. ^ a b Suzuki 2015, p. 93–118.
  2. ^ a b c Akiko, Mizoguchi (2003). "Male-Male Romance by and for Women in Japan: A History and the Subgenres of Yaoi Fictions". U.S.-Japan Women's Journal. 25: 49–75.
  3. ^ a b c Welker, James (2006). "Beautiful, Borrowed, and Bent: 'Boys' Love' as Girls' Love in Shôjo Manga'". Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society. 31 (3): 842. doi:10.1086/498987. S2CID 144888475.
  4. ^ a b Welker, James. "Intersections: Review, Boys' Love Manga: Essays on the Sexual Ambiguity and Cross-Cultural Fandom of the Genre". Intersections. Archived from the original on 8 November 2014. Retrieved 29 November 2014.
  5. ^ a b Bauer, Carola (2013). Naughty girls and gay male romance/porn : slash fiction, boys' love manga, and other works by Female "Cross-Voyeurs" in the U.S. Academic Discourses. [S.l.]: Anchor Academic Publishing. p. 81. ISBN 978-3954890019.
  6. ^ Suzuki 1999, p. 250.
  7. ^ a b Suzuki 1999, p. 252.
  8. ^ Suzuki 1999, p. 251.
  9. ^ Wei, John (2014). "Queer encounters between Iron Man and Chinese boys' love fandom". Transformative Works and Cultures. 17. doi:10.3983/twc.2014.0561. hdl:2292/23048.
  10. ^ Welker 2015, pp. 52–53.
  11. ^ a b c d "Definitions From Japan: BL, Yaoi, June". aestheticism.com. Archived from the original on 5 June 2009.
  12. ^ a b c "What is Boys' Love?". Futekiya. Dai Nippon Printing. 8 March 2020. Archived from the original on 16 November 2020. Retrieved 14 November 2020.
  13. ^ Aoyama, Tomoko (April 2009). "Eureka Discovers Culture Girls, Fujoshi, and BL: Essay Review of Three Issues of the Japanese Literary magazine, Yuriika (Eureka)". Intersections: Gender and Sexuality in Asia and the Pacific. 20. Archived from the original on 17 February 2012. Retrieved 10 February 2012.
  14. ^ "Tonari no 801 chan Fujoshi Manga Adapted for Shōjo Mag". Archived from the original on 19 January 2008. Retrieved 1 February 2008.
  15. ^ a b c Ingulsrud, John E.; Allen, Kate (2009). Reading Japan Cool: Patterns of Manga Literacy and Discourse. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 47. ISBN 978-0-7391-2753-7.
  16. ^ a b c Galbraith, Patrick W. (2011). "Fujoshi: Fantasy Play and Transgressive Intimacy among "Rotten Girls" in Contemporary Japan". Signs. 37 (1): 211–232. doi:10.1086/660182. S2CID 146718641.
  17. ^ a b Mari, Kotani, foreword to Saitō, Tamaki (2007). "Otaku Sexuality" in Christopher Bolton, Istvan Csicsery-Ronay Jr., and Takayuki Tatsumi ed., page 223 Robot Ghosts and Wired Dreams University of Minnesota Press ISBN 978-0-8166-4974-7
  18. ^ a b c d e f g h i Lunsing, Wim (January 2006). "Yaoi Ronsō: Discussing Depictions of Male Homosexuality in Japanese Girls' Comics, Gay Comics and Gay Pornography". Intersections: Gender, History and Culture in the Asian Context. 12. Archived from the original on 10 February 2012. Retrieved 12 August 2008.
  19. ^ a b Thorn 2004, p. 171.
  20. ^ a b c d e Wilson, Brent; Toku, Masami (2003). ""Boys' Love", Yaoi, and Art Education: Issues of Power and Pedagogy". Visual Culture Research in Art and Education. Archived from the original on 10 June 2010.
  21. ^ a b c d e f Zsila, Agnes; Pagliassotti, Dru; Orosz, Gabor; Demetrovics, Zsolt (2018). Chiesi, Francesca (ed.). "Loving the love of boys: Motives for consuming yaoi media". PLOS One. 13 (6): e0198895. Bibcode:2018PLoSO..1398895Z. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0198895. PMC 6002055. PMID 29902228.
  22. ^ a b "BL vs Yaoi vs Shounen-ai". Futekiya. Dai Nippon Printing. 11 April 2020. Archived from the original on 13 November 2020. Retrieved 10 November 2020.
  23. ^ Nagaike & Aoyama 2015, p. 120.
  24. ^ Cha, Kai-Ming (7 March 2005). "Yaoi Manga: What Girls Like?". Publishers Weekly. Archived from the original on 4 December 2014. Retrieved 28 November 2014.
  25. ^ a b Wood, Andrea (2006). "Straight" Women, Queer Texts: Boy-Love Manga and the Rise of a Global Counterpublic". WSQ: Women's Studies Quarterly. 34 (1/2): 394–414.
  26. ^ Hahn Aquila, Meredith Suzanne (2007). "Ranma ½ Fan Fiction Writers: New Narrative Themes or the Same Old Story?". Mechademia. 2: 34–47. doi:10.1353/mec.0.0017. S2CID 201756800.
  27. ^ de Bats 2008b, p. 133-134.
  28. ^ McLelland & Welker 2015, p. 6-7.
  29. ^ de Bats 2008b, p. 136.
  30. ^ McLelland & Welker 2015, p. 7.
  31. ^ McLelland & Welker 2015, p. 7-8.
  32. ^ Hartley 2015, p. 22.
  33. ^ a b c d e f Vincent, Keith (2007). "A Japanese Electra and Her Queer Progen". Mechademia. 2. Project MUSE: 64–79. doi:10.1353/mec.0.0000. S2CID 120935717. Archived from the original on 30 November 2021. Retrieved 17 November 2020.
  34. ^ Brient 2008b, p. 7.
  35. ^ a b Welker 2015, p. 45.
  36. ^ Welker 2015, p. 44.
  37. ^ Welker 2015, p. 47.
  38. ^ a b c Welker 2015, p. 51.
  39. ^ Angles, Jeffrey (2011). Writing the love of boys : origins of Bishōnen culture in modernist Japanese literature. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. p. 1. ISBN 978-0-8166-6970-7.
  40. ^ Toku, Masami (2007). "Shojo Manga! Girls' Comics! A Mirror of Girls' Dreams". Mechademia. 2: 19–32. doi:10.1353/mec.0.0013. S2CID 120302321.
  41. ^ a b McLelland & Welker 2015, p. 9.
  42. ^ a b Welker 2015, p. 62.
  43. ^ a b c Strickland, Elizabeth (2 November 2006). "Drawn Together". The Village Voice. Archived from the original on 20 August 2009.
  44. ^ a b c d McHarry, Mark (November 2003). "Yaoi: Redrawing Male Love". The Guide. Archived from the original on 17 April 2008.
  45. ^ a b Welker 2015, p. 54.
  46. ^ Welker 2015, p. 55–56.
  47. ^ Matsui, Midori. (1993) "Little girls were little boys: Displaced Femininity in the representation of homosexuality in Japanese girls' comics," in Gunew, S. and Yeatman, A. (eds.) Feminism and The Politics of Difference, pp. 177–196. Halifax: Fernwood Publishing.
  48. ^ Welker 2015, p. 54–56.
  49. ^ Kincaid, Chris (March 8, 2013). "Yaoi: History, Appeal, and Misconceptions". Japan Powered. Archived from the original on March 27, 2020. Retrieved March 28, 2020.
  50. ^ "James Welker, "Boys Love (BL) Media and Its Asian Transfigurations"". Center for East Asian Studies. The Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania. March 27, 2018. Archived from the original on March 26, 2020. Retrieved March 28, 2020.
  51. ^ Liu, Ting (April 2009). "Conflicting Discourses on Boys' Love and Subcultural Tactics in Mainland China and Hong Kong". Intersections: Gender, History and Culture in the Asian Context (20). Archived from the original on 28 January 2013. Retrieved 28 March 2020.
  52. ^ Welker 2015, p. 61.
  53. ^ Welker 2015, p. 59–60.
  54. ^ Welker 2015, p. 59.
  55. ^ Welker 2015, p. 60-62.
  56. ^ Brient 2008b, p. 5-7.
  57. ^ Thorn 2004, p. 170.
  58. ^ Welker 2015, p. 57.
  59. ^ a b Welker 2015, p. 64-65.
  60. ^ a b Bollmann, Tuuli (2010). Niskanen, Eija (ed.). "He-romance for her – yaoi, BL and shounen-ai" (PDF). Imaginary Japan: Japanese Fantasy in Contemporary Popular Culture. Turku: Interna-tional Institute for Popular Culture: 42–46. Archived from the original (PDF) on 19 March 2015.
  61. ^ Welker 2015, p. 63.
  62. ^ Suzuki 1999, p. 261.
  63. ^ a b Welker 2015, p. 64.
  64. ^ a b Brient 2008b, p. 10.
  65. ^ a b c d Madill, Anna (2017). Smith, Clarissa; Attwood, Feona; McNair, Brian (eds.). "Erotic Manga: Boys' love, shonen-ai, yaoi and (MxM) shotacon". The Routledge Companion to Media, Sex and Sexuality. Routledge. doi:10.4324/9781315168302-13. ISBN 978-0367581176. Archived from the original on 2 February 2023. Retrieved 21 November 2020.
  66. ^ a b Kimbergt 2008, p. 113–115.
  67. ^ a b Sylvius 2008, p. 20-23.
  68. ^ Liu, Ting (2009). "Intersections: Conflicting Discourses on Boys' Love and Subcultural Tactics in Mainland China and Hong Kong". Intersections: Gender and Sexuality in Asia and the Pacific (20). Archived from the original on 28 January 2013. Retrieved 8 September 2009.
  69. ^ a b Hishida 2015, p. 214.
  70. ^ Nagaike & Aoyama 2015, p. 121.
  71. ^ Welker 2015, p. 65-66.
  72. ^ Welker 2015, p. 65.
  73. ^ de Bats 2008b, p. 142.
  74. ^ a b Welker 2015, p. 67.
  75. ^ a b c d McLelland, Mark (2006–2007). "Why are Japanese Girls' Comics full of Boys Bonking?". Refractory: A Journal of Entertainment Media. 10. Archived from the original on 15 April 2008.
  76. ^ Brient 2008b, p. 11.
  77. ^ Sylvius 2008, p. 36-37.
  78. ^ a b Watson, Joey; Jirik, Kim (15 June 2018). "Boys' love: The unstoppable rise of same-sex soapies in Thailand". ABC News. Archived from the original on 9 November 2020. Retrieved 17 November 2020.
  79. ^ a b c Kishimoto, Marimi (14 November 2020). "Japanese-style 'boys love' dramas captivate Thai women". The Nikkei. Archived from the original on 17 November 2020. Retrieved 17 November 2020.
  80. ^ a b Baudinette, Thomas (3 April 2019). "Lovesick, The Series: adapting Japanese 'Boys Love' to Thailand and the creation of a new genre of queer media". South East Asia Research. 27 (2): 115–132. doi:10.1080/0967828X.2019.1627762. ISSN 0967-828X. S2CID 198767219. Archived from the original on 2 February 2023. Retrieved 18 September 2021.
  81. ^ tbaudinette (7 March 2020). "[Recorded Lecture] Thailand's "Boys Love Machine": Producing "queer" idol fandom across Southeast Asia". Thomas Baudinette. Archived from the original on 2 February 2023. Retrieved 18 September 2021.
  82. ^ a b Baudinette, Thomas (2020). "Creative Misreadings of "Thai BL" by a Filipino Fan Community: Dislocating Knowledge Production in Transnational Queer Fandoms Through Aspirational Consumption". Mechademia: Second Arc. 13 (1): 101–118. doi:10.5749/mech.13.1.0101. ISSN 1934-2489. JSTOR 10.5749/mech.13.1.0101. S2CID 219812643.
  83. ^ Xu, Yanrui; Yang, Ling (2013). "Forbidden love: incest, generational conflict, and the erotics of power in Chinese BL fiction". Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics. 4 (1): 30–43. doi:10.1080/21504857.2013.771378. S2CID 145418374. Archived from the original on 2 February 2023. Retrieved 2 December 2018.
  84. ^ Liu, Ting (April 2009). "Conflicting Discourses on Boys' Love and Subcultural Tactics in Mainland China and Hong Kong". Intersections: Gender and Sexuality in Asia and the Pacific (20). Archived from the original on 28 January 2013.
  85. ^ a b Davis, Rebecca (5 June 2020). "China's Gay Rights Stance Can't Derail Demand for LGBT Films". Variety. Archived from the original on 30 October 2020. Retrieved 10 November 2020.
  86. ^ a b c Kinsella, Sharon (Summer 1998). "Japanese Subculture in the 1990s: Otaku and the Amateur Manga Movement". Journal of Japanese Studies. 24 (2): 289–316. doi:10.2307/133236. JSTOR 133236.
  87. ^ a b Orbaugh, Sharalyn (2002). Sandra Buckley (ed.). Encyclopedia of Contemporary Japanese Culture. Taylor & Francis. pp. 45–56. ISBN 0-415-14344-6.
  88. ^ Monden, Masafumi (April 2018). "The Beautiful Shōnen of the Deep and Moonless Night: The Boyish Aesthetic in Modern Japan". ASIEN (147): 64–91. Archived from the original on 2 February 2023. Retrieved 31 July 2022.
  89. ^ Matasaburo, Shimizu (29 April 2019). "平成BL漫画の絵柄遍歴を描いてみた (in Japanese)". Chil Chil. Archived from the original on 1 November 2020. Retrieved 20 July 2019.
  90. ^ a b Grace, Madison (24 January 2017). "What is yaoi and where does it go from here?". Juné Manga. Archived from the original on 16 November 2020. Retrieved 20 July 2019.
  91. ^ Grace, Madison (27 March 2017). "Yaoi: then vs. now". Juné Manga. Archived from the original on 26 January 2021. Retrieved 20 July 2019.
  92. ^ Aoki, Deb (22 July 2015). "TCAF 2015 – Gengoroh Tagame Talks Gay Manga, 'Bara,' BL and Scanlation". Manga Comics Manga. Archived from the original on 24 September 2017. Retrieved 12 January 2019.
  93. ^ Baudinette, Thomas (1 April 2017). "Japanese gay men's attitudes towards 'gay manga' and the problem of genre". East Asian Journal of Popular Culture. 3 (1): 63. doi:10.1386/eapc.3.1.59_1. ISSN 2051-7084.
  94. ^ Aoki, Deb (3 March 2007) Interview: Erica Friedman – Page 2 Archived 13 May 2013 at the Wayback Machine "Because the dynamic of the seme/uke is so well known, it's bound to show up in yuri. ... In general, I'm going to say no. There is much less obsession with pursued/pursuer in yuri manga than there is in yaoi."
  95. ^ a b c d e Zanghellini, A. (2009). "Underage Sex and Romance in Japanese Homoerotic Manga and Anime". Social & Legal Studies. 18 (2): 159–177. doi:10.1177/0964663909103623. S2CID 143779263.
  96. ^ a b Camper, Cathy (June 2006). "Yaoi 101: Girls Love "Boys' Love"". Wellesley Centers for Women. Archived from the original on 15 April 2012. Retrieved 9 November 2020.
  97. ^ a b Suzuki 1999, p. 253.
  98. ^ a b Jones, V.E. (25 April 2005). "He Loves Him, She Loves Them: Japanese comics about gay men are increasingly popular among women". The Boston Globe. Archived from the original on 2 March 2007. Retrieved 9 November 2020.
  99. ^ Sihombing, Febriani (2011). "On The Iconic Difference between Couple Characters in Boys Love Manga". Image & Narrative. 12 (1). Archived from the original on 21 July 2015.
  100. ^ a b c Avila, Kat (January 2005). "Boy's Love and Yaoi Revisited". Sequential Tart. Archived from the original on 12 March 2007. Retrieved 9 November 2020.
  101. ^ Kamm, Björn-Ole (2010). Nutzen und Gratifikation bei Boys' Love Manga Fujoshi oder verdorbene Mädchen in Japan und Deutschland (in German). Kovac. ISBN 978-3-8300-4941-8. OCLC 1074487637. Archived from the original on 2 February 2023. Retrieved 1 November 2022.
  102. ^ McLelland 2005, p. 24.
  103. ^ a b c Masaki, Lyle (6 January 2008). ""Yowie!": The Stateside appeal of boy-meets-boy yaoi comics". After Elton. Archived from the original on 17 May 2008. Retrieved 9 November 2020.
  104. ^ a b Keller, Katherine (February 2008). "Seme and Uke? Make Me Puke". Sequential Tart. Archived from the original on 14 September 2012. Retrieved 14 September 2012.
  105. ^ Manry, Gia (16 April 2008). "It's A Yaoi Thing: Boys Who Love Boys and the Women Who Love Them". The Escapist. Archived from the original on 9 July 2008. Retrieved 9 November 2020.
  106. ^ "What is Seme/Uke/Riba?". Futekiya. 27 March 2020. Archived from the original on 8 January 2021. Retrieved 5 January 2021.
  107. ^ Kamm, Björn-Ole (15 March 2013). "Rotten use patterns: What entertainment theories can do for the study of boys' love". Transformative Works and Cultures. 12: 12. doi:10.3983/twc.2013.0427. Archived from the original on 10 January 2021. Retrieved 5 January 2021.
  108. ^ a b Lees, Sharon (June 2006). "Yaoi and Boys' Love". Akiba Angels. Archived from the original on 2 January 2016. Retrieved 2 January 2016.
  109. ^ a b Fletcher, Dani (May 2002). "Guys on Guys for Girls – Yaoi and Shounen Ai". Sequential Tart. Archived from the original on 26 December 2005. Retrieved 26 December 2005.
  110. ^ Suzuki 1999, p. 259–260.
  111. ^ Drazen, Patrick (October 2002). '"A Very Pure Thing": Gay and Pseudo-Gay Themes' in Anime Explosion! The What, Why & Wow of Japanese Animation Berkeley, California: Stone Bridge Press p. 95 ISBN 1-880656-72-8. "The five pilots of Gundam Wing (1995) have female counterparts, yet a lot of fan sites are produced as if these girls never existed."
  112. ^ Fujimoto, Yukari (2013). Berndt, Jaqueline; Kümmerling-Meibauer, Bettina (eds.). Manga's cultural crossroads. Hoboken: Taylor and Francis. p. 184. ISBN 978-1134102839.
  113. ^ a b Tamaki, Saitō (2007). Bolton, Christopher; Csicsery-Ronay, Istvan Jr.; Tatsumi, Takayuki (eds.). "Otaku Sexuality". Robot Ghosts and Wired Dreams. University of Minnesota Press: 231. ISBN 978-0-8166-4974-7.
  114. ^ Fermin, Tricia Abigail Santos (2013). "Appropriating Yaoi and Boys Love in the Philippines: Conflict, Resistance and Imaginations Through and Beyond Japan". Ejcjs. 13 (3). Archived from the original on 31 December 2014. Retrieved 10 December 2014.
  115. ^ a b c Kazumi, Nagaike (2003). "Perverse Sexualities, Perverse Desires: Representations of Female Fantasies and Yaoi Manga as Pornography Directed at Women". U.S.-Japan Women's Journal. 25: 76–103.
  116. ^ McHarry, Mark. Brulotte, Gaëtan; Phillips, John (eds.). "Yaoi". Encyclopedia of Erotic Literature. New York: Routledge: 1445–1447.
  117. ^ a b Mizoguchi, Akiko (September 2010). "Theorizing comics/manga genre as a productive forum: yaoi and beyond" (PDF). In Berndt, Jaqueline (ed.). Comics Worlds and the World of Comics: Towards Scholarship on a Global Scale. Kyoto, Japan: International Manga Research Center, Kyoto Seika University. pp. 145–170. ISBN 978-4-905187-01-1. Archived from the original (PDF) on 29 July 2012. Retrieved 29 October 2010.
  118. ^ Salek, Rebecca (June 2005). "More Than Just Mommy and Daddy: "Nontraditional" Families in Comics". Sequential Tart. Archived from the original on 2 July 2006. Retrieved 9 November 2020.
  119. ^ Katarina, Agnes; Candra, Dewi; Mochtar, Jenny (2021). "Heteronormativity in BL Webtoons Love is an Illusion, Room to Room, and Path to You". K@ta Kita. 9 (3): 364–371. doi:10.9744/katakita.9.3.364-371. S2CID 252554305.
  120. ^ a b c Fujimoto, Yukari (24 September 2020). "The Evolution of "Boys' Love" Culture: Can BL Spark Social Change?". Nippon.com. Nippon Communications Foundation. Archived from the original on 10 November 2020. Retrieved 12 November 2020.
  121. ^ de Bats 2008a, p. 17–19.
  122. ^ Shamoon, Deborah (July 2004). Williams, Linda (ed.). "Office Sluts and Rebel Flowers: The Pleasures of Japanese Pornographic Comics for Women". Porn Studies. Duke University Press: 86.
  123. ^ a b Brenner, Robin (15 September 2007). "Romance by Any Other Name". Library Journal. Archived from the original on 7 June 2011. Retrieved 28 November 2014.
  124. ^ Thorn 2004, p. 173.
  125. ^ Wildsmith, Snow. "Yaoi Love: An Interview with Makoto Tateno". Graphic Novel Reporter. Archived from the original on 28 November 2014. Retrieved 28 November 2014.
  126. ^ Williams, Alan (March 2015). "Rethinking Yaoi on the Regional and Global Scale". Intersections: Gender and Sexuality in Asia and the Pacific (37). Archived from the original on 8 April 2022.
  127. ^ a b c Harada, Ichibo (9 July 2019). "Editorial departments from three BL magazines talk about the future of BL - Forbidden love is outdated!". Pixivision. Archived from the original on 2 February 2023. Retrieved 29 December 2022.
  128. ^ a b Suzuki 1999, p. 257–258.
  129. ^ Valenti, Kristy L. (July 2005). ""Stop, My Butt Hurts!" The Yaoi Invasion". The Comics Journal. No. 269. Archived from the original on 27 March 2012. Retrieved 28 November 2014.
  130. ^ Zsila, Ágnes (12 April 2017). "The boys' love phenomenon: A literature review". Journal of Popular Romance Studies.
  131. ^ Lawrence, Briana (7 July 2010). "Under Grand Hotel Vol. #01 Manga Review". Mania. Archived from the original on 9 July 2010. Retrieved 9 July 2010.
  132. ^ Gravett, Paul (2004). Manga: 60 Years of Japanese Comics. Harper Design. pp. 80–81. ISBN 1-85669-391-0.
  133. ^ a b Schodt, Frederik L. (1996). Dreamland Japan: Writings on Modern Manga. Stone Bridge Press. pp. 120–123. ISBN 978-1880656235.
  134. ^ McLelland 2000, p. 69.
  135. ^ Thorn 2004, p. 177.
  136. ^ McLelland 2000, p. 131.
  137. ^ a b Ishii, Anne; Kidd, Chip; Kolbeins, Graham, eds. (2014). Massive: Gay Erotic Manga and the Men Who Make It. Fantagraphics Books. p. 32. ISBN 978-1606997857.
  138. ^ a b Simona (13 May 2009). "Simona's BL Research Lab: Reibun Ike, Hyogo Kijima, Inaki Matsumoto". Akibanana. Archived from the original on 3 October 2009. Retrieved 29 August 2009.
  139. ^ Alter, Alexandra (23 May 2020). "A Feud in Wolf-Kink Erotica Raises a Deep Legal Question". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 11 June 2020. Retrieved 7 January 2023.
  140. ^ "New Omegaverse(A/B/O) Titles Coming to Renta" (Press release). Anime News Network. 22 December 2019. Archived from the original on 27 February 2022. Retrieved 17 July 2020.
  141. ^ "《2019年版》おすすめオメガバースBL漫画17選【初心者向けから上級者向けまで】" [Top 17 Recommended BL Omegaverse Manga for 2019]. BookLive! (in Japanese). 11 July 2018. Archived from the original on 5 March 2022. Retrieved 16 April 2020.
  142. ^ Alter, Alexandra (23 May 2020). "A Feud in Wolf-Kink Erotica Raises a Deep Legal Question". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 11 June 2020.
  143. ^ "【作品追加】本能… 抗えない究極の主従関係! Dom/Subユニバースが話題". Chil Chil (in Japanese). 22 January 2017. Archived from the original on 2 February 2023. Retrieved 9 February 2022.
  144. ^ Thompson, Jason (2007). Manga: The Complete Guide. New York: Del Rey Books. p. 416. ISBN 978-0-345-48590-8.
  145. ^ Nagaike, Kazumi (April 2009). "Elegant Caucasians, Amorous Arabs, and Invisible Others: Signs and Images of Foreigners in Japanese BL Manga". Intersections: Gender and Sexuality in Asia and the Pacific (20). Archived from the original on 17 February 2012. Retrieved 10 February 2012.
  146. ^ Loo, Egan (13 October 2010). "Yano Research Reports on Japan's 2009-10 Otaku Market". Anime News Network. Archived from the original on 14 January 2012. Retrieved 9 November 2020.
  147. ^ Ishikawa, Yu (September 2008). "Yaoi: Fan Art in Japan" (PDF). Compilation of Papers and Seminar Proceedings - Comparative Studies on Urban Cultures. Osaka City University: 17–19. Archived from the original (PDF) on 22 July 2011.
  148. ^ Lees Sharon-Ann (July 2006). "Yaoi Publishers Interviews: Part 3 - Be Beautiful". Akiba Angels. Archived from the original on 9 September 2006. Retrieved 29 November 2014.
  149. ^ "「きのう何食べた?」ケンジ×シロさんのBLを、よしながふみが描く同人誌". Comic Natalie. 22 December 2015. Archived from the original on 3 September 2019. Retrieved 3 September 2019.
  150. ^ O'Connell, M. (April 2006). "Embracing Yaoi Manga: Youka Nitta". Sequential Tart. Archived from the original on 27 February 2007. Retrieved 27 February 2007.
  151. ^ Fujimoto, Yukari (2013). Berndt, Jaqueline; Kümmerling-Meibauer, Bettina (eds.). Manga's cultural crossroads. Hoboken: Taylor and Francis. p. 172. ISBN 978-1134102839.
  152. ^ McHarry, Mark (2011). (Un)gendering the homoerotic body: Imagining subjects in boys' love and yaoi Archived 21 January 2012 at the Wayback Machine Transformative Works and Cultures
  153. ^ Granick, Jennifer (16 August 2006). "Harry Potter Loves Malfoy". Wired. Archived from the original on 13 November 2012. Retrieved 13 November 2012.
  154. ^ Burn, Andrew; Schott, Gareth (2004). "Heavy Hero or Digital Dummy? Multimodal Player–Avatar Relations in Final Fantasy 7" (PDF). Visual Communication. 3 (2): 213–233. doi:10.1177/147035704043041. S2CID 145456400. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2 November 2018. Retrieved 18 December 2018.
  155. ^ Galbraith, Patrick (31 October 2009). "Moe: Exploring Virtual Potential in Post-Millennial Japan". Electronic Journal of Contemporary Japanese Studies. Archived from the original on 21 October 2014.
  156. ^ Toku, Masami N (6 June 2002). "Interview with Mr. Sagawa". California State University, Chico. Archived from the original on 26 September 2011. Retrieved 11 August 2011.
  157. ^ McHarry, Mark (2007). Peele, THomas (ed.). "Identity Unmoored: Yaoi in the West". Queer Popular Culture: Literature, Media, Film and Television. New York: Palgrave Macmillan: 193.
  158. ^ Levi, Antonia (2008). Boy's Love Manga: Essays on the Sexual Ambiguity and Cross-Cultural Fandom of the Genre. North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc. Publishers. p. 3.
  159. ^ Butcher, Christopher (10 December 2007). "Queer love manga style". Daily Xtra. Archived from the original on 4 December 2014. Retrieved 4 December 2014.
  160. ^ Cha, Kai-Ming (13 March 2007). "Media Blasters Drops Shonen; Adds Yaoi". Publishers Weekly. Archived from the original on 24 September 2012. Retrieved 10 November 2020.
  161. ^ McLelland, Mark; Yoo, Seunghyun (2007). "The International Yaoi Boys' Love Fandom and the Regulation of Virtual Child Pornography: The Implications of Current Legislation". Sexuality Research and Social Policy. 4 (1): 93–104. doi:10.1525/srsp.2007.4.1.93. S2CID 142674472. Archived from the original on 27 August 2018. Retrieved 10 February 2012.
  162. ^ a b c Pagliassotti, Dru (November 2008). "Reading Boys' Love in the West". Particip@tions. 5 (2). Archived from the original on 1 August 2012.
  163. ^ Cha, Kai-Ming (10 August 2008). "Brokeback comics craze". San Francisco Chronicle. Archived from the original on 18 October 2011. Retrieved 18 October 2011.
  164. ^ "About Us". Ariztical Entertainment. Archived from the original on 9 November 2020. Retrieved 10 November 2020.
  165. ^ Che, Cathay (4 February 1997). "Catoon Comes Out: Kizuna Volume 1 and 2". The Advocate (726): 66.
  166. ^ Wood, Andrea (2011). "Choose Your Own Queer Erotic Adventure: Young Adults, Boy's Love Computer Games, and the Sexual Politics of Visual Play". In Kidd, Kenneth B.; Abate, Michelle Ann (eds.). Over the Rainbow: Queer Children's and Young Adult Literature. University of Michigan Press. pp. 354–379. ISBN 9780472071463. Archived from the original on 2 February 2023. Retrieved 22 December 2015.
  167. ^ Glasspool, Lucy Hannah (2013). "Simulation and database society in Japanese roleplaying-game fandoms: Reading boys' love dojinshi online". Transformative Works and Cultures. 12 (12). doi:10.3983/twc.2013.0433. Archived from the original on 14 December 2014.
  168. ^ Pagliassotti, Dru (2 June 2008). "Yaoi Timeline: Spread Through U.S." The Mark of Ashen Wings. Archived from the original on 24 June 2008. Retrieved 24 June 2008.
  169. ^ Arrant, Chris (6 June 2006). "Home-Grown Boys' Love from Yaoi Press". Archived from the original on 16 June 2006.
  170. ^ "Links to Yaoi-Con coverage". Icarus Publishing. 29 October 2007. Archived from the original on 17 October 2011.
  171. ^ "German Publisher Licenses Global BL Titles". ComiPress. April 2008. Archived from the original on 23 June 2011. Retrieved 14 July 2008.
  172. ^ "Yaoi Press Moves Stores and Opens Doors". Anime News Network. Archived from the original on 9 November 2007. Retrieved 13 July 2007.
  173. ^ "DramaQueen Announces New Yaoi & Manhwa Titles". Anime News Network. Archived from the original on 20 August 2007. Retrieved 13 July 2007.
  174. ^ Cha, Kai-Ming. "A Year of Yaoi At Iris Print". Publishers Weekly. Archived from the original on 16 June 2011. Retrieved 13 March 2007.
  175. ^ "Iris Print Wilts". ICv2. Archived from the original on 5 March 2014. Retrieved 17 June 2008.
  176. ^ Lissa, Pattillo. "Sleepless Nights, In These Words – New BL Titles Scheduled For Print". Kuriosity. Archived from the original on 18 September 2012. Retrieved 2 February 2012.
  177. ^ "Anne Delseit, Martina Peters". Carlsen. Archived from the original on 4 April 2012. Retrieved 25 August 2016.
  178. ^ Malone, Paul M. (April 2009). "Home-grown Shōjo Manga and the Rise of Boys' Love among Germany's 'Forty-Niners'". Intersections: Gender and Sexuality in Asia and the Pacific. 20. Archived from the original on 1 March 2012. Retrieved 10 February 2012.
  179. ^ Suzuki 2015, p. 93.
  180. ^ a b Ishida, Minori (2019), Berndt, Jaqueline; Nagaike, Kazumi; Ogi, Fusami (eds.), "Sounds and Sighs: "Voice Porn" for Women", Shōjo Across Media: Exploring "Girl" Practices in Contemporary Japan, East Asian Popular Culture, Cham: Springer International Publishing, pp. 286, 295, doi:10.1007/978-3-030-01485-8_12, ISBN 978-3-030-01485-8, S2CID 155381795, archived from the original on 2 February 2023, retrieved 2 August 2022
  181. ^ a b "男性同士の恋愛描く「BL」作品がメジャー化した理由". News Post Seven (in Japanese). 4 October 2020. Archived from the original on 5 January 2021. Retrieved 5 January 2021.
  182. ^ a b c Komatsu, Mikikaze (15 July 2022). "Giving Back to the BL Genre! Behind the Scenes of KADOKAWA's Live-action BL Drama Studio "Tunku"". Pixivision. Archived from the original on 2 February 2023. Retrieved 23 December 2022.
  183. ^ Watson, Joey; Jirik, Kim. "Boys' love: The unstoppable rise of same-sex soapies in Thailand". ABC News Australia. Retrieved 20 June 2018.
  184. ^ a b Koaysomboon, Top (11 June 2020). "Everything you need to know about Thailand's thriving Boys Love culture". Time Out Thailand. Archived from the original on 31 October 2020. Retrieved 17 November 2020.
  185. ^ Keenapan, Nattha (31 August 2001). "Japanese 'boy-love' comics a hit among Thais". Japan Today. CBS Business Network Resource Library. Archived from the original on 9 July 2012. Retrieved 9 November 2020.
  186. ^ a b Nugroho, Johannes (11 October 2020). "Thailand's erotic Boys Love TV dramas are a hit with Indonesians, gay and straight". South China Morning Post. Archived from the original on 11 October 2020. Retrieved 17 November 2020.
  187. ^ a b de Guzman, Chad (16 June 2020). "Boys' Love: The Gay Romance TV Genre Taking Over Southeast Asia". Vice. Archived from the original on 8 October 2020. Retrieved 10 November 2020.
  188. ^ "Seoul International Drama Awards 2021 Winners". Seoul International Drama Awards. Retrieved 21 October 2022.
  189. ^ Campbell, Charlie (25 February 2016). "Censors Pull Gay Drama 'Addiction', Sparking Outcry". Time. Archived from the original on 14 August 2020. Retrieved 10 November 2020.
  190. ^ Zhang, Phoebe (4 August 2018). "Gay-themed drama is latest victim of China's drive to purge 'harmful and obscene' content from web". South China Morning Post. Archived from the original on 24 June 2019. Retrieved 24 June 2019.
  191. ^ Ge, Liang (2022). "Dual ambivalence: The Untamed Girls as a counterpublic". Media, Culture & Society. 44 (5): 1021–1033. doi:10.1177/01634437221104713. ISSN 0163-4437.
  192. ^ Son, Jin-ah (20 April 2020). "BL 웹드라마 '너의 시선이 머무는 곳에' 제작…한기찬·장의수 캐스팅(공식)". MK Sports (in Korean). Naver. Retrieved 13 June 2020.
  193. ^ "韓国で社会現象を巻き起こしたBLドラマの劇場版『セマンティックエラー・ザ・ムービー』、2部作で…" [The theatrical version of the BL drama that caused a social phenomenon in South Korea, Semantic Error the Movie, is a two-part movie.]. PORTALFIELD News (in Japanese). 17 November 2023. Retrieved 11 December 2023.
  194. ^ 이유나 (21 April 2022). "[Y초점] '시멘틱에러'의 놀라운 성공...OTT 타고 날개 돋힌 BL 신드롬" [The surprising success of ‘Semantic Error’... BL syndrome spreads through OTT]. YTN (in Korean). Retrieved 30 May 2024.
  195. ^ Teng, Yong Ping. "Love is love, says the cast of BL drama, HIStory 4: Close To You". Yahoo! News Singapore. Retrieved 11 May 2021.
  196. ^ a b "Filipino BL digital series 'Gameboys' gets international love". The Philippine Star. Retrieved 20 June 2020.
  197. ^ Biong, Ian (19 June 2020). "Boys' Love series 'Hello Stranger' starring Tony Labrusca, JC Alcantara to premiere next week". Philippine Daily Inquirer. Retrieved 28 September 2020.
  198. ^ "'Don't be afraid to be yourself': Trailer of BL series 'Oh, Mando!' released". ABS-CBN News. 28 October 2020. Retrieved 30 October 2020.
  199. ^ Guno, Niña. "BL movie 'The Boy Foretold by the Stars' joins virtual MMFF". The Philippine Daily Inquirer. Retrieved 26 November 2020.
  200. ^ "JAST USA Announces First "Boy's Love" PC Dating-Game". Anime News Network. 16 January 2006. Archived from the original on 14 October 2017. Retrieved 8 July 2009.
  201. ^ "JAST USA Announces Adult PC Game "Absolute Obedience" Ships, Also Price Reduction". ComiPress. 25 October 2006. Archived from the original on 27 February 2009. Retrieved 8 July 2009.
  202. ^ Wiggle. "Anima Mundi: Dark Alchemist Review". Boys on Boys on Film. Archived from the original on 24 June 2018. Retrieved 8 July 2009.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  203. ^ Abraham, Yamilla (22 August 2008). "Yaoi Computer Games Nil". Yaoi Press. Archived from the original on 21 November 2008. Retrieved 8 July 2009.
  204. ^ a b Suzuki 2015, p. 115.
  205. ^ Madill, Anna; Zhao, Yao (1 April 2021). "Female-Oriented Male-Male Erotica: Comparison of the Engaged Anglophone Demographic and That of the Greater China Area". Sexuality & Culture. 25 (2): 562–583. doi:10.1007/s12119-020-09783-9. ISSN 1936-4822. S2CID 225114409.
  206. ^ Zhao, Yao; Madill, Anna (3 September 2018). "The heteronormative frame in Chinese Yaoi: integrating female Chinese fan interviews with Sinophone and Anglophone survey data". Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics. 9 (5): 435–457. doi:10.1080/21504857.2018.1512508. ISSN 2150-4857. S2CID 191635597. Archived from the original on 2 February 2023. Retrieved 21 August 2022.
  207. ^ Solomon, Charles (14 October 2003). "Anime, mon amour: forget Pokemon--Japanese animation explodes with gay, lesbian, and trans themes". The Advocate. Archived from the original on 13 October 2020. Retrieved 9 November 2020.
  208. ^ Welker, James (2006). "Beautiful, Borrowed, and Bent: "Boys' Love" as Girls' Love in Shôjo Manga". Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society. 31 (3): 3. doi:10.1086/498987. S2CID 144888475.
  209. ^ a b Antonia, Levi (2008). "North American reactions to Yaoi". In West, Mark (ed.). The Japanification of Children's Popular Culture. Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 147–174. ISBN 978-0-8108-5121-4.
  210. ^ Yoo, Seunghyun (23 September 2002). "Online discussions on Yaoi: Gay relationships, sexual violence, and female fantasy". The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA. Archived from the original on 23 September 2002. Retrieved 12 October 2008.
  211. ^ Solomon, Charles (14 October 2003). "Anime, mon amour: forget Pokémon—Japanese animation explodes with gay, lesbian, and trans themes". The Advocate. Archived from the original on 10 October 2012. Retrieved 10 August 2012.
  212. ^ Boon, Miriam (24 May 2007). "Anime North's bent offerings". Xtra!. Archived from the original on 15 March 2008. Retrieved 23 April 2008.
  213. ^ McLelland 2000, p. 249.
  214. ^ Brenner, Robin E. (2007). Understanding Manga and Anime. Libraries Unlimited. p. 137. ISBN 978-1-59158-332-5.
  215. ^ Lunsing, Wim (2001). Beyond Common Sense: Sexuality and Gender in Contemporary Japan. London and New York: Kegan Paul International. ISBN 978-0-7103-0593-0.
  216. ^ McLelland 2005, p. 14.
  217. ^ "Roundtable: The Internet and Women's Transnational "Boys' Love" Fandom" (PDF). University of Wollongong: CAPSTRANS. October 2007. Archived from the original (PDF) on 21 July 2008. Retrieved 28 November 2014.
  218. ^ Suzuki, Midori (21 November 2012). "The possibilities of research on "fujoshi" in Japan". Transformative Works and Cultures. 12. doi:10.3983/twc.2013.0462. Archived from the original on 11 November 2020. Retrieved 17 November 2020 – via journal.transformativeworks.org.
  219. ^ Ingulsrud, John E.; Allen, Kate (2009). Reading Japan Cool: Patterns of Manga Literacy and Discourse. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 57. ISBN 978-0-7391-2753-7.
  220. ^ Nagaike, Kazumi (2019), Ogi, Fusami; Suter, Rebecca; Nagaike, Kazumi; Lent, John A. (eds.), "Fudanshi ("Rotten Boys") in Asia: A Cross-Cultural Analysis of Male Readings of BL and Concepts of Masculinity", Women’s Manga in Asia and Beyond: Uniting Different Cultures and Identities, Palgrave Studies in Comics and Graphic Novels, Cham: Springer International Publishing, pp. 69–84, doi:10.1007/978-3-319-97229-9_5, ISBN 978-3-319-97229-9, S2CID 150944639, archived from the original on 2 February 2023, retrieved 21 August 2022
  221. ^ Thorn 2004, p. 169.
  222. ^ Schodt, Frederik L. (1983). Manga! Manga! The World of Japanese Comics. Tokyo and New York: Kodansha International. pp. 100–101. ISBN 0-87011-752-1.
  223. ^ Ueno, Chizuko (1989). "Jendaaresu waarudo no "ai" no jikken" ("Experimenting with "love" in a Genderless World")". Kikan Toshi II (Quarterly City II). Tokyo: Kawade Shobō Shinsha. ISBN 4-309-90222-7.
  224. ^ Takemiya, Keiko (1993). ""Josei wa gei ga suki!?" (Women Like Gays!?)". June. Bungei shunjū: 82–83.
  225. ^ Suzuki 1999, p. 246.
  226. ^ Gravett, Paul (2004). Manga - Sechzig Jahre Japanische Comics (in German). Egmont Manga und Anime. pp. 13, 80f.
  227. ^ Hashimoto, Miyuki (2007). "Visual Kei Otaku Identity—An Intercultural Analysis" (PDF). Intercultural Communication Studies. XVI (1): 87–99. Archived from the original (PDF) on 7 June 2011.
  228. ^ Eckstein, Kristin (2006). Shojo Manga Text-Bild-Verhältnisse und Narrationsstrategien im japanischen und deutschen Manga für Mädchen (in German). Universitätsverlag Winter Heidelberg. pp. 42–45. ISBN 978-3-8253-6538-7.
  229. ^ McCaffery, Larry; Subda, Gregory; Kotani, Mari; Takayuki, Tatsumi. "The Twister of Imagination: An Interview with Mariko Ohara". Center for Book Culture. Archived from the original on 9 February 2008. Retrieved 10 November 2020.
  230. ^ Sakakibara, Shihomi (1998). Yaoi genron: yaoi kara mieta mono (An Elusive Theory of Yaoi: The view from Yaoi). Tokyo: Natsume Shobo. ISBN 4-931391-42-7.
  231. ^ Buckley, Sandra (1991). Penley, C.; Ross, A (eds.). "'Penguin in Bondage': A Graphic Tale of Japanese Comic Books". Technoculture. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota: 163–196. ISBN 0-8166-1932-8.
  232. ^ a b Welker, James (2006). "Beautiful, Borrowed, and Bent: 'Boys' Love' as Girls' Love in Shôjo Manga'". Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society. 31 (3): 843. doi:10.1086/498987. S2CID 144888475.
  233. ^ Noh, Sueen (2002). "Reading YAOI Comics: An Analysis of Korean Girls' Fandom" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 28 September 2007.
  234. ^ Butcher, Christopher (18 August 2006). "A Few Comments About The Gay/Yaoi Divide". Comics 212. Archived from the original on 20 November 2008. Retrieved 10 November 2020.
  235. ^ Johnson, M.J. (May 2002). "A Brief History of Yaoi". Sequential Tart. Archived from the original on 25 December 2004. Retrieved 25 December 2004.
  236. ^ McHarry, Mark (2007). Peele, Thomas (ed.). "Identity Unmoored: Yaoi in the West". Queer Popular Culture: Literature, Media, Film, and Television. New York: Palgrave Macmillan: 187–188. ISBN 978-1-4039-7490-7.
  237. ^ Thorn 2004, p. 180.
  238. ^ Thorn, Rachel. (1993) "Unlikely Explorers: Alternative Narratives of Love, Sex, Gender, and Friendship in Japanese Girls' Comics." New York Conference on Asian Studies, New Paltz, New York, 16 October 1993.
  239. ^ a b "Intersections: (A)cute Confusion: The Unpredictable Journey of Japanese Popular Culture". Intersections.anu.edu.au. Archived from the original on 20 April 2013. Retrieved 8 September 2009.
  240. ^ Cha, Kai-Ming (9 May 2006). "Embracing Youka Nitta". Publishers Weekly. Archived from the original on 18 September 2008. Retrieved 18 September 2008.
  241. ^ Pilcher, Tim; Brooks, Brad (2005). The Essential Guide to World Comics. Collins & Brown. pp. 124–125.
  242. ^ Loo, Egan (4 April 2020). "Osaka Considers Regulating Boys-Love Materials". Anime News Network. Archived from the original on 25 February 2020. Retrieved 23 February 2020.
  243. ^ Loo, Egan (28 April 2010). "Osaka Lists 8 Boys-Love Mags Designated as 'Harmful' (Updated)". Anime News Network. Archived from the original on 27 January 2021. Retrieved 23 February 2020.
  244. ^ "天天故事会:神秘写手落网记[超级新闻场]". v.youku.com. Archived from the original on 15 May 2019. Retrieved 2 December 2018.
  245. ^ Gan, Nectar (18 November 2018). "Outcry as Chinese erotic writer jailed for more than 10 years over gay sex scenes in novel". South China Morning Post. Archived from the original on 20 November 2018. Retrieved 10 November 2020.
  246. ^ Bai, Meijiadai (4 March 2022). "Regulation of pornography and criminalization of BL readers and authors in contemporary China (2010–2019)". Cultural Studies. 36 (2): 279–301. doi:10.1080/09502386.2021.1912805. ISSN 0950-2386. S2CID 235527667. Archived from the original on 2 February 2023. Retrieved 22 August 2022.
  247. ^ Hu, Tingting; Ge, Liang; Wang, Cathy Yue (22 May 2024). "A state against boys' love? Reviewing the trajectory of censorship over danmei". Continuum. 38 (2): 229–238. doi:10.1080/10304312.2024.2357335. ISSN 1030-4312.

Bibliography

[edit]
  • Brient, Hervé, ed. (2008a). Homosexualité et manga: le yaoi. Manga: 10000 images (in French). Editions H. ISBN 978-2-9531781-0-4.
  • Brient, Hervé (2008b). "Une petite histoire du yaoi". Homosexualité et manga: Le yaoi (in French): 5–11.
  • de Bats, Hadrien (2008a). "Entretien avec Hisako Miyoshi". Homosexualité et manga: Le yaoi (in French): 17–19.
  • de Bats, Hadrien (2008b). "Le yaoi est-il gay?". Homosexualité et manga: Le yaoi (in French): 132–144.
  • Kimbergt, Sébastien (2008). "Ces mangas qui utilisent le yaoi pour doper leurs ventes". Homosexualité et manga: Le yaoi (in French): 113–115.
  • Sylvius, Peggy (2008). "Le yaoi en francophonie". Homosexualité et manga: Le yaoi (in French): 20–37.
  • Hartley, Barbara (2015). "A Genealogy of Boys Love: The Gaze of the Girl and the Bishōnen Body in the Prewar Images of Takabatake Kashō". Boys Love Manga and Beyond: History, Culture, and Community in Japan: 21–41. doi:10.14325/mississippi/9781628461190.003.0002.
  • Hishida, Hitoshi (2015). "Representational Appropriation and the Autonomy of Desire in yaoi / BL". Boys Love Manga and Beyond: History, Culture, and Community in Japan: 210–232.
  • McLelland, Mark; Welker, James (2015). "An Introduction to Boys Love in Japan". Boys Love Manga and Beyond. pp. 3–20. doi:10.14325/mississippi/9781628461190.003.0001. ISBN 9781628461190.
  • Nagaike, Kazumi; Aoyama, Tomoko (2015). "What is Japanese "BL studies?": A historical and analytical overview". Boys Love Manga and Beyond. pp. 119–140.
  • Suzuki, Kazuko (2015). "What can we learn from Japanese professional BL writers?: A sociological analysis of yaoi/BL terminology and classifications". Boys Love Manga and Beyond: History, Culture, and Community in Japan. pp. 93–118. doi:10.14325/mississippi/9781628461190.003.0005.
  • Welker, James (2015). "A Brief History of Shōnen'ai, Yaoi and Boys Love". Boys Love Manga and Beyond: History, Culture, and Community in Japan: 42–75. doi:10.14325/mississippi/9781628461190.003.0003. ISBN 9781628461190.

Further reading

[edit]
[edit]