Yaoi

The term Yaoi indicates the sub-genus of the Manga S and Anime S generally for girls in whom the intrigue is centered around a homosexual relation between male characters, and comprising sexual scenes.

Definition

Yaoi is in fact the acronym of nashi, ''' O ''' chi nashi, ''' I ''' semi nashi '': “No mountain (culminating point, pleasure, etc), not of fall, not of history”.

In the beginning the term was invented to indicate Dōjinshi S (mangas using characters not-originals, generally drawn by amateurs) comprising scenes erotic between male characters resulting from Manga S, animated Series or Video games popular ( Holy Seiya , Captain Tsubasa , Gundam Wing , Final Fantasy VII , etc). The popularity of the stories putting in scene homosexual couples, with or without sexual graphics, was only growing among the Japanese women. A production of original works carried out by professional authors had followed: it is the birth of the manga yaoi to whole share.

If “yaoi” indicates with the Japan only the portion of works having sexual contents, the term is often used today by the Western fans by abuse like a general term to indicate any form of lovesong between two men, even if it is only suggested.

One should not confuse the yaoi with the Yuri (homosexual relations between women).

It as should be admitted as if the yaoi aims at a women, it has also a great number of male fans.

BL, shōnen-have and shota

The modern term used by the Japanese publishers to categorize commercial works for intrigue a lovesong between men and having intended for a women is Boy' S Love ( BL ).

One as finds still the obsolete term Shōnen-have as the Western fans use to indicate a homosexual lovesong without drawn sexual relationship. Yaoi is then during shōnen-have, a sub-genus of BL, indicating the remainder of works to the “adult” contents.

In Japan, Shōnen-have was used in the years 1970 to 80 to indicate works like the Kaze to ki No ATU of Keiko Takemiya or Toma No shinzo of Moto Hagio and which depicted tragic romantic relations between young boys. Today, and always in Japan, the term indicates sexual relationships between boys or young men.

The term Shota indicates works depicting of the relations, platonic or not, between adult men and children (often of the boys) or between minors of less than 16 years: That can thus be related or not with Pédophilie. This is why the greatest precaution is to be taken when one speaks about shota. For example, the whole of the parodies written starting from Harry Potter (before the end of the 6th year of the characters) and the majority of those written on Gundam Wing are Shota.

Other terms have summers of use in the past ( June , Tanbi ) but fell in disuse since.

Assistantship

BL in general and Yaoi in particular are intended in theory for a women.

These works are written by women and for women, so that they put in scene female imaginations and the phantasms projected by women on the male homosexual universes. The depicted, sentimental and physical homosexual relation, obeys indeed largely the codes and the heterosexuals criteria noted in reality.

One often finds there a model of the couple man-woman, according to a basic rhetoric, with a virile partner dominating (Seme - verb semeru, to dominate) and his lover effeminate and vulnerable to very female psychology (Uke - verb ukeru, to receive).

Yaoi and Hentai

From his definition of work with sexual character, one wrongly believes that Yaoi is only one simple pornographic work centered on the sex, nothing more than of the Hentai or pornography for girl. The mangas, novels and animate yaoi offer in fact a vast panel of kinds, comedy with the science fiction, robots giant with the lovesong of schoolboys, with in general the long ones and complex intrigues. The sex act generally seems there an act of love, the lovesong always being used as principal backdrop. Number of mangas yaoi are even not very explicit. Besides one will note the tendency not to draw the genitals, even in animates yaoi very centered on the close relations. There are hardly but the Dōjinshi S yaoi quoted previously which minimize the intrigue with the profit of the sex act.

Facts

The market of works Yaoi developed enormously these last years and touches an increasingly large audience, in Japan like abroad.

Many a Shōjo manga S includes elements BL, like ambiguous relations between secondary male characters, without to make their principal intrigue of it. See for example works such as Angel sanctuary, Cardcaptor Sakura, X, Tsubasa Tank Chronicle or Ouran High School Host Club, addressing itself to many people.

In the same way that artists amateurs diverted the characters of their favorite series to write and draw dōjinshis yaoi, fans of the whole world adhered to this subversion called from now on Slash (named according to the Barre obliques called “English slash”, used to separate the names from two characters which the fans put in couple). The Slash takes again the principle of use of the characters of a work and to put them in scene in a homosexual relation, it their orientation in the work of origin does not matter. Such a practice is artistically exerted in written works known as Fanfiction S or graphics known as fanart S. It is not rare to see confused Slash and Yaoi in the Fanfiction S and fanart S with sexual character.

Yaoi-idiot

The only convention entirely centered around the BL in general and of Yaoi in particular is the Yaoi-Idiot which is held every year in San Francisco, and brings together fans of all United States (where the BL is most carrying) and of the world. This convention is intended to the adults and the minimal age of entry is 18 years.

With noting that Japan of very many vents organized by fans allow the circles to sell doujinshis Yaoi. These conventions are however in general rather discrete (on invitation only for some of them).

Examples of works

Mangas:

Zetsuai 1989 of Minami Ozaki
Fake of Sanami Matoh
Kizuna of Kazuma Kodaka
Coils Mode of Shimizu Yuki
the play of the cat and the mouse of Setona Mizushiro
the work of Tagame Tengaroh

Animate:

Have No kusabi
Haru wo daiteita
Sensitive Pornograph
((Level C))

See too

Bonds

In English:

Aestheticism: Criticisms, vocabulary, shop of sale in line
Yaoi-idiot: Official site of the Yaoi-Idiot

Random links: