Forum - View topicShonen-shonen-shonen-aaaiii :D
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Dracullia
Posts: 1 |
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Heeeyy!!
I was just wondering, coz i couldn't find a search button and i couldn't find a topic about shonen-ai so i figured i would ask? What good tittles besides gravitation is out there?? 
I looove shonen-ai really! and i just wanna read alot of it... //Dracullia |
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marie-antoinette
 Posts: 4136 Location: Ottawa, Canada |
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First off, your title makes me wince, but okay. The search button is a bit hard to find, I will admit: it's on the right of your screen, in the Forum Functions menu, third option down. However, it doesn't always work that great, or at least it doesn't for me.
Anyway, for your question: I actually haven't read many other shounen-ai besides Gravi, but I've seen enough threads to know what people usually recommend: Fake: a romance between two police officers (set in NYC, I think?). Good times, generally seems to be a favourite of more shounen-ai fans. Tokyo Babylon: I have actually read this one and I like it quite a bit. It's more subtle than Fake or Gravi, but that's not a bad thing. It deals with supernatural stories, which I like quite a bit, plus it's CLAMP and they are usually pretty fun. Also, this is a prequel of sorts to X/1999 (Subaru and Seishirou are prominent characters there). Loveless: Another hot property, though this one is a bit more...risque than the others and not for everyone. Basically, if you can deal with the shota elements and some incest, then you should be okay. I don't really know too much about this one though, other than the fact that I've had a few friends of mine strongly dislike it, while others are fans, so it's definitely a series of mixed reactions. That's all I can think of off the top of my head. Of course, there is also DramaQueen's line of yaoi/shounen-ai manga, often one-shots (and often shrink-wrapped), so you may want to check those out too. |
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Raicho
 Posts: 28 Location: Whitby, Ontario |
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Gakuen Heaven is pretty good, about a boy, Keita, who was accepted into a school of people with outsanding abilities, sports, art, archery, only the thing is, Keita is pretty much mediocre, except for his luck. So why was he accepted? Well, you'll have to find out for yourself!
 It's really sweet and you should give it a try.
The only other one I know that hasn't been mentioned yet is Kyo Kara Maoh, but I'm not sure if it actually is shonen ai. The main character is transported to another world, and since he has dark hair and eyes people think he's the demon king, and then he somehow ends up getting engaged to a guy, not sure if anything happens between those two though. |
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Pinkwings
 Posts: 234 |
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Loveless is great! The art style is really cute and some of the characters have cat ears. The manga is kinda better because Soubi seems less creepy and it is longer. The anime ends at episode 12.
It is too complicated for me to explain the plot, so I'll get help: "Twelve-year old Aoyagi Ritsuka is left with his insane mother as his only family when his brother, Seimei, is killed suddenly. After moving to a new school, he meets Agatsuma Soubi, who claims to have known his brother. Ritsuka eventually discovers that Soubi and Seimei used to be a fighting pair, whereby Soubi was the "Fighter" and Seimei was the "Sacrifice". Now that Seimei is gone, Ritsuka has inherited Soubi, who will become his "Fighter". After learning that Seimei was killed by an organisation known as the "Seven Moons", Ritsuka decides to investigate into his brother's death, with the sometimes useless help of Soubi, along the way." From: anime#4877
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hanachan01
 Posts: 504 |
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Shonen-ai...haven't heard that term in awhile. Most fans are now calling it BL. BL being professionally published stuff, and yaoi being amateur/doujinshi stuff. Then there's softcore and hardcore BL/yaoi, which I assume pretty obvious to figure out the difference.
Anyways, I have to agree with all the reccomendations so far. Tokto Babylon is one of my favorite manga series, period. I couldn't really take Loveless seriously though. I thought it was an awesome series, but I found every pervy thing that came out of Soubi's mouth hilarious, especially the ear piercing scene in the anime. And the purpose of the cat ears....WTF? The plot was pretty interesting though. And Yun Kouga's art is very amazing! I personally reccomend Digital Manga Publishing's line of BL, called "June" after the famous BL magazine. June can also be used to refer to professionally published BL works, but the term has fallen out of popularity. My favorite was "Hybrid Child" by Shungiku Nakamura. The entire book was interesting, but the final story that describes why the Hybrid Child series was created was very touching. "Hybrid Child"is like a BL version of Chobits. And "Only the Ring Finger Knows" was also very good. |
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Shorty22
 Posts: 504 |
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There's Only the Ring Finger Knows. It's a one shot manga. Plus there are several novels out/upcoming as well, but I haven't read any of them. The manga is pretty good, but being a one-shot, it does seem sort of rushed at times. It's popular to wear matching rings with your girl(boy)friend at their school, but our lead, Wataru, wears one even though he's single. Well, one day it turns out that Mr. Friendly Popularity (i.e. Kazuki, who already dislikes Wataru) seems to have the same ring.
While I do own it, I haven't read it yet, so I'm sorry to kinda vague/shorter with this one. I'm pretty sure I've seen Eerie Queerie suggested as shonen ai. Also, and why I first picked it up, the lead (Mitsuo) gets possessed by spirits. Apparently girl spirits possess him occasionally and confess their love to the boys they crushed on while alive, which gets poor Mitsuo into some strange situations and rumors ensue. |
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bluepita
 Posts: 465 |
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I second Only The Ring Finger Knows. Very sweet story, and I love the artwork. However, don't waste your money on the novels. Maybe it's the translation, but I've read better written limericks on bathroom walls. The novels are very trite, the reading level can't be higher than 3 grade or so, and the beloved characters become a bit annoying. I'm an incurable packrat, but I gave the two I bought away as fast a possible. |
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geishageek
 Posts: 571 Location: Pleasant Valley, NY |
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I second Hanachan01 on most things from June. Also from Yaoi Manga, which is what June used to be called. There is something for everyone in that line. It ranges from cute stories like Almost Crying (which comes across as Shota in many ways, even though the characters are high school age) to harder stuff like Yellow (my all time fave) and Hero Heel.
I also reccommend the Blue line of BL books, which I beleive is under Tokyopop. Georgous Carat, Gakuen Heaven, and Man's Best Friend all fall under this line. Anything from BeBeautiful Manga is good too. They have a lot of older titles such as Kizuna: Bonds of Love, and Embracing Love (two series that i personally adore to death). An anthology just hit here a few months ago called J-Boys by Biblos. It has tons of short stories in it. By some new manga-ka and some old favorites. It all depends on your preference and what you are into. Good luck in your search of BLness. |
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marie-antoinette
Posts: 4136 Location: Ottawa, Canada |
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That's interesting, I've never seen anything remotely close to that terminology and considered BL to encompass shounen-ai (seeing as boy love is a direct translation of said term) and yaoi, with shounen-ai being the softcore, PG-13ish stuff and yaoi being explicit. That is also the definition of the terms as given on this site's Lexicon. |
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kolibri
 Posts: 712 Location: Vancouver |
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I believe shounen-ai and yaoi are the terms used in English - but not so much in Japan, they mostly use the term Boys Love (or just BL) and don't distinguish between the soft- and hard-core stuff. It's one of those weird things were English term is a Japanese word, but not the same word Japanese themselves use (hentai is another one). ...personally I don't have the patience for the soft-core stuff, so I'll let you guys give the recommendations for that 
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TheGreatSunJester
Posts: 6 |
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Yaoi Press also has some good manga, plus a series called Yaoi Hentai that has a handful of hard-core stories.
Let me see... Juno Romantica, Saihoshi, Passion, Clan of the Nakagamis, Il Gatto Sul G, and Black Knight. |
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marie-antoinette
Posts: 4136 Location: Ottawa, Canada |
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[quote="kolibri"]
That is very strange, that English speakers would use a Japanese term and Japanese speakers would use an English one. |
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kolibri
Posts: 712 Location: Vancouver |
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They are legacy terms. Shounen-ai in Japan was happening around 50s and 60s and which portrayed very tame romantic (but not really sexual) relationships between boys (as opposed to adults) - but it had too many connotations with pedophilia so they tried to get away from the term (as if "boys love" is any better?). Maybe it's for the same reason publishers want to use the more obscure term here. Whereas yaoi was originally used to refer to doujinshi but then later became to be used to refer to the sub-genre of josei that deals with gay male sexual relationships, both doujinshi and commercially published material. I've heard some Japanese authors like Kodaka Kazuma (on one of the Kizuna DVD interviews) use the word "yaoi" to describe her works but I'm not quite sure if she uses the word because she's talking to American audiences. Kazuma herself comes from doujinshi background so that might be another reason for her to use that word - maybe the publishers want to purposefully use another term to differentiate themselves from the self-published material. I don't speak Japanese so I can't go straight to the source But I heard a panel presentation from the lovely Dr. Antonia Levi about the subject last summer at Anime Evolution and I wish I had taken notes, I'm just paraphrasing here...
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