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shirohana



Joined: 07 Sep 2006
Posts: 3
PostPosted: Tue Apr 03, 2007 12:25 pm Reply with quote
May I nit-pick? It's not "shounen ai" but "BL" (Boy's Love).
And "Shoujo Ai" doesn't really exist, it's just a made up phrase by western fans. It's yuri, or yuri.
If you want a different phrase really badly, take GL (Girl's Love).
So, if you create a list like that, please do it correctly.
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doc-watson42
Encyclopedia Editor


Joined: 10 Feb 2003
Posts: 1709
PostPosted: Tue Apr 03, 2007 9:08 pm Reply with quote
shirohana wrote:
May I nit-pick? It's not "shounen ai" but "BL" (Boy's Love).
And "Shoujo Ai" doesn't really exist, it's just a made up phrase by western fans. It's yuri, or yuri.
If you want a different phrase really badly, take GL (Girl's Love).
So, if you create a list like that, please do it correctly.


But we are Western fans, and are thus accustomed to Western usage, which is that "shoujo ai", "yuri", "shounen ai", and "yaoi" are distinct terms, with both a history and distinct meanings. The term "shoujo ai" (meaning "lesbian anime and/or manga") has been in use since at least 9 August 1995, while both "yaoi" and "shounen ai" (meaning "anime and/or manga about gay males") were in use in December 1993.

It is only in the last few years that an attempt has been made to use "yuri" to mean "all lesbian anime and manga". The Yuricon site was making the distinction between the two in 2002—and again in this essay by Erica Friedman. It was only in late February or early March of 2005 that the essay was changed (the Internet Archive URL includes the date—you can compare for yourself at http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.yuricon.org/ ). (Heck, they still use the term "shoujoai" (as opposed to "yuri") in the title of the Web site.)

Similarly, while I'm aware of the Japanese usage of the terms "shounen ai" and "yaoi", but like "otaku" and "anime", they mean different things when used in English than Japanese, and to use the abbreviation "BL" when it is unknown to the general community is both unhelpful and likely to induce confusion rather than avoid it.
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Kessu



Joined: 08 Feb 2004
Posts: 21
Location: Sweden
PostPosted: Sun Apr 15, 2007 12:43 am Reply with quote
If there's going to be a limited number of themes, I suggest (as above) to use Boys' love (BL) and Girls' love (GL). For me that's intuitive. And in the short explanations it may be stated that shounen-ai/yaoi and shoujo-ai/yuri belong in them.

Well, to me personally I care less what the genres are called in the Encyclopedia, just as long as I understand what should be put in them, and what not. And for having a single genre for both yaoi and shounen ai is OK with me, but I guess quite a few fellow fans would strongly object to this.

Anyway, good luck implementing the new genre system! I really like the genre-theme distinction.
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nbcaznmaster



Joined: 10 Mar 2007
Posts: 29
PostPosted: Sun Apr 15, 2007 6:38 am Reply with quote
I think they should also have rating system based on genre too! This would tell, for example, wheather a series is more of an action series, or comedy. Also, it would alow browsers to access animes by better genre ratings
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