Forum - View topicReflections of real-life gay romance through manga
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P€|\||§_|\/|ast@
 Posts: 3498 Location: IN your nightmares |
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Ok I'm the one who suggested starting this thread. Others thought it was a good idea but I was hesitant because I'm overly emotional about the subject. I think someone with an outsider's or objective critique of the genre would be better. I'm happy about it though, I decided to do it.
I wanna lay down a ground rule or two: keep it civil and mature (I'm looking mostly at you hardcore yaoi fans out there). This really isn't necessarily about yaoi. I'm not much an experienced reader of BL and same-sex love comics though, but I want to examine the depiction of the reality of gay relationships seen through the eyes of manga artists and their readers. To straight readers, do you feel you get more realistic or more fantasy type stories about same-sex love (we can talk about yuri and shoujo-ai too)? How about titles where homosexuality is just a sub-topic or there are gay side characters? Gay readers, do you think the genre makes certain things too overblown or ridiculous sometimes? There's a big difference between idealistic relationships by female authors and the bara type that doesn't fluff it up so much. |
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EireformContinent
 Posts: 977 Location: Łódź/Poland (The Promised Land) |
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I used to avoid everything that could be associated with "yaoi" tag (once at the beginning of my "career" I met yaoi fangirl of that kind) , till I watched "Descendants of Darkness". Although it's considered to be shouen-ai I didn't noticed anything that couldn't be described as friendship. On the other hand I'm a woman and I see that many kinds of behaviour that are considered to be normal between girls (kissing cheeks, hugging etc) are considered as "gay" when they took place between the men:)
I don't mind yuri or yaoi till the series have something interesting to offer. I don't look for homosexual relationships in anime- that may seem strange when lots of titles on my anime lists are described as yuri, and three my favourite shows (RoV, Utena, Oniisama E) seems to be it's symbols. The only "pure" yuri relationship that i can mention was two parings parings from "Utena"- every other relationship I can without hesitance call "friendship". Is it how the homosexual relationship should be? I doubt maybe some of them in some time looks like that, but mostly I think that's just an imagination- like every anime romance. |
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zawa113
 Posts: 7359 |
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While I am not gay, I do know several gay couples (including my uncle so I've been around a gay couple since birth even before it was more socially acceptable). Yaoi....really seems to blow it out of proportion if you ask me. I'm not big on yaoi, but I've certainly flipped through a few before and most of them go like this (with thanks to Flower of Life for explaining yaoi to me better): the pitcher and the catcher make out halfway through the book, then they have sex 3/4 of the way through the book like they've got magnets in them or something. Now, it's only a single volume most of the time, so trying to develop good characters can be difficult so that's why there's the pitcher (the manly looking one) and the catcher (the feminine looking one) stereotypes to rely on. And just for fun, I looked at any yaoi book cover I could see in Borders last time I was there, about 80% of covers are just that, a pitcher and a catcher in a semi-embrace of some sort or looking like they're about to make out (and yes, even Fumi Yoshinaga does this on some of her covers)
But you know how guys tend to go "omfg, this is awesome hot!" whenever two girls make out? I kind of get the exact same feeling here with a gender switch on both audience and who's making out. Rather reminds me of spring break 
Now, as for how I actually perceive real life gay couples? Normal people who date guys not girls. I know gay guys who are both masculine and feminine and they don't necessarily pair up plain and simple as 1 masculine + 1 feminine like a lot of yaoi tend to. My uncle and his spouse are masculine-masculine, my one friend and his new bf are maculine-feminine (seriously, when he introduced me to his new bf a few weeks ago, I thought he was a woman at first glance), and my friend back in high school was more feminine-feminine. Yeah, gay couples make out from time to time just like normal couples, but do they have magnets in their lips where they can't go five minutes without needing to kiss each other? No, not really. Most of the gay couples I've observed are just like a normal male-female couple except with two men. Now, boy's love manga on the other hand, that can be quite a bit different. Banana Fish has BL elements to it, in fact Ash and Eiji only kiss (but not quite make out in an outlandish garish fashion) once in the entire series, but they spend most of their time alone together in the series talking and getting to know each other better and not having sex in whatever bed is nearby. As one exchange says towards the end of the series (no major spoilers, but, just in case): spoiler[ Akira: Umm...was this Ash person Okamura-san's...uh, well...lover? Sing Soo-Ling: He was more than that. Which doesn't mean their relationship was sexual, because it wasn't. But they did love each other...maybe the way lovers do. They were...connected to each other, soul to soul] So more like IRL, time was spent having Ash and Eiji get to know each other and you could tell they loved each other even if they couldn't show it physically every other chapter. Then there's manga that happen to have a gay character but are neither Yaoi nor BL, like Antique Bakery. Gays are just as particular about who they date as other people, it's not like "Oh, you're gay? Good enough for me!". Yusuke Ono on the other hand, seems to be...well maybe he's desperate, but he can't seem to keep off guys to keep most of his jobs, I don't find that particularly realistic. On the other hand, if this were a single straight guy or a single straight girl in a manga in a similar situation, neither one of them would be likely to get fired or try to have sex with everyone in the workplace, they'd probably actually get someone of the opposite sex and you'd get an "Awww" ending and they'd both most likely continue to work there. So, do I think there are realistic depictions of gay couples in manga and anime? Not so much in yaoi, sometimes in BL, sometimes just a series that happens to have a gay person. Do I think they represent most real life couple? Certainly not the ones I know. |
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P€|\||§_|\/|ast@
Posts: 3498 Location: IN your nightmares |
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From your experience, classicalzawa, is there a difference in content between BL and yaoi? I'm still of the impression that the difference is merely that yaoi is the term westerners prefer to use for any type of male-male sexual story directed at female readers. BL is the equivalent , but is the preferred term in Japan for essentially the same thing. This difference exists because in Japan the B does not refer to males who are young teens or prepubescent, it simply means any male. Like if I go to Japan and ask a bookseller for yaoi, I would probably get a weird look but if I ask for BL they'd smile and direct me to the right section of the bookstore.
As for my tastes in BL (I prefer that term myself over yaoi - so I've decided to use it in reference to gay manga in general), I think I am exclusively interested in the masculine-feminine type. When most women read these types I wonder how they perceive themselves in the story. Since it's usually straight females and they read it for escapism, do women place themselves as unseen observers of the relationship or do they identify themselves as one of the participants? Sometimes I think it could be the latter because the catcher who may be small and feminine is still male and girls might fantasize about fulfilling the female role in intercourse but if both players are male it lacks some of the awkward and negative stigma that only comes with actually being female. Which is also the reason why some gay men choose effeminate partners that, in a way, contradicts their sexual orientation. Therefore, I believe its false that some men who only seek effeminate male partners are actually straight but have failed in getting emotionally attached to the opposite sex so are "settling" with girly guys that they can bond with on male terms. Sometimes attraction transcends gender, but preference toward one biological sex over the other is still the limiting factor. |
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zawa113
Posts: 7359 |
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@Past
Hmm, for some reason, I've always assumed yaoi means "has sex" and BL meaning "doesn't go beyond making out". Then again, they both imply the same damn thing, I just for some reason assume BL is...tamer? I tend to think of yaoi as that genre where that's the only thing it amounts to, two guys doing sex stuff, but BL might be an element in a manga of another genre (like Banana Fish is a political thriller action drama with a tiny bit of romance between two guys, but it sure as hell isn't a yaoi by any stretch of the imagination). The lexicon dictionary here says you're right, I just still seem to think of them as two different terms anyway. Maybe it's because there are "yaoi fangirls" as a term in the states but not "boy's love fangirls" in comparison? And man does "yaoi fangirl" carry a bad connotation, which in turn makes me think of yaoi as negative but BL as normal. I'd highly suggest reading Flower of Life which parodies yaoi fairly frequently and if anyone knows how to parody yaoi, it's got to be an artists who's manga, both yaoi and non-yaoi, is highly respected: Fumi Yoshinaga. And it's just a really good series, it's well worth it. Chapter 6 in particular has Majima, resident jerk, telling a girl how to make her manga into a highly appealing and sellable yaoi in which he bluntly goes over the cliches on how to make one. The exchange is hilarious as I will dictate from my manga right next to me He's trying to get her to re-draw the manga for Comiket or something and she's just shown him a re-drawn page with two burly guys in a semi-embrace.
Majima (manga obsessed guy): What's the point of having both men look burly?! This is just a regular gay couple!! Takeda (budding manga artist, not familiar with yaoi obviously): What? Majima: If you make on manly (the pitcher), you've got to make the other one (the catcher) pretty enough so as to be barely distinguishable from a woman! That's the iron rule of yaoi! Takeda: If that's the case, then why can't I have them be a man and a woman?! Why does it have to be two men?! Majima: FOOL! Female fans of yaoi are subconsciously attracted to and aroused by the equality inherent in the relationship between two men. The love shared in such a relationship is on the basis that one of the men, who is capable of giving or receiving in sex, actively choosing to be the one to receive...to be submissive. This is completely different from a relationship with a woman, who is physically constructed only for receiving! Takeda: Then why do I have to make one of them cute? Majima: By and large, the reader identifies with the passive one who receives!! That's why you have to draw him as close to a woman as possible, so that the reader can more easily relate to that character!! Takeda: I don't understand what you're saying at all! While two characters on the side watching, both guys, think-comment: A: It's too complicated for me to understand either... B: He's so knowledgeable, even though it's outside his field of interest...Majima-kun...he must have studied a lot about this on the net... So, even if the speaker about yaoi might have been male, the author is female and Fumi Yoshinaga does yaoi too, so I think that exchange coming from an author who does yaoi was really interesting to look at. |
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P€|\||§_|\/|ast@
Posts: 3498 Location: IN your nightmares |
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That is hilarious, I love works that parody or make fun of their own genre. It kind of reminded me of Comic Party but in that show when they point out the cliches of doujinshi tropes, they are actually being quite accurate in what doujinshi is typically supposed to be.
As for the difference between Boy's Love and Yaoi, it's very easy to confuse BL as a tamer form of yaoi because we also have this term shounen-ai, which when directly translated = boy love. Shounen-ai is a common term that westerners also use to denote relationships between males in manga and anime without any reference to sex or explicit intimacy. But it is not the same as BL. |
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zawa113
Posts: 7359 |
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Alright, I think that cleared that up for me, thanks! Anytime I used BL in my first post in thread=shonen ai, curse the translations of things into things that are similar but don't quite mean the same as other things! Flower of Life isn't actually yaoi, but it sure makes fun of it. Yaoi and other common tropes that aren't necessarily yaoi related but still hilarious. I can think of very few other comics that are so literally directed at manga nerds but it's both comedy and drama, Fumi Yoshinaga is awesome. |
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Wooga
 Posts: 916 Location: Tucson |
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Yaoi has always been so codified, that almost a year or so after its inception there have been parodies. In particular, Patalliro and From Eroica with Love.
I think, that if you mean real-life, it would mean something like, within a realistic social context. Something like Shout Out Loud (which has issues like, a single father -and anime voice actor- who realizes he is gay and the teenage son who has to deal with it). On the yuri side, we have Riica 'te Kanji, which is mostly first-person experiences of life in the gay community in Tokyo. What I dislike about yaoi in general is that every just accepts that the two main characters are gay, and nobody has any problems with it. It's almost like emotional porn, happening in some alternate universe where everyone is accepting. While that might be a nice fantasy for some people, it's just not very realistic, y'know? |
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P€|\||§_|\/|ast@
Posts: 3498 Location: IN your nightmares |
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But sadly in the real world there are people who are avidly against it and fight to prevent the normalization and acceptance of anything not conforming to straight relationships and behavior. Would one who is part of the GLBT community, like myself, be oblivious to this unrealistic but typical portrayal of how gays and lesbians are viewed in manga? Or is yaoi in fact fairly representative, at least in Japan, to the level of acceptance in the real world? Yaoi is of course known to be exaggerated and non-realistic when expressing relationships, but I would like to see a real world that was more similar to it in terms of gay acceptance. |
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poonk
 Posts: 1490 Location: In the Library with Philip |
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As a reader of BL I can readily admit that almost all of the titles I've read contain elements of fantasy when it comes to the M-M relationship. Of course it must be said that most manga of any sort can be pretty unrealistic so I'm not sure why BL sometimes gets targeted as being any more so than any other genre (I'm not saying the OP did this but I seem to notice it elsewhere). It's just a matter of where a title lies on a continuum from "pure fanservice fluff" to "the unflinching truth, told in grim detail." As I mentioned in a past thread BL stories are meant to be entertaining romances first and foremost and not hard-hitting social commentary so yeah, most do ignore many of the real-life issues that would spring up, especially if they're meant to be more light-hearted/comedic in nature (nothing would bring down the mood faster than random gay-bashing/family-alienation/etc. elements inserted for the sake of "reality"). And even with more serious titles, at (usually) only 1-3 volumes how is an author supposed to "resolve" society-wide problems like homophobia in that short a time? It's just not within their scope to tackle that stuff. So instead stories tend to focus on the romance and (maybe) overcoming personal issues, which is something more doable within their short length.
I am looking forward, though, to hearing any examples of series that take a very serious/realistic look at homosexuality in Japan (though from what I've read, bara ain't it). Re: Terminology: I used to use the "shonen-ai/yaoi" distinction too when I was newer to the fandom. After learning that the Japanese use the term "BL," I switched for a few reasons: 1.) It's more accurate (if I'm going to be using a loan word I want to use the right one for what I'm talking about); 2.) It's easier to pronounce (I'm still unsure of what syllable to accent, if any, in "yaoi"); and, 3.) It makes those big "BL Lime!" banners at the grocery store mildly amusing. I think the best breakdown of the difference between "yaoi," "shonen-ai," and "BL" (Boys Love) I've ever heard was supplied by Clarissa of the AWO podcast, episode #49. I listened to it a while ago (so don't quote me, or her, on this-- go listen for yourself, it's quite good & informative) but from what I remember: "Yaoi" seems to be more in reference to doujinshi that was made about characters in existing series (whose characters are not regularly considered to be homosexual), hence the acronym-- "Yama Nashi, Ochi Nashi, Imi Nashi-- no climax, no resolution, no meaning" (yes, I had to google it as I don't remember it off the top of my head). Since the characters already exist in an wider, commonly-known storyline created by someone else, the story in the doujin work only exists to hook the characters up and not actually advance the story line of the original story. So, no meaning/point (beyond the added relationship). "Shonen-ai" refers specifically to manga from a certain range of years (some time in the 70s if I remember correctly) as an offshoot of shojo and featured original characters/stories and leaned more towards "pure love" between younger men (seems to me like a lot of boys in boarding schools), relatively chaste (again, "pure love") and often ending somewhat tragically. And nowadays, "BL" refers to pretty much any kind of story featuring romance between guys that's targeted at a female audience, from stuff rated 13 (just a kiss) to well, everything else. |
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FeralKat
Posts: 402 |
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The term shonen-ai nowadays has a much different meaning in Japan. It basically means child porn and I wouldn't throw the word around so casually in the presence of native speakers.
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P€|\||§_|\/|ast@
Posts: 3498 Location: IN your nightmares |
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@poonk so thanks for the clarification regarding bara. I would have guessed that with the intent for BL to provide entertainment and fantasy first and realism second that there would be something that is the antithesis to that for gay men who might want to read a more serious look at relationships. So I figured bara kind of had a purpose similar to salaryman manga that was a bit more slice-of-life but where funny or unlikely situations still develop. I have literally read zero bara so I am completely unfamiliar with it or if the type of manga I suggested actually exists.
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The Xenos
 Posts: 1519 Location: Boston |
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Well certainly not all gay men are so damned feminine as what you see in yaoi. I would extend that to most male leads in shojo in general. Thanks for giving girls unrealistic expectations. Heaven forbid a male of the species have any body hair to him.
For comparison, more gay men, as well as men in general, look like the anime character on the left than the one on the right. 
Though i will say that the whole top and bottom thing in yaoi fandom seems to be accurate. A gay friend of mine, who is also into anime and yaoi, has talked about the whole top and bottom thing being a real issue in gay romances and sex. |
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rinmackie
 Posts: 1040 Location: in a van! down by the river! |
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^ Personally, I prefer characters that fall between those two extremes. I'm not into hairy, burly guys in yaoi (or real life) but I hate it when a character is too effeminate-looking. I'm one of those fans who also read for entertainment purposes only and even though I've only recently started reading yaoi, most of the books I've read so far aren't too fantastical. While there's not a lot of hard-hitting realism, it's not all sparkles and flowers, either. I think the more modern yaoi seem to strive for more semblance of realism than it did it the past. While it's still not the social commentary some people are hoping for, it's not as bad as some of the silly fantasies that used to be far more common. Anyway, I'm not the sort who expects a lot of realism in romance stories of either the straight or gay variety.
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poonk
Posts: 1490 Location: In the Library with Philip |
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Regarding hair, I've actually read an author (don't remember who, sorry) comment in her omake about how she couldn't figure out how to draw in body hair and make it look good so she left it out. Let's face it, drawing in each individual hair when the rest of the scene doesn't contain such detail on other things would look strange. Last edited by poonk on Fri Apr 02, 2010 10:31 am; edited 1 time in total |
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