Forum - View topicYaoi taking over... good or bad?
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Viga_of_stars
 Posts: 1240 Location: Washington D.C. in the Anime Atelier |
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i said in the weds newspost about media blasters
but what do others think. i love yaoi as much as any fangirls. hell ill even say "OMG bishie on bishie r hot!" like an idiot at a con. but...i really disagree with to much taking over. im not on the i hate yaoi side but i dont fully agree with the YOAI 4 evar gals. anyone else in a stitch of mind like this? [EDIT: Re-spelled yaoi for you in the title. -TK] |
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Mistress9
Exempt from Grammar Rules
 Posts: 226 |
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I don't really see how Yaoi is taking over, I still see alot of F/M pairings in regular anime, so how is it really taking over? I mean I have never turned on the tv and saw an anime that had cannon Yaoi or to be more specific Shouen-ai pairings in it. (Besides Sailor Moon of course but the North American companies took that pairing out by turning one of them into a girl, also true enough they also turned Uranus and Neptune into cousins LAME!!)
Also why should the companies keep Yaoi/Shouen ai under ground if there is a market for it, because deep down that's what any of this comes to, weither or not a anime company can make money off of a product. So I think since there has a big increase in Yaoi fans that the companies will be crazy not to liscence or bring Yaoi products over to North America. Also as for there being companies that just sell Yaoi/Shouen ai products why not? After all Shojo beat just deals with Shojo so why shouldn't companies like Blu just deal with Shouen ai or Yaoi? Also as a Yaoi fan girl, and quite a big one at that I can tell you that there are alot of us that also like Hetro pairings, infact other then maybe like five or six pairings all my fav Anime couples are Hetro, and one is Yuri, so therefore I really don't see how Yaoi couples are overshadowing Straight couples. I sorta get your point about Yuri, I really haven't seen much Yuri and well I am not against Yuri parings- I love Uruanus and Neptune they are sooo cute together...but I wouldn't want to see them become intimate with eachother. I am straight and since I don't like girls that way I really don't want to see them 'together'. Yet since I perfer Yaoi over Hentai, since I like a touch of romance with my porn, I don't mind seeing two guys 'together', also there is something just completly sexy about gay guys-don't ask cause I don't know why. So basically what I am trying to say is that since some Yaoi fangirls are straight like myself they may not like Yuri since they do not find anything sexually pleasing from watching two girls together. That's the only really reason I can come up with as to why Yaoi is more popular then Yuri, since I believe the majority of Straight women would not want to watch hardcore action between two women but wouldn't mind seeing between two men. Also there is one point that most people forget about Yaoi, it isn't always about liking something gay, I mean for some women-and I am one of them- sometimes when we watch Yaoi we do so to recapture sexual control over a sistuation so therefore we sometimes put ourselves in the Uke's role or in the Seme's role. Thus Yaoi allows women to fantasy better then both Yuri or Hetro anime since we could decied to fantasy about being the male character or being the submisses Uke/aka more feminie character. Where with Yuri and Hetro most women would basically just put themselves in the female role. Anyways thats my take on it. |
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nailz
 Posts: 30 Location: USA |
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I have to agree with Mistress9. I don't feel that yaoi is "taking over" anything. It may seem that way because there are a lot of news posts about yaoi being liscensed, but that's because the big boys are figuring out there's a great market for yaoi in the US. (Finally)
I am glad more titles are becoming available. I can't read Japanese, so as far as manga is concerned I am forced to buy it. I like to hold books when I read them, so I don't download manga. I wonder about the future of yaoi in the US now that it is becoming a bit more mainstream. What happens when parents find out what their kids are buying at Barnes & Noble? You don't have to be 18 to get hot action in the non-plastic wrapped titles on the shelf. Some of the titles marked Teen are pretty spicy. I'm a fangirl. I want to run and yell "yay yaoi!" but part of me wants to keep it "under the radar" so THEY don't take it away or limit what is rightfully mine to chose to read...ya dig? If you think it's hard as a fan to stick up for your "big-eyed cartoons" just think about the fight we'll have to make for our gay big-eyed porn books. |
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Eruanna
 Posts: 451 Location: Canada |
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First of all, I have to say that I hate the attitude that "anything mainstream is bad".
I really dislike it when people go all, "Oh no my favourite underground thing has become mainstream, they ruined it!" Things dont get "ruined" by going "mainstream". Mainstream just means that more people like it. Alternativly, I dont like it when people are so obsessed with mainstream culture that they refuse to look at anything that isnt. It goes either way. Basicaly, you should be confidant enough in what you like to like it regardles of whether it is mainstream or not. Secondly, I dont think yaoi/shounen ai/boy love is taking over. There are still tons of M/F pairings out there. Since I cant watch anime on TV, I dont know what the TV stations are airing, but I get the feeling that yaoi is still fairly niche. Yeah you might see more of it on the shelves, but your really only going to look at it if your already into it. Thirdly, Im not a big fan of it, but I dont have a problem with it. Im a fangirl, and I like my pretty boys, but to be honest, boy on boy lovin dosnt do a thing for me. But whatever. If theres a market for it, the companies will sell it. |
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dambuilder
 Posts: 42 |
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Yaoi taking over the manga-market...
it has somewhat happened in Germany, where about every third release seems to be yaoi or shonenai in some way or another. One should think I'd consider this a good thing because a) I'm gay. and b) I used to be a fan of yaoi. But, seriously, it's feels exactly the opposite way. I mean, I can live with the fact that the trash-ratio is much higher in yaoi than most other manga genres - any mass medium produces so much trash, I got used to it. Far more grating are those rabid fangirls that seem to be just about everywhere! You can't visit one single German anime/manga forum without being confronted with dozens over dozens of girlies going "OMG bishie bishie *drool* *drool* yaoi rulz! roflol ^^  ", making lengthy threads about which guys should screw each other or dissect every anime series featuring at least two guys for hints of yaoi. Y'know, like "but in episode XY Zorro gave Sanji that funny look  and the next episode he was touching his shoulder like that he must be gay coz he touches him".
If that would apply to their internet behaviour only, it would be kinda ok. Annoying, but, it's just the internet, you can simply disconnect from that site and leave em alone in their bishie-craze. You might have some hard times avoiding them, but I guess it's possible, the net is big enough after all. Even worse is the fact, that their very, er, vocal passion also applies to the real world. And you can be sure as hell that one day you'll run into a flock of fangirls haunting your favorite comic or book store, screaming and squeaking and having loud discussions about why Koji had to rape Izumi. And if you're a guy, don't you dare to touch a yaoi-book in their presence. They'll hunt you down and will immediately slash you with one of their fave characters. Or with the guy behind the counter, if he's cute. Being gay doesn't help. I don't even dare to think what would happen if they'd know. . . . . . ok, I just did and let me just say, that it likely would include suffocation. So, if American fangirls are only one bit like the German ones than... have fun and good luck. 
(Disclaimer: I'm aware that there are different types of fangirls as well. A friend of mine actually is one. She definitely isn't one of the bunch I described above. She doesn't do any of that stuff, and if she should go "OMG bishie bishie" it's internet-only and only once in a while. I do know they are out there. But there seem to be far more rabies than normal ones. Or at least their volume makes it seem so.) |
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Eruanna
Posts: 451 Location: Canada |
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Its actually very interesting to hear what a gay guy actually thinks of the phenomenon. So thank you for your input. A best friend of mine is gay, but he isnt into anime, so he dosnt live in the otaku world.
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Patachu
Past ANN Contributor
 Posts: 1325 Location: San Diego |
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I think in some ways we're missing the point here. I doubt that anybody is truly worried about yaoi literally "taking over," I mean, it's not like Eiri and Shuichi are coming over to your house and asking if they can borrow the bed for a while. And the issue isn't about yaoi "becoming mainstream" either, because dude, the day I see two guys making out on Toonami it'll be a cold day in hell, or that one Naruto episode where he falls on top of Sasuke or whatever. What I AM worried about -- and what other serious fans are worried about -- is that yaoi is cannibalizing other non-mainstream genres.
We already saw this in DMP manga, where their "tough-guy" titles like Worst and Bambi and her Pink Gun have been put on indefinite hiatus because they're totally making bank on the yaoi/bishounen material and nobody is buying the tough stuff. Now Media Blasters has befallen the same fate, shelving their "action/adventure/men's" series because they see more profitability in yaoi. Now, market expansion is a good thing. In yaoi, it shows that there's a strong fan community of fat, ugly, middle-to-upper-class white girls willing to throw their money around and keep the wheels of the market turning for boys on boys. Anything that supports any kind of manga is a good thing. It keeps the field growing. What's BAD is when that market expansion becomes so heavily concentrated in one niche that it eats away the other niches. And when multiple companies in this growing field are saying, "Well, we gotta quit doing the tough-guy comics because there's not enough people buying it, and all the money is coming from the cartoon man-sex," that's the problem. One part of the market is going up but another is going DOWN. I don't like the "down" part. So to me, I don't see yaoi as actually "taking over," but it IS causing an unfair market imbalance, which can only be corrected by me starting a new nation called PataMangaLand that operates on a command economy where the government (namely, ME) decides exactly what kind of manga to publish and how much to publish. Or we could just try to show more support for niche stuff that isn't yaoi. |
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Noy
 Posts: 30 Location: Heart of California. |
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Yaoi becoming mainstream? Please, that's like saying, "pornography is taking over national television." I also don't believe hentai or yaoi is up to par or familiarized than pornography regarding general media's. Now, its not to say hentai or yaoi will never become mainstream, but it's highly unlikely for the time being. Last edited by Noy on Thu Mar 15, 2007 2:41 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Mohawk52
 Posts: 8202 Location: England, UK |
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It will never make it to the usual definition of "mainstream". The regulatory bodies will never allow it on broadcast TV, and rightly so. But I can see the genre as yet another kneejerk reaction by the distributors to try and catch the next new nervana of profit. I too hope it doesn't cause a reduction of the hetro, non-hentai good stuff.
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Mistress9
Exempt from Grammar Rules
Posts: 226 |
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[quote="Patachu"] I doubt that anybody is truly worried about yaoi literally "taking over," I mean, it's not like Eiri and Shuichi are coming over to your house and asking if they can borrow the bed for a while.s[/b].
OMG that is the funniest thing I have ever heard!!! |
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digitalkikka
 Posts: 462 Location: Chicago, Illinois |
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I don't think yaoi is 'taking over' but it is gaining popularity. I do read some yaoi and watch some shounen-ai but I'm not a rabid fangirl. So for me, seeing it on the rise isn't necessarily a bad thing, except that most of the titles brought over are mediocre. Since the market for yaoi seems to be large, I'd expect we'll only see more of it. That doesn't bother me as long as we don't see something in the vein of Shounen Ai no Bigaku.
I'll agree that yuri is passed over, but as someone who isn't into that kind of thing it hasn't bothered me. But I think we'll see more yuri and shoujo-ai soon with Kashimashi being released as well as the Strawberry Panic! light novels.
Yeah, those are pretty bad  The covers are hilarious, as is the "Absolutely Not For Children!" label.
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DazzleNeko
 Posts: 44 |
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I don't see how yaoi is actually taking over and becoming mainstream. Yes, it's getting more popular, but I don't think we'll ever see the day that yaoi will be shown on television. If it is, that will be far off. A lot of anime in general is not shown on tv, and if it is, it's something that has a large fanbase (ex: Fullmetal Alchemist) rather than something with a niche following.
Yes, there is a lot of yaoi being licensed, but the amount of yaoi out there is still relatively small compared to the amount of non-yaoi stuff. A majority of the manga out there is shoujo with straight couples. I could see that maybe in a few years from now, around 1/4 of the manga titles available would be yaoi (or maybe even more), since manga is a bigger hit with girls. With anime, there really isn't all the much yaoi to begin with. Almost every anime out there, new and old, has straight couples. It does suck for those who want the other titles, like Worst, etc. But if yaoi is selling, the companies are going to go for what's making money. It's very unfair, but that's how the business world works in most cases. As for yuri, I have nothing against it, but it's not something I go out of my way to see. I think yuri isn't popular because almost all of the yaoi fangirls are straight females. It's only natural that they would be more interested in yaoi because of their sexual orientation. Most straight girls don't have much of an interest seeing a relationship (especially a sexual one) between two women because we'd rather see the cute guys. I personally do find romance stories between women to be enjoyable at times, but I don't care for the sexual part at all because I am not attracted to women. I always word these things carefully because it seems when yaoi fans say they don't like yuri, they are labeled as hypocritical when that is definitely not true. It does suck for shoujo-ai fans, though. There isn't much shoujo-ai out there right now.
But, as for my personal opinions of yaoi taking over, I can say that I don't mind it at all. Just because something gains popularity and becomes mainstream does not make it bad. Yes, there are more annoying fans, but then there are more good fans too. More yaoi would be licensed, giving me more variety in things to read. I would be happy if I could walk into a bookstore and find several yaoi titles and be overwhelmed on what to pick rather than only have 2-3 yaoi manga come out a month. I love yaoi and I don't think too much of it is a bad thing in this case, because it's something that you can enjoy in abudance and throughout your life. I wouldn't mind if there was even more yaoi in anime, but that's not likely. Last edited by DazzleNeko on Thu Mar 15, 2007 3:12 pm; edited 2 times in total |
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naruto fan 09812
 Posts: 499 |
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Can someone please tell me the definition of yoai because I am in the dark
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DazzleNeko
Posts: 44 |
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It's actually yaoi (there was a misspelling in the title of the thread ). Yaoi is anime or manga that shows a relationship between two men. Yaoi is usually more sexual, where shounen-ai/boys love focus more on romance.
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Kouji
 Posts: 978 |
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