Forum - View topicNEWS: Yaoi Magazine's Debut Issue to Ship This Month
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DmonHiro
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So, this is an American Yaoi magazine. If yes......that is sad....they even copy this.
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testorschoice
Posts: 468 |
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Why are you jumping into yaoi threads to complain about yaoi's very existence, but not doing the same for the recent news about yuri, or an American-sponsored Yasuomi Umetsu work for that matter? What makes the former cry out for your disbaraging for some reason, but not the latter? |
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Richard J.
 Posts: 3367 Location: Sic Semper Tyrannis. |
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I'm not a Yaoi fan, but I'm actually a little curious about the Western take on the genre. Sheer curiousity (not that kind of curiousity! Keep your minds out of the gutter!) might lead me to buy a copy.
I kind of wish someone would publish a mixed anthology, Yaoi and Yuri, that way both could get more exposure and perhaps fans of one might discovery some stories they like in the other. |
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CCSYueh
 Posts: 2707 Location: San Diego, CA |
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Yaoi Press I believe is all Western stuff so it should be pretty easy to find copies of their books in stores so you could at least look at covers. Incubus from Kitty is, I understand, western. I have Vol 1 & find the art sort of scary-like Batman yaoi(never went for Batman). I have a Yaoi Press title was disappointed in the story (I seem to recall it used the gender-change cop-out. It was also at least 2 stories in the volume & seemed to end abruptly). There is also an artbook I've seen from them I've never picked up
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Brakus
Posts: 130 Location: Virginia |
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This should be pretty interesting, if you'll pardon the pun. I'll be a little curious about this.
Now, if only someone in the States can resurrect Barazoku magazine... with the exception of Legend of the Blue Wolves, there's absolutely nothing that's been produced for guys by guys since Barazoku ceased production. (Well, there *is* G-men...) |
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FanFicGuru
Posts: 159 |
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I believe his main complaint wasn't the existence of Yaoi, but rather that American artists are supposedly "copying" the Yaoi style/genre, as opposed to approaching it from a different perspective (which they actually are doing). I'm not a fan of Yaoi myself, but I'm glad that someone has begun to bring it over for the fans here in the states. However, I am concerned a bit as well...as it is there are misunderstandings abound regarding the homosexual community...I'm afraid that more exposure to Yaoi may disillusion people into thinking about real homosexual couples as Yaoi storylines just waiting to happen. I remember reading a letter (Answerman? Might have been Dear John on animenation or whatever...) about a girl who was concerned about her friend who squealed and treated (male) homosexual couples as some sort of distant fantasy fulfilling thing. While I don't agree with homosexual practices, I still think that human beings are entitled to a certain level of dignity...I fear this may cause even more misunderstanding. Perhaps I'm over-reacting. |
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minakichan
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No, I think you're right, FanFicGuru. I really feel that lots of yaoi is kind of demeaning to homosexual male couples anyway, in that so much of it is generally overfantasized and overly superficial-- there are some yuri that I've seen that can actually be semi-realistic stories more about tender love than lustful sexaytime (of course, tons of yuri is trash as well), but that's just my experience. When girls can only categorize real men into semes and ukes, then some fantasies have really been taken too far. Yes, there are sane yaoi fans-- heck, there are sane loli hentai fans!-- but too much of it really oversteps the escapist fantasy shmeal. I'm not going to say that it's any different for smutty shoujo het, and I think people willing to bash yaoi and not willing to bash Shocomi don't have anything worthwhile to say. (Similarly, when you have girls at cons with yaoi paddles egging on cosplaying guys to make out for photos, something's off.)
Still, OEL... kinda sucks, no matter what genre you're looking at. If it's OEL yaoi, well, not much yaoi is terribly wonderfully written anyway (although it can be pretty well drawn!), so... (And as an amateur OEL mangaka wannabe, I'm allowed to say this.) |
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sunflower
 Posts: 1080 |
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I honestly think you are. Yaoi doesn't have anything to do with real gay men. People who mistakenly think it does are the ones who foster the misunderstandings. Most of the women who read it get that, even if most of the people who don't, do not. |
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ArielTsuki
Posts: 178 |
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Everytime I read one of these posts, I facepalm. Are some of these girl will think it reflect on real gay couples? Of course, but most would graduate to gay literature and the sort (and they too have idealized forms of gay relationships also) or learn about the gay culture. Very much like when they get into a real relationship with another guy and find out that love is not a bunch of sparkly shoujo bubbles and charming, senstive and prefect guy. It's supposed to be fantasy and let it be so. Stop being so serious business about it. Plus the whole yaoi paddles and things is just fun (although most yaoi fangirls don't like the whole paddle thing, true story), nothing serious (for most anyway). It's like indulging in some crazy fun and nothing more. I wish people stop being so paranoid about yaoi fangirls suddenly attacking gay people or something. Usually it only happen with the type of person, that would do that sorta stuff anyway without the yaoi (on a different target). Personally, I haven't read any decent OEL yaoi titles, from especially Yaoi Press that looks like they just pick any person off the street. The only decent one they ever did was that one with Saihoshi, and that's pretty borderline. But my personal belief that the amount of good, well written yaoi titles are in the same proportion as other genre in manga: some are bad, most are mediocre and a few are good or excellent. Although I think most yaoi suffer because they are rarely expected to be more than a volume long (unless it become an uber popular title). But I wish I can get a sample of the magazine because I don't buy things blindly. |
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The Xenos
 Posts: 1519 Location: Boston |
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Ah. Good to hear that this is 18 +. It's actually fitting yaoi and not just PG-13 shonen ai romance. A gay friend of mine lamented shonen ai being labeled yaoi and it's difficult to find the smut amongst the regular books.
Also, for people complaining about yaoi not representing gay romance, couples, and sex properly. Well, you might as well complain that Penthouse letters and your standard Hustler porn vids are too fantastic to represent heterosexual relationships. Yaoi is smut. "Give me smut and nothing but!" (Well, I'll take the non gay smut, but to each their own.) -Ding dong.- What's that? Oh, it's a the neighbor's daughter asking me to help her with her cheer leading fundraiser. And she bought her friend over and it rained and they're all wet. Let's get you inside and changed. -bow chicka wow wow- Giggity giggity. Yeah, even Japanaese porn doesn't need all that great of a plot. As for calling it yaoi instead of 'gay smut comics'? Well, I usually complain about the whole OEL manga thing. But considering that most right wingers don't know what yaoi is, that helps them keep from getting noticed by the wrong people. Though I swear one of these days yaoi is gonna speak some parent group and have a Jack Thompson making it a big over hyped issue. |
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minakichan
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I just want to clarify that I think yaoi is demeaning to gay relationships in the same way that porn, bad romance movies, and smutty shoujo manga is demeaning to heterosexual relationships. I'm not saying that any of these need to be banned or anything, but the idea that none of these will have an impact on the reader's perceptions of the real world, or that everyone is going to realize that they are idealized and fantasized, is an insult to the idea of art itself. Just as art is a reflection of society, society also reflects art; people are affected by art, their mindsets about life change because of it.
Anime has, for better or for worse (quite possibly for worse) changed my value system and the way that I make decisions. I have definitely been warped by the art I indulge in, and I am no different from any other fan out there. And for the record, there are yaoi fangirls out there egging RL men to make out. Remember Answerman's column a while back? I've seen English-speaking fans writing on Japanese actors' blogs about their yaoi RL shipping. Not a pretty sight. I'm not going to say the existence of wildly insane fan behaviour is any different for any other kind of fan, be it hetshipping fangirls, yuri fangirls/boys, lolicon fanboys, etc., because it's not. |
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CCSYueh
Posts: 2707 Location: San Diego, CA |
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Minakichan--
But understand what Xenos & sunflower said--YAOI ISN'T GAY PORN. People who don't read it THINK it is, but it isn't. Those who read it recognize it as the sub-genre of shojo that it is. Maybe because I grew up in the 60's & got mixed message that I, as a woman, could do anything a man could do from the media, but at church & from my old fashioned family values friends & family, I got "A woman's highest calling to to be a baby factory & serve her man". At one point in my life I bought into that & wanted to have all boys because boys had power women didn't in the '60's & '70's. Japan, from what I've read, is still stuck in that mentality-that a woman's career is less important than a man's & she must put her man first. There is a built-in servitude in the marriage relationship some places, Japan apparently included, hasn't risen above. Less than a month ago on MSN I saw an article about a "Chauvinist club" like AA chapters in Japan with the goal to train the male members to treat their wives & girlfriends better, more like equals, so they are working on it, but they aren't there yet Yaoi is fantasy. Written by women for women (there are some men writers & obviously anyone can read it if they wish), it's more akin to a book I remember being printed in the 80's or 90's where authors wrote what they would do if they were the opposite sex for a day. Yaoi is the fantasy of being an equal in a relationship with a man, not just something to produce children, keep the house clean, & maybe the dog's more important to the man. Japanese aren't big on public displays of affection. In yaoi "I love you" flows freely, & there are kisses even in public sometimes, reflecting how much one lover cares for the other. It's like those Romance novels one used to always see waiting in the checkout line at the grocery stores-fantasy for gals to lose themselves in for a few minutes out of a busy day. I thought Bara was still around-the actual gay porn stuff where the guys look like DBZ guys. I know Akadot has at least one of those for sale in their yaoi section. The Western stuff has, from what I can see, been around quite some time (at least a couple yrs). I know sci-fi fan fics have probably put more than a few male heroes together sometime & the OEL stuff may even be more related to the gay community (some of it being an outgrowth of that). I have no idea since I have yet to find any OEL that appealed to me so I avoid it. |
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FanFicGuru
Posts: 159 |
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Yueh, thank you so much for that enlightening post. I never looked at it that way. I can see now how Yaoi could be a perfectly legitimate form of fantasy fiction. However, I wonder how many readers of Yaoi actually connect to that level of appreciation, as opposed to (what seems like) the majority of readers who simply do treat it as gay porn, and as a stand-in for homosexual relations. Perhaps the younger audience can't relate to the perspective you've shared because they weren't raised in the same period as some of the older readers, such as yourself, who can pull out so much more from the Yaoi fantasies. Anyways, thank you again. I feel like I've learned something very important about Yaoi today and I'll think twice before mindlessly bashing it. 
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CCSYueh
Posts: 2707 Location: San Diego, CA |
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The younger fans (Often the ones who are younger than the age ratings on the books) seem to be the ones who don't get it & are confused. Most of the adult women who actually READ it seem to get that it's not real guys. I really don't see people reading yaoi calling it gay porn. Porn, yes. Smut, yes. Gay porn, no. That's the people outside the fandom demeaning it which has always happened. When I was going to metal concerts in the 80's, my husband's family couldn't see how someone who never used drugs or alcohol could like metal. They were outside the fandom. People outside the Star Wars fandom often couldn't see how fans could go back to see the same movie dozens of times.
Most anyone, even the younger ones, realize these boys aren't like any of the boys they meet in school or their male relatives. |
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FanFicGuru
Posts: 159 |
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Instead they realize these traits in other girls and become lesbians because their dream "man" is actually based on feminine traits and found in female form? lol...just a thought. |
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