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Topic: Yaoi and Boys Love
by Lees Sharon-Ann
Eight years ago Helen McCarthy's
influential book The Erotic Anime Movie Guide was released in the UK. Within its
pages there contained a chapter on the new and strange genre of shonen-ai. The
chapter entitled Pretty Boys in Pain was a critique of this Japanese
phenomenon, which in its native land was a widely recognised niche of the
market, at many times its influence could be clearly seen creeping into the
mainstream. This genre however remained relatively unknown or ignored in the
West. Today's Western Otaku community is so completely transformed that reading
this chapter of McCarthy's book feels like taking a huge leap backwards. It is
now fairly commonplace to meet a fellow Otaku who has at least read a shojo
manga containing such themes or even is a yaoi/BL or shonen-ai fan themselves.
It has taken us a long time to catch up with Japan but after eight years its
possible to see the Otaku community as a rich and diverse one with many
sub-cultures within its folds. The female market is now strong and growing
stronger still, gone are the days of manga and anime being seen as simply
depictions of scantily clad women being rescued by muscle stricken men and
giant mecha destroying worlds in kenshin style battles. Publishers and
distributors now appreciate and value the female market, scouring for talent
that expresses beauty, romance and rich plots that appeal to the female
audience. UK Distributors I have spoken to have even expressed a feeling that
the demand for yaoi and BL publications has been largely under estimated in the
market and many fans have commented on the increasing difficulty in finding
specific titles.
As relatively new genres to our shores, compared to shonen or shojo that are now
established in the West, yaoi and BL are subject to many misinterpretations and
are perhaps the cause of many misconceptions about Japanese culture in the rest
of the world. One major example of this would be that many fans have argued
against McCarthy's stance on shonen-ai in her Erotic Anime Movie Guide, she describes
it as being a female only genre and this has been widely attacked in the West
as narrow and generalising. In reality the fact that gay men read shonen-ai,
yaoi and BL in the West is a cultural oddity and not an intended audience. Many
fans have also made the mistake of presuming that Japanese culture accepts or
even promotes homosexual love, when in reality the literature that they read is
simply fantasy and the cultural reflection is far more analytical and not as
brutally obvious as it is interpreted to be.
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| © Yun Kouga |
With the popularity of erotic manga, anime, dojin and fanfiction
featuring male protagonists rising steadily the obvious question arising is why
has the genre so happily crossed over to Western culture? It is not true that
all genres have had such success - shotacon and lolicon titles still create
controversy. Although the titles with mild allusions are beginning to be
accepted and followed - Loveless by Yun Kouga would be a suitable example.
Yaoi and BL often feature few or, more often than not, no female
characters, those that appear, take a back seat or an inferior role, that is
usually absent of any consequence or true meaning to the plot. It is important
here to ask, quite rightly, why stories created for women would so blatantly
ignore them. Is it possible to say that women have lost all interest in the
other members of their gender? One obvious fact is that many women fail to
relate to or even dislike the female characters depicted in many traditional
manga and anime. Perhaps this is true but the variety and diversity of the
conventions of the female character in manga and anime suggest differently. I
would argue that as in the West - where recent studies have determined the
level of disillusionment towards the movement of feminism - the global
community of the feminine is in a state of gender disillusionment. The modern
woman is seen to be moving away from all that previously embodied her identity.
The sex of a person, in society's traditional terms, determines or has an effect on
gender, but in the world of yaoi and BL the female gender conventions are
imposed on the male sex. Women are moving away from the traditions of sexuality
because of the negative connotations felt towards the female sex and
conventional relationships, and are instead embracing their gender in a less
obvious form. It is apparent to see the conventions of erotic manga and anime
in their yaoi counterparts and possible to draw the conclusion here that the
genre far from being radical is simply a reinforcement of gender roles and
their part in human sexuality. In many BL or yaoi manga and anime one partner
will often be the dominant one, or one partner may be noted as pretty or
girlish, there may even be more superficial differences for example height or
hair colour. Each giving the impression of difference, because of an aesthetic
need for this in visual story telling, the idea also reinforces that the two
protagonists play different gender roles. And it is this idea of 'playing' a
role that has spawned many theories about the female creators role in events -
described often as a puppeteer, she dictates events and plays with her male
characters as well as playing at being male. Projecting desires and thoughts
felt by her as a female into the body of her tormentor - the object of her
desires, she gains an exacting type of revenge as well as a male body. This
read in a Western context has a Freudian air. Empowered by her new body, she
feels phallic power in situations where she once felt lack, and voyeuristically
sees the phallic power of a male used against him, in form of (sometimes
non-consensual or questionably consensual) penetration.
The term coined by McCarthy - Pretty Boys in Pain - reflects her theories on these
apparent angst-ridden stories of good looking young men locked in passionate
but ultimately doomed romances that were available to the UK at the time.
Has the market moved on much in that time? The maturity of the titles certainly
has inevitably grown, but pain both mental and physical as a motif and theme
remains. A reflection of a female creators deep seeded hate for her male
counterparts, an expression of women's suffering at the hands of men or a
patriarchal society or simply a reality of love itself. It is hard to set a
rule but possible to surmise that the social context of art will always have a
bearing on its form. Inevitability this context includes industry pressures,
sacrificing artistic vision for commercial viability. As we know from a Western
viewpoint, tales of doomed romances sell, weepy tales from publishers such as
Mills and Boon do well, the fated love style tragedy is an established and
lucrative genre.
I like to feel that shonen-ai or BL appeals to women as it portrays impossibly
beautiful romances. An expression of love that transcends gender and becomes
truly spiritual. Love that breaks all conventions, love between two men who
often claim not to be gay, that breaks down the boundaries of sex and gender
and instead centres attraction and love truly on an individuals merits rather
than their ability to live up to the ideals of beauty dictated by the
conventions of their sex. The quality and diversity of yaoi and BL appeals, and
the artwork becomes centred around representing the aesthetically beautiful as
well as the need to express plot. The diversity of illustrative style often
reflects the personal nature and investment many manga-ka make of their yaoi or
BL titles.
Many fans enjoy BL or yaoi simply because they are attracted to the
theme of itself and in the West we are now experiencing a growing market of
yaoi produced for both the gay market as well as the female one. We as
Westerners have adopted this genre and it has almost become our own, with
publishers such as yaoi press leading the way and the thousands of dojin and
fanfic creators across the globe.
Perhaps the popularity lies not so much in our deeper psychology but
simply in our appreciation of deeper emotions, and rebellion against society's
conventions of love, sexuality and gender and beauty.
Interview with the following leading Yaoi Product publishers:
are coming up in the next weeks.
Stay tuned and check Akiba Angels for update!
About the writer (Lees Sharon-Ann):
I am currently working really hard on just about everything!!! I'm trying really hard to get my own manga creations/efforts up to scratch and trying to learn a whole new way of drawing/creating with my PC. As you've probably guessed I'm not a great advocate of CG and digital art but I'm trying my best!!
Right now I'm reading a lot of old (forgotten) favourites - I bought the first volume of Akira in large format (A4ish) and that was great, it allows you to really appreciate the graphic layout and illustrative style. I am also reading a couple of serious books and am still flicking through Anne Allison's Permitted and Prohibited Desires - an anthropological study on desire in Japanese popular culture.
I'm also a big fan of stencil art - it keeps popping in urban areas - so look out for some near you.
Finally I've been cooking recently and discovered a new favourite - teriyaki chicken and chestnut rice - so I recommend that dish!!! ^ _ ^
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