Yaoi

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Example of a single image with a Yaoi motif

Yaoi ( Japanese や お い ) is a genre of manga , anime and fanfiction that deals with homosexual relationships between male protagonists with explicit erotic depictions. The genre is accordingly differentiated from Shōnen Ai , where the focus is instead on eroticism on the development of the romantic relationship, and is mainly written and read by women. The counterpart to the Yaoi with female protagonists is Yuri . An alternative spelling of Yaoi is "801", which is an identical number pun ( Goroawase ).

In the wake of the growing popularity of manga outside of Asia, the genre has also found many Western followers and imitators since 2000. The use of the term and its delimitation is very different, in addition to Shōnen Ai there are the terms June - after the magazine of the same name - and Boys' Love , which often combine both of the above. Yaoi is also to be distinguished from the gay manga ( ゲ イ 漫画 , gei manga ) or bara ( 薔薇 or バ ラ ), which are aimed at a male target group, and which also represent more masculine protagonists up to the Bear type.

Yaoi in Japan

The term Yaoi is an acronym for the Japanese expression “ ya manashi o chinashi i minashi” ( 山 無 し 落 無 し 意味 無 し ), which in German means “without [narrative] climax, without punchline , without meaning”. Many Yaoi authors do not claim to build a supporting plot or show the development of the characters . Typical for the genre, the focus is on the representation of homoerotic love relationships and explicit sexual acts . Due to the original origin of the word, the term in Japan can basically also stand for stories that have no idea of ​​their own, but live from copying well-known characters and imitating other works. This meaning is not genre-specific.

Yaoi manga are mostly drawn and read by younger women, some of whom self- deprecatingly refer to themselves as Fujoshi ( 腐 女子 , dt. “Spoiled girls”) - a play on words with the homophonic Fujoshi ( 婦女 子 , dt. “Woman”). Novels of the genre are also popular with older audiences. The term Kifujin ( 貴 腐 人 , literally: “noble, depraved person”) - a play on words with the homophonic Kifujin ( 貴婦人 , dt. “Noble lady”) - has become established for these “mature” Fujoshi . Male readers of Yaoi call themselves Fudanshi ( 腐 男子 , "depraved boys").

The protagonists of the Yaoi stories are mostly male characters from film, television or literature already known to the readers, whose relationship to one another is interpreted by the Yaoi authors as homoerotic. The missing context of the story is given by the original works and is usually only taken up in hints.

According to the definition common in Japan, only secondary works such as dōjinshi or fanfiction belong to the genre Yaoi . Publications by commercial publishers run under the pseudo-English counterpart Boys' Love ( ボ ー イ ズ ラ ブ , bōizu rabu ), often abbreviated as BL (Japanese pronounced bi eru ). In common parlance, however, both BL and Yaoi can be found as generic terms for the entire genre (secondary and commercial works), with older speakers tending towards Yaoi.

Yaoi in western countries

Bookcase with Yaoi volumes in a Japanese bookstore in San Francisco .

In places in western countries , Yaoi functions as a generic term for all anime and manga , as well as fan fiction and fan art that deal with romantic, homosexual love. Many authors draw a line between Yaoi stories, which ostensibly have explicit eroticism on the subject, and Shōnen Ai, in which eroticism plays a subordinate role and the spiritual component of the relationship is emphasized. However, both terms are not used uniformly to this day.

Selected Works

literature

  • Björn-Ole Kamm: Benefits and gratuities with Boys' Love Manga. Fujoshi or depraved girls in Japan and Germany . Publishing house Dr. Kovac, Hamburg 2010, ISBN 978-3-8300-4941-8 .
  • Antonia Levi, Mark McHarry, Dru Pagliassotti (Eds.): Boys' Love Manga: Essays on the Sexual Ambiguity and Cross-Cultural Fandom of the Genre . McFarland & Company, 2010. ISBN 978-0-7864-4195-2 .
  • Mark McLelland, Kazumi Nagaike, Katsuhiko Suganuma et al .: Boys Love Manga and Beyond: History, Culture, and Community in Japan . University Press Of Mississippi, 2015. ISBN 1628461195 .

Web links

Commons : Yaoi  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ German Film Institute - DIF / German Film Museum & Museum for Applied ArtsBKL (ed.): Ga-netchû! Das Manga Anime Syndrom, p. 268. Henschel Verlag, 2008.
  2. ↑ Tow Ubukata's lecture on the anime and manga industry in Japan at the Leipziger Messe on September 28, 2007
  3. ↑ Nao, Azusa & Seiichi Takano: "Kyokushiteki yaoi kandan R" (Extremely private Yaoi chat, the repetition) In: EUREKA 2007 - BL Studies special edition (39/16). P. 77
  4. ↑ EUREKA (2007): BL- (Boys´ Love) Studies special edition (39/16).