Misuse of japanese terms among western BL fans?

[rukkawa]

WARNING: First of all, take with a grain of salt what I say, bc I'm not japanese, I don't live in Japan and don't speak the language. This is just some information I thought could be interesting for other BL fans. And also, please take into account that the info is just casual talk from the blogs of two fans...

 

A few days ago, I stumbled upon some posts about BL and it seems western fans (myself) misuse some japanese terms? And I thought it was interesting so now I'm sharing it with you...

 

The first one seems to be "Yaoi", which apparently it's outdated and "BL" is commonly used in Japan.

Also, "Shonen-ai" doesn't mean what I learned it meant through other western fans when I got into BL...

 

Both are addressed in these two posts, I quoted the most relevant parts, but it's worth reading the whole thing:

 

 

In any case this men love men genre had been a big mess as far as names go from shounen-ai through june, tanbi, yaoi to BL, but now it’s pretty clear, and I think (or rather hope) that with the growing popularity of web manga that use the word BL exclusively it will sooner of later supersede yaoi and shounen-ai in the West too.

 

 

 

First, it should be understood that Shounen Ai was influenced by tanbi (耽美）literature. These were stories written about the worship of beauty, romance between older men and beautiful youths, with flowery language and strange kanji. On that note, the term shounen ai actually refers to ephebophilia or pederasty.

 

Shounen Ai manga was the first “genre” of manga that focused on m/m relationships for female readers. This started becoming a thing in the 1970s, with popular titles being Takemiya Keiko’s “Kaze to Ki no Uta” and Hagio Moto’s “Heart of Thomas”. Shounen Ai manga shared the following traits - they focused on beautiful, youthful boys in love, often took place in Europe (mangakas would draw heavily from european philosophy and literature), and their themes were of idealism, innocence, and corruption. Most importantly, they were all professionally published original works.

 

By the late 1980s, the number of shounen ai manga had decreased greatly, while yaoi manga was going strong. “Shounen Ai” as a term was used less and less, and “yaoi” became the umbrella term for all manga focusing on m/m relationships for a female audience, professional or amateur. Then from the 2000s onwards, “BL” has gradually replaced “yaoi” as an umbrella term.

 

And it seems using "Bara" it's not correct either?

 

 

Unrelated sidenote: It would be great if the Western fandom would stop using 'bara’ for gay comics, because it’s the same misuse as shounen-ai, shoujo-ai (both have a pedophile meaning actually), or the Western-invented difference between shounen-ai and yaoi (also different in Japan) or shoujo-ai and yuri >

 

I hope this was interesting to read, and don't forget the warning at the begining of the post.

[auser]

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thank you for sharing!

 

I actually already knew about the yaoi/shounen ai/BL thing, but I've never switched to the correct terms myself because, well, the terms are already stuck in the Western fandom. when I say "yaoi" or "shounen ai", everyone understands me without need for extra clarification. (I guess they would if I said BL or BL 18+ as well, but it's just less common & sounds a bit strange, doesn't it? I mean - look at the name of our favorite website), so I keep using the wrong ones because it's more convenient.

 

Also, I believe yaoi is still used in Japan as well, but only for djs.

 

I didn't know about bara, though, so that's new information.

[rukkawa]

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thanks for sharing! I actually already knew about the yaoi/shounen ai/BL thing, but I've never switched to the correct terms myself because, well, the terms are already stuck in the Western fandom. when I say "yaoi" or "shounen ai", everyone understands me without need for extra clarification. (I guess they would if I said BL or BL 18+ as well, but it's just less common & sounds a bit strange, doesn't it? I mean - look at the name of our favorite website), so I keep using them because it's convenient.

 

Also, I believe yaoi is still used in Japan as well, but only for djs.

 

I didn't know about bara, though, so that's new information.

 

Yeah, those terms are already used that way by everyone so that can't be changed.

Idk about Japan, but lately I see western fandom uses BL more than yaoi in other blogs/websites. And I have gotten so used to it, that when I see the word "yaoi" I can only think of my early weeb days when I first got into it...

However, I often have to change the way I talk bc some friends use yaoi and others BL xD

[voide]

ah, something to ponder. thank you for sharing this. i see BL is used to live action or movies & novels. YO also have this section. i'd love to know details from someone in YO who actually know japanese or speaks the language. oh, i know someone who can share their opinion;

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, what do you think?

[auser]

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you might be right - it looks like it really depends on the people you spend time with:) It's ironic, but if I talk to someone in real life, I will probably use the term BL because it's easier to remember for newbies, but online it's yaoi.. on the other hand, I wouldn't call anything Western or Korean that way, so yeah..

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good idea calling in someone qualified:)

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, I'm also very interested in your opinion:)

[rukkawa]

I found more interesting posts in that person's blog tagged as

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, and she loook like she knows what she's talking about, but looking at their blog archive, it seems that she isn't very active, so...

It would be nice if someone in this forum who knows more would tell us their opinion on this

[littlespiral]

this is really informative. thanks for sharing

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. my ignorant-ass always thought that anything labeled as shounen-ai is BL without the smex and anything labeled as yaoi has smex included in them. that is how most online manga readers labeled their genre anyways. and i always got confused by it because as far as i know, the word "shounen" means young boy, and when they labeled a BL manga that involves 2 adult men as shounen-ai, it is somehow misleading..

 

also, i think everyone knows this, but the term fujoshi/fundanshi is considered deragotory as well? i had a fellow yaoi-lover friend who was offended when i used the term fujoshi because the word somehow means that you're a dirty person just because you enjoy homosexual relationships.

[1330tango]

I use BL if I'm discussing in the community, but "Boys Love" could be too easily mistaken for pedo in English, so I use "gay manga" with english speakers not familiar with the genre.

[Preeh]

To be honest I do see why there is a misuse of these words. But sometimes I don't understand why it shouldn't be called something or another.

 

I do prefer to say yaoi instead of BL. Why? Yaoi stems from "Yama nashi, ochi nashi, imi nashi" (山[場]なし、落ちなし、意味なし) which means "No peak (climax), no fall (punch line/denouement), no meaning" in other words what we today might call 'porn without plot' (pwp) which - let's be honest - most stories are with a few exceptions. It is mainly used to refer to doujins in japan.

Boy's Love is more of an umbrella term, including all stories with m/m relationships (shounen-ai and yaoi). Shounen-ai as already explained above developped from tanbi. The storyline is more complex, and there isn't necessarily sexual actions. It's likely to display platonic love relationships between two males.

Both shounen-ai and yaoi have in common that they focus on 'beautiful men' and are most likely targetted at a female audience as well as written by a woman.

 

What is bara?

Bara isn't really part of BL though. It's part of the 'gei comi' (aka Men's Love). The word 'bara' translates as 'rose' and is often used for gay content works (books, films, etc). It once was associated with the gay magazine Barazoku which was the first gay magazine to be sold at mainstream bookshops. Bara doesn't necessarily portray beautiful men. They can be muscular, overweight and hairy. Mainly bara works are written by gay authors dealing with topics concerning gay life or simply portraying porn. Anything of gay interest can be termed bara.

Even though this is my way of dealing with the term, there is no really fixed rule to it, no?

 

I know this is not correct but I use Boy's Love (yaoi and shounen-ai) as opposed to Men's Love (Bara and gachi-muchi).

Wiki has good articles that go into much more detail so if you're interested go read those - it's worth it.

 

The need for humans to put anything into a category sometimes amazes me.

[rukkawa]

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Thanks for the info!

I would like to know more, but is Wikipedia reliable?

[yorunoyuki]

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Thanks for the info!

I would like to know more, but is Wikipedia reliable?

You can trust Wikipedia.

I live in Japan.

"No mountain, no meaning, take the top three of no fall" yaoi "

[Saga]

Funny.

 

Shounen-ai itself means 'Boy Love'.

The thing here is that Western fandoms just like to be 'really specific about things'.

Same with grammar in Japanese. I've talked on a linguistic level with native speakers,

questioning the passive voice in Japanese and the-so-well-categorized-by-Westerners 'the voice of damage'.

The more I was trying to be specific about things, the more that Japanese dude stared at me [questionably].

 

You see,

that is not only about some 'terms' fandoms adopt and start bashing around when someone uses "the wrong term".

I don't think there is a wrong term. Why do you get so specific whether there is sex or not in a novel/manga?

Fact is, yaoi/shounen-ai/BL refer as a whole to homosexual relationship.

 

Rating is enough, put some 18+ and we are all happy -> there is sex.

Put 16+, we all get it -> less smut to none.

 

Japanese terms I've heard or seen on Japanese sites are often either yaoi or shounen-ai, 'homo', too. [Note: Although 'homo' in Japanese is used in a negative way, rather than...shounen-ai per se]. Only recently BL started to appear [ bi eru]. Although Chinese sites most often use BL or their 'weird' tag when relating to yaoi. Forgot what it was but it baffled me so much.

 

In my personal opinion, I believe , 'shounen-ai' is used not exactly when we don't have sex [what's with people and sex], but rather when we want to stress out the 'ai' part of the story -> love story about homosexuals.

Yaoi is actually weaker on the 'love/romantic' side of things. Although there are few exceptions but you still can't argue that you don't get super flower-ish romantic story plus hardcore sex scenes in it... '_' Or I have seen none so far.

 

Besides, being gay in Japan was once a thing [all started with samurais and warriors]. Until one day they decided it is a taboo. Although it is not only Japan. Take for instance Greece too.

 

In conclusion - I don't think there is a wrong term when we isolate ourselves from brainwashed "ideals".

[rukkawa]

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I see, but that makes a bit confused as why there are a bunch of similar posts to the one I linked in the OP, that say that certain terms are outdated...I guess then the people they interact with and communities they are part of don't use those terms, and that's why they said so?

 

Thanks for the info, and either way, it's not like those posts would change the way I talk. If anything, I switch between BL and yaoi depending on the group of friends I'm talking to bc they use different terms (the ones from FB use yaoi, while the ones from Tumblr use BL, but in general it's true ppl use almost only yaoi)

[Saga]

Yeah,

hence I said only recently things started to update even in Asia with 'BL' term.

But I think...it would be nice if people didn't bash others or jump them that they use "not correct terms".

I mean, even if one thing gets outdated, it doesn't change the fact that it is a tag for homosexual romance/love stories etc.

[rukkawa]

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True, it's not everyone will know about that, especially since we dont live in japan, so the fandom will be different...

Also, I just realized that my dumb ass didn't put the link to the posts xD I remember one of the posts was from

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, but the other one I don't remember where it was from...doesn't matter, anymore I guess

[Saga]

I agree.

I guess there will always be that one black sheep, but we can't do much. (:

 

P.S.

About the links, we don't allow that much of advertising especially if other sites or blogs.

Only official sites of manga-ka's, BakaUpdates, YT and such. Twitter as well if the manga-ka uses it. (:

[rukkawa]

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Oh, sorry, I didn't know that was advertising too, I have to read the rules again xD

[Orient]

Thank you

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for the tread!

Happy to understand form

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and

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that the important thing lies in understanding each other rather than research and terminology hehehehe

Though knowledge of the terms / meanings always helps to define the search :Wink: