Yaoi Manga: A Boy's Love

Yaoi manga is manga characterized by stories of romantic love between two male protagonists often portrayed in androgynous features or with feminine or female characteristics. The audience of Yaoi manga is predominantly female, but may also include gay and straight men. Most Yaoi mangas are written and drawn by women, with some noted gay writers producing manga for the more explicitly oriented Bara mangas, otherwise known as gay mangas.

Yaoi is short for "Yama nashi, ochi nashi, imi nashi" which means: no climax, no point, no meaning and was often used as a depreciative name for early Yaoi mangas that were considered to be poorly written as compared to the more complex shonen ai.

Yaoi manga features two males who have homosexual relationship with each other; with one of the male portraying the classical top role and the other serving the bottom role. The masculine character, called seme, is drawn taller, with more manly or distinct male features, while the feminine character, or the uke is drawn shorter and with a smaller build, and has distinct female characteristics. While the manga allows for a switch or reversal in roles, Yaoi stories in general adhere to the more common formula of male/female portrayal.

Love and acceptance is the overriding theme in most Yaoi mangas, with a few manga discussing subjects such as discrimination, sexual abuse, and gender issues. Often, the uke will be portrayed as someone unwilling to accept his love for the other boy or fearful of initiating a sexual relationship with the seme. Resolution usually revolves around the uke finally accepting his gay sexuality or just accepting in general his love for the seme without alluding or explicitly admitting his sexual identity.

Popularity of Yaoi manga has reached beyond the borders of Japan and many Yaoi mangas are now licensed in English and with many more being scanlated and shared online. Yaoi has also grown as a cultural phenomenon, demonstrating the unconscious desire of girls (and women in general) to idealize their heterosexual relationships to that of Yaoi relationships. Often seeing themselves in the place of the uke, and wishing their partner looked and acted like the seme.

As Yaoi manga became popular, it also became widely criticized by some sectors of society, especially those offended by the more graphic nature of the characters' sexual relationship with each other. Most countries have placed some kind of restriction on the publication, sale, and distribution of Yaoi mangas, anime, and other materials related to it. Some have also criticized the manga as promoting misogyny. Yaoi has also been considered as a form of female fetishism.

Readers of Yaoi mangas expressed that Yaoi has allowed them to enjoy pornography in such a way that conventional pornography never did. Women expressed that Yaoi contains limitless freedom in the way it tells and internalizes its stories. Some of the better known Yaoi mangas such as Ai No Kusabi and Gravitation have garnered critical acclaim regardless of their being categorized as Yaoi.

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Justin Doe is the founder of the largest online database of Boys Love movies in Asia, the site also boasts the largest showcase of yaoi manga comics from Japan.

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