Yaoi for Parents, A Crash Course in Boys’ Love by Shaenon K. Garrity — Part Three: Reading Yaoi
Yaoi — Japanese comics featuring romance and/or sex between men — is currently one of the most popular genres of manga in the U.S. Non-fans are often baffled by the popularity of yaoi with female readers, especially teenage girls. But fans love yaoi as romance, as drama, and as fantasy fodder. Whence comes this girly fascination with male homoeroticism? Monday, Shaenon Garrity took us on a tour of the history of yaoi; yesterday, she investigated the appeal of the genre itself; today, the conclusion of the narrative … after the break!
The actual sexual content of yaoi varies wildly from title to title. Just like American romance novels, yaoi manga run the gamut from chaste romances in which the characters may never even touch (although they’re likely to agonize about it at length) to unabashed porn with frequent and graphic sex scenes. Even the most ribald titles, however, are unlikely to show genitalia; following a longstanding tradition in manga censorship, penises are usually either kept off-panel or whited out.
And, just as with American romance novels, there’s a lot of overlap between full-on yaoi and mainstream manga with yaoi and BL elements. Most people would agree that a mass-market paperback with a picture of Fabio on the cover is a “romance novel,” but what about chick lit novels like Bridget Jones’s Diary? What about Pride and Prejudice? Similarly, while some manga on the shelves are unquestionably yaoi (among the manga published in English, that mostly means manga that first appeared as small-press graphic novels or in BL-specific Japanese magazines like June and Be x Boy), there are also many manga that include yaoi elements but are not solely or primarily erotica.
Fumi Yoshinaga may be the yaoi world’s Jane Austen. Originally a doujinshi artist (she continues to publish doujinshi, sometimes of her own professional work), she made her debut in the BL magazine Hanaoto in 1994. Most of her work runs in either BL magazines or BL-friendly shojo magazines like Wings. In the U.S., she’s best known as the creator of Antique Bakery
Detail from Antique Bakery © 2009 Fumi Yoshinaga
In 2009, Yoshinaga won the prestigious Tezuka Cultural Prize for manga for her series Ooku
As the yaoi market expands in Japan and abroad, the influence of yaoi on other manga has grown. Homegrown yaoi comics by American creators are also entering the scene. One of the first such titles was Tough Love
Tomorrow: an annotated reading list!
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I’d include Ragawa Marimo (New York, New York) and Motoni Modoru (Koi ga Bokura wo Yurusu Hani, Rika the Breeder) on that list with Fumi Yoshinaga. Though Motoni does her share of outrageous comedy as well, which is all we’ve seen translated of hers.
And of course, that’s only the manga. There is a thriving BL novel industry in Japan that includes mature works that we’ve never seen translated. June has only brought over a few BL novels, most aimed at teenagers. My Japanese friends tell me of all the wonderful BL novels they’re reading, and I know that I’m going to have to get a lot better at Japanese or miss them since they’ll likely never be licensed.
I think an important thing to note about reading yaoi, if this is a primer for the non-manga reader, is that the graphics are as important to telling the story as the dialogue. Western readers of comics are used to tracking from one speech bubble to the next and seeing the pictures as illustrations to be skimmed over. In manga though, they’re vital to understanding what’s happening and time needs to be spent seeing what they say. You picked a great illustrations from Antique Bakery that shows just that.
Comment by Kate — September 23, 2009 @ 3:29 pm
There’s also Yoshinaga’s newest series, Kinou Nani Tabeta? (What Did You Eat Yesterday?), which is a typical seinen slice of life cooking manga, only the protagonist is a forty-something gay guy and the meals he cooks are for his live-in partner. It’s great to see a realistic representation of gay characters in a series that’s not a romance.
Comment by Travis — September 24, 2009 @ 9:50 pm
“Yaoi world’s Jane Austen” sounds great! Fumi Yoshinaga had another 4 volumes doujinshi on Antique Bakery, with sex scenes among the leads. It is really interesting that she made (official?) slash stories on her own work. Anyway she is an out-standing author among other that produce plotless manga.
Comment by ep — October 28, 2009 @ 3:22 am
I read all three parts to your posts. I just wanted to say I enjoyed it very much! Thanks so much for putting your time into collecting and typing all that up! It was very insightful, well written, and entertaining to read up on so many different things. (It was also eye opening seeing the debate going on with the blogger Isaac Hale from your other post.) I feel like my scope on BL has grown a lot coming across this. lol! And I have to say, I love all of Fumi Yoshinaga’s works. She truly is a master of story telling. I’ve been reading and purchasing all her books since I came across her first volume of Antique Bakery and Gerard and Jacques. (Which has become one of my favorites!)
Comment by Kelly — December 13, 2009 @ 4:07 am
[...] with such a dark past must have her story to tell, and this is hers; rejected for being too much …Graphic Novel Review Yaoi for Parents, A Crash Course in …There's also Yoshinaga's newest series, Kinou Nani Tabeta? ( What Did You Eat Yesterday?), which is [...]
Pingback by kinou — March 19, 2010 @ 4:10 pm
Unless I missed her, you’ve not mentioned Miyamoto Kano. She stands alone in the Yaoi manga world. Non corny realistism, and art that looks like candid photo shots of real emotions. She’s the best. Shame on me if I missed a reference to her. Shame on you if you really did leave out what I’d consider genuinely seminal work in the Yaoi genre.
Comment by Jennifer Zito — June 28, 2010 @ 7:33 am