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I don’t know how to tell y’all this, but we’ve been doing #yaoi wrong. A thread.
To be more specific, Japanese people found out that non-Japanese people were redefining and conflating terms/genres. While we have formed ideas, text, and communities around what we thought of yaoi, the reality got muddied and lost in translation, localization, and consumption.
Digging through Japanese research, I found that FINALLY people published the important stuff— how yaoi is defined, how it’s subgenres are defined, how they’re categorized by the Japanese fans, markets, and creators. Brought to you by some tired ass Japanese academics.
Did you ever think of how we use yaoi versus how Japan uses yaoi? Curious to find out there’s yaoi and then there’s Yaoi? This researcher operationalized the words and categorized them by history, theme, etc.
What we call the evolution of yaoi, Japan calls it “diversification” of yaoi. Think of yaoi (lowercase) as an umbrella term: m/m romance media. Under that umbrella descriptor are five subgenres shounen-ai, tanbi, June, Yaoi, and BL.
There’s two yaoi’s. The umbrella term (y) and the subgenre (Y) that changed everything. Using the history and presiding themes as distinctions between the subgenres, they categorize these five into a Before Yaoi stage and After Yaoi stage.
Let’s break these down, short and concise. It’s chronological.
BEFORE YAOI—
Shounen-ai: boys (not much of the boy-man style), innocent love, platonic romantic.
*formerly a sub genre of shojo
Tanbi: beautiful love, “high culture” aesthetic, literature primarily, non-commercial.
BEFORE YAOI—
Shounen-ai: boys (not much of the boy-man style), innocent love, platonic romantic.
*formerly a sub genre of shojo
Tanbi: beautiful love, “high culture” aesthetic, literature primarily, non-commercial.
June: the bridge from tanbi to erotica and porn, named for the June publications, a mixture of the forbidden, immoral, and tragic with eroticism. This is the foundation of the contemporary BL.
AFTER YAOI—
Yaoi (as we know it): a comedic reference parallel to “porn without plot” for Japanese doujin writers in the late 70s. Sometimes referred to as yaoi “parody”, as something entirely alt. to the canonical content. It’s popularity changed everything. It stuck.
Yaoi (as we know it): a comedic reference parallel to “porn without plot” for Japanese doujin writers in the late 70s. Sometimes referred to as yaoi “parody”, as something entirely alt. to the canonical content. It’s popularity changed everything. It stuck.
It established a framework for “coupling” (shipping) standards. It had a significant role in the spread of m/m content BY WOMEN FOR WOMEN— beyond the initial shounen-ai, tanbi, June, etc. Hence why the trend began to shift to the umbrella yaoi term.
BL: creators say distinguishing features are the 1) commercialized publishing, entertainment factor. 2) no death with a happy ending. 3) it’s adopted seme-uke framework from yaoi. Spawning out of the 90s, the mainstream shifted to BL (notably for happy ending preferences).
It’s distinguished from its predecessors while co-existing with subgenres of the m/m romance by women for women.
Why do I say we’re doing yaoi wrong? Because there’s been conflation of these words, their origins, history, and redefinition in varying cultural contexts. Fandoms have tweaked or never learned their full meanings, because they felt info on Japan was at times inaccessible.
Anime news sources have appropriated BL/yaoi histories, conflating them with queer media activism while ignoring the Japanese origins. Constructing a westernized narrative, when it should be recognized as intercultural media effects.
We need to be informed on media’s origins and history to understand what role they will play in shaping our experience as global consumers and fans.
If you’d like to do further reading hmu for all of my resources. One book a few have requested is Boys Love Manga and Beyond (UPress Missippi, 2015), a more recent collection of academic essays. I also have all research materials on my patreon.
