Futanari (二成, 二形; ふたなり, literally "dual form") is the Japanese word for androgyny or hermaphrodite.[1][2] Until 1644, the appeal of sexually ambiguous, futanari characters portrayed by onnagata actors was a popular element in Japanese drama, and there is a flourishing futanari anime and manga genre in Japan today.
History in Japanese culture
In Japanese society, interest in futanari dates back many hundreds of years, and may have roots in the worship of Dosojin, who was portrayed as a phallus, despite being neither male nor female.[1] Until 1644, when Japanese onnagata actors were required to adopt male hairstyles regardless of the gender they were portraying, actors playing characters such as female warriors capitalised on the interest in the futanari quality, which was common in both samurai and commoner society.[1]
[edit] In anime and manga
Example illustration of two futanari variants
There is a specific futanari genre within hentai (pornographic anime or manga), which depicts hermaphrodite characters. Other common terms used to describe futanari characters are "dickgirls"[3] or "shemales", although these are often considered vulgar and incorrect.[citation needed] Futanari, along with "newhalf" (ニューハーフ), are more polite terms having come into recent use, with futanari tending to refer specifically to actual hermaphrodites and "newhalf" tending to refer specifically to characters with female bodies but only male genitals.[citation needed] Originally futanari referred to any character that possessed masculine and feminine traits.[citation needed]
[edit] Origins
Futanari manga appeared in the 1990s and quickly became a pervasive part of the industry, cross-pollinating every genre.[4] Toshiki Yui's Hot Tails has been described as the best known exponent of the genre in the West.[4]
There are many hypotheses as to why and how the theme of futanari came into being. The most obvious is the close relationship that the futanari fetish shares with Western "shemale" pornography. However, due to the way it is executed, futanari probably shares more in common with the yuri genre. Futanari can be seen as an extension of the lesbian theme where it is used instead of a strap-on dildo or equivalent, that is, in cases involving a futanari character and a cisgender woman.[citation needed]
Only a very small subset of futanari characters "become" futa due to male to female transformations; most are developed by other, more outlandish means, often from cissexual females. This allows story lines to take a more lesbian context which is more palatable to many readers.
Futanari may also be seen as a way in which male empathy can be inserted into a predominately lesbian scene. Obviously, one of the main difficulties that male observers have with lesbian scenes is that it is difficult for them to empathise or see themselves in the situation.[citation needed] In the futanari fetish, this becomes possible and this may appeal to a part of the futanari community.[clarification needed][citation needed]
In normal anime, the gender bender or cross-dressing storylines have always been popular. Popular examples include anime such as Ranma ½ and Futaba-Kun Change! (in which the main character changes from male to female)[5] and I My Me! Strawberry Eggs (which takes on a more cross-dressing theme).
[edit] Types
Futanari can be “originally” females who upon arousal have a phallus emerge from their vagina or clitoris. These phallus, which are much like male penises, are lacking a scrotum and testicles, yet often will ejaculate. Other futanari resemble transwomen, who have made alterations to their bodies in order to appear to have both fully developed breasts and a penis with two testicles within a scrotal pouch.
duminică, 25 decembrie 2011
Yaoi
aoi (やおい?)[nb 1] also known as Boys' Love, is a Japanese popular term for female-oriented fictional media that focus on homoerotic or homoromantic male relationships, usually created by female authors. As these depict males, there is an androphilic male audience as well, however manga aimed at a gay male audience is considered a separate genre. Originally referring to a specific type of dōjinshi (self-published works) parody of mainstream anime and manga works, yaoi came to be used as a generic term for female-oriented manga, anime, dating sims, novels and dōjinshi featuring idealized homosexual male relationships. The main characters in yaoi usually conform to the formula of the seme (攻め lit. "attacker"?) who pursues the uke (受け lit. "receiver"?). In Japan, the term has largely been replaced by the rubric Boys' Love (ボーイズラブ Bōizu Rabu?), which subsumes both parodies and original works, and commercial as well as dōjinshi works. Although the genre is called Boys' Love (commonly abbreviated as "BL"), the males featured are pubescent or older. Works featuring prepubescent boys are labeled shotacon, and seen as a distinct genre. Yaoi (as it continues to be known among English-speaking fans) has spread beyond Japan: both translated and original yaoi is now available in many countries and languages.
Yaoi began in the dōjinshi markets of Japan in the late 1970s/early 1980s as an outgrowth of shōnen-ai (少年愛?) (also known as "Juné" or "tanbi"), but whereas shōnen-ai (both commercial and dōjinshi) were original works, yaoi were parodies of popular shōnen anime and manga, such as Captain Tsubasa and Saint Seiya.
BL creators and fans are careful to distinguish the genre from bara, including "gay manga", which are created by and for gay men.[1][2] However, some male manga creators have produced BL works.[3] Yuri is a wider blanket term than yaoi, because it refers to comics with lesbian relationships, regardless of the target audience, which may be (presumptively heterosexual) men, heterosexual women, or lesbian women. Yuri made by and for lesbians tends to resemble a distaff counterpart of bara, while men's yuri manga is more like yaoi manga, since both are targeted at the opposite sex and are not about realistic homosexual relationships
Usage
Although different meanings are often ascribed to the terms yaoi and Boy's Love (with yaoi generally said to be more explicit and BL generally said to being less so),[4] there is conflicting information on their usage.[5]
Yaoi is an acronym created in the dōjinshi market of the late 1970s by Yasuko Sakata and Akiko Hatsu[6] and popularized in the 1980s[7] standing for Yama nashi, ochi nashi, imi nashi (ヤマなし、オチなし、意味なし?) "No climax, no point, no meaning". This phrase was first used as a "euphemism for the content"[8] and refers to how yaoi, as opposed to the "difficult to understand" shōnen-ai of the Year 24 Group,[9] focused on "the yummy parts".[10] The phrase also parodies a classical style of plot structure.[1] Kubota Mitsuyoshi says that Osamu Tezuka used yama nashi, ochi nashi, imi nashi to dismiss poor quality manga, and this was appropriated by the early yaoi authors.[8] As of 1998, the term yaoi was considered "common knowledge to manga fans".[11] A joking alternative acronym among fujoshi (female yaoi fans) for yaoi is Yamete, oshiri ga itai (やめて お尻が 痛い?, "Stop, my ass hurts!").[3][12]
Originally in Japan, much BL material was called june (ジュネ?),[13] a name derived from June, a magazine that published male/male tanbi (耽美 "aesthetic"?) romances,[nb 2] Kaoru Kurimoto had also written shōnen ai mono stories in the late 1970s that have been described as "the precursors of yaoi".[6] The term "bishōnen manga" was used in the 1970s, but became depreciated in the 1990s when the manga featured a broader range of protagonists than adolescent boys.[16] June magazine was named after the French author Jean Genet, with "june" being a play on the Japanese pronunciation of his name.[17] Eventually the term "june" died out in favour of "BL," which remains the most common name.[13] Mizoguchi suggests that publishers wishing to get a foothold in the June market coined the term BL to disassociate the genre with the publisher of June.[16]
Another term for yaoi is 801.[18] "801" can be read as "yaoi"[8] in the following form: the "short" reading of the number 8 is "ya", 0 can be read as "o" – a western influence, while the short reading for 1 is "i" (see Japanese wordplay). For example, an Internet manga called Tonari no 801-chan, about a male otaku who dates a fujoshi, has been adapted into a serialized shōjo manga and a live-action film. 801-chan, the mascot of a Japanese shopping centre, is used in the manga.[19]
Yaoi has become an umbrella term in the West for women's manga or Japanese-influenced comics with male-male relationships,[13] and it is the term preferentially used by American manga publishers.[20] The actual name of the genre aimed toward women in Japan is called 'BL' or 'Boy's Love'. BL is aimed at the shōjo and josei demographics, but is considered a separate category.[13][21] Yaoi is used in Japan to include dōjinshi and sex scenes,[13] and does not include gei comi, which is by and for gay men.[1][13]
The terms yaoi and shōnen-ai are sometimes used by western fans to differentiate between the contents of the genre. In this case, yaoi is used to describe titles that contain largely sex scenes and other sexually explicit themes and shōnen-ai is used to describe titles that focus more on romance and do not include explicit sexual content, although they may include implicit sexual content.[22][23][24] When using the terms in this way, Gravitation is considered to be shōnen-ai due to its focus on the characters' careers rather than their love life, while the Gravitation Remix and Megamix dōjinshi by the same author, which emphasize the characters' sexual relationships, would be considered yaoi. Sometimes the word hentai is used as an additional modifier with yaoi – "hentai yaoi" – to denote the most explicit titles.[25] However, Kaze to Ki no Uta[nb 3] was groundbreaking in its depictions of "openly sexual relationships", spurring the development of the Boys Love genre in shōjo manga,[26] and the development of sexually explicit amateur comics.[28] The use of yaoi to denote those works with explicit scenes sometimes clashes with use of the word to describe the genre as a whole. Yaoi can be used by fans as a label for anime or manga-based slash fiction.[29]
While shōnen-ai literally means boy's love, the two terms are not synonymous. In Japan, shōnen-ai used to refer to a now obsolete subgenre of shōjo manga about prepubescent boys in relationships ranging from the platonic to the romantic and sexual. The term was originally used to describe ephebophilia, and in scholarly contexts still is. Boy's Love, on the other hand, is used as a genre's name and refers to all titles regardless of sexual content or the ages of characters in the story (with the exception of titles featuring prepubescent boys, which are categorized as shotacon, a distinct genre with only peripheral connections to BL).[13]
Gei comi/Bara
Main article: Bara (genre)
Although sometimes conflated with "yaoi" by Anglophone commentators, gay manga (ゲイコミ gei comi?) (also called "Mens' Love" (メンズラブ Menzu Rabu?), ML, in Japan and "bara" in English) caters to a gay male audience rather than a female one and tends to be made primarily by homosexual and bisexual male artists (such as Gengoroh Tagame) and serialized in gay men's magazines.[30] It is an even smaller niche genre in Japan than yaoi manga; none has been licensed in English and not much has been scanlated into English.[31] Considered a subgenre of seijin (成人 adult?) (men's erotica) for gay males, bara resembles comics for men (seinen) rather than comics for female readers (shōjo/josei).
Recently a subgenre of BL has been introduced in Japan, so-called gachi muchi (ガチムチ?) or "muscley-chubby" BL,[32] which offers more masculine body types and is more likely to have gay male authors and artists. Although still marketed primarily to women,[32] it is also thought to attract a large crossover gay male audience.[33] This material has been referred to as "bara" among English-speaking fans,[34][35] but it is distinct in publishing terms (and often in content and style), and should not be confused with gei comi proper.
[edit] Seme and uke
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Artwork depicting a seme (left) and uke (right) couple.
The two participants in a yaoi relationship (sometimes also in yuri[36]) are often referred to as seme (攻め or せめ?) and uke (受け or うけ?). These terms originated in martial arts and uke is used in Japanese gay slang to mean the receptive partner in anal sex.[37] Aleardo Zanghellini suggests that the martial arts terms have special significance to a Japanese audience, as an "archetype" of male same-sex relationships are those between samurai and their companions.[4] Seme derives from the ichidan verb semeru (攻める to attack?) and uke from the verb ukeru (受ける or うける to receive?). The seme and uke are often drawn in the bishōnen style and are "highly idealised",[38] blending both masculine and feminine qualities.[11]
Zanghellini suggests that the samurai archetype is responsible for "the 'hierarchical' structure and age difference" of some relationships portrayed in yaoi and BL.[4] The seme is often depicted as the stereotypical male of anime and manga culture: restrained, physically powerful, and/or protective. The seme is generally older and taller,[39] with a stronger chin, shorter hair, smaller eyes, and a more stereotypically masculine, even "macho",[40] demeanour than the uke. The seme usually pursues the uke, hence the name. The uke usually has softer, androgynous, feminine features with bigger eyes and a smaller build, and is often physically weaker than the seme.[20][37][41] Zanghellini feels that these stereotypes come from shōjo manga conventions of depicting heroines and her female rival, where the heroine would be portrayed as kawaii and her rival would be portrayed as a sophisticated and adult beauty. When the characters were changed from female to male, these characteristics remained in the seme and uke characters. In this view, readers identify with the uke.[4] Readers may identify with the seme, or the uke, or both at the same time, or instead become a voyeur.[42]
Anal sex is a prevalent theme in yaoi, as nearly all stories feature it in some way.[37] The storyline where an uke is reluctant to have anal sex with a seme is considered to be similar to the reader's reluctance to have sexual contact with someone for the first time.[43] Zanghellini notes that anal sex is almost always in a position so that the characters face each other, not in the doggy style Zanghelli states is portrayed by gay pornography. Zanghellini also notes that the uke rarely fellates the seme, but instead receives the sexual and romantic attentions of the seme.[4]
One stereotype that is criticized is when the protagonists do not identify as gay, but rather are simply in love with that particular person.[2][37] This is said to heighten the theme of all-conquering love,[44] but is also pointed to as avoiding having to address prejudices against people who consider themselves to have been born homosexual.[2] In recent years, newer yaoi stories have characters that identify as gay.[3] Criticism of the stereotypically "girly" behavior of the uke has also been prominent.[41] It has been questioned if yaoi is heteronormative, due to the masculine seme and feminine uke stereotypes.[20][45] Additionally, yaoi stories are often told from the uke's perspective.[20] When the seme and uke roles are more closely adhered to, the uke character may be said to represent a "'vagina/anus' to be penetrated", but even as he is penetrated, his phallus is not forgotten, for example, as a seme simultaneously fellates and digitally penetrates his partner in Play Boy Blues. This combination of penetration and phallic pleasure reinforces depictions of sex in yaoi as challenging the idea that there is an active, penetrating, male sexuality as opposed to a passive, penetrated, female sexuality.[46]
Though these stereotypes are common, not all works adhere to them.[5][41] Mark McLelland says that authors are "interested in exploring, not repudiating" the dynamics between the insertive partner and the receptive partner.[47] The possibility of switching roles is often a source of playful teasing and sexual excitement for the characters, which has been said to show that the genre is aware of the "performative nature" of the roles.[24] Sometimes the bottom character will be the aggressor in the relationship,[nb 4] or the pair will switch their sexual roles.[49] Riba, リバ (a contraction of the English word "reversible") is used to describe a couple that yaoi fans think is still plausible when the partners switch their seme/uke roles.[48] In another common mode of characters, the author will forego the stylisations of the seme and uke, and will portray both lovers as "equally attractive handsome men". In this case, whichever of the two who is ordinarily in charge will take the "passive role" in the bedroom.[40]
[edit] Shōnen-ai
Shōnen-ai originally connoted ephebophilia or pederasty in Japan, but from the early 1970s to the late 1980s, was used to describe a new genre of shōjo manga, primarily by the Year 24 Group, about beautiful boys in love. Characteristics of shōnen-ai include that they were exotic, often taking place in Europe,[50] and idealistic.[51] Suzuki describes shōnen-ai as being "pedantic" and "difficult to understand",[9] saying that they required "knowledge of classic literature, history and science"[51] and were replete with "philosophical and abstract musings".[52] She says that this challenged the young readers and expanded their minds. Although they could not understand the works at first reading, as they grew older they would come to understand the works more. In the meantime, "the readers' attention became focused on the figure of the male protagonist" and how he navigated his sexual relationships.[52] By the late 1980s, the popularity of professionally published shōnen-ai was declining, and yaoi dōjinshi was becoming more popular.[10] In recent years, the terms yaoi and shōnen-ai have sometimes been used by western fans to differentiate between the contents of the genre. Yaoi has been used to describe titles that contain largely sex scenes and other sexually explicit themes and shōnen-ai is used to describe titles that focus more on romance and do not include explicit sexual content, although they may include implicit sexual content.[22][23][24]
[edit] Dōjinshi
The dōjinshi subculture has been considered the Japanese equivalent of the English-language slash fandom, especially as they both do not have typical "narrative structure", science fiction works are particularly popular in both,[11] and they both originated in the 1970s.[7][22] Typical yaoi dōjinshi features male-male pairings from non-romantic, published manga and anime. Much of the material derives from male-oriented (shōnen and seinen) works which contained male-male close friendships and are perceived by fans to imply homosexual attraction,[10] such as with Captain Tsubasa[1] and Saint Seiya, two titles which popularised yaoi in the 1980s.[7] Saint Seiya was particularly popular as it had a large cast of characters, most of them male, which allowed "an incredible number" of pairings between characters, although Andromeda Shun was one of the more popular characters to parody in yaoi, as he was presented in the original series as "fragile and sensible, with fine traits, long hair, doe eyes and the most feminine armour of the group".[53] For a time, yaoi dōjinshi was known as “Captain Tsubasa”.[54] Dōjinshi has been described by Comiket's co-founder Yoshihiro Yonezawa as being "girls playing with dolls";[43] yaoi fans may ship any male-male pairing, sometimes pairing off a favourite character, or creating a story about two men and fitting existing characters into the story.[1]
Matt Thorn notes that unlike in slash fandom, a canonical homoerotic element "takes away the fun" of creating yaoi for that series, for example, From Eroica with Love is more popular with slash fans than it has been with dōjinshi artists.[10] Kazuko Suzuki outlines the thematic development of the yaoi fandom, from curiosity about sexuality, to taking a parodic revenge against men, to a feminist protest, and lastly, exploring "ideal relationships".[55]
Important characteristics of the early yaoi dōjinshi were that they were amateur publications not controlled by media restrictions, the stories were by teens for other teens and they were based on famous characters who were in their teens or early twenties, the same age as the yaoi fans.[7] The rapid expansion of Comiket during the 1980s (less than 10,000 attendees in 1982-over 100,000 attendees in 1989) permitted many doujinshi authors to sell thousands of copies of their works, earning a fair amount of money. Mizoguchi points out that June paid a small honorarium and only published stories which suited their less-explicit style, leading to some authors of yaoi choosing not to try to publish in June.[16] During the early 1990s, dōjinshi played a part in popularising yaoi.[38] Yaoi dōjinshi has been compared to the Plot, what Plot? subgenre of fan fiction.[56]
Though collectors often focus on dōjinshi based on particular manga, any male character may become the subject of a yaoi dōjinshi, even characters from non-manga titles such as Harry Potter or The Lord of the Rings,[57] or video games such as Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy,[58][59] real people such as politicians, or personifications such as Hetalia: Axis Powers, or complementary items such as salt and pepper or peanut butter and jelly. Patrick W. Galbraith sums this up by saying "Among fujoshi, there seems no limit to the potential of transgressive intimacy imagined in yaoi relationships in pursuit of moe."[60]
Most dōjinshi are created by amateurs who often work in "circles";[61] for example, the group CLAMP began as an amateur dōjinshi circle, drawing Saint Seiya yaoi.[53] However, some professional artists, such as Kodaka Kazuma create dōjinshi as well.[62] Some publishing companies have used dōjinshi published in the 1980s to spot talented amateurs,[22][37] such as Biblos hiring Youka Nitta.[63]
Convention when labelling stories differs between Japanese fandom and slash-influenced fandoms. In Japan, the labelling is to put the two names of the characters separated by a multiplication sign, with the seme being first, and the uke being second.[64]
[edit] Global BL
As Japanese yaoi gained popularity in the U.S., a few American artists began creating original English-language manga for female readers featuring beautiful male-male couples,[7][15] referred to as "American yaoi." The first known original English-language BL comic is Sexual Espionage #1 by Daria McGrain, published in May 2002.[65] Since approximately 2004, what started as a small subculture in North America has become a burgeoning market, as new publishers began producing female-oriented male/male erotic comics and manga from creators outside Japan.[66] Because creators from all parts of the globe are published in these "original English language" works, the term "American Yaoi" fell out of use; terms like 'Original English Language yaoi'[67] shortened to 'Global Yaoi'.[68] The term Global BL was coined by creators and newsgroups that wanted to distinguish the Asian specific content known as 'yaoi', from the original English content, and so the term Global BL was used.[69][70] "Global BL" was shortened by comics author Tina Anderson in interviews and on her blog to the acronym 'GloBL'.[34][71]
Current North American publishers of 'Global BL' are Yaoi Press,[72] and publisher DramaQueen, which debuted its 'Global BL' quarterly anthology RUSH in 2006.[73] RUSH ceased publishing when the company experienced financial issues and were uncommunicative with the creators involved in the project.[74][75][76] Dramaqueen began publishing again in 2010,[77] and on their forums, CEO Tran Nguyen indicated RUSH would return in a new format in 2011.[78]
Former publishers include Iris Print.[79][80]
Prolific GloBL creators include Yayoi Neko,[81] Dany & Dany,[82][83] Tina Anderson,[84] and Studio Kosen.[85]
The most recent publishing boom in GloBL is happening in Germany, with a handful of original German titles gaining popularity for being set in Asia.[86] Some publishers of German GloBL are traditional manga publishers like Carlsen Manga,[87] and small press publishers specialising in GloBL like The Wild Side[88] and Fireangels Verlag.[89]
[edit] Publishing
Books on display at a San Francisco Kinokuniya bookstore
Mizoguchi divides BL publication into two eras – the first era from the time of June to 2004, and a second era from 2004 onwards.[90] The earliest magazine about Boy's Love was June, which began in 1978 as a response to the success of commercially published manga such as the works of Keiko Takemiya, Moto Hagio and Yumiko Ōshima.[64] Other factors was the rising popularity of depictions of bishōnen in the dōjinshi market and ambiguous musicians such as David Bowie and Queen. June was meant to have an underground, "cultish, guerilla-style" feeling – most of its manga artists were new talent. Frederik L. Schodt describes June as "a kind of 'readers' magazine, created by and for the readers." Essays about the characteristics of the June genre were published with the manga in June. In 1982, Shōsetsu June ("Novel June"), a sister magazine to June began publication. Its content is text-only stories with male romance.[91] Nagaike believes that the true "revolution" in BL culture was when it began to be commercially published en masse in the 1990s.[92] As of the mid-1990s, Shōsetsu June outsold June.[91] As of 2008, June was still running,[93] although the target audience's ages have widened and the style of stories has changed from being "soft love" to more overtly pornographic.[64] The magazine Allan (アラン Aran?) (1980–1984) which was more text-based than June was influential in cultivating a lesbian culture.[94] The Japanese publisher Biblos was a BL publisher established in 1988 but their bankruptcy due to failure of their parent company[37] caused them to fold in April 2006.[95] Most of their titles were picked up by Libre.[96] A 2006 breakdown of the Japanese commercial BL market estimated it grosses approximately 12 billion yen annually, with novel sales generating 250 million yen per month, manga generating 400 million yen per month, CDs generating 180 million yen per month, and video games generating 160 million yen per month.[92] A 2010 report estimated that the Boys Love market was worth approximately 21.3 billion yen in both 2009 and 2010.[97]
Japanese BL works are sold to English-speaking countries by companies that translate and print them in English; companies such as Digital Manga Publishing with their imprints 801 Media (for explicit BL) and June (for "romantic and sweet" BL),[22] as well as DramaQueen, Kitty Media, Central Park Media's Be Beautiful,[20] Tokyopop under their imprint BLU, Broccoli under their Boysenberry imprint, Aurora Publishing under their imprint Deux Press, and Yaoi Generation. The first publisher of BL in translation may be ComicsOne, which released two volumes of shōnen-ai manga as e-books in January 2000.[98] In 2001, the only BL-type manga available in print in English were the barely-suggestive Banana Fish and X/1999,[99] and in 2002, commercially translated BL was "not common".[100] According to McLelland, the earliest officially translated BL manga in print appeared in 2003, and as of 2006 there were about 130 English-translated works commercially available.[37] In March 2007, Media Blasters stopped selling shōnen manga and increased their yaoi lines, anticipating to publish one or two titles per month that year.[101] In 2007 following Biblos' bankruptcy, Libre published an open letter on their website which said that English-language publishers had to renegotiate publishing rights for Biblos' former series with Libre, specifically naming CPM's releases as "illegal".[102][103] Diamond Comic Distributors estimated the U.S. sales of yaoi manga as being approximately $US 6 million in 2007. In English-speaking countries explicit stories are either sold online or displayed in shrink wrap.[104] Mark McLelland surveyed 135 yaoi books published in North America between 2003 and 2006, and found that 14% was rated at 13 years or over, 39% was rated for readers aged 15 years or over, and 47% was rated for readers 18 years or older.[105] In 2008, BLU reported that although bookshops are becoming more willing to stock BL titles, they are conservative about how the books are labelled, leading to books being shrink wrapped and rated for over 18s which previously would have garnered an over 16 rating, and do not "really follow through on the [adult content] promise."[15]
In 2010, Libre Publishing sent cease and desist letters to English language BL scanlation groups.[106]
Tokyopop and its imprint BLU folded in May 2011. In October 2011, Viz Media launched the BL imprint SuBLime in collaboration with the Japanese BL publisher Libre and the Japanese retailer Animate to publish English-language BL for the print and worldwide digital market.[107][108]
[edit] Thematic elements
BL has similar themes to heterosexual shōjo manga, several exploring adolescent romance and the "interiority of the characters."[109] Nagaike identifies common narratives as being toshishita zeme, where the younger partner penetrates the older, shota mono about young adolescents, riiman mono, about salarymen, and gakuen mono, stories set on a campus.[46] Common characters in yaoi are schoolboys and yakuza.[110] Sometimes, schoolboys are depicted in sexual situations, which is controversial when these titles are licensed in countries where underage sexuality and its depiction is taboo.[111]
[edit] Female characters
Female characters often have very minor roles in yaoi, or are absent altogether.[44][112] Suzuki notes that mothers, in particular, are portrayed badly, such as Takuto's mother from Zetsuai 1989, who killed her husband in front of her young son. Suzuki suggests this is because the character and the reader are attempting to replace a mother's lacking "unconditional love" with the "forbidden" all-consuming love presented in yaoi.[113] Nariko Enomoto, a yaoi author, says she feels that when women are shown, "it can't help but become weirdly real".[114] When yaoi fan works are created from a series which originally contained females (such as Gundam Wing),[115] the female's role is either minimised or the character is killed off.[112] Early shōnen-ai and yaoi has been regarded as misogynistic, but Lunsing detects a decrease in misogynistic comments from characters and regards the development of the yuri genre as reflecting a reduction of internal misogyny.[3] Alternatively, the yaoi fandom is also viewed as a "refuge" from mainstream culture, which in this paradigm is viewed as inherently misogynistic.[7] Fumi Yoshinaga is regarded as a creator who usually includes at least one sympathetic female character in her works.[116] Also, there are many female characters in Yaoi who are Fujoshi themselves.
[edit] Gachi muchi
Recently, a subgenre of BL has been introduced in Japan, so-called "muscley-chubby BL" or gachi muchi (from gacchiri (がっちり muscular?) and muchimuchi (ムチムチ chubby?))[32] which offers more masculine body types and is more likely to have gay male authors and artists. Although still marketed primarily to women,[32] it is also thought to attract a large crossover gay male audience.[117] Although this type of material has also been referred to as "bara" among English-speaking fans,[34][35] it is not equivalent to gei comi proper (although there is considerable overlap, as writers, artists and art styles cross over between the two genres). Prior to the development of gachi muchi, the greatest overlap between yaoi and bara authors has been in BDSM-themed publications[118] such as Zettai Reido, a yaoi anthology magazine which had a number of openly male contributors.[3] Several female yaoi authors who have done BDSM-themed yaoi have been recruited to contribute stories to BDSM-themed bara anthologies or special issues.[118]
[edit] Gay rights
Many BL manga have fantastic, historic or futuristic settings, and many fans consider BL to be an "escapist fantasy".[119] Homophobia, when it is presented as an issue at all,[5] is used as a plot device to "heighten the drama",[120] or to show the purity of the leads’ love.[14] Matt Thorn has suggested that as BL is a romance narrative, having strong political themes may be a "turn off" to the readers.[10] Yaoi narratives show characters "overcoming obstacles, often internal, to be together". The theme of the victory of the protagonists in yaoi has been compared favourably to Western fairy tales, as the latter intends to enforce the status quo, but yaoi is "about desire" and seeks "to explore, not circumscribe, possibilities."[121] Hisako Miyoshi, vice editor-in-chief for Libre Publishing, has said that she feels that boys love manga has become less realist, with more comedic elements or being "simply for entertainment". She thinks that earlier BL focused "more on the homosexual way of life with a realist perspective."[122] Makoto Tateno has said that she feels that BL with a focus on realistic gay issues "won't become a trend, because girls like fiction more than realism."[123] Akiko Mizoguchi feels that while depictions of homosexuality as "shameful" to heighten dramatic tension are still shown, BL is including more coming out stories which portray a gradual acceptance from the wider community. Mizoguchi feels that BL is showing far more gay-friendly depictions of Japanese society, which she regards as activism.[90]
[edit] Idealism
[icon] This section requires expansion.
Most BL manga have been said to "foster an aesthetic of purity, even when depicting hard-core sex acts."[124] Sandra Buckley felt that the characters have equality in their relationships, which were "free of domination and exploitation".[125] Yaoi stories are often strongly homosocial, which gives the men freedom to bond with each other and to pursue shared goals together, as in dojinshi representations of Captain Tsubasa, or to rival each other, as in Haru wo Daiteita. This spiritual bond and equal partnership shown overcomes the male-female power hierarchy.[46]
[edit] Rape
According to Suzuki, sexual intercourse in yaoi is a way of expressing commitment to a partner, and "apparent violence" in sex is a "measure of passion". Suzuki elaborates that when a woman is raped, she is stigmatised by society, but in yaoi narratives, boys who are loved by their rapists are still "imbued with innocence", a theme she attributes to Kaze to Ki no Uta.[126] According to Nagaike, rape scenes in yaoi are rarely presented as crimes with an assaulter and a victim. Nagaike feels that scenes where a seme rapes an uke are not symptomatic of the seme's "disruptive sexual/violent desires", but instead are a signifier of the "uncontrollable love" felt by a seme for an uke. Instead of being depicted as a crime, rape scenes can be a plot device used to make the uke see the seme as more than just a good friend, resulting in the uke falling in love with the seme.[46] Rape fantasy themes have been said to free the protagonist of responsibility in sex, leading to the narrative climax of the story, where "the protagonist takes responsibility for his own sexuality".[111] The 2003-2005 Under Grand Hotel, set in a men's prison, has been praised for showing a more realistic depiction of rape.[127]
[edit] Tragedy
June stories with suicide endings were popular,[91] as was "watching men suffer".[128] Matt Thorn theorises that depicting abuse in yaoi is a coping mechanism for some yaoi fans.[10] By the mid 1990s the fashion was for happy endings.[91] When tragic endings are shown, the cause is not infidelity, but "the cruel and intrusive demands of an uncompromising outside world."[129]
[edit] Critical attention
Boys' Love manga has received considerable critical attention, especially after translations of BL became commercially available outside of Japan in the 21st century.[10] Different critics and commentators have had very different views of BL. In 1983, Frederik L. Schodt observed that “aesthetically” depicted male-male homosexual relationships had become popular among female readers as an extension of bisexual themes already present in shōjo manga.[130] Japanese critics have seen BL as allowing girls to distance sex from their own bodies,[131] as allowing girls to avoid adult female sexuality while simultaneously creating greater fluidity in perceptions of gender and sexuality,[132] and as rejecting “socially mandated” gender roles as a “first step toward feminism.”[133] In more elaborate theorizing, Kazuko Suzuki sees BL manga emerging from girls' contempt and dislike for masculine heterosexism and from an effort to define "ideal relationships" among men.[134] Mizoguchi, writing in 2003, feels that BL is a "female-gendered space", as the writers, readers, artists and most of the editors of BL are female.[135] BL has been compared to romance novels by English-speaking librarians.[39][120] Parallels have also been noted in the popularity of lesbianism in pornography,[37][43] and yaoi has been called a form of "female fetishism".[136] Mariko Ōhara, a science fiction writer, has said that she wrote yaoi Kirk/Spock fiction as a teen because she could not enjoy "conventional pornography, which had been made for men", and that she had found a "limitless freedom" in yaoi, much like in science fiction.[137]
Other commentators have suggested that more radical gender-political issues underlie BL. Shihomi Sakakibara (1998) argued that yaoi fans, including herself, were homosexually oriented female-to-male transsexuals.[138] For Sandra Buckley, bishōnen narratives champion “the imagined potentialities of alternative [gender] differentiations"[139] and James Welker described the bishōnen character as "queer", observing that manga critic Akiko Mizoguchi saw shōnen-ai as playing a role in how she herself had become a lesbian.[140] Dru Pagliassotti sees this and the yaoi ronsō as indicating that for Japanese gay and lesbian readers, BL is not as far removed from reality as heterosexual female readers like to claim.[15] Welker added that shōnen-ai liberates readers "not just from patriarchy, but from gender dualism and heteronormativity."[140]
Some gay and lesbian commentators have criticized how gay identity is portrayed in BL, most notably in the yaoi ronsō or "yaoi debate" of 1992–1997.[3][14] In May 1992, gay activist Masaki Satō criticized yaoi fans and artists in an open letter to the feminist zine (or minikomi in Japanese) Choisir.[3][14] Satō said that yaoi failed to provide accurate information about gay men, promoted a destructive image of gay men as wealthy, handsome, and well-educated, ignored prejudice and discrimination against gay men in society, and co-opted gay men as masturbation fantasies.[14] An extensive debate ensued, with yaoi fans and artists arguing that yaoi is entertainment for women, not education for gay men, and that yaoi characters are not meant to represent "real gay men."[14] As internet resources for gay men developed in the 1990s, the yaoi debate waned[141] but has had later echoes, for example when Mizoguchi in 2003 characterised stereotypes in modern BL as being "unrealistic and homophobic".[142] There has been similar criticism to the Japanese yaoi debate in the English-speaking fandom.[5][143][144][145] In 1993 and 2004, Matt Thorn pointed to the complexity of these phenomena, and suggested that yaoi and slash fiction fans are discontented with “the standards of femininity to which they are expected to adhere and a social environment that does not validate or sympathize with that discontent.”[10][146]
As women have greater economic power, commercial demand for the sexualization of men may correlate. Korean manhwa writer Jin Seok Jeon wrote in a commentary to Vol. 5, Chp 2 of an Arabian Nights themed shōnen-ai work, A Night of a Thousand Dreams, "Men are now marketable. It's also a time where women are big consumers and can buy almost anything they desire. Some men think this is degrading...but the tables have turned, and I like the fact that men are just as commercialized now." He jokes that after researching oil wrestling, which requires extreme physical fitness, he does not feel as marketable, illustrating that yaoi and other pornography exploiting men is subject to traditional criticisms, such as sexual objectification, creating unrealistic expectations and negative body images.
In China, BL became very popular in the late 1990s, attracting media attention, which became negative, focusing on the challenge it posed to "heterosexual hegemony". Publishing and distributing BL is illegal in mainland China.[147] Zanghellini notes that due to the "characteristics of the yaoi/BL genre" of showing characters who are often underage engaging in romantic and sexual situations, child pornography laws in Australia and Canada "may lend themselves to targeting yaoi/BL work". He notes that in the UK, cartoons are exempt from child pornography laws unless they are used for child grooming.[4]
In 2001, a controversy erupted in Thailand regarding homosexual male comics. Television reports labeled the comics as negative influences, while a newspaper falsely stated that most of the comics were not copyrighted as the publishers feared arrest for posting the content; in reality most of the titles were likely illegally published without permission from the original Japanese publishers. The shōnen ai comics provided profits for the comic shops, which sold between 30 to 50 such comics per day. The moral panic regarding the male homosexual comics subsided. The Thai girls felt too embarrassed to read heterosexual stories, so they read homosexual male-themed josei and shōjo stories, which they saw as "unthreatening."[148]
Youka Nitta has said that "even in Japan, reading boys' love isn't something that parents encourage" and encouraged any parents who had concerns about her works to read them.[149] Although in Japan, concern about manga has been mostly directed to shōnen manga, in 2006, an email campaign was launched against the availability of BL manga in Sakai City's public library. In August 2008, the library decided to stop buying more BL, and to keep its existing BL in a collection restricted to adult readers. That November, the library was contacted by people who protested against the removal, regarding it as "a form of sexual discrimination". The Japanese media ran stories on how much BL was in public libraries, and emphasised that this sexual material had been loaned out to minors. Debate ensued on Mixi, a Japanese social networking site, and eventually the library returned its BL to the public collection. Mark McLelland suggests that BL may become "a major battlefront for proponents and detractors of 'gender free' policies in employment, education and elsewhere
Yaoi began in the dōjinshi markets of Japan in the late 1970s/early 1980s as an outgrowth of shōnen-ai (少年愛?) (also known as "Juné" or "tanbi"), but whereas shōnen-ai (both commercial and dōjinshi) were original works, yaoi were parodies of popular shōnen anime and manga, such as Captain Tsubasa and Saint Seiya.
BL creators and fans are careful to distinguish the genre from bara, including "gay manga", which are created by and for gay men.[1][2] However, some male manga creators have produced BL works.[3] Yuri is a wider blanket term than yaoi, because it refers to comics with lesbian relationships, regardless of the target audience, which may be (presumptively heterosexual) men, heterosexual women, or lesbian women. Yuri made by and for lesbians tends to resemble a distaff counterpart of bara, while men's yuri manga is more like yaoi manga, since both are targeted at the opposite sex and are not about realistic homosexual relationships
Usage
Although different meanings are often ascribed to the terms yaoi and Boy's Love (with yaoi generally said to be more explicit and BL generally said to being less so),[4] there is conflicting information on their usage.[5]
Yaoi is an acronym created in the dōjinshi market of the late 1970s by Yasuko Sakata and Akiko Hatsu[6] and popularized in the 1980s[7] standing for Yama nashi, ochi nashi, imi nashi (ヤマなし、オチなし、意味なし?) "No climax, no point, no meaning". This phrase was first used as a "euphemism for the content"[8] and refers to how yaoi, as opposed to the "difficult to understand" shōnen-ai of the Year 24 Group,[9] focused on "the yummy parts".[10] The phrase also parodies a classical style of plot structure.[1] Kubota Mitsuyoshi says that Osamu Tezuka used yama nashi, ochi nashi, imi nashi to dismiss poor quality manga, and this was appropriated by the early yaoi authors.[8] As of 1998, the term yaoi was considered "common knowledge to manga fans".[11] A joking alternative acronym among fujoshi (female yaoi fans) for yaoi is Yamete, oshiri ga itai (やめて お尻が 痛い?, "Stop, my ass hurts!").[3][12]
Originally in Japan, much BL material was called june (ジュネ?),[13] a name derived from June, a magazine that published male/male tanbi (耽美 "aesthetic"?) romances,[nb 2] Kaoru Kurimoto had also written shōnen ai mono stories in the late 1970s that have been described as "the precursors of yaoi".[6] The term "bishōnen manga" was used in the 1970s, but became depreciated in the 1990s when the manga featured a broader range of protagonists than adolescent boys.[16] June magazine was named after the French author Jean Genet, with "june" being a play on the Japanese pronunciation of his name.[17] Eventually the term "june" died out in favour of "BL," which remains the most common name.[13] Mizoguchi suggests that publishers wishing to get a foothold in the June market coined the term BL to disassociate the genre with the publisher of June.[16]
Another term for yaoi is 801.[18] "801" can be read as "yaoi"[8] in the following form: the "short" reading of the number 8 is "ya", 0 can be read as "o" – a western influence, while the short reading for 1 is "i" (see Japanese wordplay). For example, an Internet manga called Tonari no 801-chan, about a male otaku who dates a fujoshi, has been adapted into a serialized shōjo manga and a live-action film. 801-chan, the mascot of a Japanese shopping centre, is used in the manga.[19]
Yaoi has become an umbrella term in the West for women's manga or Japanese-influenced comics with male-male relationships,[13] and it is the term preferentially used by American manga publishers.[20] The actual name of the genre aimed toward women in Japan is called 'BL' or 'Boy's Love'. BL is aimed at the shōjo and josei demographics, but is considered a separate category.[13][21] Yaoi is used in Japan to include dōjinshi and sex scenes,[13] and does not include gei comi, which is by and for gay men.[1][13]
The terms yaoi and shōnen-ai are sometimes used by western fans to differentiate between the contents of the genre. In this case, yaoi is used to describe titles that contain largely sex scenes and other sexually explicit themes and shōnen-ai is used to describe titles that focus more on romance and do not include explicit sexual content, although they may include implicit sexual content.[22][23][24] When using the terms in this way, Gravitation is considered to be shōnen-ai due to its focus on the characters' careers rather than their love life, while the Gravitation Remix and Megamix dōjinshi by the same author, which emphasize the characters' sexual relationships, would be considered yaoi. Sometimes the word hentai is used as an additional modifier with yaoi – "hentai yaoi" – to denote the most explicit titles.[25] However, Kaze to Ki no Uta[nb 3] was groundbreaking in its depictions of "openly sexual relationships", spurring the development of the Boys Love genre in shōjo manga,[26] and the development of sexually explicit amateur comics.[28] The use of yaoi to denote those works with explicit scenes sometimes clashes with use of the word to describe the genre as a whole. Yaoi can be used by fans as a label for anime or manga-based slash fiction.[29]
While shōnen-ai literally means boy's love, the two terms are not synonymous. In Japan, shōnen-ai used to refer to a now obsolete subgenre of shōjo manga about prepubescent boys in relationships ranging from the platonic to the romantic and sexual. The term was originally used to describe ephebophilia, and in scholarly contexts still is. Boy's Love, on the other hand, is used as a genre's name and refers to all titles regardless of sexual content or the ages of characters in the story (with the exception of titles featuring prepubescent boys, which are categorized as shotacon, a distinct genre with only peripheral connections to BL).[13]
Gei comi/Bara
Main article: Bara (genre)
Although sometimes conflated with "yaoi" by Anglophone commentators, gay manga (ゲイコミ gei comi?) (also called "Mens' Love" (メンズラブ Menzu Rabu?), ML, in Japan and "bara" in English) caters to a gay male audience rather than a female one and tends to be made primarily by homosexual and bisexual male artists (such as Gengoroh Tagame) and serialized in gay men's magazines.[30] It is an even smaller niche genre in Japan than yaoi manga; none has been licensed in English and not much has been scanlated into English.[31] Considered a subgenre of seijin (成人 adult?) (men's erotica) for gay males, bara resembles comics for men (seinen) rather than comics for female readers (shōjo/josei).
Recently a subgenre of BL has been introduced in Japan, so-called gachi muchi (ガチムチ?) or "muscley-chubby" BL,[32] which offers more masculine body types and is more likely to have gay male authors and artists. Although still marketed primarily to women,[32] it is also thought to attract a large crossover gay male audience.[33] This material has been referred to as "bara" among English-speaking fans,[34][35] but it is distinct in publishing terms (and often in content and style), and should not be confused with gei comi proper.
[edit] Seme and uke
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Artwork depicting a seme (left) and uke (right) couple.
The two participants in a yaoi relationship (sometimes also in yuri[36]) are often referred to as seme (攻め or せめ?) and uke (受け or うけ?). These terms originated in martial arts and uke is used in Japanese gay slang to mean the receptive partner in anal sex.[37] Aleardo Zanghellini suggests that the martial arts terms have special significance to a Japanese audience, as an "archetype" of male same-sex relationships are those between samurai and their companions.[4] Seme derives from the ichidan verb semeru (攻める to attack?) and uke from the verb ukeru (受ける or うける to receive?). The seme and uke are often drawn in the bishōnen style and are "highly idealised",[38] blending both masculine and feminine qualities.[11]
Zanghellini suggests that the samurai archetype is responsible for "the 'hierarchical' structure and age difference" of some relationships portrayed in yaoi and BL.[4] The seme is often depicted as the stereotypical male of anime and manga culture: restrained, physically powerful, and/or protective. The seme is generally older and taller,[39] with a stronger chin, shorter hair, smaller eyes, and a more stereotypically masculine, even "macho",[40] demeanour than the uke. The seme usually pursues the uke, hence the name. The uke usually has softer, androgynous, feminine features with bigger eyes and a smaller build, and is often physically weaker than the seme.[20][37][41] Zanghellini feels that these stereotypes come from shōjo manga conventions of depicting heroines and her female rival, where the heroine would be portrayed as kawaii and her rival would be portrayed as a sophisticated and adult beauty. When the characters were changed from female to male, these characteristics remained in the seme and uke characters. In this view, readers identify with the uke.[4] Readers may identify with the seme, or the uke, or both at the same time, or instead become a voyeur.[42]
Anal sex is a prevalent theme in yaoi, as nearly all stories feature it in some way.[37] The storyline where an uke is reluctant to have anal sex with a seme is considered to be similar to the reader's reluctance to have sexual contact with someone for the first time.[43] Zanghellini notes that anal sex is almost always in a position so that the characters face each other, not in the doggy style Zanghelli states is portrayed by gay pornography. Zanghellini also notes that the uke rarely fellates the seme, but instead receives the sexual and romantic attentions of the seme.[4]
One stereotype that is criticized is when the protagonists do not identify as gay, but rather are simply in love with that particular person.[2][37] This is said to heighten the theme of all-conquering love,[44] but is also pointed to as avoiding having to address prejudices against people who consider themselves to have been born homosexual.[2] In recent years, newer yaoi stories have characters that identify as gay.[3] Criticism of the stereotypically "girly" behavior of the uke has also been prominent.[41] It has been questioned if yaoi is heteronormative, due to the masculine seme and feminine uke stereotypes.[20][45] Additionally, yaoi stories are often told from the uke's perspective.[20] When the seme and uke roles are more closely adhered to, the uke character may be said to represent a "'vagina/anus' to be penetrated", but even as he is penetrated, his phallus is not forgotten, for example, as a seme simultaneously fellates and digitally penetrates his partner in Play Boy Blues. This combination of penetration and phallic pleasure reinforces depictions of sex in yaoi as challenging the idea that there is an active, penetrating, male sexuality as opposed to a passive, penetrated, female sexuality.[46]
Though these stereotypes are common, not all works adhere to them.[5][41] Mark McLelland says that authors are "interested in exploring, not repudiating" the dynamics between the insertive partner and the receptive partner.[47] The possibility of switching roles is often a source of playful teasing and sexual excitement for the characters, which has been said to show that the genre is aware of the "performative nature" of the roles.[24] Sometimes the bottom character will be the aggressor in the relationship,[nb 4] or the pair will switch their sexual roles.[49] Riba, リバ (a contraction of the English word "reversible") is used to describe a couple that yaoi fans think is still plausible when the partners switch their seme/uke roles.[48] In another common mode of characters, the author will forego the stylisations of the seme and uke, and will portray both lovers as "equally attractive handsome men". In this case, whichever of the two who is ordinarily in charge will take the "passive role" in the bedroom.[40]
[edit] Shōnen-ai
Shōnen-ai originally connoted ephebophilia or pederasty in Japan, but from the early 1970s to the late 1980s, was used to describe a new genre of shōjo manga, primarily by the Year 24 Group, about beautiful boys in love. Characteristics of shōnen-ai include that they were exotic, often taking place in Europe,[50] and idealistic.[51] Suzuki describes shōnen-ai as being "pedantic" and "difficult to understand",[9] saying that they required "knowledge of classic literature, history and science"[51] and were replete with "philosophical and abstract musings".[52] She says that this challenged the young readers and expanded their minds. Although they could not understand the works at first reading, as they grew older they would come to understand the works more. In the meantime, "the readers' attention became focused on the figure of the male protagonist" and how he navigated his sexual relationships.[52] By the late 1980s, the popularity of professionally published shōnen-ai was declining, and yaoi dōjinshi was becoming more popular.[10] In recent years, the terms yaoi and shōnen-ai have sometimes been used by western fans to differentiate between the contents of the genre. Yaoi has been used to describe titles that contain largely sex scenes and other sexually explicit themes and shōnen-ai is used to describe titles that focus more on romance and do not include explicit sexual content, although they may include implicit sexual content.[22][23][24]
[edit] Dōjinshi
The dōjinshi subculture has been considered the Japanese equivalent of the English-language slash fandom, especially as they both do not have typical "narrative structure", science fiction works are particularly popular in both,[11] and they both originated in the 1970s.[7][22] Typical yaoi dōjinshi features male-male pairings from non-romantic, published manga and anime. Much of the material derives from male-oriented (shōnen and seinen) works which contained male-male close friendships and are perceived by fans to imply homosexual attraction,[10] such as with Captain Tsubasa[1] and Saint Seiya, two titles which popularised yaoi in the 1980s.[7] Saint Seiya was particularly popular as it had a large cast of characters, most of them male, which allowed "an incredible number" of pairings between characters, although Andromeda Shun was one of the more popular characters to parody in yaoi, as he was presented in the original series as "fragile and sensible, with fine traits, long hair, doe eyes and the most feminine armour of the group".[53] For a time, yaoi dōjinshi was known as “Captain Tsubasa”.[54] Dōjinshi has been described by Comiket's co-founder Yoshihiro Yonezawa as being "girls playing with dolls";[43] yaoi fans may ship any male-male pairing, sometimes pairing off a favourite character, or creating a story about two men and fitting existing characters into the story.[1]
Matt Thorn notes that unlike in slash fandom, a canonical homoerotic element "takes away the fun" of creating yaoi for that series, for example, From Eroica with Love is more popular with slash fans than it has been with dōjinshi artists.[10] Kazuko Suzuki outlines the thematic development of the yaoi fandom, from curiosity about sexuality, to taking a parodic revenge against men, to a feminist protest, and lastly, exploring "ideal relationships".[55]
Important characteristics of the early yaoi dōjinshi were that they were amateur publications not controlled by media restrictions, the stories were by teens for other teens and they were based on famous characters who were in their teens or early twenties, the same age as the yaoi fans.[7] The rapid expansion of Comiket during the 1980s (less than 10,000 attendees in 1982-over 100,000 attendees in 1989) permitted many doujinshi authors to sell thousands of copies of their works, earning a fair amount of money. Mizoguchi points out that June paid a small honorarium and only published stories which suited their less-explicit style, leading to some authors of yaoi choosing not to try to publish in June.[16] During the early 1990s, dōjinshi played a part in popularising yaoi.[38] Yaoi dōjinshi has been compared to the Plot, what Plot? subgenre of fan fiction.[56]
Though collectors often focus on dōjinshi based on particular manga, any male character may become the subject of a yaoi dōjinshi, even characters from non-manga titles such as Harry Potter or The Lord of the Rings,[57] or video games such as Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy,[58][59] real people such as politicians, or personifications such as Hetalia: Axis Powers, or complementary items such as salt and pepper or peanut butter and jelly. Patrick W. Galbraith sums this up by saying "Among fujoshi, there seems no limit to the potential of transgressive intimacy imagined in yaoi relationships in pursuit of moe."[60]
Most dōjinshi are created by amateurs who often work in "circles";[61] for example, the group CLAMP began as an amateur dōjinshi circle, drawing Saint Seiya yaoi.[53] However, some professional artists, such as Kodaka Kazuma create dōjinshi as well.[62] Some publishing companies have used dōjinshi published in the 1980s to spot talented amateurs,[22][37] such as Biblos hiring Youka Nitta.[63]
Convention when labelling stories differs between Japanese fandom and slash-influenced fandoms. In Japan, the labelling is to put the two names of the characters separated by a multiplication sign, with the seme being first, and the uke being second.[64]
[edit] Global BL
As Japanese yaoi gained popularity in the U.S., a few American artists began creating original English-language manga for female readers featuring beautiful male-male couples,[7][15] referred to as "American yaoi." The first known original English-language BL comic is Sexual Espionage #1 by Daria McGrain, published in May 2002.[65] Since approximately 2004, what started as a small subculture in North America has become a burgeoning market, as new publishers began producing female-oriented male/male erotic comics and manga from creators outside Japan.[66] Because creators from all parts of the globe are published in these "original English language" works, the term "American Yaoi" fell out of use; terms like 'Original English Language yaoi'[67] shortened to 'Global Yaoi'.[68] The term Global BL was coined by creators and newsgroups that wanted to distinguish the Asian specific content known as 'yaoi', from the original English content, and so the term Global BL was used.[69][70] "Global BL" was shortened by comics author Tina Anderson in interviews and on her blog to the acronym 'GloBL'.[34][71]
Current North American publishers of 'Global BL' are Yaoi Press,[72] and publisher DramaQueen, which debuted its 'Global BL' quarterly anthology RUSH in 2006.[73] RUSH ceased publishing when the company experienced financial issues and were uncommunicative with the creators involved in the project.[74][75][76] Dramaqueen began publishing again in 2010,[77] and on their forums, CEO Tran Nguyen indicated RUSH would return in a new format in 2011.[78]
Former publishers include Iris Print.[79][80]
Prolific GloBL creators include Yayoi Neko,[81] Dany & Dany,[82][83] Tina Anderson,[84] and Studio Kosen.[85]
The most recent publishing boom in GloBL is happening in Germany, with a handful of original German titles gaining popularity for being set in Asia.[86] Some publishers of German GloBL are traditional manga publishers like Carlsen Manga,[87] and small press publishers specialising in GloBL like The Wild Side[88] and Fireangels Verlag.[89]
[edit] Publishing
Books on display at a San Francisco Kinokuniya bookstore
Mizoguchi divides BL publication into two eras – the first era from the time of June to 2004, and a second era from 2004 onwards.[90] The earliest magazine about Boy's Love was June, which began in 1978 as a response to the success of commercially published manga such as the works of Keiko Takemiya, Moto Hagio and Yumiko Ōshima.[64] Other factors was the rising popularity of depictions of bishōnen in the dōjinshi market and ambiguous musicians such as David Bowie and Queen. June was meant to have an underground, "cultish, guerilla-style" feeling – most of its manga artists were new talent. Frederik L. Schodt describes June as "a kind of 'readers' magazine, created by and for the readers." Essays about the characteristics of the June genre were published with the manga in June. In 1982, Shōsetsu June ("Novel June"), a sister magazine to June began publication. Its content is text-only stories with male romance.[91] Nagaike believes that the true "revolution" in BL culture was when it began to be commercially published en masse in the 1990s.[92] As of the mid-1990s, Shōsetsu June outsold June.[91] As of 2008, June was still running,[93] although the target audience's ages have widened and the style of stories has changed from being "soft love" to more overtly pornographic.[64] The magazine Allan (アラン Aran?) (1980–1984) which was more text-based than June was influential in cultivating a lesbian culture.[94] The Japanese publisher Biblos was a BL publisher established in 1988 but their bankruptcy due to failure of their parent company[37] caused them to fold in April 2006.[95] Most of their titles were picked up by Libre.[96] A 2006 breakdown of the Japanese commercial BL market estimated it grosses approximately 12 billion yen annually, with novel sales generating 250 million yen per month, manga generating 400 million yen per month, CDs generating 180 million yen per month, and video games generating 160 million yen per month.[92] A 2010 report estimated that the Boys Love market was worth approximately 21.3 billion yen in both 2009 and 2010.[97]
Japanese BL works are sold to English-speaking countries by companies that translate and print them in English; companies such as Digital Manga Publishing with their imprints 801 Media (for explicit BL) and June (for "romantic and sweet" BL),[22] as well as DramaQueen, Kitty Media, Central Park Media's Be Beautiful,[20] Tokyopop under their imprint BLU, Broccoli under their Boysenberry imprint, Aurora Publishing under their imprint Deux Press, and Yaoi Generation. The first publisher of BL in translation may be ComicsOne, which released two volumes of shōnen-ai manga as e-books in January 2000.[98] In 2001, the only BL-type manga available in print in English were the barely-suggestive Banana Fish and X/1999,[99] and in 2002, commercially translated BL was "not common".[100] According to McLelland, the earliest officially translated BL manga in print appeared in 2003, and as of 2006 there were about 130 English-translated works commercially available.[37] In March 2007, Media Blasters stopped selling shōnen manga and increased their yaoi lines, anticipating to publish one or two titles per month that year.[101] In 2007 following Biblos' bankruptcy, Libre published an open letter on their website which said that English-language publishers had to renegotiate publishing rights for Biblos' former series with Libre, specifically naming CPM's releases as "illegal".[102][103] Diamond Comic Distributors estimated the U.S. sales of yaoi manga as being approximately $US 6 million in 2007. In English-speaking countries explicit stories are either sold online or displayed in shrink wrap.[104] Mark McLelland surveyed 135 yaoi books published in North America between 2003 and 2006, and found that 14% was rated at 13 years or over, 39% was rated for readers aged 15 years or over, and 47% was rated for readers 18 years or older.[105] In 2008, BLU reported that although bookshops are becoming more willing to stock BL titles, they are conservative about how the books are labelled, leading to books being shrink wrapped and rated for over 18s which previously would have garnered an over 16 rating, and do not "really follow through on the [adult content] promise."[15]
In 2010, Libre Publishing sent cease and desist letters to English language BL scanlation groups.[106]
Tokyopop and its imprint BLU folded in May 2011. In October 2011, Viz Media launched the BL imprint SuBLime in collaboration with the Japanese BL publisher Libre and the Japanese retailer Animate to publish English-language BL for the print and worldwide digital market.[107][108]
[edit] Thematic elements
BL has similar themes to heterosexual shōjo manga, several exploring adolescent romance and the "interiority of the characters."[109] Nagaike identifies common narratives as being toshishita zeme, where the younger partner penetrates the older, shota mono about young adolescents, riiman mono, about salarymen, and gakuen mono, stories set on a campus.[46] Common characters in yaoi are schoolboys and yakuza.[110] Sometimes, schoolboys are depicted in sexual situations, which is controversial when these titles are licensed in countries where underage sexuality and its depiction is taboo.[111]
[edit] Female characters
Female characters often have very minor roles in yaoi, or are absent altogether.[44][112] Suzuki notes that mothers, in particular, are portrayed badly, such as Takuto's mother from Zetsuai 1989, who killed her husband in front of her young son. Suzuki suggests this is because the character and the reader are attempting to replace a mother's lacking "unconditional love" with the "forbidden" all-consuming love presented in yaoi.[113] Nariko Enomoto, a yaoi author, says she feels that when women are shown, "it can't help but become weirdly real".[114] When yaoi fan works are created from a series which originally contained females (such as Gundam Wing),[115] the female's role is either minimised or the character is killed off.[112] Early shōnen-ai and yaoi has been regarded as misogynistic, but Lunsing detects a decrease in misogynistic comments from characters and regards the development of the yuri genre as reflecting a reduction of internal misogyny.[3] Alternatively, the yaoi fandom is also viewed as a "refuge" from mainstream culture, which in this paradigm is viewed as inherently misogynistic.[7] Fumi Yoshinaga is regarded as a creator who usually includes at least one sympathetic female character in her works.[116] Also, there are many female characters in Yaoi who are Fujoshi themselves.
[edit] Gachi muchi
Recently, a subgenre of BL has been introduced in Japan, so-called "muscley-chubby BL" or gachi muchi (from gacchiri (がっちり muscular?) and muchimuchi (ムチムチ chubby?))[32] which offers more masculine body types and is more likely to have gay male authors and artists. Although still marketed primarily to women,[32] it is also thought to attract a large crossover gay male audience.[117] Although this type of material has also been referred to as "bara" among English-speaking fans,[34][35] it is not equivalent to gei comi proper (although there is considerable overlap, as writers, artists and art styles cross over between the two genres). Prior to the development of gachi muchi, the greatest overlap between yaoi and bara authors has been in BDSM-themed publications[118] such as Zettai Reido, a yaoi anthology magazine which had a number of openly male contributors.[3] Several female yaoi authors who have done BDSM-themed yaoi have been recruited to contribute stories to BDSM-themed bara anthologies or special issues.[118]
[edit] Gay rights
Many BL manga have fantastic, historic or futuristic settings, and many fans consider BL to be an "escapist fantasy".[119] Homophobia, when it is presented as an issue at all,[5] is used as a plot device to "heighten the drama",[120] or to show the purity of the leads’ love.[14] Matt Thorn has suggested that as BL is a romance narrative, having strong political themes may be a "turn off" to the readers.[10] Yaoi narratives show characters "overcoming obstacles, often internal, to be together". The theme of the victory of the protagonists in yaoi has been compared favourably to Western fairy tales, as the latter intends to enforce the status quo, but yaoi is "about desire" and seeks "to explore, not circumscribe, possibilities."[121] Hisako Miyoshi, vice editor-in-chief for Libre Publishing, has said that she feels that boys love manga has become less realist, with more comedic elements or being "simply for entertainment". She thinks that earlier BL focused "more on the homosexual way of life with a realist perspective."[122] Makoto Tateno has said that she feels that BL with a focus on realistic gay issues "won't become a trend, because girls like fiction more than realism."[123] Akiko Mizoguchi feels that while depictions of homosexuality as "shameful" to heighten dramatic tension are still shown, BL is including more coming out stories which portray a gradual acceptance from the wider community. Mizoguchi feels that BL is showing far more gay-friendly depictions of Japanese society, which she regards as activism.[90]
[edit] Idealism
[icon] This section requires expansion.
Most BL manga have been said to "foster an aesthetic of purity, even when depicting hard-core sex acts."[124] Sandra Buckley felt that the characters have equality in their relationships, which were "free of domination and exploitation".[125] Yaoi stories are often strongly homosocial, which gives the men freedom to bond with each other and to pursue shared goals together, as in dojinshi representations of Captain Tsubasa, or to rival each other, as in Haru wo Daiteita. This spiritual bond and equal partnership shown overcomes the male-female power hierarchy.[46]
[edit] Rape
According to Suzuki, sexual intercourse in yaoi is a way of expressing commitment to a partner, and "apparent violence" in sex is a "measure of passion". Suzuki elaborates that when a woman is raped, she is stigmatised by society, but in yaoi narratives, boys who are loved by their rapists are still "imbued with innocence", a theme she attributes to Kaze to Ki no Uta.[126] According to Nagaike, rape scenes in yaoi are rarely presented as crimes with an assaulter and a victim. Nagaike feels that scenes where a seme rapes an uke are not symptomatic of the seme's "disruptive sexual/violent desires", but instead are a signifier of the "uncontrollable love" felt by a seme for an uke. Instead of being depicted as a crime, rape scenes can be a plot device used to make the uke see the seme as more than just a good friend, resulting in the uke falling in love with the seme.[46] Rape fantasy themes have been said to free the protagonist of responsibility in sex, leading to the narrative climax of the story, where "the protagonist takes responsibility for his own sexuality".[111] The 2003-2005 Under Grand Hotel, set in a men's prison, has been praised for showing a more realistic depiction of rape.[127]
[edit] Tragedy
June stories with suicide endings were popular,[91] as was "watching men suffer".[128] Matt Thorn theorises that depicting abuse in yaoi is a coping mechanism for some yaoi fans.[10] By the mid 1990s the fashion was for happy endings.[91] When tragic endings are shown, the cause is not infidelity, but "the cruel and intrusive demands of an uncompromising outside world."[129]
[edit] Critical attention
Boys' Love manga has received considerable critical attention, especially after translations of BL became commercially available outside of Japan in the 21st century.[10] Different critics and commentators have had very different views of BL. In 1983, Frederik L. Schodt observed that “aesthetically” depicted male-male homosexual relationships had become popular among female readers as an extension of bisexual themes already present in shōjo manga.[130] Japanese critics have seen BL as allowing girls to distance sex from their own bodies,[131] as allowing girls to avoid adult female sexuality while simultaneously creating greater fluidity in perceptions of gender and sexuality,[132] and as rejecting “socially mandated” gender roles as a “first step toward feminism.”[133] In more elaborate theorizing, Kazuko Suzuki sees BL manga emerging from girls' contempt and dislike for masculine heterosexism and from an effort to define "ideal relationships" among men.[134] Mizoguchi, writing in 2003, feels that BL is a "female-gendered space", as the writers, readers, artists and most of the editors of BL are female.[135] BL has been compared to romance novels by English-speaking librarians.[39][120] Parallels have also been noted in the popularity of lesbianism in pornography,[37][43] and yaoi has been called a form of "female fetishism".[136] Mariko Ōhara, a science fiction writer, has said that she wrote yaoi Kirk/Spock fiction as a teen because she could not enjoy "conventional pornography, which had been made for men", and that she had found a "limitless freedom" in yaoi, much like in science fiction.[137]
Other commentators have suggested that more radical gender-political issues underlie BL. Shihomi Sakakibara (1998) argued that yaoi fans, including herself, were homosexually oriented female-to-male transsexuals.[138] For Sandra Buckley, bishōnen narratives champion “the imagined potentialities of alternative [gender] differentiations"[139] and James Welker described the bishōnen character as "queer", observing that manga critic Akiko Mizoguchi saw shōnen-ai as playing a role in how she herself had become a lesbian.[140] Dru Pagliassotti sees this and the yaoi ronsō as indicating that for Japanese gay and lesbian readers, BL is not as far removed from reality as heterosexual female readers like to claim.[15] Welker added that shōnen-ai liberates readers "not just from patriarchy, but from gender dualism and heteronormativity."[140]
Some gay and lesbian commentators have criticized how gay identity is portrayed in BL, most notably in the yaoi ronsō or "yaoi debate" of 1992–1997.[3][14] In May 1992, gay activist Masaki Satō criticized yaoi fans and artists in an open letter to the feminist zine (or minikomi in Japanese) Choisir.[3][14] Satō said that yaoi failed to provide accurate information about gay men, promoted a destructive image of gay men as wealthy, handsome, and well-educated, ignored prejudice and discrimination against gay men in society, and co-opted gay men as masturbation fantasies.[14] An extensive debate ensued, with yaoi fans and artists arguing that yaoi is entertainment for women, not education for gay men, and that yaoi characters are not meant to represent "real gay men."[14] As internet resources for gay men developed in the 1990s, the yaoi debate waned[141] but has had later echoes, for example when Mizoguchi in 2003 characterised stereotypes in modern BL as being "unrealistic and homophobic".[142] There has been similar criticism to the Japanese yaoi debate in the English-speaking fandom.[5][143][144][145] In 1993 and 2004, Matt Thorn pointed to the complexity of these phenomena, and suggested that yaoi and slash fiction fans are discontented with “the standards of femininity to which they are expected to adhere and a social environment that does not validate or sympathize with that discontent.”[10][146]
As women have greater economic power, commercial demand for the sexualization of men may correlate. Korean manhwa writer Jin Seok Jeon wrote in a commentary to Vol. 5, Chp 2 of an Arabian Nights themed shōnen-ai work, A Night of a Thousand Dreams, "Men are now marketable. It's also a time where women are big consumers and can buy almost anything they desire. Some men think this is degrading...but the tables have turned, and I like the fact that men are just as commercialized now." He jokes that after researching oil wrestling, which requires extreme physical fitness, he does not feel as marketable, illustrating that yaoi and other pornography exploiting men is subject to traditional criticisms, such as sexual objectification, creating unrealistic expectations and negative body images.
In China, BL became very popular in the late 1990s, attracting media attention, which became negative, focusing on the challenge it posed to "heterosexual hegemony". Publishing and distributing BL is illegal in mainland China.[147] Zanghellini notes that due to the "characteristics of the yaoi/BL genre" of showing characters who are often underage engaging in romantic and sexual situations, child pornography laws in Australia and Canada "may lend themselves to targeting yaoi/BL work". He notes that in the UK, cartoons are exempt from child pornography laws unless they are used for child grooming.[4]
In 2001, a controversy erupted in Thailand regarding homosexual male comics. Television reports labeled the comics as negative influences, while a newspaper falsely stated that most of the comics were not copyrighted as the publishers feared arrest for posting the content; in reality most of the titles were likely illegally published without permission from the original Japanese publishers. The shōnen ai comics provided profits for the comic shops, which sold between 30 to 50 such comics per day. The moral panic regarding the male homosexual comics subsided. The Thai girls felt too embarrassed to read heterosexual stories, so they read homosexual male-themed josei and shōjo stories, which they saw as "unthreatening."[148]
Youka Nitta has said that "even in Japan, reading boys' love isn't something that parents encourage" and encouraged any parents who had concerns about her works to read them.[149] Although in Japan, concern about manga has been mostly directed to shōnen manga, in 2006, an email campaign was launched against the availability of BL manga in Sakai City's public library. In August 2008, the library decided to stop buying more BL, and to keep its existing BL in a collection restricted to adult readers. That November, the library was contacted by people who protested against the removal, regarding it as "a form of sexual discrimination". The Japanese media ran stories on how much BL was in public libraries, and emphasised that this sexual material had been loaned out to minors. Debate ensued on Mixi, a Japanese social networking site, and eventually the library returned its BL to the public collection. Mark McLelland suggests that BL may become "a major battlefront for proponents and detractors of 'gender free' policies in employment, education and elsewhere
Panchira
Panchira (パンチラ?) is an expression used by Japanese women to warn each other that their underwear is visible; the term carries risqué connotations similar to the phrase "your slip is showing" in English usage. The word is a portmanteau of "panty" (パンティー pantī?) and chira, the Japanese sound symbolism representing a glance or glimpse.[1][2] It differs from the more general term "upskirt" in that panchira specifies the presence of underpants (the absence of which would more accurately be described as ノーパン; nōpan).
In anime and manga, panchira usually refers to a panty-shot, a visual convention used extensively by Japanese artists and animators since the early sixties. According to Japanese sources, the convention probably started with Machiko Hasegawa's popular comic strip Sazae-san, whose character designs for Wakame Isono incorporated an improbably brief hemline.[3] The practice was later transferred to animation when Osamu Tezuka's Astro Boy was adapted for television in 1963. Confined mainly to harmless children's series throughout the remainder of the decade, panchira took on more overtly fetishistic elements during the early seventies.[4] From that point on, panchira became linked with sexual humor. It is particularly prevalent in so-called shōnen manga.[5]
In anime and manga, panchira usually refers to a panty-shot, a visual convention used extensively by Japanese artists and animators since the early sixties. According to Japanese sources, the convention probably started with Machiko Hasegawa's popular comic strip Sazae-san, whose character designs for Wakame Isono incorporated an improbably brief hemline.[3] The practice was later transferred to animation when Osamu Tezuka's Astro Boy was adapted for television in 1963. Confined mainly to harmless children's series throughout the remainder of the decade, panchira took on more overtly fetishistic elements during the early seventies.[4] From that point on, panchira became linked with sexual humor. It is particularly prevalent in so-called shōnen manga.[5]
Hentai
Hentai (変態 or へんたい?) About this sound listen (help·info) is a Japanese word that, in the West, is used when referring to sexually explicit or pornographic comics and animation, particularly those of Japanese origin such as anime, manga, and computer games. The word hentai is a kanji compound of 変 (hen; "change", "weird", or "strange") and 態 (tai; "attitude" or "appearance"). The term is used as a shortened form of the phrase 変態性欲 (hentai seiyoku) meaning "sexual perversion".[1] In Japanese slang, hentai is used as an insult meaning roughly "pervert" or "weirdo".
The English use of hentai is more similar to the way the Japanese use the slang term エッチ (H or ecchi), which refers to any sexually explicit content or behaviour. The Japanese seldom use the term hentai to refer to pornography in Japan. Instead, terms such as 18-kin (18禁?, "18-prohibited"), meaning "prohibited to those not yet 18 years old", and seijin manga (成人漫画?, "adult manga") are used.[1] Less official terms also in use include ero anime (エロアニメ?), ero manga (エロ漫画?), and the English acronym AV (for "adult video").
The earliest association between anime and adult animation occurred preceding the release of Fritz the Cat when American distributors attempted to cash in on the publicity garnered from the rating by rushing out dubbed versions of two other adult animations from Japan, both of which featured an X rating in their advertising material: Senya ichiya monogatari and Kureopatora, retitled One Thousand and One Arabian Nights and Cleopatra: Queen of Sex, respectively. However, neither film was actually submitted to the MPAA, and it is not likely that either feature would have received an X rating.[2] One Thousand and One Nights was the first erotic animated feature film, and at 130 minutes, it remains one of the longest animated films.
The Lolita Anime series was the first hentai original video animation (OVA), released in 1984 by Wonder Kids, which mainly focused on underage sex, rape, and bondage. Cream Lemon, which contained many themes found in hentai today, was released later that year by Fairy Dust and contained some in-depth storylines and classic (late 1970s to early 1980s style) artwork.[3] The Brothers Grime was a three-video cartoon-pornography series produced by Excalibur Films in 1986, 1987, and 1988, using titles primarily from the Cream Lemon series, the most popular of Japan's erotic anime before Urotsukidoji.[4]
The Urotsukidoji anime series was created by Toshio Maeda in 1986 and released in America in 1992 by Anime 18. It is most famous for being the first in the tentacle rape genre, though only one scene in the first OVA actually contains any tentacle rape. Tentacle rape was not present in the Urotsukidoji manga, but was featured in a series that he would publish years later called Demon Beast Invasion. Demon Beast Invasion created what might be called the modern paradigm of tentacle porn, in which the elements of sexual assault are emphasized. Maeda explained that he invented the practice to get around strict Japanese censorship regulations, which prohibit the depiction of the penis but apparently do not prohibit showing sexual penetration by a tentacle or similar (often robotic) appendage. Maeda went on to create La Blue Girl, which departs somewhat from its predecessors by lightening the atmosphere with humor, lightly parodying the tentacle rape genre.
In November 1994 A.D. Vision released their first title, The Legend of Lyon, under its hentai label, Soft Cel Pictures. A.D. Vision put out 19 Soft Cel Pictures releases during 1995 and 12 through the first half of 1996, some of which were rereleases of previous A.D. Vision Films titles in their unedited form.[4] Soft Cel Pictures shut down in 2005 and most of its titles were acquired by Critical Mass.
Critical Mass was created in 1996 when The Right Stuf made a deal with Manga Entertainment to release an unedited edition of Violence Jack, which they deemed too intense for their normal line.[4] Critical Mass has since released a large number of hentai titles. Most of their titles are associated with The Vanilla Series, a series of hentai titles produced in Japan by Digital Works which are tied-in with eroge games of the same title. When Central Park Media went bankrupt in the year of 2009, the licenses for all Anime 18-related products and movies were transferred to Critical Mass.[5]
Censorship is practiced differently in Japan and in the USA, due to their different laws. Japanese law discourages showing of genitals in hentai, while the United States is more concerned about forbidding the display of sex acts involving people under 18, so the characters in hentai have to look 18 or older. Hence, there are censoring mosaics in Japan, and scene removals and different ages of characters in America.[4] While not featuring the censoring mosaics of the original Japanese version, the US release of La Blue Girl was edited during the initial VHS release and all scenes featuring Miko's companion Nin-Nin engaged in a sexual act were removed, probably to avoid the charge of pedophilia, in spite of the fact that the character is not a minor but a dwarf ninja. For similar reasons the age of the heroine was also altered: initially stated to be a 16 year old high-schooler in the original Japanese version, she is an 18 year old college student in the US version. The DVD release contains this edited version.[6][7] In the UK, the British Board of Film Classification refused to classify it, thus prohibiting its distribution.[8][9]
Hentai that features mainly heterosexual interactions occur in both male-targeted (ero) and female-targeted ("ladies' comics") form. Those that feature mainly homosexual interactions are known as yaoi (male-male) and yuri (female-female). Both yaoi and, to a lesser extent, yuri are generally aimed at members of the opposite sex from the persons depicted.
Yaoi commonly features males of ambiguous gender—in both physical appearance and, frequently, mannerism—called bishōnen, literally "beautiful boy". Some feature biseinen ("beautiful man"), males of more adult or masculine appearance than bishōnen. Less common are bara—larger, often heavily muscled and sometimes hairy males, the yaoi counterpart of the "bear" in gay pornography—as well as oyaji (meaning "daddy" or "uncle"), featuring middle-aged and elderly men; these types are mainly found in material aimed at gay men, which may be called bara or 'men's love' (ML), and is considered to be distinct from yaoi.[13][14] Yaoi also extends beyond the hentai genre, since it applies to any anime/manga material that includes male homosexuality, except for that actually aimed at a gay male audience. In Western usage, yaoi is distinguished from shōnen-ai (literally, "boy-love"), in which two males merely express romantic feelings for each other without actually having sexual relations; however in current Japanese usage this term most commonly refers to pornographic shotacon for men. Women interested in Yaoi are called "Fujoshi" (腐女子), a pun which translate loosely as "rotten girl" or "rotten woman".
Yuri is very similar to yaoi, except that the focus is on female homosexual interactions. The characters in yuri are typically "bishōjo", meaning "beautiful girl" (this term is not specific to yuri but is applied generally to depictions of attractive women for a male audience; for example, in the term "bishōjo game"). Shōjo-ai ("girl love") is a western term for the female equivalent of shōnen-ai; in Japan these works are also called yuri. Yuri may be aimed at (presumptively heterosexual) male, heterosexual female, or lesbian female audiences.
Hentai is perceived as "dwelling" on sexual fetishes,[10] including:
Bakunyū, the depiction of women with large breasts. Literally translated to "bursting breasts".[15]
Futanari, depictions of hermaphrodites or transsexuals that have both phallic genitalia (penis with scrotum, only a penile shaft, or an enlarged clitoris) and vaginal genitalia, or, alternatively, a feminine hourglass shape including breasts combined with a penis and scrotum.
Incest, sexual activity with legal family members; noticeably seen in The Sagara Family, a hentai computer game.
Lolicon, depicts prepubescent or preadolescent girls.
Omorashi (オモラシ / おもらし / お漏らし?) in which individuals struggle with a full bladder before finally wetting themselves (also known as watersports).
Shotacon, the depiction of young boys, either with other young boys or older men, or depicting young boys with older women (known as "straight shota" in western jargon).
Tentacle erotica, the depiction of tentacled creatures and sometimes monsters (fictional imaginative or otherwise, also includes alien-like creatures) engaging in sex or rape with girls and, less often, men.
Adult anime, or hentai anime, is anime that relies primarily on sex.
Adult manga, or hentai manga, is manga designed for purely pornographic purposes. Plot is still used to develop character and setting, but most of the time, the ultimate goal is to show scenes of sexuality with few exceptions. Adult manga is often sold in convenience stores, book stores, and magazine stores in Japan, and also other public places such as airports, and is far more prolific and accessible than the U.S. adult comic book market. It is usually distributed in digest format, containing several stories by different artists (e.g. an anthology).
Adult CG artwork includes individual drawings by artists. Art can be available on websites, CD-ROMs, or in printed art books. CG artwork is used frequently in adult video games.
Adult video games, or eroge, are games with a pornographic element. They can include bishōjo games that involve character driven plots, and can exist as sex simulations.
Adult dōjinshi, or H dōjinshi, refers to a type of work that uses copyrighted characters presented in sexual situations. It usually refers to printed manga, but can also refer to any type of visual work depicting copyrighted characters, including video games, animation, and CG artwork. Familiarity with a particular character or setting can add a sense of relating to the character over a generic character used in mainstream hentai, making dōjinshi more appealing to fans of a particular work. Despite not representing characters and licensed properties as intended, companies often view these works as a free form of license recognition and advertising through dedicated fandom. Some manga artists create hentai dōjinshi with characters from their own manga, such as Maki Murakami creating dōjinshi of Gravitation.[16][17]
The English use of hentai is more similar to the way the Japanese use the slang term エッチ (H or ecchi), which refers to any sexually explicit content or behaviour. The Japanese seldom use the term hentai to refer to pornography in Japan. Instead, terms such as 18-kin (18禁?, "18-prohibited"), meaning "prohibited to those not yet 18 years old", and seijin manga (成人漫画?, "adult manga") are used.[1] Less official terms also in use include ero anime (エロアニメ?), ero manga (エロ漫画?), and the English acronym AV (for "adult video").
The earliest association between anime and adult animation occurred preceding the release of Fritz the Cat when American distributors attempted to cash in on the publicity garnered from the rating by rushing out dubbed versions of two other adult animations from Japan, both of which featured an X rating in their advertising material: Senya ichiya monogatari and Kureopatora, retitled One Thousand and One Arabian Nights and Cleopatra: Queen of Sex, respectively. However, neither film was actually submitted to the MPAA, and it is not likely that either feature would have received an X rating.[2] One Thousand and One Nights was the first erotic animated feature film, and at 130 minutes, it remains one of the longest animated films.
The Lolita Anime series was the first hentai original video animation (OVA), released in 1984 by Wonder Kids, which mainly focused on underage sex, rape, and bondage. Cream Lemon, which contained many themes found in hentai today, was released later that year by Fairy Dust and contained some in-depth storylines and classic (late 1970s to early 1980s style) artwork.[3] The Brothers Grime was a three-video cartoon-pornography series produced by Excalibur Films in 1986, 1987, and 1988, using titles primarily from the Cream Lemon series, the most popular of Japan's erotic anime before Urotsukidoji.[4]
The Urotsukidoji anime series was created by Toshio Maeda in 1986 and released in America in 1992 by Anime 18. It is most famous for being the first in the tentacle rape genre, though only one scene in the first OVA actually contains any tentacle rape. Tentacle rape was not present in the Urotsukidoji manga, but was featured in a series that he would publish years later called Demon Beast Invasion. Demon Beast Invasion created what might be called the modern paradigm of tentacle porn, in which the elements of sexual assault are emphasized. Maeda explained that he invented the practice to get around strict Japanese censorship regulations, which prohibit the depiction of the penis but apparently do not prohibit showing sexual penetration by a tentacle or similar (often robotic) appendage. Maeda went on to create La Blue Girl, which departs somewhat from its predecessors by lightening the atmosphere with humor, lightly parodying the tentacle rape genre.
In November 1994 A.D. Vision released their first title, The Legend of Lyon, under its hentai label, Soft Cel Pictures. A.D. Vision put out 19 Soft Cel Pictures releases during 1995 and 12 through the first half of 1996, some of which were rereleases of previous A.D. Vision Films titles in their unedited form.[4] Soft Cel Pictures shut down in 2005 and most of its titles were acquired by Critical Mass.
Critical Mass was created in 1996 when The Right Stuf made a deal with Manga Entertainment to release an unedited edition of Violence Jack, which they deemed too intense for their normal line.[4] Critical Mass has since released a large number of hentai titles. Most of their titles are associated with The Vanilla Series, a series of hentai titles produced in Japan by Digital Works which are tied-in with eroge games of the same title. When Central Park Media went bankrupt in the year of 2009, the licenses for all Anime 18-related products and movies were transferred to Critical Mass.[5]
Censorship is practiced differently in Japan and in the USA, due to their different laws. Japanese law discourages showing of genitals in hentai, while the United States is more concerned about forbidding the display of sex acts involving people under 18, so the characters in hentai have to look 18 or older. Hence, there are censoring mosaics in Japan, and scene removals and different ages of characters in America.[4] While not featuring the censoring mosaics of the original Japanese version, the US release of La Blue Girl was edited during the initial VHS release and all scenes featuring Miko's companion Nin-Nin engaged in a sexual act were removed, probably to avoid the charge of pedophilia, in spite of the fact that the character is not a minor but a dwarf ninja. For similar reasons the age of the heroine was also altered: initially stated to be a 16 year old high-schooler in the original Japanese version, she is an 18 year old college student in the US version. The DVD release contains this edited version.[6][7] In the UK, the British Board of Film Classification refused to classify it, thus prohibiting its distribution.[8][9]
Hentai that features mainly heterosexual interactions occur in both male-targeted (ero) and female-targeted ("ladies' comics") form. Those that feature mainly homosexual interactions are known as yaoi (male-male) and yuri (female-female). Both yaoi and, to a lesser extent, yuri are generally aimed at members of the opposite sex from the persons depicted.
Yaoi commonly features males of ambiguous gender—in both physical appearance and, frequently, mannerism—called bishōnen, literally "beautiful boy". Some feature biseinen ("beautiful man"), males of more adult or masculine appearance than bishōnen. Less common are bara—larger, often heavily muscled and sometimes hairy males, the yaoi counterpart of the "bear" in gay pornography—as well as oyaji (meaning "daddy" or "uncle"), featuring middle-aged and elderly men; these types are mainly found in material aimed at gay men, which may be called bara or 'men's love' (ML), and is considered to be distinct from yaoi.[13][14] Yaoi also extends beyond the hentai genre, since it applies to any anime/manga material that includes male homosexuality, except for that actually aimed at a gay male audience. In Western usage, yaoi is distinguished from shōnen-ai (literally, "boy-love"), in which two males merely express romantic feelings for each other without actually having sexual relations; however in current Japanese usage this term most commonly refers to pornographic shotacon for men. Women interested in Yaoi are called "Fujoshi" (腐女子), a pun which translate loosely as "rotten girl" or "rotten woman".
Yuri is very similar to yaoi, except that the focus is on female homosexual interactions. The characters in yuri are typically "bishōjo", meaning "beautiful girl" (this term is not specific to yuri but is applied generally to depictions of attractive women for a male audience; for example, in the term "bishōjo game"). Shōjo-ai ("girl love") is a western term for the female equivalent of shōnen-ai; in Japan these works are also called yuri. Yuri may be aimed at (presumptively heterosexual) male, heterosexual female, or lesbian female audiences.
Hentai is perceived as "dwelling" on sexual fetishes,[10] including:
Bakunyū, the depiction of women with large breasts. Literally translated to "bursting breasts".[15]
Futanari, depictions of hermaphrodites or transsexuals that have both phallic genitalia (penis with scrotum, only a penile shaft, or an enlarged clitoris) and vaginal genitalia, or, alternatively, a feminine hourglass shape including breasts combined with a penis and scrotum.
Incest, sexual activity with legal family members; noticeably seen in The Sagara Family, a hentai computer game.
Lolicon, depicts prepubescent or preadolescent girls.
Omorashi (オモラシ / おもらし / お漏らし?) in which individuals struggle with a full bladder before finally wetting themselves (also known as watersports).
Shotacon, the depiction of young boys, either with other young boys or older men, or depicting young boys with older women (known as "straight shota" in western jargon).
Tentacle erotica, the depiction of tentacled creatures and sometimes monsters (fictional imaginative or otherwise, also includes alien-like creatures) engaging in sex or rape with girls and, less often, men.
Adult anime, or hentai anime, is anime that relies primarily on sex.
Adult manga, or hentai manga, is manga designed for purely pornographic purposes. Plot is still used to develop character and setting, but most of the time, the ultimate goal is to show scenes of sexuality with few exceptions. Adult manga is often sold in convenience stores, book stores, and magazine stores in Japan, and also other public places such as airports, and is far more prolific and accessible than the U.S. adult comic book market. It is usually distributed in digest format, containing several stories by different artists (e.g. an anthology).
Adult CG artwork includes individual drawings by artists. Art can be available on websites, CD-ROMs, or in printed art books. CG artwork is used frequently in adult video games.
Adult video games, or eroge, are games with a pornographic element. They can include bishōjo games that involve character driven plots, and can exist as sex simulations.
Adult dōjinshi, or H dōjinshi, refers to a type of work that uses copyrighted characters presented in sexual situations. It usually refers to printed manga, but can also refer to any type of visual work depicting copyrighted characters, including video games, animation, and CG artwork. Familiarity with a particular character or setting can add a sense of relating to the character over a generic character used in mainstream hentai, making dōjinshi more appealing to fans of a particular work. Despite not representing characters and licensed properties as intended, companies often view these works as a free form of license recognition and advertising through dedicated fandom. Some manga artists create hentai dōjinshi with characters from their own manga, such as Maki Murakami creating dōjinshi of Gravitation.[16][17]
Anime
Anime (アニメ?, [anime] ( listen); Listeni/ˈænɨmeɪ/ or /ˈɑːnɨmeɪ/) is the Japanese abbreviated pronunciation of "animation". The definition sometimes changes depending on the context.[1] In English-speaking countries, the term most commonly refers to Japanese animated cartoons.[2]
While the earliest known Japanese animation dates to 1917, and many original Japanese cartoons were produced in the ensuing decades, the characteristic anime style developed in the 1960s—notably with the work of Osamu Tezuka—and became known outside Japan in the 1980s.
Anime, like manga, has a large audience in Japan and recognition throughout the world. Distributors can release anime via television broadcasts, directly to video, or theatrically, as well as online.
Both hand-drawn and computer-animated anime exist. It is used in television series, films, video, video games, commercials, and internet-based releases, and represents most, if not all, genres of fiction. As the market for anime increased in Japan, it also gained popularity in East and Southeast Asia. Anime is currently popular in many different regions around the world
Anime began at the start of the 20th century, when Japanese filmmakers experimented with the animation techniques also pioneered in France, Germany, the United States, and Russia.[3] The oldest known anime in existence first screened in 1917 – a two-minute clip of a samurai trying to test a new sword on his target, only to suffer defeat.[4][5] Early pioneers included Shimokawa Oten, Jun'ichi Kouchi, and Seitarō Kitayama.[6]
By the 1930s animation became an alternative format of storytelling to the live-action industry in Japan. But it suffered competition from foreign producers and many animators, such as Noburō Ōfuji and Yasuji Murata still worked in cheaper cutout not cel animation, although with masterful results.[7] Other creators, such as Kenzō Masaoka and Mitsuyo Seo, nonetheless made great strides in animation technique, especially with increasing help from a government using animation in education and propaganda.[8] The first talkie anime was Chikara to Onna no Yo no Naka, produced by Masaoka in 1933.[9][10] The first feature length animated film was Momotaro's Divine Sea Warriors directed by Seo in 1945 with sponsorship by the Imperial Japanese Navy.[11]
The success of The Walt Disney Company's 1937 feature film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs influenced Japanese animators.[12] In the 1960s, manga artist and animator Osamu Tezuka adapted and simplified many Disney animation-techniques to reduce costs and to limit the number of frames in productions. He intended this as a temporary measure to allow him to produce material on a tight schedule with inexperienced animation-staff.
The 1970s saw a surge of growth in the popularity of manga – many of them later animated. The work of Osamu Tezuka drew particular attention: he has been called a "legend"[13] and the "god of manga".[14][15] His work – and that of other pioneers in the field – inspired characteristics and genres that remain fundamental elements of anime today. The giant robot genre (known as "Mecha" outside Japan), for instance, took shape under Tezuka, developed into the Super Robot genre under Go Nagai and others, and was revolutionized at the end of the decade by Yoshiyuki Tomino who developed the Real Robot genre. Robot anime like the Gundam and The Super Dimension Fortress Macross series became instant classics in the 1980s, and the robot genre of anime is still one of the most common in Japan and worldwide today. In the 1980s, anime became more accepted in the mainstream in Japan (although less than manga), and experienced a boom in production. Following a few successful adaptations of anime in overseas markets in the 1980s, anime gained increased acceptance in those markets in the 1990s and even more at the turn of the 21st century.
Japanese write the English term "animation" in katakana as アニメーション (animēshon, pronounced [animeːɕoɴ]), and the term アニメ (anime, pronounced [anime] ( listen) in Japanese) emerged in the 1970s as an abbreviation.[16] Others claim that the word derives from the French phrase dessin animé.[3] Japanese-speakers use both the original and abbreviated forms interchangeably, but the shorter form occurs more commonly.
The pronunciation of anime in Japanese, [anime], differs significantly from the Standard English /ˈænɪmeɪ/, which has different vowels and stress. (In Japanese each mora carries equal stress.) As with a few other Japanese words such as saké, Pokémon, and Kobo Abé, English-language texts sometimes spell anime as animé (as in French), with an acute accent over the final e, to cue the reader to pronounce the letter, not to leave it silent as English orthography might suggest.
Word usage
In Japan, the term anime does not specify an animation's nation of origin or style; instead, it serves as a blanket term to refer to all forms of animation from around the world.[17][18] English-language dictionaries define anime as "a Japanese style of motion-picture animation" or as "a style of animation developed in Japan".[19][20]
Non-Japanese works that borrow stylization from anime are commonly referred to as "anime-influenced animation" but it is not unusual for a viewer who does not know the country of origin of such material to refer to it as simply "anime". Some works result from co-productions with non-Japanese companies, such as most of the traditionally animated Rankin/Bass works, the Cartoon Network and Production I.G series IGPX or Ōban Star-Racers; different viewers may or may not consider these anime.
In English, anime, when used as a common noun, normally functions as a mass noun (for example: "Do you watch anime?", "How much anime have you collected?").[21] However, in casual usage the word also appears as a count noun. Anime can also be used as a suppletive adjective or classifier noun ("The anime Guyver is different from the movie Guyver").
Synonyms
English-speakers occasionally refer to anime as "Japanimation", but this term has fallen into disuse. "Japanimation" saw the most usage during the 1970s and 1980s, but the term "anime" supplanted it in the mid-1990s as the material became more widely known in English-speaking countries.[22] In general, the term now only appears in nostalgic contexts.[22] Since "anime" does not identify the country of origin in Japanese usage, "Japanimation" is used to distinguish Japanese work from that of the rest of the world.[22]
In Japan, "manga" can refer to both animation and comics. Among English speakers, "manga" has the stricter meaning of "Japanese comics", in parallel to the usage of "anime" in and outside of Japan. The term "ani-manga" is used to describe comics produced from animation cels.[23]
Visual characteristics
Anime artists use many distinct visual styles.
Many commentators refer to anime as an art form.[24] As a visual medium, it can emphasize visual styles. The styles can vary from artist to artist or from studio to studio. Some titles make extensive use of common stylization: FLCL, for example, has a reputation for wild, exaggerated stylization. Other titles use different methods: Only Yesterday or Jin-Roh take much more realistic approaches, featuring few stylistic exaggerations; Pokémon uses drawings which specifically do not distinguish the nationality of characters.[25]
While different titles and different artists have their own artistic styles, many stylistic elements have become so common that describe them as definitive of anime in general. However, this does not mean that all modern anime share one strict, common art-style. Many anime have a very different art style from what would commonly be called "anime style", yet fans still use the word "anime" to refer to these titles. Generally, the most common form of anime drawings include "exaggerated physical features such as large eyes, big hair and elongated limbs... and dramatically shaped speech bubbles, speed lines and onomatopoeic, exclamatory typography."[26]
The influences of Japanese calligraphy and Japanese painting also characterize linear qualities of the anime style. The round ink brush traditionally used for writing kanji and for painting, produces a stroke of widely varying thickness.
Anime also tends to borrow many elements from manga, including text in the background and panel layouts. For example, an opening may employ manga panels to tell the story, or to dramatize a point for humorous effect. See for example the anime Kare Kano.
While the earliest known Japanese animation dates to 1917, and many original Japanese cartoons were produced in the ensuing decades, the characteristic anime style developed in the 1960s—notably with the work of Osamu Tezuka—and became known outside Japan in the 1980s.
Anime, like manga, has a large audience in Japan and recognition throughout the world. Distributors can release anime via television broadcasts, directly to video, or theatrically, as well as online.
Both hand-drawn and computer-animated anime exist. It is used in television series, films, video, video games, commercials, and internet-based releases, and represents most, if not all, genres of fiction. As the market for anime increased in Japan, it also gained popularity in East and Southeast Asia. Anime is currently popular in many different regions around the world
Anime began at the start of the 20th century, when Japanese filmmakers experimented with the animation techniques also pioneered in France, Germany, the United States, and Russia.[3] The oldest known anime in existence first screened in 1917 – a two-minute clip of a samurai trying to test a new sword on his target, only to suffer defeat.[4][5] Early pioneers included Shimokawa Oten, Jun'ichi Kouchi, and Seitarō Kitayama.[6]
By the 1930s animation became an alternative format of storytelling to the live-action industry in Japan. But it suffered competition from foreign producers and many animators, such as Noburō Ōfuji and Yasuji Murata still worked in cheaper cutout not cel animation, although with masterful results.[7] Other creators, such as Kenzō Masaoka and Mitsuyo Seo, nonetheless made great strides in animation technique, especially with increasing help from a government using animation in education and propaganda.[8] The first talkie anime was Chikara to Onna no Yo no Naka, produced by Masaoka in 1933.[9][10] The first feature length animated film was Momotaro's Divine Sea Warriors directed by Seo in 1945 with sponsorship by the Imperial Japanese Navy.[11]
The success of The Walt Disney Company's 1937 feature film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs influenced Japanese animators.[12] In the 1960s, manga artist and animator Osamu Tezuka adapted and simplified many Disney animation-techniques to reduce costs and to limit the number of frames in productions. He intended this as a temporary measure to allow him to produce material on a tight schedule with inexperienced animation-staff.
The 1970s saw a surge of growth in the popularity of manga – many of them later animated. The work of Osamu Tezuka drew particular attention: he has been called a "legend"[13] and the "god of manga".[14][15] His work – and that of other pioneers in the field – inspired characteristics and genres that remain fundamental elements of anime today. The giant robot genre (known as "Mecha" outside Japan), for instance, took shape under Tezuka, developed into the Super Robot genre under Go Nagai and others, and was revolutionized at the end of the decade by Yoshiyuki Tomino who developed the Real Robot genre. Robot anime like the Gundam and The Super Dimension Fortress Macross series became instant classics in the 1980s, and the robot genre of anime is still one of the most common in Japan and worldwide today. In the 1980s, anime became more accepted in the mainstream in Japan (although less than manga), and experienced a boom in production. Following a few successful adaptations of anime in overseas markets in the 1980s, anime gained increased acceptance in those markets in the 1990s and even more at the turn of the 21st century.
Japanese write the English term "animation" in katakana as アニメーション (animēshon, pronounced [animeːɕoɴ]), and the term アニメ (anime, pronounced [anime] ( listen) in Japanese) emerged in the 1970s as an abbreviation.[16] Others claim that the word derives from the French phrase dessin animé.[3] Japanese-speakers use both the original and abbreviated forms interchangeably, but the shorter form occurs more commonly.
The pronunciation of anime in Japanese, [anime], differs significantly from the Standard English /ˈænɪmeɪ/, which has different vowels and stress. (In Japanese each mora carries equal stress.) As with a few other Japanese words such as saké, Pokémon, and Kobo Abé, English-language texts sometimes spell anime as animé (as in French), with an acute accent over the final e, to cue the reader to pronounce the letter, not to leave it silent as English orthography might suggest.
Word usage
In Japan, the term anime does not specify an animation's nation of origin or style; instead, it serves as a blanket term to refer to all forms of animation from around the world.[17][18] English-language dictionaries define anime as "a Japanese style of motion-picture animation" or as "a style of animation developed in Japan".[19][20]
Non-Japanese works that borrow stylization from anime are commonly referred to as "anime-influenced animation" but it is not unusual for a viewer who does not know the country of origin of such material to refer to it as simply "anime". Some works result from co-productions with non-Japanese companies, such as most of the traditionally animated Rankin/Bass works, the Cartoon Network and Production I.G series IGPX or Ōban Star-Racers; different viewers may or may not consider these anime.
In English, anime, when used as a common noun, normally functions as a mass noun (for example: "Do you watch anime?", "How much anime have you collected?").[21] However, in casual usage the word also appears as a count noun. Anime can also be used as a suppletive adjective or classifier noun ("The anime Guyver is different from the movie Guyver").
Synonyms
English-speakers occasionally refer to anime as "Japanimation", but this term has fallen into disuse. "Japanimation" saw the most usage during the 1970s and 1980s, but the term "anime" supplanted it in the mid-1990s as the material became more widely known in English-speaking countries.[22] In general, the term now only appears in nostalgic contexts.[22] Since "anime" does not identify the country of origin in Japanese usage, "Japanimation" is used to distinguish Japanese work from that of the rest of the world.[22]
In Japan, "manga" can refer to both animation and comics. Among English speakers, "manga" has the stricter meaning of "Japanese comics", in parallel to the usage of "anime" in and outside of Japan. The term "ani-manga" is used to describe comics produced from animation cels.[23]
Visual characteristics
Anime artists use many distinct visual styles.
Many commentators refer to anime as an art form.[24] As a visual medium, it can emphasize visual styles. The styles can vary from artist to artist or from studio to studio. Some titles make extensive use of common stylization: FLCL, for example, has a reputation for wild, exaggerated stylization. Other titles use different methods: Only Yesterday or Jin-Roh take much more realistic approaches, featuring few stylistic exaggerations; Pokémon uses drawings which specifically do not distinguish the nationality of characters.[25]
While different titles and different artists have their own artistic styles, many stylistic elements have become so common that describe them as definitive of anime in general. However, this does not mean that all modern anime share one strict, common art-style. Many anime have a very different art style from what would commonly be called "anime style", yet fans still use the word "anime" to refer to these titles. Generally, the most common form of anime drawings include "exaggerated physical features such as large eyes, big hair and elongated limbs... and dramatically shaped speech bubbles, speed lines and onomatopoeic, exclamatory typography."[26]
The influences of Japanese calligraphy and Japanese painting also characterize linear qualities of the anime style. The round ink brush traditionally used for writing kanji and for painting, produces a stroke of widely varying thickness.
Anime also tends to borrow many elements from manga, including text in the background and panel layouts. For example, an opening may employ manga panels to tell the story, or to dramatize a point for humorous effect. See for example the anime Kare Kano.
Google and Mozilla: Partners, Not Competitors
People never seem to understand why Google builds Chrome no matter how many times I try to pound it into their heads. It's very simple: the primary goal of Chrome is to make the web advance as much and as quickly as possible. That's it. It's completely irrelevant to this goal whether Chrome actually gains tons of users or whether instead the web advances because the other browser vendors step up their game and produce far better browsers. Either way the web gets better. Job done. The end. So it's very easy to see why Google would be willing to fund Mozilla: Like Google, Mozilla is clearly committed to the betterment of the web, and they're spending their resources to make a great, open-source web browser. Chrome is not all things to all people; Firefox is an important product because it can be a different product with different design decisions and serve different users well.
The Science of Santa
For decades, mystified scientists have chalked up Santa's power to the inexplicable wonder of magic, but North Carolina State University aerospace engineer Larry Silverberg, team leader on a first-of-its-kind visiting scholars program at Santa's Workshop-North Pole Labs (NPL), says that Santa is, in fact, a scientific genius and that Silverberg looks forward to Christmas each year, so he can ponder the remarkable accomplishments of one of the greatest pioneers in his field. 'Santa is not just a jolly old elf,' says Silverberg. 'He really has an understanding of engineering, technology, science that's far beyond our own.' It all starts at the North Pole where Santa has an elaborate technical setup that rivals the nerve center of the CIA including an underground antenna that listens to children's thoughts. 'He takes those signals and finds out whether the child has been naughty or nice, and ultimately, what present the child wants.' Santa's mastery of nanotechnology allows Santa to grow presents on the spot eschewing the necessity of carrying them on the sleigh which would be prohibitive because of the weight. Then there's Santa's sleigh itself, an advanced aerodynamic structure equipped with laser sensors to find the optimal path, and covered by a nanostructured 'skin' that is porous and contains its own low-pressure system, which holds the air flowing around the airborne sled onto the body, reducing drag by as much as 90 percent. Finally there's Santa's greatest invention, the relativity cloud, that bends time and space to allow for his round-the-world Christmas journey and explains why Santa is so seldom seen. 'Relativity clouds are controllable domains – rips in time – that allow him months to deliver presents while only a few minutes pass on Earth. The presents are truly delivered in a wink of an eye.'
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