Yaoi Manga:

Yaoi or “Boys’ Love” (BL) is exactly what it suggests; it is a homosensual genre featuring relationships between male characters. Yaoi manga is usually created by women and targets a female audience but it sometimes does attract a gay male audience. However, Yaoi is not to be misunderstood with “bara” which has homo themes too, but it has a different demographic; bara markets specifically to a gay audience.

The Yaoi / BL genre can cover a range of various other genres like comedy, science fiction, period dramas, romance etc. What most Yaoi mangas have in common are themes like forbidden relationships, portrayal of some sort of non-consensual course along with tragedy and humor.

History of Yaoi and BL Manga:

Yaoi series date decades back and first appeared around late 1970s. Originally it was used to represent fan-fiction that featured male characters of various mainstream mangas in explicit relationships or situations with each other.

However, it has now come to define female targeted mangas featuring male homo characters. Yaoi related works are currently have a very strong presence around the globe and are available to readers in numerous languages. A popular genre like Yaoi has also been a hot discussion topic for many journalists and scholars.

What kind of themes are included in Yaoi manga?

Yaoi does often include tragic themes and hard fantasies but those are highly complex. In Yaoi, hard life mostly represents the extent of passion and the victims are still considered to have their innocence intact. Very rarely are hard fantasies depicted as a criminal act in these works.

Nevertheless, Yaoi also explores other bold thematic elements like gay equality. Since sometimes female characters are often absent or the ones present have very minor, irrelevant roles in Yaoi series, the stories are strongly homosocial and therefore freeing.

Gay men have the freedom to choose their own partners and achieve their goals and futures together. It liberates the homosensual beyond the social conformities which, even today, label them as shameful. Sometimes, the manga might still represent today’s culture in the stories but they are usually still positive and promote their acceptance.

Yaoi has gained popularity even in the United States because how much women enjoy reading these types of works. Mostly young women or female teenagers are loyal readers of Yaoi mangas but a homosensual and a bisensual readership is also present.