Yaoi - Strictly speaking, m/m stories, usually in cartoon format, drawn by fans using Other People's charas. This fan-drawn yaoi is found in fan publications called doujinshi (dj- see below.) Yaoi is an acronym for 'yama nashi, ochi nashi, imi nashi': no mountain (ie peak; climax), no point, no meaning. As the acronym suggests, fannish yaoi tends to emphasize the sex over the emotions and can do without plot entirely. Yaoi takes any kind of relationship and sexualizes it: 'These guys are brothers, let's put them in bed together.' 'These guys are on the same soccer team, let's put them in bed together.' 'These guys are sworn enemies, let's put them in bed together- or even better, have one guy tie the other guy up and rape him.'
Yaoi is equivalent to 'slash' in English but with certain cultural differences. Most slash uses characters from live-action tv shows. Most yaoi uses characters from cartoon series (anime), video games, and comics (manga), in that order. (Note also that the cartoons and comics are almost invariably shounen ie those aimed at a young male audience. These have more male characters and less canonical romance than the female stuff.) Slash looks for evidence in the original series that two charas are devoted to each other before sticking them in bed together. Yaoi will pair charas together regardless of how they feel about each other. Slash is overwhelmingly text-based: 98% of it is shor 12212n1324m t stories. Yaoi is largely visual: about 90% of it is in comic format. (Later edit: in the last few years the popularity of text m/m stories has increased in Japan, and in Asia generally. Now the proportion of text djs is much higher.)
In its broad sense yaoi has come to be used (incorrectly, of course) by us westerners to mean m/m comics in general, whether series-based and amateur, or original and professional. Several factors led to this blurring of the vocabulary, the most basic one being that when the West was first buying m/m manga and doujunshi, the Japanese themselves had no clear-cut word for 'professional manga with m/m content featuring original characters.' It was called June or tanbi, sometimes, but both words were problematic. Finally the term BL (the acronym for boisu rabu, but not the same thing as shounen ai at all) came to be used as an umbrella word in the late 90's.
Note: For an up-to-date look at how the Japanese use these terms, go here
June - A longstanding term for m/m using original characters. Has two syllables because it's not the English name of the month, it's the English name of the month used as the name of a Japanese magazine. Hence ju-nay. (Which was *the* pioneering m/m magazine, by the way.) Is both an amateur and professional genre. Purists argue that June is about 'serious' romantic m/m relationships and hence should not be used for the increasing number of 'peakless, endless, pointless' sexual stories modelled on series-based yaoi. IOW Koji and Izumi's on-going angsty many-volumed relationship in the BRONZE series is June. A fifteen page story in BBoy Gold where the lusty section head hits on his subordinate, screws him for half the story's length, and then leaves him crying is not.
The other problem with using June as a genre term is deciding when it means the genre and when it means the magazine/publishing company itself. The Japanese get around this difficulty a little by having a genre called 'original June', but this still refers to *amateur* works, not professional stories. To explicate some of the confusion here:
There are three sets of criteria to be considered:
Original characters vs Series-based
Amateur vs Professional
Romantic/ serious/ relationship vs Pornographic/ frivolous/ plot? what plot?
Yaoi in a narrow sense is series-based, 'pornographic', and amateur: Gundam Wing pilots screwing each other. June is original, relationship-based, and professional: Ai no Kusabi, Kizuna.
Original June is original, romantic (by and large), and amateur. Many of the original June artists were recruited to draw comics for professional magazines like BBoy when the yaoi boom began and so became pro in very short order.
What we lack is a word for the kind of story that BBoy Gold runs, which is professional and original, but which has heavy emphasis on the sex and not as much on the characters' emotional relationships. For lack of a better word we've called it yaoi over here. The problem is that listening Japanese often get the wrong idea of what we're talking about, and can be offended if it's their own highly regarded pro works that are being labelled, essentially, 'amateur smut.'
Shounen Ai - A genre of professional comics, intended for girls (shoujo manga), that flourished in the 1980's but is now no longer produced. The word means 'boy's love' but is not the same as BL-boy's love. Tends to be about boy's love but not about boy's sex. Strong emphasis on the emotions and the angsts. Uses original characters, naturally. Classic examples: Wind and Tree Song (Kaze to Ki no Uta); The Heart of Thomas (Touma no Shinzou).
Seme and Uke - The standard Japanese sexual configuration: the passive guy in a relationship or a screw is the uke. The active guy is the seme.
Seme = top: from the verb 'semeru', attack
Uke = bottom: from the verb 'ukeru', receive
These words have two syllables because Japanese works that way, and are infintely confusible by gaijin. It's se-me and u-ke, and if you think u-ke sounds like okay sounds like what the bottom says when the top wants to screw him, maybe that will work as a mnemonic. Or think of the 's' in seme as looking like a snake = looking like a phallic symbol = looking like a penis; and the 'u' of uke as looking like the hole into which a snake might be inserted, which will help to keep their sexual roles straight.
Japanese convention is to put the seme/ top's name first. Careless westerners have given the Japanese heart attacks by talking about Riki/Iason. Beware. Yaoi uses the 'x' to separate partners rather than the western "/". Hiiro x Duo, Kurama x Hiei etc.
A book remains to be written about the Japanese attitude to seme and uke. The consensus appears to be that fixed sexual roles are necessary and that the question of who is seme and who is uke is not one to be negotiated by the partners themselves. The seme is the seme because he's the seme, and both he and the uke know it. As for what makes a seme a seme, see 'the height rule' below.
Basic vocabulary
Manga Comic books in Japan
Anime Cartoons in Japan
Doujinshi (dj) Collections of manga or short stories produced by fans of a series using the charas from that series. Written with the characters for 'same people publication.' Same as 'zine' in English. Are put out by groups called 'circles', usually two or three people who collaborate on all the stages of production. There are 'kojin' (individual) circles of one artist only, and larger circles with six or seven members. CLAMP began as a dj circle.
Mangaka The person who draws a manga (comic strip)
Djka Short for doujinshika: the person who draws a doujinshi
Shounen Manga Comics aimed at boys
Shoujo Manga Comics aimed at girls
OAV Original animation video. Not always original, I think; but the animated form of a novel like AnK (see below) or a manga like Kizuna.
Shota-con Short form of 'Shotaro (typical little boy's name) complex.' A sexual fascination with prepubescent boys, between +/- 9 and 12. A fairly recent phenomenon in manga. After that we have the Bishounen.
Bishounen 'Beautiful boy.' An ancient Japanese esthetic category, referring to a romantic and sexual fascination with adolescent boys +/- 13 to 16. The literature about bishounen goes back 1000 years. After that boys become 'biseinen', beautiful youths, which isn't quite the same thing. Biseinen have to shave, I think is the reason the samurai preferred bishounen.
The Height Rule The tendency of fans to decide which character in a series is the seme on the basis of which is the taller. This is why in YuuYuu Hakusho yaoi, the tall, gentle, self-sacrificing Kurama (whose voice actor was a woman) invariably rapes the short, feisty, dangerous Hiei, and why in DragonBall the short violent Vegeta gets hit on by everyone including his own son.
Fans will occasionally change the height of a canonically tall character when they want him to be the passive with a character who is canonically shorter than he is. Gundam Wing's Zechs is taller but younger and less sophisticated than his superior Treize. In a couple of djs, Zechs is drawn as shorter than Treize so that Treize can be a proper seme. The reason behind the height rule is probably the visual nature of yaoi: a short top looks funny to many people, just as the shorter man/taller woman configuration still strikes some people as strange.
A/U Western fanfiction term for Alternative Universe, a story where the characters are placed in a different time, country, or body than their canonical one. The Japanese have always done this, as part of the visual nature of djs. Ikki becomes a barbarian prince and Hyouga becomes a dancing boy; Hiiro appears as a ballerina in a tutu; and everybody grows ears and tails. Western slash does it too, but with difficulty: it's hard to write a convincing story where Bodie and Doyle are presented as elves, centaurs, Picts, Restoration fops and badgers: but it's been done.
PWP Western slash term meaning Plot? What plot? A story that exists only for the sex, and hence comes off sounding a lot like yaoi in English.
UST Unresolved sexual tension. Where the guys are always just on the verge of declaring themselves to each other- where the hormones and lust filling the air can be cut with a knife- and where, as an exercise in perversity by the Japanese, the Guys don't have sex as a resolution. In the west, the very palpable UST in the tv shows was what led to the growth of slash. In certain Japanese genres like the yakuza film there's a high incidence homoerotic feeling without homosexual activity, but we the editors don't know what effect, if any, this may have had on the growth of yaoi.
Reversible A yaoi character with no definite seme or uke assignation, one who can take either role but usually with different partners. GW's Quatre is uke with Trowa but seme with Duo, for instance.
Aniparo The original genre of doujinshi, not yaoi. Short for anime parody. Generally little gag pieces with characters from anime doing cute stuff, or being cast as characters from another series. (See A/U) A still-thriving genre.
Gag As the name suggests, the genre of humourous manga and doujinshi stories.
Basic social vocabulary (family)
There's no room to go into all the family words. The rule is that you call older people by their 'title' (father, mother, uncle, etc) and younger people by their names. The only problem is that we don't have a word for 'older sibling.' Hence: Nii-san is what you call your older brother (politely, o-nii-san; very politely, o-nii-sama. Usage varies from family to family.)
O-nii-san is also what you call your older brother-in-law, and any young man whose name you don't know if he's between the ages of about 18 and 30-something. It's also what male prostitutes call their customers, while 'nii-san' is what yakuza (gangsters) call the guy they're about to beat up on.
Nee-san (pronounced nei-san) is what you call your older sister or sister-in-law, with the same polite variants, and also any young woman whose name you don't know between 18 and 40 something. After that you call her obasan (aunt) and she goes home and cries. If you're an older Japanese you can call waitresses 'o-nee-san', but foreigners are advised not to try it.
Oyaji is a colloquial and male term for father. All English equivalents are dated eg 'Pops'. Has about the same feel as 'the old man' but can also be used as a direct form of address.
Basic social vocabulary (honorifics)
It's easier to say who doesn't use honorifics in Japan than who does: adolescent boys and young men talking to each other (sometimes), and older males yelling at younger ones (sometimes). Hence Yuuyuu's heroes call each other 'Urameshi' and 'Kuwabara' with nary a 'san' or 'kun' to be heard. A very small group of people, mostly young, are allowed to call each other by their first names, with or without honorifics, but last name plus honorific is the general rule in adult society. And for the record, most intimate relationships involve calling the other person by one of the many versions of 'you.'
-chan: small children of either sex to about age 5, often with a shortening of the name itself eg Ayano becomes Aya-chan, Saori becomes Sa-chan
-kun: young boys from primary school on up, by teachers and friends alike. Like -chan, this can involve a shortening of the first name eg Makoto Suzuki becomes Ma-kun to his family. Or he can be called Makoto-kun or, in school, Suzuki-kun.
-san: the default honorific, attached not only to last names but also to occupations: o-mawari-san = the cop on the beat
-sama: the deferential form of -san. Not used that much these days except about certain members of the royal family. The Emperor and the Crown Prince are never called by name, so much so that I've forgotten what their names are, if I ever knew: they're Tennou Heika and the Koutaishi to me. But the Koutaishi's wife is eg Masako-sama. -Sama is used much more in period stories and fantasy.
Sensei: always applied to doctors, professors, and teachers of any description, but also to any kind of 'master' from chefs to mangaka. As a term of address, can be used for instance by underlings to the owner of the beauty parlour.
-dono: in historical works, an honorific for practically anyone from feudal lords down to ordinary townspeople. Usage may depend on period, but I don't know more than that.
Basic social vocabulary: extra=family
Senpai The guy who was in an organization, school, company etc ahead of you. The guy who was in grade three when you were in grade two. This makes a difference all your life.
Kouhai The guy who was behind you in an organization, school company etc.
Kachou, buchou, shachou Section head, division head, company president. The three most important men in any man's life. Frequent source of yaoi fodder.
Miscellaneous
Iya da, dame, yamete, hanase (hanashite)-- respectively: 'no, no, stop, and let me go.' What Japanese ukes say to their semes instead of ok in yaoi if not in real life.
The self-lubricating penis: the tendency of yaoi artists to draw penises- or the glowing cones of light that take the place of penises in Japan, where naked penises are censorable- which are awash in unidentifiable lubricating liquid of some description. Related to the similar phenomenon of the self-lubricating anus.
Omae wa ore no mono da: 'You belong to me.' Typical seme line, to go with the seme behaviors.
Series abbreviations and couplings (sic) for some of the main yaoi fandoms
YYH- YuuyuuHakusho, (White Paper on Poltergeists). Manga and anime series. Main pairing: the demon turned human Kurama/ the still very much a demon Hiei
GDW- Gundam Wing, anime series. Latest in the continuing anime saga of the gundam fighters, who pilot anthropoid fighting machines. GW had five of these teenage pilots, who fall into the pairings of Hiiro/Duo and Trowa/Quatre. The older male characters are Zechs (long blond hair and a mask) and Treize (divine decadence, given to rose baths.) The fifth pilot Wu Fei gets paired with Treize because they hate each others guts.
Rurou- Rurou ni Kenshin, samurai manga and anime series. Set near the end of the shogunate regime in the mid-19th century, as Japan was opening up to the west. Main pairing: the scarred redhaired rounin (masterless samurai) Kenshin and his townsman friend Sanosuke. Kenshin was a professional killer, but Sano is taller, hence it's Sano/Kenshin most of the time.
SD- Slam Dunk, a manga and anime tv series. About a high school basketball team. Not up on it, but pairings include Ryuukawa and Sakuragi.
SS; Seiya- one of the grandaddies of the yaoi genre. St.Seiya, an anime series and a number of OAVs, about five young 'eternal warriors' who begin by guarding the goddess Athena in her current incarnation. Main pairing: the dark-haired Ikki and the gold-haired Hyouga; secondary pairing: Ikki and his younger brother Shun (the one in pink armor with bumpy bits.)
Shurato- another classic anime series, loosely based on Indian legend. Two high school friends are transported to a different dimension where they find themselves fighting on opposite sides, because one of them (Gai) has had a little identity transplant along the way. Main pairing: Gai and Shurato. Secondary pairing: the evil lord Indra and Gai; best friends Ryoma and Hyuga; the gay, seductive Reiga and anybody.
SM- Sailor Moon, relentlessly straight except for the second season set of bishounen badnasties. Kunshite (English name Malachite) and Zoicyte are practically canon. Nephrite and Jedite are not, but who cares? Not exactly yaoi but fun anyway (and canonical as all get out) are the third season dykes Haruka and Michiru. The only shoujo (girl-oriented) series mentioned here.
Troopers; Samuari Troopers: Another band of five boy-warriors in special armours that had risen to yaoi fandom much like the set of inter-slashable boy-warriors of Saint Seiya.
Other classic works with significant m/m content
RGV- the shoujo manga RG Veda by the group CLAMP. Based loosely on Indian mythology with a huge cast of gods and demons. Main coupling; Tai (Taishakuten), mad emperor of heaven, and Ash (Ashura-oh, long-dead god of destruction.) Took the fans ten volumes and just as many years to find out why Ash is long-dead. Discovery sparked the whole school of Tai/Ash yaoi. (Information on RG Veda is available in the manga shelf)
AnK- Ai no Kusabi, an untranslateable title. June (the genre) novel turned into June (the publishing company) anime video. Future dystopia where the semi-android Iason, one of the elite 'Blondies' (is what they're called, no joke), falls in love with the 'slum rat' Riki. Secondary and rather more interesting characters are Raoul (also a blondie) and Katse (castrated slum rat turned black market dealer.) (Information on AnK is available in the manga shelf)
Zetsuai/BRONZE: the manga series Zetsuai 1989 and BRONZE: Zetsuai since 1989, by Ozaki Minami, plus several videos and cds. Study in pathology, as the rock star Koji stalks the soccer player Izumi. Plus a host of insane friends and relations. (Information on Zetsuai/Bronze is available in Members' manga shelf)
Eroica- the manga From Eroica with Love (Eroica yori Ai o Komete) by Aoike Yasuko. In which the flamboyantly gay art thief and aristocrat Dorian Red Gloria pursues the terribly straight and puritanical NATO agent Klaus von dem Eberbach for twenty volumes and never gets him, because Aoike wants Klaus for herself.
|
