Boys' love
Boys' love (Japanese: ボーイズ ラブ, Hepburn: bōizu rabu), also known by its abbreviation BL (ビーエル, bīeru), is a genre of fictional media originating in Japan that depicts homoerotic relationships between male characters.
BL spans a wide range of media, including manga, anime, drama CDs, novels, video games, television series, films, and fan works.
Concepts and themes associated with BL include androgynous men known as bishōnen; diminished female characters; narratives that emphasize homosociality and de-emphasize socio-cultural homophobia; and depictions of rape.
[22] Homosexuality and androgyny have a history in Japan dating to ancient times, as seen in practices such as shudō (衆道, same-sex love between samurai and their companions) and kagema (陰間, male sex workers who served as apprentice kabuki actors).
The Year 24 Group contributed significantly to the development of the shōjo manga, introducing a greater diversity of themes and subject material to the genre that drew inspiration from by Japanese and European literature, cinema, and history.
[46][47] Early yaoi dōjinshi produced for Comiket were typically derivative works, with glam rock artists such as David Bowie and Queen as popular subjects as a result of the influence of Fire!
[58] Works influenced by shōnen-ai in the 1980s began to depict older protagonists and adopted a realist style in both plot and artwork, as typified by manga such as Banana Fish (1985–1994) by Akimi Yoshida and Tomoi (1986) by Wakuni Akisato [ja].
[65] Consequently, yaoi and "boys' love" (BL) came to be the most popular terms to describe works depicting male-male romance, eclipsing shōnen-ai and June.
[74] South Korea saw the development of BL in the form of manhwa, notably Martin and John (2006) by Park Hee-jung and Crush on You (2006) by Lee Kyung-ha.
[86] Bishōnen as a concept can be found disparately throughout East Asia, but its specific aesthetic manifestation in 1970s shōjo manga (and subsequently in shōnen-ai manga) drew influence from popular culture of the era, including glam rock artists such as David Bowie,[87] actor Björn Andrésen's portrayal of Tadzio in the 1971 film adaptation of Death in Venice, and kabuki onnagata Bandō Tamasaburō.
[86] These terms originated in martial arts, and were later appropriated as Japanese LGBT slang to refer to the insertive and receptive partners in anal sex.
[95] Aleardo Zanghellini suggests that the martial arts terms have special significance to a Japanese audience, as an archetype of the gay male relationship in Japan includes same-sex love between samurai and their companions.
[95] The seme is often depicted as restrained, physically powerful, and protective; he is generally older and taller,[96] with a stronger chin, shorter hair, smaller eyes, and a more stereotypically masculine and "macho"[97] demeanour than the uke.
[106] Occasionally, authors will forego the stylisations of the seme and uke to portray both lovers as "equally attractive handsome men", or will subvert expectations of dominance by depicting the active pursuer in the relationship as taking the passive role during sex.
"[18] BL stories are often strongly homosocial, giving men freedom to bond and pursue shared goals together (as in dojinshi adaptations of shōnen manga), or to rival each other (as in Embracing Love).
"[126] In 2019, BL manga magazine editors have stated that stories where a man is concerned about coming out as gay have become uncommon and the trope can be seen as outdated if used as a source of conflict between the characters.
[115] Anal sex is understood as a means of expressing commitment to a partner, and in BL, the "apparent violence" of rape is transformed into a "measure of passion".
[43][44] Characteristic similarities of fan works in both Japan and the West include non-adherence to a standard narrative structures and a particular popularity of science fiction themes.
[86] Early BL dōjinshi were amateur publications that were not controlled by media restrictions, were typically derivative works based on existing manga and anime, and were often written by teenagers for an adolescent audience.
Many publishing companies review BL dōjinshi to recruit talented amateurs; this practice has led to careers in mainstream manga for Youka Nitta, Shungiku Nakamura, and others.
Much of the material derives from male-oriented shōnen and seinen works, which contain close male-male friendships perceived by fans to imply elements of homoeroticism,[19] such as with Captain Tsubasa[20] and Saint Seiya, two titles which popularized yaoi in the 1980s.
Levi notes that "the youthful teen look that so easily translates into androgyny in boys' love manga, and allows for so many layered interpretations of sex and gender, is much harder for slash writers to achieve.
[120] While Ossan's Love is an original series, it influenced the creation of live-action BL works adapted from manga that are marketed towards mass audiences; notable examples include the television dramas The Novelist [ja] (2018) on Fuji TV, What Did You Eat Yesterday?
[182] The Thai romantic drama film Love of Siam (2007), which features a gay male romance storyline, found unexpected mainstream success upon its release and grossed over TH฿40 million at the box office.
[192] The BL genre didn't receive much traction in the country until 2022, when the series Semantic Error achieved a major domestic success and became a social phenomenon in South Korea.
[200] That same year, the company published Absolute Obedience,[201] while Hirameki International licensed Animamundi; the later game, although already nonexplicit, was censored for US release to achieve a "mature" rather than "adults only" ESRB rating, removing some of both the sexual and the violent content.
[224] Kazuko Suzuki, for example, believes that the audience's aversion to or contempt for masculine heterosexism is something which has consciously emerged as a result of the genre's popularity.
[239] In 2010, the Osaka Prefectural Government included boys' love manga among with other books deemed potentially "harmful to minors" due to its sexual content,[242] which resulted in several magazines prohibited from being sold to people under 18 years of age.
[244] In 2018, the pseudonymous Chinese BL novel author Tianyi was sentenced to 10+1⁄2 years in prison under laws prohibiting the production of "obscene material for profit".
[247] 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".
