Talk:Yaoi

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[edit] Origin

Yamete kudasai, oshiri ga itai yo! ("Please stop, my butt hurts!") is not what yaoi stands for, but it's a common enough humorous expansion to deserve some mention somewhere ....

I thought it was yamette, oshiri itai... well, but that's the shorthand version anyway. -- AllyUnion (talk) 00:09, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Whatever it allegedly stands for, it sounds more like a backronym than a true etymology to me. If someone can confirm this (I'm basing it on gut feeling alone) perhaps the page should include a note about this. (EldKatt 11:42, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC))

That's correct. It's a made-up, humorous backronym. - Montréalais 15:34, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)

jaoi? With a j? RickK 04:21, 18 Nov 2003 (UTC)

What? Not like an english j-sound, anyway... If you are talking about IPA or Sampa, it would be j...

Regarding the pronunciation, sound like "Yow-ee" rather than "Ya-oy" is in fact precisely the wrong way around for Japanese -- is it commonly mispronounced in the US? Jpatokal 14:23, 31 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Is this Japanese? why not make a note? --哈越中 (talk) 12:16, May 30, 2004 (UTC)

Some psychologists have claimed that Yaoi is a hidden form of lesbian pointing out that the role reversals occure very frequently.

I can't make any sense of this. Which psychologists? What role reversals? How does this relate to lesbianism? Can somebody who's more familiar with this subject explain and/or rewrite the sentence? —67.69.189.36 13:29, 7 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I can't either. The only thing I remember is reading an article in the Los Angeles Times describing why young girls are so attracted to yaoi when it was talking about Anime Expo. -- AllyUnion (talk) 00:13, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I agree. I have just finished a project on Yaoi and BL which involved interviews and statements from fans, artists and publishers of such material and this never came up. I also looked in to all the analytical pieces written on this subject (they're aren't many of note) and again this theory was never mentioned. If we could have a source for this theory I would be less sceptical about its worth. I also find it very odd (the meaning is fairly hard to decipher positively) and also poorly explained. If we are going to make a point about role reversal I would highlight instead a very interesting conclusion that I came to - that the role reversal is a complex mix of enablement - enabling women to become male and play that role; the reality that infact this is straight sexuality that the reader is experiencing between people of the same sex but not the same gender (strict gender roles can often be observed); female gender dissalusionment and female relationship disillusionment - they can enjoy yaoi/BL because it does not reflect the grim reality of their oen experiences and also enables revenge. Men are mase to feel the pain of a woman - literally when they lose their homosexual 'virginity' - when penetrated for the first time - and even more so the pain of love, passion and obsession.

I'm not saying that this rant should be included in the page!!! - but that there are many more valid and interesting things to say about role reversal in yaoi. --Sharonlees 13:24, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] joke

I took out the 'joke' part of the yaoi entry. I don't think it belongs at all. And it is offensive. If you are only posting it to be funny, post it in a forum instead, not on a serious website which is devoted to scholarly research. This seems like something a twelve year old would include.

Perhaps putting it under the joke section is not optimal, but I think it does belong in the article somewhere. As mentioned before, people do frequently hear this. Hence, there are some scholarly value in documenting the existence of this phrase. As for offensiveness, could you clarify why you find it offensive? If you meant that looking at in only as a joke, then I can see your point. Nevertheless, its humorous quality should still be noted. madoka 20:09, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Confused

This article list Yuu Watase as a BL author. We're refering to the same Watase who did Fushigi Yugi, right? What BL/yaoi did she do? I'm asking because here name on there seems like a mistake.

[edit] Reactions from conservatives?

I am surprise that with so much implied Yaoi in anime, that none of the conservative group take actions against anime... I mean, they can even do that to Spongebob... so it surprised me, you know.

I think the reason is because it is largely under their radar. The reality is that, despite what some anime fans may think, anime is still not exactly a "mainstream" phenomenon in America. Sure, it's everywhere, but so is sci fi, detective fiction, fantasy, and horror, and those aren't really mainstream, per se, either. Like all of those, anime is still a niche market, it just happens to be one that is enjoying a large boom in popular appeal at the moment. How long that will last is unclear, and largely irrelevant to this discussion, however. Since anime itself is still something of a niche interest, specific sub genres of anime are even moreso. Mecha and toy shows like Pokemon and Yugioh are a bit more well known than other anime, but thats because they have popular series aired on cartoon network, whereas yaoi and shounen ai series have nothing similar to their name. Something might bring it to their attention in the future, but I think it is more likely that the popularity of anime will peak and begin to decline before that happens.

[edit] Added back the correct pronounciation - All 3 syllables are pronounced.

Ya-oy is incorrect, as is Yow-ee. The word is an acronym, so the "oi" is not a diphthong.

I agree. Japanese pronunciation should be followed. It shouldn't be misread as a dipthong. --lux 07:27, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

I agree with 'yow-ee' as a gravely incorrect pronunciation, but will contend with your notion that 'ya-oy' is incorrect, because it is actually not only viable but perhaps more common in colloquial tongue. I strongly agree that with you in that the Japanese pronunciation should be followed at all times. However, please do not forget that there are linguistic differences between the spoken and written that can affect delivery and perception in the former. In conjunction with certain contextual conditions, these subtle differences are why, to a fluent or native speaker, "yah-oy" is acceptable and "yow-ee" is completely unacceptable in actual speech. This suggests that the problem is with the treatment of the latter two syllabaric characters by non-fluent or non-native speakers. All 3 kana are indeed pronounced, but not necessarily with equal weight. Please allow me to elaborate.

To get a feel for how this works if you are not a fluent or native speaker, try speaking a particular Japanese word of your liking correctly (being faithful to the syllabaric characters) but rapidly and repeatedly. Imagine a normal-paced conversation in a fast-lane environment as you do. Think about how your pronunciation becomes affected in this process. This phenomenon is easily observed in words like the highly important「です」 where the "u" component of "su" is usually silent; in places where it appears in the middle of a word it can be pronounced so fleetingly that it is almost silent, for example with words like 「キャスト」, 「ウイスキー」, and 「スペシャル」.　Usually, only when such words are pronounced slowly and deliberately for purposes of emphasis does the "u" sound come to the fore. The point of this, of course, is to show that the guiding principle, while it definitely exists, is not always as obvious as some would like to think.

That the guiding rule does exist is important to remember, because many of us would like to get away with incorrect pronunciation and claim some license as an excuse. I myself am a stickler for all forms of grammatical rules as one who studies computational linguistics. On the other hand, it is important to remember that knowing the correct rule that governs that situation is not immediately obvious to everyone, so both care and grace to others must be excercised.

Going back to my earlier comments, the confusion lies elsewhere and addressing that issue is the key to resolving the ambiguity. I believe it arises from the strong tendency of non-native speakers to treat the 「い」 in 「やおい」and similar constructions as an 「いい」 sound instead, as is obvious here with everyone romanizing the singular 'i' as 'ee'. The 「い」 is in fact a short "i" sound that is neither "ee" nor "eye", it is merely 「い」, though it would appear there is no convenient, unambiguous way to romanize that syllable. Think of it as half of "ee" if you will. To make the true "ee" sound in Japanese, it would be written explicitly as 「いい」. 「い」as it stands is free to join certain other syllables to form phonemes such that a construct like 「おい」 is correctly pronounced as 'oy'. In a resounding 'yes', that dipthongs can and do in fact exist in Japanese, and not only that, but their usage is hardly uncommon. Moreover, this particular dipthong is very common and is properly spoken and heard as a single phoneme.

Consider even expressions like 「おいっ！」and 「遅い！」 and it will become clear that this particular syllabic vowel pair is prevalent; there is no other way possible to produce the "oy" phoneme in writing and yet it is encountered frequently in everday speech. Take the notion of 「い」 being pronounced as "ee" away, and it ought to eliminate the notion that 「やおい」 can be pronounced as if it were a Chinese name (Yao Ii, and yes, I am acquainted to someone by that name) instead of a word natively born in modern Japanese. To those still having doubts and raise the objection of "wee" being a phoneme itself and perhaps acceptable, the answer is simple: while "wee" is a phoneme, it does not belong in the word at all. In order to pronounce　「やおい」as being close to 'yow-ee' or 'yao-ee', the kana must read 「やういー」,「やうぃ」, or even「やおうぃー」, which resemble nothing close to「やおい」. These (former three) are not the 'ee's you are looking for. 「い」is no more or less than「い」unless it's trying to be 「いい」 or 「いぃ」(more on this later).

Quirks like these are why one *will* hear a lot of things in Japanese that can appear to be dipthongs or are dipthongs for practical purposes, at least as far as the spoken language is concerned. You won't usually hear a Japanese fluent or native speaker say 面白い【おもしろい】with an emphasis on that 「い」. It is pronounced 'o-mo-shi-roy' unless under emphasis, and a native speaker might feel awkward consistently saying 'o-mo-shi-ro-ee'. (Slang, however, allows us to say 「おもしれぇ」'o-mo-shi-reh', but that's a different issue).

Note there are even further quirks to the treatment of the 'i' sound in Japanese that can make it even more daunting. An example of this was with the character Lily Shearfield in the ((visual novel)) Duel Saviour by「戯画」GIGA; her stern character constantly corrects others who pronounce her name 「リリ」 or 「リリー」, insisting that it is 「リリィ」(note the small "i" is not a simple font size change but an actual character that changes pronunciation as opposed to being there for style, implying that the "ly" of "Lily" is longer than 「リ」 but shorter than 「リー」). Again, these are cues strongly tied to the cultural environment of the spoken word and require experience in the native environment to fine tune more than anything else.

After all that, what we are left contending with then, is not that 'oy' is unfeasable but that the "i" should be stressed because it is an acronym. In which case, its identity as an acronym no longer limits it to function solely as an acronym, as it has developed into its own word with its own proper meaning. Thus, whether it is pronounced 'ya-oy' or 'ya-o-i' (remember not to lengthen that 'i'), it is perfectly acceptable; "yow-ee" on the other hand, as our friends in Monty Python would say, is right out. seikensha 14:52, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm going to go with lux on this one. Any time a word is imported from another language, the correct pronunciation is the way it is pronounced in the original language. AssassinGalaxia 14:59, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Yaoi, while commonly used as a word, is actually an acronym - there is no 'official' pronunciation, though the most common is the one currently given in the main article. In other words, there shouldn't be a fuss over the pronunciation of a word that doesn't technically exist. MadameRuby 23:40, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

No, actually the string やおい has precisely one possible pronunciation in Japanese, and as stated above it's "yah-oh-ee". Jpatokal 05:45, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

I have heard two seperate versions of where the term "yaoi" had originated from and thought that it may help in the pronunciation category.

There is an acroym for yaoi, in which, I've heard it spoken "yow-ee" This comes from (and you can find it here : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yaoi ) the phrase "「ヤマなし、オチなし、意味なし」 (yama nashi, ochi nashi, imi nashi), meaning "no climax, no punch line, no meaning.""

"Yow-ee" is not the correct pronunciation by any standard: formal syllabic, colloquial, or otherwise. Please refer to my post above.

The phrase "yamanashi, ochinashi, iminashi" certainly seems to be the generally accepted origin of the word as is used in open forums such as 2ch.net, a prominent Japanese BBS on the scale of the world's biggest and whose participants are almost always native Japanese speakers. Please refer to the Japanese Wikipedia entry for やおい　as well, on http//ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/やおい in the 3rd line under the section 「来歴」(raireki). Also, it should be noted that the use of the acronym "BL" (for "boys' love") seems to be increasingly more commonly used in colloquial speech as a euphemism for やおい; the acronym is briefly noted under the same section, 3rd line of the 6th paragraph. seikensha 12:23, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Then there is the second, やおい which is spoken, as mentioned, "yah-oh-ee" which is the correct Japanese pronunciation. In this version, yaoi means "rose". In certain areas of the slash fandom, femalexfemale and malexmale have been referred to as "the lily and the rose" (yuri if and yaoi).

No, it doesn't. Rose is bara or roozu. Jpatokal 07:58, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Jpatokal is correct. Though, it's understandable why the confusion is there; the popular media was the first to label the gay community as the 薔薇族 (bara-zoku), quite literally the Rose People. Otherwise it has nothing to do with the development of やおい except for the fact that it was another label. seikensha 15:17, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Since it is so often disputed, does anyone has access to a clip of a Japanese person, with Japanese as their first language saying "yaoi"? I also think that this would actually be useful to the article. Statuess 15:52, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Can someone please check the pronounciation? As it is now, it's exceptionally against the pronounciation "yow-ee" even as a layman's pronounciation, but the Japanese speaking people I've spoken to say it's a fine layman's pronounciation and every time I hear it said properly, I can see why people would hear it as "yow-ee" if they don't know how it should be pronounced, whereas with the acceptable pronounciations I'm left thinking "Where did they get that from?" Iwanttobeasleep 20:03, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Instead of fighting about right and wrong, why doesn't someone just IPA code the correct pronunciation? DrGaellon 23:40, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Comment

I'd like to make it clear however that all the above animations or manga books are not yaoi in themselves, but merely had doujinshi written by other authors using the characters. All except for Gravitation which did focus on a BL relationship. -- 67.81.42.121 07:53, 6 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Obsolete?

Just curious, why in the world is there the statement: now-obsolete shōnen-ai. ? Just what is obsolete about it? Far as I know, it's still a perfectly valid term, and the article about it makes no mention. Melodia Chaconne 9 July 2005 19:15 (UTC)

Old terms like shounenai or tanbi are considered obsoletes in Japan. Shounenai can be used to refer to tragic old shoujo titles like Keiko Takemiya's Kaze to Ki no Uta, but not for recent BL titles. Have you read the Shonen-ai article ? Or maybe you were just talking about the use of the term shounenai in the US...

[edit] The History of Yaoi/BL in Japan

The followings are my opinion.

--- There has been the concept of pederasty which mainly refers to the classic Greek pederasty in Japan, and this concept has been called shounen-ai (ja:少年愛). Novelist Inagaki Taruho had written many boy-boy homosexual-like stories in early to middle 1900's, but he also wrote famous essay book /Shounen-ai no Bigaku (The Aesthetics in Shounen-ai) / in around late 1960's. SHOUNEN-AI in /Shounen-ai no Bigaku/ referred to those of wide-meaning pederasty including ancient Greek pederasty, Japanese shudo, Chinese Rendo-ai (love to beautiful boy) etc. The concept of this book is that of original meaning of pederasty and this is original usage of the term, Japanese /shounen-ai/.

--- In early 1970's, some pederastic/homosexual cinema films were introduced in Japan such as the film based on Thomas Mann's /Der Tod in Venedig/. Bjorn Andersen who played a boy in this film was widely known in Japan and many fans of young girls appeared. Almost at the same time, the new wave of shoujo-manga took place and were widely spreaded. Hagio Moto, Takemiya Keiko, and Yamagishi Rhouko are major manga artists of this wave. They made the works including the themes of boy-boy (around 12 to 14 years) homosexual love relation, such as /Tooma no Shinzo/, /Kaze to Ki no Uta/, /Hi izuru tokoro no Tenshi/ etc. The style of these works was called /shounen-ai/ manga.

--- In the middle of 1970's, novelist Kurimoto Kaoru (aka Nakajima Azusa) wrote some pederastic stories such as /Ma-yonaka no Tenshi/ and /Tsubasa aru Mono/. In these stories, Kurimoto described sexual relation between adult men and young man (beautiful boy over 16 years). She could not publish these stories. But after she got success and became one of the most famous novelists, she published these stories in 1980's and wrote more stories of pederasty. Her works were also classified as /shounen-ai theme/ works.

--- In 1981, magazine /JUN/ had been published, and it had been soon changed its name to /JUNE/. Kurimoto Kaoru contributed many pederastic works to this magazine. Manga artist Takemiya Keiko drew the cover pictures and illusts for this magazine in the early volumes. Then pederastic /shounen-ai/ stories were called /june/. Throughout 1980's, /shounen-ai/ and /june/ were genre name of pederastic male-male relation novels and mangas. Many fan-writers made thier debut in this magazine and some of them became professional novelist as Kurimoto Kaoru operated regular work-shops of shounen-ai stories on this magazine and many fan-writers contributed many fan-stories in 1980's.

--- In the late 1980's, the term /Ya-O-I (yah-oh-ee)/ appeared. And the term /Tambi-shousetsu/ began to be used for classifying special type of june/shounen-ai stories. In this time, the terms /shounen-ai/, /june/, /ya-o-i/, and /tambi-shousetsu/ were used. Many girls and young women created /doujin-shi/ magazines in which they expressed /shounen-ai/ stories and mangas and illusts. These extraordinarily much doujinshis were sold in Comikets (Comic Markets in Japan).

--- In the middle of 1990's, some publishers of ya-o-i/june works etc. began to utilise the term /boh-izu-rabu == boys love/, perhaps to commercially characterize/distinguish and appeal their books, i.e. ya-o-i stories and mangas.

--- In the 2000's, /ja:bouizu-rabu/ or /BL/ have established its citizenship as an independent genre in Japanese subculture. And now, /BOUIZU-RABU/ is very big name and big genre in stories, mangas etc. for mainly young women and girls.

--- Addition: the relation between Yaoi/BL and anime seems to be secondary. The relation is just on borrowing anime characters and using them as characters appeared in Yaoi/BL stories. Anime may be non-essential to Yaoi/BL stories in Japan.

These are outlines of the history which I know.(For more details, I should research. The articles in Japanese Wiki include perhaps some errors because many writers do not know the history and historical situations of these genres.) --Maris stella 05:38, 12 February 2006 (UTC) / correction, --Maris stella 10:21, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Examples of Yaoi

The following were removed without explanation by a couple of anonymous editors:

I've re-added Gravitation, but I'm not familiar enough with the other three to know whether or not they should be re-added as well. --Icarus 04:30, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Isn't Loveless shounen-ai? I'm going to re-add Loveless but I don't know the other two. mirageinred 05:58, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

I have pointed out the shotacon content in Loveless. Because I think it is important to note that Loveless is the first manga/anime with shotacon allusions to do commercially well in the West. Plus in a way this is a sub-genre within yaoi/BL.

Tokyo Babylon is most certainly a BL manga. Much of it is implied, but there is definite romance (or at least flirting) between Seishirou and Subaru. I can't imagine why it was taken off the list.

Yeah its just that BL - there is a BL/shouenen-ai page you guys!! --Sharonlees 09:08, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Yami no Matsuei is shounen-ai, not BL. DrGaellon 23:41, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Although I'm not a frequent contributer to this article, I'm going to add "Captain Tsubasa" to the list of manga that have been used for the creation of doujinshi. Although it is quite old, many works were based on it and it is frequently cited as an example in scholarly articles. --Karrde 23:22 19 March 2007

[edit] Overview

I've taken out Watase Yuu's name from the Overview as she is not a yaoi manga author. She is a shoujo manga author instead with such titles as Fushigi Yuugi, Ayashi no Ceres, Imadoki, Alice 19th, etc.

Seoi 00:35, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Clarified the pronounciation paragraph as well. (Did so the same day as above edit; forgot to note.)

Seoi 01:32, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Removal + (Re)Additions in Examples of Yaoi

I removed "Yukio Mishima" from the Examples as he is a popular Japanese novelist, not a manga author nor a BL manga work himself.

I've added back in:

I've also added in "Animal X", "Ikoku Irokoi Romantan", and "Koori no Mamono no Monogatari".

Seoi 00:35, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] question

Is there a reason why there are so many authors/mangakas and books listed? I see why Bronze, Kaze to Ki no Uta, and Gravitation may be important, but fail to see the importance of Ikoku Irokoi Romantan or Kashou no Tsuki or even Enzai. Similarly, the authors' list is long and overwhelming; even as a frequent yaoi reader myself, I got a little irritated by the number of authors in this article. I don't want to edit this in case there's a point, but I hope someone will revisit that part of the article? Vignette00 19:59, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps it's to possibly show the range and breadth of yaoi as an established (sub)genre in Japan, while it is just going "mainstream" (being picked up by publishing houses, being sold at large bookstores, etc) in America?

Seoi 20:31, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Shouldn't there be a section for the bara styled and oyaji styled yaoi? I can't even find a seperate catagory of it.

Like the G-men magazine and a lot of other famous bara artists in Japan.

I do not think the yaoi list is representative enough of the more explicit manga - and really true yaoi. A lot of the titles are BL - or even only implied BL!!!! Which is fine I guess but there has to be more actual yaoi on the list. I have added Ayano Yamane's Finder Series but really there should be some more real yaoi on there. Perhaps I'll get round to adding some more????

[edit] References, Articles and Interviews

I have removed the JP best sellers list as this was really in essence an advert. The link for the Mark McLelland article was redirecting to an empty space and so I have posted a link to a different article on a similar subject - though I suggest that seeing as we have an articles section - the references section needs to be just for articles/essays that are less obviously about yaoi (hence my choice of essay/article linked) or merged with the articles and interviews subheadings - which is actually getting worryingly large. I think that all posted are very worthy and of merit so I don't think there is any need to remove - eep that wasn't very helpful I suppose. (sharonlees 10:39, 14 July 2006)

Just had to add articles and interviews back onto page - why it was removed I don't know as they are quite informative etc?!?! If a comment had been made etc I might not have done this... --Sharonlees 12:35, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Publishers

Forgot to write why I removed Golden Age Manga - www.goldenagemanga.org - from the Publishers section. First, the company hasn't yet even 1 title to its publishing credit, yaoi or otherwise. Secondly, it seems to be no more than a vanity press (with the typical pod business model) and is regarded with some skepticism by long-time industry watchers & some professionals/semi-professionals. Ref: [1] & [2] (& plenty others in a Google search). At this point in time, since it hasn't shown itself to actually be a yaoi publisher yet, I don't think it should be listed. (It's also a bit strange that Golden Age Manga was added 1 July 2006, 2 months before the company even announced itself open for business.) --kor

Fixed entry about American Manga. Incubus is now published by Kitty Media. Feel free to fix my wording to make it flow better. -- Jordan Marks

[edit] Authors and Manga-ka

I think that the list of authors and manga-ka is far too long and actually not that useful. The majority of the names don't have thier on pages on Wiki and therefore is redundant for quick reference or a novice looking for some key names - which I presume was its intended job. I also think its too long - I assume the point of the list originally was to inform the reader by giving them some key examples - but it has turned into a directory of authors mostly - which isn't a bad thing but perhaps should have its own page. I won't do anything like this of course with a good amount of support/feedback but I think its the way to go. Also I would dispute how many actually are yaoi manga-ka/authors. --Sharonlees 11:21, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Fix me Please (this article screams)

Ok had a bit of an issue with the usage section - which implied all yaoi was in the majority based on enemy pairings and had no real plot - so I've taken on board the enemy pairings and moved it to the doujinshi section - re-written etc. In the doujinshi I've changed wording and things that implied there was some great unknown yaoi conflict/war of the otakus of the world going on - come on peeps - does anyone really care if someone draws or writes about your fave male character getting it on with another guy?? If so grow up - it doesn't matter - there are more important things - sheesh....... Any way I think that as a whole this article blows - I never realised before but I've been looking over some of the best rated Japan wiki articles and they are great - this could be too! Right now we dont even deserve the B grade - but with sooo many people adding their fave pairings mangas and artists (making this page clogged and cumbersome) and adding BL - or even implied BL - to this yaoi page it'll never be top rate. Which makes me sad T_T --Sharonlees 09:46, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Examples of Yaoi (again)

To me, the "Examples of Yaoi" section looks a bit messy. It might be a good idea to separate the examples into manga, anime and BL games, but many of the examples now come in multiple forms. What does everyone think is a suitable method of organising the section? Statuess 15:47, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

I think you're right but as you said many come in multiple mediums now.... I also think that most arent strictly yaoi anyway and this just makes a long untidy list even more so..... --Sharonlees 16:07, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Difference of Shounen-Ai and Yaoi

this article is just my opinion. -When I first encountered the terms Shounen-Ai and Yaoi,I was confused which is which.But understanding their entymologies, I came to these conclusions:

           -Shounen-Ai focuses on the romantic relationship of two boys. this focuses more on romantic love. After all, 
            Shounen-ai literaly means "boy love."
           -Yaoi focuses on the sexual relationship between two boys. the theorized entymologies themselves can be used as
            bases for this. If it did come from "no peak, no point, no meaning," then where is the romantic 
            relationship there? It wouldn't make sense if the focus is love but it would if the focus is sex.
            the other possible origin, "Stop, my ass hurts," is obviously pornographic by nature.

[edit] About Tanbi

Could somebody be kind enough to post some examples of Tanbi titles, to help apprehend better what could be qualified as tanbi and what couldn't, please ?

[edit] Pronunciation

Could someone please scrap that section and replace it with a short notion of the IPA representation? It reads like a forum post or weblog or something. I can understand why someone would be peeved about common mispronunciations, but Wikipedia is hardly the place to rant about that kind of thing, especially in an article that doesn't focus on pronunciation, but on Japanese gay porn comics. — Ashmodai ^{(talk · contribs)} 07:28, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] IPA Pronunciation Notation

Could someone please include the proper (i.e.-Proper Japanese) pronunciation of the word "Yaoi". Thanks...IloveMP2yea 04:08, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] About the Popular Yaoi Pairings in Anime section

This section is getting out of hand with additions and edit warring. And when I tried to reduce the number of examples, anonymous users started reverting the changes. I don't think that this section adds anything to the article except a source of controversy, and thus I'd like to ask if there would be any support for having it removed. If not, then could we at least agree on no more than two or three pairings per example-type to list there? Before my edit, there were 12 pairings in the "not-quite-Seme/Uke" examples, which is FAR too many. Thanks for reading and replying with your thoughts on the matter. Nique1287 00:09, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm definitely in agreeance with at least keeping the list trimmed. Having an expansive list can only lead to fandom wars, in my opinion, and there's really no need for something like that. After all, this is an encyclopedia, and should have a certain level of professionalism. I'm not sure how I would feel about eliminating the list entirely, but I do, to reiterate, agree with keeping the list small at the very least. Lithiumflower 00:32, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes, please keep it shortened up. Whoever's reverting it keeps using the line "for someone looking for an anime popular in yaoi circles" - I'm not getting this. Surely there's a page out there that can have a list of anime popular with yaoi folks - it doesn't really have anything to do with what _yaoi_ is. If it can't be decided on, I'd rather have no list at all.

[edit] FAKE cover?!

Should the fake cover really be the one at the top of the page? I haven't read the entire manga but from what I hear, there's barely anything sexually explicit in it. A short sex scene or two and that's pretty much it. And this is a series that spans seven volumes. FAKE own Wikipedia entry states that it's a BL manga! FallenAngelII - 21/3 2007

[edit] Titles in the doujinshi section

I suggest we remove the "Notable titles which have been the subject of yaoi doujinshi" section. It's getting out of hand. If we did list each and every title, it would be a whole lot longer, and some of the titles ocassionally get randomly deleted. I say it should go, for the sake of simplicity. --MayumiTsuji 20:59, 28 March 2007 (UTC)MayumiTsuji

Agreed. If there's more than one male character in a series, there's probably been yaoi doujinshi about it, and that list is more than a page long at 1280x1024! I say we scrap it. (Also, please use two = signs (second, instead of first, header) when you're making a new discussion, or use the + button at the top of the page to create one in the proper format automatically. Thanks!) Nique talk 21:12, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

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