Talk:Bishōnen

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[edit] Biseinen definition?

I was under the impression that 'biseinen' meant a man who was attractive in a masculine way, as opposed to the bishonen, beautiful in a feminine way.

Literally, it would mean beautiful group of manga aimed at a demographic group of 18-25 (look up meaning of prefix bi and seinen, so I'm even more confused than you are. — Ambush Commander(Talk) 20:53, August 7, 2005 (UTC)

Seriously, the whole 'biseinen' and 'bishota' is a product of people who haven't lived in the Japanese language. Native Japanese SPEAKERS do NOT use the terms, as they violate the integral aesthetic context, and the Japanese women I've talked with insist on only using 'bishonen'. Age is important here--the concept that a bishonen is sexually viable but still a youth, not a married man with the responsibilities of manhood. Once a man moves into that sphere, literally with full societal manhood (producing children is part of this), different descriptions apply, even if that man is supremely attractive.

Case in point: It would be highly innappropriate to refer to Johnny Depp as bishonen, despite his popularity. There is another Japanese term for someone who is physically attractive, rather than the prefix, "bi".

--sazynska 16:44, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

Biseinen is a legitimate Japanese word, at least in internet communities, though I doubt bishouta is. From the Japanese wikipedia article for a video game, describing the main character, a college student: 容姿は美青年であるが (Although he is an attractive young man...). The main distinction here is between shounen and seinen, boys and youths. The "bi" prefix can, in modern Japanese, go before pretty much any description (I've seen 美父美娘, a beautiful father and daughter pair, and similar usages). I'm going to edit the relevant section to reflect this.

Aesshen (talk) 07:36, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Edits needed

This article is skewed to a western perspective, and shows a lack of knowledge of Japanese culture relative to the rest of Asia and of Japanese/Asian aesthetics. The original writer was quite thorough with what s/he had, but lacking background for the topic beyond pop culture and sources typically available in the west.

This is an old concept, although I am not sure how long the word 'bishounen' itself has been in use.

Transliteration with a 'u' is quite proper under the Hepbern system, although in American English we tend to simplify the spellings; the 'u' letter is actually in the word in Japanese, which translates in letters to "bi sho u ne n"; however, the 'u' simply marks a long vowel, when following 'o'.

All things considered, I'm going in for an edit, here. This is my thesis topic. --sazynska 16:56, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

Seconded, for what it's worth. Not only does the author use some improper definitions (a rather creative misdifining of the word which the article is about, actually, borne of American Manga pop culture more than the definition of the words in question and their meaning) but also there are some really, really bizarre editions. Ie: The Master Chief from Halo being included in the list of Bishounen. 68.96.255.13 22:05, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wrong meaning of 'fetish'?

I'm thinking the original author was intending to link to Sexual Fetishism with the reference to fetish.

Checking with the others before I edit it myself.

[edit] Book by Beckjord

Why can't he list it? Or anyone list it?

Also, why do Japanese cartoons show non-Japanese people most of the time?

Puzzled.

207.200.116.67 03:19, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] homo and hetero problems

I'm not sure most of them in reality are heterosexual is an accurate or appropriate statement capable of citation. I would say that most often the characters of shonen-ai and yaoi, the predominant areas in which bishonen appear, are in male/male relationships. Whether or not someone wants to refer to these characters' sexual identities as "homosexual" can go under dispute, but the relationships they are in are certainly not "heterosexual" in nature either.

Is this statement saying that bishonen appear most often in heterosexual situations? Can this be qualiified a little--maybe with an academic source? There has been plenty on bishonen representation.

Also, the phrase "in reality" is a little problematic, as bishonen characters exist predominantly in works of fiction.

I'm going to go ahead and rephrase the sentence, but if these questions can be accurately answered please feel free to re-alter.

[edit] why does this article exist?

the encylopedia brittanica doesn't have any retarded blatherings about faggy anime characters. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.19.14.15 (talk) 19:35, 14 December 2006 (UTC).

Someone clearly has issues 64.121.36.5 03:07, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Stop being so biased; there is a Bishoujou article, so just because it is a lot smaller than this one, does not mean you need to get angry -- if one exists, the other should as well. Also, using the word, " Faggy " may offend homosexuals, so please be more respectful...

Peace.--IANS 10:52, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Check that guy's talk page. He's caused all sorts of trouble. 130.212.228.143 21:40, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] List of bishonen characters

As is right now, the list is way, way too long to be useful to readers of this article. If someone wants to spin it off into its own article, a List of bishonen characters or something, that might not be a bad idea. I think for the purposes of this article, the list here should be cut down to ten or so very typical and paradigmatic examples of bishonen characters that everyone can agree are bishonen. We're not keeping a scorecard of all the bishonen characters, we're trying to give readers an accurate and succint explanation of what bishonen actually is. Ford MF 13:18, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

Not to mention that half aren't really bishounen. They're just cute characters drawn in the anime style. I'm going to take out a lot of them. Clevomon 9:41 EST, 23 December 2006
I've moved the list to List of bishonen characters. The page is still in a very crude form, so any help there would be appreciated. Also, if anyone wants to take out the list here, feel free, but I didn't want to be presumptuous by doing it myself. Jediserra 20:29, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Contradiction in article content

There's an apparent contradiction in the article regarding the term "biseinen". The "Origin" section says that the terms "biseinen and "bishota"

do not appear in Japanese, but are conjunctions created by Western fans from Japanese loan-words.

But the Usage section states that:

In the original Japanese, however, "bishōnen" applies only to boys under 18. For those older, the word "biseinen" or "bidanshi", literally "good-looking man" is used.

According the term Usage section, "biseinen" used in Japanese, but according to the Origin section, "biseinen" was created by Western fans and doesn't appear in Japanese. Can someone with knowledge of the subject matter resolve this and correct the article? Kuribosshoe 07:30, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Similarly, while the article states that bishonen goes back to the Tale of Genji (which I believe is fanciful OR), why are there no examples except manga, and why do they date back not more than about 15 years? This article needs a serious rewrite.MSJapan 16:40, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
I can address the biseinen thing, at least. I'll try to fix this up a bit. Aesshen (talk) 07:36, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] List

The list of examples is far too lengthy. Can it be chopped down a bit, using only the most important examples and no WP:OR? YuanchosaanSalutations! 06:18, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes, definitely please. I've seen it grow and grow and grow, as random people drop by and add their favorite bishounen character to the list. But I haven't found the time to seek out a few authoritative external resources on the characters we should label as such. — Edward Z. Yang(Talk) 22:37, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] A little advice?

Hello Bishonen. I am fairly new here and have been working on the LGAT articles. I would like to know how best to encourage whole the group of editors to work together with NPOV policies. I see that there are some very constructive efforts from some of them but they seem to either fall on deaf ears, be ignored, or simply be ineffectual. Well you can imagine with the LGAT subject there will always be resistance to certain facts which leads to fairly obvious censorship and they claim consensus in order to ignore NPOV - I'll not name names but some editors really do have that tendency in the extreme. When I supply all editors with encouragement to comment it often gets ignored. I even supply templates for people with complaints to fill in and again nothing happens. Could you suggest any other way that might help? Jeffrire 02:21, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] good link

Here is a really good link someone should post as an external link http://www.bishoneninfo.curvedspaces.com/

[edit] intro

What does this mean a young man "whose beauty (and sexual appeal) transcends the boundary of sex"? Does his beauty lie in non-sexual motives? Is he an androgynous charakter? Or are the boundaries of traditional sexual orientation the point? I think this should be expressed in a more straightforward way. -- 790 (talk) 09:54, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Intro help needed

The last paragraph/sentence in the intro - "Typically, bishōnen are depicted with either outright homosexual content or some level of sexual ambiguity in their relationships and sexual identity, though in increasing instances in anime and manga, such as Saint Seiya, Fruits Basket, Trinity Blood, Weiss Kreuz, Gravitation and Naruto to name a few." makes no sense. Something is obviously missing. --198.88.216.104 (talk) 01:23, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Fair use rationale for Image:Junmatsumoto.jpg

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BetacommandBot (talk) 12:38, 8 March 2008 (UTC)