Forum - View topicINTEREST: BL News Site Chill-Chill Surveys Readers' Interest in Yuri
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Agent355
 Posts: 5113 Location: Crackberry in hand, thumbs at the ready... |
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Would Yuri!! On Ice be considered the first “Yuri BL”?
This was interesting! Although the discussion about uke x uke romance got too graphically literal—there are all sorts of ways couples can have sex (even in fiction erotica that tends to be tropey), and they don’t have to have implications of a gay male character’s femme characteristics. If a manga-ka wants to write a romance between two femme gay men, fans shouldn’t get hung up over “who will be on top” |
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LadyKuzunoha
 Posts: 91 Location: United States |
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In the past I've encountered a lot of fellow anime and manga fans who were surprised that I enjoy both BL and yuri. My interest in both genres falls largely along the lines of this person's comment (though I would definitely fall into the majority surveyed that read yuri less often than BL as well), so to read something like this from even one person on the Japanese side of things feels pretty validating in an "I knew I couldn't be the only one" way. This article is the first I've even heard of the "yuri BL" classification, although the development of such a category doesn't surprise me all that much after seeing how different artists I follow have developed over the years. Even one of these artists who had been very strict about seme and uke roles started shifting towards drawing the exact same characters as riba (reversible) couples over the last year. Riba seems to have been a growing trend in works that are sold in stores as well. So Yuri BL developing as a category focusing on relationships between two male characters who would both be considered "uke" in traditional BL terms seems like a natural byproduct of growing flexibility in the fanbase. |
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Fenrin
 Posts: 694 Location: SoCal |
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The term "Yuri BL" is baffling to me, does it just mean two male characters who don't display obvious seme characteristics? Because if so, there are quite a lot of those stories now (I'd even argue that it's 50/50). So I don't understand the need to create this vague and slightly offensive term.
I didn't know there was a specific term for that (riba) and I'd like to see examples of this so called "Yuri BL", but to me they sound like they are describing the same thing. |
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LadyKuzunoha
Posts: 91 Location: United States |
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I can see where you're coming from, both on this and on the point that the term used to describe it reads as offensive. I could be mistaken, but the impression I get from the article is that both characters in a couple from a "yuri BL" story would fit the archetype of an uke, which isn't necessarily the case with reversible couples. |
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Fenrin
Posts: 694 Location: SoCal |
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Hmm, I kind of get it, but it still seems like there's too much overlap for it to make sense to create a whole new subcategory. Also, I don't know why people are acting like this is a new thing when BL got it's start as shoujo manga (ex. Kaze to Ki no Uta) and this is essentially how it looked like in the beginning. I guess it's a return to form? |
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Britters
Posts: 5 |
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I read both BL and Yuri. Yuri BL seems pretty offensive... people already think fujoshi see Uke characters as “the woman”. It bugs me when people think I would think this.
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capt_bunny
 Posts: 364 |
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I am very much like this. I am into whatever I can get my hands on of a good romance. I've read some where the characters are trans, non binary too. Gender has never mattered to me in this.
I was thinking the same thing. Not bugging me but you never seen anything like "Yaoi GL" or whatever. However, this does explain why I've been seeing a growing number of "Yuri BL" too. A lot of works popping out. |
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Cardcaptor Takato
 Posts: 4816 |
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As a gay man who has consumed some of both BL and yuri, for me it’s always been about a desire to see more LGBTQ+ characters in media even if BL and yuri tends to be meant more for fantasy escapism than as LGBTQ+ rep. It’s still rare to find mainstream anime with main LGBTQ+ characters and sometimes they still come across as stereotypes when they do appear. Even though BL and yuri can also be stereotyped, I feel like it does fill a void in mainstream anime. An interesting aspect of the survey is that a lot of the women who consume both BL and yuri also mention having had feelings for the same sex before and being able to relate to the characters. This seems to against a stereotype that women who consume BL and yuri all straight fujoshi. This is the first I’ve heard of the yuri BL genre and while I wouldn’t say it’s offensive, it does come across as redundant and a rather reductive take on the genre as though the seme/uke dynamic is the only appeal and not the story or characters or artwork. On the subject of labels, I do wonder why it seems like yaoi has become more prominently known as BL nowadays but GL never really seemed to catch on and it’s still referred to as yuri?
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JennLegacy
Posts: 106 |
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Very interesting study! I've always noticed a huge divide in anime fandom between people who enjoy BL and people who enjoy Yuri, but it feels like the gap is closing a lot more these days. I think it's because of people just wanting to see more perspectives now that there's a high demand for LGBT stories.
As a fujoshi (though I guess fujin is more accurate for me now) who knew a lot other fujoshi growing up, almost everyone I knew who was hyperobsessed with BL turned out to be queer in some shape or form. It's a lot more common than you'd expect. |
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marshmallowpie
 Posts: 300 Location: Nova Scotia, Canada |
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I think there are people in this thread who are confused. In the majority of BL, the relationships are obviously romantic and sexual, but yuri as a genre is full of stories where the characters have a relationship that's way more vague, slow, and flimsy and really doesn't seem like anything more than friendship. People call Otherside Picnic yuri, but three volumes in, there's nothing but the lightest of hints that Sorawo might be feeling something, something that she really isn't even putting together... Sorawo, a girl who has no other friends aside from Toriko. Adachi and Shimamura is another example (also with a girl who had no other friends!), and it seems like Tropical Fish is, although I haven't read it.
So "yuri BL" should just be something extremely light like that? I don't read a lot of BL these days, but recently I picked up I Hear The Sunspot, and I feel like it fits the idea of "yuri BL". It's a story about a relationship, but whether that relationship will become romantic or sexual really isn't clear, at least from the first volume. fwiw, I'm a lesbian who originally read BL as an in-denial teenager looking to see a relationship that wasn't straight, but also that I could tell myself it had nothing to do with me and my feelings, which I wanted nothing to do with. When I became able to give yuri a try, I found I hated nearly all of it, with so much flippant, class S garbage... things are a bit better now, but not entirely. |
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