×
  • remind me tomorrow
  • remind me next week
  • never remind me
Subscribe to the ANN Newsletter • Wake up every Sunday to a curated list of ANN's most interesting posts of the week. read more

Forum - View topic
REVIEW: What Did You Eat Yesterday? GN 1


Goto page Previous  1, 2

Note: this is the discussion thread for this article

Anime News Network Forum Index -> Site-related -> Talkback
View previous topic :: View next topic  
Author Message
Shenl742



Joined: 11 Feb 2010
Posts: 1524
PostPosted: Mon May 05, 2014 5:57 pm Reply with quote
Vata Raven wrote:
Shenl742 wrote:
Man, the intense categorization of japanese media with homosexual content just seems so strange and confusing to me

Guess I don't understand what you mean.


Well what you, Lebrel, and Rebecca were saying about whether or not to classify this story as "BL" based on it's supposed target audience. I've just heard these kinds of discussions before ("it's yaoi! No it's boy's love! And related "it's yuri/not yuri" and something called "Class S relationship"..) and as a gay man it just seems kind of weird and confusing to me how all this is defined (a long with the fact that this whole kind of sub-culture exists in fandom, but that's a whole nother' bag of worms)
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Player No. 3



Joined: 21 Jan 2010
Posts: 209
Location: San Antonio, Texas
PostPosted: Mon May 05, 2014 6:55 pm Reply with quote
Shenl742 wrote:
Vata Raven wrote:
Shenl742 wrote:
Man, the intense categorization of japanese media with homosexual content just seems so strange and confusing to me

Guess I don't understand what you mean.


Well what you, Lebrel, and Rebecca were saying about whether or not to classify this story as "BL" based on it's supposed target audience. I've just heard these kinds of discussions before ("it's yaoi! No it's boy's love! And related "it's yuri/not yuri" and something called "Class S relationship"..) and as a gay man it just seems kind of weird and confusing to me how all this is defined (a long with the fact that this whole kind of sub-culture exists in fandom, but that's a whole nother' bag of worms)


It's interesting to compare and contrast that with Bara, erotica made by gay men for gay men. Small but strong following here stateside. (Strong enough that Fantagraphics is publishing a bara anthology.)

Rebecca wrote:
Far and away the most outstanding feature of What Did You Eat Yesterday?'s first volume is Shiro and his inner conflicts, which may be familiar to others identifying as LBGTQ. While his parents appear at first to be accepting of who Shiro is, we quickly see that they are far from comfortable...or even, on a basic level, understanding. His mother tells him that she's attending meetings for parents of children with gender identity disorder, his father thinks its a fad, and Shiro himself is constantly worrying about how he appears to others. He worries if eating watermelon with a spoon will make him look too gay, among other things, and it's clear that he worries about how people will perceive him.


Oh wow. That's pretty awesome. Might pick it up based on that. I'm always interested in that narrative in LGBTQ stories. [/quote]
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message My Anime
scarletrhodelia



Joined: 12 May 2009
Posts: 34
Location: Pittsburgh, PA
PostPosted: Mon May 05, 2014 7:12 pm Reply with quote
lebrel wrote:
(There's one seinen exception I can think of, whose title I can't recall offhand, which probably should be recognized as BL because it's a note-perfect homage to early 70's proto-BL like The Heart of Thomas.)

If you remember the title, please post it here or PM me; as an aficionado of the Year 24 Flower Group, I'd love to read it.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message My Anime
sepherest





PostPosted: Mon May 05, 2014 9:33 pm Reply with quote
lebrel wrote:

It's a seinen manga. It can't be BL. BL, by definition, is for women. (There's one seinen exception I can think of, whose title I can't recall offhand, which probably should be recognized as BL because it's a note-perfect homage to early 70's proto-BL like The Heart of Thomas.)


I'm assuming you haven't read Innocent yet? That's a pretty big generalization, especially with the growing number of female bl artists who have also been penning seinen titles...
Back to top
Vata Raven



Joined: 21 May 2007
Posts: 710
Location: TN
PostPosted: Mon May 05, 2014 10:13 pm Reply with quote
Shenl742 wrote:
Well what you, Lebrel, and Rebecca were saying about whether or not to classify this story as "BL" based on it's supposed target audience. I've just heard these kinds of discussions before ("it's yaoi! No it's boy's love! And related "it's yuri/not yuri" and something called "Class S relationship"..) and as a gay man it just seems kind of weird and confusing to me how all this is defined (a long with the fact that this whole kind of sub-culture exists in fandom, but that's a whole nother' bag of worms)

Me personal...I just use yaoi for the general term for BL...I hardly/nerve use the term shonen-ai or...whatever Class S is. Yaoi is just a general term people know and will just understand that you like the boy/boy stuff if you say it (in the anime world anyway)

Straight from the Wiki page (I know...not the best place, but whatever)

The terms yaoi and shōnen-ai are sometimes used by Western fans to differentiate between two variants of the genre. In this case, yaoi is used to describe titles that primarily feature sexually explicit themes and sex scenes, while shōnen-ai is used to describe titles that focus primarily on romance and omit explicit sexual content, although sexual acts may be implied.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Princess_Irene
ANN Reviewer


Joined: 16 Dec 2008
Posts: 2599
Location: The castle beyond the Goblin City
PostPosted: Tue May 06, 2014 6:24 am Reply with quote
Shenl742 wrote:

Well what you, Lebrel, and Rebecca were saying about whether or not to classify this story as "BL" based on it's supposed target audience. I've just heard these kinds of discussions before ("it's yaoi! No it's boy's love! And related "it's yuri/not yuri" and something called "Class S relationship"..) and as a gay man it just seems kind of weird and confusing to me how all this is defined (a long with the fact that this whole kind of sub-culture exists in fandom, but that's a whole nother' bag of worms)


I've often wondered how the gay community feels about all of this - for me, I just look at things in as literary a way as possible. In the same way that I'd separate "fantasy," "dark fantasy," and "urban fantasy," I tend to look at a story in terms of its genre components and classify accordingly. This story, to me, has BL components (as Lebrel said, I also tend to go with "yaoi" for the explicit stuff for ease of classification) but since that isn't the focus of the book, that makes it not for the typical BL audience. One of the things I liked best about this is that it has a gay protagonist without falling into the generic conventions of BL.

I don't know if that was helpful or just more confusing...
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
lebrel



Joined: 16 Oct 2009
Posts: 374
PostPosted: Tue May 06, 2014 8:05 pm Reply with quote
Princess_Irene wrote:
Actually, according to the OED, "nonplussed" as I used it is correct in American English, with the usage originating in 1960. Smile


That's because the craven bootlickers at the OED cave to any nonsensical misusages that arise once they become sufficiently common. :angry face: "Nonplus" is directly borrowed from an 18th century French idiom ("nothing more") and its original usage is more or less identical in meaning if not in tone to the American colloquialism "don't that beat all". (Yes, I am a prescriptivist, can you tell?)

zeo1fan wrote:
Actually 'nonplussed' can mean that OR indifference. It's a confusing word.


It's not confusing, it's that Americans assume that anything that starts with "in-" or "non-" must be the negation of something. It's why "inflammable" is a useless word now.

Shenl742 wrote:
Man, the intense categorization of japanese media with homosexual content just seems so strange and confusing to me


Well, look at it this way. BL is an outgrowth of shoujo/josei manga and is still essentially a subdivision thereof, even though it now has a separate, named category. You can have a seinen manga with shoujo elements (which is pretty much what moe is), and you can have shoujo manga that's popular with men, but you can't have a shoujo manga that's primarily aimed at men, because the target audience is the definition of the category.

Similarly, BL is defined in part by being aimed at women. You can have BL elements in shonen/seinen works, either for cross-marketing purposes or because of authorial whim, but they're usually a minor addition. Even if they're one of the rare cases with substantial BL elements, they won't be formally classified as BL, and they won't be shelved with the BL in bookstores (in Japan, where manga is usually shelved by category and imprint rather than by author, title or genre).

Furthermore, both authors and publishers of works aimed at men that have male-male relationships generally want to distinguish themselves from BL. I've heard anecdotally that men who write gei comi (AKA bara, manga for gay men) are quite offended if you refer to their work as BL.

scarletrhodelia wrote:

If you remember the title, please post it here or PM me; as an aficionado of the Year 24 Flower Group, I'd love to read it.


Me too! I'm disappointed that I can't dredge the title out of the tangled mess that is my memory, because the little bit I saw of it looked fantastic.

Sepherest wrote:

I'm assuming you haven't read Innocent yet? That's a pretty big generalization, especially with the growing number of female bl artists who have also been penning seinen titles...


Which Innocent? The Shinichi Sakamoto one? That has BL elements...? Anyway, see my response to Shenl742 above. As we get more "fifth column" types of magazines/imprints there will probably be more hard-to-classify cases, but at the moment BL is by definition aimed at a female audience.

Shenl742 wrote:
his story, to me, has BL components (as Lebrel said, I also tend to go with "yaoi" for the explicit stuff for ease of classification) but since that isn't the focus of the book, that makes it not for the typical BL audience.


There's quite a number of BL manga that are mainly about something other than the romance. That's not what makes something BL or not.

There is a much clearer separation between the demographic categories in Japan than here because the way the manga industry is segmented in Japan is rather different. In the US, most publishers don't have multiple imprints; even if they do, they usually don't break down by demographic (Viz's Shoujo Beat and Shonen Jump imprints excluded, although the former includes some josei...); and bookstores throw it all together on the same shelf.

In Japan, however, works are generally serialized in magazines aimed at a specific target audience, then collected under an imprint also aimed at that specific target audience, and then shelved in bookstores according to the intended demographic.

So people in the US might assume that, say, the Madoka Magica adaptations are shoujo because they have cute girls on the cover, or that Wild Adapter is seinen because it's gritty and full of violence, but it's impossible to make that mistake in Japan because if you want to buy the MM books you have to walk into the sienen manga section and look up a specific seinen imprint, whereas if you want to buy WA you have to go to the BL section and find the relevant BL imprint. So just the act of buying a manga lets you know who is expected to be reading it.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
OdessaJones



Joined: 30 Oct 2012
Posts: 12
Location: Maryland, USA
PostPosted: Wed May 07, 2014 10:50 pm Reply with quote
I'm so glad ANN published a review of this great title! I've been looking forward to the dead tree version since reading it in fan scanlation. This is the kind of quirky title that makes manga so awesome.

Princess_Irene wrote:

I've often wondered how the gay community feels about all of this


Hee hee. I think about this too. My gay friends would probably find shonen ai either hilarious or incomprehensible, but I haven't asked because I'm a "closeted" BL reader! Someday I'll confess. I'll tell them to think of it as a window into the minds of straight women--and I'll ask them to try not to be too offended by all the bad BL out there!

Princess_Irene wrote:
In the same way that I'd separate "fantasy," "dark fantasy," and "urban fantasy," I tend to look at a story in terms of its genre components and classify accordingly. This story, to me, has BL components (as Lebrel said, I also tend to go with "yaoi" for the explicit stuff for ease of classification) but since that isn't the focus of the book, that makes it not for the typical BL audience. One of the things I liked best about this is that it has a gay protagonist without falling into the generic conventions of BL. .


I was interested to read that it's officially "seinen"--really? The tone of it doesn't feel like seinen, but seinen is the genre I know least well.

I do think of What Did You Eat? as BL in marketing and audience, because it has the josei tone of BL. It doesn't follow a formula, but that's occasionally true of other BL titles as well. It also doesn't have the melodramatic tone of many BL titles, but again, melodrama isn't a requirement.

The tone, however, seems aimed more toward women than men. (At least women and men as the Japanese publishing industry stereotypes them for marketing purposes.) The trusting long-term relationship between the two protagonists is always in the background, and though the story isn't about romance, the small, everyday interactions in the minimal plot are grounded in that relationship.

The cooking element of the story gave me a new appreciation for Japanese cuisine. But I was drawn into the cooking because Shiro cares about it, and I care about Shiro because he's trying to be a true partner, an equal in the relationship--which he achieves here partly by cooking for his boyfriend. Like BL in general, the fact that it's a gay relationship is used as shorthand for how committed these guys are, because they are, classic BL-style, going against social tradition for the sake of love. Unlike most BL, this manga shows the protagonist occasionally feeling self-conscious about the social consequences of the choice to be openly gay. Those worries make him more human but also show how committed he is to the relationship. So while the story isn't about romance or sex, it is still partly about a relationship.

This book will definitely appeal to people who don't read BL--give it a chance!--but it might appeal to them for some of the same reasons that the best BL mangas are appealing to BL readers: because the plot is grounded in sincere emotions. Every genre has a lot of boring, formulaic stories, but every genre also has a few gems. I think of this as a BL gem. Was it really marketed in Japan as seinen?
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Merida



Joined: 21 Feb 2012
Posts: 1945
PostPosted: Thu May 08, 2014 10:10 am Reply with quote
OdessaJones wrote:

I was interested to read that it's officially "seinen"--really? The tone of it doesn't feel like seinen, but seinen is the genre I know least well.

I do think of What Did You Eat? as BL in marketing and audience, because it has the josei tone of BL. It doesn't follow a formula, but that's occasionally true of other BL titles as well. It also doesn't have the melodramatic tone of many BL titles, but again, melodrama isn't a requirement.


I think people are getting to hung up on genres here. Correct me if i'm wrong but afaik in Japan categoriziing something as "seinen"primarily means it's being published in a seinen magazine.

While the target audience might be "adult males", if you look at the magazine this series is published in alone, you can find a wide range of genres from romance to action to sports to comedy to drama etc., so i don't see why this series wouldn't fit in.

I wouldn't call it BL just because it features a happy gay couple. Actually, it seems to be pretty rare for BL series to feature a happy couple, let alone a happy gay couple where both parties identify as gay... Wink
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message My Anime
OdessaJones



Joined: 30 Oct 2012
Posts: 12
Location: Maryland, USA
PostPosted: Thu May 08, 2014 11:34 am Reply with quote
Merida wrote:


I think people are getting to hung up on genres here. Correct me if i'm wrong but afaik in Japan categoriziing something as "seinen"primarily means it's being published in a seinen magazine.

While the target audience might be "adult males", if you look at the magazine this series is published in alone, you can find a wide range of genres from romance to action to sports to comedy to drama etc., so i don't see why this series wouldn't fit in.


Interesting. I'm used to thinking of seinen as things like Death Note or Monster, since that's the stuff that makes it overseas usually. It's cool to learn about the broader range of the genre.

Genre questions interest me because manga authors don't work in isolation in an attic somewhere. The work is influenced by the expectations of editors, marketers and target audiences. Plenty of readers don't care about genre--it doesn't matter on its own. But I like thinking about how the author is in a conversation with readers. Something published in a seinen manga is conversing with a somewhat different audience that something in a BL manga.

Merida wrote:

I wouldn't call it BL just because it features a happy gay couple. Actually, it seems to be pretty rare for BL series to feature a happy couple, let alone a happy gay couple where both parties identify as gay... Wink


Ha ha! Oh my gosh, so true!

But not all BL-yaoi is misery and creepy non-consensual sex. BL mags also include the silly-sweet romance fluff in Kotetseko Yamamoto's Like the Beast, the wizard and warrior weirdness of Inariya Fusonosuke's Hari no Hana (will we ever get anywhere in this saga?!? what's going on?) and the depressing character study in Yoneda Kou's stories about gangsters (tons of sex and misery in these stories, but not a trace of formula--Saezuru Tori wa Habatakanai is like the gay "Sopranos"--if only Yashiro had a good therapist like Tony's!). So BL has some variety, just like it seems seinen is not always Death Note!

I love slice of life stories like WDYEY, whatever mags they appear in!
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
katscradle



Joined: 05 Jan 2013
Posts: 469
PostPosted: Thu May 08, 2014 3:07 pm Reply with quote
Nice review. Really nice review.
The food is as good as it sounds and looks, I’ve already tried some recipes and they were much enjoyed.

Quote:

Far and away the most outstanding feature of What Did You Eat Yesterday?'s first volume is Shiro and his inner conflicts, which may be familiar to others identifying as LBGTQ.

I’m glad this was mentioned because I know some people find his behavior annoying or frustrating. One of the chapters had a situation I related to and my reaction at that time was pretty much like Shiro.


Normally I would think that people get overly obsessed with the demographic target audience of a manga but, in this case I think it’s important to stress the categorization. The BL label can carry a lot of negative connotations for people (I’m one of them) and bookstores. BL is a niche market so that makes such titles less attractive to places when they order books to stock along with worries over explicit content. It’s very easy on the surface to think of WDYEY as BL because of Yoshinaga’s work. I’ve always enjoyed her non-BL titles so much more than the BL ones. I’ve felt a bit odd about that since she started out doing BL and has published a lot of such titles. Still really English fans are blessed to have a large amount of her work available (unfortunately if in some cases it has been censored.) I know Vertical had to field questions about WDYEY explaining there was no sex and it was published in a seinen magazine probably because the publishing history in North America regarding Yoshinaga was on people’s minds. While BL fans may certainly find something enjoyable about WDYEY like what happened with Antique Bakery there isn’t the idealization or sensationalized relationship in WDYEY like you might find in most BL titles and that’s important to point out.

I’ve been around the fan community for a long time and labels can still get confusing, especially when you have titles that don’t fit into standard conceptions or a foreign market easily. There are some BL as well that you might never think of that way unless you knew the magazine it was published in. There are artists that will mix styles or conventions too. But, I look at it by weighing the positives and negatives of how people might feel about certain labels and how that balances out when encountering manga that don’t fit certain ideas.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
lebrel



Joined: 16 Oct 2009
Posts: 374
PostPosted: Thu May 08, 2014 5:45 pm Reply with quote
OdessaJones wrote:
just like it seems seinen is not always Death Note!


My OCD compels me to point out that Death Note is shonen. It ran in Shonen Jump; it dosn't get any more shonen than that!

Merida wrote:

I wouldn't call it BL just because it features a happy gay couple. Actually, it seems to be pretty rare for BL series to feature a happy couple, let alone a happy gay couple where both parties identify as gay...


Dwuh? There is a ton of fluffy WAFFy BL, in English translation as well as Japanese. It's true that stories where both characters identify as gay are relatively rare*, but happy couples are a dime a dozen. Try Toko Kawai's Café Latte Rhapsody, it is gratuitously adorable.

(* I think that is in part because one of the appeals of BL is the "what are these strange feelings that I have never had before" aspect, which doesn't work with two gay guys unless at least one of them has never been in love before....)
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
sunflower



Joined: 04 Sep 2005
Posts: 1080
PostPosted: Thu May 08, 2014 7:34 pm Reply with quote
Princess_Irene wrote:

I've often wondered how the gay community feels about all of this


There is no "how the gay community feels about this". There are individuals who each feel differently, about BL, about all the different BL mangaka and works, and about various BL tropes. Assuming they have one voice perpetuates stereotype.

And as for what the BL genre is: It's what editors put into BL magazines. There are males in relationships with each other in it. It's aimed at women but guys read it too. Some of those guys are gay. That's really the only definition that's true.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Display posts from previous:   
Reply to topic    Anime News Network Forum Index -> Site-related -> Talkback All times are GMT - 5 Hours
Goto page Previous  1, 2
Page 2 of 2

 


Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group