Forum - View topicNEWS: BL (Boys Life) Manga Sasaki and Miyano Gets Anime (Updated)
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wolf10
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All I'm saying is that the above is still a fairly recent trend, it wasn't always that way, and it's still not what the average consumer would associate with the genre, so there are plenty of related stigmas in public consciousness. There's a huge difference in perception between people who actively follow a genre and people who only know about it through cultural osmosis. BL's actually at an interesting point where there are now works that have shed enough of the archaic genre trappings that they are trying to find a new label. See also, "yuri BL." |
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SHD
Posts: 1752 |
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But "yuri BL" refers to a particular type of BL, which kind of feels like a stereotypical (= "sweet, cute and innocent romance") yuri manga. It's not something taken particularly seriously. And in any case, there were never really any "genre trappings", there were stereotypes yes, and those existed for a reason, but BL is not, and has never been a genre. |
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wolf10
Posts: 906 |
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Shonen, shoujo, seinen, and josei are what are known as "demographics," in this case referring to young/teen boys, young/teen girls, older men, and older women, respectively. Regardless of popular usage, those terms do not make any guarantees about the content of the work. You can't really make the magazine argument about "boys' love," though. It is, quite literally "a category of artistic, musical, or literary composition characterized by a particular style, form, or content." Regardless of all other considerations, at the barest minimum it requires two male characters who interact in an affectionate manner, and therefore the term does make some guarantee about the content. There are magazines dedicated to it, sure, but that's not any different than having magazines dedicated to "fantasy" genre works (speaking of really broad genres). I fully understand that works can have homoerotic relationships between men and not be "boys' love," (by the laws of "it ran in a __ magazine," Banana Fish, for example, is shoujo, of all things). On the flipside, if "BL" is used to describe a work, then it is expected to contain homoerotic relationships between men, as that's literally what BL stands for. (Fun fact: you can include "fantasy" elements in a work that otherwise doesn't self-identify as "fantasy", and then it becomes "magical realism." (Please nobody derail the thread further trying to pick that statement apart.  ))
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Jefcat
Posts: 104 Location: Palm Desert |
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I’m just to see another series in the trend of stories with characters who happen to be gay. Gay sports story, gay crime story, gay music story with recognizable three dimensional characters rather than hyper-sexualized tropes. I have not even heard of the manga but I’ll look forward to this one. It does seem like North American audiences in particular haggle over trying to classify these series as one thing or another. YOI, Banana Fish and Given are all pretty different series. To me that’s what is most important: Stories with characters who have more in their lives than JUST being a horny gay sex hound.
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MunchiMunch
Posts: 20 |
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and there were plenty of stories like that already that didn't become popular because people prefer the porn-with-minimal-plot stuff, which is what ended up stigmatizing BL for the western community. well, only for people who were too close-minded to look beyond the stereotypes of the genre. |
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MunchiMunch
Posts: 20 |
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How so? Because unless im misinterpreting what you meant, Yuri still has it's own baggage when it comes to pandering, stereotypes in the genre and etc that fans of the genre tend to overlook because it's not "as bad" as Boys Love... according to people that don't actually explore the genre. Even if it's catering to actual gay women, it's still super romanticized and not in a good way. |
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SHD
Posts: 1752 |
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I think I understand what you're getting at re: genre (yes, I know that shoujo/shounen/etc. are demographics) but as you quoted from the dictionary, the word "genre" implies things that "homosexual relationship between men" just... isn't? Like, sure, we can nitpick dictionary definitions and whatnot, but fact of the matter is, the implications of calling BL a genre is that BL stories share certain traits other than homosexual relationships. And that is exactly what a lot of people do indeed believe, that "BL" is a genre characterized by [insert usual list of exaggerated stereotypes]". And so, a lot of people have a completely distorted view of "BL" and "BL works", stigmatizing the word much like how "shoujo" is stigmatized as "pink fluffy romance", never mind the truckloads of shoujo manga which aren't like that. And as a result, so many people will call anything which is, to quote from above, a "[story] with characters who have more in their lives than JUST being a horny gay sex hound" not BL, just like how a lot of people call anything which isn't a pink fluffy romance "josei" because oh no, it's serious and dark, it can't be shoujo, or oh no, it doesn't have romance so it can't be shoujo, or oh no, it's sci-fi, it can't be shoujo... Which is why I think it's important to point out that these labels are not genres. With BL, MADK and Viewfinder and Given and Kuma to interi and Sasaki & Miyano are all BL, despite being vastly different from one another in tone, content and style. Edit: on that note ANN could perhaps remove the update? As discussed previously it's wrong and is based on a misinterpretation of the tagline... |
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Ann917813
Posts: 14 |
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This website (or at least the author) is obsessed about covering lots of Boys Love news that they mistook this one as BL just because it had the BL initials. And I'm confused. I really don't understand why this site is doing this. They won't do the same for Girls Love
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Saeryen
 Posts: 900 |
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Debate about labels notwithstanding, this looks like I might like it. I’m always here for cute LGBTQ+ content.
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