Forum - View topicChicks On Anime - GloBL and Gay Comics
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musouka
Posts: 707 |
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As much as I like est em, she's, uh, not exactly the first person that comes to mind when it comes to masculine[-looking] men in yaoi, unless all it takes to look "masculine" in the way of bara is a little bit of stubble and short hair--in which case all you need to do is open an issue of pretty much any BL mag nowadays. Kajimoto Jun does some fairly muscular guys--especially lately--if you can put up with all the incongruous crying. There's also another mangaka, whose name has totally slipped my mind, who did a really good series about a piano player that fell in love with a yakuza member whose characters you'd never ever be able to mistake for women even drunk off your ass and in a pitch dark room. 
Other than that, it totally depends on your perspective, to be blunt. I think Tsukumo Gou's stuff is both erotic and adorable--he's a gay mangaka that writes for guys--but I have to question if those painstaking chiseled pecs and twelve inch penises are really that much more "realistic" than your averagely-built salaryman in a BL comic. (I know I've seen a more men that look closer to the latter than the former--and my workplace is near a Marine base, so I see army guys alllll the time) |
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Applepear
Posts: 2 |
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I don't think it even has to be justified. That's the society we live in, sometimes objectification is annoying and it hurts the characters that it occurs in, but we learn to suck it up by the time we are 9 or so--apparently guys don't. Oh well. 
Complaining specifically about men being objectified in females' tiny little niche media seems a bit hypocritical, especially if the guy I quoted consumes mainstream TV/anime/movies/video games/manga, which he probably does. I'd say the same thing to a feminist who slammed mainstream media then spun around and read yaoi. S
I'm a female. Female = girls and women and inbetween. I don't think it implies animals (no more than most other synonyms for us do) but if you want I can say I'm reclaiming it. |
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illustrata
Posts: 37 |
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With all this talk of yaoi/gay comics, it'd be interesting to see Bamboo and company tackle yuri (those aimed at women in particular). I know a lot of women (lesbians and heterosexuals both) that prefer them over bl, I admit I am one of them what with the growth of more and more well-written, nuanced yuri josei manga.
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poisondusk
 Posts: 63 Location: Brighton, UK |
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That would be Negai Kanae Tamae by Nishida Higashi, I think. Seconding the recommendation for that - it's definitely worth taking a look at, both for the unusual art style and for the plot. |
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manafairy
 Posts: 113 Location: My own tweaked world.... |
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Dude, Best. Webcomic. Ever. So glad the creator decided to make some print copies, and awesome to see it get a shout out 
That's all. The rest of the article wasn't really anything new or eye-opening for me at least, but seeing my favorite webcomic referenced required me to comment. |
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Mohawk52
 Posts: 8202 Location: England, UK |
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Okay for the uninitiated, like myself, what does GloBL stand for? I get the BL for "boys love" but Glo?
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gynocrat_rex
 Posts: 57 Location: Texas |
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You might want to check out the latest edition of YP's Winter Demon. The artist Rhea Silvan, might be to your liking; she has that Japanese style.
Yes it is, it's just not about two real gay men--even though BL mangaka in the last few years have written admittedly gay characters, it's still doesn't represent any real gay relationship dynamics [hell, they don't even represent any real het relationship dynamics half the time. ]
No offense, but BL can also have really touching emotions and relationships--it's just not the norm. "bara" or ML, is pretty much just as shallow in terms of plot and sex; perhaps you just idendify with it more because it's for you as a male reader. Nothing wrong with that, but on par with the womens BL, mens ML is for the most part, just as erotically dense.
What? I wasn't aware Est Em did erotic manga marketed at men. I know she makes BL for women [there are those women out there who love the muscle and certain creators cater to it--the Deep Aqua mook publishes those sort of diverse stories all the time] but I wasn't aware she was published by Bakudan or Aqua's Macho-Type. I know her friend Tetuzoh Okadaya has been published in Urigekidan [her title Man of Tango is being published in the states by Deux]. Also, I have no issue with being called Female. I don't like the word 'chick', but female is perfectly fine. Women is ok too.
Good call. ML [bara] is full of idealized body types, none of them are meant to be realistic at all. I think it's idealized from a male perspective, so that makes it, ok?  I'll never understand the BL makes men unrealistically argument from hardcore 'ML' [bara] fans. ;
Isn't it great! I bought a copy the minute they put it on sale. Love it!
GloBL stands for [global] manga that's for BL fans. Basically, many of the yaoi/OEL titles are created by people from Italy, America, France, Canada, China, Spain, Indonesia, or Mexico. Calling it Ameriyaoi is lame because it's neither "yaoi" nor "American". The term 'global' was coined by Tokyo Pop as a way to define their American made graphic novels [they published only manga, so calling their domestic line Global help distinguish them from titles licensed from Japan]. BL is the term for m/m erotic comics from Japan. Naturally, GloBL or Global BL, just fit and so I started using it. |
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LordPrometheus
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Unfortunately, people like this Tina Anderson do nothing to dispell the notion that anime and manga are "chinese porn cartoons". To the contrary, she's making money off of it.
*sigh*
Zac, you constantly find new ways to crack me up. 
Yeah, there's a lot of times I'm not too proud of my fellow guys, either. |
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SalarymanJoe
 Posts: 468 Location: Atlanta, GA, USA |
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Actually, if you read the line immediately following what you quoted:
I interpret this as contrasting intended audiences than strictly talking about inaccurate depictions of body types, etc. Manga typically have the stereotypically inaccurate body types (overly beautiful men and women) as dictated by the audience for which they are selling to. Many women like good looking men, just as many men like good looking women. I don't think that's the point of contention. I think that gay men, also, would like more average looking men in gay manga as well as the good looking ones. To go further into your point:
I'm not sure if there's enough to consider a subgenre as such, but I know there's been a scanlated yuri manga, MAKA MAKA floating around the net for a couple years whose protagonists have much more realistic body types than what you'd typically find in manga. I wouldn't know how the actual story would play out as far as being realistic per se, but the art style certainly has a natural beauty feel to it. While also not homosexual literature, realistic body types/natural beauty depictions, I've found, will run more in seinen manga than in shounen (and, I can assume likewise for jousei and shoujo though I've admittedly not followed jousei manga like I do seinen). As far as the actual article is concerned, when it's come to yaoi in many of the more recent articles, I think this one ranks the best. The only complaint, and it's a very minor one, was that "GloBL" wasn't really defined in the article. As someone who doesn't follow the genre and someone who's only real exposure is the yaoi/BL/shounen-ai nomenclature disputes, GloBL was a term that I'd not heard before. A quick look on Wiki after I was done reading your article solved it, but it was a question floating around in my head as to what it was and how it related to the article. Way off on a completely different tangent, I liked the banter back and forth about the webcomics. The way Casey sounds here, it's like she's been spurned by them:
In a way, I'm inclined to agree. Most of the webcomics that a lot of people seem to find hilarious, I think are utter trash. There are a couple of mega popular ones that I'll roll on the floor laughing over, provided their not in a slump. No books published from webcomics reside on any of my bookshelves. I agree with Casey that since webcomics seem to be glutted with trash that they are one of the bottom rungs of the art world. Don't get me wrong, I've got nothing wrong with the hobbyist that likes to doodle a little comic out and doesn't mind eating the cost - after all, they're hobbyists. Though, if someone were doing a comic to hone their own skill, I wouldn't say that they wouldn't have time to dedicate to it. If we factor in that someone works the minimum of 40 hours a week to cover those expenses and sleeps 56 hours a week, that leaves 72 hours in a week to craft their skill. Yeah, it's hard. But it's hard for any artist, no matter the medium or technique, to make a living off those skills if they can't sell those skills to the marketplace. Always has been and always will be part of the professional lives of an artist. Last edited by SalarymanJoe on Wed Nov 26, 2008 1:39 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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gynocrat_rex
Posts: 57 Location: Texas |
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What are you talking about? We're talking about erotic manga--newsflash, it's erotic. I said nothing about Chinese anything. I feel lame just for responding to you. >.> |
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AyumiHamasaki
Posts: 219 |
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Great conversation.
I never knew there was a separate genre for gay men. I thought some of the BL works are very accurate in depicting the gay lifestyles in America. Some of my gay friends read Junjou Romantica.
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LordPrometheus
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Did I say you said anything about Chinese? No, I was referencing a common trope on these boards that deals with ignorant people and their biases against anime and manga in general. If you are making anime/manga for the sole purpose of it being gay erotica/porn, then you're not helping the ignorance situation one bit. Instead, you're adding fuel to their fires. The last thing these two art forms need is more smut. Please actually read what I said before bashing next time. Kthxbye. |
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Cait
 Posts: 503 |
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Yeah, but Winter Demon is in the fantasy genre and the titles I like in that genre are very few and far between (Crimson Spell is an exception, but mostly because it is Yamane Ayano). I generally prefer stuff in the "professional" genre (office workers, etc.) and action genre (the S novels and Yellow come to mind). Sometimes I'll stick my toe into sci-fi, but very rarely and usually only if the story is as far outside the details of the sci-fi universe as possible and/or is intricate enough not to bother me (like Ai no Kusabi). I really like Kano Miyamoto, though. I feel like her characters are far more human as well as closer to the realm of realistic body type portrayals. In her stuff the "height" rule doesn't necessarily apply and sex doesn't always feel awesome the first time. I can't wait to get my hands on Lovers&Souls in English. |
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gynocrat_rex
Posts: 57 Location: Texas |
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I love her stories as well. Lots of dialogue.
GloBL from Yaoi Press [the only one producing GloBL right now] tends to be about the high-fantasy these days. I think Dany/Dany's Idol is contemporary - but not salaryman or executive [I think it's hooker with a heart of gold type BL]; and Love Circles was also present day, dealing with semi-pro college men, but some thought it was too romantic. I don't know if my mafia series Roulette would interest you-- it's men in suits, professional--but very abrasive. It's meant to be a homoerotic sort of Scarface/Soprano's sort of thing.
As for Japanese BL - have you checked out Seduce Me After the Show? [Est Em].
*yawn* |
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Cait
Posts: 503 |
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Yep, and tons of angst, but not necessarily in that "over the top" style. I also like that she doesn't align with the HEA formula all the time. Not all of her "first love" pairings end up together. Look at the long complicated relationship between Daisuke and Bun in the Walker series, the tragic relationship between Tohru and Matsuoko in Lovers and Souls, the drawn out love triangle between Hikaru, Hitomi and Ryuu in Hydra, etc. etc.
I sampled Idol on netcomics.com, but I haven't gotten around to it on my rotation. I'm waiting for Do Whatever You Want to end before I pick up something new. Haven't looked into Love Circles, but I'll check it out, see if it interests me. I've flipped through Seduce Me After the Show at Borders but never picked it up. I've gotten more selective about my buying habits, moreso as the economy looks bleaker and bleaker. I've never heard of Roulette. Is this an independent title? Is there somewhere online I can sample it? |
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