History of Boys Love (Bijutsutecho, vol. 66, no. 1016, Dec. 2014)

“But what are your thoughts on yaoi…” has become Internet slang calling somebody out for making a long and boring argument that nobody is actually all that interested in reading. Unfortunately, in recent years, “thoughts on yaoi” posts about yaoi or boys love (BL) have escaped the comments sections of JournalFen and migrated to more mainstream platforms and I’ve noticed a sad lack of context and nuance in many of the articles bemoaning the genre. There’s rampant conflation of BL with tropes taken from western media such as “queerbaiting,” misreading the genre as depicting real male homosexual relationships, as well as misplacing the roots of the genre in English-language Kirk/Spock slash fiction. 

As the author lays out in her article below, BL is understood by domestic consumers as separate from actual homosexual literature. It’s an exclusively female-oriented fantasy genre and the pleasures for women should be obvious: a) romance with two hot guys instead of one, b) romance without of the looming heterosexual threat of marriage and pregnancy leading to c) romance where both parties have complete freedom to be the aggressor or to be pursued without the societal baggage around gendered expectation. Or just, you know, d) the stories can be extremely titillating for female readers and women find them pleasurable to read and create.

That doesn’t mean that there aren’t blurry edges in the genre but articles like this one highlighting male readers of BL are few and far between.

Homoerotic fiction itself has a long history in Asia, although the author takes care to separate out BL from literary and historical works depicting Japan’s medieval chigo and (as has been argued) Korea’s ancient hwarang. As the author lays out below, contemporary BL arose from the female-led shojo manga culture of the 60s and 70s and then into the derivative fan work boom of the 1980s, which again fed back into the shojo manga world as talented fan authors were scouted to write original works. The boom of homoerotic fan works that hit with Captain Tsubasa in the 1980s emerged parallel to Kirk/Spock slash fiction in America but with some real differences. Kirk/Spock slash fiction was written by and for adult women, many of whom were lesbian (or bisexual) themselves; my impression (and please correct me if I’m wrong) is that the Captain Tsubasa fiction was generally by and for teen girls. 

Relevant to my audience, fan works that focus on BL-type relationships between idol group members appeared alongside the Captain Tsubasa boom and even now you can search Yahoo Auctions in Japan and find vintage fan works featuring the members of groups like Johnny’s & Associates acts Shonentai and Hikaru Genji or even idols like Saijo Hideki. To a large extent to access Japanese fan materials, especially explicit fan works, you still need to know the right people or know where to look. Materials are tightly gatekept. Although one can (and I have) purchased these fan-drawn manga on the second hand market in speciality idol goods reseller shops. (If anybody is interested I can post some pictures to my Instagram.) 

Cover of a 1990 Shonentai dojinshi, selling for almost $200 on Yahoo Auctions.

Because I’ve seen recent articles discussing K-pop idol fiction recently, it’s worth taking a little detour here as well. Korea obviously had (and has) a complicated relationship with Japanese cultural products, to include shojo manga, but it doesn’t mean that they weren’t consumed. Amateur comics in Korea, called dong-in-ji, arose in the 1980s, hand-in-hand with the growth of Korean women’s comics. Associations like the ACA and the KWAC were started and domestic events similar (though on a smaller scale) to Japan’s Comic Market were started. Original works were preferred to fan works (which tended to be based on Japanese sources such as SLAM DUNK) but ladies comics had similar themes (including BL) to their counterparts across the East Sea. Original boys love novels in Korean, as well as idol fan works (lovingly detailed in drama Reply 1997) were also prolific during this period until the Youth Protection Law of 1997, which banned depiction of homosexual acts as obscene, forced BL authors and their works back underground. This was eventually lifted in 2003 and Korean writers were (and are) among the foreign participants in the Comic Market festival mentioned below and I’ve seen Korean translations of Japanese idol dojinshi as well as Korean dong-in-ji translated into Japanese, adding to the mixing pot of styles of contemporary BL and fan works across Asia. But considering the rocky road that BL works have had in Korea, the fact that idol fan works are not as tightly gate-kept as in Japan has both positive and negative tradeoffs.

What I have found interesting reading English language fanfiction for Asian pop culture today--whether for anime, idol groups, or television dramas--is that you do see a real blending of styles. Writers from Southeast Asia are more likely to use the BL-style story tropes, while westerners tend to pull story tropes from the “slash” genre originating with Kirk/Spock in the late 1970s and mainstreamed with Harry Potter in the mid-2000s, with younger writers even blending in the type of identity-focused fiction pulled from the English-language YA scene. The intersection of east and west in these fan works is not always easily navigated and is worth an episode of the podcast if I can ever find a guest willing to get into the weeds. 

But back to the article, it contains a lot of names and titles and specialized vocabulary. To make things as easy as possible for readers, I’ve tried to use the official English titles for manga where one exists, as well as existing romanization for company names where appropriate. Specialized vocabulary is a bit more difficult to make a judgement call on but where I know a romanized Japanese word is widely used in the English manga/anime communities (such as shojo manga) I kept those in but I will include a glossary at the end.

This article was originally published in the special Boys Love issue of Bijutsutecho, a Japanese fine arts magazine, dated December 2014. Please note that all references to “today” or “now” refer to 2014.

If you have any questions or concerns, please get in touch! 

This is intended for personal entertainment purposes only.

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THE HISTORY OF BOYS LOVE

While drawn from the tradition of shojo manga and the derivative fan work boom, Boys Love is, even today, casting a net of burning passion and continuing to broaden in scope. We’ll follow the unfurling of this unique genre.

By Junko Kaneda

Boys Love (abbreviated to BL) is a type of story genre born in Japan in the 1990s. In order to grasp the origins and spread of BL, here we’re going to draw your attention to two characteristics of BL: 1) the genre is largely written by women and read by women and 2) the story content is romance and and sex between men. There are countless stories of romance and sex between men, from youthful male love in ancient Greece to the tales of Japanese chigo and shudo, and modern day gay stories told by homosexual men themselves. In order to separate BL from these stories, we’ll be focusing on the history of stories fulfilling the requirements of points one and two above. 

Now in the 1970s a standard structure for this type of story was seen even in the English speaking world but even though these types of stories aren’t limited to Japan, we’re going to set those other stories aside.

The 1960s: How was “YAOI” born?

It’s said that in Japan BL-type stories took root in late 1960s-era shojo manga. Great strides were made by young female writers in this era of shojo manga and, as the 1970s began, some of the well-known works put out by the Year 24 Group had a main theme of romance and sex between men. Examples of representative works are Heart of Thomas (1974) by Hagio Moto, The Poem of Wind and Trees (1976-84) by Takemiya Keiko, Sons of Eve (1976-79) by Aoike Yasuko, and Mari and Shingo (1977-84) by Kihara Toshie.

At the time these types of works were called “aesthetic” and “shonenai”. In 1978 the speciality magazine COMIC JUN (which became JUNE in 1979) was launched for women who loved this genre. It was focused on the serialized works of the late Nakajima Azusa and Takemiya Keiko. Nakajima Azusa was a famous novelist under the pen name of Kurimoto Kaoru but in JUNE, in her serialized “Novel Training Ground” she raised up dozens of the next generation of female writers to become well known professionals, including Emori Sonae, Akizuki Ko, and Eda Yuri.

In 1975, the first Comic Market was held. It was an event started by the “Labyrinth Association”, where manga fans could go to distribute and trade dojinshi, fan-written manga. Women went from comprising half the participants in the 1970s to more than 70% today. Now, 500,000-600,000 people attend the massive three day event, from both inside and outside the country.

The word yaoi came from the women in that Association. The details were revealed in a 1979 issue of the magazine Rappori with a special feature on yaoi from Hatsu Akiko and others. Yaoi comes from a contracting of the phrase “YAmanashi, Ochinashi, Iminashi”, a self-depreciating and humorous description of these works that had “no story” and “no point”. There were already works focused on romance and sex between men being written by women at that time and gradually “yaoi” lost the derogatory connotation and came to simply mean manga written on those themes. 

The 1980s: The Derivative Fan Work Boom Started with Captain Tsubasa

The source of yaoi stories in the 1970s was shojo manga but halfway through the 1980s we see another source emerge. At Comic Market, there was a boom of derivative fan works featuring the shonen manga Captain Tsubasa. Teenage girls began coming with yaoi-type interpretations of Captain Tsubasa and there was a rapid surge of participants. 

In this period, authors like Kouga Yun, CLAMP, and Ozaki Minami were active first as part of the Association and then making a professional debut. Derivative fan works focused on romance and sex between men, aimed at Japan’s women, were based on shonen manga, especially works published in Weekly Shonen JUMP, and anime aimed at boys. It’s an on-going feature of the genre to this day but in this period it’s remarkable how the genre was reduced to what is called “Seme X Uke” as the typical method of showing a single “pairing”. 

Entering the 1990s, stand-out authors of these derivative fan works were scouted to write original works and by 1995 there were about 30 commercial magazines and the “commercial” label was born. This is the beginning of contemporary BL. The brands Kadogawa Ruby paperbacks (launched in 1992), Aoiji Biblios’s Magazine BE x BOY (launched in 1993), and so on, continue to this day.

The 1990s used the labels “aesthetic” and “yaoi” and so on but it was on the cover of the 1991-launched Image (Byakuya Publishing) that the name “BOYS LOVE COMIC” was used for the first time. Afterwards, it’s thought that the genre name “BOYS LOVE” or BL began spreading around 1994 in the manga news magazine Pafu (now ceased publication). In BL, the genre no longer used the preferences of the era of  “aesthetic” and “shonenai”--the motives of being cast out from society, physical disorder, traumatic personal experience--and came to prefer cheerful love and romantic crush themes.

The 2000s: Authors who came from BL working in other genres

Entering the 2000s, BL authors who had made a professional debut by way of the fan works (derivative works), more and more they also began to make an impact working in other genres. Yoshinaga Fumi is a representative example. Yoshinaga was the author of a popular derivative fan work based on SLAM DUNK and then made her professional debut as a BL author. After that, she won the grand prize for shojo manga with Antique Bakery at the 26th Kodansha Manga Awards and then won the grand prize for shojo manga for Ooku at the 56th Shogakukan Manga Awards. Yoshinaga’s work had crossed the boundary of the genre. In addition, there are numerous examples of authors who debuted with a stand-alone BL work and then worked in other genres (while continuing to work in BL) like Kari Sumako, Yamashita Tomoko, and Kumota Haruko.

In 2010, the rising Tokyo Mangasha, along with new entries to BL like Akane Shinsha and Shodensha were discovering and promoting new authors and using stylish design and book bindings, and so on, while well-established entities like Libre Publishing and Takeshobo and so on felt the pressure to compete. Continuing from the 1980s-era Cassette JUNE, audio editions of BL works from popular male voice actors (the prevalence of illegal copies is not as widespread as before), are typical even today, furthermore Words of Devotion by Konno Keiko, the Takumi-kun series by Gotou Shinobu, the Fujimi Orchestra series by Akizuki Ko, No Touching At All  by Yoneda Kou and so on. Live action films were also made from BL works.

2014: The Internet brought about the burning passion for BL 

Now, for several years, due to the wide adoption of the Internet and smartphones, the manga world has undergone rapid change. Just about all of the publishing companies no longer have high-cost magazines, and with electronic distribution they are looking for new revenue structures, charging for distribution costs and advertising costs. And BL is not an exception. In 2011, Nonomiya Chiyoko’s Busamen Danshi~ Ikemen Kareshi no Tsukurikata~ had over 150,000 downloads and a hit work that wasn’t limited to paper books was born. 

Rapid change has also come to the world of fan works. With the traditional Internet, they created personal homepages and blogs, separated out by “genre” (the originating work) and pairing. Major illustration posting site pixiv took everything to the next level by bringing everything under one roof. With the ability to chart popularity and search by tag, it’s easy to understand how popular works and authors can now cross the wall of genre. If we look at the BL-sphere, Kojima Ajiko’s Tonari no 801-chan and Himaruya Hidekazu’s Hetalia: Axis Powers were published online but even with popular pixiv works, they will then be published in a commercial publication.

With a free and easy to read manga marketplace but there’s also the pessimistic prediction of decline but, inside and outside of the country, there are more than 10 million people (February 2014 data) using pixiv and in this way the desired number of people looking for pictures, manga, and stories are perhaps already there. Within these 10 million people, perhaps the next BL author will be born.

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Glossary: 

chigo (稚児), adolescent males attached to Buddhist temples who were given room and board in exchange for “services”

shudo (衆道), the way of “boy love”

shojo manga (少女漫画), girls manga

Year 24 Group (24年組), nickname for the generation of female writers born around 1949, Showa year 24 

Heart of Thomas (トームの心臓, 1974) by Hagio Moto (萩尾望都)

The Poem of Wind and Trees (風と木の詩, 1976-84) by Takemiya Keiko (竹宮惠子)

Sons of Eve (イブの息子たち, 1976-79) by Aoike Yasuko (青池保子)

Mari and Shingo (摩利と新吾, 1977-84) by Kihara Toshie (木原敏江)

“aesthetic” (耽美), putting beauty above all else, art for art’s sake, think Oscar Wilde’s aestheticism

“shonenai” (少年愛), lit. boys love

Nakajima Azusa (中島梓), pen name Kurimoto Kaoru (栗本薫) 

“Novel Training Ground” (小説道場), lit. Novel Dojo, as in a martial arts training center

Emori Sonae (江森備)

Akizuki Ko (秋月こお)

Eda Yuri (榎田尤利), 

“Labyrinth Association” (迷宮 同人サークル) 

dojinshi (同人誌), fan-written manga

Rappori (らっぽり)

Hatsu Akiko (波津彬子) 

Yaoi (山なし、オチなし、意味なし; no climax, no punch line, no meaning), what fic fans today would call PWP or Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot

Kouga Yun (高河ゆん)

Ozaki Minami (尾崎南)

shonen manga, (少年漫画) boys manga

Seme x Uke, (攻め X 受け; lit. attacker and defender), what fic fans today would call “top” and “bottom”

“commercial” (商業詩), shougyou, also used in fan circles to refer to any publication printed for profit, not just professional works

Pafu (ぱふ; now ceased publication)

Yoshinaga Fumi (よしながふみ) 

Antique Bakery (西洋骨董洋菓子店) 

Ooku (大奥) 

Kari Sumako (雁須磨子)

Yamashita Tomoko (ヤマシタトモコ)

Kumota Haruko (雲田はるこ).

Akane Shinsha (茜新社)

Shodensha (祥伝社)

Words of Devotion (愛の言霊) by Konno Keiko (紺野けい子) 

Takumi-kun series by Gotou Shinobu (ごとうしのぶ)

Fujimi Orchestra (富士見二丁目交響楽団) series by Akizuki Ko (秋月こお)

No Touching At All (どうしても触れたくない) by Yoneda Kou (ヨネダコウ) 

Nonomiya Chiyoko (野々宮ちよ子)

Busamen Danshi~ Ikemen Kareshi no Tsukurikata~ (ブサメン男子♂ ～イケメン彼氏の作り方～), An Ugly Guy’s Method of Getting a Cute Boyfriend~ 

Kojima Ajiko (小島アジコ)

Tonari no 801-chan (となりの801ちゃん) My Neighbor Yaoi-chan

Himaruya Hidekazu (日丸屋秀和)