What now?
The best course of action would be to find a job. After having sent in multiple applications and coming up dry on every front, I needed to find something that would take up my time and not make me want to blow my brains out while I continued my job search. So I decided to start this blog.
Welcome to Yaoi Zowee!
Now, I'm sure many of you out there are asking yourselves, "What the hell is yaoi?" while others might just be smiling and anticipating the coming posts, and still others are apprehensive. That's really the beauty of the situation isn't it? To answer the first question, yaoi is...well, pictures are worth a thousand words, so I'll let this explain:
Yes, yaoi (pronounced ya-o-i but pronounced yow-ee for the sake of the pun of this blog) is media based on the romantic relationships between two men. I would like to stress, however, that these relationships are NOT realistic portrayals of homosexual relationships and homosexuals are not the primary audience. They are made by women for women's enjoyment.
As the style of the picture above indicates, along with the word itself, yaoi started out as doujinshi (fan made manga/comic books/graphic novels) in Japan created initially as shonen-ai (which translates to boy's love even though it has nothing to do with underage boys. That's a whole different category and is not something this blog will cover for obvious reasons). What does the word actually mean? It's actually an acronym of the Japanese phrase "YAma nashi, Ochi nashi, Imi nash" which translates to "no climax, no point, no meaning" (climax in the storytelling sense and not the...uh, other sense). It was called this because most early yaoi eschewed all plot and characterizations to focus on the "hot stuff". In other words, porn without plot. Thankfully, not all series are like that. Jokingly, the acronym is sometimes said to be derived from the phrase "Yamete, oshiri ga itai" which translates to "Stop it, my ass hurts!" (Don't listen to anyone who tells you that that's the official meaning of yaoi because they are pulling your leg...or just don't know better). The term is nebulous at best. The easiest way to think of it is like this: these manga portrayed original characters in homosexual relationships. Yaoi took the idea a step further, portraying already established characters from anime in homosexual relationships, whether or not the characters were gay to begin with.
So what's the point of this blog? I am a yaoi fan. In order to stave off boredom, I am going to go through different yaoi series, day by day and chapter by chapter, giving my impressions of them as I go. Why would you want to read this? Because yaoi, like most things from Japan, have a wide range of stories from the good, to the bad, to the just plain bizarre.
I'm going to be using a few different terms in this blog that will make little to no sense to those unfamiliar with yaoi so if you want to have a hope of following this blog, make sure you know the following terms.
Seme-Translates to mean "attacker" or "pitcher". I prefer to use the second term as it has less creepy connotations and lends itself to baseball puns. Unfortunately, the creepy translation is oftentimes more accurate given the subject matter, something we'll cover down below in just a minute. You just need to know that the seme is the more dominant partner, the one who will be making all the moves basically.
Uke-Translates to "receiver" or "catcher". The other half of the relationship, the submissive one. He's often smaller and more feminine than the taller, manlier seme. Usually, within the first chapter, you can identify your seme and uke. Some series are not as cut and dry as this, but we'll cover those as they come.
Next, it's time to discuss the themes present in your average yaoi. This will give you an idea of what you can expect in the coming days.
Female characters- They are next to non existent in yaoi. They are minor characters at best and, distressingly enough, can be portrayed as downright evil, existing mostly as an obstacle for the two male characters to overcome, or are killed off in order to create drama, again, all in the name of pushing the two male characters together. This has always made little to no sense to me and is pretty misogynistic. Why women write their gender in this manner, I can't say, but it's actually kind of disturbing.
Gay Rights- Yeah, this is basically used as a plot device. It helps to show how, even though the world is against the, the two male lovers, against all odds, stay together because of how much they love each other. As before, I feel that I need to stress that yaoi does NOT portray homosexual relationships realistically. Every time I hear someone say "I support gay rights! I read yaoi!" I die a little inside. This is fantasy people!
Idealism- Basically, yaoi relationships are allowed to be "equal" since it's two men involved rather than a man and a woman. In Japan, there was a clear hierarchy in relationships, with men being first and women being second. For the female authors of yaoi, this allowed them to explore a relationship that was on equal footing. This is more common of earlier works and doesn't show up as often in the more recent series.
Rape- Yeeeeeeeeah, and now we get to the most uncomfortable aspect of yaoi. Rape. It happens a lot. It's usually how the relationships get started. Again, NOT REAL HOMOSEXUAL RELATIONSHIPS! See now how "attacker" is an unfortunate, but accurate, translation of seme? We'll be getting to this more in depth as it becomes relevant (and it WILL become relevant unfortunately).
Tragedy- And behind the misogyny and rape, tragedy was ridiculously popular for awhile. Apparently because it was entertaining to see men suffer. I don't know. Thankfully this was replaced with happy endings being more popular and nowadays it's usually a fifty fifty shot depending on the author and the story.
Wow, looking back on this post, it's kind of a dull start isn't it? Now that the technical stuff is out of the way we can get to the fun stuff. The first series is one that is rather well known though I myself have never actually read or watched it. Tomorrow, the blog will begin in full when I look at the opening chapter of Gravitation! See you then.
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