Manga
and Romance: Yaoi
"What is
Yaoi?"
Yaoi, also
known as Boys' Love, is a Japanese popular term for female-oriented fictional
media that focuses on homoerotic or homoromantic male relationships, usually
created by female authors. Source: Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yaoi
My m/m romance
influence actually came from yaoi anime and manga. I started out with a
slightly less 'risque' branch of it called shounen-ai in the form of the
cat-eared anime Loveless. After I finished the series, I became voracious for
more of the boys' love anime and started hunting through websites looking for
others, eventually stumbling on a forum dedicated to everything yaoi,
Aarinfantasy.com/forum.
Aarinfantasy is
actually where I started writing my own original yaoi fiction (screen name
LovelessSoubi). I started posting stories on their forum and receiving
feedback, motivating me to keep going. Eventually I submitted Touch Me Gently,
originally posted on their original fictions section, to Dreamspinner Press and
from there you know what happened! :-)
Yaoi also is distributed in the form of
manga. Popular yaoi manga distributers include DMP (Digital Manga Publishing),
June (Digital Manga's imprint for yaoi manga), and DMG (Digital Manga Guild). Of
course there are many others, but these are the biggest distributors.
Western m/m romance differs from Yaoi in
a significant manner, at least from my own personal perception. Yaoi usually
has an older, more masculine seme or top with a younger, slightly more feminine
uke or bottom. There are exceptions to that fact, but in most cases it tends to
be masculine/feminine characters. Western m/m romance novels lean more toward
masculine characters and plot lines. My first novel Touch Me Gently was written
along the lines of yaoi as that was the major influence of my writing at the
time. Yet my latest WIP His Salvation, which is still pending acceptance, is
written more in the western m/m influence.
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Most readers of western m/m romance tend
to be overly critical of novels written with a yaoi influence as the uke/bottom
tends to be more feminine. One of the reviews I read for Touch Me Gently
basically said I should stick with heterosexual romances because of how
feminine Kaden appeared in the novel. It was obvious that person had never read
yaoi manga or watched a yaoi anime. When I subbed Swift's Temptation to Silver,
I had to explain to the editor I worked with at the time what yaoi was and why
Xavier was such a prick toward Fagan, and why it was okay! LOL.
I have an e-book of Touch Me Gently in
the Hop's grand prize package,
but I also am offering up my own blog prize of
one of my cell phone/purse/whatever you want to use it for swag charms. Your
choice of charm and color. I have a cowboy hat for Touch Me Gently (not
pictured), a unicorn for Fragments of a Unicorn's Soul, a snowflake for White
Rain, and a feather for Chasing Seth. I will be randomly choosing a winner from
the comments on my blog so please leave your email address for me to contact
you!
I hope this was an informative post for those who have never heard of yaoi, heard of it but didn't really know what it is, and might even start reading the mangas or books related to yaoi!
Be sure to stop by the other blogs and read what others had to say about Manga and romance. :D
Kisses,
J.R.
Posts
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