BL is the abbreviation of Boys Love. When translated into Chinese, it means the love between boys, also known as rose, tanmei and young love. In the Japanese comics industry, there is a specialized BL comic school. The following is the content compiled by me about what bl is. I hope you all like it!
The background of bl
Shōnen Ai
The first thing that appeared? Shonen Ai? The name used by the "24 Group" who created girls' comics. The simple explanation of the 24 Group is a group of girl cartoonists who were born around Showa 24 (1949), including Takemiya Keiko, Hagio Kanto, Yamagishi Ryoko, Oshima Yumiko, etc. The plot at that time mainly depicted same-sex feelings between teenagers, and the performance tended to be spiritual. In terms of social aspects, when the public was more accepting of homosexuality due to numerous gay movements or media reports, most of the works were shrouded in a dark and even gloomy and melancholy tone.
Brotherly Love
Brotherly Love generally refers to certain feelings between brothers. (Source time: 1970s-1990s)
JUNE? JUNE? comes from "JUN Magazine" founded in 1978. It was renamed "JUNE" after the third issue. It was first published with the name "JUNE" Miya Keiko's comics and novels are mainly written by writer Kaoru Kurimoto (Azusa Nakajima), and other authors include the famous Toshie Kihara and Yasuko Aoiike. The main theme of the magazine is beautiful boys, and of course the description of love between beautiful boys is indispensable. The content revolves around the atmosphere of Danbi (Tanbi here simply means aesthetics). For example, Kaoru Kurimoto (Azausa Nakajima) once discussed the names, personalities, clothes, etc. suitable for beautiful boys in JUNE, and trademarked beautiful boys. JUNE ceased publication in 1979 and resumed publication in 1981. After 1981, Yoshida Akio, Hasatsu Binko, Takaguchi Satoshi, etc. also appeared in this magazine one after another. As of February 2004, "Novel JUNE", Novel Novel No. 153, was put on hiatus and changed into a quarterly magazine "Novel JUNE DX" (different from the previously published separate volume of the same name), but it was changed to irregular publication soon after.
Yaoi
In 1979, the word "やおい" first appeared in the doujinshi edited by Binko Hasatsu, mainly in the second half of the 1970s, because of the animation "Mobile Suit Gundam" The gay doujinshi trend caused by these doujin creators self-deprecating works as yamanana, nanana, and meaning nana (やまなし, オチなし, いみなし), referred to as やおい. The translated meaning is: no climax, no result, no meaning, but there is H (sex) fan creation. In the mid-1980s, fan groups that created gay stories based on the theme of "Captain Tsubasa" began to appear one after another. Most of the works contained sexual scenes. At this time, the word "やおい" gradually became a representative term for the genre of comic novels about love between gay men.
In the early days, JUNE and やおい represented business and doujinshi creation respectively. However, due to the expansion of やおい in the later period, the so-called narrow sense and broad sense of やおい appeared. In the narrow sense, やおい simply refers to the creations of gay comic novels by fans, while in the broad sense, やおい generally refers to comics and novels about gay men depicted by women.
Boys' Love
In the 1990s, ?Boys' Love (ボーイズラブ, referred to as BL)? first appeared in the b-Boy magazine published by BIBLOS, because it emphasized the comedy ending. b-Boy magazine said that if the style they publish is more JUNE-style, it should be said to be Boys' Love style. So Boys' Love is associated with bright and light comedy. However, if there is no special requirement for a definition, the term Boys' Love in 2012 can almost represent all female-to-male homosexual creations, regardless of animation comics, games, novels, original derivatives, original works, commercial and doujinshi.
BIBLOS Publishing House went bankrupt on March 31, 2006 due to the failure of the president’s investment in the IT industry. Later, ANIMATE purchased the BIBLOS editorial department and established a new publishing house, RIL.
Trend
Japan is the birthplace of BL. Needless to say, the influence of BL in the ACGN field. The development of BL in Hong Kong and Taiwan is also rising steadily, and the trend of BL in mainland China It is undoubtedly the most popular in the world, and BL-related web pages can be seen everywhere. In the early days, the most obvious ones were ICLUBS, which had many fan works about BL. The familiar "Slam Dunk" and "Naruto" also had related BL fan works. The work appears.
Homosexuality
BL is used to refer to love between men (not entirely equivalent to male homosexuality). It is a type of creation and refers to creations by authors who love this thing. Fictional fantasy gay works for readers who are interested in this kind of thing. The content is mainly about same-sex love between men. [2] It has the same characteristics as BG-oriented works for women (such as romance novels) that do not pay attention to reality, pursue romance, and have beautiful characters. It is a special theme produced in a special culture and has obvious similarities with gay literature. different.
The main audience for early BL works was women (fujoshi for short). The word fujoshi originated from Japanese and was transformed from the homonym "fujoshi" (ふじょし, fujoshi), and later There are also gay and bisexual fetishes.
Women are emotional creatures. Influenced by handsome men in comics, they are easily addicted to sentimental stories, so once they enter the BL road, it is really difficult to get out. A fujoshi once said that she has watched various BL comics, novels, and anime, but she just can't watch the real ones. Because that would make her disillusioned, BL is often divorced from reality and people's imagination. What they like are ideal, beautiful, and non-existent love stories. Of course, currently, the majority of fujoshi are equally obsessed with BL (that is, gay men in reality).
The difference between GAY and BL
BL and GAY (gay men) are essentially male-male relationships, but there are still some differences.
BL mostly belongs to the homosexual love between men in women’s fantasy. In short, it is fantasy, daydream, beautiful and fantasy. It is the love relationship between two men in people’s fantasy.
GAY homosexuality in reality is also a love between men, but it is not as beautiful as BL.