2009-02-15, 10:59 | Link #61 |
eyewitness
Join Date: Jan 2007
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I'm not fond of either genre and when I browse anidb for worthwhile older shows the genre labels shounen ai/shoujo ai are even exclusion criteria.
Maybe there is a yaoi/yuri romance equivalent of, say, Lovely Complex somewhere out there but I very much doubt it. I'm suspicious of anime about gays for the same reason I'm suspicious about anime about e.g. maids. First of all, it means fetish pandering - and that will have its negative impact on the anime as a whole. At least if you're not in for the fetish. The strange, often mono-gendered settings are only one example. Other clichés like the gender-bending, "forced" (by the situation) relationships and the general beating around the bush prove IMHO that homosexuality not that well accepted among anime otaku - quite the contrary. (I don't know about the overwhelming rest of the Japanese society but I have my doubts here too). The only anime right now I can think of that deals with homosexuality not primarily as a fetish or for comedy reasons is Antique Bakery.
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2009-02-15, 11:52 | Link #62 | ||
Naysayer?Fanboy?Wiseacre?
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2009-02-15, 13:19 | Link #63 | |
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Location: Athens (GMT+2)
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2009-02-15, 13:38 | Link #64 |
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Join Date: Nov 2003
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Some people say they like yuri because it feels more emotional and less shallow, but I think yuri has an issue with being too much one way or the other. In more traditional yuri, aimed at women, it can very often come across as "pure to the point of sterility", where the main object is nebulous things like "wanting to hold hands" as opposed to any physical desire to consummate love. In that respect it really does feel like a "romantic friendship", where the two girls might very well be happy living out their whole lives together without so much as a kiss.
And then you have the other extreme, more often found in series aimed at men, where the "predatory lesbian" can often reign supreme. That's why I have to sort of chuckle about the previous post about how "oversexed" male homosexuals come across on TV shows, when anime has the same problem when it comes to predatory lesbian groping or leering in the place of what a man might prefer to do. This, of course, excludes the rare series written by and for lesbians, which tend to be very balanced...and utterly unread by those that aren't lesbians. (Well, I'm not a lesbian, and I enjoy that sort of yuri, but...) I'm not trying to claim that BL is a bastion of realism (because "lol, just...no"), but I think you more often find a little more of a mixture between the dramatic passionate relationship coupled with a strong physical attraction. You'd have to go back to the seventies to find a series where two guys from a "shounen ai" series are content with holding hands and mooning at one another. And, likewise, if a guy is canon gay in a BL series, you don't see endless scenes of him grabbing another guy's junk or nosebleeding in the locker room--even though his attraction will be obviously manifest. BL also has a stronger range of genres and subjects it covers, whereas yuri seems regulated to the "boarding school ghetto", mainly because of the pervading notion that persists to this day that the only reason a girl could be attracted to another girl is because there are no men around. The girl's sexuality is still orbiting around men, it's just that she was treated cruelly by them and seeks "immature" solace with another woman. At least BL deals with the concept of girlfriends and societal disapproval, even if it's in the most general sense of "but we're two guys". As a final note, anyone who is crowing about the superiority of yuri in terms of depth of quiet, subtle emotion should go read "Kinou Nani Tabeta" right now.
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2009-02-15, 14:03 | Link #65 | |
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Female-oriented yuri manga like Gakujou Drops can be pretty ecchi. Conversely, male-oriented yuri manga like Sasameki Koto can be pretty tame when it comes to sexual elements. Or it can be the total opposite. It really has little to do with the audience. EDIT: Ah, and lesbian mangaka usually work for both, female- and male-oriented mangazines. I think it's more than clear lesbian readers read both too.
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2009-02-15, 14:17 | Link #66 | |
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This topic is...kinda about comparing yuri to BL, so...
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Also, I was speaking in generalized terms. When you see a lesbian in a male-oriented show--regardless of whether that show is "yuri" or not--chances are that their lesbianism is a tool used to titillate the male audience. (Conversely, a male homosexual is often used for pure comic relief) In pure yuri, like Simoun, where the cast is focused on female relationships in general, you're more likely to get something other than "The Lesbian" syndrome, but how often do we really get "pure yuri" series? Manga tends to be a bit wider in what it shows. If we're going by manga, then we do have several series that go beyond "catholic schoolgirl lesbians" to things like lesbian idols, ect, ect. But I still don't see the same breadth that I do in BL--where I can read about gay diplomats or lawyers or soldiers or aliens or angels or knights or...I'm sure you get the picture. But I guess that might be the limitations of culture in terms of careers for women. It's just, you know, even lesbian OLs might be nice--aside from lesbian-oriented 4koma. You misunderstand. I'm talking about series like Rica'tte Kanji. I'm well aware that there are lesbian mangaka working for things like Yuri-Hime, ect.
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2009-02-15, 14:21 | Link #67 | ||
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2009-02-15, 14:30 | Link #68 | ||||
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That doesn't mean it makes sense. They're totally different creatures, so I don't think you can draw any useful comparison.
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Ah, sorry then. I do need to read Rika'tte Kanji. And yeah, this kind of manga (like Plica or Honey and Honey) are pretty rare. I love Plica btw, it's damn funny.
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Last edited by Kazu-kun; 2009-02-15 at 14:52. |
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2009-02-15, 15:13 | Link #69 |
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I'm talking about how many times you'll have girls say "men are disgusting" or "I hate men" ([insert trauma here about a dad that sucks, or something]) as the reason for why they are interested in women. It's all about the man, in that case. It's not about "women are beautiful" or "I'm attracted to women", it assumes that women would "normally" be attracted to men, if men hadn't done something to turn them off. Which is ridiculous.
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2009-02-15, 15:51 | Link #70 | |
HI, BILLY MAYS HERE
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That can go ahead and burn, along with many other dregs of anime of which can be saved for a grievance thread... And speaking of yuri, the great thing about this is that there are no guys involved...It's the male lead that really destroys a good harem cast, really... |
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2009-02-15, 16:18 | Link #71 | ||||
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Plica is wooonderful. I haven't gotten around to reading "Honey and Honey" myself, though...
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2009-02-15, 16:31 | Link #72 | |
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2009-02-15, 16:50 | Link #73 | ||||
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My point is just that many of Ichinjinsha's yuri manga are stated as female-oriented, either by the authors or the publisher itself. Quote:
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Honey and Honey is a bit difficult to swallow, because it revolves to much about the most stereotypical things about being a lesbian: you know, slang and things like that. Plica is way more refreshing: she's like "who cares" and just want to get it on .
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Last edited by Kazu-kun; 2009-02-15 at 17:00. |
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2009-02-16, 12:05 | Link #74 |
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Location: England
Age: 34
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I used to be one of the greatest Yuri fans, probably in this entire world, but now I posess naught pictures of them whatsoever. I only have the Strawberry Panic! series on DVD but that is all.
My interests rose elsewhere (Lolicon) so my interest for Yuri decreased majorly. Now I just have some ecchi pictures of random anime girls and a small number of Loli. My interests are in real Japanese woman these days although I still adore loli for its cuteness. In conclusion, Yuri, which I once adored greater than almost anything, rises not a lot of interest to me in the present. |
2009-02-18, 10:07 | Link #75 | |
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On another note, how come no Japanese ever came up with an anime or manga plot dealing all about lesbian vampires like Carmilla? That has a lot of potential of nailing a lot of tropes in one shot!
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2009-02-18, 12:42 | Link #76 | ||
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This isn't to say that yuri didn't deal with explicitly romantic relationships too--Shiroi Heya no Futari, ect, ect--but I think you had a stronger mixture of "romantic friendship" along with it because of its lengthier roots. Shounen manga also had its part to play in the way it fostered the doujinshi scene--unintentionally at first, then more and more intentionally until we're reached the point where it's stranger not to have homoerotic subtext in a popular SJ manga--which led to the current crop of BL writers you see today. CLAMP got started writing Captain Tsubasa and Saint Seiya doujinshi, for example. So you have something that becomes self-perpetuating, more and more girls getting interested by, perhaps, something they read in a shoujo manga--which even if it's not BL, tends to play around with gender identities a lot--and then can map onto shounen manga with their passionate male/male relationships. They, in turn, draw original series based on their own likes and dislikes and interests...and...we have gay astronauts. (There was also a dearth, until recently, of yuri that ends "happily ever after". It's usually either "die or seperate") Quote:
If you're wondering why yuri didn't catch on in the same way...there have always been glimmers of interest here and there, even as far back as the eighties with characters like Kei and Yuri of Dirty Pair fame, or the popularity of Sailormoon yuri. And you only have to look as far as Nanoha for another example. So yuri is exactly the same as BL in that when you have a predominantly singer-gender cast, you're more likely to get homosexual interaction. (Sorry, it just really, really bothers me when people accuse fangirls of being "annoying" or "reading too much into things" when fanboys engage in the exact same behavior more often than not) The problem was mainly that guys weren't interested in building an infrastructure like women were. If shoujo manga tends to explore things like the concept of gender, shounen manga tends to be very rigid in that respect. Guys, unlike girls, are not generally willing to read shoujo manga, which have stronger and larger female casts with which to play. It's only explosively popular shoujo series that catch their attention or the rare shounen or seinen series that is almost entirely girl-centric. But like I said, that's a relative rarity, and thus yuri is a relative rarity. Though that's changing as lines blur.
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2009-02-18, 14:54 | Link #77 |
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Join Date: Nov 2003
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As long as I'm blathering, one more thing to keep in mind about the difference between classic yuri and BL is the different depiction of love. In yuri, love most often brings sadness or pain. It's either an "impossibility" or "impermanent".
To illustrate what I mean, I'm thinking about a one shot by Kihara Toshie about a young woman who comes to meet someone at a hotel, as they promised while in high school. As it turns out, this person was a woman, and they shared a class s type of relationship in their youth. The women she was supposed to meet does show up...with a fiance in tow. This paints the actual lesbian as a "tragic figure", one that was unable to move on normally like everyone else and is doomed to a life of loneliness as she literally walks off into a foggy morning. In "Shiroi Heya no Futari", the protagonist, after her beloved is murdered, decides to live the rest of her life in quiet, lonely despair. BL, on the other hand. While you have elaborate tragedies ala "Kaze to Ki no Uta", two other prominent BL stories that shaped the genre are wildly different. In "Touma no Shinzou", Juli eventually comes to terms with the fact that he loved Tomas, and decides to use it as a source of personal strength for the rest of his life--even if Tomas is no longer living. In "Mari and Shingo", even after Shingo admits that he'll never be able to love Mari romantically, Mari will always be the most important person to him. The strength of that friendship might sometimes cause pain, but it's ultimately a positive thing.
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2009-02-21, 18:10 | Link #79 | |
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Join Date: Sep 2007
Location: Australia
Age: 38
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Huh? Homophobia girls enjoy yaoi? You are going to need to expand on this if you want it to make any sense whatsoever. |
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2009-02-22, 03:11 | Link #80 | |
Banned
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: Hell
Age: 38
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I have a question to all yaoi fangirls in this place "Can you all be a little bit more 'lesbian' ? Not turning yourself into real lesbians but they should stop become overly straight by holding hands with each other, spend more time with your won gender instead. We guys already did". |
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yaoi, yuri |
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