Today, English-language manga readers get to enjoy publisher catalogs that have both breadth and depth. One of my favorite things about that is the number of queer-themed manga being released. In the last five years alone, we’ve seen the release of excellent titles like My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness, My Brother’s Husband, and Our Dreams at Dusk. Two decades ago, I never would have predicted the release of a series like Blue Flag, a shonen romance where the love quadrangle features queer pairings in addition to the heterosexual ones. But despite the increased visibility of titles about the queer experience, the truth is we’ve always had manga with queer content — namely yuri and BL manga.
What Is BL Manga?
In a nutshell, boys’ love, or BL, manga features romantic relationships between men. Like any other manga category, these stories can range from realistic dramas to intense, over-the-top fantasies. Like any story from the romance genre, some can be cute and sweet while others can be spicy and explicit. Whatever your reading preferences, you can find a BL title to suit your tastes. The important thing to keep in mind, however, is that traditionally, boys’ love manga is created by heterosexual women for heterosexual female readers. There are discussions to be had about the problematic aspects of that dynamic. There are also more discussions to be had about the accuracy of the perceived identities of both BL creators and readers today. Those are conversations for another day. It’s best to approach the boys’ love category as a romance genre that promises escapism versus a realistic exploration of the queer experience. Not saying that BL manga can’t have the latter, but it’s not a requirement so don’t go in expecting it.
A Quick Look at BL Terminology
Boys’ love originated from the shojo genre, which is why it’s traditionally viewed as a category where both the creators and readers are heterosexual women. That’s shojo manga’s target demographic, after all. Over time, however, this new sub-genre would garner different labels — some of which you may have heard in common usage if you’re a longtime manga reader. Shonen ai: Although this term translates to “boy love,” its general usage is deprecated because it’s historically associated with pedophilia. No thanks. In the context of manga, early shojo works bearing this label typically meant romances between beautiful boys. We’ll ignore the fact that many of these formative works ended in tragedy, but people well-versed with queer narratives probably won’t be too shocked by this revelation. Sadly, some things remain the same no matter the culture. Tanbi: Like shonen ai, manga bearing this label also focused on beautiful aesthetics. It typically featured relationships between older men and younger lovers. If you’re a fan of The Untamed, you’ve likely heard of the term danmei — the Chinese genre of romances between men. Fun fact: danmei is the Chinese transliteration of tanbi. June: June was the name of a now-defunct manga magazine that serialized boys’ love titles. The magazine’s name became synonymous with BL manga that featured art styles reminiscent of series published within its pages. Can you imagine being so visible that people called entire swaths of manga the name of your magazine because the art looked similar? Yaoi: This is likely the most well-known synonym for boys’ love manga. Yaoi is an acronym for “yama nashi, ochi nashi, imi nashi,” which translates to “no climax, no point, no meaning.” It originated from doujinshi circles — doujinshi being amateur, self-published and fan comics in Japan — and refers to the fact that many early BL works focused on sex to the exclusive of anything else, including characterization and plot. In case you’re wondering how the “boys’ love” label came into being, just look at the number of terms that refer to what essentially is the same thing. BL, as a category label, collects all these works under one umbrella. Two other terms that will be useful to know when it comes to boys’ love manga: Seme: The top and the pursuer in the relationship. Uke: The bottom and the pursued in the relationship. The strict codification of sexual and relationship roles in BL series is one of the things most often criticized by English-language readers. To be honest, the depictions in boys’ love manga can be problematic at times. Something to keep in mind as you delve into BL manga and see the kinds of relationships being portrayed. They’re not all problematic in this specific way, but some are.
Modern BL Manga Classics
The tricky thing about boys’ love manga is that many of the foundational works have never been licensed in English. If they have been, they’ve fallen out of print. Searching for these classic BL manga online will reveal used copies going for hundreds of dollars. So instead, here are two modern classics that are more accessible and affordable.
Maybe You’ve Seen That Anime?
Newer BL Manga Series
Hidden Gems
And that concludes this introduction to BL manga. Novel adaptations of boys’ love manga do exist, as well as entirely original light novels, but we’ll leave that for you to discover. Interested in exploring manga beyond the BL category? Here’s a list of best manga to get you started, or you can check out all of our manga coverage.
