Search
Partners
Anime News
|
Gals swoon over Boy's Love media boom Date: 8/29/2005 |
|
Huge numbers of schoolgirls in their teens through to middle-aged housewives are smitten with stories about pretty young men in love with other pretty young men in an increasingly lucrative genre called Boy's Love, according to Shukan Bunshun (9/1). All sorts of Boy's Love media have popped up, each apparently appealing to the different demographics swooning over the saucy stories of boys falling in love with each other. Although Boy's Love extends into comics, manga, novels and computer games, they all share the common trait of being what are called dojinshi. Dojinshi are doing a roaring trade at Japan's countless comike, or comic markets, and what makes them stand out is that they are all produced by ordinary fans who've taken characters from a famous manga, anime or novel and then parodied or paraphrased to create their own original stories. Boy's Love dojinshi run the whole gamut or garishness, such as the "Captain Tsubasa" tale that takes the leading proponents from a well-known Japanese anime about elementary school baseball players and makes them lovers, or the more modern take on Harry Potter, who teams up the young wizard with his chum Ron Weasley to play with magic wands of an entirely different type to those J.K. Rowling wrote about in her books. While many are shocked at the graphic content of the Boy's Love media, its creators continue grinding out ever more works, with some artists becoming top professionals in the mainstream market. Many have ideas about why so many Japanese women have this fixation for homosexual stories featuring young boys."The world of Boy's Love is a complete fantasy," a woman working a stall at a comike tells Shukan Bunshun. "When normal manga or novels pick up love stories, they occasionally touch on the bitterness of love, which can provide a sort of stimulation, but with Boy's Love, it's always about not hurting. I suppose in a way Boy's Love is kind of a way to escape from reality." Boy's Love initially only made its way into comics and novels, but the market has recently swelled courtesy of Boy's Love computer games selling like wildfire. "Suki na mono ha suki dakara shoganai (You Can't Help What You Like)," was released five years ago to become Japan's first Boy's Love game given an R-rating (because of its vulgar language), which basically made it a hit. "Gakuen Heaven (School Heaven)," another story about pretty young boys in love, has also sold phenomenally well, driving the market to an unprecedented size. Both games have been made into highly successful series and spawned their own collections of related merchandise ranging from dolls to comics. An animated TV series is also apparently in the works. "What's popular in the women's market is said to lag about three years behind what guys like, so women have only just started to fall for the charms of plastic figures," the comike seller tells Shukan Bunshun. "Guys have shifted their taste from figures and dolls to things like maid cafes (where female staff members wear the uniforms of 19th century European maids), so perhaps it won't be too long before we see Boy's Love cafes start to pop up." (By Ryann Connell) |
| Source: Mainichi Daily News |
