Yaoi and BL stories cover a diverse range of genres such as high school love comedy, period drama, science fiction and fantasy, and detective fiction, and include sub-genres such as omegaverse and shotacon. Common themes in yaoi include forbidden relationships, depictions of rape, tragedy, and humor. However, yaoi remains more generally prevalent in English.Ī defining characteristic of yaoi is the practice of pairing characters in relationships according to the roles of seme, the sexual top or active pursuer, and uke, the sexual bottom or passive pursued. Boys' love and its abbreviation, BL, are the generic terms for this kind of media in Japan and have, in recent years, become more commonly used in English as well. It spans a wide range of media, including manga, anime, drama CDs, novels, games, films, and fan production. It is typically created by women for women and is distinct from homoerotic media marketed to gay and bisexual male audiences, such as bara, but it can also attract male readers and male creators can also produce it. Yaoi ( / ˈ j aʊ i / Japanese: やおい ), also known as boys' love ( ボーイズ ラブ, bōizu rabu) or BL ( ビーエル, bīeru), is a genre of fictional media originating in Japan that features homoerotic relationships between male characters. Erotic genre focusing on love between boys Template:SHORTDESC:Erotic genre focusing on love between boysĮxample of shōnen-ai artwork, originally published at Animexx
