I’m sure that you already know what yaoi is. Relatively young and very popular with girls, the genre is one of the most important subgenres in anime. However, little is known about its history. How did it all start? Perhaps you wouldn’t have guessed that the roots of yaoi are in so called aniparo – animation parody. This fan-genre has taken liking in embarrassing male characters of several anime(s). Often, they would find themselves in ballet dresses or with cat’s ears.  It went so far that two men appeared in bed together... In the middle 80-ties, term YAOI was written to the Manga Chronicle as “no climax, no punch line, no meaning“. Even though that this abbreviation may sound derogatorily, we have to realize that in those times yaoi was just to entertain.

A few years later the situation changed. Yaoi became a popular genre on doujinshi scene. A few amateurs even had the courage to publish their works – one of them was today’s legendary Minami Ozaki, who published her first work “Chuusei no Akashi” in 1988 and a year after that Zetsuai – 1989 – was published and quickly became a classic in the genre. Together with sequel Bronze: Zetsuai since 1989, these titles have become very important milestones in yaoi and shounen-ai. The Zetsuai series was greatly popular not only among fans but also the critics. A new modern wave was born, marked by the rising number of publications and magazines. In this time erotic scenes weren’t too explicit and when the time came everything was “esthetically covered”.  Besides, it’s important to say that these titles were for women – a less known fact is that homosexual men had their own publications mainly for them. However, yaoi was still considered to be a dull production of the fans. This professional form gained the name shounen-ai later on, but even so, term yaoi was widely used mostly by western fans in both categories – the “18 ” publications and also for romantic stories.

However, yaoi still wasn’t as extensively well-liked. Ironically, Chinese and Taiwanese pirate translations of these titles helped to increase the popularity. Nonetheless, the real expansion of the genre came with the Internet – mostly thanks to fans: Susan Chen (founder of the fanzine Aestethicism in 1996) and Monica Shin, who created a fan-site dedicated to Zetsuai and Bronze, which are in most cases first experiences with the genre.

Another milestone on the field of fan fiction and doujinshi was a well-known series Gundam Wing. Particularly the two main characters Heero and Due became subjects of many speculations which were the basis for creating doujinshi. We can name a few like Cross 2000 or Where Angels Fear To Tread. Heero and Duo are one of the most famous doujinshi pairs...

Another important factor when talking about spreading the titles to masses is the importance of the knowledge of language. It may be strange, but manga Kizuna by Kazuma Kodaka has probably become so popular because the story is intuitive and can be read from the drawings themselves, while this cannot be said about the titles by Minami Ozaki. But the fans found their way around it, spreading translations through the internet, helping Zetsuai - 1989 -, Kizuna and Fake to become even more popular.

Animated versions (anime) also have an important part in popularity of the genre. They are not very explicit, but they tend to hold a certain quality standard so the fans often return to their drawn predecessors. I think Maki Murakami’s Gravitation is a very good example. This series is quite popular among Slovak fans, although only anime is widely known. We can encounter only innocent kisses in anime, but those who have seen the manga know that it verges on yaoi... Another title, which popularity has grown with the animated version, is Yami No Matsuei. Although this series doesn’t even belong to the shounen-ai genre, the relationship between doctor Muraki and the main character Tsuzuki is more than obvious. Despite the fact that you cannot see a single kiss in the anime, the manga is known to show more explicit scenes, though only in measures of general rating.

At this point, we come to an era, where yaoi and shounen-ai are valuable and overly popular genres. Many shounen-ai elements are starting to appear in shoujo-manga – in this time you would hardly find a shoujo manga in which shounen-ai would not be present. This had even longer history than Zetsuai… What about the kiss in Please Save My Earth from the year 1986? Today this trend is breaking through more than ever – we can mention i.e. Kaori Yuki’s Angel Sanctuary or CLAMP studio’s X/1999. And so the elements of man/man relationship appear in manga that deals with heterosexual relationship as in Angel Sanctuary. Popular mangaka, You Higuri, also likes to display such romances, but the relationships are only hinted. Hence Shounen-ai and yaoi overcame their parody beginnings and have come to a period of respect in relatively short time.

Now we know how shounen-ai and yaoi came to be, but I’m certain many of you are asking the question: why are women so attracted to this genre? Lesbian scenes are nothing unusual in movies created mostly for men (porn films or hentai), so we could look here for the answer. While men like to look at erotic scenes with two women, women are attracted by the opposite and they like watching erotic games of two men. This would explain the physical attraction of man-man relationship, but the strange part is that women love to observe very strong romantic relationships between men – otherwise the shounen-ai genre wouldn’t be SO popular as it is. Maybe it’s related to girls being very emotional beings, who like the idea of “strong” man showing his weakness for another man… Or maybe it’s just very nice to look at two bishounen(s). That’s one of the reasons why they are so many doujinshi(s) based on shoujo series, which don’t have or just imply (Weiss Kreuz) shounen-ai or yaoi elements. It may surprise you, but shounen manga (manga for boys) can also be very fertile grounds for the production of doujinshi, mostly because the relationships between characters don’t seem to be too developed. To give a few examples: Gundam Wing, Gensomaden Saiyuuki or Naruto.

Attraction of the bishounen(s) is also used by the producers and creators and often bishounen(s) make a lot of money. Yaoi games are good examples, i.e. Suki na Mono Sukidakara Shou ga nai!. This series of computer games was so popular that it grew into series of drama CDs with famous all-star cast Hikaru Modorikawa (Weiss Kreuz, Gundam Wing, Fushigi Yuugi, Shoujo Kakumei Utena…) or Miki Shinichirou (Weiss Kreuz, Vision of Escaflowne)) and recently made it into animated version. And it doesn’t end with a few drama CDs – the seiyuu(s) of the main characters of Weiss Kreuz even had a tour around Japan, performing songs from the anime – just like a real band...

Despite the fact that this form of romantic stories is very popular, don’t always expect happy ending. Sadness, obstacles to happiness, emotional torment, even death are often present in shounen-ai titles. The perfect example is Zetsuai – 1989 – and the sequel Bronze. Depressive more than enough, I think they can be easily placed among the most depressive manga(s). And what about Boys Next Door, where Kaori Yuki managed to show, that she is capable to make the reader cry even if the manga is quite short, the whole story has about 80 pages. The first page shows dead Lawrence, one of the main characters… These stories are tremendously popular and are selling very well.

So we've offered you a short sight into the history of this genre and tried to explain why it is so popular. From an objective point of view, we have to admit, it has reasons to be so popular and likewise genres as hentai or yuri, it has a right to live. Hence as it is, it proves once again, that anime is not only about painted fairytales.

(aďo)