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News Article
New Poll - Yaoi vs. Yuri
This week's poll was suggested initially by PinkShippuden with a slight amendment from 狂気. We did a similar poll 1.5 years ago, but it was phrased in the negative. This one is phrased in the positive.

You can submit poll ideas here (and try to keep them manga/anime-related)
http://www.mangaupdates.com/showtopic.php?tid=3903

Previous Poll Results:
Question: If you were a villain from a manga, what kind would you be?
Choices:
Destroyer of the world - votes: 762 (6.3%)
Ruler or tyrant - votes: 885 (7.3%)
Creator of chaos - votes: 919 (7.6%)
Random or psychotic - votes: 1030 (8.5%)
Strategist or mastermind - votes: 2987 (24.7%)
Brute or strongman - votes: 75 (0.6%)
Corrupter - votes: 416 (3.4%)
Terrorist - votes: 114 (0.9%)
Secretive or deceptive - votes: 1078 (8.9%)
Basic jerk - votes: 231 (1.9%)
Bad villain (try to do evil but fail so hard and end up doing good) - votes: 1545 (12.8%)
Cult leader - votes: 190 (1.6%)
Assassin - votes: 1351 (11.2%)
A minion - votes: 488 (4%)
There were 12071 total votes.
The poll ended: January 31st 2015

Lots of people would love to be smart...
Posted by lambchopsil on 
January 31st 1:26am
Comments ( 58 )  
[ View ]  [ Add ]

Comments (limited to first 100 replies)

» Faukner on January 31st, 2015, 2:36am

Am I the only one who doesn't understand straight men's obsession with yuri or straight women's obsession with yaoi.

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» RoxFlowz on January 31st, 2015, 4:27am

Quote from Faukner
Am I the only one who doesn't understand straight men's obsession with yuri or straight women's obsession with yaoi.

I don't think it's the obsession of one but often the dislike of the other. As a straight guy, I avoid Yaoi but don't mind reading Yuri. I think I've only ever read and enjoyed one BL series, not my cup of tea in most cases.
Of course there are those obsessed with BL/GL, but I don't think it's the majority.

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» Dionaea on February 3rd, 2015, 2:11am

eyes Exactly this, I'm a straight female and I've read only a few yaoi stories, mainly because the plot sounded interesting and the art looked pretty. I usually just flip through the 'sexy' bits quickly, because I don't really care for them. Hot guys are a big plus in any story though biggrin So yes, I prefer yaoi, because yuri lacks hot dudes. bigrazz

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» Baalzebup on January 31st, 2015, 7:37am

Quote from Faukner
Am I the only one who x


This is a question that you should never ask in the internet, because the answer is always no. ALWAYS!

Calling it an obsession is a bit much, considering you can easily prefer something or like something without being obsessed about it. I also don't understand why you don't understand it. You can even reduce it to a quite simple formula:

If (woman = hot) and (sex/smut = hot), then it stands to reason that (woman + woman + sex = hot.)

Reverse gender for the Yaoi formula.

And yes, reality isn't quite that simple, but c'mon. You should be able to see why it works for some people.

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» deadphoenix on January 31st, 2015, 2:38am

This will become a weird poll.
Do I need to be surprised by the low score for "I'm female and I prefer neither" or for the high score for "I'm male and I prefer neither".

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» quark1020 on January 31st, 2015, 4:59am

Give it some time. From the time of this reply, the poll has only been up roughly 3 hours. The only weird thing I find about this post is this strange feeling that we've done this poll before...

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» deadphoenix on January 31st, 2015, 2:39pm

Quote from quark1020
Give it some time. From the time of this reply, the poll has only been up roughly 3 hours. The only weird thing I find about this post is this strange feeling that we've done this poll before...


Check the main topic posted by lambchopsil, then you know this poll was done a 1.5 years ago, but in the negative.

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» forgottenone666 on January 31st, 2015, 3:40am

I'm male and I read more yuri than I read yaoi so I chose "I'm male and I prefer yuri". When I read yaoi I tend to only read yaoi involving traps so there aren't a whole lot that fit my tastes unfortunately. My tastes in yuri seem to be easier to find.

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» MinatoAce on January 31st, 2015, 7:19am

Okay...this is how it goes - I'm male and I prefer neither...So, yeah babe...what I prefer is called " Straight "...

though, I don't find men loving Yuri a bit weird...haha

@Faukner - The only answer to your point I can find is, because they can't apply it to themselves...so, probably because of it, the ones enjoys it can enjoy it without any concern...^^

different people, different opinions...Different Tastes...No Comment!!

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» residentgrigo on January 31st, 2015, 7:47am

I always wanted to put my opinion of the 2 genres in writing so here we go. I am a hetero man so that part was easy. I am also capable of reading both but most have no real world connection (they are mostly set in modern day Neo Tokyo or sometimes the 40s) and are for a lack of a better word fairy tails or very clear porn. There more quality shonen ai manga then shojo-ai but that filed is way bigger.
So i sadly went with I'm male and I prefer neither. Is also don´t last with such manga for long and most of them are a 4-6/10. BUT sometimes they succeed with cases like these:
Honey & Honey is the best lesbian manga but that is a biography so the fictional Plica is nice too. Or the anime Simoun which wasn´t about humans so that does not even count as gay.
For shone ai i would go with Zankoku na Kami ga Shihaisuru but this one did not have realistic homosexuality and i was only reading because i liked (most) of the story and the art. Banana Fish isn´t quite shonen ai but if it was it would be the best one. For anime i go with Ai no Kusabi but that wasn´t quite about humans too and had some retarded SM rape.

If this was a comic site i would go with I'm male and I like both equally as the US/European market actually bothers to portrait LGBT characters as human since the 90s. Great examples are Kevin Keller or Batwoman who bot won GLAAD Media Award or Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel(the one form the movie test). Good tv shows are Queer as Folk(UK) or Angels in America. My two favoutite ongoin comics after Berserk are The Walking Dead (Jesus is just rad) and Saga (Izabel is even a ghost) and both have a lot of prominent gay chracters i love.
All in all frankly dislike both japanese versions as they have crap writing in 98% of the cases or run in circles like Maria-sama ga Miteru witch has 39! volumes with no real time progression. This isn´t even an unpopular opinion as even the wikipedia article on yaoi has a big criticism section. Here a quote:
"Some gay and lesbian commentators have criticized how gay identity is portrayed in BL, most notably in the yaoi ronsō or "yaoi debate" of 1992?1997. A trope of yaoi that has attracted criticism is male protagonists who do not identify as gay, but are rather simply in love with each other." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yaoi Funny enough the yuri one does not.
I am pro gay marriage by the way as germany had that since a decade but japan oh well. Maybe in my lifetime. The moment they publicly acknowledge homosexuality will be the moment when "gay manga" for me will start to come out regularly. Till then.

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» Baniita on February 4th, 2015, 3:16pm

Queer as Folk is just damn wonderful. Goddamn shame about the cancellation.

Ai no Kusabi is pretty meh. Though it's only an OVA, I like Tight Rope best (as well as the manga).
I couldn't get into Banana Fish at all. For more realistic BL, Kyuugou's work is pretty great--the oneshot "Reply" is my fav of hers. Mizushiro Setona's Cornered Mouse Dreams of Cheese was a bit overmelodramatic, but I loved it. The best BL-like titles I know with all-around quality I know are No.6 (novel, preferably) and most of Sugiura Shiho's works. I generally dislike older BL titles, as they tend to be excessively cheesy.

I think Girl Friends and Collectors were the only GL titles I really enjoyed... The art looks kinda.. er, but I added Honey & Honey to my reading queue.

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» NightSwan on January 31st, 2015, 8:06am

As long as it ain't straight... ;p

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» oGaga on January 31st, 2015, 9:38am

I'm female and i prefer yaoi but i have no problem with yuri as long as the story isn't fanservice or smut. i honestly think i would be a bigger fan of yuri if 90% the stories i find weren't futanari or made specifically for guys to masturbate to. the best yuri I've ever found was Tokimeki Mononoke Jogakkou.
my preference: 75% yaoi and 25% yuri

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» Breizh on February 1st, 2015, 1:39am

Quote from oGaga
I'm female and i prefer yaoi but i have no problem with yuri as long as the story isn't fanservice or smut. i honestly think i would be a bigger fan of yuri if 90% the stories i find weren't futanari or made specifically for guys to masturbate to. the best yuri I've ever found was [m]Tokimeki Mononoke [/m] ...


90 % of yuri that is funatari or hentai ? It might be true on hentai sites but most lf the series I read have very few graphic scenes... ( girl friends, honto no kanojo, sasame kikoto, citrus, himitsu no recipe,...)

I'm a male and I prefer yuri because it's soothing, sweet with likeable characters.

Some people here don't understand what there is to like about yuri but I don't understand what there ISN'T to like about it.

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» Baniita on February 4th, 2015, 3:22pm

Citrus has great art, but god it was goddamn awful. It was an even bigger disappointment than Akuma no Riddle.

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» Baniita on February 4th, 2015, 3:25pm

(cough)

Female, and I love (non-supersize) futanari. Bible Black, mmmmn.

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» Baalzebup on February 4th, 2015, 3:34pm

Edit: tthrrrrp. Never mind me then.

.... beside agreeing with this:
Quote from Baniita
I love (non-supersize) futanari. Bible Black, mmmmn

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» lambchopsil on February 4th, 2015, 11:24pm

Quote from Baalzebup
Unholy fucking god, please stop with the chain-posting.

It's actually fine in the News forum since it has a tree view

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» Baalzebup on February 5th, 2015, 12:43am

Oh, that's right. I always forget about that viewing mode. I tend to use the normal forum look even for the news feed threads and thus forget about the alternative.

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» sidzero on January 31st, 2015, 10:05am

This poll is going to end up telling us a lot about homophobia within the fandom. Probably not what was intended, but it certainly will be a result.

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» thevampirate on January 31st, 2015, 10:23am

Just because I don't like reading about 2 guys/girls and their love story doesn't mean I'm homophobic just not homosexual. I don't have a problem with a gay character in manga I just don't care for stories about their love life. The fact that is about 10% of the people like both and only about a third like one kind of shows that there's more of the issue with the genere than the content. Yaoi and yuri are almost always slice of life/romance/smut if next WSJ luffy declared his love of sanji I wouldn't stop reading OP but if the rest of the story became about their love life I would.

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» juls91 on January 31st, 2015, 12:48pm

Quote from thevampirate
Just because I don't like reading about 2 guys/girls and their love story doesn't mean I'm homophobic just not homosexual.


And just because i like it doesn't mean i am homosexual... I feel like you defending one point just hits the other. I am a girl and enjoy to no end reading shounenai/yaoi, and if i liked yuri that wouldn't necessarily make me a lesbian, i don't think that someone who reads one or the other is "obviously gay" and at the same time if they were, there is nothing wrong with that. I feel that people who tries to defend their inclinations are just insecure...

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» thevampirate on January 31st, 2015, 9:29pm

To be fair I should have worded it differently but its a hard way to word anything in this topic without insulting someone else. Its more of the I don't like reading/watching boarderline (or sometimes out right) gay porn because I'm not in the target demographic. The majority of Yaoi/shonnen Ai stories are aimed at females just like most lesbian porn is aimed at males... I really dont want to go further down the rabbit hole here (no pun intended) so I'm going to leave it at that

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» Faukner on January 31st, 2015, 1:00pm

How so? Preferring neither doesn't mean you're homophobic.

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» mysstris on February 1st, 2015, 8:19pm

Yes, neither doesn't constitute homophobia. In fact, I find this poll isn't as worded very well but it has only done its best within the limits of a brief poll in order to ensure voting and to ensure that the distribution isn't so disbused. I chose neither because I don't read based on yaoi and yuri tags. I just read.

Also I feel like I've seen this poll before.

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» train93 on January 31st, 2015, 11:57am

I'm male and I prefer neither. That's because being heterosexual, I like heterosexual romance because I subconsciously project my own wish fulfilment upon the fictional couple; it's the same reason (and at the same time it isn't, but it would be difficult to explain) I dislike harem, I guess, since I like the idea of exclusivity of the romance in a couple. I don't mind the genres, but they have to present me with a solid story and characters because it's all they have got going for them since I can't personally relate with the romance. And since the most part of manga is average in all genres, I'll go with the not yuri/yaoi ones, since I am at least granted that bit of self-projection. If I had to choose between the two of them, of course I'll pick Yuri based on my sexual orientation.

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» toshirodragon on January 31st, 2015, 12:56pm

And my gender matters..... why?

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» thevampirate on January 31st, 2015, 9:39pm

because this poll would lose so much information otherwise. look at yaoi for example ~95% of men don't like yaoi however with gender taken out it would look like almost 40% of people like yaoi.

I really wonder if the close to half of men who said they prefer Yuri actually read much of it and I dont count hentai (although others might and this poll doesn't specify).

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» cl123 on January 31st, 2015, 1:04pm

Since most hentai/etc. is usually written for men it's not surprising to me that a larger percent of women prefer yaoi which is often written for women...women have less options

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» KaoriNite on February 1st, 2015, 12:53am

Quote from cl123
Since most hentai/etc. is usually written for men it's not surprising to me that a larger percent of women prefer yaoi which is often written for women...women have less options


I think you make a really good point. The whole reason I got into yaoi was because there wasn't much shoujo smut. And what is there in that genre seems really degrading to women, e.g. lots of rape and abuse. While those topics come up in yaoi too, since there is a lot more yaoi it is easier to avoid the manga that has those things.

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» Baniita on February 4th, 2015, 3:04pm

I personally don't read BL for the smut at all. Since I'm a girl without a D, I can't find cis gay male smut relateable, and thus can't get off of it. I'd take the 24 volume epic fantasy gay romance over smut, every time.

Lol, rape/abuse in BL isn't really easier to avoid. So much apology rape, and it's everywhere. The "No-no-no-yes" formula is terrible, though I suppose KSB to be the exception that pulled it off (somehow).
As for stuff like DRAMAtical Murder, it's mostly unapologetic about most everything including rape, so forgiving that isn't even relevant. (W/e, Clear's routes are the only worthwhile ones for me).
I think it's just easier to stomach for many of us since men don't have as much history/frequency of being raped or physically abused by their partners. Gender roles are also usually not a factor, so...
Apology rape just shouldn't be tolerated in general, especially when romanticized.

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» Cthylla on January 31st, 2015, 1:17pm

I am female at the moment and I prefer yuri, as long as it's not hentai.

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» TundraDweller on January 31st, 2015, 3:13pm

I'm male and I prefer neither. But if you made me choose one or the other, it would be yuri. Actually, non-H yuri romance is kinda sweet. I watched an anime once, Kannazuki no Miko. Other than that, I have no experience with the genre, so I really prefer neither.

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» animeangelgrl on January 31st, 2015, 7:29pm

I'm a straight female and I adore yaoi. Out of my 1219 completed series, 841 are yaoi or shounen-ai. I see people claiming that they don't like yaoi/yuri because they're straight and they can't relate to the romance when it is comprised of two people of the same genre, which is a valid point.

For me, the allure of yaoi is that because I like males, I get to see two of them; twice the fun! Even though there are two males participating in a romantic act, I'm still able to project myself into the scene. I also think a big part of it is that I love reading the H scenes. There is little choice for the female demographic when it comes to straight sex. Shoujo/josei smut seems to be too vanilla for me while hentai tends to exploit the female body to the point of being a turn off to me; it's too clearly created for the male demographic. That's where yaoi comes in. I'm able enjoy the smutty scenes while appreciating the male body in the same way that people that like hentai are able to find enjoyment from that.

On the romance front, I tend to think that the tropes used in most shoujo manga are too overused and unexciting unlike yaoi for me. Add that to the excitement of a little eroticism and you've got me hooked! Just my two cents.

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» nightazday on January 31st, 2015, 7:50pm

I'm not too big on yaoi because I can't stand the artwork and the very static seme and uke dynamic that almost never changes.

Also the fact I'm a heterosexual guy, but mostly the first reason.

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» crazyboutcute on January 31st, 2015, 10:20pm

Straight ace female here who prefers yaoi -- though to be fair, I've never actually read any yuri/shoujo-ai series (though I have a couple on my wishlist I need to check out laugh ). I'll be honest; I read yaoi almost solely for the smut (since they rarely have good plots/characters/romance/etc. anyway, and yaoi smut is basically the only sexual activity I'm interested in engaging in bigrazz). I read shounen-ai, het, and, once I get around to it, shoujo-ai for the story, characters, and romance. On the whole, I'm not a huge romance fan since a lot of the genre has been done to death and so, to me, comes across as boring, annoying, or a combination thereof. And unlike some others here, I never project myself onto a character or couple. I don't read romance to feel good about myself but rather to explore characters I'm interested in and their dynamic together. So if the character/s are reader stand-ins or just boring in general, I have very little interest in or patience for their romance. That being said, I have nothing against people who like what they like -- I just have very refined tastes in the genre. eyes

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» imraged on January 31st, 2015, 10:48pm

I'm male and I'm not overly fond of either. I have read a bit of both though, both non-H and H. Most just don't keep my interest; off the top of my head the only yaoi or yuri I really enjoyed was Strawberry Shake (unless something like Yuru Yuri counts for this). So I guess if I had to choose one it'd be yuri.

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» MrDetective on February 1st, 2015, 1:51am

Neither.

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» dione on February 1st, 2015, 3:29am

I voted for "female and like both equally" despite the fact that I've read a lot more yaoi/shounen-ai than yuri/shoujo-ai.

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» auriga on February 1st, 2015, 3:40am

I'm a heterosexual male and I prefer yuri.

That said, the reasons I avoid yaoi - though I won't deny that reading about male homosexuality isn't really my thing - are the same reasons I avoid a good majority of shoujo: I'm not enthusiastic about bishonen and how seme and uke relationships are portrayed. On that note I also tend to avoid female-oriented yuri, especially a one character is portrayed with excessive masculine qualities.

As for futanari... I don't like it, too. If 90% of yuri you encounter involves futa you might be searching at the wrong place. And yes, there is a good deal of girls' love stories that do not exist for the sole purpose of the graphic portrayal of sex.

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» khaledias on February 1st, 2015, 6:21am

I'm straight male and like yuri romance, I have read a yaoi one shot by "mistake", hidden in a one shot collection. I liked it, it was sweet, but it helped this two guys didn't ever kiss or did it once. I have no interest in reading any more yaoi though.

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» Dionaea on February 3rd, 2015, 2:29am

If it doesn't have sex it's not yaoi though, it's shounen ai smile

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» Baniita on February 4th, 2015, 2:39pm

The correct term is Boys' Love. The term "shounen ai" is outdated and refers to an old genre of sad melodramatic shoujo manga where the boys are girly looking and asexual, and it usually ends in tragedy. In Japan, "shounen ai" just refers to pedophillia. (That said, the terms "yaoi" and "bara" are also misconstrued in the English-speaking fanbases. Yaoi mostly only refers to the smutty porn-without-plot gay doujinshi, and "bara" is a slur equivalent to "pansy".) Rather than "yaoi", just "BL" works better, while gay comic artists just call their work "gay comics" (gei komi) or "Mens' Love" works too.
You can find most of this information on wikipedia.

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» myd10oz on February 1st, 2015, 6:56am

I'm straight female and I like yuri more than yaoi smile

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» mysstris on February 1st, 2015, 8:17pm

The wording for the choices weren't to my liking so I chose I'm female and I prefer neither. I don't wake up one day or suddenly feel like reading yaoi or yuri. l like to read mangas based on the stories and superficially, the art work. I don't see how the sexual orientation has much to do with it. However because most are more focused on being explicitly erotic and lack in development of the story, there are few in both categories that have held my interest storywise.

By the way, wasn't this poll done already? or maybe I'm thinking of another poll that also indicated if F/M and a preference in tags.

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» train93 on February 2nd, 2015, 8:17am

It's written in the first post that this poll has already been done in a negative form (as in which one you don't like); in my opinion the sexual orientation has a lot to do with it, because as you have written most of these manga have an erotic focus, which ends up attracting more females for yaoi and more males for yuri.

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» dalek on February 1st, 2015, 9:55pm

I like both yaoi and yuri, but I have read more yaoi because the yuri translations are far less than the yaoi translations.

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» TheLittleE on February 2nd, 2015, 12:16pm

I can't into the bara stuff at all. And the yaoi has to have crossdressing.

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» oGaga on February 2nd, 2015, 1:06pm

Quote from TheLittleE
I can't into the bara stuff at all. And the yaoi has to have crossdressing.

your picture and your comment have me cracking up laughing

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» kiironoume on February 3rd, 2015, 2:40am

Yaoi has not ceased to captivate me. But I found bara very disturbing and yuri just taste undesirably odd.. I suppose I am as common as any straight female who would fell for any adult hot guys.. Yaoi just multiply them.. ^^ I kept thinking of any heroine in my fave manga switched into a guy~ geez.. smile wink grin

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» morphin007 on February 3rd, 2015, 10:02am

Male and I prefer neither.
My main point in reading mangas is finding a guy who'll be like my avatar and have a romance with a girl. I don't read something else (like yuri/yaoi or the girl not choosing this guy)

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» Caiman on February 3rd, 2015, 12:35pm

There are so many things that affect a person's preferences in reading. People's reasoning for liking certain genres differs vastly, far beyond their gender.

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» caozhi on February 3rd, 2015, 10:57pm

百合 only

If only you could see my folders...
If only you read those stories...

I'm female btw, since the poll wants to know.

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» Baniita on February 4th, 2015, 2:30pm

Pansexual (I don't care about gender) female; my world revolves around slash and BL. o/
Not even exaggerating, tho.

Lol, I suppose us fujoshi are more ubiquitous than I thought. I like yuri and all, but good yuri is damn near imposible to find; I myself only know 3 worthwhile titles. And while there's a crap ton of terrible BL out there, there's some great stuff out there.

My tastes tend to veer off into darker and more twisted territories, and slash fic and BL has an abundance of that~

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» residentgrigo on February 4th, 2015, 3:37pm

@Baniita the queen of posting: Male manga/comic characters have a surprisingly high tendency to be sexually abused too. The definition of "manly men" Aculard + Guts are victims of homosexual rape. Over the pond we have Batman/Superman who were "only" reverse raped but still. This are the 2 biggest heroes ever and 2 seinen icons. Case closed. Then we have Spartacus on Starz (Caeser!) and Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones. Even mass market videogames like Far Cry 3 and MGS: Ground Zeroos jumped on the train and failed abysmally recently. We live in some "edgy" times and over saturation can only lead to being numb to what comes next.
I should have said that i also like Tokyo Babylon but that is OG Clamp and they are like Joss Whedon and make everyone "bisexual". A bit like Touchwood.
Even Buffy tried out to be a lesbian in the canon season 8 comic for one arc but then she also wanted an abortion in season 9 but then it turned out that she was a Buffy-Bot (don´t even ask). Quality i say. So my final opinion is this: No more sales stunts!
Rape or sexual experimentation or whatever as "high drama" is bottom of the barrel and even the best writes like to jump down that rabbit hole. Hello Alan Moore!
Edit: Baniita´s pick NightS is a decent read and i up-voted Realistic Homosexual Relationship/s but the author needs to branch out more.

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» caozhi on February 4th, 2015, 4:37pm

How about we, for once, NOT turn this into a discussion about rape?

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» sunao26 on February 4th, 2015, 7:20pm

Well, my gender is outside the binary so I don't feel like I can vote this time.

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» Jooles on February 6th, 2015, 8:48pm

I enjoyed the FAKE-ova, and the Gravitation and Yami no Matsuei-anime, but those had actual stories. I don't like looking at guys being "friendly", but the story always takes precedence amd I rooted my ass off for the couple in Gravitation at the end.

But I voted neither, because I'd rather have my romances be standard guy/girl. Two guys - too much dick. Two girls - a lack of dick.

(A sidenote regarding the results of the last poll - "Haha, well, aren't you all a bunch of supersmart people. Compensatory narcissism. Lol.")

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