Way to base your view of an entire genre on one manga.


Comparing shounen ai with het romance is reasonable, but yaoi is completely different. Yaoi is pretty much porn, but tailored to female tastes. There are very few scanlated het manga that can be compared to yaoi. In Japan, there's an entire genre for such "women's hentai", but it's unfortunately ignored by scanlators for some reason.


I know quite a few heterosexual guys who like yaoi. Interestingly, most of them aren't from America...Maybe "gay" is used as such a common insult in America that guys try to stay away from anything that would make them appear "un-manly"?

I voted for yaoi just because I like boys-girl's couples more, I read a few yaoi's but they didn't give me the same feeling, I don't hate it but it's the one I like the least.

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"I already decided I'll do it, so even if I die fighting for that cause, that's fine with me."
"Who the hell do you think I am?!"

I don't hate any of the listed. I'm not a big fan of Yuri, but i don't dislike it either. What I hate is lolicon and shotacon. If there ever comes a referendum to ban it, they would have my vote. But since it's not in the list, i don't know which to vote for.

I actually voted for Shoujo, but if I had two votes I'd add Shounen to the mix. Of course, my comments should be taken in general and not directed at any specific series. In general, I hate shoujo the most because it contains a lot of tropes, plot twists and character types that I find intensely annoying. I hate, hate, hate the fact that in the vast majority of shoujo and shounen series, a very thin and (only in my opinion) vapid storyline is stretched to breaking point over a multitude of volumes.

For the most part, I find that I can't connect with female characters in manga. Perhaps it has something to do with a difference in culture, or with the quality of the story, but I find the way that girls and women are portrayed in (most) manga to be alienating to me.

I'd actually read yuri and hentai before I picked up a shoujo or shounen series. I just can't stomach them. But I think that has more to do with my age group than anything else. If I were 13, I'd love shoujo to death.

So yeah, obviously I like yaoi/shounen-ai the best and I don't particularly care about the fact that people on this site hate it the most. I mean, in English-speaking countries, the main demographic for manga is male readers aged 14 - 24.

I like this poll, it gives lots of room for controversy and drama. I'd pick hentai doujins if there was an option for it, but since there isn't I go for yaoi since it's annoying. You cannot ignore it and it's present on every manga related website. Even here, when I search for specific category tags without blending it out, yaoi usually fills the whole list since there is so much of it. So yeah, that's one of the reasons why I hate yaoi.

By the way I heard that a significant minority of yaoi readers are actually straight males. And since I cannot imagine a single reason aside from intellectual interest why I would read yaoi as a heterosexual male this is very interesting to me. So, is any one of the yaoi readers here actually male and not gay?

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The closest Yoai type of series I've ever considered reading at all would be dick-Girls (Futa/Futanari). That is the closest you'll see a sane heterosexual male would be reading. Unless a heterosexual male was helping out a scanlation group or publishing company with a yaoi title, there is just no way you'll EVEN see an 80% straight-male reading yaoi. (80% meaning a guy who acts like a frightened wuss.)

I don't actually hate yaoi. I dislike it, but I don't hate it. What I hate is shounen-ai. All that lovey-dovey male on male crap with a guy having girly eyes and the usual bishi-face and they kiss each other? WTF!!! It's like a girl who reads this YAOI crap WISHES that they had a dick. This fantasy is just tooo out of wack for me. If you girls wish you had dicks, then just read FUTA and spare us the trouble of publishing your homo series.

Then I hear that there are actually male authors who draw this Yaoi or Shounen-Ai stuff Gladly, there stuff aren't even as popular and they don't sell as well as the female yaoi authors. It makes you realize that yaoi and shounen-ai is truly targeted at bishi-loving female dick-wishers.

Ah, that's easy. Have you ever heard people complaining about bishounen looking more like women than men? That's why. The manga may say they are men, but many times they look exactly like girls, so it's no wonder some straight males may like them. You can even go randomly rewrite the dialog of many yaoi manga and claim that the uke is not a boy, but a futa girl and I assure you that many wouldn't even notice the change.
Now, if we are talking about bara, then things change. There's no way any heterosexual male would like that. If you meet someone who likes bara and claims to be a heterosexual male, you know for sure that he is either bisexual or gay. Seriously.

@phillip

As someone that (somewhat shamefully) reads Yaoi, i cannot really argue with your points.
In fact, not only is there a lot of misogyny, there is actually a lot of homophobia from what I've seen. How ironic, right? i can't even count the amount of yaoi mangas I have read where the freaking SEME OR UKE (or both!) says "ewww homos yuck, that's disgusting. i love u though because i'm in love with you for some reason"

also, the whole "straight guy magically turned gay" thing creeps the hell out of me. then again that probably should be a ~hot fantasy~ for me since im a gay male and all.

Last edited by loveppears at 10:34 pm, Mar 3 2013

Hm they don't look like girls to me, but I can see where you're coming from. And yeah the seme and uke stuff is another reason why I hate yaoi. Not only is it sexist as hell if you think about it, but it seems like the yaoi world consists only of top-bottom relationships. This is... madness!


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Great point!

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Ruler of the Yaoi world

Pointless poll because it will bring the haters on their highest level of activity and will lead to pointless flamming wars.

Imho hate in any of its aspects is not proper for polls in this cool(till-now) community. We have enough racism, homophobia and misogyny in the RL that to need them here too.

Also the results of the poll from 2008 abt most loved demographic shew that Yaoi is most favoured:

Question: Favorite Demographic?
Choices:
Hentai - votes: 1807 (12.1%)
Josei - votes: 616 (4.1%)
Lolicon - votes: 746 (5%)
Seinen - votes: 2364 (15.8%)
Shotacon - votes: 185 (1.2%)
Shoujo - votes: 2684 (18%)
Shoujo Ai - votes: 282 (1.9%)
Shounen - votes: 1921 (12.9%)
Shounen Ai - votes: 516 (3.5%)
Yaoi - votes: 3069 (20.6%)
Yuri - votes: 742 (5%)
There were 14932 total votes.
The poll ended: October 18th 2008

So as we see no vote result is as talkative as it seems at firts sight. Neither the newest one nor this from 2008.

Last edited by veve at 5:52 am, Mar 4 2013

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Ruler of the Yaoi world

Thank you very much.

Wow!! It's nice to see someone who knows every single yaoi fan in the world!!!1! Seriously dude, way to generalize. I like yaoi and shounen ai, but I don't wish to have a penis, at all. I'm guessing you think guys who like yuri wish to have a vagina, right?



Yeah because other genres never have guys with girly eyes and bishi-faces, nope never.
Also, two guys being in love is not crap. If you are in love with someone, you are going to want hold their hand, kiss them, or do anything else that is intimate.

Last edited by Sari90 at 1:13 pm, Mar 4 2013

There are reversible couples, it's done less than the seme and uke thing though.
"Hatsukoi no Atosaki" and "Kyuuso wa Cheese no Yume o Miru" to name a few, have a reversible couple.