I'm wondering for some time now why the Bara genre or demografic is not added as genre, but as Yaoi and then tagged as Bara in the tags.
Bara refers to a gay male audience rather than a female one (Yaoi) and tends to be produced primarily by homosexual and bisexual male artists (such as Gengoroh Tagame) and serialized in gay men's magazines.
So why is the 'Bara' genre or Demographic just added as a tag and not as a genre? It's the same difference as Josei and seinen has, a difference in the audience where it is made for.

For more information:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yaoi
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bara_(genre)

Also, strange enough the counterpart doesn't exist for Yuri.

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Not my field at all but i find this question very interesting. Yuri publications targeted at lesbian women do exist btw. but i also don´t know the name.
i just reread the wiki artice and: "Bara is mostly a Japanese phenomenon, with limited western exposure through manga scanlations and online homoerotic art communities." is 100% wrong. Gay comic for gay men were a thing in europe (and the american underground) since the 70s to 80s at the least and 1001: Comics You Must Read Before You Die even lists some. Wikipedia you fail me again this month.
I wonder what the our overlords have to say on the issue.

Last edited by residentgrigo at 12:10 pm, Jan 20 2015

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Bara as a tag is not wrong. Bara simply indicates muscular man and not a genre.
Well it may be understood as such here on the west (lol, same issue as Yaoi, just that at one point yaoi was actually a thing in Japan).
In Japan people don't really understand what you mean with bara (accept if you're actually referring to a rose). Those in the know (aka gay man familiar with history) will as well, but usually in stores you either have to ask for "gachi muchi" (bt this is fairly close to bara, aka description of body type, not content) or "gei comi" (aka gay comics) to get the manga you're referring to here (akak Tagame, Mizuki, Tsukasa, etc).

Bottom line, if you want a new ganre tag it's better if you suggest gay comic (or something similar), as bara is a description tag that fits a lot of sainen and shounen manga too.

I don't think we will make a new demographic for bara. Reason being, "yaoi" at MU is defined so as to encompass all manga involving intimate sexual relationships between men, not just those aimed at women (even though the colloquial use of "yaoi" often means the ones aimed at women).

In the same way that cute seinen manga like Chii's Sweet Home and graphic seinen manga like Berserk are both labeled "seinen" despite being so different (and depend on other genres and tags to differentiate them), both male-oriented and female-oriented manga featuring male homosexual relationships are both "yaoi" here (and, likewise, you can use tags like "bara" to differentiate them).

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Slightly off topic but i found the magazine i had on my mind: Mist Magazine (Ohzora Shuppan). We also have this tag: Female-Oriented Girls' Love.
Now i only need a name but lesbian oriented yuri publications do exist.

Last edited by residentgrigo at 3:23 pm, Jan 26 2015

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I also read EU/US comics and am a librarian.
Manga-Masters, My ANN-Lists + Imdb