Okay, I'm kinda confused right now.

I've known for a long time that what sets shounen-ai from yaoi is the act of sexual intercourse, but I felt my train of thoughts kinda screwed up when someone claimed the following in another forum:

1) Yatteraneeze! is shouen-ai because it only has one sex scene... and it isn't even graphic

2) shouen-ai usually have little to no sexual content, but there can be some sex scenes in some

3) yaoi is classified as porn so the sexual acts it depicts are only the graphic ones

4) yaoi, unlike shounen-ai, is mostly porn

5) yaoi is pretty much just gay 'hentai'


So now, which is which?

First of all, if you want a comparative for yaoi it will be smut, not hentai.

Yatteraneeze! is of sexual nature, even though the actual intercourse isn't frequent, or only single, it doesn't matter.
They do have sex, and besides that (if I remember correctly) there's foreplay.

Like in the case of Sakende Yaruze!
They hardly have sex there and it takes so long for them to do it. Here as well, it's not explicit.

Both of those series used to have a shounen-ai label to go along with the yaoi, but I guess it wasn't approved by the higher-ups.
I think it was a good way to tell how explicit a series is though.
Same as with putting "smut" to the smutty titles.

Leave it for the sex to decide, I guess. :3
Since when it's a main focus in the manga, it should be yaoi.

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i personally feel that Shounen-Ai can NEVER beat yaoi (lol) because... as both of you said, yaoi is just smut. So shounen -ai (for me) can never surpass yaoi lol cheh cheh

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Ya, never really understood some labelings. Like take The Summit and Totally Captivated as an example: I remember both were tagged as shounen-ai on this site, when they both clearly had more than one sex scene, sure not overly explicit but you still know what goes in where. Later on they were both tagged with Shounen-ai and Yaoi; now it's just Yaoi, so I guess you judge which label fits by the manga as a whole.


If it's labeled Yaoi because of the sexual nature shouldn't it just be tagged "Adult"? I honestly think it is shounen-ai...or it should at least have both Yaoi and Shounen-ai tagged to it, same way Complex has.


That is partially true. I'll use Hatsukoi Elegy and Shinkuu Yuusetsu as examples. Both have no sexual content at all, the most you will see is a kiss or so, making it Shounen-ai. Then you have a series like Mainichi Seiten , where there is sexual content but only throughout discussions; the characters do engage in sexual activity but it is not shown. So that would also classify as Shounen-ai.


So how come some Yaois have "smut" labeled to it while others don't? If it's about how explicit a series is most cross the line and all they have labeled is "Yaoi". I can understood why those mentioned above wouldn't classify as "smut" but then what about all those obvious PWP? O_o

Anyway, BL is hard to classify because both Shounen-ai and Yaoi are usually serialized in the same magazine, unlike other demographics. .__.

Edit~ I'm tempted to edit this since it came out longer than I'd like. <.<;;

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Yeah, some of the reasons why it's hard to classify both terms is because "shounen-ai" is not used anymore. Japan prefers to use the collective term BL (Boys' Love), hence serialization in the same magazine. When English publishers started adapting the term shounen-ai, there wasn't any clear description as to what sets it from yaoi. I've always thought that it was about the sexual intercourse...


[quote=Dr. Love]Our genre description needs to be updated. :[ [/quote]