Just as the title states, what was your first experience with Yaoi (or shounen Ai)? Did you watch an anime, read a manga or webtoon? If so, which one?

For me, I first got into Yaoi by "accidentally" watching Koisuru Boukun I didn't finish it the first time but after awhile my curiosity piqued and I had to finish it. However, it wasn't until a little later when I read Yume ni Tobu Tori that I fully became interested in yaoi.

Shoo, Nothing to see here!

I'd have to say that my first experience with yaoi was stumbling across the Finder series when searching for something to read on a manga website. Compared to most of what I read now, it seems like a pretty hardcore manga to begin reading yaoi with.

ngl it's a little embarassing to admit but what introduced me to yaoi/shounen-ai were doujins of my gay ships from various series, haha..

I'm not working hard, I'm hardly working

Quote from caeli

ngl it's a little embarassing to admit but what introduced me to yaoi/shounen-ai were doujins of my gay ships from various series, haha..

Haha doujins were also how I first started reading yaoi! As for actual BL series... Kurayami ni Strobe was the first BL that I really enjoyed and remember, even if it wasn’t the first BL I read. Reading that led me to binge read all of Hayakawa Nojiko’s other series, then led me to binge read almost all the series acme scanned, and by then I had fallen headfirst into the yaoi genre. ?

A relative knew I was into manga as a kid so the bought me this enormous omnibus that had reviews and descriptions for pretty sure much every manga that was out at the time (when that was still possible keep that in mind so this was many years ago obviously), but they didn't read through past the normal manga section so they didn't know it also included yaoi and hentai reviews. I started looking up the Yaoi titles that sounded interesting after that on manga sites!

• shouted from across the room

My first yaoi experience was with Kizuna. I started with the anime; it was two episodes on VHS tapes. I didn't know what they were about before I watched them because I would watch any anime I could get my hands on. This was in the 90's when anime was not nearly as wide spread as it is today.

After watching the anime I fell in love with Kai and Masa's relationship, so I looked for the manga. It wasn't available in America, so I bought the Japanese manga from a company that offered English translations.

You can't imagine my joy when companies like BeBeautiful and DMP arrived offering yaoi/shounen ai titles in English. ?

Quote from Nikita2130

I'd have to say that my first experience with yaoi was stumbling across the Finder series when searching for something to read on a manga website. Compared to most of what I read now, it seems like a pretty hardcore manga to begin reading yaoi with.

Shortly after starting to like yaoi, I too came across that series. Being pretty knew to the genre I was confused wondering if all yaoi were that hardcore. It didn't help that right after I discovered the author SAKIRA who is notorious for her smutty yaoi manga XD

Quote from baiyang

Haha doujins were also how I first started reading yaoi! As for actual BL series... Kurayami ni Strobe was the first BL that I really enjoyed and remember, even if it wasn’t the first BL I read. Reading that led me to binge read all of Hayakawa Nojiko’s other series, then led me to binge read almos ...

I feel like if I hadn't watched that anime, I definitely would have been introduced to yaoi later on through doujins XD

ceruleantear- Wow, your first experience with yaoi is pretty unique! You really struggled, all for yaoi, you're dedicated! ? Makes me interested in the series Kizuna I've read some of
Kodaka Kazumas work but never that one.

Shoo, Nothing to see here!