Posting here again to point things out and actually answer the question so many ignored. 🤣

Quote from Kitteh_13

Question? At what point do you think importing Yaoi became okay?

When it started bringing in the money.

Quote from Kitteh_13

It's odd cause you would assume yaoi would be more taboo then hetero smut?

See, this would have been a strong argument but this hetero smut you speak of also contains taboo issues (i.e, incest, teacher-student relationships). Yes, those are taboo and yes, many smuts deal with that plot-line.

Quote from Kitteh_13

...and it isn't HALF as bad as most yaoi. Like Yaoi is pretty much hentai while smut is... smut.

This...

Quote from Kitteh_13

Although Playboy Amour was pretty damn good.

And then this? .___. This is where I would say that title is pretty much hentai... 🤣

And to answer your question:
Why do you think publishers are picking up Yaoi titles but not Shoujo-Smut titles?
I'm not sure how it is in Japan or other parts of the world for that matter, but here in the states manga with explicit content like Shoujo-smut and Yaoi are shelved in the back of bookstores while Shounen and Shoujo titles (the safer ones) are always at the front. This is obviously done to keep kids away from those titles and prevent any lawsuits. Yaoi titles tend to sell more because they are short in length (commonly just one volume long) while as Shoujo-smut often expand more than 3 volumes, the latter also takes longer to publish.

There are actually more issues involved like articles that suggest that smut titles usually get dropped because of censorship issues, or publishers debating about picking up a smut or not because in the end it (often) just shows high school girls having sex. Weak argument imo when you have those teen dramas that show just that. XDD And not all smuts are that explicit.

And well, you're kinda forgetting that only avid manga readers actually know what "smut" means, here in the states those few smuts that are published are just tagged with an 'Adult +18' which to non-manga readers would read as "shoujo with sexual situations". D:

Don't quote me if you're just going to ignore the points I made! D=<

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Monkeys, always at your service.

Quote from NightSwan

I have to thank you again. It's been a while since I've had this much d**k on my computer. :'3

Kaikan Phrase is the only series by Shinjo Mayu that's been published... haha, I think publishers have something against smut.

Why is there also no anime smut? The Kaikan Phrase anime has no smut, and the closest there is to animated smut is the Honey x Honey Drops OVA, but even that's not too explicit compared to the manga.

Publishers really hate Sho-Comi & Cheese, lololololol

Actually, when you compare the combined total of licensed josei-smut (10 series) and licensed shojo-smut (12 series) to the number of licensed yaoi classified as smut (20 series), josei and shojo technically come out in front...

Thanks Bae-Sooky and Bunny. Question answered.

Kaikan Phrase is the only series by Shinjo Mayu that's been published... haha, I think publishers have something against smut.

Why is there also no anime smut? The Kaikan Phrase anime has no smut, and the closest there is to animated smut is the Honey x Honey Drops OVA, but even that's not too explicit compared to the manga.

Publishers really hate Sho-Comi & Cheese, lololololol

Tokyopop actually licensed Haou Airen by Mayu but hasn't released it. I have no idea what was going through their heads considering that series is considered the worse rape=love scenario in shoujo history.

The HoneyxHoney Drops OVA was a ridiculous let down. They shouldn't have bothered.

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Quote from Kitte_13

A-LOT of people read shoujo smut, and it isn't HALF as bad as most yaoi. Like Yaoi is pretty much hentai while smut is... smut.

And therein lies your answer. 😀

A large number of people (mostly women, admittedly) find explicit yaoi titillating in the way many guys find hentai titillating. People like porn. Porn sells better.

Smut - or at least shoujo smut - is NOT porn. Therefore, it will obviously sell less than something that is explicit and downright hardcore.

Sort of the way explicit AVs will make more money than ones in which the models are only stripping, or AVs with hardcore sex scenes in them will make more money than softcore ones. I mean... Yeah. 🤨

People are generally more hardcore. More people are willing to dish out the dosh for erotic material that is frankly hardcore; otherwise, it feels like a cop-out or the sex feels unnecessary, like, "just get on with the story if you aren't going to get us off." If shoujo smut were to become as shamelessly, animalistically hardcore, it might stand a chance. 😉

But then again...!

Note that I am NOT including myself in this; I read softcore too and prefer it because it often comes with a better story, but... Eh. Obviously many people prefer plain hardcore? (Money talks; they wouldn't be publishing more yaoi if more ppl weren't willing to buy it.) Readers might prefer it simply hardcore when they want to get off, because if they want stories, they've already got good stories without any smut at all - basically your vanilla shoujo mangas. So the publishers as well aren't having much incentive to release smutty shoujo, when their audience's smut needs are already being taken care of in a profitable way by another demographic - yaoi. Also if they publish explicit yaoi it can safely be categorized in the realm of "girlish fantasy" (since girls aren't gay guys who are actually going to DO what they read about in yaoi), but if they publish equally explicit straight stuff (w/o long stories), then it'll just be generic porn that you can't "excuse away". And Tokyopop probably doesn't want to be known as a porn publisher. For various reasons. Lol. Esp. bcoz of their many young readers, whose parents might put up an outcry if they think, "My daughter's reading about women getting ****ed raw!" Even parents might overlook something like yaoi, that won't translate immediately into their daughter's life. (Little do they know.) Heh. So yaoi's actually a safer bet, as far as explicit material for girls is concerned. It isn't considered leading by example, therefore it is safer for than equally explicit straight stuff. Of course this is totally bogus but I bet that this is what the publishers - and the parents - really think. It's ok for nice little girls to read yaoi because it won't translate into their straight relationships IRL; however, those very girls would be "corrupted" (gasp!) if they saw other girls in manga being lascivious, sexually hardcore and hentai-like wanton (e.g. ukes in yaoi, but ukes are excusable 'cause they're GUYS). Like I said, bogus. But I really do think there are marketers in the publishing industry with this concern. They don't want parents calling in screaming: "STOP MAKING MY LITTLE GIRL THINK THAT HAVING UNPROTECTED SEX WITH GUYS IS OK!" Yaoi is strictly fantasy for female readers; straight sex would come dangerously close to reality, with all the example-setting power that implies.

So yeah, maybe even really explicit shoujo won't have a market, because it'll put off "traditional" shoujo readers who just want sweet romance, and it'll put off the male hentai readers who just want porn without the silly stuff, AND it'll put off parents and "society" in general.

Yaoi readers are that "middle group" that hardcore shoujo smut might appeal to, but who knows? Maybe publishers don't want to risk financial disaster by trying something new with this group of readers, since they already know it won't work with their other readers and they already HAVE a setup that does well for them commercially - non-smutty shoujo on the one hand and porny yaoi on the other. Lol.

It's just business.

I can understand publishers being aprehensive about selling shoujo smut, as it is aimed at teenage girls and involves girls in sexual situations. Yaoi is a larger genre, the stories don't always involve minors, and selling smut meant for adults seems like a more practical and profitable choice.

That isn't to say that women don't read shoujo smut or that girls don't read yaoi, but they are targeted at two different groups.

Quote from Terpsichore

I can understand publishers being aprehensive about selling shoujo smut, as it is aimed at teenage girls and involves girls in sexual situations. Yaoi is a larger genre, the stories don't always involve minors, and selling smut meant for adults seems like a more practical and profitable choice.

That isn't to say that women don't read shoujo smut or that girls don't read yaoi, but they are targeted at two different groups.

Actually, most translated yaoi was originally meant for teenage girls and young women. Yaoi is a kind of shojo smut.

“𝒯𝒽𝑒 𝓇𝑜𝓈𝑒'𝓈 𝓇𝒶𝓇𝑒𝓈𝓉 𝑒𝓈𝓈𝑒𝓃𝒸𝑒 𝓁𝒾𝓋𝑒𝓈 𝒾𝓃 𝓉𝒽𝑒 𝓉𝒽𝑜𝓇𝓃𝓈.” ― 𝑀𝒶𝓌𝓁𝒶𝓃𝒶 𝒥𝒶𝓁𝒶𝓁-𝒶𝓁-𝒟𝒾𝓃 𝑅𝓊𝓂𝒾.
あたしは腐女子です。少女漫画、たくさん読んでください。

Personally, I think the majority of smut is awful and predictable. It's usually about a horny girl or an innocent one that gets rape and becomes a horny girl. So, reading about a slutty girl isn't exactly appealing. I'm not saying there aren't any good ones, but I can name more good/great yaoi than I can for smut.

Quote from Kitteh_13

Thanks Bae-Sooky and Bunny. Question answered.

Kaikan Phrase is the only series by Shinjo Mayu that's been published... haha, I think publishers have something against smut.

Why is there also no anime smut? The Kaikan Phrase anime has no smut, and the closest there is to animated smut is the Honey x Honey Drops OVA, but even that's not too explicit compared to the manga.

Publishers really hate Sho-Comi & Cheese, lololololol

Tokyopop actually licensed Haou Airen by Mayu but hasn't released it. I have no idea what was going through their heads considering that series is considered the worse rape=love scenario in shoujo history.

The HoneyxHoney Drops OVA was a ridiculous let down. They shouldn't have bothered. Haou Airen was never licensed. I looked that up online, and all the talk about it being licensed is unconfirmed and unsourced. It was a rumour, and not true.

Haou Airen was never licensed.

You know, now that I think about it, most female mangaka, on average, usually write at least ONE yaoi work... and for shojo smut mangaka, its almost inevitable, yes, even your dear plagiarizing favorite, Kayono, wrote a BL under "Atomu"...

In fact, many shojo mangaka DO write BL... and some stop writing shojo to work on BL, and vise-versa:

Yuu Watase (oh yes)
Fumi Yoshinaga
Hisaya Nakajo (BL and yaoi doujinshi under the name, Peco Fujiya)
Mayu Shinjo (working on BL recently)
Makoto Tateno
You Higuri
Setona Mizushiro
Mikiyo Tsuda
Youka Nitta
Eiki Eiki
Yoshimi Amasaki (under the name, Kanata Amano)
Yu Asagiri
Nase Yamato

... the list goes on

Quote from mewnbrite

Guys do that all the time though, but in shoujo smut...it's supposed to be romantic, so of course it doesn't show how it really is

Yaoi is intended to by hot and romantic too... and its technically written by women, like myself.

And to answer your question:
Why do you think publishers are picking up Yaoi titles but not Shoujo-Smut titles?
I'm not sure how it is in Japan or other parts of the world for that matter, but here in the states manga with explicit content like Shoujo-smut and Yaoi are shelved in the back of bookstores while Shounen and Shoujo titles (the safer ones) are always at the front. This is obviously done to keep kids away from those titles and prevent any lawsuits. Yaoi titles tend to sell more because they are short in length (commonly just one volume long) while as Shoujo-smut often expand more than 3 volumes, the latter also takes longer to publish.

There are actually more issues involved like articles that suggest that smut titles usually get dropped because of censorship issues, or publishers debating about picking up a smut or not because in the end it (often) just shows high school girls having sex. Weak argument imo when you have those teen dramas that show just that. XDD And not all smuts are that explicit.

And well, you're kinda forgetting that only avid manga readers actually know what "smut" means, here in the states those few smuts that are published are just tagged with an 'Adult +18' which to non-manga readers would read as "shoujo with sexual situations". D:

Don't quote me if you're just going to ignore the points I made! D=<

In Japan, BL (or, yaoi, I suppose) is marketted at young women and women in general... most shojo magazines these days have sub-magazines that you can order through the main magazine, for example, Kurofune ZERO is a popular nerdy-girl mag, and if you subscribe to ZERO, you can get Be x Boy and Be x Boy GOLD (yes, yaoi smutty goodness) if you want to. Same with SHINSHOKAN's Wings (shojo mag) with Dear+ (yaoi mag)

Here, lets evaluate:

• Shinshokan:

Wings (shojo)------ Dear+ (yaoi)

• Kadokawa Shoten

Asuka (shojo, with occasional yaoi samplers)------- Asuka CIEL and Ciel Tres Tres

• Hakusensha

• Hana to Yume/ LaLa (shojo)------- Hanamaru (yaoi)

theres a lot more, just too many

I can understand publishers being aprehensive about selling shoujo smut, as it is aimed at teenage girls and involves girls in sexual situations. Yaoi is a larger genre, the stories don't always involve minors, and selling smut meant for adults seems like a more practical and profitable choice.

That isn't to say that women don't read shoujo smut or that girls don't read yaoi, but they are targeted at two different groups.

not all yaoi is aimed at adults

I never said her stuff wasn't. And yes, I've read the story she ripped off and I found her 100x better. The guy in the other story was just a woman with a penis anyways so it worked better as a heterosexual story.

Quote from kitteh_13

I never said I hate yaoi. Not once. I love guy on guy, it doesn't "gross me out" as you said. I just hate the overated feminine male. I would rather watch gay porn then deal with that.
roll eyes

My question is just simply: Why would yaoi titles would get published in North America considering how taboo it is. And don't lie and say homosexual sex isn't more taboo then heterosexual sex, we aren't living in 2050. Gay marriage is still illegal in a lot of places for gods sake.

Can people stop trying to defend yaoi, because thats not what this topic is about.

So... technically you are saying if Kayono turns Kazusa Takashima's hard work into guy/girl, its not plagiarism? So thats okay? Shame on you.

Kazusa Takashima, I believe honestly drew those pages and came up with the plots herself. All Kayono did was ruthlessly trace the characters and made the uke a girl... the uke looks girlish because he is supposed to represent the female reader in a way that isn't offensive... so the girl reading it can go "this isn't domestic abuse against women 'cuz this guy has a penis and a vaganus.

“𝒯𝒽𝑒 𝓇𝑜𝓈𝑒'𝓈 𝓇𝒶𝓇𝑒𝓈𝓉 𝑒𝓈𝓈𝑒𝓃𝒸𝑒 𝓁𝒾𝓋𝑒𝓈 𝒾𝓃 𝓉𝒽𝑒 𝓉𝒽𝑜𝓇𝓃𝓈.” ― 𝑀𝒶𝓌𝓁𝒶𝓃𝒶 𝒥𝒶𝓁𝒶𝓁-𝒶𝓁-𝒟𝒾𝓃 𝑅𝓊𝓂𝒾.
あたしは腐女子です。少女漫画、たくさん読んでください。

I agree! There's so much yaoi, but the shojo smut out there is pitiful! What's up with that?!