/report!: yaoi, yaoi everywhere

[rageprufrock]

Come one, come all (no, seriously), /reporters! After several geologic eras of my incubating whatever disease killed Gwyneth Paltrow in Contagion, we're finally back to Sunday evening posting! This week mklutz and I are joined by Lianne Sentar of Sleep Is For The Weak to talk about yaoi, boys love, some of its history, some of its many questionable and delightful facets, to give the curious or the nostalgic recommendations, and then we spend some time advocating mklutz's future career in audio porn.

(Fair warning to listeners, as a natural result of the subject matter, we talk quite a bit about dubious consent and nonconsensual sex.)

Right-click here to download or click here to stream online to listen. And, as always, you can subscribe to our RSS feed here.



• Read Bukiyou na Silent here. (NC-17)

• Read Haru wo Daite Ita online here or here. (Exuberantly NC-17; attempted non-con later in the series.)

• Buy Wild Rock here.

• To purchase FAKE, go here, to buy Eerie Queerie, click this, pick up Antique Bakery here.

• mklutz's manga-ka of choice is Naono Bohra.

• To check out manga-ka Toko Kawai, click here. Specific titles of Toko Kawai: Cut (dark but satisfying); Cafe Latte Rhapsody (super sweet); In the Walnut (amazingly classy)

• Check out Tyrant Falls in Love here and Little Butterfly (by same mangaka as Tyrant and Bukiyou na Silent, super sweet) here.

• Approach Maiden Rose with caution here.

• For those ready to try Japanese Drama CDs, here's the SUPER BEST OMG English-language sharing forum and community for BL drama CDs.

And! Last but definitely note least: to look into these Tokyo Demons shenanigans, click here.

Comments

[bikitchi]

Cover... Antique Bakery? XD

[ugasaiki]

I had so many flashbacks to my middle/high school days during this podcast. When you started talking about the numbering system for GW, I was practically rolling on the floor laughing in nostalgia. It didn't take too long for me to figure out the whole times table system, probably because I had already been through the Digimon fandom and lived through the odd name merge and the lemon/lime/citris system they had going on there.

On another note, if you don't mind, I'd actually like to toss in two recs that I feel people should check out because I just love them so much.

1. Boku wa Kimi no Tori ni Naritai "I want to Become Your Bird" by Homerun Ken, completed - 1 volume, about a boy (who is kinnndda the school slut, but not in the dub-con or non-con way) who falls in love with his sister's boyfriend. And there are FEELINGS. It sounds kinda dubious and depressing, but it really works in the context of the story.

2. Vassalord by Nanae Chrono, WIP about 4 completed books according to wikipedia, which is about vampire robot priests, but wait come back! They are totally in love, but there's so much drama and pining. This is not in the yaoi or even BL category, but things are heavily implied. HEAVILY. Warnings for violence and gore, though, if you're triggered by that kind of thing.

[luckywitch]

I giggled like a mad woman in this episode! Loved all the intros to yaoi stories. Gundam Wing is freaking ridiculous, I've been out of it for ages and it still confuses me with it's damn coding, like 3x4x3! The Toonami block was good for me in many ways, let's just go with that.

FAKE! Omg, the 7th manga, which was the shrink wrapped one, I was so excited about and so embarrassed about as well. I don't remember if I bought it Borders or bought it online, but good times, especially as I eased in with random CLAMP offerings.

[luciazephyr]

I cannot even tell you how much I loved, loved, loved the discussion this week. Like, amazing talk about the Female Gaze and talk about Hot Gimmick-- reminded me a lot about the talk about Twilight and its negative messages. So much love for this ep, I think it's my new favorite. Thanks for the interesting, thought-provoking discussion. And Lianne, you are extremely articulate on this topic and I loved hearing your thoughts on yaoi.

OH YEAH, I TOTALLY USED THAT AND IT MADE SENSE IN CONTEXT. omg, this week should have been called "Our thoughts on yaoi". BEST. BEST.

OT: Pru, you listen to a lot of podcasts? Um, can you rec anything? I've always wanted to get into podcasts but couldn't because there is so much. Just. Wondering, yanno.

webcomics

[(Anonymous)]

Since you all went into yoai and briefly marvel comics- you should look into webcomics and their shenanigans then make a podcast about em'!! Like Teahouse, Starfighter, etc.

:D
I adore your podcast! Thanks for making all these wonderful episodes~

-anon

[cunninglanguage]

I think I took a pretty circuitous route to slash; or at least it seems that way trying to remember it. I got into fanfiction through anime (yes, I found a link to FF.net on a Zoids fansite and I AM NOT ASHAMED), read a bunch of gen and het anime fic (Card Captors, aww yeah) and discovered the wondrous world of smut. Then I got into tv series fic/het smut, and one day looking for Rogue/Wolverine smut I stumbled into a really hardcore Wolverine/Iceman/Nightcrawler threesome fic, and suddenly my horizons rapidly widened, holy shit. I'd seriously never considered it before (but it was at the point that smut was smut and I wanted to read all of it haha). Then I got into slash fic, then yaoi pretty massively, and now back to slash fic as I'm less interested in anime/manga than I used to be.

This podcast definitely brought back memories of furtively reading smut fic on the family computer, mouse hovering over the minimise button. Stressful times, man, stressful times. And I may have had a shoe box of yaoi manga to go along with my shelf of manga...

[elqiao.livejournal.com]

POOR DALE. Just. Poor Dale. XD; My story about discovering slash is not nearly as exciting - I just accidentally read some Ranma orgy fic with Ranma, Ryoga, and the kendo dude. I was so confused. And then I read more. And then I read a lot of doujinshi & fic for Gundam Wing, Slam Dunk, YYH, etc. I still have a very old, probably pirated Chinese bl magazine that I got as a teen that included a random excerpt of Bronze that was completely confusing and yet also traumatizing. Don't ever read Zetsuai/Bronze.

Hot Gimmick is the epitome of everything terrible about shoujo that makes me want to chuck manga across the room. The heroines so rarely have enough sass to interest me, though this is true in a lot of other media as well - it's just super blindingly obvious in manga due to how fast you can read through a series and how entrenched the tropes are. Ugh, give me Gokusen any day.

The story about Hey Class President reminds me of the bl & shoujo mangaka Eiki Eiki and how she used both of her brothers' names for the leads in her first bl manga, Color. It's especially hilarious because one of her brothers is now a Japanese rock star and tv personality, so she gets mentioned all the time (but only the shoujo stuff, never the bl).

ANTIQUE BAKERY. I love Yoshinaga Fumi so much. The jdrama does kind of suck because they stripped out all of the gay (and thus THE PLOT), but it was yet another example of my favorite Japanese idols being in every series ever. The Korean adaptation made up for everything though; I still go into raptures over how perfect the casting is and how well the Tachibana character pulls off the facial hair and the magical gayness and- I have to stop or I'll gush forever. The Antique doujinshi is amazing, and also full of porn, but it's also bittersweet. My heart still twinges whenever I think of that line about how "I no longer even have the right to like him." Good news is that the first 12 or so are scanlated! I don't think even the Chinese got around to translating the last few though.

Finally, I hesitate to rec this, but every fandom needs its classic examples of ridiculousness, yes? I thus submit to you all: Chintsubu (http://www.mangaupdates.com/series.html?id=482). Possessed talking cocks with glasses. That's all you need to know.

Ooh, random question - why do CIA agents always have British accents? Is that even possible in real life? Yeah, so that's my main quibble with the "This Means War" trailer - not the part where Tom Hardy and Chris Pine are bros, but are somehow fighting over Reese Witherspoon and not, y'know, JGL or Zachary Quinto. I'm probably going to watch that movie. Ugh, my fandoms lead me to dangerous places. I successfully avoided Fright Night, but my love for Star Trek, Kirk/Spock, and by extension Pine and Quinto, is making me think I should watch "Margin Call" which is well-reviewed, but surely devoid of all the happy shiny fluffy things I like. I did just blitz through all the pre-Avengers movies so I could fully enjoy some (ALL THE) Steve/Tony though, so I don't know what that says about my priorities in entertainment.

[ravelqueen]

Dear god I enjoyed this so much! I think I freaked out quite a few unfortunate souls at university and in the subway today, because I sat there and grinned maniacally the whole way through.

After I so aptly demonstrated my impeccable taste, have recomendations!

I'm going to rec works of two authors who very uncharacteristically write graphic stuff AND it's really long AND has actually quite amusing plots, in general nearly consensual sex (or at least has not a lot of dub-con stuff in it).Also because of the lenghts it is nearly all established relationship stuff (which I have such a weakness for)

Because this got really, really long, if you don't care about the actual plot I included a tl;dr of why you should pick their stuff up after the mangaka name

Kazuma Kodaka

tl;dr of why you should pick up her stuff: She is one of the grand ladys of the genres, quite profilic and her two main series exceed 10 volumes. Her artwork is really beautiful and she tends to write really likeable characters, engaging plots and really kick-ass ukes, that are not horribly feminized. Her earlier stuff (and earlier volumes of kizuna) are not as smooth art, story and consent wise, but I would still say to get through that for the awesome later.


Kizuna is about a gay couple living together and while the first three volumes are very episodic slice of life stuff, the later stuff has volume-long arcs with Yakuza, intrigue, personal growth (and gay sex^^).Also a few side-couples, including an uke who spends the whole time trying to get his love-interest into bed with him^^

There is one scene of dub-con (origin story of the main couple) and very early clear instance of rape-a-drugged-person (of the category rape as drama), that ends up being not relevant to the character interactions later on, so fair warning, even though I would still recommend picking it up, because you can very easily skip it and she really stops using all the cliched yaoi stuff pretty soon

Kusatta Kyōshi no Hōteishiki (translated "Kiss me teacher" I think) is about a boy, who had a horrible childhood crush on his tutor, gets into a high school to meet him again(because he is employed there as the school nurse/teacher), is horrible disillusioned that he apparently turned into an acerbic womanizer, soon realizes that he is actually awesome, professes his love and finds out that the guy is actually the brother of his childhood crush.

That happens in like the first two chapter and the rest 10 volumes is hilarious high school drama in which he tries to get his new crush to go out with him.

It's really funny and ridicilously cute, but sexy timez actually only happen in the epilogue, when he is out of school so that there isn't a power imbalance (you do not know how rare this is in yaoi)

(Also A Sex Therapist for really hot, sex one-shots and Border for recent Oceans Eleven type shenanigans)


Nakamura Shungiku

Tl;dr of why you should pick her up: One of the writers I really love to read, because her stuff is just really funny and though her characters seem really stereotypical at first glance they are all quirky and different in a wonderful way. Kind of realisitc depiction of relationship and a rather big cast, which gets developed quite well, round it up and it is my go-to happy place in yaoi-fandom

Side-note: What I know turns a lot of people off her stuff is the style, which is, especially at the beginning, kind of crude, with huge hands and her proportions in general are a bit off, but it does get better and I think everything else makes up for it.

Junjou Romantica which is the actually about three main couples, which stories are kind of intertwined, but seperate:

Romantica: Kind of the "main couple" as far as screen time goes, is about a young boy who needs a tutor to get into university(because he is kind of a spaz, but very good at housework) and because he is horrible in love with the boys older brother the award-winning author and all around genius Usami Akihiko gets the job. And then they fall in love. And move in with each other. And the rest 14 volumes and counting are about their relationship (and drama and Usami's families reaction and fun!)

This one is the only relationship that can be kind of triggery, because their first interaction is basically Usami forcibly giving Misaki a hand-job. And all in all he is the kind of crying, saying-no, can't-spit-it-out-uke that I normally can't stand, but because he is adorkable and we actually get the story narrated by him and know that he kind of fell in love first (and he does participate more and more later on)

Egoist: Is about Usamis best friend, who is a literature grad student(later professor) with a horrible temper and grouchy disposition who gets snatched by a really honest, clueless younger guy

Terrorist: Is about another literature professor, who a boy nearly 20 years younger and also the brother of his ex-wife tries desperately to seduce

Sekai-ichi Hatsukoi her more recent work, about a guy changing publishing companies to make it on his own in editing, getting shelved into the shojo department and his epic, tragic love story with his boss, who was also his tragic childhood sweetheart


Last but not least for the straight up porn needs is Ayane Amano, who does beautiful, beautiful art (one of the best in the business if you ask me) and really hot sex, but SHOULD NOT BE READ BY THE FAINT OF HEART! I mean it, if she ever heard of any problems with consent issues, you can not see it in her stuff.

Her most known work (You're my love prize Viewfinder) has basically only rape scenes (of the rape-is-love type) between the main couple in the first chapters (including bondage and sex-toy games) that then turn into the uke being kidnapped and raped by another guy and then later being I think trained as a sex-slave for a while? and her most recent one (Crimson Spell) has a prince who got cursed by a demon sword, transforms in a kind of beast in the night and has to be soothed by magically taking it up the arse by his magician companion (really, that happens).



This has all inspired me to give you my horrible yaoi-origin story even though I'm a total stranger to you all oh my god, but its not like anyone read till here anyway^^

So basically its a miracle that I continued to read yaoi/slash because thinking back I must have picked up the most horrible fucked-up stuff this genre has ever produced.

The first was Zetsuai, which is the most depressing thing ever and basically about a rock star (or something) who obsessively falls in love with this one high school boy, stalks him, rapes him and then spends the rest of the time trying to make up for that, while the uke is basically going through all kinds of trauma, because he was raped, but still enters a relationship with that other guy, which is horrible and full of drama and hatred and obsessive love/stalking and basically I couldn't read the last volume because I thought I might have to kill myself after this.

I continued to read one which name thankfully got lost in time, but was about a society that had weird (sex) dolls which were made addicted to some kind of drug, that they needed to live and a guy picking up that one kid, because he was thrown away and I think trading sex for the drug he needed to not liquify and really terrible shota, were the cock of the seme of roughly the size of the uke.

So, I think all the slash I read after that seemed really tame for me XD (I grinned so hard at your mention of GW, cause so true god I read all the terrible stuff this fandom used to churn out )

[maryaminx]

I loved, loved, loved this episode, even though everyone in my school library now thinks I am a crazy person because I kept bursting out laughing. I totally agree with the need for a podcast for our fannish version of crazy bitches. Even though I have only the most meager knowledge of mainstream manga, I really enjoyed the discussion and I'm going to check out a few of the title mentioned :)

[phamalama.livejournal.com]

Ahh, I think I went through the same phases that you described to get to yaoi and slash fics~ Once you go into BL and slash, there is no way back... O_O And I agree about Hot Gimmick... definitely don't read it because it is all kinds of messed up in a pink packaging. I feel happy that I have at least read some of your recs! Wild Rock is just drawn so beautifully, and that's like half the reason to read the manga~

Do any of you guys read manga on a kindle/Ipad? Or even read fanfic on your Ipod/cellphone? (sorry if you mentioned it already) And have you also branched out to doujinshi of your favorite fandoms? It was also another way I fell down the rabbit hole of fanfic...

[liannesentar.livejournal.com]

Ugh, sorry, not to be a downer...but I listened to the podcast all the way through last night, and I made a comment about "boy-girl hybrid monsters" in 90s BL that sounded really transphobic. I wanted to apologize and clarify--I was making fun of the art style reflecting the crossed-wires and general confusion of 90s yaoi mangaka not knowing how they wanted to use the genre yet, and thus cramming so much psycho-sexual baggage onto their uke characters that the result was a mess. I didn't mean to imply that being androgynous, transgender, or genderqueer was something "no one could be attracted to" or was negative in real life or even just in better-written media. Wandering Son (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wandering_Son), published by Fantagraphics, is a book that's ACTUALLY on transgender issues I would ACTUALLY recommend.

So again, sorry for sounding like a privileged dick. Now back to being silly.

[opalsong.livejournal.com]

Hi, totally late comment. I just wanted to say that I love this podcast! I recently got into podcasts in general and after listening to the billion episodes of the one that got me into it I have been searching fruitlessly for another podcast that even sort of pertains to my interests, with awesome hosts that can keep my attention. And then one day a friend of mine said: "have you listened to slash report?" and I was all !!!!! O_O *LOVE* and haven't gone back. I just caught up and I have to say that this episode in particular was simply amazing! I'm a huge anime fan and hearing you guys talk about yaoi was wonderful.
My introduction to slash in general (of the fanfiction kind) was through the Slayers fandom where I managed completely unwittingly to stumble into a hardcore Zel/Xellos PWP. I was totally confused.
Hearing you guys talk about Gundam Wing was amazing! Brought back so many memories! (I still stumble back into that fandom. because I have no shame on the internet)
I don't actually read all that much yaoi and it is for a reason that I don't think you really covered (not that this is in anyway a criticism). I feel like when I read about two boys (or men) in a relationship that I want to read about two Boys (or men) not a boy and a girl substitute. Maybe I'm strange but I like the difference in power dynamics, or the way they relate to each other, or something. I'm aware that with female authors writing for female readers that this isn't likely going to be exactly what happens but I feel like most yaoi (that I've read) has let me down in this regard and that I'm reading about a regular het couple just with two penises instead. FAKE is one of the only yaoi that I actually like, though I would also recommend anything by Taishi Zaō (or in Shojo named: Mikiyo Tsuda... she's a friend of the previously mentioned Eiki Eiki. and also the author of one of the Princess stories) her stuff is super cute and I managed to get through, and like, everything that I've read so...
right, TL;DR You guys are awesome! Relevent to my interests! and I love the ideo of Yaoi but end up back in western slash most of the time.

some unsolicited recs

[fojee]

Gah! Bad flashbacks to Ai no Kusabi and also that yaoi with the seme buying the uke at an auction and they have sex with the uke always crying... God I don't even want to search for it. The thing is, I mostly go into yaoi for angst in small doses. And end up going back to slash where the fandom is richer and plottier.

Still I wanted to list a few of my favorite manga/manhwa/anime:
*Ensemble (Korean manhwa. The art's pretty unique. Gender-bending and also plotty. Hmmm. Not sure if it counts as yaoi.)
*Zipper Up Boy (short and dub con and angsty)
*Komatta Toki ni wa Hoshi ni Kike! (the name of which I always have to look up. Not so much yaoi as the shounen ai version of Hana Kimi, also my most favorite manga ever! Lots of angst, lots of fluff. No porn, though.)
*Totally Captivated (Korean manhwa. Angsty too.)
*R.O.D. (Um, femmeslash? Book-love?)
*Skip Beat! (Which is het. Yes, het, but no actual sex yet. And is about acting and taking revenge on assholes who take you for granted.)

Anime/manga fandoms are really small, except maybe for Naruto, who is still my favorite character in all of media. I think I went through Prince of Tennis (MomoRyo and Inui/Kaidoh) very quickly and Ranma 1/2's very few Ranma/Ryouga fics. That's about it. Why is that? I wish I could write stories on the manga above, but something's stopping me... Like I feel I can't improve upon it?

[lynnmonster]

My intro to yaoi was actually Desire, which I think might be a good first read for other people, too, since I felt that any pressure to have sex depicted in the book is less "rape-y coercion" and more just plain old "teenage-boy-really-wants-to-have-sex" -- and it's a bit unusual in that the main characters really end up owning their desire (hence the title, I guess). [NOTE: Characters are in high school, but are making plans for college entrance exams, so may or may not be considered of age where you live; I don't think their exact ages are ever given.]

Also, Wild Rock can be found online here. Just click through the red warning at the bottom first for both.

Great Podcast

[(Anonymous)]

A friend recommended your podcast to me when I was ready to throw myself off a building over the Delicious Incident. (She said. "Go there. Listen. I think these are your people. They are using all the right swear words.") I am utterly enjoying your podcasts and your notes on fandom. It's like hearing a language you know but didn't realize you were missing.

This week's topic was terrific. I have always been puzzled by what Yaoi is and how it's different from slash. I'd watched anime (who doesn't remember the badly dubbed days of Robotech or the mega expensive OAV's--so many thirtieth generation copies) but I was never certain how Yaoi fit into fanfic. It sounds stupid, but you really explained things. Educational and fan-a-licious. What more could you ask for? (Well, fresh baked scones with your fanfic education but then who doesn't want fresh baked scones?)

Keep up the great work! -- Sierraindigo

Maiden Rose

[rainwalk]

This comment is now more than a month tardy, but I'm a late-comer to the /report train and just listened to this podcast today.

In regards to issues of consent in yaoi, I think Lianne's rec of Maiden Rose is actually a fantastic choice not in spite of the noncon/dubcon but rather because it as it is possibly the only BL manga I can think of that actually has an honest discussion of rape. Even though Lianne made this sound like a terrifying series (which, to be fair, it is) I think part of the reason it's a harder sell is because it addresses the issue rather unflinchingly rather than tongue-and-cheek or with a hand wave that many yaoi series, like Tyrant, do.

Aside from the compelling sociopolitical mythological backstory which are reasons enough to read the series, I'm almost astonished that it's managed to pop up in yaoi as yaoi not only has an awful record with rape, but especially in regards to partner rape. The general consensus seems to be, "Rape is bad, but it's not rape if it's true love (aka our preferred seme)!" Maiden Rose does a pretty terrific job of addressing the fact that it can still be rape even if you're in a relationship and you love that person and that rape has emotional consequences, but also perhaps touching on the rather taboo concept that, in partner rape, you can still love the person who raped you. Once the top realizes the awfulness of what he's done, he stops and the series attempts to make him redeemable afterwards without make what he'd done excusable, and there's no victim-blaming. Another issue the series manages to hint at is the difficulty in same-sex partnership or rape of reporting abuse because of the shame or secrecy aspect of it which is why the bottom, despite being in a position of respect and authority, continued to be victimized by the seme for so long.

It's understandably not a series everyone will be comfortable to read and most people who read it like it primarily for the art and/or political aspect. However, I think the series does a stellar job at opening a dialogue about discussion of consent issues which slash fiction has had the opportunity to address, but mainly gets overlooked due to the medium/genre it's associated with.

Anyway, I doubt anyone's going to read this, but I just wanted to drop by and leave my kudos for a series that is surprisingly honest, and a +1 for anyone who's interested in reading a manga series that is honest in addressing rape politics and consequences.

[azurelunatic]

Oh man, my introduction to animé!

So I had a high school friend who was way into animé. This was in ~1997, in Alaska, so it was somewhat difficult to get your hands on it; I was ~17.

I was over at his place along with a bunch of other people (I was the only girl in the room); he asked what I'd like to watch; I mentioned that I'd never seen any, so I didn't know.

"What will give you the most 'bang' for your buck?" he wondered aloud; inspiration arrived, and he located a tape.

For those who are familiar with the series, I will say that it was an episode of New Angel. For those who are not familiar, this resulted in me getting a real eyeful of very explicit animated sex. Bang indeed.

cueQBqpPgwidtP

[(Anonymous)]

C50Zfs Im obliged for the post.Much thanks again.