Boys Love Manga and Beyond: History, Culture, and Community in Japan - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1628461195 ISBN 13: 9781628461190

Publisher: University Press of Mississippi, 2015

Synopsis

Boys Love Manga and Beyond looks at a range of literary, artistic and other cultural products that celebrate the beauty of adolescent boys and young men. In Japan, depiction of the "beautiful boy" has long been a romantic and sexualized trope for both sexes and commands a high degree of cultural visibility today across a range of genres from pop music to animation.

In recent decades, "Boys Love" (or simply BL) has emerged as a mainstream genre in manga, anime, and games for girls and young women. This genre was first developed in Japan in the early 1970s by a group of female artists who went on to establish themselves as major figures in Japan's manga industry. By the late 1970s many amateur women fans were getting involved in the BL phenomenon by creating and self-publishing homoerotic parodies of established male manga characters and popular media figures. The popularity of these fan-made products, sold and circulated at huge conventions, has led to an increase in the number of commercial titles available. Today, a wide range of products produced both by professionals and amateurs are brought together under the general rubric of "boys love," and are rapidly gaining an audience throughout Asia and globally.

This collection provides the first comprehensive overview in English of the BL phenomenon in Japan, its history and various subgenres and introduces translations of some key Japanese scholarship not otherwise available. Some chapters detail the historical and cultural contexts that helped BL emerge as a significant part of girls' culture in Japan. Others offer important case studies of BL production, consumption, and circulation and explain why BL has become a controversial topic in contemporary Japan.

About this title

Book Description:

A critical examination of the "beautiful boy" love comics that enthralled fans in Japan and then worldwide

About the Author:

Mark McLelland, Wollongong, New South Wales, Australia, is professor of gender and sexuality studies at the University of Wollongong.

Kazumi Nagaike, Oita, Japan, is associate professor in the Center for International Education and Research at Oita University.

Katsuhiko Suganuma, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia, is a lecturer in the School of Humanities at the University of Tasmania.

James Welker, Yokohama, Japan, is associate professor of cross-cultural studies at Kanagawa University.

About this edition

• Publisher: University Press of Mississippi
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 1628461195
• ISBN 13: 9781628461190
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 304
• Editor: McLelland Mark, Nagaike Kazumi, Suganuma Katsuhiko, Welker James