Please welcome back Melissa for the second part of her post in my m/m graphic novel appreciation series. (You can find the first part here.)
If you’re anything like me, light bulbs will be going off when you read this and you will mutter to yourself ‘so that’s what THAT means’.
I feel edjumacated!
Thank you, Melissa! 🙂
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Hi again! Here is the rest of it and I cut a lot out so it’s not as long!
Dojinshi (どじんし) – Dojin means “folks who share the same taste” and shi “means magazine”. Or manga that takes characters from books or other manga that are not romantically involved and proceeds to well, involve them. This is the Japanese way of slash fanfiction. And while many are yaoi, there are just as many that are shōnen-ai, so it’s kinda an “in between.”
Ok, I know I’m a geeky fangirl, but I love dojinshi’s. While I enjoy the regular manga, there is just something about taking the lead characters and making them a couple! And trust me, if it is written, someone will make it into dojinshi. My favorite is Naruto. My kid first became a fan of this manga, and then I got into it. I have a few favorite companies two of which are:
Anything by Uzu Uzu company because I love their artwork!
a. Ura Mono-Naruto’s drunk and Sasuke produces a shadow clone in order to help take care of him and much smexen happens.
b. Goshujin-sama no Oose no mama ni (As My Master Commands)- Naruto loses a bet and as a penalty has to dress up as a maid and take a photo with Sasuke in his house. He does, but Sasuke doesn’t want the photo to be shown to everybody.
or Ichihara Tetsuno– another good artist
a. Hana no Shita- ANBU! Naruto reflects on sakura (the tree) and Sasuke.
b. The Sleeping Sound of Snow- During a mission, Naruto goes temporarily deaf from a fight. Kakashi assigns Sasuke to watch after Naruto until his hearing improves, and Naruto comes to some realizations in the silence.
Shota (ショタ)- is manga/anime that depicts small boys- together- or with older men. I have to say that it is not my cup of tea and I only listed it because many people do like it. I don’t have an example for it cause, well, I don’t like it, so I don’t really know what’s out there. Kris: Me either. It’s icky.
Onto the Fluffier side:
Shōnen-ai (しょうんえんーあい )- literally means boys love. In today’s terminology, it refers to the more romance oriented manga with only slight sexual themes or innuendos. These are great for beginners who don’t care for the more explicit details! My mostest favoritest is Kyo Kara Maoh! It started out as an anime, but now is a manga! Loves it. 😀 Kris: Is t-riffic!
Yuri is an average baseball-loving high school student. One day, Yuri tries to save his former classmate from a group of hoodlums. Turning on him, they drag Yuri into the bathroom and push his face into the toilet. When they flush the toilet, he is transported to another world. Yuri is taken to a castle and crowned King of the Demon World! Is he going to end up as the leader of the land, surrounded by his extraordinarily handsome lieges or will he make his way back home?
“Manga Geared Towards Men”
Gei Comi (ゲイコミ) and Bara have already been covered pretty well in earlier posts so I won’t rehash them!
Three websites that are great for finding non-licensed and sometimes licensed (in the US) scanlated native manga and dojinshi:
1. Aarinfantasy: I love this site! This site is dedicated to all lovers of yaoi or any type of boy love as long as it is not licensed (they also have a huge host link forum for non-yaoi as well). It has a huge host forum where you can get anime, manga, dojinshi, yaoi games, dramas, movies… you name it. Really a must see if you haven’t already found it and if you want to leave a good rep for me for leading you there then I won’t mind at all. ;p
You can get the general gist here or join the forum where all the goodies are here, but you have to be of age in your country to register and it is hosted in the US, so expect US weirdo laws.
2. MangaFox: This is a good site for finding any type of manga, including yaoi manga, you just have to search for it! It provides scantalations on some licensed material (in the US) as well.
3. MangaTraders: This is also a good site for yaoi manga, but again you have to search for it because it also provides any type of manga.
Reference links:
http://www.graphicnovelreview.com/?p=67
http://www.villagevoice.com/2006-10-31/news/drawn-together/
http://www.csuchico.edu/~mtoku/vc/Articles/toku/Wil_Toku_BoysLove.html
http://moongsil.com/study/yaoi_eng.pdf
http://intersections.anu.edu.au/issue12/lunsing.html
All product descriptions are taken from Amazon.com or Aarinfantasy host forum.
Kris + Books = Good. *Sometimes*. 
More great resources – thank you, Melissa!!
Very informative, Melissa. Thanks :).
I've watched quite a few Shonen-ai animes (thanks to Ingrid) and enjoyed them.
No little boys. Icky. I came across one kind of short in another book and I think most of us were squicked out. 6 years old? No, just no.
I'll have to check out some of those links. I know I've seen the Arin site pop up but I've never really taken a look around.
Thanks for all the info, I suppose like any genre, there are sub-genres and sub-sub-genres. 🙂
I've seen a lot of the Bleach dojinshi, Naruto dojinshi and… *mental blank* a couple of others whose names escape me at the moment. Shit. That's going to drive me crazy. *need more coffee*
I <3 Kyo Kara Maoh. It's so much fun. I haven't watched all of the second season in its entirety yet. I think I feel an anime weekend coming on. ;)
I also have a feeling that Aarinfantasy will become my new favourite site. LOL.
Thanks again for all this, Melissa. I've learnt heaps. 🙂
Thank you Melissa, although you are enabling my something wicked! *grin*
Aarin is where I first found KKM and it has all three seasons. I ended up buying the first two (my daughter is now a fangirl) and the third season is on my external and I have it backed up at remote storage:) It was so funny cause when hurricane Ike came through and we were out of power for two weeks, my husband jury rigged a TV, my computer, and a couple of battery packs and we watched a KKM marathon. Hubby wasn't crazy about the BL, but the story was interesting enough that he could ignore it:)
Arin has about three pages of downloadable yaoi anime and countless manga/dojin. It's where I go to get my fix:)
Yep, I was grossed out when I downloaded what I thought was a regular yoai anime and it ended up being shota. Not a pleasant way to find out!
“Yep, I was grossed out when I downloaded what I thought was a regular yoai anime and it ended up being shota. Not a pleasant way to find out!”
Me too. The one I accidentally found was actually part of a series that featured the stories of a number of brothers. The youngest was about 12 I think and he was the one who seduced the older guy, but it was blechy.
Thanks again, Melissa, for these two posts. I've learnt a lot, especially re: terminology that I've always been too lazy to research myself. LOL.