Bara (genre)
Encyclopedia
, also known as the wasei-eigo
construction or ML, is a Japanese jargon term for a genre
of art and fictional media that focuses on male same-sex love and desire
, usually created by and for gay
men. The bara genre began in the 1960s with fetish magazines featuring gay art and content. Besides bara manga
, also called , and illustration, a number of bara erotic games
exist, as well as novels and memoirs. Bara is mostly a Japanese phenomenon, with limited western exposure through manga scanlations and online homoerotic art communities. While bara faces difficulties finding western publishers, it has been described as "the next big porn wave coming out of Japan."
Bara can vary in visual style and plot, but typically features masculine
men with varying degrees of muscle, body fat, and body hair
, akin to beefcakes, or bears in gay culture
. While bara usually features adult content
(sometimes violent or exploitative) and gay romanticism
, it often has more realistic or autobiographical themes, as it acknowledges the taboo
nature of homosexuality in Japan
.
Western
commentators sometimes refer to bara as "yaoi
", but yaoi is largely created by and for women and features idealized bishōnen
who frequently conform to the heteronormative formula of the dominant and masculine seme and effeminate uke characters. By contrast, bara is considered a subgenre of seijin
(men's erotica) for gay males and resembles comics for men (seinen
) rather than comics for female readers (shōjo/josei
).
by photographer Eikoh Hosoe
, and was reinforced by the early and influential gay men's magazine , founded in 1971 and the first gay magazine in Asia to be sold at mainstream bookshops. Bara-eiga ("rose film") has been used since the 1980s to describe gay cinema.
artwork. However, Gengoroh Tagame
distinguishes between the culturally-defined sexuality of traditions (such as pederasty) and the more personal, innate, and arguably legitimate sexuality found in modern homoeroticism
.
According to Tagame, the history of modern gay erotic art
in Japan can be traced to Fuzokukitan, a fetish magazine
which ran between 1960 and 1974. While it contained heterosexuality and lesbian
ism, Fuzokukitan stood apart from its competitors as it gradually featured more gay content and articles, and had male erotic art as its cover several times more frequently than other publications. Western artists George Quaintance
and Tom of Finland
, who contributed to American physique magazines
, were featured in Fuzokukitan, and several historical bara artists, including Okawa Tatsuji, Funayama Sanshi, Mishima Go and Hirano Go made their debut in the magazine, in addition to featured work by popular artists such as Oda Toshimi and Adachi Eikichi. A prominent figure behind the publication was writer and editor Mamiya Hiroshi, who later contributed to Barazoku. The publication continued to grow, but by the end of the 1960s all the previously mentioned artists had left Fuzokukitan.
A privately published, small circulation magazine called Bara was established in 1964 and became "the root of gay magazines." Mishima, Funayama and Adachi contributed to Bara after leaving Fuzokukitan, likely the reason for the latter publication's demise. In 1971, Barazoku
, the first commercially published gay men's magazine, was established. Several other new magazines, Sabu and Adon, soon followed, introducing newer artists such as Ishihara Gojin and Hayashi Gekko.
Homoerotic photography has also been accredited as contributing to the bara genre, with Tamotsu Yatō
and Haga Kuro mentioned by Tagame in particular. In the 1970s and 1980s, gay magazines grew rapidly and began specializing in particular fetishes such as "chubby chasers
", allowing artists to specialize. Foreign gay cultures, art, and lifestyle found their way into publications such as MLMW, increasingly influencing the next second generation of bara artists, including Sadao Hasegawa
, published in Barazoku, Sabu, Adon, MLMW, Samson
, and later SM-Z, as well as artists Junichi Yamakawa and Kimura Ben, whose depiction of men were more sporty and realistic. With the second generation of artists, the generalized sorrow and darkness noticeable in the work of the first generation soon disappeared, as gay people in Japan became more liberated. Gay sexualized fantasies shifted from the spiritual beauty of samurai and gangsters to the physical bodies of sportsmen.
After the second generation, in the late 1980s and 1990, the major gay magazines continued publishing but extra issues, picture books, and large-sized magazines disappeared as general interest magazines started to often feature gay interest articles. Mid-1990s magazines such as Badi
and G-men were more inclusive of gay culture and dealt with topics such as the gay market, pride parades, HIV-related events, and clubs, although the focus remained on fiction, ads and erotic material. In the early 1990s Adon attempted to shift its focus onto lifestyle and politics and away from the eroticism and light entertainment typical of the gay magazines of the era, eliminating pornographic features and reducing its photographic and fiction sections. This shift was not successful and the magazine went out of business in 1996. Barazoku
ceased publication in 2004, made several failed attempts to restart, and is now defunct. The demise of Barazoku has been linked to a preference for coverage of "sex, music, clubbing and fashion, rather than news and politics" among modern readers. Sabu also eventually failed, ceasing publication in 2001.
Today, there are more gay artists and variety featured in gay magazines compared to the 1990s.
were originally published in the bara magazine Gekidan, and a few of Gengoroh Tagame's works have been published in French. Not much has been scanlated
into English, although Kuso Miso Technique
, a 1987 one-shot manga published in Barazoku
, has become an Internet meme.
has been called the most influential creator of gay manga in Japan to date. Most of his work first appeared in gay magazines and usually features sexual abuse
, including rape, torture, and BDSM
. Tagame's illustrations of muscular, hairy men have been cited as a catalyst for a shift in fashion among gay men in Tokyo after the launch of G-men in 1995, away from the clean-shaven and slender styles influenced by yaoi
and towards a tendency for masculinity and chubbiness. Tagame's work has been criticized by notable gay manga writer Susumu Hirosegawa as being merely "SM theatre", because of its violence and lack of complex storylines. Susumu Hirosegawa's early works were yaoi, but later Hirosegawa moved into gay manga. Hirosegawa's works sometimes contain no sex at all, with greater focus on plot, but when sex is present it is often in the form of sadomasochism
or rape, in which the victim learns to enjoy the experience.
Other popular and well-known artists include Takeshi Matsu, Inaki Matsumoto, Mentaiko and Matsuzaki Tsukasa.
in 1971. The typical manga story in these magazines is an 8-24 page one-shot, although some magazines, notably G-men
, also carry some serialized stories. McLelland, surveying gay men's magazines from the mid to late 1990s, indicates that most manga stories were simply pornographic, with little attention to character or plot, and that even the longer, serialized stories were generally "thinly developed". McLelland characterizes Barazoku as containing "some well-crafted stories which might be better described as erotic rather than pornographic", while the manga in G-men were "more relentlessly sexual", with less attention to characterization and mood.
Much of Gengoroh Tagame's early work was published in the magazine G-men
, which was founded in 1994 to cater to gay men who preferred "macho fantasy", as opposed to the sleeker, yaoi-inspired styles popular in the 1980s. Like most gay men's general-interest magazines, G-men included manga as well as prose stories and editorial and photographic material. G-men encouraged steady readership by presenting a more well-defined fantasy image, and with serialized, continuing manga stories which encouraged purchase of every issue. Gengoroh Tagame's work was an important influence on G-men's style; he provided the cover for the first 60+ issues, as well as manga stories for most issues. G-men was also one of the first gay men's publishers to offer collections of manga bound into tankōbon
.
The 1990s saw increased media focus on LGBT people in Japan, and a large increase in the production of works written by gay men. In the mid to late 1990s, several attempts were made at manga anthologies targeted at gay men, but none was successful and most folded after a few issues. In the early 2000s, G-men's parent company, Furukawa Shobu, began publishing a pair of manga anthology aimed at gay men, Bakudan (quarterly) and Gekidan (bimonthly); material from these anthologies are collected into tankōbon under their Bakudan Comics imprint. These magazines were successful, and Furukawa Shobu added other anthologies, including Uragekidan (defunct) and the BDSM-themed SM Comics Anthology. Shortly thereafter, the yaoi
publisher Aqua (an imprint of Ookura Shuppan) started the manga anthology Nikutai Ha (AKA Muscle Aqua), and later others, such as Oaks and G's Comics, to capitalize on a crossover audience of gay male readers as well as female readers who prefer a more masculine body type. These vary between bara and gachi muchi (see below), and have strong gay male components to their readerships; however, when collected into tankōbon these manga are issued under the same Aqua Comics imprint as Aqua's mainstream yaoi books, and bear the same trade dress
, making them hard to distinguish on the shelf.
As of 2008 there were four major publishers of bara manga anthologies in Japan.
Spanish comic publisher La Cúpula started releasing bara in Spain, translated to Spanish, in 2008, starting with Jiraiya's works and continuing, in June 2010, with a manga by Gengoroh Tagame.
Both McLelland and Lunsing indicate that themes of BDSM
and violent or exploitative sex are common in this material and intended to be erotic. Lunsing notes that some of the narrative annoyances that gay men express about yaoi manga, such as rape, misogyny, and an absence of a Western-style gay identity, are also present in gei comi. In more recent manga published in gay-targeted anthologies, stories frequently invert the older-top, younger-bottom dynamic and show younger, shorter, often white-collar "tops" in aggressive pursuit of older, larger, often bearded, typically blue-collar "bottoms". As with yaoi, the "bottom" is often presented as shy, reluctant, or unsure of his sexuality. Non-consensual sex and BDSM are still common themes, although romantic themes are also popular.
.
aimed at a gay male audience have been produced in Japan, although the majority are dōjin soft
(noncommercial). Unlike commercial yaoi games
, which are typically produced by subsidiaries of bishōjo game
developers (e.g., Nitro+chiral
is a subsidiary of Nitro+
), the few commercial bara games have been produced by small independent companies. Bara ero-games are typically visual novel
s, dating sim
s, or "strip" versions of games of skill such as pachinko
or checkers
.
BL creators and fans are careful to distinguish the genre from bara, which is created by and for gay men. Yaoi has spread beyond Japan: both translated and original yaoi are now available in many countries and languages. The characters in yaoi manga do not tend to self-identify as gay or bisexual.
Yaoi has been criticized for stereotypical and homophobic portrayals of its characters, and for failing to address gay issues. Homophobia
, when it is presented as an issue at all, is often used as a plot device
to "heighten the drama", or to show the purity of the leads’ love. Matt Thorn has suggested that as yaoi is a romance narrative, strong political themes may be a "turn off" to the readers. Critics state that the genre challenges heteronormativity via the "odd" bishōnen
("beautiful boys"), and Andrew Grossman has written that the Japanese are more comfortable with writing about LGBT themes in a manga setting, in which gender is often blurred, even in "straight" manga.
Bara is more true to actual gay male relationships, and not the heterosexual-esque relationships between the masculine seme and feminine uke types that are the most common romantic fantasy in women's yaoi manga. In comparison to yaoi, gay men's manga is unlikely to contain scenes of "uncontrollable weeping or long introspective pauses", and more likely to show characters who are "hairy, very muscular, or have a few excess pounds". Compared to gay men's manga, yaoi is "more careful to build up a strong sense of character" before sex scenes occur.
which offers more masculine body types and is more likely to have gay male authors and artists. Although still marketed primarily to women, it is also thought to attract a large crossover gay male audience. Although this type of material has also been referred to as "bara" among English-speaking fans, it is not equivalent to gei comi proper (although there is considerable overlap, as writers, artists and art styles cross over between the two genres). Prior to the development of gachi muchi, the greatest overlap between yaoi and bara authors has been in BDSM
-themed publications such as Zettai Reido, a yaoi anthology magazine which had a number of openly male contributors. Several female yaoi authors who have done BDSM-themed yaoi have been recruited to contribute stories to BDSM-themed bara anthologies or special issues.
Wasei-eigo
are Japanese pseudo-Anglicisms: English constructions not used in the English-speaking world or by native English speakers, but that appear in Japanese. This should not be confused for foreign words gairaigo, which generally refer to words from European languages, especially American English...
construction or ML, is a Japanese jargon term for a genre
Genre
Genre , Greek: genos, γένος) is the term for any category of literature or other forms of art or culture, e.g. music, and in general, any type of discourse, whether written or spoken, audial or visual, based on some set of stylistic criteria. Genres are formed by conventions that change over time...
of art and fictional media that focuses on male same-sex love and desire
Homoeroticism
Homoeroticism refers to the erotic attraction between members of the same sex, either male–male or female–female , most especially as it is depicted or manifested in the visual arts and literature. It can also be found in performative forms; from theatre to the theatricality of uniformed movements...
, usually created by and for gay
Gay
Gay is a word that refers to a homosexual person, especially a homosexual male. For homosexual women the specific term is "lesbian"....
men. The bara genre began in the 1960s with fetish magazines featuring gay art and content. Besides bara manga
Manga
Manga is the Japanese word for "comics" and consists of comics and print cartoons . In the West, the term "manga" has been appropriated to refer specifically to comics created in Japan, or by Japanese authors, in the Japanese language and conforming to the style developed in Japan in the late 19th...
, also called , and illustration, a number of bara erotic games
Eroge
An or Ero-ga is a Japanese video or computer game that features erotic content, usually in the form of anime-style artwork. Eroge originated from galge, but unlike galge, they feature erotic/pornographic content.-History:...
exist, as well as novels and memoirs. Bara is mostly a Japanese phenomenon, with limited western exposure through manga scanlations and online homoerotic art communities. While bara faces difficulties finding western publishers, it has been described as "the next big porn wave coming out of Japan."
Bara can vary in visual style and plot, but typically features masculine
Masculine
Masculine or masculinity, normally refer to qualities positively associated with men.Masculine may also refer to:*Masculine , a grammatical gender*Masculine cadence, a final chord occurring on a strong beat in music...
men with varying degrees of muscle, body fat, and body hair
Androgenic hair
Androgenic hair, colloquially body hair, is the terminal hair that develops on the body during and after puberty. It is differentiated from the head hair and less visible vellus hair, which are much finer and lighter in color. The growth of androgenic hair is related to the level of androgens in...
, akin to beefcakes, or bears in gay culture
Sexuality and gender identity-based cultures
Sexuality and gender identity-based cultures are subcultures and communities composed of persons who have shared experiences, background, or interests due to a common sexual or gender identity. Among the first to argue that members of sexual minorities can constitute cultural minorities as well as...
. While bara usually features adult content
Hentai
is a Japanese word that, in the West, is used when referring to sexually explicit or pornographic comics and animation, particularly those of Japanese origin such as anime, manga, and computer games. The word hentai is a kanji compound of 変 and 態...
(sometimes violent or exploitative) and gay romanticism
Romance (genre)
As a literary genre of high culture, romance or chivalric romance is a style of heroic prose and verse narrative that was popular in the aristocratic circles of High Medieval and Early Modern Europe. They were fantastic stories about marvel-filled adventures, often of a knight errant portrayed as...
, it often has more realistic or autobiographical themes, as it acknowledges the taboo
Taboo
A taboo is a strong social prohibition relating to any area of human activity or social custom that is sacred and or forbidden based on moral judgment, religious beliefs and or scientific consensus. Breaking the taboo is usually considered objectionable or abhorrent by society...
nature of homosexuality in Japan
Homosexuality in Japan
Records of men who have sex with men in Japan date back to ancient times. Western scholars have identified these as evidence of homosexuality in Japan.There were few laws restricting sexual behavior in Japan before the early modern period...
.
Western
Western world
The Western world, also known as the West and the Occident , is a term referring to the countries of Western Europe , the countries of the Americas, as well all countries of Northern and Central Europe, Australia and New Zealand...
commentators sometimes refer to bara as "yaoi
Yaoi
In careful Japanese enunciation, all three vowels are pronounced separately, for a three-mora word, . The English equivalent is . also known as Boys' Love, is a Japanese popular term for female-oriented fictional media that focus on homoerotic or homoromantic male relationships, usually created by...
", but yaoi is largely created by and for women and features idealized bishōnen
Bishonen
is a Japanese term literally meaning "beautiful youth ". The equivalent English concept is a "pretty boy".The term describes an aesthetic that can be found in disparate areas in East Asia: a young man whose beauty transcends the boundary of gender or sexual orientation...
who frequently conform to the heteronormative formula of the dominant and masculine seme and effeminate uke characters. By contrast, bara is considered a subgenre of seijin
Hentai
is a Japanese word that, in the West, is used when referring to sexually explicit or pornographic comics and animation, particularly those of Japanese origin such as anime, manga, and computer games. The word hentai is a kanji compound of 変 and 態...
(men's erotica) for gay males and resembles comics for men (seinen
Seinen
is a subset of manga that is generally targeted at a 20–30 year old male audience, but the audience can be older with some manga aimed at businessmen well into their 40s. In Japanese, the word Seinen means "young man" or "young men" and is not suggestive of sexual matters...
) rather than comics for female readers (shōjo/josei
Josei
also known as or , is a term that refers to the target demographic of manga created mostly by women for late teenage and adult female audiences. Readers range from 15-44. In Japanese, the word josei means simply "woman", "female", "feminine", "womanhood" and has no manga-related connotations at...
).
Terminology
The term bara in relation to gay material for men originated in the 1960s, possibly as a result of Bara kei (Ordeal by Roses, published in 1961), a collection of semi-nude photographs of the gay author Yukio MishimaYukio Mishima
was the pen name of , a Japanese author, poet, playwright, actor and film director, also remembered for his ritual suicide by seppuku after a failed coup d'état...
by photographer Eikoh Hosoe
Eikoh Hosoe
is a Japanese photographer and filmmaker who emerged in the experimental arts movement of post-World War II Japan. He is known for his psychologically charged images, often exploring subjects such as death, erotic obsession, and irrationality...
, and was reinforced by the early and influential gay men's magazine , founded in 1971 and the first gay magazine in Asia to be sold at mainstream bookshops. Bara-eiga ("rose film") has been used since the 1980s to describe gay cinema.
History
Japan has a history of homosexuality, particularly pederasty, which is represented in danshoku-shungaShunga
' is a Japanese term for erotic art. Most shunga are a type of ukiyo-e, usually executed in woodblock print format. While rare, there are extant erotic painted handscrolls which predate the Ukiyo-e movement...
artwork. However, Gengoroh Tagame
Gengoroh Tagame
is a Japanese manga artist who specializes in gay BDSM erotic manga, many of which depict graphic violence. The men he depicts are hypermasculine, and tend to be on the bearish side....
distinguishes between the culturally-defined sexuality of traditions (such as pederasty) and the more personal, innate, and arguably legitimate sexuality found in modern homoeroticism
Homoeroticism
Homoeroticism refers to the erotic attraction between members of the same sex, either male–male or female–female , most especially as it is depicted or manifested in the visual arts and literature. It can also be found in performative forms; from theatre to the theatricality of uniformed movements...
.
According to Tagame, the history of modern gay erotic art
Erotic art
Erotic art covers any artistic work that is intended to evoke erotic arousal or that depicts scenes of love-making. It includes paintings, engravings, drawings, sculptures, photographs, music and writing.-Definition:...
in Japan can be traced to Fuzokukitan, a fetish magazine
Fetish magazine
A fetish magazine is a type of magazine originating in the 1960s which is devoted to sexual fetishism. The content is generally aimed at being erotic rather than pornographic...
which ran between 1960 and 1974. While it contained heterosexuality and lesbian
Lesbian
Lesbian is a term most widely used in the English language to describe sexual and romantic desire between females. The word may be used as a noun, to refer to women who identify themselves or who are characterized by others as having the primary attribute of female homosexuality, or as an...
ism, Fuzokukitan stood apart from its competitors as it gradually featured more gay content and articles, and had male erotic art as its cover several times more frequently than other publications. Western artists George Quaintance
George Quaintance
George Quaintance was an American artist famous for his "idealized, strongly homoerotic" depictions of men in physique magazines...
and Tom of Finland
Tom of Finland
Touko Laaksonen, best known by his pseudonym Tom of Finland was a Finnish artist notable for his stylized androerotic and fetish art and his influence on late twentieth century gay culture. He has been called the "most influential creator of gay pornographic images" by cultural historian Joseph W...
, who contributed to American physique magazines
Beefcake magazines
Beefcake magazines were magazines published in North America in the 1930s to 1960s that featured photographs of attractive, muscular young men in athletic poses...
, were featured in Fuzokukitan, and several historical bara artists, including Okawa Tatsuji, Funayama Sanshi, Mishima Go and Hirano Go made their debut in the magazine, in addition to featured work by popular artists such as Oda Toshimi and Adachi Eikichi. A prominent figure behind the publication was writer and editor Mamiya Hiroshi, who later contributed to Barazoku. The publication continued to grow, but by the end of the 1960s all the previously mentioned artists had left Fuzokukitan.
A privately published, small circulation magazine called Bara was established in 1964 and became "the root of gay magazines." Mishima, Funayama and Adachi contributed to Bara after leaving Fuzokukitan, likely the reason for the latter publication's demise. In 1971, Barazoku
Barazoku
is Japan's first male gay magazine commercially circulated.There had been a member-only magazine called Adonis and its extra issue Apollo in around 1960. It began publication in July 1971 by Daini Shobō's owner's son and editor , who is not gay....
, the first commercially published gay men's magazine, was established. Several other new magazines, Sabu and Adon, soon followed, introducing newer artists such as Ishihara Gojin and Hayashi Gekko.
Homoerotic photography has also been accredited as contributing to the bara genre, with Tamotsu Yatō
Tamotsu Yato
was a Japanese photographer and occasional actor responsible for pioneering Japanese homoerotic photography and creating iconic black-and-white images of the Japanese male...
and Haga Kuro mentioned by Tagame in particular. In the 1970s and 1980s, gay magazines grew rapidly and began specializing in particular fetishes such as "chubby chasers
Chub (gay culture)
A chub is an overweight or obese gay man who identifies as being part of the related chubby culture. Although there is some overlap between chubs and bears, chubs have their own distinct subculture and community...
", allowing artists to specialize. Foreign gay cultures, art, and lifestyle found their way into publications such as MLMW, increasingly influencing the next second generation of bara artists, including Sadao Hasegawa
Sadao Hasegawa
was a prominent Japanese graphic artist specializing in male erotica. His work is notable for superb technical skills, elaborate fantastic settings , and for incorporating Japanese, Indian, South-East Asian and African mythology...
, published in Barazoku, Sabu, Adon, MLMW, Samson
Samson (magazine)
Samson Monthly for Men is a monthly Japanese magazine for gay men.Gay magazines in Japan, along with much gay culture, are segregated by "type"; most are aimed at an audience with specific interests...
, and later SM-Z, as well as artists Junichi Yamakawa and Kimura Ben, whose depiction of men were more sporty and realistic. With the second generation of artists, the generalized sorrow and darkness noticeable in the work of the first generation soon disappeared, as gay people in Japan became more liberated. Gay sexualized fantasies shifted from the spiritual beauty of samurai and gangsters to the physical bodies of sportsmen.
After the second generation, in the late 1980s and 1990, the major gay magazines continued publishing but extra issues, picture books, and large-sized magazines disappeared as general interest magazines started to often feature gay interest articles. Mid-1990s magazines such as Badi
Badi (magazine)
Badi is a monthly Japanese magazine for gay men. The title comes from the Japanese pronunciation of "buddy." Badi is published by Terra Publications....
and G-men were more inclusive of gay culture and dealt with topics such as the gay market, pride parades, HIV-related events, and clubs, although the focus remained on fiction, ads and erotic material. In the early 1990s Adon attempted to shift its focus onto lifestyle and politics and away from the eroticism and light entertainment typical of the gay magazines of the era, eliminating pornographic features and reducing its photographic and fiction sections. This shift was not successful and the magazine went out of business in 1996. Barazoku
Barazoku
is Japan's first male gay magazine commercially circulated.There had been a member-only magazine called Adonis and its extra issue Apollo in around 1960. It began publication in July 1971 by Daini Shobō's owner's son and editor , who is not gay....
ceased publication in 2004, made several failed attempts to restart, and is now defunct. The demise of Barazoku has been linked to a preference for coverage of "sex, music, clubbing and fashion, rather than news and politics" among modern readers. Sabu also eventually failed, ceasing publication in 2001.
Today, there are more gay artists and variety featured in gay magazines compared to the 1990s.
Manga
Bara manga, also known as gei comi, is an even smaller niche genre in Japan than yaoi manga; no completely bara work has been licensed in English, although two chapters of the mostly-mainstream translated yaoi manga Red Blinds the FoolishRed Blinds the Foolish
is a Japanese yaoi manga written and illustrated by est em. Initially serialized in Mellow Mellow, the individual chapters were published in a single tankōbon volume by Ohzora Publishing in January 2008...
were originally published in the bara magazine Gekidan, and a few of Gengoroh Tagame's works have been published in French. Not much has been scanlated
Scanlation
Scanlation is the scanning, translation and editing of a graphic novel from a foreign language into a different language. Scanlation is done as an amateur work and is nearly always done without express permission from the copyright holder. The word scanlation is a portmanteau of scan and translation...
into English, although Kuso Miso Technique
Kuso Miso Technique
is a one-shot bara manga by first published in a manga supplement of the gay magazine Barazoku in 1987. The short manga is a famous meme on the internet , largely considered the representative work of Yamakawa and responsible for the revived popularity in his works.-Plot:Masaki Michishita, a...
, a 1987 one-shot manga published in Barazoku
Barazoku
is Japan's first male gay magazine commercially circulated.There had been a member-only magazine called Adonis and its extra issue Apollo in around 1960. It began publication in July 1971 by Daini Shobō's owner's son and editor , who is not gay....
, has become an Internet meme.
Popular creators
Gengoroh TagameGengoroh Tagame
is a Japanese manga artist who specializes in gay BDSM erotic manga, many of which depict graphic violence. The men he depicts are hypermasculine, and tend to be on the bearish side....
has been called the most influential creator of gay manga in Japan to date. Most of his work first appeared in gay magazines and usually features sexual abuse
Sexual abuse
Sexual abuse, also referred to as molestation, is the forcing of undesired sexual behavior by one person upon another. When that force is immediate, of short duration, or infrequent, it is called sexual assault. The offender is referred to as a sexual abuser or molester...
, including rape, torture, and BDSM
BDSM
BDSM is an erotic preference and a form of sexual expression involving the consensual use of restraint, intense sensory stimulation, and fantasy power role-play. The compound acronym BDSM is derived from the terms bondage and discipline , dominance and submission , and sadism and masochism...
. Tagame's illustrations of muscular, hairy men have been cited as a catalyst for a shift in fashion among gay men in Tokyo after the launch of G-men in 1995, away from the clean-shaven and slender styles influenced by yaoi
Yaoi
In careful Japanese enunciation, all three vowels are pronounced separately, for a three-mora word, . The English equivalent is . also known as Boys' Love, is a Japanese popular term for female-oriented fictional media that focus on homoerotic or homoromantic male relationships, usually created by...
and towards a tendency for masculinity and chubbiness. Tagame's work has been criticized by notable gay manga writer Susumu Hirosegawa as being merely "SM theatre", because of its violence and lack of complex storylines. Susumu Hirosegawa's early works were yaoi, but later Hirosegawa moved into gay manga. Hirosegawa's works sometimes contain no sex at all, with greater focus on plot, but when sex is present it is often in the form of sadomasochism
Sadism and masochism
Sadomasochism broadly refers to the receiving of pleasure—often sexual—from acts involving the infliction or reception of pain or humiliation. The name originates from two authors on the subject, Marquis de Sade and Leopold von Sacher-Masoch...
or rape, in which the victim learns to enjoy the experience.
Other popular and well-known artists include Takeshi Matsu, Inaki Matsumoto, Mentaiko and Matsuzaki Tsukasa.
Publishers
Prior to the early 2000s, the primary venue for publication of gay men's manga was gay men's general-interest magazines, which have included manga since the inception of BarazokuBarazoku
is Japan's first male gay magazine commercially circulated.There had been a member-only magazine called Adonis and its extra issue Apollo in around 1960. It began publication in July 1971 by Daini Shobō's owner's son and editor , who is not gay....
in 1971. The typical manga story in these magazines is an 8-24 page one-shot, although some magazines, notably G-men
G-men (magazine)
is a monthly Japanese magazine for gay men. Gay magazines in Japan, along with much gay culture, are segregated by 'type' ; G-men was founded in 1994 to cater to gay men who preferred "macho fantasy", as opposed to the sleeker, yaoi-inspired styles popular in the 1980s, and focuses on "macho type" ...
, also carry some serialized stories. McLelland, surveying gay men's magazines from the mid to late 1990s, indicates that most manga stories were simply pornographic, with little attention to character or plot, and that even the longer, serialized stories were generally "thinly developed". McLelland characterizes Barazoku as containing "some well-crafted stories which might be better described as erotic rather than pornographic", while the manga in G-men were "more relentlessly sexual", with less attention to characterization and mood.
Much of Gengoroh Tagame's early work was published in the magazine G-men
G-men (magazine)
is a monthly Japanese magazine for gay men. Gay magazines in Japan, along with much gay culture, are segregated by 'type' ; G-men was founded in 1994 to cater to gay men who preferred "macho fantasy", as opposed to the sleeker, yaoi-inspired styles popular in the 1980s, and focuses on "macho type" ...
, which was founded in 1994 to cater to gay men who preferred "macho fantasy", as opposed to the sleeker, yaoi-inspired styles popular in the 1980s. Like most gay men's general-interest magazines, G-men included manga as well as prose stories and editorial and photographic material. G-men encouraged steady readership by presenting a more well-defined fantasy image, and with serialized, continuing manga stories which encouraged purchase of every issue. Gengoroh Tagame's work was an important influence on G-men's style; he provided the cover for the first 60+ issues, as well as manga stories for most issues. G-men was also one of the first gay men's publishers to offer collections of manga bound into tankōbon
Tankobon
, with a literal meaning close to "independently appearing book", is the Japanese term for a book that is complete in itself and is not part of a series , though the manga industry uses it for volumes which may be in a series...
.
The 1990s saw increased media focus on LGBT people in Japan, and a large increase in the production of works written by gay men. In the mid to late 1990s, several attempts were made at manga anthologies targeted at gay men, but none was successful and most folded after a few issues. In the early 2000s, G-men's parent company, Furukawa Shobu, began publishing a pair of manga anthology aimed at gay men, Bakudan (quarterly) and Gekidan (bimonthly); material from these anthologies are collected into tankōbon under their Bakudan Comics imprint. These magazines were successful, and Furukawa Shobu added other anthologies, including Uragekidan (defunct) and the BDSM-themed SM Comics Anthology. Shortly thereafter, the yaoi
Yaoi
In careful Japanese enunciation, all three vowels are pronounced separately, for a three-mora word, . The English equivalent is . also known as Boys' Love, is a Japanese popular term for female-oriented fictional media that focus on homoerotic or homoromantic male relationships, usually created by...
publisher Aqua (an imprint of Ookura Shuppan) started the manga anthology Nikutai Ha (AKA Muscle Aqua), and later others, such as Oaks and G's Comics, to capitalize on a crossover audience of gay male readers as well as female readers who prefer a more masculine body type. These vary between bara and gachi muchi (see below), and have strong gay male components to their readerships; however, when collected into tankōbon these manga are issued under the same Aqua Comics imprint as Aqua's mainstream yaoi books, and bear the same trade dress
Trade dress
Trade dress is a legal term of art that generally refers to characteristics of the visual appearance of a product or its packaging that signify the source of the product to consumers...
, making them hard to distinguish on the shelf.
As of 2008 there were four major publishers of bara manga anthologies in Japan.
Online stores and the foreign market
Some publishers and online stores have extensive English pages and actively seek foreign readers. One of the first online stores to carry bara and create pages in English to pursue foreign online shoppers was Rainbow Shoppers, who carry both current and dated gay manga, including doujinshi. JPQueen sells almost exclusively to foreign buyers, but do not distinguish between yaoi and bara, making for risky purchases for customers. The G-Project Store, tied to Bakudan's G-Style magazine, does not sell doujinshi but has English pages for foreign buyers. GayJP sells only published releases and no doujinshi, and cater almost exclusively to Japanese buyers.Spanish comic publisher La Cúpula started releasing bara in Spain, translated to Spanish, in 2008, starting with Jiraiya's works and continuing, in June 2010, with a manga by Gengoroh Tagame.
Characteristics of bara manga
The rise of bara anthologies has promoted longer, serialized stories, but the most common story type is still the single-chapter one-shot. Bara manga usually has muscular men as the lead gay characters, but characters may vary in body type (although they do not approach the feminine litheness common in yaoi). Although some stories contain less idealized and more realistic depictions of the actual life of gay men (gay pride parades, gay marriage issues, "coming out", realistically played out sex etc.), McLelland and others note that frequently "there is more emphasis upon sex than there is on building an enduring relationship". Stories in gay men's general interest magazines from the mid to late 1990s generally present age-, status- or power-structured relationships, where the older or more senior character uses younger or subordinate characters for sexual purposes.Both McLelland and Lunsing indicate that themes of BDSM
BDSM
BDSM is an erotic preference and a form of sexual expression involving the consensual use of restraint, intense sensory stimulation, and fantasy power role-play. The compound acronym BDSM is derived from the terms bondage and discipline , dominance and submission , and sadism and masochism...
and violent or exploitative sex are common in this material and intended to be erotic. Lunsing notes that some of the narrative annoyances that gay men express about yaoi manga, such as rape, misogyny, and an absence of a Western-style gay identity, are also present in gei comi. In more recent manga published in gay-targeted anthologies, stories frequently invert the older-top, younger-bottom dynamic and show younger, shorter, often white-collar "tops" in aggressive pursuit of older, larger, often bearded, typically blue-collar "bottoms". As with yaoi, the "bottom" is often presented as shy, reluctant, or unsure of his sexuality. Non-consensual sex and BDSM are still common themes, although romantic themes are also popular.
Novels and memoirs
Since the 1990s "gay boom", which brought increasing attention and commercial viability to gay-themed media, there have been a number of novels by gay male authors dealing with homosexuality in a realistic, often autobiographical manner. Notable authors include Hiruma Hisao, Nishino Kōji and Ryōsuke Hashiguchi; a number of Hashiguchi's works have been made into films, including A Touch of Fever and Hush!Hush! (2001 film)
Hush! is a Japanese film directed by Ryosuke Hashiguchi, starring Seiichi Tanabe, Kazuya Takahashi and Reiko Kataoka, released in 2001.The theme song is "Hush Little Baby" from the album Hush performed by Bobby McFerrin and Yo-Yo Ma.-Cast:...
.
Games
A number of bara ero-gamesEroge
An or Ero-ga is a Japanese video or computer game that features erotic content, usually in the form of anime-style artwork. Eroge originated from galge, but unlike galge, they feature erotic/pornographic content.-History:...
aimed at a gay male audience have been produced in Japan, although the majority are dōjin soft
Dojin soft
, also sometimes called , are video games created by Japanese hobbyists or hobbyist groups , more for fun than for profit; essentially, the Japanese equivalent of independent video games. Most of them are based on pre-existing material, but some are entirely original creations...
(noncommercial). Unlike commercial yaoi games
BL game
Boys' Love games usually refers to otome games or H games oriented around male homosexual couples for the female market. The defining factor is that both the playable character and possible objects of affection are male...
, which are typically produced by subsidiaries of bishōjo game
Bishojo game
A , or , is "a type of Japanese video game centered on interactions with attractive anime-style girls". These games are a sub-genre of dating sims targeted towards a male audience....
developers (e.g., Nitro+chiral
Nitro+chiral
Nitro+CHiRAL（ニトロプラスキラル） is the BL game-making branch of the company Nitroplus that launched in 2004. Their first work was Togainu no Chi. Their team included scenario writer Kabura Fuchii and artist Kana Tatana, who resigned in 2006 and was replaced by artist Seiji Onitsuka.- List of works...
is a subsidiary of Nitro+
Nitroplus
Nitroplus Co., Ltd., stylized as nitro+, is a Japanese visual novel computer software company that has developed a number of visual novels, including eroge. They have also have been collaborating with TYPE-MOON to create the light novel series Fate/zero. Their works usually have dark themes such...
), the few commercial bara games have been produced by small independent companies. Bara ero-games are typically visual novel
Visual novel
A is an interactive fiction game featuring mostly static graphics, usually with anime-style art, or occasionally live-action stills or video footage...
s, dating sim
Dating sim
Dating sims are a video game subgenre of simulation games, usually Japanese, with romantic elements. They are also sometimes put under the category of neoromance. The most common objective of dating sims is to date, usually choosing from among several characters, and to achieve a romantic...
s, or "strip" versions of games of skill such as pachinko
Pachinko
is a type of game originating in Japan, and used as both a form of recreational arcade game and much more frequently as a gambling device, filling a niche in gambling in Japan comparable to that of the slot machine in Western gambling. A pachinko machine resembles a vertical pinball machine, but...
or checkers
English draughts
English draughts or checkers , also called American checkers or straight checkers or in Israel damka, is a form of draughts board game. Unlike international draughts, it is played on an eight by eight squared board with twelve pieces on each side...
.
Bara versus yaoi
is another Japanese genre incorporating "gay male romance" themes across various media. The genre emerged in the 1970s in a branch of manga aimed at girls, and is still marketed exclusively at women and girls despite some male readership.BL creators and fans are careful to distinguish the genre from bara, which is created by and for gay men. Yaoi has spread beyond Japan: both translated and original yaoi are now available in many countries and languages. The characters in yaoi manga do not tend to self-identify as gay or bisexual.
Yaoi has been criticized for stereotypical and homophobic portrayals of its characters, and for failing to address gay issues. Homophobia
Homophobia
Homophobia is a term used to refer to a range of negative attitudes and feelings towards lesbian, gay and in some cases bisexual, transgender people and behavior, although these are usually covered under other terms such as biphobia and transphobia. Definitions refer to irrational fear, with the...
, when it is presented as an issue at all, is often used as a plot device
Plot device
A plot device is an object or character in a story whose sole purpose is to advance the plot of the story, or alternatively to overcome some difficulty in the plot....
to "heighten the drama", or to show the purity of the leads’ love. Matt Thorn has suggested that as yaoi is a romance narrative, strong political themes may be a "turn off" to the readers. Critics state that the genre challenges heteronormativity via the "odd" bishōnen
Bishonen
is a Japanese term literally meaning "beautiful youth ". The equivalent English concept is a "pretty boy".The term describes an aesthetic that can be found in disparate areas in East Asia: a young man whose beauty transcends the boundary of gender or sexual orientation...
("beautiful boys"), and Andrew Grossman has written that the Japanese are more comfortable with writing about LGBT themes in a manga setting, in which gender is often blurred, even in "straight" manga.
Bara is more true to actual gay male relationships, and not the heterosexual-esque relationships between the masculine seme and feminine uke types that are the most common romantic fantasy in women's yaoi manga. In comparison to yaoi, gay men's manga is unlikely to contain scenes of "uncontrollable weeping or long introspective pauses", and more likely to show characters who are "hairy, very muscular, or have a few excess pounds". Compared to gay men's manga, yaoi is "more careful to build up a strong sense of character" before sex scenes occur.
Gachi muchi
Recently a subgenre of BL has been introduced in Japan, so-called "muscley-chubby BL" or gachi muchi (from gacchiri, muscular, and muchimuchi, chubby)which offers more masculine body types and is more likely to have gay male authors and artists. Although still marketed primarily to women, it is also thought to attract a large crossover gay male audience. Although this type of material has also been referred to as "bara" among English-speaking fans, it is not equivalent to gei comi proper (although there is considerable overlap, as writers, artists and art styles cross over between the two genres). Prior to the development of gachi muchi, the greatest overlap between yaoi and bara authors has been in BDSM
BDSM
BDSM is an erotic preference and a form of sexual expression involving the consensual use of restraint, intense sensory stimulation, and fantasy power role-play. The compound acronym BDSM is derived from the terms bondage and discipline , dominance and submission , and sadism and masochism...
-themed publications such as Zettai Reido, a yaoi anthology magazine which had a number of openly male contributors. Several female yaoi authors who have done BDSM-themed yaoi have been recruited to contribute stories to BDSM-themed bara anthologies or special issues.
See also
- Homosexuality in JapanHomosexuality in JapanRecords of men who have sex with men in Japan date back to ancient times. Western scholars have identified these as evidence of homosexuality in Japan.There were few laws restricting sexual behavior in Japan before the early modern period...
- LGBT themes in comicsLGBT themes in comicsLGBT themes in comics are a relatively new concept, as lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender themes and characters were historically omitted intentionally from the content of comic books and their comic strip predecessors, due to either censorship or the perception that comics were for children...
- Pornography in JapanPornography in JapanPornography in Japan.-Before the 20th century:Shunga or pornographic wood-block pictures were printed with all imaginable situations. These often took the form of a book with sentences to describe verbal utterances of the partners, as well as to offer brief descriptions of a scene...
- YaoiYaoiIn careful Japanese enunciation, all three vowels are pronounced separately, for a three-mora word, . The English equivalent is . also known as Boys' Love, is a Japanese popular term for female-oriented fictional media that focus on homoerotic or homoromantic male relationships, usually created by...
: stories about love between men for female audiences