Anime Shounen-ai and shoujo-ai

[eleanor]

[i]Heh, even though I don't like Harry Potter, I think Harry x Draco is one of the cutest things ever.[/i]

[color=firebrick] I know, right? Lol. Harry Potter has a huge, [b]huge[/b] slash base, there's probably fifty fanfiction websites hosting Harry Potter slashers. I usually follow canon pairings or pairings that lean towards canon when it comes to anime [i.e. Kaworu/Shinji & Touya/Yuki are probably my favorite anime shounen-ai pairings] but all hell breaks loose from me when it comes to Harry Potter. *shrugs* Don't know why...it's just very slashable. O_o. [/color]

[Queen Asuka]

[color=crimson][size=1]Alright, as interesting as it is to talk about Harry Potter pairings, I think we are drifting a bit off-topic, as this is the anime lounge. And besides, you could use this as a good excuse to start a decent thread in Music, Movies, and TV. :P So go to it! ^_^; *QA*[/color][/size]

[Dagger]

Keeping QA's comments in mind, I thought I'd mention that Wolfram and Yuuri (two characters from the ongoing anime Kyou Kara Maou) remind me vaguely of Draco and Harry. Like Draco, Wolfram is an arrogant, well-bred brat who looks down on those with impure blood and manages to be extraordinarily loveable despite his many flaws. Yuuri resembles Harry in terms of both looks--gotta love that fluffy black hair--and personality. Something to think about, I guess.

Speaking of KKM, I've seen several people call it Kyou Kara Yaoi. I found that very amusing, although the series leaves so much to the imagination that many male viewers are able to ignore or overlook all of its BL innuendo.

Shounen-ai/shoujo-ai is something of a guilty pleasure for me, since there aren't many [i]good[/i] anime that focus strongly on gay and lesbian relationships. If Yami no Matsuei and Maria-sama ga Miteru didn't revolve around beautiful people of the same gender falling in love with one another, I probably would've tired of them pretty quickly.

~Dagger~

[Chibi Devil Me]

First off, I have realized that people tend to get Shounen-ai and Shoujo-ai mixed up with Yoai and Yuri. Shounen-ai and Shoujo-ai is like... the light side to their counter parts.

While Shounen-ai and Shoujo-ai is soft kisses, meaningful hugs, dancing together at balls, and hand-in-hand walks in the park. Stuff like that.

Yoai and Yuri is the darker side. They tend to interveined with... graphic material that usually doesn't do their counter parts ANY justice...If you catch my drift. They are usually filled with adult themes and little children are push out the room when it's mentioned... usually.

But, that's just my opinion... Which I thought... ANYWAY! I'm just going blah, blah, blah, aren't I? :blah: Oh, well.

[adempton]

I just wanted to post this without the intention of being annoying or obnoxious. ^^; Everyone always says 'girls like shounen-ai/yaoi, boys like ...' well, het relationships or yuri or whatever. And of course shounen-ai is gay oriented stuff. But besides straight people enjoying their own genre/theme/'whatever it's called' of anime, gay people like the appropriate stuff too. I mean I like it all, whether it?s about girls or boys, but my reasons may differ. I'm a gay male and I'm admittedly obsessed with cute shounen-ai/yaoi pairings. (Waya x Hikaru anyone? ^_^) Real gay anime fans seem to be a rarity on boards I've been to... but I just wanted to say for everyone who doesn't consider it (from what I've read, at least Dagger IX1 does) there are [I]real [/I] gay fans! We're here too! *waves arms around* Other than rabid fangirls! (But I love you rabid fangirls, where would we be without you? ^^)
And honestly, I loved general anime going into it. I think years and years ago the first thing I watched was the dub of Sailor Moon. That was my intro to anime. Heck, I even liked Pokemon. It's not like I got into anime because I knew yaoi stuff existed. Discovering shounen-ai/yaoi/yuri... (ugh, I'm gonna abbreviate that to "gay stuff") was just a wicked bonus. I remember when I was younger, I accidentally discovered a shounen-ai manga, and I was blown away that something like that existed. And I found it immensely difficult to find anything else like it, or anyone else that had ever heard of the word "yaoi" (maybe my search engine skills were lacking, but I couldn't find a dang thing!) I'm extremely happy that anime has sort of evolved (and is still doing so), including more gay themes and relationships. Sure, I'd love for more anime like Gravitation to appear, but as long as anime like Kyou Kara Maou shows up, I'm happy! And of course, I'm not completely one-sided either. One of my favorite anime of all time is Naruto, which is extremely action-based. I don't [I]need [/I] the shounen-ai, I just enjoy it. (A lot ^^; ) And of course, things would be quite a bit less exciting for me if it never existed.

[KarmaOfChaos]

[SIZE=1][FONT=Arial][color=deeppink]Dagger dearest, you've really let the cat out of the bag with this one. I must admit, reading this entire thread, half the time I couldn't stop laughing. This was mostly over the Gundam Wing and Final Fantasy XII debates, and the people trying to get straight down to it what the billions of different terms mean. But this really is an interesting thread. I just have one or two points to comment on though.

Gay/Lesbian Terminology: There is an infinite number of terms and names used to describe varying levels of relationships between homosexual couples. However, there are very few for straight. Honestly, I could do without a LOT of the terms that they use, and cut it down to two questions: Is the relationship supported by the series, and Do they have sex? However, the world doesn't revolve around me and my opinion, so in light of that, perhaps we could have someone put together a dictionary of terminology for relationships, both homo and hetero? I believe it would be VERY helpful when it comes to debates.

Canon VS. Non-Canon and Everything Inbetween: It used to bug me when people pulled relationships out of nowhere, and wrote a fanfiction about it. Then, one must realize that you can't control what pairing people chose to find out of where. I enjoy reading fanfictions on all the crazy and unique relationships people come up with that are entirely absent from the series, simply because it's interesting to see one person's portrayal of how two characters interact where otherwise there would be no interaction of the sort. I of course have my own opinions as to which couples really would work, but that I keep to myself unless asked.

Favorite Shounen Ai/Shojo Ai Series': Revolutionary Girl Utena and Fake, respectively, although I am very interested in seeing and reading Gravitation.

I would like to end this with a quote: "A mind is like a parachute. It only works when open."

-Karma

PS: Speaking of debates...I finally replied to your post in the Fruits Basket thread, Dagger. Please go see it! :smooch:
[/color][/FONT][/SIZE]