Bl

[sunday]

Is BL(boy love =gay) popular in western countries?(I mean only in manga.ex.Kaku x Lucchi or Zoro x Sanji)It is surely popular in Japan. Japanese
fans love it. They draw BL pictures and write BL novels about the story of the characters in op.(other mangas also)

I heard someone said that it is because some of the female fans are envy female leading role in manga for being with the male one,so they change the Female LR into another male LR that they love.(That makes sense.)

What do you guys think?

[RuNa]

First, this thread should probably be in General One Piece.

Second, yes, I would consider it popular in western countries. Many people I know like BL, even when they use weird couplings (Characters they think look hot even though they have no interaction with one another..)

[Local-chan]

I'd say its popular, more popular than GL anyways. I personally don't mind them, tho I hate it when they have stupid pairings like Pell x Buggy for example, they just seem….weird.

[funkyfunkyusopp]

I think all porn is equal. I find BL cute cus I have alot of male friends in male X male realtionships. I frist got into yaoi BL when I was big into Gundam Wing and Naruto…. I paired guys together for a simple reason... the female chars sucked.

[Strange_One]

Among anime fans and the general "otaku" community over here, it certainly is. Of course, yaoi is much more popular (at least you see it more >.>) than yuri.

It's not really my cup of tea, but you get used to seeing it everywhere it after awhile.

[CosmicDebris]

I don't think it's as popular in the US as in Japan. It's still a fringe thing here.

As for the reason being that girls envy the lead female role, I don't know…why would they not envy another male love interest then?
But maybe FFU has a point about just not liking any female characters. I think people tend to want to pair up their favorite characters. And quite honestly, there are a lot of boring female characters in shounen manga/anime (I personally think One Piece has great female characters).
I still don't understand the yaoi fanaticism thing very much, though. I like all kinds of wierd stuff that other people probably couldn't understand if they tried, but yaoi never has appealed to me much.

[R.Cranberry]

whats that I hear? Damn The KKK has come to round up the blacks, the Jews, the Mexicans, the Gays, and Alkahn?

Yoai is not as popular here in the US As some think It should be, however in many places, calafonia and some east cost states, it is accepted, I for like yoai, yuri, hentai, or really what ever, I am reading a series called -FAKE- some may have heard of It I like it even if it is BL but those damn rednecks that live in the US that preach about freedom, and this right, and that right also are the same arrogant mother fucking assholes that try and ban gay marrige, ban abortions, which a supream court has deteremain that it is a womans right to have, and put in an express lane to the death sentence.

No I must admit I would like to see some more BL stuff here in the US becasue I know I like it, and some friends of mine don't mind it, some actually find it kind of funny, but ofcorse when we got rednecks running the whitehose we won't see to much of it, I think there should be more BL Manga writes out there.

[CosmicDebris]

Please, don't bring your politics into this Cranberry, it is not necessary. And annoying.

[loulou]

I agree, leave the politics out of this. Besides, the lack of popularity in Western society concerning gay fiction is just that, a lack of popularity. As a society we're at a point where homosexuality is just starting to be accepted by the general public, and it's going to take a long time before it's no longer a big issue. Also, it's a matter of finding a market. There's the gay community of course, and then the small percentage of women who like seeing guys kiss.

But Japan funnily enough has a market for virtually anything. You can buy magazines on real dolls, or any other bizarre fetish. My sister's muy thai kickboxer ex boyfriend was idolised more there than he was here, because there was a bigger muy thai community.
That's partially why I think yaoi is plentiful there, although I don't think it's popular with the majority of Japanese women.

Another reason why it may be biggerr in Japan is because of the culture. The standard Japanese gender relation is that the man dominates the woman. It's possible that Japanese women are attracted to the idea of a relationship where the couple is on equal footing, but they can't see that happening with a man and a woman. Of course, that argument kind of flies out the door with some doujins I've seen where Sanji turns into Zoro's girly uke bitch.

[R.Cranberry]

sorry about the pollitical thing, just little ranting…. and I wouldn't mind going to Japan for a bit of time, I'm sure I could get the rest of the books i'm, missing in my collectins for low cost, I know in some places you can get like a package of stuff for like 20dollars, where here it would costa fotune...yes i'm a cheap gready bastard, but that is besides the point....I do think that it will take more time to accept even though, if we look at history that gay sex, and gay people have been in history, infact Greece even had rules when it came to that kind of stuff, not to mention Alexander the Great had a butt buddy, along with Oddessyus(SP?), Julius Ceaser, and many other great leaders of the time when wemon were not allowed in the army, or there weren't towns coughcoughcoughcompletewithcathousecoughcoughcough about a mile away.