Hola!
What is your favorite manga genre?
Mine is humor,action,fantasy and science fiction.

At the risk of losing my manhood, I am going to admit to a deep love of shojo manga.

It is hard to define some titles, but I loved Gunsmith Cats. You can alos give me a samurai drama any day of the week.

When I read manga I'm all about the girly ones. Mind you, I don't read a lot of it, but the ones I do read are like Alice 19th, and stuff like that. I also read supplimental gundam manga, and of course Nausicaa, the apex of literary work in any genre!

For anime though, I like more action!

Oh, and welcome to the boards, Hellsing. Hope to see you give some good input to the con itself!

I am still on my quest to find original runs of Kaze no Tani no Nausicca in both english and japanese.

It has proven quite difficult.

Kaisermikeb were you at marcon?

Yeah, I was there. I was the guy who did the "Your Anime sucks" panel, the "Anime too grown up panel" and what would have been the "conning 101" panel... but that one didn't really turn out quite right ^_^

You arn't by chance that girl who really liked the hellsing manga, are you?


Heiki, I have the original US runs of Nausicaa! The four really big ones you mean, right?

Yeb that's me :P I was also at the conning 101 panel

Nope... the four issue run is the "perfect" collection. The original run was seven smaller GNs. I have GNs four and seven. I found Gn 3 once, but it was in bad condition.

And Mike, you can call me Chris. :)

Favorite genre? Prolly dark stuff, like Hellsing. Drawn more in the crisp anime style rather than the strange manga style that prevails so much in the shoujo world...

I like hellsing too.

Hey, Alice 19th is my favorite one!

Urk, I'd have to say in manga I prefer shojo manga over everything else.

I tend to like alternative manga and some of the more classy or eccentric seinen artists.

Also check these places out for more along this vein:

Mangascreener
Kotonoha

Currently the best manga I've read is Blue by Nananan Kiriko. She's an amazing artist. Followed by Phoenix by Osamu Tezuka (with Space and Karma being the best of that series)

I agree with Hellsing 100%. Especially humor though. Favorites are Azumanga Daioh, Ranma 1/2, Love Hina, and, on two very different notes, Chrono Crusade, and Hellsing.

I read some shojou too ( only ones that keep my attention), action, comedy/ romance, horror, and thats about it. Loved Hellsing ( both the manga and the episodes both giving you something different), Ask Batou about the new Hellsing they plan on coming out with- he'll tell you all about it. Angel Santuary, Gundam Seed, Magic Knight RayEarth and Sailormoon I think is a classic ( so sue me).

action/adventure all the way!!!!!!!well paranoia agent is mystery/horror so that too.

I've actually been getting into alot of shonen, action, adventure, and fantasy. Some romance doesnt hurt, either ^_^

Like my anime, most anythging. Just picked up the last of GTO today actually...

Looking at my shelf I have GTO, One Piece, Ranma, Bleach, Futaba-kun Change!, Excel Saga, Chobits, Scryed, Hellsing, Real Bout, King of Bandits Jing, Priest, some Initial D, and Angel Sanctuary. I avoid things I've watched the anime of and things that I really have no interest in (Like Gravitation and X/1999 and all other shounen-ai of any sort).

Current manga collection- Fruits basket, Ranma 1/2, Inuyasha, Alice 19th, Hana Kimi, Excel Saga, Azumanga Daioh, Red River, and Blue Inferior, and for some reason my Kiki's Delivery Service video is on the shelf with my manga *puts it back where it belongs* I'm currently looking for Nausicaa manga though, because I really loved it.
As for what genre is my favorite...probably shoujo. I read just about anything though. (curently reading Bleach volume seven and B'T X volume two)

Well, my favorite genres are romance, drama, some comedy, action, and yaoi (boys' love - BL).

I own some Inuyasha, Rurouni Kenshin, LOTS of BL (like 5/6 of my collection is), Kagerou Nostagia, Gravitation, Loveless, Hana-Kimi, Imadoki!, Snow Drop... and... um... some other random ones that are BL or just other stuff.

As far as manga goes, as long as the story is good and the art is prettyful, the genre doesn't matter. However, action in manga just doesn't work that well for me, mostly because of the retarded amount of action-blur-lines everywhere, which makes it hard for me to discern what's even going on in a given panel. So I usually avoid action-heavy manga.

I checked my collection! *nods*

Those other ones are... um...

Embracing Love, Viewfinder, Passion, Brother, Kizuna, and uh, some more on the way, I guess.

I'll forwarn you, though. I WAS gonna go to Yaoi-Con in a couple of years- just so you know what my choices would be and stuff. As a courtesy. Of course, it's obvious if you go to the site in my sig... so yeah.

Uhh...Yaoi isn't a genre.

Actually, yeah, it is. I can't give you the link right now, but if you check in any store that sells it, it says so on the cover. Some companies don't see it as one, but I buy from one's that do. If you don't read it, you wouldn't know. So's yuri.

In Japan, it's called BL, or boys' love, and IS a genre. I don't go by what's over here. Never have, since I've been there. There's a WHOLE group dedicated to it, just as there's one for action, drama, ect. Yaoi's just those put together. But somebody who desn't read that wouldn't know, so I'm telling ya. *wink*

Yeah, I'm going to have to agree that shounen-ai/yaoi is as much of a genre as shoujo-ai/yuri. Although I prefer the latter.

They rub edges with hentai, romance, occasionally action and comedy, but they definitely have their own distinct feels and stereotypes. So yeah, they are genres. You can have a yaoi with action undertones just as easily as you can have a comedy with yuri undertones. It's just what the primary purpose of the work is.

*nods* I've never seen yuri, though. But yeah.

Trent doesn't read stuff that could be considered yaoi? Hmm, I didn't know that, how did you?

As for the whole genre thing, I'm sure there are a lot of people out there who are going to be extremely offended by the notion that the gender of the characters determines the nature of the story. It's certainly a classification of sorts, but to say "genre" is an insult to the gay community as well as to the talents of the author.

Well, I know that walking up to somebody, manga-ka whichever, and calling their work "yaoi" will be taken as an insult. Yes, that's why I only do it here. But in Japan, it IS a genre, BL. Whether it's insulting here or not, I dunno. It isn't there. Calling BL yaoi OR shonen ai is BAD. In MOST of Japan, shonen ai is Pedo stuff; like shota. But, calling it BL is ok. They like that. The artists, I mean. Cus I'm one, so I know it's ok. It's that "communittee" thing. So calling it BL, which IS the "genre" they call it is NO insult ot anybody. It's the prefered. Heh, I ought to know, LOL. Not to brag, just to inform, cus it's true.

Oh, and I know Trent doesn't b/c in a previous post, they said something like, Gravitation, X/1999, all that shonen ai I don't read, or something. Not sure, but it was easy to pick up, yeah.

BUT! I don't mean that the gender influences the nature. It's EXPLICITLY stated that it is Yaoi. Yep. It's a HUGE genre in Japan. It's actually pretty obviuos when you either look at the cover (it says- "yaoi" or "BL") or open up the book. Gay comics are somtimes called the same thing, but they're not. And it IS stupid to just assume that it's "this or that" because YOU see it that way. SO I agree with you.

For now on I'm declaring my favorite genre as "straight" then.

It's not the term that's insulting, it's the notion. And I don't mean to say it's personally insulting to any specific artist, but rather generally insulting on an artistic/integrity level to artists around the world to reduce the complex nature of their stories to the genders of the characters involved.

OK, straight works.

I would never just base my whole attention to something because of the guy on guy action. Although that helps in some cases. LOL.

BL is a genre made specifically for women, although some men read it. (O_o) Heh.
Anyway, I suppose it's a woman thing, like the harem effect.

For someone who likes to think of themselves as part of the artist community, one would think you would spend less time trying to apply your flawed logic to the situation. Drama is a genre. Romance is a genre. Suspense, mystery, science fiction, fantasy, slice-of-life and comedy are genres. In contrast, homoeroticism is a fetish. The purpose of a genre is to broadly categorize things. Yaoi and Yuri are not broad- In fact, most any story, manga, anime, drama, what-have-you that bears the dubious honour of being yaoi or yuri will fall firmly into the "Romance" genre. Some will be comedic or dramatic too. In fact, there's a perfect example! Gravitation, the show that seems to be the poster-child for yaoi fangirls, is classified under "Comedy, Drama, Romance" and if you want to try to wax Japanese culture with me, "Shoujo." Or how about Fake- "Comedy, Drama, Mystery, Police, Romance." Or the other side of the fence, Kannazuki no Miko which is a combination of Drama, Magical girl, Mecha, Romance, and Supernatural.

Oh, and before you get the wrong idea (too late, apparently), I tend to avoid stories lauded as shounen-ai because they tend to be annoying (Gravitation). Fake might be a great story, though I haven't seen it and don't care to actively seek it out. X/1999 isn't shounen-ai at all, but has problems that have prevented me from appreciaing it thus. Angel Sanctuary has more than just undertones, but it also has a story. Card Captor Sakura has a canonical openly gay couple, but I don't mind Touya/Yukito. They work without it being a big deal. And then there's Harry from Outlaw Star, who is about the coolest gay guy in anime.

Hence why yaoi/shounen-ai and yuri/shoujo-ai are genres. They are broad categorizations that tell you what an anime/manga/game is going to be based around before you pick it up. If the artist isn't aiming at that particular audience, then the primary genre isn't that genre. If you tell somebody that a work is in the "romance" genre, they're immediately going to assume straight. Pure "shounen-ai" or "shoujo-ai" titles have the label to tell people at a glance that it isn't going to be a straight title (although the boundaries between yaoi/shounen-ai and yuri/shoujo-ai aren't very clear and the terminology is hotly debated). Now if it's an action title that happens to feature main characters who happen to be gay, but the emphasis of the story is not on their relationship but rather on their battle to save the universe, then the primary genre would probably be action with the shounen-ai either listed as a subgenre or not at all.

Also, as further evidence to the fact that they are indeed genres, all of the major databases on the net list them under their "genres" feature. (Except possibly the ANN Encyclopedia; the site was down when I went to check.) Bolding added by me for emphasis.

From AniDB.net:

From AnimeSuki.com:

From AnimeNfo.com:

For AniDB.net's genre descriptions, click this link.

Demographic is NOT GENRE!!!
If Chris were here he'd rip you a new one for that assertion, Jon!

Yaoi is a label, not a Genre. This is an abstract arguement right now, citing websites that use the terms to market the media isn't going to solve anything. Look at a definition of genre, not at how it's applied by people. We're not saying people don't use it as a genre identifier, we are saying it's not right.

That's right, "marked by a distinctive style, form, or content". Shounen-ai/Yaoi is defined by being a work that focuses on male homosexual relationships. That's content.

Redefining words that don't suit your ideal philosophies on how things should be doesn't change how they are. People need to be able to categorize things quickly and therefore stick them into genres. Genres classify works.

Maybe I'm missing on something, but I was wondering...

Why doesn't yaoi/yuri go under the catogory of romance?

It does, if that's the focus. It's just that shounen-ai or shoujo-ai also needs to be listed if it falls into those categories. And since by definition shounen-ai or shoujo-ai deal with relationships, it's almost redundant to list both. If the work involves multiple couples of multiple sexualities which are all followed equally, then the genre would probably just be "romance".

Thanks.

So why does the term shonen-ai and shoujo-ai get chosen over romance? And why is there just plain out term for a story that contains hetrosexual love?

If I were gay I'd be pissed! Hell, I'm slightly offended in principle as it is!

It needs to be noted that I'm going off of common usage here, which is a different discussion from the definition of genre that we had going...

In general, shounen-ai or shoujo-ai gets chosen because then people know at a glance the content of the work. If you say "romance", people will generally assume "straight relationships", so using the shounen-ai or shoujo-ai terms leaves nothing ambiguous.

Personally, I think there should be a term for "straight love". Then there could be an easier delineation having romance being a general genre with various more specific genres beneath it.

Edit: This was in response to Yuffie's last post.

So I talked to a couple gays (my uncle and his partner, an Oberlin graduate and a Harvard graduate, btw)

The response was that yeah, it would be a genre by definition. Although they think a more appropriate term would be "Cartoons for Fag-hags", at least for the Yaoi. And they also thought it was crazy for us to even waste time debating this, because it is what it is and people have already defined and determined the answer. However, they also noted that they've been in many conferences where the exact same thing is discussed for hours with no real solution, and they've known PhDs who've gotten into fist fights after too much wine over the question.

Bottom line: Genres classify works. It's up to people to create the genres based on the primary characteristics of the works, and the general consensus is that yaoi is a genre. So much so that there is a fandom devoted specifically to it and there artists who create more of it specifically targeting that fandom.

Oh, and my uncle was curious as to what made you speak on behalf of all gays when you aren't one yourself, and he's pretty sure the majority of them wouldn't take offense in the least. The genre is a genre, it describes what it is.

Dude, I'm a transgendered lesbian, you know that.