^{Last edited: 01/20/2026}
Happy New Year, all! Today I’ll be starting a little series of posts called BL Manga for Beginners. To be honest, I’ve been thinking for a while about what information would be important to someone who has limited knowledge of the genre… While not a perfect guide, I do hope these posts can help someone who doesn’t know anything about BL/boys love or help people explain BL to others. I also want to thank fellow BL fans who have read over these posts and given me advice/feedback!

This first introduction post will briefly cover what BL is and its history and BL fans. There are wonderful resources out there, so this is a very condensed overview.

I would personally describe BL as a genre/label that refers to stories that focus on male/male relationships. These relationships are often romantic and/or sexual in nature, but other times it’s not as defined. 

BL can be traced back to 1961 with Mari Mori’s novella “A Lover’s Forest”, a tragic male/male love story. Over a decade later, several shojo manga artists began to write stories with male/male relationships. Some famous works include Moto Hagio’s The Heart of Thomas and Keiko Takemiya’s Kaze to Ki no Uta. In the 1980s, amateur self-published work, known as doujinshi, with male/male relationships also grew popular. These doujinshi were often fanwork, as it portrayed characters from existing media or even real-live figures. These in turn influenced modern BL, which continues to evolve today on a global scale. BL media now encompasses comics, novels, games, live action works, and audio dramas.

If I could, I would just hand people a copy of Boys Love Manga and Beyond: History, Culture, and Community in Japan and have them read the chapters An Introduction to “Boys Love” in Japan and A Brief History of Shonen’ai, Yaoi and Boys Love to better understand the history of BL.

As Boys Love Manga and Beyond mentions, there have been a few terms used for the genre over time. The following four are the most known.
Shonen’ai: A subgenre of commercial shojo manga published in the 70s-80s featuring male/male relationships. Literally translates to “boys love”. These stories often featured beautiful boys and were set in places outside Japan. The word is no longer in use in Japan due to the word being associated with pedastry. A common misconception is that shonen’ai refers to non-sexual BL works.
JUNE: (Pronounced joo-nay) A magazine dedicated to works with male/male relationships, started in 1978. It also became a genre term mainly used for original BL works during the time. While not really used in Japan, it’s still used at doujinshi events to refer to original BL alongside the term BL. It’s not used in Anglophone spaces, but the publisher Juné (Digital Manga Publishing) is named after the term.
Yaoi: Coined by doujinshi creators in the 80s, it primarily refers to fanworks featuring male/male relationships. It grew to also refer to original work, as some doujinshi creators began to create original works. Overall the word is self-deprecating, as it mocks the amateur nature of their works. Many were often sexual in nature, leading some to think that the word only means sexual BL. It eventually fell out of use in Japan after BL was coined. In Anglophone spaces, yaoi has been considered a term equivalent to BL as English-translated commercial BL manga was often labeled as such. Many Anglophone BL fans continue to use the word out of nostalgia and fun.
Boys Love (BL): First appearing in the 90s, this phrase is currently the most dominant term to describe works featuring male/male relationships in Japan and overseas.

While my blog focuses on Japanese BL manga, here are some more BL media that are popular. Chinese BL is known as danmei (from the Japanese ‘tanbi’) and mainly takes the form of webnovels and sometimes comics (manhua). Webnovels and comics (manhwa), mainly the scrolling webcomic format, are popular in Korea. Thailand is known for their BL live-action dramas.

As for BL fans, the most common word to describe them is fujoshi (腐女子). It translates from Japanese as “rotten girl”, and a play on the word “婦女子” (also pronounced fujoshi) meaning “women and girls”. Originally, it was a derogatory and self-deprecating term referring to the way fujoshi fantasize or create and consume content of male/male relationships where there necessarily aren’t any–making it a “rotten” activity. In a way, its original usage was similar to how shippers imagine their characters would be in a relationship. Since then it has expanded to generally refer to fans of BL, original or derivative. In Anglophone spaces, the phrase “fujo out”/ ”fujoing out” has become rather popular. I would say it’s similar to the phrase “geek out”/“geeking out” but specifically for BL. There are also the terms fundanshi (婦男子) to refer to men who enjoy BL and fujin (婦人) as a gender-neutral option. Fundanshi is sometimes used in Japan, but fujin was coined by overseas fans. While fujoshi is overall a common term to describe BL fans, not all BL fans will use it due to its self-deprecating nature.

I also do want to mention that BL has historically been seen as a genre “by women, for women” due to cisgender heterosexual women seemingly making up all the creators and fans. BL has also been a space where women can “play with gender” in creating and reading BL, as both characters are men. Due to these reasons, BL sometimes has a reputation for being “not representative of reality” and/or “fetishizing” of gay men and their relationships. These debates have existed since the 90s and continue on today in Japan and overseas. However, on a global scale BL is created and enjoyed by people of all different gender identities and sexualities. While not a topic I will go into great detail, I will occasionally mention the debates and critiques on BL here and there in this series.

I want to close out with saying I do think BL fits in with LGBTQ+ media and stories. While BL is seen more as a “fantasy” genre, I think there has been a growing amount of BL that is more grounded in reality as well. I do think both kinds of stories have worth.

Next time, I’ll talk about BL manga stories and conventions! See you then.

If you have any questions or comments, please don’t hesitate to send them my way!

Resources/Further Reading
Boys Love Manga and Beyond: History, Culture, and Community in Japan Chapters:
– An Introduction to “Boys Love” in Japan – Mark McLelland and James Welker
– A Brief History of Shonen’ai, Yaoi and Boys Love – James Welker
– What is Japanese “BL Studies”? – Kazumi Nagaike and Tomoko Aoyama
Fantasies of Cross-dressing: Japanese Women Write Male-Male Erotica – Kazumi Nagaike
– Includes a translation of “A Lover’s Forest”
Origin of BL: Mari Mori’s 1961 Novella “A Lover’s Forest” – Akiko Mizoguchi
The Possibilities of Research on Fujoshi in Japan – Midori Suzuki
Reflections on “LGBTQ Issues and BL” Symposium at Meiji University – Thomas Baudinette
BL and its place in LGBTQ media – Ames from Renta!
BL, Yaoi & Danmei Resources – Sam Aburime