This particular genre, alongside yaoi, merged into the all encompassing category of ‘BL,’ with magazines devoted to featuring works of this nature becoming popularized in the 1990’s.
Eventually, the term expanded into an umbrella term (primarily by international fans) for works regarding male-dominated romance.Ĭommercially, the term ‘shounen-ai’ started to appear in the mid 1970’s and revolved around the platonic relationships of attractive boys within shoujo manga. Yaoi is derived from the phrase ‘yamanashi ochinashi iminashi’ (no climax, no point, no meaning) and was intended to demean amateur works from a multitude of genres that primarily revolved around the parodical homoerotic endeavours of mainstream characters.
The term ’yaoi’ was coined in Japan in the early 1980s, and coincided with the rise of doujinshi culture.
