Forum: Manga & comics

The term shōjo, shojo, or shoujo manga (少女漫画) refers to manga marketed to a female audience roughly between the ages of 10 and 18.

Shōnen-ai originally connoted ephebophilia or pederasty in Japan, but from the early 1970s to the late 1980s, was used to describe a new genre of shōjo manga, about beautiful boys in love. Characteristics of shōnen-ai include that they were exotic, often taking place in Europe, and idealistic.

Yaoi (やおい) also known as Boys' Love, is a Japanese popular term for female-oriented fictional media that focus on homoerotic or homoromantic male relationships, usually created by female authors. Originally referring to a specific type of dōjinshi (self-published works) parody of mainstream anime and manga works, yaoi came to be used as a generic term for female-oriented manga, anime, dating sims, novels and dōjinshi featuring idealized homosexual male relationships. The main characters in yaoi usually conform to the formula of the seme (攻め lit. "attacker") who pursues the uke (受け lit. "receiver").

Yuri (百合), also known by the wasei-eigo construction Girls Love (ガールズラブ gāruzu rabu), is a Japanese jargon term for content and a genre involving love between women in manga, anime, and related Japanese media. Yuri can focus either on the sexual, the spiritual, or the emotional aspects of the relationship, the latter two sometimes being called shōjo-ai by western fans.

Fantasy and Drama Manga