Yaoi
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
------------------------------------------------------------------------

The word Yaoi (pronounced /jaoi/, pronounced "Yah-Oh-ee" rather than "Yow-ee" or "Ya-oy", all three vowels are pronounced) was originally used to refer to fan manga (such as doujinshi) that focused on homosexual relationships between male characters, especially two bish?nen - the manga equivalent of slash.
The term is an acronym derived from the Japanese phrase( yama nashi, ochi nashi, imi nashi ), meaning "no climax, no punch line, no meaning." Its target audience, readership and creators are almost exclusively young to middle-age women (with homosexual and bisexual men of the same age comprising most of the rest).
Women make up the majority of yaoi readership in Japan where it began as manga and, now, around the world. The attraction is often focused on the romantic situations more than the actual homosexuality and homoeroticism.
The term is often used in a general way to refer to male-male sexual or romantic content anywhere in anime, manga and fan fiction based on these; usually of a more sexually explicit nature than the now-obsolete sh?nen-ai.

The term "BL" (Boy's Love) is more often used in Japan than the term Yaoi. There exists a large mainstream market for Boys' Love comics in Japan, as well as a flourishing d?jinshi market. In recent years several popular Japanese BL works have been commercially translated and imported to English-speaking countries by companies such as Be Beautiful and Digital Manga Publishing. Currently-available works include Kazuma Kodaka's Kizuna, and Only the Ring Finger Knows by Satoru Kinnagi and Hotaru Odagiri. Whether such works will have comparable popularity in English-speaking countries remains to be seen.
Over the years, gay-themed comic strips inspired by and referred to as yaoi have been adapted as a sub-culture in North America, with writings and art displayed on websites devoted to it. Notable American yaoi comics include the web comic Boy Meets Boy by K. Sandra Fuhr, hosted on Keenspot.
Some common subjects of the American yaoi subculture include the boys of Trigun, Cardcaptor Sakura, Final Fantasy, Gravitation, Gundam Wing, Naruto, Prince of Tennis, Weiss Kreuz, Yu-Gi-Oh!, and YuYu Hakusho.Some fans may even pass over into the realm of real characters and begin pairing them,such as Harry Potter/Draco Malfoy just to get their yaoi fix. Generally speaking, if a series features attractive male characters, it will attract yaoi fans. Thus a large amount actually comes from male-oriented shounen & seinen demographics. This sometimes causes conflict because many fans dislike such themes.