(no subject)

[reenka]

Since I just finished rereading Saika Kunieda's Memory of the Future (prequel to the arguably even better Kaze no Yukue), petronia's yaoi in general vs. the Administration series essay makes me sad. People who read mostly mainstream yaoi still tend to think of it as the land of weepy uber-subby ukes with self-lubricating bottoms and girlish mannerisms. I guess there are always going to be such generalizations-- like 'fantasy is all multivolume dungeons and dragons' (which isn't untrue these days), but... things like Kaze no Yukue are so different and beautiful and I wonder if they're really so rare and hard to find as to be irrelevant to current definitions of what 'yaoi' is like.

I don't think yaoi/BL as a genre still works as "99.5% of the time top/bottom also corresponds to dom/sub, at least on a surface level. (The .5% are clever-clever gender deconstructionists.)" There are too many exceptions now that are more about human stories & not about gender deconstruction at all. More and more mangakas who just want to explore characterization I writing it; Saika Kunieda, Kisaragi Hirotaka, Fujii Mitori, Kano Shiuko, Hinako Takanaga, Bohra Naono, Abe Miyuki, Aoi Kujio, Sakura Haiji, Shiho Sugiura, Shungiku Nakamura, Sumomo Yumeka, Yamada Yugi, Yaya Sakuragi, Touko Kawai, Honjou Rie, Mizukami Shin, Motoni Modoru, Mika Sadahiro, Minase Masara, Konno Keiko-- if you recognize any of these, you know they don't write 'typical' girly ukes and uber-macho semes. They just write good stories, and most of them are kickass artists, too.

When people say 'this is what X field is like', I always wonder just what and why and how they read what they do, 'cause I've yet to hear any soundbyte description of any genre that I know well that's spot-on about the field as -I've- experienced it. Maybe it's that I have the questionable luck of not watching fighting shows in anime; not reading Harlequin-brand books in romance; not reading Loveless, Gravitation, Fake, Bronze or Viewfinder in yaoi; just generally not liking the popular things in H/D fanfiction, etc :P

If you read only Yamane Amano and Youka Nitta, you wouldn't see how they deviate from the meta 'norm' and try to make their ukes interesting & feisty, especially in their better works. It's not all about ironclad roles, or Japanese readers would be bored to tears, wouldn't they? The secret to mass success isn't just a formula; it's a formula that's constantly in flux & development, isn't it?
    Somehow, the constant media article referencing of yaoi 'classics' like Kizuna & Gravitation and such seems ridiculous in current circumstances. Just about 99% of all yaoi I read that's more than a PWP is nothing like Gravitation, even if I see a superficial resemblance in some cliches. If you think the yaoi being scanlated now is like that, you must not be reading the stuff, basically.

Comments

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Ahhh, when I realized Motoni Modoru hadn't written anything else in that 'normal' vein, I was so stricken :( On the other hand, I feel like she did say everything there probably was to say for her about romance in that one manga. It's just so... definitive. But still, I am a fangirl, so there is never enough. :>

Also, you're right-- I realized this 'cause Saika Kunieda actually also writes a lot of shoujo (apparently unscanlated) as Sakai Kunie-- and this sort of clicks because her mangas are also like Touko Kawai's in that 'this reads like good/edgy shoujo' feeling, sort of how it went all the way in 'Adult's Problems'. Well, but maybe that just shows that unless you're dealing in cliches and stereotypes, you -are- writing female-style love-stories, so of course it'd resemble shoujo. Though there -is- stuff that seems 'boyish' in feel/attitude-- like some of Yamada Yugi's & Yuzuha Ougi's & Shiuko Kano's (and maybe Mika Sadahiro's?) work... ooorrr, it could be yet another subgenre.

I was just going for 'a lot more subtle & gradiented than Gravitation/Bronze-type yaoi' or whatever, with Minase Masara, because the uke/seme thing is everywhere you don't have switching (and that's leaving me with only Mika Sadahiro as any reliable source, and maybe someone else I'm forgetting). Like, in Touko Kawai's mangas the 'roles' aren't set, but there are still consistent sexual behavior types; perhaps not being sex-centric helps. You're also quite right about Hoshino Lily, because I had that exact same thought about her being 'out of the mainstream' even though she draws quite stereotypically... though this is less 'bucking the trend' (I think) and more being avant garde, magical realist, artsy, etc. It's like, the relationships themselves are generally somewhat on the abstract side, it seems like, but then Sumomo Yumeka is like that too.

I think at some point there's been growth everywhere, in terms of recombinations and variations on a theme ('cause I totally see what you mean about Nekota Yonezou, too)-- I just think that this is more evidence that yaoi as a whole isn't what it used to be, though. It started out with like, 4 colors and some different flavors (fluffy, silly, angsty, romantic), and now there's just 24 million colors or whatever. I can think of many different examples of different subtleties of relationship dynamics... and I don'tknow what the dominant one is, though I suppose it's still vaguely following along the model started around the beginning. My only quibble was that the alternatives aren't on the fringe but rather nudging into the inner circle of the mainstream now. Nearly -all- the popular mangakas have -some- twist to their dynamics one way or another, it seems like.

...You made me laugh when you said Gravi is 'shoujo comedy', especially since I've only watched it & most recently -read- the remixes... er... doujins... with the... ummmm.... bodily fluid & super-penetration-shot extravaganzas... *____* You're right that it's to be expected that anyone outside fandom, especially 'official' people wouldn't get the current trends as they happen, but the problem seems to be compounded by the fact that most yaoi fans don't seem aware of the range of stuff out there-- or just not interested 'cause it doesn't have catbois, salarymen being penetrated by vegetables or like, evil pretty semes. Haha, well, okay, this is why I'm not actually -in- the fandom per se, so I probably don't have the right to complain :>