So, I've noticed as I have been perusing various sites that there seems to be a heaping crap ton of yaoi scanlated into english vs yuri content (on some sites it outnumbers yuri 5 fold). Is this because there is actually less yuri content in existence than yaoi or is less of it making it to the internet? And if there actually is less yuri content on this here planet, why do you think that is?

Sorry if this question is inappropriate for the forums, but this phenomenon piqued my curiosity!

last edited at Oct 20, 2014 6:21PM

I would say probably both.

There is a pretty huge fanbase for BL composed of avid fujoshis from what it seems.
While GL does have a fanbase, there's a smaller number of people who strongly feel about it. However, the GL fanbase is a lot more balanced than the BL fanbase in terms of gender.

There are simply many, many more BL fans, both in Japan and globally.

When you have I don't know how many BL magazines running for many years, and numerous BL anime series, etc., but Yuri magazines struggle and fall time and time again (Hirari, Tsubomi, etc.), you can see it's simply a matter of market sizes.

The reasons are complicated, however, I believe part of it is because of the target audience for yuri. Much of it is very influenced by shoujo manga, as you can see from the vast majority of Yuri Hime stories. Yuri was also traditionally targeted at young women. It's only recently that yuri has started changing and becoming more "appealing" to male audiences with less typical shoujo romance titles coming into existence.

... However, this creates a schism as well. People who enjoy the pure-pure Marimite-style yuri do not necessarily enjoy "canon" yuri where the girls actually wind up kissing (and whatnot). People who enjoy yuri fanservice/subtext seen in various recent series (e.g., Nanoha, Madoka) may not enjoy the traditional yuri manga base (e.g., anything from Yuri Hime). It creates a very fragmented market.

last edited at Oct 20, 2014 6:56PM

I know people who run a popular online BL fiction zine (Shousetsu Bang*Bang, if you're wondering) and once a year they do a yuri issue. And they actually have a hard time finding authors to work on them, while for the M/M stuff there's no problem. They did try to do a second F/F special one year, and they had resistance from the readers, even though it wouldn't have meant fewer M/M issues.

And that's with a primarily English audience. It's hard to find good original yuri fiction, for sure.

Why do you think there was such push back from readers?

I was under the impression most yuri/GL was written for men. Interesting to find it's written for girls. I wonder why there are more BL fans? I find this interesting, as I am from the west, and I think lesbian content seems more acceptable than gay male content here. Though, I could be mistaken, and it certainly changes from country to country.

Why do you think there was such push back from readers?

Seriously, even the editors don't know. It's just there was a lot of resistance.

I was under the impression most yuri/GL was written for men. Interesting to find it's written for girls. I wonder why there are more BL fans? I find this interesting, as I am from the west, and I think lesbian content seems more acceptable than gay male content here. Though, I could be mistaken, and it certainly changes from country to country.

There's been a great deal written about how BL is actually very empowering for girls to write and read. Part of it, I gather, is simply having fiction with relatable same-sex characters, plus men being put in those romantic roles that are very different from what you see in het fiction. I know some critics have suggested that it's not even the gender that's important nearly so much as the same-sex aspect, and it's certainly worth thinking about.

As a phenomenon, GL/Yuri/FemSlash is a much newer thing in the west so it's got a lot of catching up to do. Given that slash fiction got its name from the old Kirk/Spock 'zines in the early 70's, I guess that's not too much of a shock. Plus, in the west there's a real lack of media with a broad cast of 'shippable female characters so it's hard to really get a lot of good yuri fanfic material.

I was under the impression most yuri/GL was written for men.

Hardly, generally speaking men have a hard time caring about the romance aspect of lesbian relationships in general and cares only about the sexy part Now calm down male readers, i did say generally
Meanwhile not only does yaoi appeases the gay community for the most part it is also highly adored by womans for whatever reason, to the point where most yaois are actually made by females in turn ending up like a real shitty shoujo most of the times

Funnily enough i did use to write a yuri comic that got well accepted by the male readers.... Probably because it was a huge DBZ/Yuyu Hakusho ripoff

last edited at Oct 20, 2014 8:28PM

I was under the impression most yuri/GL was written for men. Interesting to find it's written for girls. I wonder why there are more BL fans? I find this interesting, as I am from the west, and I think lesbian content seems more acceptable than gay male content here. Though, I could be mistaken, and it certainly changes from country to country.

As a heads up, I'm speaking mainly about Japan here~ I wouldn't have a clue about the western side of the fandom.

That said, you only have to look at some of the earlier series (things like Rose of Versailles and Marimite, for example) to see the extreme shoujo influence on the genre. The "pure" yuri stereotype comes from those sorts of titles as well. Yuri being targeted at women makes sense - because there's a strong sense of it being the "purest" of deep friendship between women, which is generally seen as incredibly virtuous. (You can see it in a lot of western literature, even.) Also, the "senpai noticed me" / "oneesama" style things have roots in that it's seen as pretty normal for girls to be attracted to other girls during school (and ONLY during school... it's something you grow out of). After all... better to be fawning over your senpai than to be sleeping around with guys. (Yes, all this is pretty gross/sexist/gay-erasing! Wonderful, innit?)

Stuff's changing, though. And thank god for that.

This is an aside, but what does spitballing mean?

This is an aside, but what does spitballing mean?

Look it up on urban dictionary
"1)To toss ideas around with no expectation of them coming
to pass, to brainstorm. "

There is clearly not enough bara around, and certainly not enough on the reader.

..I'm a girl but I'm not fond of yaoi, i don't read it because I saw a lot of gay couples here but I help my brother's classmate to find yaoi anime and she's quite addicted to it but also make me happy when she scream to much just like a kid. But what I really want is thousands of yuri manga or even anime, I can finally die in peace when it happens. I guess there is fewer reader in yuri than yaoi, I'll just accept it and just to wait for more yuri manga and anime, I'll support from the bottom of my heart and soul the yuri manga artists and yuri animators..GO FOR IT!!!..I'm waiting...(~^-^~)

Well, that was one thing that made me go "wtf ?!" when I was in japan and searching for yuri manga : those are damn hard to find. Especially compared to the BL/yaoi section that have entire rows dedicated to them. ><

So yeah, BL/yaoi is quite common, unlike yuri who still seems rare in comparison. :/

There is clearly not enough bara around, and certainly not enough on the reader.

yeah not much bara. when there will ever be a bara h anime consist of buff as F character and middle age fat old men!

There is clearly not enough bara around, and certainly not enough on the reader.

yeah not much bara. when there will ever be a bara h anime consist of buff as F character and middle age fat old men!

Or at least some animated Ganondorf x Bowser if that's not asking much