Talk:Josei

Subgenres

I know we're going for plural point of view, and I don't want to be a jerk, but I'm cutting out this part of the article on the grounds that it is 100% factually untrue:

Shounen ai and yaoi are sub-genres of josei...The reason for this may be that josei series are often shounen ai or yaoi, which are usually recognized as those genres instead.

Since the term 'josei' isn't really used that much in the West, I assume we're talking about the Japanese term here. In this context, this use of 'yaoi' and 'shounen ai' is incorrect. In addition, my experience is that josei manga don't actually feature all that much m/m sexuality. I see that more in shoujo. But, regardless, in a Japanese sense, the presence of m/m sexuality does not make a series BL. Being published in a BL magazine makes it BL.

If we're talking about Western terminology, fair enough, but we should state that, especially since "josei" isn't that familiar and isn't used for the same stuff it covers in Japan. Franzeska 19:49, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

I agree. Even though I have never read josei manga - at least to my knowledge - shounen-ai has always been presented as a subset of shoujo to me. Maybe the author of that sentence was going for the fact that some yaoi manga are definitely too explicit to be available to people under 18 (at least here, I don't know how it works in Japan)? Which would automatically make them non-shoujo and thus josei? -- Rodo 20:01, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

I think that was probably the logic, yes. But buying manga in Japan is like buying romance novels in the US. They could be totally innocent or they could be twice as pornographic as the most degrading and explicit porno movies, but no one's going to check your ID or comment on your selection. Franzeska 20:22, 29 October 2009 (UTC)