labels

I had read this post in raburesu when it was initially posted, laughed at it, and moved on. I'm not surprised at all that it's been posted on fandom wank. I still don't really care about the issue (though I did have fun reading some of the fandom wank comments), but it did make me think about labels and classification.

I tend to lump all Japanese commercial boy-boy works produced mainly for women under "boys love," or "BL." This is probably because publishers and magazines and places like amazon japan use that term. I do also use "yaoi." I tend not to use "gay" to describe the genre, though I often use it to describe characters. BUT I don't know if it's "wrong" to say something "BL" is "gay." I'm not sure what constitutes things like "shonen-ai" or "june," and thus never use those terms. I get really confused as to how fandom uses "shonen-ai" versus "yaoi," frankly.

Regarding fanworks, I don't even have a genre term for boy-boy stuff. In my head I suppose I use "yaoi" or "josei-muke" ("oriented towards women"). I rather like "josei-muke" because it's vague and stores use it. I suppose "josei-muke" could also include het or femslash for women, but I've never noticed any. I'm not sure if it's because they don't exist or they've never registered because I really don't care.

I wish my mind worked in a way that it could classify things well. I tend to work well within an established system, but don't do so well when I have to strike out on my own.

On the subject of labels, I really dislike the term "animanga." Not really sure why, either. :P