Posts Tagged ‘fujoshi’
When there was an idea to bring back the BL con in the Philippines, my first suggestion was that we should have a fan anthology.
It seems to be the thing nowadays. At tumblr, there’s countless of fan anthologies going up: from Avengers to Sherlock, and even some for original works.
We know that there are a lot of artists and writers out there who are looking for spaces where they can write BL as they imagined. The best that we can offer is this fan anthology and at the very least, we can set some guidelines and direction. Together, we were hoping to make this dream come true. And we did! \o/
After all the anxious waiting, printing, and all that jazz, we managed to print this beautiful baby filled with fantastic surprises! Seriously, never have I been so anxious about BL until this. While I was waiting for contributions to come in, I understood the anxieties of an editor — will our contributors make it in time, will we even have contributors, what if the contributions sucked eggs!?!
It’s crazy but this turned out to be quite fun and unexpected. I discovered new artists I didn’t think were even drawing BL. I discovered that a lot of our contributors were interested in musicians thus a good number of the stories had musicians in it. It was a fun first venture into making a fanzine and now, I’m hoping is you guys get to read it and tell us what you think.
It’s hard for me to put up an objective review for this since I’m the editor. If anything, I’m impressed with the contributors. I really enjoyed all of them! The cuteness that came with Hanaoka’s It was June was balanced by the madness of Cinnamon Rub’s Screwballs. They’re all awesome. I should stop saying that they all are. I may also be biased as an editor but I’m hoping that those who have been reading my blog would probably think that maybe I used my manga sense here and did something right.
We’ve sold out on our copies of the anthology so we’re putting it up online until the next reprint. We’re also thinking up of putting a quarterly web-only fanzine to invite more contributors and have a growing community of BL artists, writers, and fans.
The Blush Anthology made me realize that it’s possible to come up with something quite fantastic as this even for a something fan-based that over the past few days, I’ve been entertaining a development of a similar fan anthology, but this time, for the josei genre. But I’ll leave that for another post! For now, I’m happy to present to you our baby, the Blush Anthology.
I have this horrible habit of figuring out the lives of people I see when I’m traveling. I love to do this in airports since people hold many stories in such a small space.
A woman walks by, clutching her Berkin bag. Probably a trophy wife of some Asian business magnate and she just arrived from shopping trip in New York. A tall lean guy with long legs, tattered jeans, and a Real Madrid jersey felt like a backpacker on his way home. If he had the hipster glasses, it’s either his boyfriend’s jersey or just something he wore to impress someone.
Sometimes there are people who become alive just by what they wear. A Spanish guy in a plain white shirt and fitted jeans walks to a coffeeshop. He sits cross legged, reading the newspaper he got from the plane, sipping his coffee with such elegance. God knows why my eyes are drawn to him, but in my head, that man must have been a matador once. Or a painter. Probably the hero of an Est Em novel.
![[801] The Ultimate BL Webcomic Rec List](http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7116/7695208834_eca7a8b133_o.jpg)
Can you believe that Boy’s Love comics has been around for more than 40 years?
One would think that Shounen Ai, Yaoi, Boy’s Love is just a passing fancy among girls but its continued influence not only in Japanese otaku subculture but in the global subculture shows the power of the genre.
Yes. Yaoi is all over the globe. There’s a book on Boy’s Love that speaks about Yaoi fans in Indonesia, Germany, Italy, and Chine. And there are scholars in Japan who study other fujoshi subcultures in the Philippines and even Latin America. The internet has made yaoi accessible and day by day, girls like you and me become aware of their fujoshi goggles.
In the last few years I’ve become more and more aware of emerging BL artists outside of Japan. What was once amateur efforts in writing BL have eventually involved in a BL that’s quite mature and very different from Japan’s. It’s fantastic how many of these artists are yet unpublished and find the internet as the space for their works. If I had money, I’d get these artist to publish in an anthology because they all deserve a shot in getting their stories more available to the public.
To pull this list of BL Webcomics, I asked fujojos and fudanshis to give me their recs for a prize! Many gave the same recs which proves that there are those who have made a name out there. The prize I’m giving away is also from an artist who made a name drawing BL for Suikoden and Devil May Cry, Jo Chen. In These Words was a comic she drew for her doujin circle Guilt|Pleasure. Initially a webcomic, Guilt|Pleasure’s efforts eventually gave them enough fan base and chapters to make a volume before it was published by DMP and now published in Japan under Libre’s BeBoy Gold. Isn’t that fantastic?
But I’m quite sure outside of here there are many BL webcomics online. Here are your recommendations (in alphabetical order)!
![[801] Hello. I am a Fujoshi. Today's my day.](http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8018/7689633532_18c3ecd508_o.jpg)
Fujoshi. Fujojo. There’s no denying that I am all of this.
It’s already in my blood. I don’t think I can ever unsee life without fujoshi lenses and I must confess that my fujoshi vision has given me nothing but pleasure in life.
Until, that strange awkward moment when you’re introduced to an esteemed colleague as one. See, last year, we had a guest who was giving a talk about Japanese manga and its presence in real life, and here comes my adviser introducing me as a fujoshi. Better put your bad foot forward, right?
I have issues going public about my fujoshi-ness. Don’t you? It’s my realm of fantasy and as much as possible, I’d like to keep this part of my life to people who won’t judge me for my manXman needs. I have had strange experiences that in the face of a general population, the mention of homosexual suggestion will only mean awkward silences and people’s hasty conclusion that I am a perverted person.
I know — we know — that liking BL, yaoi, slash, and permutations thereof is partly a perversion and as much as one would like to think that we are past the concepts of sexology and that these preferences are not in anyway sexual deviances, a good portion of the world still thinks I’m weird. Thus, I’d like to keep my fujoshi life a secret identity only open to friends who are happy with the batshit insane.
And I’m not alone on this. I have friends in prestigious positions, from doctors to lawyers to academes who shy from “coming out” with their fujoshi life.
Thus, when said adviser introduced me as a fujoshi, I immediately backpedaled and corrected him in saying I was into gender studies. That sounds a lot more respectable, isn’t it? Strangely, this esteemed colleague was not fazed by my fujoshi title and simply said “Oh just say you are a fujoshi. It’s something to be proud of.”
At that moment, I questioned if the time was right to come out as a fujoshi. I tried to admit to this colleague, with a sense of shame, that I was indeed a fujoshi but again she empowered me with supportive words that fujoshi are a powerful lot and there should be no shame in being a fujoshi.
And in hindsight, you know, she’s right. In the last century, the earliest of “fujoshi” have been shaping the face of comics. Thanks to the Magnificent Year 24 Group, we were able to explore shounen ai. They’ve also pushed the sci-fi genre, the josei genre, and finally managed to develop comics for women and their fantasies.
As fans, fujoshi have been most conscious about gender. Their fujoshi vision have made many fujoshi gender aware and have pushed gender debates to many directions.
Despite its “rotten” roots, there’s something beautiful about being a fujoshi.
And while the world masks boys’ love behind bromance, unresolved sexual tension, etc. etc., the fujoshi would probably be the first of the lot who would come out and embrace many men and women who used to keep their sexual preferences private.
I think today’s a great reminder on the amazing things that fujoshi have done in this world.
I’ll be posting some articles in the next few hours in celebration of this day just for us fujoshi. I’m hoping the weather would be nicer! Right now, my office has no electricity and I’m stealing time at another office just to post this for this day!
That said, among my readers and fellow fujoshi, are there still many of you uncomfortable in “coming out” as a fujoshi? Share me your stories and your experience and also, do you think it’s time to “come out” as a fujoshi?
Why, aren’t I quite hardworking today? I’ve got some spare time in my hands, so I thought I’d share some fun news for the wicked.
I just caught on my feeds this morning and I saw that Opera No. 32 is coming with a new Nakamura Asumiko title called O.B. She’s doing the cover for the anthology and the plus side is she’ll be using the characters from Dokyuusei and Sora to Hara!
I do believe that her Dokyuusei series is one of her fun works and pretty much sealed the deal for her as a BL mangaka. Personally I wish she wrote a new story, something in the same mild darkness as Double Mints because I really love that edgy side of her. But I’m fine with what we have and I don’t mind having more Kusakabe to enjoy!
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