The Comics Bureau

Shaenon Gar­rity over at Graphic Novel Review writes an intro­duc­tion to Yaoi, the Japan­ese manga that fea­tures romance and/or sex between male char­ac­ters, and is appar­ently one of the most pop­u­lar manga genres in Amer­ica, espe­cially with teen­age girls. Shaenon does a great job of provid­ing con­text for this genre in one two three parts so far.

In the 1980s, shonen-ai col­lided with the grow­ing pop­ular­ity of doujin­shi, com­ics self-published by manga and anime fans, and yaoi was born. The doujin­shi scene was dom­in­ated by female artists, and same-sex romances soon became the biggest and most pop­u­lar genre.