Shonen ai in America

By Jinnah Katza

Long before the era of the Fab Five or Queer as Folk homosexuality existed in Japanese entertainment, the introduction of Boy Love or Shonen Ai in Japan was considered revolutionary by some, and for a while unheard of in America and other countries.

For a long time the dubbers of various anime (or Japanese Animation) completely edited out all of the Shonen ai (Boy love) and Shojo ai (Girl love) from the translated versions. This is still a task preformed today, but to a lesser extent.

Shonen ai has also revolutionized the fanfiction (i.e. Fiction written by a fan for a predetermined plot line under copyright to the original owner.) of America’s younger writers. Shonen ai and yaoi (i.e. another form of Shonen ai with an automatic acceptation that the content will be naturally more graphic.) have been showing up more and more among American and European fanfiction and original authors. Some are on canon (or containing to the plot line) some are not.

Among those that people write on canon fanfiction for are Gravitation, and Card Captor Sakura. That is not to say that, although these topics do have on canon pairings, people will write on canon for said topics. Some people will still write fanfiction containing a completely off canon pairing. i.e. Syaoron/Yue. (Card Captor Sakura) While some of these pairings are circumstantial (such as Yami/Yuugi from Yu-Gi-Oh!) others completely ignore all reasoning and come up with utterly off the wall couples, Such as Majin Buu/Master Roshi. (Dragonball Z)  

A few of the more circumstantial couples are based off of close friendships. Heie and Kurama (Yuyu Hakusho) are a perfect example of this. While others will forsake the on canon pairings specifically for the use of using off canon “Fluff” pairings, for example, many people will pass up the original pairing of Yuugi Motou/ Jounochi Katsuya (Yu-Gi-Oh!) for the very-possible-but-not-quite pairing of Yami/Yuugi. (Yu-Gi-Oh!)    

Others will go for, rather a friendship sired romance, one sired by rivalry. Shonen ai extends in fanfiction past anime and manga (Japanese comics), this causes more off canon Shonen ai. Couples (for lack of a better word) spawned by rivalry often being some of the cheesiest fluff couplings. Some examples of this are Goku/Vegeta (Dragonball Z) or Squall Leonhart/Seifer Almasy (Final Fantasy VIII) are some of the most popular.

Still others will completely ignore the plot line of the story. A perfect example of this is those who write Sheik/Link. (The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time) Those who are old school when it comes to writing fanfiction will know that if you are writing for a video game should finish the game before writing said fanfiction. This prevents such plot slips and OOC (out of character)

When asked the old tell tale “What is so fascinating about watching TV shows with gay men in them” an anonymously interviewed female answered  “For the same reason that men like to watch shows with lesbians. What would a horny woman want more than watching two hot guys make out with each other?”

So we ask you now, has Shonen ai changed the minds of Americans? Are the dubbed or subtitled versions better? Should Americans learn Japanese and go to Japanese if they want to read about hot guys making out with each other? Or should the dubbing companies simply get over the naïveté of the American citizens and quite “butchering the Japanese story lines?”