Menu Close

Category: Manga

Information and discussion about the latest in Japanese manga.

Yaoi Manga and M/M Romance Blog Hop

Yaoi Manga and MM Romance Blog Hop Icon

Welcome to the blog hop! For those of you who don’t know me, I’m a published author who loves Japanese anime, especially yaoi, JRock and M/M Romance. I’ve somehow found a niche writing what I love – stories that are a little bit yaoi and a little bit M/M romance. For the blog hop, I wanted to pull something together that might help readers of M/M romance understand yaoi, and vice versa.

For me, yaoi means androgynous, pretty male characters. Most yaoi is found in comic form such as manga and anime. The stories usually involve a much larger man, who dominates the relationship and a much smaller man. Although, like everything else, not all are like this. There is a difference in the relationships in true yaoi that I don’t think we see in M/M romance so much, a difference that I believe stems from the difference in Japanese versus Western culture.  That is, there is a clear distinction between the “top”, also called seme, and the “bottom’, called uke. The seme is usually older as well as larger, more experienced more aggressive sexually, etc, than the uke. In this way, there are some very clear roles played by the characters. I think some would say that the uke can tends to be more like a female in a male body. Also, yaoi does involve sex that’s not consensual. In the Western publishing world, this is taboo. The thing I love about yaoi, is the stories and characters really seem to be made for female fantasy. It seems to me that in yaoi stories, there’s not the strict constraints on making sure the guys act like guys all the time and it doesn’t have to be super-believable. It’s about telling a good story and letting the reader get lost in it.

As for M/M romance, this comes from a Western world where I think we do tend to try and make our stories seem as realistic as possible. The male characters look more like real men, gruff, bearded, hairy chested, you get my meaning. Not that some of that isn’t hot:) What’s a bit more freeing in writing M/M romance is probably that there is not this strict seme/uke character constraint – maybe the bigger man’s the catcher, you never know. Maybe the smaller man is more aggressive sexually. What’s great is it spans the whole spectrum.

Yaoi MM Gay Art - Necalli
Necalli from "The First Full Moon" - Portrait of Necalli

So what I try to do is to write a combination of the two. I try to blend the pretty, androgynous characters of yaoi with Western world situations. Although I try my best to blend realistic gay situations with female fantasy, I attempt to make my characters break out of the “men are like this” mold. I hope that makes sense. And yes, I do get a lot of my story ideas and characters from watching anime. For instance, the character, Necalli, in the First Full Moon came from Vincent Law of Ergo Proxy. I wanted the yin and yang in him – to be powerful and brutal and also sensitive and incredibly tortured by his animal nature. For this reason, I made him a smaller man. Everything about him had opposing sides, just like Vincent Law.

My vampire books started out with a Hellsing flare. My character, Sebastian, really got his start being more like Alucard than anything else. Then I tried to drive deeper into him and his past and well, sometimes your characters dictate who they want to be, LOL.

Anyhow, thanks for stopping by!

Christie Gordon

To Enter to Win the Grand Prize:

  • Leave a comment on participating blogs with your email so I can contact you. (One comment is counted per blog post. Let’s not spam anyone.)
  • On websites without a comment section you have the option to participate in the “scavenger hunt” for one entry per site.

Powered by Linky Tools

Click here to enter your link and view this Linky Tools list…

Yaoi Novels versus Manga – Which do you Prefer?

Yaoi Manga - Cherry LemonI have to admit, I like yaoi novels better than manga. What??? you say? Yep, I do. Maybe that has something to do with why I write yaoi and m/m romance novels instead of drawing comic panels (which I think takes way more talent than I have). Although my eyes certainly appreciate the man candy action of a good yaoi manga, I find they’re too dang short. I like quite a bit more meat (pun intended) in my stories. More back story, more character development, more man loving and certainly more plot development.

Now I know some of you might want to flame me right now, but hear me out. Yaoi manga definitely have their place and yes, I do enjoy them. I just like to read a book with little or no pictures more than reading panels. For some reason, my imagination flies when I read a novel and not so much with a comic. I’m always trying to figure out which way, left or right, up or down, I’m supposed to be reading the darn thing. Okay, maybe I’m just a spaz. But the other thing is the limitations of manga – you just can’t fit as much in as you can with a book. You see this in film all the time. If they actually put everything from the Lord of the Rings books into the movies, they’d each be 5 hours long and we’d probably have 20 of them.

Starfighter Comic WebcomicThere are a few manga/webcomics I can’t live without – Starfighter being the main one. I mean, who doesn’t like that? Hot headed, evil dark hero(?) paired with innocent blond hero who needs hard, passionate sex… I wonder sometimes what that would look like in a novel form or if it would even work. If that’s the case, I wonder if the medium drives the plots in found yaoi novels versus yaoi manga? Can they be interchanged?

What do you prefer and why?

I’ve Joined the Anime and Manga Bloggers for Japan

The recent events in Japan have had a particularly heavy impact on me. I love so much of what comes out of Japan – the rock music, the anime and of course, boys love (yaoi). Where would I be if I’d never discovered Mobile Suit Gundam Seed all those years ago? Would I have returned to my artistic roots? Would I have ever discovered my talent for writing stories? Probably not.

I owe so much of what I enjoy today as my creative outlet to the mangakas and musicians of Japan, I can’t imagine a world without them and their work. Their creative endeavors inspire me every single day. The intriguing and fantastical stories that come out of anime and manga are unique and stand a class above what Hollywood spoon feeds us, in my humble opinion. I listen to JRock when I draw almost exclusively. The passion in Japanese rock  is something I think is hard to find in mainstream music.

So I ask this question: where would you be if there were no Miyavi, no Death Note, no Hyde or Gackt, no Fullmetal Alchemist… no Gundams? Where would we be without this wonderful country and its immense creative talent and genius?

For this reason, I’ve joined the Anime and Manga Bloggers for Japan. Please check it out here: Anime and Manga Bloggers for Japan

And if you’re a blogger and want to join, please do and spread the word!

Because, where would you be?