Who’s even asking for it to have sex scenes and rape? BL is not about just those things you know … Wanting it to be a BL is not a bad thing
Most BLs contain sex and rape. This already has romance, it’s just not the main focus, what else do you want?
Your mistaking yaoi for bl
It’s used interchangeably. Yaoi is BL, BL is an umbrella term. You are thinking about shounen ai if you mean pure romance. However, I wouldn’t classify this as either, because it’s not a focus. Just like Hannibal serial isn’t considered a gay show. I think this is a shounen with queer elements.
Preach!!! This is exactly why I love this story. The genre is horror and the romance is romance. Even labeling it as shonen ai feels like a disservice for how well it's portrayed for coming of age love. Id drop this in an instant if it suddenly changed the nice balance it has maintained with it's premises just because it's getting famous.
I think your being a bit too close minded on this. For western audiences (and I say this cause some of these terms aren't really used in Japan anymore) BL is a overall umbrella of m/m queer content like you said. Shounen Ai falls under that umbrella term and it often covers non nsfw content. Yaoi often has nsfw. However all of these terms can still have abusive content (which I dont condone rape scenes). Its not limited to just yaoi/BL. BL is all m/m content and that can come in different forms whether that includes sex or not. Shounen Ai is not separated from BL. In simplicity and what I've seen from the Japanese side BL is really the only term used for m/m queer content. Shounen Ai and Yaoi are outdated terms and are really only used by international fans. The term meanings have changed over the past couples years depending who you ask. BL covers all m/m works including this one. I think it shouldn't be diminished to just it's queer content but it definitely should be celebrated as an intresting queer work. Just because it has a really good plot doesn't make it not a BL and that should be included along with all of its other intresting characteristics.
I also don't mean this in any disrespectful way. I really dislike the stigmatization of the label BL as it really covers a large range of works and can be a secondary label for works. I dont really know of any genre terms in Japanese that cover "queer" and are used often except for GL and BL. Hopefully there's more in the future :]
Huh, I think you’re being close minded by thinking that the works outside of BL can’t contain queer elements. Literally author said that they consider it shounen with queer elements and it’s also being released in a shounen magazine. I also never said that shounen ai can’t have abuse, I just said that yaoi often contains explicit rape and abuse. I'm confident you know what I meant unless you just dropped on this earth. I never said anything incorrect here. Just provided basic information.
This is marked as shounen even though it has queer elements. I also can think of some works that aren’t marked as BL or GL that have a romantic tension between two women or two men. I think it’s weird that works containing a little bit of straight romance aren’t marked by a word that defines the whole work and puts it in the box like BL. However, the second that some work has queer elements, people insist to call it BL.
Well, people call it a BL because it IS a BL. It’s literally Shounen Ai. You’re the one being close-minded because you’re thinking that a novel being listed as a BL means that the plot and focus of the story are being overlooked. Your original post implies that all BL novels are just constant sex and rape. That couldn’t be the furthest from the truth. I’ve read a significant amount of BL without either. You’re putting the category BL into a box, which is being close-minded. This story is no different from the many other BLs I’ve read.
I never said that content outside of BLs can contain queer content ^^ for example witch hat atelier is one of those series and there are ambiguous queer series that fall under slice of life like I want to be a wall (theres not a label for queer genre and it handles aroace topics). I was directly talking about you mentioning how BL and yaoi can be interchangeable which it really isn't im sorry it got side tracked. Yaoi is a sub genre of BL. And when I say label I mean in the fact we have labels internationally but I havent seen any genre labels for queer content in japan besides GL and BL. The queer stories in the summer hikaru died are plot important and can't really be detached. Again I never said it would be a main topic. This is overall a youth coming of age / horror story. In terms of available genre labels in the japanese system BL seems the closest to addressing the queer content. And a secondary genre label not a main one as romance is not the main plot point. Ive read the authors statement and I see that she wants to explore the queer relationship but it's really a coming of age horror as stated by the author.
Completely wrong. This story is a horror BECAUSE of its romance aspect. It centers around the feelings of the mc for having lost the guy he loved and his conflicted feelings of accepting and fearing the monster that imitates his departed beloved.
Whether or not you think of yaoi or bl as the same. It stands that both genres have to do with the same story telling of queer romance. Yaoi/bl have always delt with the topic of not have love be reciprocated because its from the same gender, and that is done in abundance in this story. I think you are the close minded one to only think of yaoi/bl as sex and rape.
Not everything needs to be sexual or explicitly romantic. This story doesn’t focus on a romantic or sexual relationship and it’s okay. Romantic subtext is obviously present in the story, but the focus is different. The author never erased the queer elements and didn’t make the characters suddenly straight when this gained popularity, like some of you imply. Not every story needs constant sex scenes and rape. Look at this not as only a BL.