Talk:Yaoi/Archive 3

Red links to NY,NY and Tomoi
New York, New York (manga) is listed at WP:ANIME/REQUEST with a short bibliography of secondary sources (in English), therefore it is notable, verifiable, and would be likely to become an article in the future. In addition, it has several interwiki pages, and the German one has an identifiable reception section. These articles could be translated here. Tomoi (manga), as the first series in the genre to cover issues like AIDS, is similarly discussed in the literature, including a chapter in Dreamland Japan. Google Scholar search. As it has secondary sources, the topic is notable, verifiable, and therefore likely. I don't know why the red links to them should be removed in the main page, because WP:REDLINK states that valid topics should not be delinked, and that having red links in articles improves their likelihood of being created. I've started up a discussion on the talk page of the guideline to get some clarification on this. --110.20.234.69 (talk) 21:24, 29 April 2015 (UTC)


 * I appreciate you bringing this matter to the talk page, after I requested that you do that while I reverted you. I don't see how what you've stated in this section means that those topics should have Wikipedia articles (yes, I analyzed the links), and I stated more on editors adding red links at the WP:Red link talk page. That stated, I wouldn't mind much if you went ahead and re-linked those topics in the Yaoi article. Flyer22 (talk) 21:52, 29 April 2015 (UTC)


 * Also, do you mind pointing to the aforementioned German version here on this talk page? Flyer22 (talk) 21:57, 29 April 2015 (UTC)


 * I'm still confused as to what you think makes for a valid red link. Would you care to enlighten me on that subject? I've shown that the topics of NY,NY and Tomoi are notable and verifiable: therefore they should have red links in the main space, so that people will see them and be enticed to make articles. I'm headed out the door, but you can find the German edition of the NY,NY, article easily by looking for the (ja) edition (on the main Yaoi page) and navigating the interwiki links.  --110.20.234.69 (talk) 22:07, 29 April 2015 (UTC)


 * Since I stated that not every WP:Notable topic means that the topic should have a Wikipedia article, I'm not sure how I haven't been clear on the matter. As you know, I pointed to the WP:NOPAGE section of the WP:Notable guideline. In various cases, I have encountered Wikipedia articles where a WP:Notable topic is better sufficiently covered in the article it is mentioned in or in a section of a related article; by this, I mean that linking the matter so that it can become an article is entirely unneeded. In the case that it is a WP:NOPAGE matter, then creating the red link likely means that a WP:Stub will unnecessarily be created. WP:Stubs are not ideal. And on another note, WP:Secondary sources covering a topic does not automatically mean that the topic is WP:Notable; the most recent example I can think of is Dan Fredinburg, where editors are currently debating whether or not he is WP:Notable since a lot of secondary sources note him; see Articles for deletion/Dan Fredinburg. Flyer22 (talk) 22:24, 29 April 2015 (UTC)


 * Judging a book's notability, though, has sometimes proven more debatable than judging a person's notability. In addition to the Notability (events) guideline mentioned in the Dan Fredinburg case, and other WP:Notability guidelines, there is the Notability (books) guideline. The Coverage notes section of that guideline indicates that the guideline covers manga. Flyer22 (talk) 22:59, 29 April 2015 (UTC)


 * Thanks, Flyer, but clarifying that there are many situations when not to link does not shed too much light for me on when you think red links should be created - I suspect that's why there are two sections in WP:REDLINK on when to link and when not to link. If a stub is created as a result of a red link, it could be merged or expanded upon later on, through the editing process.  Thanks for the additional links on notability issues in Wikipedia, they'll be helpful.  --110.20.234.69 (talk) 07:42, 30 April 2015 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure how to be clearer on how I feel about WP:Red link applications, other than what I stated above and here at the WP:Red link talk page, but I appreciate that we somewhat understand each other on the matter. Flyer22 (talk) 23:43, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

Japanese names of various people quoted
It's a good idea to get the kanji of the Japanese people quoted in the article. That way one can look up more information about each person. In articles about Japan I try to get kanji of every ethnic Japanese figure for reference purposes. WhisperToMe (talk) 19:55, 24 May 2015 (UTC)


 * Ideally, the original orthography of their names should be covered in their own articles, though? I've added in an interwiki link for Yukari Fujimoto. --110.20.234.69 (talk) 05:56, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

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What is the Etymology of Yaoi?
Yuri's is well known, it means Lily. But where did Yaoi come from?--JaredMithrandir (talk) 06:12, 1 January 2016 (UTC)
 * It dates back as early as 1979 and comes from the phrase「山なし、落ちなし、意味なし」(no climax, no resolution, no meaning), a phrase credited to Sakata Yasuko, specifically the magazine "Rappori" that she presided over, where the phrase was used as if it were commonplace. In it there was a やおい特集 section that featured BL. Yaoi is merely a shortening of the phrase using the head kana of each: やまなし、おちなし、いみなし→やおい (YAma nashi, Ochi nashi, Imi nashi).
 * Incidentally the the last two vowels are pronounced as diphthong, as in when calling someone's attention (ie, "ya-oy" and not "ya-wii"); the exception being when it is pronounced slowly for emphasis, where each kana is drawn out on its own (ya-o-i). Also, in Japan, the term Boy's Love (shortened as BL) is used more commonly, but Japanese netizens will nitpick on usage between BL and yaoi. 49.148.27.247 (talk) 21:22, 15 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks --JaredMithrandir (talk) 01:50, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

____

Manga vs. manhwa with regard to yaoi and yuri
Opinions are needed on the following: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Anime and manga. Permalink here. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 06:07, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

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British English and Euro date style on Japoanese subject article
Why is it being imposed on a Japanese topic article British English and Euro date style?2605:E000:9161:A500:3832:5234:5BA4:7DB6 (talk) 04:43, 8 September 2017 (UTC)


 * Likely for historical reasons: The article was created that way, and changing the style merely for change's sake is disruptive. Why would it be better to impose American English and US date style? There's no Japanese English we can impose. Huon (talk) 07:28, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

Are those yaoi books?
A while ago I took this photo: File:Akihabara August 2014 08.JPG, seems like yaoi books? Might be useful in this article as an illustration in that case? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 07:42, 16 November 2017 (UTC)

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MERGE: List of yaoi games
I've gone ahead and done a soft merge of the article contents of List of yaoi games into this article. It could use some copyediting, but I'm not the best copyeditor, so I've done what I can and am leaving it for another editor to fix. Thanks. --Tarage (talk) 21:54, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

BL Game
The entry BL game in the See also list of links, links back to the Yaoi page itself. What does the term "BL game" actually mean? And which page ought it to link to? Nuttyskin (talk) 07:19, 13 March 2018 (UTC) Nuttyskin (talk) 07:19, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

Requested move 9 August 2018

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: Not moved &mdash; Amakuru (talk) 22:01, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

Yaoi → Boys Love (BL) – As the article itself mentions, the most commonly used term for the kind of media described in this article in Japan is Boys Love or BL, also sometimes written Boys' Love and Boy's Love. It is the official name of the commercial sub-genre in Japanese media industries; additionally, current scholarship, even English language scholarship on the topic, use this as the primary or umbrella term (see McClelland, Nagaike, Suganuma, and Welker eds. Boys Love Manga and Beyond: history, culture, and community in Japan; and Levi, McHarry, and Pagliossotti eds. Boys' Love Manga: essays on the sexual ambiguity and cross-cultural fandom of the genre). There is room in the article to mention that Yaoi is still commonly used in English-speaking contexts and a separate Wikipedia article on Yaoi fandom to contextualize this. Katsumi 1020 (talk) 01:19, 9 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Comment. For what it's worth, the featured article on the Japanese Wikipedia is at "yaoi" (ja:やおい). If the move is to be made, the "(BL)" disambiguator is unnecessary, since Boys Love, Boys' Love, etc. already redirect here. However, the main point is not what the official term is–publishing industry or not, there's not really an "official" name in this case–or what this is commonly called in Japanese, but rather what the WP:COMMONNAME is in English. The references to academic (?) texts on this topic are helpful in establishing this, but for this to go through, evidence of the common name in English (i.e. showing relative prevalence) should be presented. Dekimasu よ! 01:48, 9 August 2018 (UTC)
 * The article that corresponds to this one on Japanese Wikipedia is at "Boys Love" (ja:ボーイズラブ). The article you have linked is for Yaoi in the specific Japanese sense, which is a type of media that is distinct from, but related to, BL. In fact, the lead section of that article states that Boys Love and BL are the more commonly used terms to refer to this media type/culture. The existence of the term yaoi in the origin culture to mean something different is one of the reasons for the proposed change. The referenced texts are academic. More to come on evidence of relative prevalence. Thanks for clarification regarding that.--Katsumi 1020 (talk) 19:20, 9 August 2018 (UTC)
 * I don't know a lot about this topic. However, ja:ボーイズラブ appears to be a subarticle of ja:やおい, and is in the yaoi category. Like this article, the Japanese article ja:やおい goes through the history of the relevant terms and their usage, etc. Note that ja:ボーイズラブ also says「やおい」とは区別されることもあるが、混同されることもある–they are sometimes distinguished from one another, but also often confused. Since yaoi appears to be the broader term, I don't see a specific problem here in that sense. That leaves the question of prevalence. Dekimasu よ! 07:33, 10 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks for this. I don't know a lot about how article relationships are determined in different wiki communities, but one reason ja:ボーイズラブ may be a subarticle is simply because yaoi has been in use much longer, but Boys Love and BL are still the umbrella terms in Japan. While usage is mixed in every context, I think the more useful part in determining the relationship between the two terms is in the beginning of the ja:やおい article, where it says that, in the sense of [male-male homoerotic media aimed at women], BL is more commonly used than yaoi この意味では、やおいより「ボーイズラブ (BL)」が近年よく使われる.Katsumi 1020 (talk) 21:20, 13 August 2018 (UTC)


 * Oppose Per WP:COMMONNAME. The proposed name goes against Wikipedia policy anyway, as parentheses are only to be used for disambiguation purposes. However, in Google Ngrams, "yaoi" registered hits while "Boys Love" is nonexistent. It would also go against WP:CONSISTENCY when the opposite article for girls is still called Yuri (genre).ZXCVBNM (TALK) 07:38, 9 August 2018 (UTC)
 * I am not familiar with how Google Ngrams works, but searching "yaoi" between 2000-2008 and "boys love" for the same period actually shows that "boys love" is becoming more common in usage. There is, of course, the issue of non-BL related hits showing up since both boys and love are such generic words, so this search function itself might be tricky for determining prevalence? I'm not sure that defining yaoi as "opposite" of yuri is accurate or necessarily an indication of consistency. The two genres have their own histories and contexts of usage that are mutually exclusive in both Japan and the US.Katsumi 1020 (talk) 21:20, 13 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Right, this would pick up all hits in running text for things like "boys love girls," "boys love sports," etc.–thus the peak for "boys love" on Google Ngrams is around the year 1910. Dekimasu よ! 21:36, 13 August 2018 (UTC)


 * if moving then boys' love manga as per Angles would be the correct capitalization. In ictu oculi (talk) 10:14, 9 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes, sorry. I should have added a ? next to the proposed new title. Have done that. Would think boys love or BL would be better, however, since the genre is multimedia.Katsumi 1020 (talk) 22:12, 13 August 2018 (UTC)


 * Oppose, per WP:Common name. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 18:50, 9 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Oppose per WP:COMMONNAME. Let other names redirect here.  Eve rgr een Fir  (talk) 20:41, 10 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Oppose. Neutral. I think we use "yaoi" more often than "boys' love" in the English fan community. For example, when I search site:animenewsnetwork.com "yaoi", I get ~13500 results, but when I search |+%22boys%27+love%22+|+%22boys-love%22) site:animenewsnetwork.com ("boys love" | "boys' love" | "boys-love"), I only get ~4480 results. -- Ununseti (talk) 00:33, 11 August 2018 (UTC)
 * EDIT: urk, I'm not sure anymore... (see my comment below in response to Farix's comment.) If the page gets renamed to Boys' love though, we'll need to change many of the occurrences of yaoi back to BL, since the changes from Talk:Yaoi/GA1 were assuming that yaoi was the Anglophone meaning of the term (i.e. the subject of this article). -- Ununseti (talk) 06:37, 18 August 2018 (UTC)
 * If the sources use yaoi, which many or rather most sources in the article do, we should use yaoi for those instances. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 02:33, 20 August 2018 (UTC)
 * I think this is true, based on my own experience in fandom as well, although boys love and BL are becoming more common as fandoms become more internationally connected. The number of hits on animenewsnetwork and other searches makes sense to me, since boys love is a much newer term. Is there a way to do the search so that it reflects usage over time?Katsumi 1020 (talk) 23:49, 13 August 2018 (UTC)


 * on prevalence: data tracking An important point to keep in mind is not just number of hits on these sites, but being able to track usage over time. Without current access to more sophisticated databases at the moment, I share some searches that try to take this into consideration. To address some of the issues of ambiguous search terms, I use "boys love", BL, and yaoi followed by manga, anime, genre (otherwise a lot of science articles come up for just "yaoi"). I also tried to compare search results across periods. A google scholar search reveals that "BL anime" and "BL manga" yields the most hits, with 2580/4720 prior to 2010 and 3250/7500 after (yaoi comes 2nd, and boys love comes a close 3rd). A google news search also shows significantly more hits for "yaoi" than "boys love" (abt 20,000 versus 4,500). However, when sorted via date, there are more recent hits for "boys love" than yaoi (especially between 2017-2018). Many of the articles also use "boys love/yaoi" or "BL/yaoi," so there is overlap. Popular fan works site archiveofourown.org lists "yaoi" as a sub-tag of "boys' love," along with shounen-ai. As such, it is not possible to search works tagged as yaoi while excluding the "boys' love" tag. BL tags get lumped in with boys' love. The "yaoi" tag seems to be used still much more than the boys' love, but the "boys' love" tag has also been used independently of the "yaoi" tag nearly twice as much between 2015 to the present than from 2010-2015. Yaoi as a term has existed for much longer; but, nowadays, it seems Boys love and BL are used more internationally, within the scholarly community, and in recent mainstream news sources. Fan spaces and media news either favor "yaoi" or use both as the lines between fan spaces and scholarly spaces overlap more. It seems the time might not be ripe yet, but BL and boys love are becoming common enough to warrant consideration for a move. In any case, request was made as an attempt to address issues around clarity and sourcing that have been brought up in review Talk:Yaoi/GA1. The article cites many scholarly sources, which can be a cause for confusion when it comes to terminology. This discussion has been helpful in helping me think up some ways to address these issues, even without a move. Katsumi 1020 (talk) 00:25, 14 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Support but do not include "(BL)" in the title. The genre of boys' love is something that originated from Japan and "boys' love" is the more common term for it. It is also is appearing more and more in English publications. lullabying (talk) 22:18, 15 August 2018 (UTC)
 * It is not about which term is used more by fans, but which term is used more by reliable third-party sources. Doing a quick search on Anime News Network, there are 2,540 hits for "boys love" vs 3,650 for "yaoi" in the news section and 1,940 for "boys love" vs 3,080 for "yaoi" in the views section. While "yaoi" is used more frequently, it isn't overwhelming and it is very dependent on whether the works are being covered are sexually explicit or not. There is also the focus of the article itself. "Yaoi" means sexually explicit material involving male-on-male homosexuality. "Boys love" on the other hand has a much broader meaning and include works featuring male-on-male homosexuality, but are not necessarily sexually explicit. Therefore, yaoi is a subset of "boys love". If the primary topic of the article about the sexually explicit male-on-male works from Japan, then "Yaoi" would be a suitable article name. However, if the topic is broader and includes all works featuring male-on-male homosexuality from Japan, then the article should be renamed to reflect the broader scope. —Farix (t &#124; c) 15:13, 16 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Ah, you have a point that the scope of the article should be taken into account. Actually, upon rereading the etymology sections of Yaoi and Yuri (genre) pages, it's actually kind of funny how the scopes of the two terms have flipped over time: Yuri in Japan broadly covers all works with female-female relations, whether sexual or romantic, whether explicit or implied; whereas yuri in North America initially was used to denote only the explicit end of the spectrum, but has broadened over time to pick up connotations of Japanese usage. Meanwhile, for yaoi, in North America, has become an umbrella term for all works with male-male relations; whereas yaoi in Japan is mainly used to denote only the doujinshi or explicit end of the spectrum, as a subgenre of BL. Huh.


 * Also, out of curiosity, I did a word search for various phrases on the Yaoi and Yuri (genre) article pages themselves: (These Ctrl+Fs were of the entire page, so they include the references at the bottom of the article as well. Also, I used case-sensitive searches for "BL" and "GL".)


 * In terms of usage in the article itself, at least, it seems that "BL" / "boys' love" is a much more likely contender for replacing "yaoi" than "girls' love" is for replacing "yuri". So, if Yaoi does ultimately end up being renamed Boys' love, it does not necessarily imply that Yuri (genre) should be renamed Girls' love.
 * Also worth comparing the page views of the various Yaoi redirects and Yuri redirects. There's a not-negligible traffic to the various "boys' love" redirects; not so much for the various "girls' love" redirects.
 * I think to mirror the scope of the Yuri (genre) article, the Yaoi article should take the broader scope, especially since I don't really know of any other articles that currently exist that would serve as a better target. So then the main question becomes, do we prefer the terminology as commonly used by the publishers and the fanbase in English-speaking contexts (i.e. yaoi), or the terminology as commonly used by the scholars on this subject, as well as in Japan itself (i.e. BL / boys' love)?
 * (Back when I was first getting into manga, I was like, oh, how nice, they have shounen ai and shoujo ai, and yuri and yaoi; how nice and symmetrical. But it turns out it's not that simple, I guess...) Ununseti (talk) 06:22, 18 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Going by the data, I'm not convinced that we should go with "Boys' Love" for the title. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 02:33, 20 August 2018 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Demographics in the lead
Katsumi 1020, regarding this and this, per WP:LEAD, demographics material should be in the lead. The lead already states that "it is typically created by women for women and is distinct from homoerotic media marketed to gay male audiences, such as bara." But we should note that males read yaoi as well. Per Talk:Yaoi/Archive 2, we don't need to get into sexual orientation material in the lead. But making it clear to our readers in the lead that yaoi is not solely for women or is not solely read by women is an important detail. Otherwise, the lead does give the impression that it's just for women, even with "typically" there.

Also, if making big changes to the article, I ask that you consider proposing changes on the talk page first for discussion. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 23:16, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

Italicizing
KuroMina, regarding this? Not every instance of "yaoi" or subgenre of it should be italicized. Only the instances where the term is being used as a word should be italicized. See WP:Words as words.

If you reply, please don't WP:Ping me. If you don't reply and don't fix the italics aspect I noted here in this section, I will. Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 19:11, 11 May 2020 (UTC)
 * I was following MOS:FOREIGNITALIC, which states that foreign words should be italicized if they "do not yet have everyday use in non-specialized English." I don't think that yaoi falls under "common usage" in English (unlike "anime" or "samurai"). It's not in the Merriam-Webster dictionary, which the MOS advised checking, and I doubt that most people outside of anime fandom know what it means. Yaoi, shōnen-ai, seme, uke, etc. are italicized in the majority of the books I've read, too, such as Jason Thompson's Manga: The Complete Guide. However, I still consider myself a newbie when it comes to Wikipedia's rules and guidelines. Let me know if I misunderstood something here (very much a possibility; I'm learning every day ^^;). KuroMina (talk) 20:29, 11 May 2020 (UTC)
 * We might need to get further input on this. For example, from Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Text formatting and/or WP:Anime. Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 20:58, 11 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Sure thing. I just posted a request at the anime and manga WikiProject. KuroMina (talk) 21:28, 11 May 2020 (UTC)
 * I agree with KuroMina based on MOS:FOREIGNITALIC, since it's pretty clear. Flyer22 Frozen evoked MOS:WAW, but it also says: "When italics could cause confusion (such as when italics are already being heavily used in the page for some other purpose, e.g., many non-English words and phrases), double quotation marks instead may be used to distinguish words as words". Certainly, this article has instances when yaoi is used to talk about the genre and others when the term itself is discussed. For example, "The genre currently known as boys' love, BL, or yaoi derives from two sources" is talking about the genre, so italics are okay; "The term yaoi is an acronym created in the late 1970s", on the other hand, is talking about the word, so it should be inside quotation marks. Gabriel Yuji (talk) 21:41, 11 May 2020 (UTC)
 * I left a note about this at the other page. Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 21:52, 11 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: I'm the one who originally italicized the title, though not the whole article due to time. I think it should be italicized per MOS:FOREIGNITALIC. Yaoi is a non-English term and does not appear in dictionaries (although terms such as "manga" or "shonen" do). Opencooper (talk) 22:09, 11 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Romanized Japanese should not be italicized with wiki markup . The correct form is  → yaoi.  Yeah, more characters but writing it this way helps browsers to render the word and helps screen readers to pronounce the word.  For MOS:WAW, perhaps:   → "yaoi" (not clear to me if the term should be both italicized as non-English and quoted because of extensive use of the italic form of the word in the article.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 22:19, 11 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Echoing what Lullabying said below: I've never seen the "ja-Latn" formatting before, so thank you for bringing it up! As for foreign words in quotation marks... well, MOS:AMU says we should italicize "foreign-language phrases" in the titles of minor works, enclosed in quotation marks. (The manual gives the example of the song "Ich Bin Ein Auslander.") I'm not sure about foreign words as words, though. KuroMina (talk) 08:34, 12 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Italicizing on the basis of MOS:FOREIGNITALIC is appropriate because "yaoi" is a non-English word that isn't used in Western contexts. The formatting that brought up should be used (and I thank you for bringing that up because I wasn't aware of it until now). lullabying (talk) 22:41, 11 May 2020 (UTC)
 * It's a loan word by this point, like burritos or saunas or frankfurters. People who don't know a word of Japanese or have any clue about its etymological origin know what it means. Go to Amazon, look under "Manga", and there's a "Yaoi & LGBT" section. It's on the signage in bookstores, and on the English-language books themselves. We don't need dictionaries to get around to confirming this (though Wiktionary already does). It should be in roman letters when referring to the material, italic when referred to as a word, and "quotes" when it's quoting a person. -Jason A. Quest (talk) 00:22, 12 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I disagree. You could write an article that mentions burritos or saunas (or futons or tsunamis), and you wouldn't have to explain what they are to your readers. Those words are a part of our everyday vocabulary. The same cannot be said for Japanese anime/manga genres. In my opinion, yaoi, shōnen, shōjo, etc. are "specialized" words, as only anime/manga fans know them and seek them out. (Even then, casual fans might not know what they mean.) I mentioned this in another reply, but I looked through articles and books on anime/manga from reliable sources, such as Jason Thompson, Frederik L. Schodt, the British Museum, the BBC , and The New Yorker . They italicize yaoi, shōnen, shōjo, etc. throughout the entirety of their texts. However, it's true that other reliable sources don't italicize those words; for example, CNN and The New York Times . Then there are sites like Anime News Network, which can go either way  . All this to say, even professional publications differ in italicizing Japanese words, so I think we should ask WP:JAPAN for their input, too. KuroMina (talk) 08:23, 12 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Just do it as  (the only reason to do something like   would be a WAW case in the middle of a bunch of material that is italicized for a different reason).  And yes, it should be italicized and marked up as latinized Japanese, because it is not assimilated into English the way "karate" and "sushi" and "anime" are.  It is  "a loan word by this point", not in general English. Virtually no one knows this term but weebs/otaku; it's in the same category as bishōjo/bishoujo and moe and isekai and waifu. The fact that lots of twenty-something gamers and anime-watchers in the UK and US know these terms doesn't make them assimilated loan-words in general everyday English.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  20:49, 12 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks for commenting,  SMcCandlish. I appreciate everyone weighing in above, but I especially appreciate your commentary since you work on WP:Manual of Style material so much. And now I don't see a need to query opinions at the WP:Manual of Style talk page about this. I did watch a lot of anime in my younger years, but I rarely watch anime nowadays. And I don't read yaoi. Tried it, but not invested. Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 23:54, 12 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Most Western women would not be; there's a cultural divide here that will probably indefinitely keep this term (and genre) from being well-absorbed outside Japan.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  00:08, 13 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Hi there! I'm sorry for bringing this up three weeks later, but I have some questions about language templates that I hope you can answer (if/when you have the time). (1) Is there any difference between  and   and  ? Is one preferable to the other? (2) How should we italicize rōmaji in citations since, according to the templates' pages, we're not supposed to use "lang"/"transl"/"Nihongo" in CS1/CS2? And (3) should we also use templates for untranslated manga titles (e.g., Hi Izuru Tokoro no Tenshi), magazine titles (e.g., Barazoku), and people's names (e.g., Fujiwara no Michinaga)? Or is that overkill? Thanks in advance! KuroMina (talk) 22:22, 5 June 2020 (UTC)
 * I think the ultimate HTML output of those templates is the same, when it comes to the language markup; they just have different options. I would not use for this, because it's a huge and complex template with a lot of overhead; it is better for complex Japanese-related markup like, in the lead sentence of Sushi. I'm not sure  needs to exist any longer, given that  has been expanded to handle -Latn, though I guess the other template's usage is a couple of characters shorter.  In citations, we generally don't bother with this, though it's okay to just use bare italics in a title where it's necessary to italicize a specific element: The Origin of Yaoi and Its Meaning. But we can't use non-subst'ed (and non-clean-substituting) templates in those parameters.  Keep in mind that citations are really a form of very specific metadata (with its own metadata in turn), not regular encyclopedia content; we like them to conform to the style guide, etc., as much as possible, but not if it interferes with their central bibliographic purpose. If you have a title in Japanese, for a work written in Japanese, and add parameter ja, then that should be sufficient. For an English-translated version of the title, there is trans-title.  For quote with Japanese text in it, one could use , but putting quoted Japanese in a citation in English Wikipedia usually serves no real purpose (I could see doing it with a difficult-to-translate expression, to provide the literal original in case Japanese-fluent readers might take issue with the chosen rendering in English).  I would use  or , as appropriate, for titles of works.  Technically, we should probably also do it (with no) with personal and place and organization names (at least at first occurrence), but few ever bother.  The main potential usefulness of it is that it signals to screen readers what set of phonetics to use in attempting to pronounce it, though exactly how much real-world support there is for this right this moment (and for which languages) is unknown to me, and surely varies from one app to another. Lang markup is end-used in other ways, which often pertain to WP:REUSE; e.g., machine translation of an en.WP article into another language would (or at least should) not try to parse properly marked up non-English material as if it were English, and that will matter for various (usually short) strings like "no" and "fin" (and even some longer ones, like "shampooing" which is a noun in French!) that mean completely different things in different languages.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  13:24, 8 June 2020 (UTC); added note about subst. 06:26, 16 June 2020 (UTC)
 * comments on some of the above:
 * is merely a redirect to
 * and differ in that  allows editors to specify the standard used to make the transliteration;  does not.
 * do not use in cs1|2 citation templates except in quote or other parameters that do not contribute to the citation's metadata
 * in cs1|2 templates, when a book title, book chapter, work / website / journal / magazine / newspaper title is written in using a non-Latin script, use the appropriate script-&lt;param> with the appropriate language code; all of these also have matching trans-&lt;param>
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 13:54, 8 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Thank you so much! You guys covered everything I wanted to know and more. =) Re: "lang" and "transl": After experimenting with both, the only other difference I noticed is that the former requires an extra parameter to work inside wikilinks. For example,  as opposed to   to produce otome game. But I think I'll stick with "lang," since it was recommended the most. Thanks again for your help; I appreciate it! KuroMina (talk) 22:55, 15 June 2020 (UTC)
 * "allows editors to specify the standard used to make the transliteration" – Good point! "requires an extra parameter to work inside wikilinks" – Yeah, wikilink syntax can't handle a category or other wikilink  a wikilink, so the categorization has to be suppressed.   doesn't categorize (at least not by default).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:26, 16 June 2020 (UTC)
 * "allows editors to specify the standard used to make the transliteration" – Good point! "requires an extra parameter to work inside wikilinks" – Yeah, wikilink syntax can't handle a category or other wikilink  a wikilink, so the categorization has to be suppressed.   doesn't categorize (at least not by default).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:26, 16 June 2020 (UTC)


 * I'll disagree about waifu, since that's a case where English fans took a regular Japanese romanization and gave it its own new meaning in English. AngusWOOF  ( bark  •  sniff ) 02:34, 13 July 2020 (UTC)


 * So lang italics throughout or just on first instance? How to apply this on tsundere and kawaii articles?  What about in infoboxes?  AngusWOOF  ( bark  •  sniff ) 02:39, 13 July 2020 (UTC)


 * Strangely enough, shojo has a Merriam-Webster definition but shonen does not: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/shojo https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/shonen  AngusWOOF  ( bark  •  sniff ) 02:57, 13 July 2020 (UTC)


 * In its current state, the yaoi article https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Yaoi&oldid=967511588 is italicized with the double apostrophes instead of any of the lang or transl methods. AngusWOOF  ( bark  •  sniff ) 21:23, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

BL films
There are also live-action films categorized under the "BL" umbrella that don't have an anime or manga adaptation. Should they also be mentioned here? What about novels? lullabying (talk) 01:02, 15 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Concerns like these, along with how increasingly anachronistic the term "yaoi" is, has me coming around to the idea that "Yaoi" and "Boys' love" should be split into two separate articles, as they are on the Japanese Wikipedia (ja:やおい and ja:ボーイズラブ). The films/novels/television dramas you're describing are consistently described as "BL" or "boys' love" and never as "yaoi"; I think they should be covered on Wikipedia, but I'm not sure it makes sense to cover them in an article on "yaoi". Morgan695 (talk) 19:40, 7 November 2020 (UTC)
 * The thing is I actually believe the article should be renamed boys' love instead of yaoi, because not only is it inaccurate but recent reporting like Anime News Network is using "boys' love" instead of yaoi. Sure, "yaoi" is the term the West uses, but because this sort of media is Asia-centric in the first place I think we should respect the original terms. lullabying (talk) 20:30, 7 November 2020 (UTC)
 * If the choice is between maintaining the status quo or renaming the article I would support renaming, but I'm not sure the discussion would end any differently from the 2018 requested move discussion on this talk page, considering that "yaoi" is still widely used per WP:COMMONNAME. Morgan695 (talk) 20:35, 7 November 2020 (UTC)
 * I think if we bring up discussion about recent reporting, the definitions in Japanese, and how BL is not limited to anime and manga, we could make a good case; otherwise we can just draft a new article for boys' love. lullabying (talk) 20:38, 7 November 2020 (UTC)
 * I'm fine with launching a new discussion, to either rename or split. In any case, the current status quo isn't tenable. Morgan695 (talk) 23:26, 7 November 2020 (UTC)
 * I opened a discussion. Feel free to add your comments. lullabying (talk) 01:41, 8 November 2020 (UTC)

Updating article re: consensus on "yaoi"
As the consensus for the foreseeable future appears to be that all Japanese and Japanese-influenced homoerotic romance media should exist under the banner of "yaoi", over the last few weeks I have attempted to reorganize and expand this article in my sandbox; barring any major objections, I'll be uploading this version to the article mainspace in the coming days.

The primary change has been to split History and Terminology into their own sections, in order to provide a better overview of the terms used to describe works of this kind, and how these terms have changed over time. Some of this content is new, but much of it is pulled from the existing article, which at the moment is somewhat poorly organized (e.g. the yaoi ronsō is not mentioned until the final section where it is discussed alongside scholarly criticism and analysis, when it really belongs in a history section). It also incorporates feedback from the 2013 GA review that was abandoned by the nominator.

One area that would benefit from expansion in my current draft is the Media section re: Japanese publishing, which the GA review identified as underdeveloped (e.g. major Japanese publishers, data about revenues/sales/distribution in both commercial Japanese publishing and the doujinshi market, etc). Newer stats on the economic impact of yaoi broadly would also be beneficial, as the figures currently cited in the article are a decade old. Morgan695 (talk) 17:33, 16 November 2020 (UTC)


 * It was mentioned above that boys' love as a genre of live-action television (and film) could probably be covered in a separate article. Given the amount of coverage in scholarly and jour"Boy's Love."nalistic sources (these examples are English sources focusing on Thailand alone), it very well seems notable enough as a stand-alone topic. It's hardly covered in the current article, though. (The additions by 27.110.188.106 on 4 October are very limited and don't quite capture the big picture.) --Paul_012 (talk) 09:31, 17 November 2020 (UTC)


 * I think the best course of action for now would be to have this material in a new "Live-action television and film" section under "Media", perhaps moving down some content from "2010s–present: BL in international media" where it makes sense. If the section ends up becoming unwieldy, then we can examine splitting it into its own article. Morgan695 (talk) 16:34, 17 November 2020 (UTC)
 * I've added the new section with the sources you provided; please feel free to expand. Morgan695 (talk) 17:34, 17 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Morgan695, I think it would have been best to wait more than a day before incorporating the significant changes. When, on your talk page, I suggested you give others time to weigh in, I didn't mean a single day. I wasn't here yesterday. I'll have to look over things in the live version to see if I object to any of the changes, and I might not do that today.


 * Anyway, what do you think of what I stated above about the terms not only referring to Japanese works? Again, no need to ping me since this article is on my watchlist. Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 20:55, 17 November 2020 (UTC)


 * Pointing to the discussion from 2017 again: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Anime and manga/Archive 68. Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 21:00, 17 November 2020 (UTC)


 * I just noticed that, with this edit, you added "'Boys' love' and its abbreviation 'BL' are the generic terms for this kind of media in Japan and much of Asia." So that partly addresses what I've noted about the terms not only being used for Japanese works. Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 21:08, 17 November 2020 (UTC)


 * I wouldn't foresee a problem with this article covering yaoi/BL manhua, as it is within the scope of "fictional media originating in Japan that features homoerotic relationships between male characters." My interpretation of "originating" in this context doesn't mean that the article covers Japanese works exclusively, just that it covers works influenced the specific expression of male-male romance fiction that emerged in Japan in the 1970s and not simply male-male romance fiction in a broad sense. Though depending on how in-depth we want to cover these topics (e.g. if we want to fully cover the history/themes/media/demography of Chinese BL, the history/themes/media/demography of Thai BL, etc. in a way that is comparable to the level of detail currently devoted to Japanese BL/yaoi), I think the argument for splitting the article becomes stronger. Morgan695 (talk) 21:52, 17 November 2020 (UTC)


 * Per what I stated in the discussion, the article should not be split in the way you suggested. We should not have both a "Yaoi" and a "Boy's Love" article. Not to mention that it would be seen as contravening the WP:Consensus regarding the title of this article. If you need the opinion of another significantly experienced editor on what is deemed a WP:Redundant fork and/or WP:POV fork, SMcCandlish, who also commented above, can provide more insight on that. Splitting, if needed (and I don't yet see that it's needed), can be validly done. We have WP:Spinoff articles, of course. But a spin-off article in this case would be something titled "Yaoi-inspired works in Asia", "Boy's Love in Korea", or similar, and so on if needed. It would be a spin-off article specifically about the area in question.


 * I know that "originating" doesn't mean that the article needs to cover Japanese works exclusively. I was simply pointing to something I noted before. And you can see what others stated in that discussion. Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 23:53, 17 November 2020 (UTC)
 * I agree that at this time there's nothing like enough evidence to support a topical split; as noted above (in the post-RM comments), we'll need to do more research, and much of it may need to be done considerably later, after any in-progress usage shifts have settled out. It's entirely possible these terms will fork, in the real world, and also entirely possible that they will not.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  01:11, 18 November 2020 (UTC)


 * It should be pointed out that, despite what some editors (from both sides of the debate) seem to have concluded, the requested move did not result in a consensus to keep - nor to move, which, of course, means that the page was not moved. But it should not be said that there was any consensus that the page should stay at the current title, either, because that would not be accurate. (Though that is what will be for the present time). (See the closer's comments). Firejuggler86 (talk) 10:14, 18 November 2020 (UTC)
 * I agree; my intention wasn't to suggest that the matter is settled, just to acknowledge that barring a sudden mass shift in language use, this article is going to be called "Yaoi" for at least another two years. Morgan695 (talk) 17:22, 18 November 2020 (UTC)


 * Firejuggler86, regarding my statement that "it would be seen as contravening the WP:Consensus regarding the title of this article", a no-consensus close defaults to the WP:Status quo. And the status quo is usually (or just often) the previous consensus. So when it comes to WP:Consensus can change, consensus has not changed in this case. And going by a headcount alone, more people are so far against moving the article to "Boy's Love." So, yes, splitting the article would be contravening our WP:Consensus policy. It would be getting around the "no consensus" outcome. WP:NOCONSENSUS states, in part, "In article title discussions (WP:TITLECHANGES), the policy gives a default action for a no-consensus result: 'If it has never been stable, or it has been unstable for a long time, and no consensus can be reached on what the title should be, default to the title used by the first major contributor after the article ceased to be a stub.'" Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 23:21, 19 November 2020 (UTC)


 * In the case of this article, the title has been stable for years. And was subject to a move a discussion a year before this one, where the result was "Not moved": Talk:Yaoi/Archive 3. Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 23:27, 19 November 2020 (UTC)