What's the difference between yaoi & shounen-ai?!
Question: they're both dudexdude right?
Answers: they're both dudexdude right?
Yaoi is mega explicit with the...er-hem scenes and stuff (umm...think...Sensitive Pornograph...omg I never watch yaoi that explicit...O_o) and Shounen-ai focuses more on the cute lil relationship and contains just light fluff-ness (think Gravitation) ^^ I love Shounen-ai manga =)
they r the same but yaoi could be soft core and hard core old or young but shonen ai are teenage boys and yea
Shounen-ai is a lot lighter with kissing and stuff. Yaoi has more like full on sex in it. Both are guy on guy though.
Both terms are descriptions for homosexual relationships in manga.
However, yaoi, is more graphic and explicit whereas shounen-ai is much lighter fare in comparison to yaoi. I haven't personally read shounen-ai but I'm pretty sure that kissing and hugging is generally as graphic as it gets.
Sounen-ai normally only shows the relationship and not what happens in bed. You can expect a lot of kissing in shounen-ai, but not a lot else. If there is more, then it's just heavily suggested (like silhouettes or something).
Yaoi normally focuses on all the stuff shounen-ai leaves out. Most of it is pretty much just porn. Some don't even have a plot and many don't even bother with the relationship part of the story and just start out with the smut or the two guys get in the relationship unrealistically fast.
I read both. ^^
Anyway, there's also shota, which involves underage boys. Loveless is an example of Shota.
And then there's shoujo-ai, yuri, and loli, which are the girlxgirl counterparts. Yuri that gets as graphic as yaoi is really hard to find, though, and loli is incredibly common and even published and sold in America.
Translations/origins: Shounen-ai means "boys love". Yaoi is acronym that stands for "YAma nashi Ochi nashi Imi nashi", which means "no climax, no resolution, no meaning". Shota comes from one of the first anime. The main character's name was Shotaru and had a large, older woman following. These women were described as having a "Shotaru Complex", which was then shortened to "shotacon" and then "shota". Shoujo-ai means girl's love. Yuri comes from an early manga that pitted a clan of gay men against a clan of lesbian women. The lesbian clan was known as the "white lily" or "yuri" clan. Loli earned it's name similar to the way shota did. Most people know what lolita fashion is, where people dress like young girls who look like dolls. People obsessed with this look were described as having a "Lolita Complex" and the name shortened from there.
yea beats me....yaoi's exact meaning is gay...and shonen-ai is boy x boy love....well i guess in japanese terms they have more words for one thing