Yaoi

Yaoi, Boy's love (abbreviated BL) and Shounen-ai (少年愛, lit. "boy love") are all terms that refer to a genre of visual novels, manga, anime and other media featuring gay romances between men. Traditionally and especially in japan, yaoi (a portmanteau of a japanese phrase meaning "no climax, no point, no meaning" has been used for more sexually explicit works, with BL and shounen-ai referring less explicit romance stories. All of these terms traditionally refer to media where the main target audience is female: the japanese term for stories featuring gay romance written for gay men is Bara (also called "Mens love").

These differences are not as pronounced in the western visual novel scene; Yaoi and Boys Love are often used interchangably to refer to male-male romance stories of any maturity rating.

Examples

• VNs featuring Boy x Boy romance on VNDB ^[VNDB]
• VNs tagged Yaoi on Itch.io

See also

• Boy's Love on Wikipedia for more history of the Japanese genre outside of visual novels
• Yaoi jam, an annual two-month game jam focused on yaoi games
• Bara VNs on VNDB ^[VNDB]