What does shounen ai mean

Makoto why is this a duplicate? MichaelMcQuade: The duplicate has answers which cover most if not all of this terminology. The fact that a magazine name came up does make the answer below more relevant, but by and large I still believe this to be answered well by the existing question. Add a comment. Active Oldest Votes. Boys Love Yaoi and Boys-Love are basically the same thing and can be used interchangeably.

Improve this answer. Prada Prada 6 6 silver badges 18 18 bronze badges. Leo Gray Leo Gray 1. As yaoi has been long aimed towards smut and female audiences who enjoy the sort of taboo and drama, bara is for gay men and often made by gay men.

The men are less pretty and more aimed at being manly and handsome. In short, yaoi is traditionally lewder while shounen ai is mild romance — both are between two men. While not always the case these days, typically if you get a series with the yaoi tag, you are going to get to see some skin.

Usually no more than PG rated. Non-homophobic soccor moms would have no problem with shounen-ai. A genre for manga and anime, as well as fanfiction.

Means 'boy's love'. What do you guys think? That's basically it. Yaoi is about sex and shounen-ai is about relationships.

I'm pretty sure. Chiibi said: That's basically it. Shounen-ai is an anime genre, yaoi on the other hand is hentai. Yaoi is a legit term for gay romance that people keep associating with hentai despite the term in its original context is used for any age and content rating.

Chiibi said: jal90 said: "Shonen-ai" is basically a bad attempt to translate the term "boys love" to Japanese, and has actually a creepy as fuck meaning in Japan. Chiibi said: Never mind; lol I looked it up. Shounen ai is just a term MAL uses for soft yaoi. I think its mostly about rating. Yaoi has always sex scenes when shonen ai doesnt.