“It is universal love beyond homosexuality and gender difference”: critical media discourse analysis of boys’ love dramas in Japan

ABSTRACT

Through a critical media discourse analysis of boys’ love (BL) dramas in Japan, this study analyses how cultural works on same-sex romance have been publicised and perceived in the Japanese society. Text was collected from comments from the production team and actors on the official websites of productions, introductions, commentaries, and interviews in the media, and comments from fans on the official websites. Norman Fairclough’s (2003) three-dimensional model was used to examine how discourse practice is contextualised in relation to the wider society and culture. This study shows that the BL category is stigmatised as something to be overcome, and the discourse of “going beyond” is used favourably, making the underlying homophobia and misogyny unquestionable. The study criticises the potential for “universalisation” beyond “transcending” BL and gender, emphasising the importance of the commonality and universal messages as human beings, while bleaching out the unique aspects of experience due to gender and/or sexual orientation. It is essential to critically examine the sociocultural implications of the production and consumption of BL drama, focusing on whether it fosters positive change in society, rather than altering the genre to conform to a notion of “universal love” to appeal to a wider audience.

KEYWORDS:

• Boys’ love
• drama
• critical discourse analysis
• queer media
• transnational fandom

Introduction

In May 2023, the movie Monster directed by Kore-eda Hirokazu won the Queer Palm at the Cannes Film Festival, an award for films on LGBTQ+ and queer subjects. Monster is a queer-representational film that employs the Rashomon effect, using a story of children, their parents, and schoolteachers in a suburban Japanese town, to depict the central characters-two primary-school boys drawn to each other. At a press conference in Cannes, the director was asked by a British journalist whether there were not enough films addressing LGBTQ issues in Japan. He replied that he saw Monster as “a story about a boy’s internal struggle, rather than as an LGBTQ-specific film. It could sprout in anyone’s heart” (Mainichi Shimbun 2023) (emphasis added). In addition, at the media preview, a warning was given not to “spoil” the portrayal of the two children regarding their queerness, sparking criticisms and discussion among queer film scholars, the LGBTQ+ community and allies, and boys’ love (BL) fans on social media. Concerns were raised that the queerness attributed to children enduring the pain of expectations of being “normal” could be concealed by asserting that the film was “not LGBTQ-specific.” Additionally, the discourse could trivialise the experiences of possibly sexual minority children who face discrimination, absurdity, and violence daily in contemporary Japanese society, reducing them into something universal (Yutaka Kubo 2023) (emphasis added).

In response to the criticisms, the director explained that it is not queerness that is hidden, but “our perpetration” (Asahi Shimbun Digital 2024). He revealed that he had been in contact with the film company about keeping that part of the process hidden, as it involved understanding that “the monster” depicted in the movie was “ourselves” (Asahi Shimbun Digital 2024). Mizuki Kodama, a film writer in the dialogue session with the director, highlighted that creators who identify with the majority have frequently stated that it is not “your story” (referring to minorities’/queer’s story, added by the author) but “everyone’s story” (Asahi Shimbun Digital 2024).

The focus of this study is not to examine or criticise the appropriateness of the language and methods used in the film’s publicity to explain queer content. Instead, it aims to identify the sociocultural context in which the discourse was interpreted in Japanese society, why it was problematised, and why it led to criticism. Behind the criticism, there has been prejudice and discrimination by the Japanese media around queer productions, including BL dramas, the main focus of this study.

Although works with homosexual representation, such as Egoist (2023, film) and My Brother’s Husband (2018, TV drama), are frequently produced in Japan, the most powerful form of queer content has been BL drama productions. BL has evolved from fiction for women created in the form of shojo manga (girl’s comic) to a genre that overcomes heterosexual norms, homophobia, and misogyny, portraying an alternative world different from reality (Akiko Mizoguchi 2015). LGBTQ+ works, in contrast, are defined as focusing on issues that LGBTQ+ people face in reality. In practice, however, the boundaries between the two categories are becoming increasingly vague. Regarding the works themselves, stories depicting discrimination and the acquisition of rights for sexual minorities are prevalent, particularly in Thai BL dramas. Similarly, BL dramas from Taiwan, the first Asian country to legalise same-sex marriage, also reflect the reality faced by LGBTQ+ people under the title of BL drama.

BL content is queer cultural work that elicits queer-reading (Thomas Baudinette 2023, Sae Shimauchi 2024b; James Welker 2022). There are many people with diverse queer identities in the BL audience, including those who outwardly identify as women, considered the main audience of BL productions, but internally identify as queer (e.g., aromantic, asexual, or pansexual individuals) (Sae Shimauchi 2024a). Reflecting previous research about BL, the author takes the stance that there is no clear line between BL and LGBTQ+/queer media, as many BL studies show that BL is a useful tool for unsettling gender and sexual norms and cannot be separated from LGBTQ+ issues (Welker 2022). Specifically, this study focuses on Japanese BL dramas broadcast as TV series or distributed online, analysing media discourses to clarify how cultural works addressing same-sex love have been disseminated, publicised, and accepted in Japan.

Research methods

The study used qualitative research approaches and critical discourse analysis (CDA). First, the author conducted approximately 4 years of participatory observation—online for the first 2 years during the pandemic followed by offline—of BL drama fandom as a researcher with two identities: those of an academic and a fan. Since March 2020, the author has been following BL dramas created mainly from Japan, South Korea, Thailand, and Taiwan; real-time fandom trends on X (Twitter) and other platforms; and media coverage. The author participated in various online and offline fan activities, such as fan subbing, simultaneous commentary on dramas, hashtag activities, and onsite fan meetings and events. The author is a native Japanese speaker, who uses Japanese, English, and Korean for information input, but mainly uses Japanese for output and interaction. This active participation allowed the author to gain knowledge and insights, engage in fandom discussions, and establish a cohort with other fans. The BL drama fandom initially expanded as digital fandom, but as the pandemic subsided in 2022, fan activities proceeded to offline modes, such as fan meetings and concerts. The author employed the perspective of previous studies, such as Patryk Galuszka (2015) and Qian Zhang and Keith Negus (2020), who view fandom as an arena for analysing and understanding self and others, and the will to influence the social world rather than seeing data fandom as a consumer space for popular culture.

Second, a CDA approach was followed to unravel the discourses of the media and producers. As was the case in the film publicity mentioned in the introduction, media discourses have the power to constitute the reality of the human mind and society. Discourse analysis is the study of a discourse, including its context (Tatsuya Sato, Hideaki Kasuga and Mami Kanzaki 2019). CDA reveals how media discourse practices abound in everyday life, such as when they produce and reproduce social and political domination and unbalanced power relations between social classes, men and women, and majority and minority groups (Ruth Wodak and Michael Meyer 2015). This study employs Fairclough’s (2003) three-dimensional model and divides texts used in the media discourse on BL drama into three phases: text, discourse practice, and sociocultural practice. The model considers discourse practice as a dynamic phase that includes both the production and consumption of texts, and how this discourse practice can be contextualised in relation to the wider society and culture.

Although BL dramas are produced in many countries and have a transnational reach, this study specifically focuses on Japanese BL TV dramas. While BL fans consume productions from various countries, there are still many Japanese fans who only watch Japanese BL dramas. Japanese BL dramas have recently started to be distributed in global platforms such as Gagaoolala; however, TV dramas are first and foremost made with the Japanese audience in mind. In this sense, Japanese BL dramas offer an ideal subject for scrutinising the production and media discourse within the context of Japanese sociocultural norms. Additionally, unlike novels, comics, and other two-dimensional works, drama works have stronger links to reality, performed by real actors, and TV dramas series are more accessible to a wider public than films, including those who are not BL fans; thus, it is possible to collect discourses aimed at a wider audience. Lastly, as a native Japanese speaker and acafan living and working in Japanese society, I believe this research can contribute to international academic discussions by shedding light on how Japanese BL dramas are discussed within Japan itself.

In this study, the author focused on 10 BL dramas that were broadcast on TV, had been completed at the start of this study (January 2023), and had been widely distributed through multiple platforms. The text collected included (i) introductions of the works on their official websites; (ii) comments and interviews from the production team (e.g., directors and scriptwriters) and actors, (iii) introductions and commentaries of the works by the media, and (iv) impressions and comments from fans collected on the official websites of the BL dramas. Fan opinions on the drama are diverse, and it is impossible for either the official website or the author to represent them all. However, the fact that the media has selected fan comments among the many impressions and opinions shows the intended or desirable representation of fans’ viewpoints.

Transnational queer media and its meanings in Japan and Asia

BL and other queer discourses are accruing an increasingly strong transnational visibility both within East Asian media ecologies and globally (John Lessard 2019). BL emerged in Japan in the 1970s and has developed in various media forms, including manga (comics), novels, anime, and TV drama. In the early 1990s, BL manga depicting intimate relationships, romance, and sexuality between men became widely read, and fan fiction based on characters and scripts from existing non-BL manga and anime, as well as the use of real idols and famous people for “shipping” (i.e., practice of pairing characters or real persons) and “real person slash” (i.e., fan fiction depicting romantic or sexual relationships between real persons) became widespread (Mark McLelland and James Welker 2015; Akiko Mizoguchi 2023). The latter included fan activities based on the desire for the relationship itself, such as shipping K-pop group members or Japanese idols in groups, or fan art and creations based on the relationship. BL studies in Japan have focused on the question of why Japanese women prefer BL, which has been linked to a rebellion against society’s image of women, a desire for equal relationships and female sexuality (Akiko Hori and Naoko Mori 2020), as well as a focus on women and the rediscovery of femininity within the framework of feminism and gender studies (Kazumi Nagaike 2015).

BL is also recognised as a subcultural and trans-regional formation that has spread across Asia playing a counter-public role in terms of challenging mainstream heteronormative narratives (Alvin K Wong 2020). BL is “an inclusive and powerful mental tool (…) to think out of the box” (Yanrui Xu and Ling Yang 2013, 40), and some studies imply that boys love and feminism merge to form a counter-hegemony (Jiang Chang and Hao Tian 2020).

In the face of these studies pointing to the power and potential of BL as content in society, how do fans of BL dramas, which are performed by real-life actors and watched with a strong social connection, negotiate such realistic BL content with the real world? In Liang Ge’s (2022) study, young female fans of the Chinese drama The Untamed self-organised within a counterpublic (i.e., a subset of the public sphere that is resistance to dominant culture). Within this context, they internalise heterosexual discourses and a sense of heteronormative censorship as a strategy for negotiating censorship imposed by state power. The research also argues that a misogynistic sensibility is pervasive in two forms of ambivalence: marginalising the “doing” subjectivity of female characters in homosexual narratives and instrumentalising women as support players in male-to-male romances (Ge 2022). Wong (2020) argues that the incestuous brotherhood in the drama Addicted challenges dominant ideas of family-relatedness in China, providing a queer expression of the audience’s hidden desires and an alternative mode of transcending the structural constraints of neoliberalism and heteronormativity. Likewise, in their reception of Thai BL dramas, Filipino fans created new meanings within the Thai BL text and re-territorialised their consumptions to Filipino’s specific social experiences to produce knowledge that challenged the heteronormative nature of their lives (Thomas Baudinette 2020). Kaibin Xu and Yan Tan (2021) conclude that the reception of works depicting homosexuality, such as Call Me by Your Name, gives female audiences possibilities, activism, and “power” to view gender in diverse ways and practice it (e.g., building alliances against homophobia), and discuss how live-action homosexual content is (or could be) connected to real-life fan behaviour and social change. While all of these discuss how queer media such as BL and LGBTQ+ works are interpreted and accepted by fans and how they are connected to different real-world contexts, there is still little analysis of the media discourses that guide people’s acceptance.

Japan’s BL media has a number of globally popular BL content such as manga, novels, drama CDs, live-action dramas and films. However, it is only in the last few years that multiple BL dramas have been broadcast on terrestrial television around the same time and made available to the general public in Japan. In the background, there was a Thai BL drama boom during Japan’s nationwide “stay-at-home” period at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic triggered and provided a major boost to the quantitative expansion of BL drama and its entry into the mass media in Japan (Takashi Wakamatsu 2023). BL drama fandoms among the Japanese audience have formed on social networking sites along with the popularity of Thai BL dramas, as well as BL dramas from Japan, Taiwan, China, South Korea, the Philippines, and other countries (Sae Shimauchi 2023). Imaginary BL communities transform identity and sexual desire to resist patriarchal hegemony, empowering female audiences to self-actualise. Examples of women’s sovereignty and energy regarding identity construction include the creation of fan subtitles and secondary productions, which create virtual spaces and advanced utopias for female audiences to exercise power through self-expression and decision-making through sexual desire recognition (Shuying Liang 2022). Transnational BL viewing provides a relative and comparative perspective on BL and its societal context (Shimauchi 2024b). Given the potentially diverse reception of BL narratives, this study is a critical attempt to examine the media discourse of BL drama series in Japan by analysing how the media on the side of BL drama production publicise and package BL, and what fan opinions ensure representation.

Making BL an invisible category

In Japan, it has been argued that BL is a “fantasy” allowing women to escape the social reality of gender inequality and avoid sexualisation or become the subject to see men from their previous subordinate position and objectified sexual existence in a sexist society (Hori and Mori 2020; Chunyu Zhang 2016). Moreover, the embracement of BL and creative fan activities have developed a genre enjoyed by women, sometimes containing sexualised expressions as means of challenging and resisting heteronormativity and the existing hierarchical gender order for women and queer identities (Hori and Mori 2020).

However, neither the BL media nor its fans have been in the limelight from the outset. A recent survey of BL readers found that 60% of women surveyed considered it as something that should be “hidden and enjoyed” (Mai Sato and Hitoshi Ishida 2022). Previous studies on BL consumption in Japan describe the norm that fujoshi (a self-mocking label that transforms a polite term for “women and girls” into a novel term meaning “rotten girls/women;” Welker 2022, 13) must hide their interests and tastes outside of their peer group (Hori and Mori 2020). There are frequent cases represented of fan fiction writers suddenly disappearing from the fandom once their consumption of BL were known by their family (Sayaka Oki 2020). This “hiding” is also evident in the question posed by the media interviewer in the following case:

Interviewee: I think that by categorising it into the BL genre in an easy-to-understand way, it is rather making it difficult for people to look at it.

(…)

Screenwriter: I understand. Of course, I don’t mean to deny the feelings of those who like BL. But I understand that some people have a sense of resistance to the BL genre. That’s why I don’t use the word “BL” when I promote it on Twitter. I wish there was some new word for it, though.

(Yoshiaki Yokogawa 2020, Interview with the screenwriter of Cherry Magic) (emphasis added)

I’d never read much BL before, but when I read it, I found it to be very… not so much BL, but the characters were so good that I didn’t mind that it was a love story between men at all.

(Minato Shoji Coin Laundry TV Drama official visual book 2022, director’s comments from a group interview with the production team) (emphasis added)

An individual’s ignorance and prejudice towards the genre/category of BL is assumed, and the assumption of a “public” that would have similar prejudices, and an unquestioning attitude towards it.

BL is a diverse genre and is further diversifying as it is consumed and accepted transnationally. Examples include drama series, such as The Warp Effect (Thailand, 2023), which depicts diverse themes such as LGBTQ+ representations, feminism, various gender identity and expression, various gender identity and expression, and fluctuating sexualities; Choco Milk Shake (South Korea, 2023), depicting a romantic reunion with a pet revived as a human; The Eighth Sense (South Korea, 2023), depicting the toxicity of homosociality and mental health issues; Minato Shoji Coin Laundry (Japan, 2022), showing the love affair between men of different ages (i.e., a promising high school student and a social dropout); My Beautiful Man (Japan, 2021–2023), about a relationship between a high school student at the top and bottom of the school caste. These works are considered innovative and experimental in live action and include “deeper, nuanced narratives” (Drama_Llama 2023).

However, the creators and disseminators of BL content in Japan seem to be thinking about removing the category of BL rather than trying to show the richness and potential of the world in which BL can be expressed understood by the masses. In What Did You Eat Yesterday? (Japan, 2022), the lead actor playing a gay man in a relationship said that he “thought that this is a story that was done quietly in the middle of the night, so I am a bit embarrassed that it’s going to be shown on the big screen in the theatre” (Oricon News 2021, emphasis added).

Furthermore, the stigma attached to the BL category comes not only from the production side, but also from the audience of these dramas. Direct prejudices frequently appear in the preliminaries of the drama’s praise comments, such as “I felt uncomfortable with BL works before watching them” or “I undervalued BL dramas before … ” (emphasis added). Comments such as “Such a handsome and good actor in a BL drama⁉” (viewer comment on Pornographer (2021) official website, emphasis added) and “It became a very good time for being able to broadcast so-called BL dramas even on terrestrial TV programme” (viewer comment on Old Fashion Cupcake (2022) official website, emphasis added) imply that BL dramas are of a lower social reputation than non-BL, heteronormative dramas, and people assume that capable actors would not appear in BL dramas. This is a case of benevolent discrimination, based on assumptions and a favourable view of the social changes that have led to BL dramas being shown on terrestrial TV shows, while simultaneously making a taboo of male—male relationships unquestionable.

Some people may find the sexual expressions uncomfortable to watch and Nagira’s (the original author of the novel My Beautiful Man, added by the author) sexual expressions are not too sensual but just right, so BL beginners can read smoothly.

(Fumika Makishima 2023, online review of My Beautiful Man) (emphasis added)

This is just my personal opinion, but I think the term BL is a bit too strongly associated with sexual image.

(Yokogawa 2020, interview with the scriptwriter of Cherry Magic) (emphasis added)

As mentioned above, despite the diversity of BL representations, only one aspect of consuming sexual image is overemphasised and stigmatised. The “beyond BL” discourse here is used to deal with the internalised stigma caused by this ignorance and biased understanding, and to praise dramas depicting homosexuality with fewer sexual images. For example, in discourses such as “I think it is a sensitive drama that adults can enjoy beyond the category of BL” (viewer comment on Old Fashion Cupcake (2022) official website, emphasis added) and “I was moved to tears by the pure love that transcended the genre of BL works and fell in love with the beauty of the images” (viewer comment on Pornographer (2021) official website, emphasis added), the BL category is treated as something that has to be shed or overcome to be used in the context of a positive evaluation of the drama. Moreover, what emerges after going “beyond BL” is “universality,” referring to an element that the great majority can relate to.

Loving “beyond” homosexuality and embracing “universal” love

Recurring in each of these discourses—the drama’s producers, media, and feedback from viewers employed by the media—are the expressions “beyond (gender difference/sex or BL)” and “universal.” Critical discourse analysis examines the discourse itself, meaning of the words “beyond” and “universal,” context in which these words are used, structure in which they are placed, ideology behind them, and finally, the meaning of these words as used in relation to Japanese BL drama and society.

The messages from the media, including content creators and public relations, are not specifically directed at BL fans but at the public, including those who are completely unfamiliar with BL. The “universality” used here assumes that the cisgender, heterosexual majority, who are the major recipients of the drama, already share and understand “a certain kind of universality.” In the background, there is a further assumption that homosexuality and BL content are different from that “universality” and are clothed in a negative image that is different from the “universal” norm. The discourses of “beyond (gender/sex/BL)” and “universal” are advertising strategies under the logic that “we”, the great majority, can enjoy, accept, and acknowledge the BL dramas because it can be “no different from us,” while the assumptions of its general population are unquestioned.

Enjoy the frustrating but heart-fluttering storyline that goes beyond the concept of “sex,” empathising with the “freshness, fragility and sadness of youth.”

(Introduction, My Beautiful Man 2021, official website) (emphasis added)

It portrays so beautifully the universal love affair beyond times and gender difference and the struggles of adolescence that it has created a legion of enthusiastic fans (Naoko Yamamoto 2023, review of My Beautiful Man).

(emphasis added)

It’s a story of pure love between people. I was happy to be able to express my love for Akira, who is the same sex, as “universal love.”

(Comment by cast, Life official website) (emphasis added)

It’s not just a boy-meets-boy romance, but a sensitive portrayal of the problems we all have, the worries about the future, and the feelings connected to the past, so please watch with excitement.

(Actor’s interview, Minato Shoji Coin Laundry official website) (emphasis added)

What is intended in these discourses is that it is possible to fall in love with anyone, whatever one’s gender identity or sexual orientation (the existence of aromantic people, for example, is ignored in this discourse). Additionally, there are feelings and experiences in human love that are shared by many people, such as feelings for another person or facing up to oneself through loving somebody; these feelings and experiences make homosexuality and heterosexuality barriers non-existent. Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick (2015) considered homosexuality to have a minority viewpoint and the universal viewpoint, and that sexuality, including heterosexuality, can change from the universal viewpoint. Gender and sexuality can be fixed and determined for some people and fluid for others, so the discourse of “beyond” or “universal” is not completely wrong in its text itself. On the other hand, sexual minorities face their own problems and struggles because of their gender or sexuality, especially when the society around them is not open enough for diversity. Although each of the above BL works depicts a unique boy’s love story, the discourse of “beyond gender difference/sex” can bleach out the unique, not “universal” aspects of experience by their gender and sexual orientation.

Discourses on going “beyond” the frameworks of “sex,” “gender,” “BL,” and “universalising” are used in all aspects of BL dramas. For example, in Kieta Hatsukoi (My Love Mix up), which was performed by popular male idols in 2021, the official website and publicity did not use the terms BL or homosexual love, but instead stated that “age and gender are irrelevant! It is packaged as a ‘first love comedy’ that portrays the pure emotion of ‘love’ in a fresh way with laughter and excitement” (Kieta Hatsukoi 2021 official website, emphasis added). The feeling of “butterflies” was actively promoted through mass media and social media, specifically as the two leading actors were popular male idols on the market. The fact that the male idols in the series are mainly supported by heterosexual women, and that they themselves are supposed to be heterosexual male idols, might be connected with the way of publicity that they have been trying to evoke romantic feelings in their female fans. In the study of Japanese male idols, it has been pointed out that fans who had a pseudo-love-like perspective in the 1990s have developed to having an “observer” perspective that focuses on the relationships between members (Izumi Tsuji 2012). Many idol fans engage in shipping between same-sex members, and the idols themselves acknowledge and support their relationships, for example, by self-identifying themselves with the names of their ships with other members. Meanwhile, such interpretations and creations by fans are treated as heretic and considered as something to be hidden. On the surface, special relationship stories in the BL drama between boys are done as a device to provide a “heart-pounding” that makes women feel romantic feelings using a man’s body. The problem with this structure is that there is a force at work that is thoroughly publicised in accordance with heterosexual norms on the media market, while the market recognition of the reading of homosexual codes is taking place; yet the latter is thoroughly kept out of the public eye. In the actual drama, a kissing scene was not filmed, despite many attempted kisses being staged and the original manga depicts intimate scenes between men, including kissing. If “the act of appearing to provide allegiance to issues of queer visibility and then failing to provide this in any tangible way” (Joseph Brennan 2019) is queerbaiting, then it could be said that this structure itself is queerbaiting.

In Japan, specifically around 1992–1995, when the number of commercial BL magazines and labels increased, debate over yaoi (an earlier Japanese label for BL also used in Korea, Welker 2022, 5)—the so-called “yaoi debate” arose, consisting largely of the criticism that BL (then called yaoi) was not created by gay men nor did it accurately represent their lives (Naoya Maekawa 2020; Mizoguchi 2023). In response, BL authors and BL lovers began to realise that they could not ignore gays in the real world and have evolved, overcoming homophobia and misogyny, including a world where homosexuality is not discriminated against and is easy to live in, and women who were previously not allowed to exist in the BL world are also portrayed in various ways (Mizoguchi 2015, 2023). Additionally, Maekawa (2020) noted that as BL has diversified and some portrayals become closer to real gay men, and the social environment surrounding them have also become closer to the world depicted in BL. While there are still voices that BL does not fully represent sexual minorities in reality,¹ transnational BL drama is beginning to correspond with real society (Shimauchi 2024b) and is working in part to present an alternative ideal world that is different from the current queerphobic Japanese society.

With its emphasis on countering dominant heterosexual norms, queer theory combines two contradictory orientations, asserting diverse differences in gender, race, ethnic culture and others, while simultaneously promoting solidarity by questioning the contours of identity categories based on universality (Kayo Takeuchi 2023, emphasis added). At the individual level, there is the possibility that viewing boys’ love as universal love may work as a logic of liberation from their respective discriminatory attitudes and stereotypes towards homosexuality. Discourses of “universality” may be expressed as practices of individual understanding, and they should not be dismissed.

However, going “beyond”’ and “universalising” gender difference/sex or BL from mass media, not from queer sides, leads in the direction of trying to specifically bleach or de-colourise being homosexual while emphasising the importance of the commonality and universal messages we have as human beings. Moreover, there is an underlying prejudice against women’s consumption of sexual contents, in addition to discrimination against homosexuality itself. The overlap between homophobia and misogyny is unquestioned, and BL and homosexuality are bleached/decoloured in a favourable context and “universalised” in the same way as the majority.

Such activities of trivialising homosexuality have been practised in neighbouring Confucian countries with strong patriarchal and heterosexual norms. Wenhsiang Su (2021) states that the Korean society is under the influence of dogmatic and conservative social rules that regard same-sex relationships as against the social order, and the concept of “bromance” functions as a relationship that slips through the boundary between sexual (homosexual) and non-sexual (homosocial) acts and serves to maintain the integrity of heteronormativity. Against a backdrop of social development and increased awareness of sexuality, intimate interactions between men are praised as spiritual, meaning the elevation of homosocial behaviour, and in many cases the concept of “bromance” is used to draw a line from homosexuality. For example, for the 2017 film The Merciless, a crime suspense about betrayal, revenge, and a special relationship between the second in command of a criminal gang and a young ex-cop who meet in prison, the director was told by the investment company that he could not make the film if it emphasised too much on the protagonist’s homosexuality; therefore, he removed that depiction. In South Korea, love stories between men are less likely to receive immediate investment, and instead “bromance” is emphasised more in the PR and marketing process (Jiyeon Seo 2017). In this article, “bromance” is used in a sense that is distinct from homosexuality: “Nowadays, audiences prefer two top leads to one top lead and prefer films where they can see the chemistry between the actors. ‘Bromance’ refers to these chemistries and is different from homosexuality,” quoting the chief of a film investment company. As Korean society has previously been queerphobic and there is no official discourse on queerness (Jungmin Kwon 2023; Jin Lee 2013), there is an aspect of the category of “bromance” being conveniently used as an explanatory variable for relationships between men to avoid harming the heterosexual society.

In China, despite strict censorship of media content by official authorities, BL has slipped through censorship by adaptations that strengthen the relationship between men’s social connections and weaken one-to-one relationships between men (Erin Mi Zhou 2024). In a discussion of how the production, distribution, and interpretation of queer narratives in the drama series Guardian have developed under online fandom and state censorship, the practices surrounding the queer interpretation of dramas have developed in various modes in response to the state’s overt aversion to homosexuality, and that by using the discourse of “socialist brotherhood,” they have suppressed their own fan activities in an attempt to escape heteronormative state censorship (Eve Ng and Xiaomeng Li 2020).

Media, producers, and viewers attempt to hide homosexuality for various reasons within different national, social and cultural contexts. If BL in Korea is sometimes given the cover of “bromance,” in Japan it is “universal love.” It is interesting to observe the comparison between different societies, where the action of censorship in Japanese BL fandom seems to be initiated from the masses in a bottom-up approach, contrasting with the top-down approach from authority, as seen in China. By bleaching the particularity of homosexuality and treating it as something “universal” that the majority can understand, a rhetoric of “not different from the majority,” and by using the discourse of “transcending” the BL framework in a favourable context, the discriminatory perspective towards homosexuality becomes unquestionable.

Conclusion: How to go beyond the “beyond” discourse

I wanted to portray and face the fact that “loving someone has nothing to do with gender.” However, the reality is that “gender has a lot to do with loving someone” in this country. (…) As long as we live in this country, we need to know, think and face the way things are, not putting this fact aside as “love is precious and gender is irrelevant,” and not separating it as fiction.

(Director’s Instagram post for Minato Shoji Coin Laundry, Yuuka Eda 2022) (emphasis added)

Fans also utilize the media discourse of “beyond the boundaries of BL” and “universal love” as a canned phrase in the context of praising works. While this is a manifestation of the internalised stigma of BL among fans, a counter-discourse is emerging that criticises it as unconscious self-deprecation. Unlike the orientation towards universality in queer theory, there is a problem with Japanese sociocultural practice in that this “beyond” and “universal” discourse is used not from or towards queer people, but from or for a general audience. Among BL works in other media publicised in Japan, the words “universal” and “beyond” have been used in various contexts and are not new expressions in themselves. However, through the process of BL media being extremely diversified and the stories of BL being divided into numerous genres (Numan 2022), these discourses have become clichéd, and the characteristics and richness of the content of each work are expressed in a more explicit, descriptive, and literary way.²

Rather than word-hunting the discourses of going “beyond” BL and “universal” love, it is necessary to critically examine how homosexuality is viewed as a social issue in the context in which it is spoken and expressed, leading to change on the part of society and the majority. This is a problem that must be tackled in the future, with not going “beyond” the framework of BL drama, but “by the BL genre,” including the producers, media professionals, and viewers. This does not mean pandering to the masses by cancelling out the BL genre and converting it into a “universal” romance which everyone understands. It is about the media and viewers understanding that BL is a genre that does not end in fantasy, but has the potential to change the perception of real society, based on the trends that have been built up so far in transnational consumption and acceptance of the genre.

Previously, BL dramas included real-life social issues, ranging from social discrimination and prejudice against homosexuals and the anguish of the people involved, to those in which “homosexuality is not a hurdle in the story at all” (Daisuke Watanuki 2021) and homosexuality itself is normalised. Furthermore, in Thai BL dramas, the drama Not Me (2022) depicted a parade for marriage equality while Cutie Pie (2022) discussed the importance of sexual minority rights being guaranteed in law; thus, it has been clearly expressed that change needs to be brought about by the majority side and society (Shimauchi 2024b). Various spillover and participatory fan activities are taking place in BL fandom, including supporting actors in BL dramas participating in the Pride parade in June, performing creative work in connection with Pride month (Shimauchi 2023; 2024b), and expressing support for ruling that not recognising same-sex marriage is a violation of the Constitution in Japan.³ The immediacy and directness of social networking sites enable horizontal rather than vertical flow of information from the elite to the general public, and the political interaction of fans (Lucy Bennett 2013). Regarding fans and political mobilisation, Yuyi Zhuang, Songge Huang and Chao Chen (2023) show how the originally non-political idol fandom transcends the fragmentation of sub-fandoms to form a collective identity and engage in patriotic activities through emotional mobilisation; idols play a role in state propaganda and the younger generation’s broker role. Xining Liao, Alex Zhi-Xiong Koo and Hernando Rojas (2022) also found that Chinese fans’ nationalistic turn is influenced by both idol admiration and fandom participation, and is particularly amplified by belonging to the latter. In Japan, actors and others engaged in BL and LGBTQ+ content rarely speak out on social issues such as gender inequality and discrimination against sexual minorities, but there are signs of change.⁴ For the BL fandom and society to transform the country and society as one of the counter publics, there is a need for self-critical reading of the rhetoric “universal” and “beyond.”

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Tokyo Metropolitan University under an individual research grant. and challenge support (B) for Grants-in-Aid for scientific research.

Notes on contributors

Sae Shimauchi

Dr. Sae Shimauchi is is an Associate Professor at Tokyo Metropolitan University, International Center. Her research interests lie in the area of internationalization of higher education, global studies and cultural studies, ranging from theory to practices.

Notes

1. For example, there is a review citing Japanese dramas Ossan’s Love and Cherry Magic and stating that “I have never met a character in a work that is considered BL by the public that I would think ‘this is me.’” https://gladxx.jp/review/tv/6789.html (Accessed April 15, 2024)

2. “First BL exhibition” held in Saitama, Japan from May to July 2023 exhibited the book belts of BL comics. The book belt is an important appeal point for readers to pick up the book, as it contains the book’s introduction, catchphrases, and advertising messages, but the belts of BL books are known for their bold catchphrases, very descriptive and impactful in response to the diversified needs of the readers.

3. Not recognising same-sex marriage is a violation of the Constitution; Sapporo High Court, First unconstitutional decision in two trials. NHK News Web. (In Japanese). https://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/html/20240314/k10014390391000.html (As of March 14, 2024, Accessed May 6, 2024)

4. Regarding the discriminatory remarks against sexual minorities by a former secretary to the Prime Minister in February 2023, Japanese actor Miyazawa Hio, who played a main role in the film Egoist, which includes gay representation, said “I felt ashamed that someone representing my country was saying things that hurt people with impunity. The news of that statement was not only transmitted within Japan, but also to the rest of the world. Japanese politics, or rather Japan, is still talking like this. I think it is an event that has greatly lowered the value of Japan as a country.” Asahi Shimbun Digital, “LGBT discriminatory remarks, I couldn’t pretend it didn’t happen, Miyazawa Hio raised his voice.” https://digital.asahi.com/articles/ASR5T4WTKR5PUCVL00T.html?ptoken=01H1H1AW1S135 (As of May 26, 2023, Accessed May 6, 2024)