If you are a yaoi/BL fan, you should have heard of aarinfantasy. Heck, even if yaoi is not your cup of tea, you should have heard of it. And it was to my greatest surprise to know that the person behind all this, Aarin is not only from Malaysia but also a fellow lowyat.net forumer as well. And it was an hounour to finally get to talk and interview one of the more prominent person in the anime community, albeit in a circle that I usually don’t try to get involved in much ^^;;
More after the jump
Anime Shrine: So how did you get started into yaoi and more importantly, how did Aarinfantasy itself started?
Aarin: I have been a gamer since a really young age (since NES days) and love Final Fantasy series since FF2. So my name is Aarin and combine it for my love of the FF series and what you get – AarinFantasy. I have been using this name since 1997 when I first use Internet. But how in the world I get involved with yaoi… it has something to do with FF too! I first discover about yaoi through a fanfiction of characters from FF8 (Seifer x Zell). At that time I do not know what is “x” pairing or “Warning: Yaoi content”. So I kept on reading and find it ‘surprisingly’ good! For those who wanted to know what fanfic title is this, you got to find me in my forum for it, I will post you a link to it!~
Anyway… after that, I was searching for “yaoi” and got linked to a few yaoi animes on torrent sites. I downloaded them and got hooked! Then I was determined to find every single yaoi anime out there and that formed my “yaoi collection”. Satisfied with my collection which took me many months to download them, I share them to others because I know how hard for anyone to get it. Those files I labelled it with my name. After a year, I co-operated with people to fansub yaoi anime… and fansubbing begins from there. Over the years, there are not many yaoi animes but those titles certainly attracts new fans each time.
The pairing that started it all...
AS: What is the appeal of Yaoi? How different it is with gays?
A: To me, yaoi is something I see as “artistic”, more towards fictional – the characters, the plotline, the artwork, the love and passion of a story. It’s simply different, it gives me that unique fuzzy feeling. It’s not just about sexual attraction… it doesn’t matter to me whether the characters are straight or gay really. I know that not everyone will understand this feeling, but that’s for me.
AS: Speaking of which, there is also another term that usually being connected with Yaoi and that is Boy’s Love. What’s the difference?
A:Well, the yaoi or BL community are the same as one community, but they can always tell you there are difference in Yaoi and Boys Love. To simply put it, Yaoi involves more of “graphic details” while Boys Love (which is also commonly known as shounen-ai) is focused more on the feelings of attraction of a male towards another male. Here is a better definition :
Yaoi: From ‘yama-nashi’ (without a climax), ‘ochi-nashi’ (without a conclusion) and ‘imi-nashi’ (without content). Originally emerged as a sub genre of shoujo, yaoi stories involve sex between men (homosexual content). Yaoi tends to involve graphic sex, often with little or no plot and focuses on the passionate and physical side of the relationship. It is incorrectly and commonly used as a synonym of ‘shounen-ai’. Shounen-Ai: From shounen (men), ai (love). Love stories between men. These kind of stories don’t necessarily involve sex situations because they are more focused on the characters’ feelings. This genre is created by and for women and was not originally intended for the gay market.
AS: Does Yaoi nessecarily need to be sexual in nature?
A: If you are being particular about Yaoi and BL differences… yes, yaoi is mostly towards the hardcore side and sexual in nature. But a lot of ‘yaoi/BL’ animes and manga does not contain sexually explicit content too, so you can say that it’s half-half when it comes to sexual content. There are viewers/readers who enjoy lighter stuff more compare to the more hardcore content. So it’s not just only about sex. I am sorry if this confuses people but a lot of shounen-ai animes are labelled as yaoi anyway, so this itself confuses a lot of people about the actual contents.
AS:Usually a yaoi pair is “shipped” (correct me if I am wrong with this term). Can just any random A: characters be shipped together or is there must be any rule to ship the characters? (Rule 34?)
The term “shipped” here can mean “slash” in yaoi terms. That means pairing one male with another male. Yes, it can be very random, but most people “slash” the characters that are more obviously attracted or have more interaction or tension with each other. That’s why in Naruto, fans usually “shipped” Naruto and Sasuke more compared to Naruto and Rock Lee. But when it comes to yaoi slashing, anyone…anywhere…any anime… it can all happen at random with any characters. Even non-human male characters… umm…. ya, will leave that to your imagination. >.>;;;
Most of the guys that is reading this out there will go "FUUUUUU" by now
AS:Can you describe what is “seme” and “uke”?
Seme is the dominant/top character while uke is the submissive/bottom character.
Also see:
Seme: The dominant character role in a shounen- ai/yaoi story. This character is generally more mature and strong willing, controls the situations and is taller than his partner (see Height Rule). During intercourse the seme is the one on top.
Uke: From the Japanese verb ‘ukeru’ (to receive). It is the passive main role in a yaoi story. Most of the time, the uke will be childish, more feminine, submissive, younger, shorter and less experienced than his partner. During intercourse he is ‘bottom’ in a yaoi pairing.
AS: What is your favourite yaoi manga/anime titles and why?
This is a very tough question. I like a lot of animes! I started with DragonBall Z when I was a kid.
For non-yaoi ones, I will choose Fushigi Yuugi because it let me see for the first time that anime is not just for kids, and the storyline is interesting with many characters development.
Yaoi ones, I will definitely pick Ai no Kusabi (because it’s the first and classic hardcore yaoi anime) and the lighter ones will be Gravitation (because it containts fluffy scenes that I like and the songs are nice) and Yami no Matsuei (because I like the vampire/dark theme and genre of it). They are all the first few yaoi/BL animes that I watched and liked. There are more choices now to pick from like Junjou Romantica and so on… but what I mentioned before are really good old must-watch in my list, so I pick those as my all-time fav.
If you have noticed, I am more towards anime than manga because I started out with anime and only in recent years (since 2010) that I actually start reading manga. For yaoi manga titles that I read so far (there are many more than I haven’t read), I will go with Crimson Spell, ZE and ViewFinder… love them for their beautiful artwork and also complex storyline.
I just had to use this one
AS:If the guy in the story is actually a girl in disguise, would it still count as Yaoi?
A: You don’t really call that yaoi. It’s called crossdressing. Only if the male character has some feelings towards towards another male character (no matter in what disguises) is yaoi. Now this is a misconception about yaoi… a guy who dresses up as a girl doesn’t mean he must like guys only. It could be another reasons. But usually, most anime sites will label such content (crossdressing) as shounen-ai, because it usually contain some sort of attraction or tension between the male characters.
AS: Do you know of any guys that downloaded yaoi?
Of course! If you must know, there are absolutely straight guys who download yaoi! But most of them download it out of curiosity or just to understand why their girlfriends or some girls like yaoi. I did ask them! I do have a friend who actually enjoyed watching a BL anime with his girlfriend together.
AS: Does the girls that like Yaoi is straight?
A: Yes, definitely. Just look at me! In fact, the majority of yaoi fans are straight girls. As most fans know… yaoi is mostly made by women for women.
AS: How large is the yaoi community in Malaysia?
A: As far as I see and from my forum’s social group of Malaysian fans, the yaoi community is quite small compared to countries like USA or Europe. I can’t say for sure how big it is, it is relatively small but enough for me to notice there are people who probably like me… being a little discreet about our interest especially in this country. Maybe an open event that has to do with yaoi can give us a better estimation on this, and I am looking forward to know the statistics too.
AS: What are the plans for AarinFantasy in the future?
To be honest, I did not expect AarinFantasy will grow so much (since Nov 2004). For now, I am just keeping it alive as much as possible, as the yaoi fans community especially English speakers have gathered in my forum and been so supportive of the site. There are some plans here and there, but I am really unsure what to put out really… it just come depending on the resources.
Let’s just say that over the years, maintaining the site and to be the person that carries the name AarinFantasy is extremely tough and stressful, to the point of affecting my emotions and health. That’s mainly because there are people who gives me a hard time and a lot of times I wanted to give up. But there are people who support me. With this yo-yo situation, I tried to balance it as much as possible… taking in as lessons and learned from it.
Extras!
Anyways if you guys want to join in this growing community, you can visit Aarinfantasy’s forum here
