Capstone Project - The Unexpected World of Boys Love - Challenging the Nuclear Family, Defying Labels, and Finding Happiness

Aug 20, 2026

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Capstone project analyzing Japan’s Boys Love (BL) genre and how it enables young women to explore identity, desire, and autonomy. Examines BL fandom demographics and the subversive self-labeling of “fujoshi” as resistance to external categorization. Discusses why readers engage with BL narratives, including alternative ways to navigate fixed identities and societal expectations. Connects BL’s portrayals of queer relationships and non-nuclear families to challenges against the Japanese ideal of happiness as the nuclear family.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryLiterature

FormatPDF

Pages20

Reading Time31 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Defining Boys Love (BL)

Why Women Enjoy BL

Authors, Origins, and Power

Female Authorship and Genre Roots

BL, Identity, and Challenging Labels

Subverting the Nuclear Family Ideal

Case Study: Love Nest Series

Series Overview and Setting

Capstone Project Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Japanese Major: The Unexpected World of Boys Love: Challenging the Nuclear Family, Defying Labels, and Finding Happiness Presented to the Department of East Asian Languages, Literatures, and Cultures at the University of Virginia. 14 May, 2021 Agatha Tatang [apt3pa@virginia.edu](apt3pa@virginia.edu) Boys Love (ボーイズラブ), or BL is a genre in Japan that encapsulates “...manga, novels, anime, movies, and now computer games, that features love relationships between young men”(Kawano) . While it has many different fans of different sexual orientations and genders, the majority of BL fans are heterosexual young girls and women, 60% of them being between the ages of 15 and 29 years old (Kawano) . These women have even coined a term for themselves – “fujoshi”, translating to “rotten woman”. Like the name implies, fujoshi typically are not seen positively by society. Since these women call themselves this, Kirsty Kawano notes that “....by labeling themselves “fujoshi,” BL fans prevent others from sticking a different label on them. With this subversive term, they voluntarily cut themselves off from the demands ofthe world of men, with “rotten” making it clear that they are no longer fit for male consumption”(Kawano) . By establishing themselves as abject, they take away the authority from others to label them. Furthermore, through BL they are able to claim autonomy in a male-dominated society through their consumption and enjoyment of the genre. There are a variety of reasons to why women enjoy BL-some enjoy the being able to see the perspective of the seme, a term that is given to the role of the pursuer in BL, which is similar to the role traditionally taken by men in heterosexual relationships. Others enjoy the stress-free environment when there is no female heroine that they can compare themselves to, and some simply just enjoy the added complexity and challenges that must be navigated by queer characters in society (Kawano). BL as a medium offers a multitude of possibilities and perspectives for women to utilize. Scholars note this as well, saying that BL allows for“...readers to challenge fixed identities and explore alternative ways to navigate desire”(Kawano) . Societal pressures and expectations alienate and confine individuals to what they are labelled as. Women in particular within society are unable to freely express their desires or individuality and BL provides an opening for expression. While the subject matter of BL is men and the relationships between them, there is not a great amount of involvement from real men – though there are authors that are men, some even being queer. Its authors are predominantly female, a detail important to note, as the roots of this genre began in the 1970s when female writers were beginning to create a place for themselves in the male-dominated sphere of writing manga for girls (Kawano) . In the 1950s and 1960s, there were not many women who were manga writers (Thorn) . Thus, the early female writers of BL created a community that was made by women for other women, resulting in a place where they are not only the majority, but also a place where they have a position of power. BL has become a world, created by mainly women, where using stories depicting relationships between men, can explore different perspectives and break social norms from a different perspective and different position. The rigid rules of society are bent with queer relationships and challenges the idea that Goldstein poses, in which the idea of happiness in Japanese society is the nuclear family, which consists of “...a salaryman husband, a full-time housewife, and their children”(Goldstein 3) . Women are drawn to narratives that break from the strict order that societal norms have set up, and the world of BL has the ability to “...release women from a judgmental gaze and create a world that frees them from the constrictive social norms of reali

FAQs

What is Boys Love (BL) in Japan, according to the project?

BL is described as a Japanese genre encompassing manga, novels, anime, movies, and games that features romantic relationships between young men.

Why do many women enjoy BL, beyond the romance itself?

The project notes readers value perspectives from roles like the seme, appreciate the absence of a female heroine for comparison, and find the navigation of queer challenges in society engaging.

How does BL challenge the Japanese nuclear family ideal of happiness?

Through representations of queer relationships and non-nuclear family dynamics, BL offers alternatives to rigid social expectations and shows happiness can be defined independently by individuals.

Aug 20, 2026

Upload by Aditya