michifugu

I think there's some genuinely interesting exploration of queerness we see uniquely in animanga (and any Asian or non-western media) that can and should be acknowledged, but yes, the yaoi/yuribaiting is... well, it's a marketing tactic. I was talking about this with Get Backers the other day, which has some of the most prevalent yaoibaiting I've seen, personally. XD It seems, for a variety of reasons, "coding" characters in eastern media is much more common than what we see in western Hollywood, likely because overt portrayals would be met... poorly. Not to say there aren't some out there; I've seen a slew of explicitly-queer manga in my local bookstore in the last couple of years. And since we only get a tiny fraction of what is put out in its native language, I can only assume (or hope) that there are more explicitly-queer works being made.

Yeah... I will still say yaoi for funsies, but to think it's something people in Japan use? Or worse, pretending it's different from the modern term BL... ugh. I see on MyAnimeList all the time "recs of BL but NO YAOI." Like, you dumbass! Speak to ONE non-American person, I'm begging you!!

By the way, when you use "tenderqueer," what does that mean? I've seen a couple places saying "white nb/afab hipsters who weaponize social justice for harm/to not take responsibility," and saw one tumblr post (here) about it. But it's a new term to me. o: