futekiya Community Survey #1 Responses: Shounen Ai and Yaoi

Last month, the futekiya team published our first Community Survey asking Boys’ Love manga readers around the world about shounen ai and yaoi. 

Our team is a little late releasing the responses since we were working on the latest releases for the futekiya Library, but we are happy to release the results. 

Where do you currently reside? 

Over two weeks, 248 people answered our survey from 44 different countries. The countries where the most respondents resided were the United States of America (41.5%), the Philippines (6%), Canada (5.6%), Brazil (4.8%), Finland (4.8%), the United Kingdom (4.4%), Australia (3.6%), Indonesia (2.4%), Japan (2.4%), and Poland (1.6%). 

What is your age? 

While 46.4% of respondents were between the ages of 18-24, 53.6% were over the age of 24. The age range of 51-60 and over 60 years of age are difficult to view on the graph below and made of 0.8% and 0.4% of respondents, respectively. 

Do you use the term “shounen ai” to describe Boys’ Love (BL) manga with no erotic scenes? 

Overall, responses to this question were split. While 41.9% do currently use the word “shounen ai” about BL manga, 54.5% explicitly do not use the term or used to but not anymore. 3.7% of those who replied had varied answers outside of “yes,” “no,” and “I used to” that included “sometimes” and “I do, but not everyone is familiar with the term.” 

Do you use the term “yaoi” to describe BL manga with erotic scenes? 

“Yaoi,” on the other hand, had a much more significant difference between “yes” and “no.” 

9.3% of respondents do not use the word “yaoi” and 28.6% “used to” use “yaoi” about BL manga with erotic content, amounting to 37.9% in total. Although yaoi is not commonly used in Japan, outside of Japan, it appears to be widely used among fans. 

Do you think it is important that there is a term besides an R-18 rating to describe how explicit a BL manga is?

The final question of our survey also had a split response, with 41.1% thinking it was important, and 52% thinking it was not important. 

What do you think?

What do you think of these responses? If there was a term besides “yaoi” to describe R-18 BL manga, what should it be? Let us know on Twitter! 

We will be back tomorrow with another Community Survey. In the meantime, be sure to swing by the futekiya Library if you want to read BL manga and support artists! 

About futekiya: Read what you love

In 2018, futekiya began as a Boys Love manga news and culture website operated by FANTASISTA, INC., a CG/VR production studio based in Tokyo, Japan. futekiya transformed into a budding global distributor of officially licensed BL manga in 2019.

futekiya launched as an online subscription service for officially licensed BL manga on July 8, 2019. Determined to connect fans around the world with English-translated BL legally and conveniently, futekiya empowers readers to support creators and the manga industry.

Readers who subscribe to futekiya and pay a flat monthly fee of $6.99 will have access to our expanding library of English-language manga. To subscribe, please go to read.futekiya.com and create an account. More information is in our guide.