IT'S NO LAUGHING MATTER - WHERE'S THE HUMOR IN YAOI?

It's No Laughing Matter - where's the Humor in Yaoi?

Hello all, I'm Sandra Scholes and I've been reading yaoi since 2005. I like to indulge in the mixed genres of fantasy, science fiction, horror, and Historical, and I wonder why it is that there isn't much humour in the genre. I started out as a reviewer of standard manga for Active Anime, and it didn't take long before I became introduced to yaoi via other yaoi publishers. Yaoi Press was one of the first I reviewed for. Their titles were M/M based fantasy graphic novels depicting the ups and downs of characters caught in the kind of private turmoil that brings two men together. For me the Winter Demon series springs to mind, as Spring Demon, Incubus Master and The Incubus and the Woodcutter came after and were just as entertaining. Hakuin the monk has to seek help from Fuyu, the rather sensual and sex-mad winter demon to send rogue demons from his village, yet there is a price, he has to let Fuyu indulge his desires. This read like a yaoi many would expect, it has touches of humour in it, but not much as it is mainly serious.

I enjoyed Yaoi Press novels as they were well illustrated, and the story felt involving, it captured the interest. When I read their later title Happy Yaoi Yum Yum! I gave it a rave review, yet remembered what Yamila Abraham, the publisher of Yaoi Press mentioned that their readers don't seem to like comedy yaoi novels.

Being a long time reader of yaoi I became surprised at this revelation as I remembered seeing the characters in some novels chibified when there was a humorous moment in the story. That was humour, right? It is, but a novel which has humour as the main theme of the story isn't what most readers want. So why did DMP publish a yaoi called A.N.A.L. (All Nippon Air Line) by Kei Azumaya? Though Jason Thompson of Suvudu.com reviewed it saying, "Sexy it’s not; funny it is. Though it gets a bit tiresome in large doses, it’s a refreshing antidote to the profusion of emo, serious Boy’s Love." This is pretty much what I am getting at here, there is too much emo and not enough humour in yaoi. Junjou Romantica by Shungiku Nakamura likes to give readers a mix of humor and sadness as Misaki and Akihiko constantly argue over their relationship. Misaki stays with him so he can go to a top university, but when they are together,  Akihiko wants him to admit he loves him, and let's get this straight, one of the funniest moments in the novel series is when Misaki attends Akihiko's writer's award ceremony only to bump into Akihiko's half-brother, Haruhiko. He tells him he has fallen in love with him, and since then has kept getting sent strawberry products - just for saying he likes them!

I would have thought that humour in yaoi would be essential, yet many are very dark and brooding and deal with difficult themes; physical and mental abuse as a child, wife or boyfriend beating, gangs and drug abuse. In Net Comic's Let Dai series by Sooyeon Won Jaehee stands up to a gang who beat up his friend from school, only to find their leader, Dai likes the look of him, and has him take part in a special kind of initiation. When it is obvious that they are dating each other after Dai declares he's his, slowly through the novels he brings Jaehee down to his level. In Tokyopop's Gravitation Shuichi Shindou, a rock star and Eiri Yuki a gay erotic writer are lovers, but Yuki's coldness and ability to be distant annoys him as he would like to get more intimate with him. He only learns later that his awful past keeps coming back to haunt him, and that becomes the basis for the reason.

In most yaoi there are two lovers, one has a hard time with his past, whether he is the uke (receiver) or seme (attacker) while the other tries his best to help him out of his funk (usually they make out a lot and we enjoy the pages of graphic love-making in detail.) Traditionally Japanese girls would have to marry men they did not know, so they thought that by reading yaoi they would get a better idea of what men were like, the only difference is that Japanese men tend to be shy, distant and unromantic. For Westerners yaoi, at least for me is a look into how Japanese men would behave in a relationship. Though in Junjou Romantica Misaki keeps on denying his love for Akihiko. There is one consolation in that we know from his action later on in the novel that he does, or he wouldn't be with him. The characters never act the way you would suspect and the plots encourage them to indulge in illicit sex with other minor characters just to get their lovers to appreciate them more. The comedy in this manga is my general cup of tea, which explains why it's so popular, but why is humour in yaoi not so acceptable?  I believe the reason for a lack of humour in yaoi is that the vast majority of readers are teenagers and are going through the angst, ups and downs, and sometimes depressions caused by being of that age group. With all the heartache and trouble going on, maybe there isn't enough room for humour but I would like to think that humour would creep into yaoi novels at least some of the time.

Sandra Scholes writes reviews for Active Anime, Diverse Japan and has an entire section of Fantasy Book Review devoted to her manga reviews. She has also written M/M stories for Starbooks Press writing as A.J. Damian and shorter stories for Bent Magazine in the UK.