Merge "Shoujo Ai" tag with "Yuri" :planned:

[GoggledAnon]

Baka-Updates was founded on July 20th, 2002

Yeah, you sure showed me...

Given that Teasday whammed us with the "we don't do what Dynasty does", it's only fair that the argument works both ways. MU was formed over five years before yuri became a mainstream term even in Japan. MD is a brand spanking new site with [insert literally everything I've said in this thread]. (Also they have Ayame 14 listed as both "Adult" and "Shoujo-Ai", so clearly there's just as much categorization nonsense as over here and it's hardly the best point of reference). That and you can't actually read anything on there.

Now consider this example from an official American manga publisher

(for comparison's sake, Kodansha uses "Yuri and BL" while TokyoPop uses Girls Love)

 

[Zephyrus]

@Yatsuki
I see no reason to lock the thread. Everyone here is having a discussion in good faith and with relative politeness. I've never believed in stifling discussion except when it breaks numerous rules or is nothing more than petty drama-mongering.

 

[pikokola]

everything following the word "sismance". The fact you put that as an equivalent to f/f romance

or is not operator for equivalence. get your fact straight.

Even the people who swear by the shoujo-ai terminology don't generally restrict yuri to just porn. From my vague understanding, it's the midpoint between fluff and porn

you made up the vagueness yourself.
in yuri vs shoujo-ai distinction, yuri is always girl on girl with emphasize on sex, a.k.a porn.

And I'm fairly certain the argument they've been making is that shoujo-ai is intended to be "yuri without the smut"

apparently you can't even differentiate between the usage of porn and smut.

 

[GoggledAnon]

in yuri vs shoujo-ai distinction, yuri is always girl on girl with emphasize on sex, a.k.a porn.

Even among the shoujo ai supporters, you are literally the only one in this thread who has gone for the porn angle so unless you want to edit your post with a giant "IMO", "always" is a teensy bit of an overstatement.
And assuming your definition of "sismance" is the equivalent of what we in the 21st century call "subtext" (ie. pretty damn gay, but not explicitly stated f/f romance), then that stuff typically doesn't get the shoujo ai tag anyway unless they're really gay about it (eg. Yuyushiki is probably the gayest thing you can read on the site that currently doesn't have a shoujo ai tag).

 

[Haikaka]

Just about to make some controversial pointless statement on the difference between shoujo ai and yuri:

Typical shoujo ai girls aren't exactly proved lesbian. They happen to like a girl. That they are attracted to girls body in general, in a distinct way from a particularly close special person, is unclear. You see this in school life shoujo ai usually, some being at their first love, when their sexual identity isn't fully matured. When Yuri is used, it is about more open sexual practices, and often the women there are confirmed lesbians, as attracted to women in general.

Well, this is me doing pseudo psychology on paper characters, but my point is that shoujo ai is more about liking someone, whereas yuri is more about being homosexual.

 

[bluxaroo]

Just putting in another vote in that the tag system GoggledAnon has proposed would work better for me, both as someone who reads a fair bit of yuri and who sometimes tags series, and I hope the adminstration will reconsider.

 

[GoggledAnon]

@Haikaka Personally, I think that's a flawed statement, mainly since a lot of yuri manga, explicit or not, doesn't always address sexuality as an aspect. If the person's sexuality isn't a central focus of the story (eg. discovering that you're gay, facing the hardships that come with public opinion, homophobic grandparents, etc.), then it's usually just a case of a girl of ambiguous sexuality falls in love with a person who so happens to be a girl. It's kinda like all the gay representation we've been getting in Western shows recently. We're shown that these two same sex characters are in love, but they don't (and, depending on the networks in their current state, probably can't) blatantly tell you that they're lesbian/gay/bi etc. It doesn't change the fact that it is gay, but it's not hammered in for the sake of going "hey everybody we's lesbians". (I think the closest we've gotten to a character being gay vs gay-for-you is Shiro from Voltron, as he is shown to have had more than one male lover, but again, there's no big arc where Shiro has to tell people he's gay. It's just kind of an accepted thing in their universe.)

Categorizing something based on what specifically happens in the plot is tedious at best, especially if it's an ongoing series. Hence why it's best that ratings are determined by the visual content (and I've pretty much made clear my thoughts on that).

 

[pikokola]

Even among the shoujo ai supporters, you are literally the only one in this thread who has gone for the porn angle so unless you want to edit your post with a giant "IMO", "always" is a teensy bit of an overstatement.

which part of my post that saying I am a shoujo ai supporters, read my statements again.
also, it's porn, it's not my opinion, it is what it is,

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/shoujo_ai

In North America, yuri has initially been used to denote only the most explicit end of the spectrum, that which depicts sexual relationships and sex scenes, and as such deemed primarily as a variety of hentai.

( you cite the same sentence less than 20 hours ago albeit from yuri entry on wikipedia)
https://yurimother.com/post/185438570644/yurivsshoujoai

The American audience that created “shoujo-ai” pushed for its use to describe non-sexual works featuring lesbian relationships and for “Yuri” to be used only to describe pornography.

http://www.yuricon.com/what-is-yuricon/#whatisyuri

Here in the west, as anime and manga fandom grew quickly in the 1990s, the term Yuri was often, but not exclusively, used to represent explicit stories with sexual relations between women. In short, it was considered “porn for guys.”

you even said it yourself on your first post.

Yuri is a wide genre of everything girl's love related, not just the explicit stuff

what explicit stuff if not porn/hentai? stop associate smut = porn, that muddle things up.

And assuming your definition of "sismance" is the equivalent of what we in the 21st century call "subtext" (ie. pretty damn gay, but not explicitly stated f/f romance), then that stuff typically doesn't get the shoujo ai tag anyway unless they're really gay about it (eg. Yuyushiki is probably the gayest thing you can read on the site that currently doesn't have a shoujo ai tag).

don't kid yourself, Marimite is tagged shoujo ai everywhere, that series is literally what brings yuri back to mainstream in the modern era, yet still subtext. also, that thing is so 'ancient' and wasn't even called yuri back then, but Class S - a terms so outdated which I believe many people don't even know what that is.
if you call yuyushiki as shoujo ai, then almost every cgdct series are going to be shoujo ai :/ tone down your yuri googles a little.

 

[GoggledAnon]

@pikokola You are aware that I quoted that Wikipedia barely a couple of pages ago, highlighting the entire section that Yuri became the more mainstream term in the West during the 2000s. Heck, your yuricon quote literally says "not exclusively" and has the word "WAS" bolded.

what explicit stuff if not porn/hentai?

Stuff can be explicit without it being porn (eg. Murcielago is primarily gory action spliced with the occassional yuri sex scenes). It's pretty obvious when something is intended to be porn (ie. features genitalia and is specifically marketed towards an R-18 audience).

 

[igenetycs]

@pikokola From your link: http://www.yuricon.com/what-is-yuricon/#whatisyuri

We at Yuricon would like to offer this intentionally broad definition of Yuri:

Yuri can describe any anime or manga series (or other derivative media, i.e., fan fiction, film, etc.) that shows intense emotional connection, romantic love or physical desire between women. Yuri is not a genre confined by the gender or age of the audience, but by the *perception* of the audience.

In short, Yuri is any story with lesbian themes.

If you're going to cite sources, please make sure to read them. The site you linked emphasizes that the definition you quoted is out of date, and that it does not align with current views on the term "yuri" within the community.

 

[DYWYPI]

Just chiming in to all of those saying “this was decided four times years ago, you lost get over it”: maybe the fact that people keep coming to this site to read yuri, having the same problem, and independently making the same suggestions is an indication of something here?

 

[pikokola]

@GoggledAnon

You are aware that I quoted that Wikipedia barely a couple of pages ago, highlighting the entire section that Yuri became the more mainstream term in the West during the 2000s. Heck, your yuricon quote literally says "not exclusively" and has the word "WAS" bolded.

so what if it's "WAS"? So what if yuri become mainstream umbrella terms for lesbian nowadays? not exclusively? irrelevant, bottom line is it's considered porn when the split happen.

Stuff can be explicit without it being porn (eg. Murcielago is primarily gory action spliced with the occassional yuri sex scenes). It's pretty obvious when something is intended to be porn (ie. features genitalia and is specifically marketed towards an R-18 audience).

I'll give this to you, as clearly I am in no position to translate meaning of your own words.

@igenetycs
you clearly don't fkin understand what I'm talking about. I'm saying that there are documented fact that the distinction between yuri and shoujo-ai was "one is porn and the other not".
the fact that what I cite is supporting merging all of them as yuri, is irrelevant. as I am not arguing on whether or not they should be merged, I don't fkin care.

You guys just don't wants to admit that it's a fact that the early distinction was plain; "yuri = porn; shoujo-ai = not porn". Because it'll weaken your stance that there is no difference between them.
you could argue till the end of earth, but that doesn't matter at all to me, merged or not I don't care, there are no winning argument as you can't change what has happened.

on the other hand, this actually prove my point that you guys are prick who whine about anything, to even being defensive against neutral side who said that your point is correct and the split lose it's meaning here.
come with good faith? I doubt that.

@DYWYPI
to be honest, I come for the drama. so I don't come with a good faith either.

 

[igenetycs]

@pikokola

You guys just don't wants to admit that it's a fact that the early distinction was plain; "yuri = porn; shoujo-ai = not porn". Because it'll weaken your stance that there is no difference between them.

Personally, my stance is that the distinction between them is unclear, inconsistent, and not used by yuri readers themselves. I'm not saying there has never been a difference, the mere existence of the term "Shoujo Ai" being used here is proof that there is some intended purpose for it; it just fails to accomplish anything meaningful.

as I am not arguing on whether or not they should be merged, I don't fkin care.

to be honest, I come for the drama. so I don't come with a good faith either.

Well, that's disappointing.

 

[pikokola]

@igenetycs

Personally, my stance is that the distinction between them is unclear, inconsistent, and not used by yuri readers themselves. I'm not saying there has never been a difference, the mere existence of the term "Shoujo Ai" being used here is proof that there is some intended purpose for it; it just fails to accomplish anything meaningful.

that's literally what my first post here about, but you come with me gun blazing that they should be merged. the distinction between shoujo ai and yuri was clear, MD could use that but they didn't enforce it here which make things vague (many which should be shoujo ai tagged as yuri), not just shoujo ai and yuri, but the entire tag have no official definition for MD purpose. That making each person bringing their own interpretation of what each tags means which they bring from knowledge outside of MD, when there are two conflicting meaning from two different sources, shit like this happened.
and yeah, I don't fkin care whether they are merged or not. but MD could put an end to this by making their official definition of what each tag means (and then enforce it).

 

[igenetycs]

the distinction between shoujo ai and yuri was clear, MD could use that but they didn't enforce it here which make things vague

Why would they enforce a decades old, out of date definition that is not used or accepted by any current yuri readers? That would be painfully out of touch.

 

[Nevri]

Yes there was a split for marketing reasons by west. In Japan they always only used Yuri and Girls' Love. Everything is explained here. There's no point using 2 different terms for yuri SFW and yuri NSFW. Just call everything yuri and tag stuff that include nudity or is for mature audience.

 

[blackyawgdom]

@Nevri Now think about what you just said. Yuri and Girls Love. Now whats one of the japanese words for Female/Girl? Shoujo.
https://jisho.org/search/shoujo
少女
1. little girl; maiden; young lady; female usually between 7 and 18 years old

And whats the word for Love? "Ai"
https://jisho.org/search/Ai
1. love; affection; care

 

[Nevri]

@blackyawgdom
And what is word for Pedophile? "Shoujoai"
https://jisho.org/search/shoujoai
1. nymphophilia; sexual fixation on young girls; lolicon​

Also they use them interchangeably, not as 2 different genres. If anything, some prefer to avoid Girls' Love specifically because it might suggest love only between young girls and not adults, so yuri is preferable in general. There's nothing about 1 containing sex and other not.

 

[pikokola]

@igenetycs

Why would they enforce a decades old, out of date definition that is not used or accepted by any current yuri readers? That would be painfully out of touch.

the same reason they choose to stand with the split, because it's what they choose to adopt at this point not the yuri as umbrella term for everything lesbian. teasday already mention the reason this suggestion is rejected, I don't wants to reiterate it again nor that it's my position to do it.

@Nevri

In Japan they always only used Yuri and Girls' Love.

there was once a genre called "S", class S, or s-kankei.
there was also other terms used obscurely as genre for lesbian literature.

Creators of f/f stories in Japan – especially within the lesbian community – avoided using “Yuri” for a long while because of the porn connotation, preferring Onna no ko x Onna no ko (女の子 x 女の子) or Onna-doushi (女同士). These are slowly falling out of favor in Japan as the word Yuri takes their place as an indicator of “lesbian-themed animation or comics.” - http://www.yuricon.com/what-is-yuricon/#whatisyuri

 

[igenetycs]

@pikokola

teasday already mention the reason this suggestion is rejected

Because they are in the middle of a site rewrite, so it's being shelved for a later date. Their reasoning isn't about wanting to adhere to outdated definitions of Shoujo Ai and Yuri, it's about practicality and convenience. That has nothing to do with the definition you previously cited.