
Yaoi, also known in Japan as "Boys' Love", is a subgenre of Shoujo focusing on male homosexuality, for a predominantly female audience. Typical pairings have the seme and the uke roles, which signify the characters' roles during sex, penetrative and receptive respectively, and often times even dictate their personalities and masculinity relative to each other. The word itself comes from "yamanashi, ochinashi, iminashi" (or "no climax, no ending, no meaning"), though fans have also come up with another memetic acronym: "Yamete! Oshiri ga itai!" ("Stop it! My ass hurts!") However, the term is outdated in Japan and now uses the more neutral term "Boys' Love" to describe the genre, which also refers to any gay content in general.
With its roots in the chinbi (aesthetic) novels of the 1970's and doujinshi culture, commercial Boy's Love has developed drastically in terms of style and content. While some stereotypes and cliches remain, such as characters denying homosexuality, or lack of realism with regard to gay culture, and the prevalence of rape fantasy as a common theme, modern BL often grapples with subjects like homophobia and gay identity, and has gained popularity among gay men as a result. Furthermore, transmasculine fans may relate strongly to men being assigned feminine bodies and female social roles.
See Boys' Love Notes for a list of standard character types.
For the corresponding genre aimed specifically at a gay male readership (though many female readers also enjoy it), see Bara Genre. For the Distaff Counterpart to this genre, see Yuri Genre, or Hentai.
No relation to the Yowie, an Australian cryptid similar to the Bigfoot, Sasquatch and Yeti.
If you're looking to write in the genre yourself, see the page on how to write a good Yaoi.
- Barbie Doll Anatomy
- Bastard Boyfriend
- Bishōnen
- Cast Full of Gay and consequently:
- Crazy Jealous Guy
- Closet Key
- Depraved Bisexual
- Depraved Homosexual
- Even the Guys Want Him
- Everyone Is Bi
- Fag Hag
- Gayngst
- Gayngster (or rather Gay Yakuza in this case)
- Genki Girl
- Good Eyes, Evil Eyes
- The Grunting Orgasm
- Heroic Build (especially for the Seme)
- If It's You, It's Okay
- Incompatible Orientation
- Keet
- LGBT Awakening
- Long-Haired Pretty Boy
- MasculineFeminine Gay Couple
- Mr. Fanservice
- One Head Taller
- Only Has Same-Sex Admirers
- Rape as Backstory
- Seme
- Sex God
- Sexual Harassment and Rape Tropes
- Shirtless Scene
- Single-Target Sexuality
- Straight Gay
- Stupid Sexy Flanders
- Uke
- Wall Pin of Love
- Wholesome Crossdresser
- Yaoi Fangirl
- Yaoi Guys
Examples
- Acid Town is one of the most unusual numbers on the list, being rather light on the sex (which appears as nothing but a byproduct) and very heavy on a storytelling full of dark themes such as child abuse, broken homes, violence, prostitution, drug trafic, crime and more.
- Ameagari no 10 nenme
- Ameiro Paradox
- Animal X
- Awkward Silence
- Bi no Kyoujin: A Yakuza leader falls for a young and clever smuggler. Very explicit and mature-themed around family duty, the ruthlessness and constant violence of the yakuza world, Revenge, If It's You, It's Okay and the problems such a relationship can cause in a very gay-unfriendly setting contrasting the sweet moments and otherwise touching developments.
- Blue Sheep Reverie
- Breakfast Club
- Calling
- Caste Heaven is a psychological drama that's heavy on Nightmare Fuel.
- Challengers
- Cherry Magic! Thirty Years of Virginity Can Make You a Wizard?!
- Chintsubu is a manga about boys with talking penises.
- Crimson Spell is a hybrid of Heroic Fantasy and Boys' Love.
- A Cruel God Reigns
- Cute Devil (and its sequels).
- Dekichatta Danshi features Childhood Friends as the main couple and they raise an infant together.
- Dousei Yankee Akamatsu Seven
- Doushitemo Furetakunai: A man recently out of a really bad relationship starts an affair with his straight boss.
- Soredemo, Yasashii Koi o Suru: A spin-off focused on the couple's friend, who after falling for one of them, is propositioned by a friend to test out a relationship with another man with him.
- The Demian Syndrome
- Eerie Queerie
- Endless World has drugs, sex, and suicide.
- FAKE takes the Ho Yay inherent in the Buddy Cop Show dynamic to its inevitable conclusion. It's also one of the first widely popular yaoi to softpedal the seme/uke dynamic - while it still exists with defined seme and uke, they are very close to equals.
- The Finder Series: A classic of the genre. Angsty, rapey melodrama, mostly about a photographer who takes some unwelcome candids of a hot yakuza boss and is punished for it...
- Fish In The Trap
- Fujisaki Kou is a BL author with roughly a third of her works occurring in the same Verse. These currently include:
- Happy Yarou Wedding which follows university student Yuuhi and Professor Todou Akira (the elder son of the Todou boss) and Akira's 5 year old son, Shouta.
- ...Virgin Love, ...Junai no Seinen and Men's Love follow the smutty romance of Todou Group employee Kirishima Kaoru and Mercury executive Daigo Mikihisa.
- Future Lovers, a two-volume manga series that's relatively realistic and down-to-earth compared to many other BL manga.
- given is about a rock band and the events that occur after Ritsuka, the guitarist, is roped into teaching guitar to his spacey schoolmate Mafuyu. While the band aspect is important, the plot mainly focuses on the growing relationship between Ritsuka and Mafuyu, as well as the romantic tension between the other two band members Haruki and Akihiko. The series also avoids many of the more objectionable tropes associated with the genre.
- G Defend
- Gorgeous Carat
- Gravitation: Despite its music-themed plot, the main focus is on the relationship between Keet singer Shuichi Shindou and angsty novelist Eiri Yuki. It (and especially the Porn Without Plot doujinshi connected to it) also features some of the most strict, stereotypical seme/uke characterization, with the uke Shuichi eventually undergoing Wimpification to the degree of Chickification and, in the doujinshi, Flanderization to the point of appearing childlike.
- Hana no Mizo Shiru
- Haru wo Daiteita (Embracing Love) is a 14-volume manga series (and 2-episode OVA) concerning two "adult video" actors who are trying to break into mainstream acting.
- Winter Cicada, by the same author, is a series of 3 OVA detailing the romance and eventual suicide of two samurai, set in the Edo Period. It originated as a film the two main characters of ''Embracing Love'' were appearing in.
- Hanakoi Tsurane
- Heart No Kakurega: After being robbed blind, a man is forced to move to a run-down complex with a group of quirky tenants and a stoic landlord.
- The Heart of Thomas: one of the very first Boys' Love mangas. Written by Moto Hagio, a contemporary of Keiko Takemiya.
- Hide and Seek AKA Himegoto Asobi. A love story between a divorced single dad who owns a candy shop and the local pediatrician
- Hidoku Shinaide: A delinquent blackmails a scolarship student into being in a relationship with him.
- His Favorite
- Honto Yajuu A romantic comedy about the forbidden love between a cop and a yakuza.
- Hybrid Child, a collection of oneshots from Nakamura Shungiku revolving around the eponymous "hybrid child", dolls that can gain emotions and grow when given affections from their owners.
- Hyouta Fujiyama has created a number of loosely related stories around the setting of Kinsei High, an all-boys school where "rumor has it" that 90% of the student body really is bi, if not gay. Oddly, the main stories always seem to focus on the boys who think they're in the 10%...
- Freefall Romance
- Sunflower
- Ordinary Crush
- Ikoku Irokoi Romantan AKA A Foreign Love Affair: a romance between an Italian sailor and a man of the Japanese yakuza.
- I Shall Never Return: A relatively early example from the mid-90s; it's notable for averting or subverting many of the more common BL tropes, possibly because of the Uke x Uke relationship type.
- In These Words: A very plot-heavy series that revolves around a Serial Killer and the psychologist hired to interrogate him. Very dark and explicit, with a very rare thriller-like atmosphere and a Satoshi Kon-like universe that constantly blurs the lines between reality, madness and dreams.
- Jazz
- Junjou Romantica: A comedic romance which gives us three couples for the price of one, all three very different but all touching on the theme of Second Love.
- Karasugaoka Don't Be Shy!!
- Keiko Takemiya is the Grand Dame of the genre. Her works include:
- In the Sunroom (1970), the first known Boys' Love manga story,
- Kaze to Ki no Uta (The Song/Poem of the Wind and Trees) (1976-1984), one of the most influential of the early Boys' Love manga,
- The Door into Summer (1975), one of the first Boys' Love stories to be made into anime (in 1981).
- Kirepapa is an OVA with a romance between a man and his son's high-school aged best friend. The second OVA focuses on his son and an older man.
- Kizuna is widely regarded as the series that popularized the Boys' Love genre.
- Koisuru Boukun, a.k.a. The Tyrant Falls in Love, a spin-off from Challengers.
- Komatta Toki ni wa Hoshi ni Kike!
- Koutetsu Sangokushi
- Kusatta Kyoushi no Houteishiki
- La Esperança is an example of religion-induced melodrama, but it's pulled off quite well
- Legend of the Blue Wolves is an example of crossover with Bara Genre, and qualifies as both Yaoi and plot-heavy Bara.
- Liberty Liberty!
- Lies Are a Gentleman's Manners
- Little Butterfly
- Love Mode: a long-running series about the owner of a men-only "dating club" (read: brothel) and his clients, employees and friends.
- Love Pistols revolves around highschool kid Norio, whose life has been turned upside down ever since he discovers that primates apparently aren't humanity's only origin. About 30% of humanity are actually descended from other animals such as dogs, cats, snakes, bears and even mermaids. Includes male pregnancy.
- Love Stage!! is a collaboration between an Eiki Eiki and Zaou Taishi about an otaku and an idol.
- Madness
- Maiden Rose (aka Hyakujitsu no Bara) has added the appeal of hot military men in spades.
- Manly Appetites: Minegishi Loves Otsu is a light Office Romance about a popular and friendly salaryman who loves giving food to his grouchy co-worker.
- Marginal: Sci-fi and dystopian series by Moto Hagio set in a world where there is apparently only one woman and the rest are men.
- Menkui!
- Negative-kun to Postive-kun focuses on the relationship between the titular male characters, but it's a Slice of Life story with no sex.
- Nekoka Danshi no Shitsukekata: Ayane Ukyo's first entry into the BL genre, followed by her more explicit Spin Offs (all of which ran concurrently in a more explicit sister magazine and under the pseudonym Aya Sakyo):
- Ikezu Kareshi no Otoshikata
- Nekoka Kareshi no Ayashikata
- Kuroneko Kareshi Series
- Fukigen Kareshi no Nadamekata
- Niibanme No Alpha
- Not Equal
- Off*beat: One of the few OEL Manga examples.
- Okane ga Nai: One of the more explicit and violent ones that includes heavy seme/uke dynamic and repeated use of the Rape and Sexual Harassment Tropes, around the themes If I Can't Have You... and the Stockholm Syndrome. Stands out for being one the few Boys' Love Genre manga written by a man.
- Oyajina: A Gender Bender manga about a bunch of female teens that are suddenly turned into middle age men.
- Patalliro!! An early and long-running satirical manga (1979 ? ongoing) and a rare example of a shounen-ai series by a male mangaka. Also one of the first BL-flavored anime to be produced for television (in 1983-84).
- Porno Superstar
- Prince Charming
- Prunus Girl
- Rules Universe: A series of manga and doujinshi focusing on Hikaru, his friends, and their love lives.
- Saint Beast based off a series of audio dramas (generally considered shounen-ai although the audio dramas are more explicit than the very tame anime series).
- Sakende Yaruze!
- The Secret Agreement
- Seikimatsu Darling
- Seitokaichou ni Chuukoku: Campus Romance
- Sekai-ichi Hatsukoi: A spin-off of Junjou Romantica set in the same universe but with new characters at its core story. It features cameos of characters from the previous series.
- Senobi no Housoku: A one volume shounen-ai story.
- Sensitive Pornograph:
- Manga: A collection of one-chapter short stories, both rather plotless porn ones as well as more story-driven ones.
- Anime: An oxymoronic title for one of the most explicit one-shots of the genre that focuses mainly on Fanservice and uncensored sex scenes.
- Seven Days (2007)
- Shinkuu Yuusetsu
- Sorenari ni Shinken Nandesu: Notable for exploring the theme of a child raised by two men.
- Super Lovers
- Ten Count
- The Titan's Bride: A rare combination of Boys' Love and Isekai centered around the relationship between a giant prince and a human highschool boy.
- Tsukigasa
- Twittering Birds Never Fly
- Under Grand Hotel: an explicit BL manga set in a U.S. prison.
- Walker Universe
- Warui Koto Shitai and its related series, Kirai ja nai Kedo and Mujihi na Otoko
- The Weatherman Is My Lover: A romance between a straight-laced newscaster and eccentric weather "fairy".
- Wild Adapter: a subtext-only Noir action series that walks and talks like seinen and wasn't marketed as BL in the U.S.
- Wild Fangs, Wild Rose and Wild Wind, part of a series by Yamagishi Hokuto involving half-human, half-beasts.
- Wild Rock by Takashima Kazusa is set in prehistoric times and is a common Boys' Love Gateway Series.
- The Wize Wize Beasts of the Wizarding Wizdoms
- YataMomo
- Yellow
- ZE: About the relationships between the different Kotodama-samas and Kami-samas(dolls)
- Zetsuai 1989 and its sequel series Bronze: Zetsuai Since 1989: One of the greatest classics of the genre, by Minami Ozaki. The series began as yaoi doujinshi for Captain Tsubasa, and was spun off into an original tale brimming with melodrama; the word "zetsuai" is a made-up compound meaning something like "desperate love" or (Ozaki's favoured English translation) "everlasting love".
- Ai no Kusabi
- Cold Series
- Corsair has pirates, Bishōnen and dub con.
- Don't Worry Mama
- Er Ha He Ta Te Bai Mao Shi Zun
- S, otherwise known as Esu, is a detective and yakuza light novel series.
- The Golden Feather
- Immoral Darkness
- The Man Who Doesn't Take Off His Clothes
- Mirage of Blaze
- Mo Dao Zu Shi started as a serialized web novel, and now has a donghua, a live-action, and a chibi series.
- The Only the Ring Finger Knows books are many people's Gateway Series into this genre, due to their interesting (if generic) plot and light romantic scenes. There is also a manga.
- Qiang Jin Jiu
- Qian Qiu
- Ren Zha Fan Pai Zi Jiu Xi Tong
- Sha Po Lang Novel
- Sleeping With Money
- Sukisho, which started out as a novel, and expanded to an anime and Boys Love Game.
- Tian Bao Fu Yao Lu
- Tian Guan Ci Fu
- Zhen Hun
- The song Stab Me In the Back by X Japan is a fairly graphic description of Intercourse with You between two men in its original version (the 1987 and live version, not the Jealousy version), and qualifies as both this and Bara Genre due to the appearance of the band when they performed it, though, with some of the band members likely having been/being bisexual, it's probably closer to bara.
- The Visual Kei duet Adams centers around the idea of the duet being male lovers, and they are consciously a mix of yaoi and Bara aesthetic.
- Some Visual Kei Performance Video and promotional video tends in this direction due to fanservice or symbolism - see the Visual Kei entry below.
- There are various song parodies of the "Yaranaika" meme (you may not name or link to the work it originated from, as that work is definitely a violation of site rules). The most well known are "Yaranaika (Balalaika)," "World Is Abe," "Crash Man," and "GONG." These vary in whether they are classified as bara (as the story the meme originated from was) or yaoi. They also vary in explicitness - the Balalaika remix is usually "safe" if no one around understands Japanese (which is how someone in one of the more famous videos got away with performing it in a mall in Muslim-majority Indonesia), and "GONG" the most visually so and only allowable on Youtube because of its heavy use of parody censor items (roses, lightsabers, golden wings)
- Alice Blue, produced two Boys Love RPGs (Oujisama Lv1, Oujisama Lv2) and a BL simulation game (Ore no Shita de Agake) before going under.
- The works of nitro+CHiRAL, the most notable and popular developer. Their titles tends to be Darker and Edgier with heaps of Nightmare Fuel.
- Altough not as popular as N+C, Spray is also a notable developer, with foreign fans knowing them for the Gakuen Heaven series. Additionally they once did a Crossover artbook with the above-mentioned Nitro+CHiRAL.
- Animamundi Dark Alchemist
- Dream Savior Gakuen
- Hana Ki Sou
- Lucky Dog 1
- Messiah
- Miracle Noton
- Morenatsu is akemono example
- No, Thank You!!!
- Silver Chaos 2: Artificial Mermaid
- Steal
- Artifice
- Avialae: Ordinary teen-abruptly-turned-bird-boy and his bird-geek neighbor fall in love.
- Blood Bank: A vampire falls in love with a human who isn't all he seems to be. BDSM- and gore-heavy, and highly unsafe for work.
- Boys Love Boys' Love: A college kid summons drunkenly a demon in an attempt to rebound from his recently-ended relationship. So far limited to suggestive Fanservice, the work's title suggests more in future updates.
- Dark Heaven
- Demon Of The Underground
- Devoto
- Friends Till Death has Word of God stating there will be boy's love content, although the comic hasn't reached that point yet.
- Ghost Eyes has been confirmed by Word of God to be this, and it's a rather dark and morbid example at that. It should be noted that it tends to be a twisted Horror Comedy comic first and foremost, as any possible romance between the main trio tends to take a backseat to all the supernatural and psychological plots going on.
- Here U Are
- Honeydew Syndrome
- Hotblood!, with an extra helping of centaur Interspecies Romance.
- Incubus Tales NSFW at points, but the focus is on story.
- Paradox
- Pink Black has the main characters Sifris and Terence being rather close in promotional and extra art. It's already been stated by the creator that it is this
- Khaos Komix
- Seiyuu CRUSH! is a Boys' Love comic that also parodies yaoi with fictional drama CD and dating-sim games that the characters lend their voices to.
- Smoke Fur And Stone focuses on a gay love story in a dark fantasy setting.
- Starfighter
- Sticky Dilly Buns isn't full-on yaoi, but could be considered a lightweight western version, with Dillon and Jerzy as resident Yaoi Guys. The concept is also extensively alluded to within the comic; see below.
- Teahouse features three main male pairings. Be warned, it's NSFW in spots.
- Technicolor London features a gay couple among other gay (and a few straight) characters.
- Tripping Over You features two boys in love at a British boarding school
- What Happens In Carpediem
- Yaoi Tales is essentially Disney fairy tales... but yaoi.
- Young Protectors
- This ficlet: All I Ever Wanted
.
- This is pretty much the premise of Fragile
.
- This serial fic: Rauhattomat.
Works commonly mistaken for BL:
- 07-Ghost frequently dances right on the edge of this trope without coming right out and saying it. Teito and Mikage's relationship teases at it, and Kuroyuri and Haruse darn near imply it. Not to mention Hakuren's outright statement that he does "not like women", with a couple of exceptions.
- Adekan by Tsukiji Nao, is a historical shoujo manga featuring Yoshiwara Shiro, a sexy umbrella maker and Yamada Kojiro, an uptight but kind-hearted police officer. It is especially notable for its impossibly detailed art, as well as the sheer quantity of steaming Fanservice and innuendo. It's so blatant that the series could almost be considered as a BL on its own, though it never crosses that line.
- Banana Fish has a male/male relationship as its main pairing, but the series was officially published in a Shōjo magazine, and is primarily a gangster drama. Author Akemi Yoshida has explicitly stated that it's not BL
, though the series is still considered to have been very influential on the genre.
- Betrayal Knows My Name mostly has males in the cast, very occupied in confessing their mutual admiration for each other and they even have a pet dragon called "Sodom". Several sites tag this series as shounen-ai, but officially it's shoujo.]
- Blue Flag: The manga is a shounen drama in which a number of central characters are gay, and it had mistakenly be labeled as Yaoi. The fact that the two male leads do end up Happily Married still doesn't make it a yaoi.
- CLAMP loves Yaoi Guys and Ho Yay (they have their own Ho Yay page), but so far they have not published any official Boys' Love. CLAMP works that are particularly yaoi-esque include:
- The formerly suspended Legal Drug series, which has since returned and been renamed "Drug & Drop", is for all intents and purposes a very slow-moving Boys' Love story.
- Subaru and Seishirou of Tokyo Babylon are more or less in a romantic relationship, although it might not be the kind you imagined at first.
- Unsurprisingly, CLAMP has their beginnings in shounen-ai doujinshi, one of the most well-known of which is of Jotaro and Kakyoin from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, of all things.
- Black Butler is officially Shōnen despite the rampant Ship Tease and Does This Remind You of Anything? and the little fact that both times Sebestian had sex, it was with women...
- Descendants of Darkness (aka Yami no Matsuei) has a rather complicated Love Dodecahedron involving most (male) main characters, but focuses mainly on the love/hate triangle between the psychopath Doctor Muraki, Tsuzuki Asato, and Kurosaki Hisoka. It's officially Shoujo.
- Game×Rush: At times it seems to run on Ho Yay, without ever crossing the line to actual Boys' Love.
- Gankutsuou: Albert's relationships with the Count and Franz are dripping with subtext, though it's more text on Franz's part.
- Get Backers: Not only does it have copious amounts of Ho Yay between its many beautiful male characters, but the artist of the manga is also a self-admitted Yaoi Fanboy, and the
anime
contains
several
suggestive
artworks
. In fact, one of the most commonly asked questions about Get Backers is whether or not its a Yaoi series. The truth? Its actually a gritty Shounen manga with tons of Fanservice (for the guys).
- Golden Days has shounen-ai elements but it was published in Hana to Yume.
- The lead of Hana-Kimi is only dressed like a boy, but Boys' Love romances abound among the supporting cast.
- Hands Off! due to the absurd amounts of subtext between two of the male characters, which gets mentioned a lot - but is completely about ESPers.
- Hetalia: Axis Powers. Despite being a major Cast Full of Pretty Boys and having two not entirely confirmed canon male-on-male pairings (Germany×Italy and one-sided Sweden×Finland if you ask, not to mention all the other male-on-male Ship Tease), this fanservice is almost entirely Played for Laughs, the story doesn't revolve around those relationships, and it's marketed as seinen.
- Ilegenes - Kokuyou no Kiseki is shoujo but the relationships between the male characters and especially the cover art depicting them in close positions have many fans asking if it's boys love.
- Jyu-Oh-Sei: Women are very scarce on Chimera, and tend to live separately from men. As a result, a lot of otherwise straight men aren't against going for the next best thing (read: Thor). There's also blatant Ho Yay between Thor and Third, and Thor and Zagi. Zagi especially can't keep his hands off of Thor, especially in the manga (where the Ho Yay is so obvious that Karim who's Zagi's love interest gets jealous of Thor). Third prefers the "getting in his face" method. It's officially shoujo.
- Kaguya Hime is a shoujo manga with characters blurring the lines between male and female with gender identity being one of the main themes as well as LGBT scenes figuring same sex relationships.
- Karakuridouji Ultimo, while heavily in the Shōnen robot genre, and not to mention being authored by the creators of Shaman King and Spider-Man, is becoming more and more known for its Boys' Love subtext. The main character Yamato's best friend Rune becomes evil due to his jealousy of Yamato liking somebody else. This... leads to some surprising and horrifying situations. Whether this was intentional or not is unknown; don't think anybody would have the guts to ask Hiroyuki Takei or Stan FREAKING Lee about this.
- The subtext becomes so strong that when Part Three comes around, Viz Media pulls Ultimo from Shonen Jump.
- K is loaded with Ship Tease and Foe Yay between kings and vanguards with a cast full of pretty boys. It would have made a really good shounen-ai series if it weren't for its Shounen label.
- Kyo Kara Maoh! is a series about a boy who becomes king of the demon realm; in the process of doing so, he accidentally proposes marriage to another man. It's officially Shoujo.
- Legend of Galactic Heroes was published in a boys love magazine even though its actually a cross between the shoujo/shounen demographic.
- Loveless was originally published in Monthly Comic Zero Sum, a magazine that was looking for crossover shonen/shoujo readership (although it has since turned into a shoujo mag), so it's not officially considered BL. It has the added bonuses of Nekomimi and a pair of Schoolgirl Lesbians. Not to mention all the horror and Mind Screw.
- Monochrome Factor is ridden with pretty boys and Ho Yay in the anime and is sometimes labelled as a shounen-ai even though it's officially a seinen.
- Manga sites often mistakenly tag Nabari no Ou as BL. You can't really
blame
◊ them
though
. Not surprisingly, it's serialized in the same magazine as Black Butler.
- Naruto features the relationship between Haku and Zabuza, along with other male/male subtext examples as well as the hugely popular Sasuke/Naruto. Some fans are of the assumption that the manga was originally meant to be shounen-ai due to the fact that Naruto and Sasuke get about as much Ship Tease as the heterosexual relationships, especially on cover pages and in the anime too. Even after Naruto marries Hinata and Sasuke marries Sakura in the epilogue some fans still prefer Naruto and Sasuke together.
- Neon Genesis Evangelion falls into the shounen/seinen demographic and one of the series' popular aspects was the relationship between Shinji and Kaworu. This was to the point where KHARA released engraved Kaworu and Shinji wedding bands and necklaces from wedding company KISS that read "Good things happen when we play together". In the original drafts of Kaworu's appearance, the Ho Yay was meant to be even more blatant. Originally, they were going to go skinny dipping in the ocean together, kiss
, and Shinji was actually going to confess his feelings for Kaworu.
- Rare Shōnen example of a male-male romance: No Bra, a manga where a guy falls in love with a Wholesome Crossdresser.
- No. 6 does this with Nezumi and Shion. Things essentially get more Ho Yay fueled with every episode/chapter, including a "good-night kiss" and a "good-bye kiss", eventually ending with them becoming the Official Couple. Despite this, the series is typically considered shoujo/josei rather than shounen-ai.
- PandoraHearts has multiple instances with Ho Yay and the main character's friend having a huge infatuation with him and often fights with the main love interest for his affection as a result. Regardless, you can interpret it as Ho Yay, overprotectiveness or something else entirely.
- Peacemaker Kurogane has an incredible amount of Ho Yay subtext/text (?), a Bishōnen main cast and the one female love interest is very boring so it's not surprising some would consider it Boys' Love.
- Princess Princess does this with having the very feminine guys dress up as girls to be adored by the male population of their school. Not to mention all the Ho Yay between Tooru and Yuujirou. It's officially shoujo even though it's sometimes tagged as shounen-ai.
- Saiyuki is a shounen manga about four pretty guys traveling together on an epic journey, spending most of their time in close proximity. There would be too much Ho Yay to list even if the mangaka wasn't a former yaoi doujinshi artist who deliberately adds to it.
- Sakura Gari is serialized in Rinka, a Josei magazine, despite male/male relationships being rampant.
- Seraph of the End is a shounen anime/manga which plays up the relationship between Yuu and Mika and other male characters a lot to the point where fans wonder if it's shounen-ai.
- Silver Diamond has gotten this reputation (its a shoujo manga). Probably due to in story art and cover art featuring Chigusa with Rikan in suggestive positions.
- Shounen Note: Shounen Note attracts both an LGBT fanbase and a music-loving fanbase. It has several canonically LGBT characters and several implied ones. This is unsurprising, as it's written by the same X-gender mangaka who made Nabari no Ou and Our Dreams at Dusk. Though it's seinen, not shounen-ai.
- Tactics. The characters are so gay that the authors themselves have made yaoi doujinshi of them. (Specifically, "Lovesick".) Kantarou and Haruka in particular are the most notable example, and it's more apparent in the manga than in the anime but still there. It's not shounen-ai, though, but shounen, and was featured in Monthly Comic Avarus, the same magazine that Vassalord was featured in.
- Vassalord features the relationship between Charles and Rayflo with various blood sucking scenes that remind one of boys love. It's officially shoujo.
- The four Bishōnen protagonists of Weiß Kreuz and their opposite numbers are all canonically heterosexual, but their status as terminal Doom Magnets combined with copious amounts of subtext has gained it a reputation as a Boys Love series.
- Yuri!!! on Ice has enough Ship Tease between two of the main characters that easily exceeds all the Ho Yay that can be found in other sports anime like Kuroko's Basketball, Haikyuu!!, Free!, etc. — combined. It's because of this that's its garnered a reputation as a boys love series despite not actually being boys love, as it's primarily marketed as a sports story. The fact that these characters, who are both men, actually become a couple halfway through the series helps.
- Yuureitou has a LGBT Fanbase with its cast full of gay and bisexual men and the main character Tetsuo is a handsome trans man who eventually falls in love with the male Amano and vice versa. Its because of this that fans have mistaken it for being a Boys' Love manga despite it not being labelled as such. It's actually a dark seinen manga.
- Ling Qi: Many readers believe Yang Jinghua and Duanmu Xi are madly in love with each other, which is not unfair, considering that 90% of their actions scream "I'm very gay" at the readers. They do everything any couple out there would do (just minus the romantic feelings): making cheesy confessions, blushing at the other's cheesy confessions, holding hands, hugging, crying at the thought of losing each other and ultimately, kissing. Yes, they kiss. It doesn't help that the official animated series makes it even gayer. Seriously, it would be easier to explain why bread always lands on the buttered side than to explain how Ling Qi could possibly not be Boys' Love.
- Demon Diary has several fans wondering if the male characters are in a relationship or not.
- Visual Kei provides a complicated, multilayered case. Early on, the scene was a safe haven to some degree for actual bisexuals and gay men, owing to its descent in part from Kabuki and other theatre, its androgynous aesthetic, that (while no one from them actually came out in a traditional manner until much later) some of the members of the founding bands of the scene were either gay or bisexual or allies of gay or bisexual friends, and that at the beginning displays of man on man sexuality were seen as a way to shock Japanese society at large and flip off the "to grow up you must marry a woman and have kids" and "we will pretend real gay and bisexual people don't exist in Japan" societal standards of The '80s and early 1990s Japan. As the scene developed in The '90s and the fujoshi / Yaoi Fangirl was recognized as a demographic to whom the Ho Yay and fanservice appealed, straight artists began to engage in it solely for the sake of making money and attracting fangirls, which led to a backlash of people considering it insulting or denying the presence of the actual gay or bi men in the scene, in a sort of gender inversion of how Les Yay is often considered. It's kind of reached an odd equilibrium at this point, with plenty of straight men pretending to be Yaoi Guys for the fangirls, but a fair amount of actual bisexuals and gay men as well (especially with the older bands, which are more likely to have these as opposed to 100 percent straights faking it).
- Some fans consider the Riku/Sora pairing in the Kingdom Hearts video game series to maybe have more subtext than the other pairings in the games. This is to the point where some consider the series very Yaoi-ish outside of its actual genre (action/adventure RPG).
Use of BL manga/anime itself as a trope (for uses of BL tropes outside BL, see Yaoi Guys):
- In Codename: Sailor V, Marie Buraidaru admits to writing yaoi doujinshi about Phantom Ace.
- One of the girls in Negima! Magister Negi Magi brought some yaoi to class once and shoved it in Nodoka's face, much to her consternation. The Abridged Series lampshades it.
- Nagata in My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness is shown to read Boys' Love comics in some panels. She used it as a sort of basis for what she thought was supposed to happen during sex.
- In No Matter How I Look at It, It's You Guys' Fault I'm Not Popular!, the main character buys a BL visual novel.
- Mio in Nichijou draws yaoi manga as a hobby, and is mortified by the thought of anyone else discovering it. At one point she goes as far as to beat up a cop, her best friend, an old man and a goat in order to get it back.
- Nyaruko: Crawling with Love! has something of a Running Gag where aliens find protagonist Mahiro so attractive that they keep trying to cast him in BL media — whether he likes it or not (and he most certainly does not). In the novels and first TV series, he's almost auctioned off to star in "a sparkly love-hate drama about a pretty boy bought by a young businessman". In the second season he finds out that an alien doujin circle has produced a yaoi manga about him; when he finds out, he buys the manga and burns it, partly to keep it out of his Unwanted Harem's hands but mostly just to destroy it.
- Princess Jellyfish has the highly reclusive Boy's Love manga artist Juon Mejiro, who sometimes has the other residents of Amamizukan help out with inking manga pages before deadlines.
- Zettai BL Ni Naru Sekai Vs Zettai BL Ni Naritakunai Otoko: A Deconstructive Parody where the genre is deconstructed by a background character trying to avoid cliches that might make him part of a couple.
- In Empowered, Emp tries to freak her male teammates by showing them X-rated yaoi doujinshi starring themselves. They decide they're flattered.
- The The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel games have a Running Gag of a girl named Dorothee who is head of the Thors Military Academy Literature Club, but her entire taste in literature is this. One of your playable characters, Emma, joins the club not knowing of her taste in literature and throughout the game, Dorothee works to try to corrupt others into becoming fans of this genre.
- Cool and Unusual Punishment in this strip
of Dan and Mab's Furry Adventures.
- In Questionable Content, Marigold gets annoyed at Hannelore for mixing her yaoi in with the rest of her manga. Pretty soon they're watching yaoi anime together.
- Sticky Dilly Buns first alludes to the concept here,
and Ruby's new, naive, but intense interest in yaoi rapidly becomes a major point of her characterization.
- In the South Park Season 19 episode "Tweek x Craig", Tweek and Craig are Mistaken for Gay due to the Asian girls drawing a bunch of Yaoi artwork. Not only does Wendy give a lecture about the topic of Yaoi, all the drawings in the episode are actual fanart submitted by fans for this episode. Not only that, but several episodes later reveal that Tweek and Craig are an Official Couple, which was also confirmed by Matt Stone and Trey Parker over Twitter and in the DVD commentary.