Fudanshi Manga Style : all you need to know

In a manga panel I keep coming back to, a high school boy slides a paperback under his desk while a classmate leans over to tease him. The word she uses is "rotten". That single word is the whole subject of this article.

A fudanshi (腐男子, "rotten boy") is a man who enjoys manga (漫画) and anime (アニメ) built around love stories between male characters. That genre is called yaoi, or Boy's Love. The label says nothing about his own orientation.

Have you heard the term "fujoshi" in a manga without knowing what it refers to? Let's break it down.

Japanese pop culture is full of fan vocabulary that travels badly. Manga reach millions of readers outside Japan, yet the words fans use about themselves rarely come with a translation. The fudanshi phenomenon is a good example, and it is more subtle than it looks.

History and origin of Fudanshi manga

It starts with the sheer scale of the manga and Japanese anime industries. As they grew, the content multiplied, and new sub-genres appeared year after year.

More sub-genres means more specific fans for each branch. Music works the same way. Rock splits into grunge fans, punk fans and heavy metal fans.

In the same vein, fudanshi is the name given to male fans of one precise category of Japanese art. Here, we are talking about yaoi manga fans.

But before fudanshi came "fujoshi". The term grew in the early 2000s on 2-chan, a Japanese message board that was very popular at the time, and it named girls who were fans of the same kind of works.

Fandom vocabulary tends to end up on clothes. At conventions, I see readers wearing their genre on a simple tee rather than explaining it out loud, which is a very gentle way to signal what you love.

Fudanshi and Fujoshi etymology

Japanese lends itself well to puns. The term "fujoshi" (腐女子) can be read as "rotten girl", but it is also a homophone of 婦女子, which means "respectable woman".

So fujoshi is a witty word that carries two opposite meanings at once. It was coined by the fujoshi themselves, which tells you a lot about their irony and self-deprecation.

Fudanshi is the male version of that word. It came afterwards, with the kanji 腐男子.

Yaoi meaning (and Yuri)

Before explaining fudanshi fully, we need a few subgenres of anime and manga.

Many Japanese media consumers are adults, and whole categories exist for them. That includes media with explicit content.

The genres that handle these themes are styles in their own right, and each has a name.

Yaoi (やおい) is the Japanese term for the genre centred on romantic relationships between two men. "BL" is sometimes used as an abbreviation for "Boy's Love". The stories can be sexual, or romantic manga, or both.

The yaoi genre is not written only for gay men. It is aimed largely at a female audience and is usually written by women.

The counterpart exists and is called "yuri" (百合), or Girl's Love. That genre was originally aimed at a male audience, though female readers took to it as well.

Fudanshi meaning (and Fujoshi)

With that groundwork laid, fudanshi becomes simple. It names a man who likes to read and watch yaoi anime and manga.

Literally, the expression means "rotten boy", and it can carry a pejorative edge. A fudanshi does not have to read yaoi exclusively, even though he will always be associated with it. If he reads yuri as well, he is still a fudanshi.

Women who follow yaoi or yuri stories are called "fujoshi". They are more common than fudanshi, probably because they feel freer to admit an interest in these stories.

The nuance to know: men can less easily claim the fudanshi label without being judged for what they read, so they display it less proudly. Fujoshi own it openly, and they are so widespread in fan communities that they have become characters and sub-genres of their own.

Boy's Love and Girl's Love mostly feature same-sex relationships, often tinged with humour, which opens the way to very comical situations. Yet most authors, and most fujoshi and fudanshi, are heterosexual.

To summarize: a fudanshi is a fan of manga that tells stories about men in love with men. He is also said to like "Boy's Love" media. He may read stories about women in love with women too. The term fujoshi names women who like the same stories.

Fujoshi (and Fudanshi) styles

These subtypes are not "officially" recognised, yet fans apply them to name the specific kind of yaoi or yuri reader someone is.

Here are four of them:

• the fujoshi: he likes to follow any kind of homosexual relationship without any particular preference.
• the fujoshi kainochi: he is attracted by the dominated or submissive character of the couple.
• the fujoshi yunoshi: he feels closer to the dominant characters.
• the pandajoshi: he likes both characters of the couple without distinction but does not want to be considered fujoshi

Other subtypes, nested even deeper, appear as trends shift.

Fans of these series rarely stop at the bookshelf. A framed panel on the wall is how most readers I talk to turn a favourite series into part of their Japanese interior.

To help you discover the yaoi universe, here is a short selection of the most emblematic manga of the genre. Three examples of fudanshi manga follow.

Fudanshi Kôkô Seikatsu

Fudanshi Koukou Seikatsu is a 2016 anime built around a fudanshi character, which makes it the clearest way to see the concept in action.

Sakaguchi Ryou, nicknamed "Gucchi", is a heterosexual fanatic of Boys' Love, a fudanshi, and he sometimes feels embarrassed about showing that interest because he is a boy. Along the way he befriends several memorable characters, including other Boy's Love fans like himself.

With the fujoshi Rumi, the fudanshi Daigo and his gay friend Yuujirou, he goes through high school life, which regularly turns hilarious.

Hato Kenjiro from Genshiken: Nidaime

Based on the original Genshiken series, this anime follows Sasahara Kanji, a first-year university student, and his time in the Genshiken student society.

Kanji joins the club to share manga and anime, until the semester's recruitment of new members comes round. Most newcomers are drawn in by a Boy's Love poster drawn by one of the members, which suggests the club is a gathering of yaoi fans.

Hato Kenjiro joins as the only male recruit, convinced he is surrounded by fudanshi like him. He realises his mistake and starts attending meetings dressed as a young woman, so he can take part without facing prejudice.

Arai Tamako from Barakamon

Handa Seishuu, a rising hope of calligraphy, strikes the curator of an art gallery during an exhibition. His parents send him to the remote Goto Islands, a rural setting far from the Tokyo bustle he knows. He has to adapt to this new life while searching for a calligraphy style that will earn him recognition.

One of his many neighbours is Arai Tamako, 14 years old, high school student, otaku and aspiring mangaka. Tamako is reserved and keeps everything to herself, except when the subject is manga.

Tamako is a fujoshi who has not come to terms with it, and her interest in male relationships takes a new turn when she catches Handa and Hiroshi, another villager, kissing. The scene throws her into a crisis.

These short summaries show that the yaoi universe is far less binary and simple than the genre label suggests. By complicating relationships, it reaches situations that are new, awkward and often funny.

Yaoi, a genre of manga that has its fans!

So fujoshi and fudanshi are simply very devoted fans of one manga genre, called yaoi or Boy's Love.

They appear in many anime, where they add spice and humour to all kinds of scenes. They are usually written as funny characters, slightly offbeat and misunderstood.

Anime likes to exaggerate, as we know, yet the tendencies it gives fujoshi and fudanshi do echo real reading habits.

If this article has aroused your curiosity, the different types of Japanese manga are the natural next step. And if you would rather wear your fandom than explain it, a graphic Japanese hoodie does the job quietly.

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