I will start off by saying this. YOAI is not a common manga format found in America. Now before you fangirls dive all over me and rip out my eyes hear me out.

We see a lot of Shonen Ai here in the United States, at least everywhere I have been. We are ignoring the publishers such as "June" books for their supposed "yaoi" manga's. I do NOT mean shonen-ai my friends.

Shonen Ai= The love between two males (shojou-ai for the sake of females) which can be featured in a sexual sense. (kissing, touching, or even sexual) HOWEVER, there is this amazing censor bar which stops us from being able to see most of the "juicy" bits.

Yaoi= The above, minus the censor bar. Straight on porn my friends. (Yuri included)

Most of the manga's that we see on the shelves, if not all, are in the "shonen-ai" category. Once again "June" manga, I am ignoring you. But that's it as well. Most manga's are SHONEN-AI. Not Shoujou-ai, and for those who still wanna argue, barely even any Yuri.

My question is why?

As American readers of manga why is it that a lot of what are on our shelves, besides our base storylines, are in the malexmale category? Where did all the females go? Now I know they exist, I have seen them before, but in comparison there is just so few!

I know a large reason deals with the fact that a lot of those who read manga and anime are female. Especially ones that are romantic. Ignoring the manga that is just downright porn, most of the time when we pick up a manga we want storyline. ("June"... do I have to say anything? You're a topic for later discussion...) So when we pick up ones about a relationship, it's usually the females that grab it up. And how many girls want to see two females going at it? (This is not to say no one does, but I am going by the basic female heterosexual bias) So of course there is what we would assume little market for it.

Now, I myself am a straight individual, however I have books of almost all love! I have heterosexual, homosexual both male and female, demon and human, you name it I probably have it. (Damn you "Mans Best Friend") I don't only enjoy that of one type of romance, so I myself would enjoy to see a larger market of open romances in the stores.

What about you? Does your local store provide any other romances than that of just heterosexual and malexmale? Have you ever had any intent on picking up these books, no matter what your sexuality? Would you like to see a bigger market for these books?

For me, I think the closest book store I have around here that actually sells any type of Shounen-ai or Shoujo-ai manga series would be the Boarders store, which is 45 minutes away from me. So I do not go up there all that often as it's too far. My next option is Barnes and Nobles, which is about 15 - 20 minutes away from me, in a city that I used to shop in all the time (until my parents and I moved to another town that was 15 minutes away from our previous town). So I end up going to Barnes and Nobles more often, however, their stocks on Shounen-ai and Shoujo-ai is very small. In fact, I don't think I've ever seen a Shoujo-ai manga volume on their shelves. If you were lucky enough to walk in on a good day, you might find one or two Shounen-ai manga volumes and that would be all for those categories.

Barnes and Noble barely sells shounen-ai. (Loveless, I am looking at you, for being the last boy's love on those shelves).

However, Borders sells a bunch. Publishers like Blu and Kitty are sold there, as well as FYE. I've found things like Sensitive Pornograph and Incubus there, and we found Dog Style at FYE. If you know where to look, you can find them. However, there are still series I am reading that I can't get the next book for because they aren't selling them at B&N anymore, which makes me mad. I started there with Let Dai, Boy Princess, and Loveless. Now, all I can get is Loveless. D<

I have to say, as a Boy Love fan, I was drawn to the topic. Unfortunately, it doesn't make a lick of sense. I'm not sure what point you're trying to get across, but it helps if you start out by spelling Yaoi correctly. :(