Juné offers original content starting with its new "yabara" genre
In an industry full of every kind of love story imaginable, Juné launches its own original content with a fresh new genre.
The yaoi genre has been defined as the depiction of boy's love written for women by women. It is chalked full of slender, beautiful men with common themes of forbidden love and dramatic romances.
Bara, yaoi's counterpart written by men for men, shows muscular manly men with much less plot driven story lines and a lot more sexual encounters.
The two terms are rarely aimed at the same audience and yet, at their core, come from the same foundation of male-love driven stories.
DMI's president Hikaru Sasahara, known for being a constant innovator in the manga industry, has found a way to join the two genres with the new term "yabara." It may seem as simple as combing yaoi + bara = yabara, but this new genre has even more hidden behind some clever wordplay.
Steering away from the old stereotypes of mature older semes, pretty boy ukes or even just two overly muscular hairy men, yabara will appeal to each and every body type. Race, age, shape, and size will be explored on new levels to appeal and even broaden the reader's experience to the male love genre.
Not only will yabara combine the art styles of yaoi and bara, but it will combine its audiences as well. Yabara content is made for the comic book audience as whole. It's intent is to appeal to all the fujoshi, fudanshi, LGBT community, and indie comic book lovers.
Yabara breaks away from typical plots of both yaoi, known for stories like hidden office love affairs, and bara, known for a whole lot of sex. This genre will bring the male love genre to the masses with modern romances, current events, and true to life tragedies.
Juné's very first yabara title is not only the first of its kind, but it will also be DMI's first originally produced yaoi title. DMI has produced original content once before with the novel "Vampire Hunter D," making it into a manga for the first time back in 2007.
"Eden's Mercy," by Japanese mangaka Velvet Toucher, was announced at Yaoi Con 2016. This title will be made in America and produced in English before it will be later translated into Japanese.
Giving English speaking audiences the opportunity to read works from their favourite mangakas first, without having to wait for translations opens up new opportunities for the otaku world. With the announcement of companies like Netflix putting more money into original content, Juné plans to keep with its own trend by producing original yaoi works from both local talents and Japanese artists.
I am a male that loves both Yaoi and Bara. This is something very exciting and has a lot of appeal!
Hopefully you will be able to add more things to this line in the future. For example,I think the works of Zariya Ranmaru would fit under this category very well.
Then my concerns are allayed and I can’t wait to see how next two years will unfold. =D
Jake Hill: We still intend on bringing over as many yaoi license from Japan as we can. Original content is just another addition to Juné that we believe will enhance our collection of titles.
On the one hand: Yay! More diversity in art and story with the added bonus of, hopefully, less internet robbery purchasing original titles in print. I do hope we see more up beat and humorous stories than sad and tragic ones though.
On the other hand: Will we still see lots of yaoi print titles from Japan? Because those are still of great interest and the reason we’ve supported June for so many years now. =)
Still, it should be interesting to see where this new direction takes us and I am personally interested in seeing more diverse appearing characters. =)