570462d1-s3

You might recall that last year, we introduced the revolutionary Japanese textbook A Fujoshi’s Guide to Japanese and an illustration guide book that made many BL (boys’ love) manga artists rejoice. Well, apparently that’s not all the BL related education there is!

Universities in Japan have actual lectures that delve into the depths of boys’ love literature! As the mighty Wiki explains it, boys’ love is “a Japanese genre of fictional media focusing on homoerotic romantic or sexual relationships between male characters” and it’s said that BL titles make up about 30 percent of romance manga targeted at the female audience. When you’re a literature student, you often have to come in contact with all sorts of literature, and that includes stuff that revolves around sexuality and homosexuality. Let’s take a closer look at some of the BL course content from Japan!

Note: Some of the boys’ love university lecture material is NSFW.

▼ Senshu University incorporated lessons on Boys’ Love into their literature course syllabus in 2010 and 2011.
4675715064659968

▼ The topic was omitted from their syllabus for the next couple of years, but the subject found its way back into the syllabus this year, on a smaller scale.
4736173708673024

Senshu University is probably not the only institution to include such topics in their school course, because when some photographs taken during one of those BL lectures recently went viral on Twitter in Japan, a handful of netizens responded saying that they had such lessons in their school too!

BoRdnhpCYAIYm0e

Who knew universities taught such things? While curious students and netizens are making jokes out of the unusual lessons, the lecturers seem to be taking the education very seriously though, and give detailed explanations starting from the basics of BL – seme and uke.

Here’s BL 101 for those of you who have never peeked into a Boys’ Love manga!

Seme comes from the word 攻める (semeru), which means to attack. In contrast to that, uke comes from 受ける (ukeru), which means to receive. You might have already guessed from the meaning of those words, but in English terms, they’re pretty much the equivalent of “top” and “bottom” in a relationship.

▼ Or as this lecturer explains, the seme is the “man” and the uke is the “woman” in a heterosexual relationship.
570462d1-s3

▼ Students were also asked to spot the difference between the two following images:
BrBh3gDCcAARP2A

BrBh3gtCcAADKv_

Teacher: “Please analyze the difference between these two images.”
Student: “Body hair…”
Teacher: “Body hair?! What about body hair?!”
Student: “…that guy has body hair…” (referring to the first picture)

▼ Students also had to fill in a detailed survey revolving around the subject at the start of the lesson.
Bqx9wjGCcAEKwuV

Q3. Please fill in your impression of people who like BL works.
Q4. Do you know anyone around you who likes BL works?
Q5. Do you like Boys’ Love works?
Q6. Do you know the meaning of the word “fujoshi”?

*Fujoshi refers to girls who are fans of homoerotic fiction.

Bqx9wcBCUAANKxn

Q7. What sort of image do you have towards fujoshi? Please fill in your impression of fujoshi. (The student answered “nothing in particular”.)
Q8. Are you a fujoshi? (Answer: 4. No.)

It seems that not just literature students come in contact with the subject of BL at school. Psychology students too, have to study the subject as part of understanding the psychological changes a teenage girl goes through that results in the girl awakening to the world of BL and becoming a fujoshi.

What do you think of including Boys’ Love as part of a school’s curriculum? Would you like to sit in for a BL lecture? Share your thoughts in the comments section below!

Source: Zhaizhai News
Images: Twitter (1, 2, 3, 4), Senshu University