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AnnaAelfara

  • Joined Apr 2, 2008
  • 29
i

These anime showcase the joys and hardships of falling in love, whether a schoolgirl has an unrequited crush on her senpai, a Love Triangle occurs within a group of friends, or rivals become lovers through competition or their intense passion for each other.

Shoujo (少女), translated as "young woman", is a demographic aimed at teenage girls. The most iconic and influential Shoujo character designs come from the early 20th century, where girls and boys alike were drawn with huge eyes. Shoujo is the counterpart of Shounen, a demographic aimed at boys and young men.

These anime are categorized as Shounen-ai. Boys' Love or BL in Japan, is a genre that depicts homosexual relationships between men. Japan typically uses this single category for all forms of these relationships, sexual or not. In the West, the term Shounen-ai categorizes stories that focus on the emotional aspects of the relationships, while Yaoi categorizes more of the sexual aspects, such as Smut or explicit content. As Anime-Planet's audience is mostly based in the West, we use the Western definition for both Yaoi and Shounen-ai. See BL for a list of both titles.