Updated on July 27th, 2021, by Leah Thomas: While BL still has a lot of growing up to do, progress is being made.
Great BL should showcase healthy, loving, and consensual relationships between boys, no matter the storyline. Newcomers to BL could do no better than start with anime that depicts healthy queer relationships, and many of the more famous - or infamous - yaoi shows simply don't make the cut. RELATED: 10 Must-Read Boy's Love Manhwa For BL Fans More and more often, positive queer representation has been normalized. Fortunately, as anime as a whole has evolved, so has BL.
Given this, much of the criticism yaoi receives is warranted, and many of the relationships depicted in manga and anime have been damaging to the queer community. While representations of queer romance are invaluable, the genre has propagated some extremely toxic tropes over the decades. Boys' Love, also known as BL or yaoi, has a problematic history.
