The boys love (BL) genre was created for girls and women by young female manga (comic) artists in early 1970s Japan to challenge oppressive gender and sexual norms. Over the years, BL has seen almost irrepressible growth in popularity and since the 2000s has become a global media phenomenon, weaving its way into anime, prose fiction, live-action dramas, video games, audio dramas, and fan works. BL’s male–male romantic and sexual relationships have found a particularly receptive home in other parts of Asia, where strong local fan communities and locally produced BL works have garnered a following throughout the region, taking on new meanings and engendering widespread cultural effects.

Queer Transfigurations is the first detailed examination of the BL media explosion across Asia. The book brings together twenty-one scholars exploring BL media, its fans, and its sociocultural impacts in a dozen countries in East, Southeast, and South Asia—and beyond. Contributors draw on their expertise in an array of disciplines and fields, including anthropology, fan studies, gender and sexuality studies, history, literature, media studies, political science, and sociology to shed light on BL media and its fandoms.

Queer Transfigurations reveals the far-reaching influences of the BL genre, demonstrating that it is truly transnational and transcultural in diverse cultural contexts. It has also helped bring about positive changes in the status of LGBT(Q) people and communities as well as enlighten local understandings of gender and sexuality throughout Asia. In short, Queer Transfigurations shows that, some fifty years after the first BL manga appeared in print, the genre is continuing to reverberate and transform lives.

• James Welker, Editor

  James Welker is professor in the Department of Cross-Cultural Studies at Kanagawa University, Yokohama, Japan.

• Allison Alexy, Series Editor

  Allison Alexy is assistant professor in the Department of Women’s Studies and the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of Michigan.

Contributors

• Thomas Baudinette
• Poowin Bunyavejchewin
• Tricia Abigail Santos Fermin
• Katrien Jacobs
• Han Hau Lai
• Kang-Nguyễn Byung’chu Dredge
• Hyojin Kim
• Jungmin Kwon
• Aerin Lai
• Xi Lin
• Lakshmi Menon
• Kazumi Nagaike
• Gita Pramudita Prameswari
• Asako P. Santo
• Kristine Michelle Santos
• Kania Arini Sukotjo
• Peiti Wang
• Yanrui Xu
• Ling Yang
• Wei Wei

• Not only does Queer Transfigurations extend the borders of BL beyond Japan, but it also significantly updates our understanding of BL from a fan studies perspective and the social, cultural, and political effects of BL in Asia. . . . [It] is a well-edited, novel, and interesting collection of chapters well-suited for academic readers [and] is a crucial volume for manga and fan studies scholars, as well as for anyone interested in Boys Love and LGBTQ+ media. [The] positive, forward-looking tone of this volume mirrors Welker’s final argument that the BL genre has been ‘positively reshaping the imaginary and real worlds of its fans and others in Asia and beyond’ and leaves readers feeling refreshed and optimistic for the future.
  —Lindsey Stirek, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Journal of Anime and Manga Studies, Volume 3
• Queer Transfigurations is one of the most important edited volumes on popular culture in Asia to appear in decades. . . . These studies of BL media illustrate the power of stories to dislocate gender and sexuality norms by offering alternative models of intimacy and an upsetting of stereotypical gender roles. . . . This collection will be a valuable resource for scholars and students because it offers a counterpoint to studies dominated by understandings of the global spread of media based on mainstream feature films, television, and commercially published texts.
  —Laura Miller, University of Missouri-St. Louis, QED: A Journal in GLBTQ Worldmaking, 10:2 (Summer 2023)
• [Queer Transfigurations], which considers the influence of BL on sexual identification among primarily cisgender heterosexual women and members of the queer community, offers a much-needed perspective on BL studies that is thoroughly and respectfully articulated. . . . It should be viewed as an essential book for anyone interested in studying BL, and a significant and pivotal contribution to the wider academic field involving transnational flows of culture.
  —Ashley Remminga, University of Tasmania, Intersections: Gender and Sexuality in Asia and the Pacific
• This collection . . . offers an ambitious survey of the boys’ love (BL) manga genre, its media extensions, and the communities of fans that have proliferated across different parts of Asia. [Each] chapter’s unique, localized perspective contributes to a rich overall examination of the topic.
  —R. Tait-Ripperdan, Florida Gulf Coast University, CHOICE, 60:8 (April 2023)
• With its extensive reach into the regional developments of a connected transnational phenomenon in Asia, this anthology points out a new direction for fan studies on BL. Overcoming the difficulties of connecting a wide range of topics, this book provides an extensive overview of some of the most recent phenomena and scholarly engagement with BL media and popular culture in broader Asian regions. . . . [The] compilation of essays identifies BL media from different parts of Asia as interconnected and overcomes the impulse to compare the West versus the East and slash versus BL. Rather, the studies in this book dive deep into BL's implications as a queer popular culture with multiple hotspots, revealing the robust localization of transnational trends across Asia.
  —Tess Tianzi Chen, University of Washington, Sports Fandoms, 45 (2025)