My fannish practices don't change that much overall - I tend to critique, discuss, squee, and fic for fandoms of all sources in similar ways. Though there are certain fannish activities I do for animanga fandoms that I don't do for English-language fandoms, such as scan and translate (on occasion). This has less to do with source culture and more to do with source language, though - I'm a native English speaker and in English-speaking fandoms, so fanning on anything Japanese requires extra logistical steps, and I sometimes contribute. I also buy doujinshi for animanga fandoms and not for most Western fandoms, because dj don't really exist for Western fandoms (though nowadays I do look for Western-fandom dj, what little is out there!)
I tend to read more fic for Western fandoms than for animanga fandoms, as Western fandoms tend to have more of the kind of fic I like to read (such as the hurt/comfort genre.) Not sure if this is a cultural difference or in part an age difference? Or perhaps it has to do with the nature of the canons. Oddly, if anything animanga canons have *more* of what I like to read, more direct fangirl-id-appeals; but the fic doesn't often reflect this. (e.g. the GetBackers manga/anime has quite a bit of h/c, the fic not so much.) But I don't change genres myself when writing fic - I write h/c, slash, and friendship stories for both Western and animanga fandoms.
And yup, I do have experience with slash & BL. There's a lot of overlap between the genres but enough difference that they're not quite synonymous. The most obvious difference of course is the seme/uke-pairing order thing. Pairing order matters to many slash fen - there are pairings in which you're more likely to see one partner on top than another, and certain fans will state their preferences - but it's not as, hmm, regimented, as it is in (Western) yaoi fandom. In Western fandoms, some fans will use pairing order (top first) but it's not particularly a standard, while as the majority of yaoi fen will put the top first (even when using the "/" as well as the "x" notation, in my experience.)
I personally tend to like slash fic more than yaoi fic, though it's difficult for me to articulate exactly why, and a lot of it, too, is less about the source's culture of origin and more about other factors. Anime fans do tend to be younger than Western fans, and so there are more experienced, mature writers writing Western fic than for anime. As well, the characters in Western canons are often older than in animanga canons (many popular animanga series feature teenage protagonists) so the natures of the relationships are somewhat different - teen romance vs romance between adult chars.
There's also a difference in that while there are very few canonical gay couples in Western canons (Jack/Ianto is one of the only major ones I know of) there is a lot of canon BL manga and some anime; and moreover there are many animanga series which, while not technically BL, are far more suggestive than most Western series - writing John & Rodney as gay lovers is decidedly counter to how their creators intended them; writing Ban & Ginji as lovers is not so much. This might be why slash fandom tends to be somewhat more concerned with "realism" - both in staying "in character" as much as possible (and arguing about how strict the canonical sexuality really is, whether it's canonical or just inferred) and in portraying sex realistically (not all writers do, but a lot try); animanga fandom tends to be more flexible. The debates still happen, but not as much, in my experience.
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Date: 2010-08-28 02:26 am (UTC)I tend to read more fic for Western fandoms than for animanga fandoms, as Western fandoms tend to have more of the kind of fic I like to read (such as the hurt/comfort genre.) Not sure if this is a cultural difference or in part an age difference? Or perhaps it has to do with the nature of the canons. Oddly, if anything animanga canons have *more* of what I like to read, more direct fangirl-id-appeals; but the fic doesn't often reflect this. (e.g. the GetBackers manga/anime has quite a bit of h/c, the fic not so much.) But I don't change genres myself when writing fic - I write h/c, slash, and friendship stories for both Western and animanga fandoms.
And yup, I do have experience with slash & BL. There's a lot of overlap between the genres but enough difference that they're not quite synonymous. The most obvious difference of course is the seme/uke-pairing order thing. Pairing order matters to many slash fen - there are pairings in which you're more likely to see one partner on top than another, and certain fans will state their preferences - but it's not as, hmm, regimented, as it is in (Western) yaoi fandom. In Western fandoms, some fans will use pairing order (top first) but it's not particularly a standard, while as the majority of yaoi fen will put the top first (even when using the "/" as well as the "x" notation, in my experience.)
I personally tend to like slash fic more than yaoi fic, though it's difficult for me to articulate exactly why, and a lot of it, too, is less about the source's culture of origin and more about other factors. Anime fans do tend to be younger than Western fans, and so there are more experienced, mature writers writing Western fic than for anime. As well, the characters in Western canons are often older than in animanga canons (many popular animanga series feature teenage protagonists) so the natures of the relationships are somewhat different - teen romance vs romance between adult chars.
There's also a difference in that while there are very few canonical gay couples in Western canons (Jack/Ianto is one of the only major ones I know of) there is a lot of canon BL manga and some anime; and moreover there are many animanga series which, while not technically BL, are far more suggestive than most Western series - writing John & Rodney as gay lovers is decidedly counter to how their creators intended them; writing Ban & Ginji as lovers is not so much. This might be why slash fandom tends to be somewhat more concerned with "realism" - both in staying "in character" as much as possible (and arguing about how strict the canonical sexuality really is, whether it's canonical or just inferred) and in portraying sex realistically (not all writers do, but a lot try); animanga fandom tends to be more flexible. The debates still happen, but not as much, in my experience.