The Gachimuchi BL sub-genre is currently one of the popular BL subgenres in Japan. The term “gachimuchi” itself, however, only started being commonly used and is no longer considered a gay community term for around the past five years. The modest but continuous popularity of this sub-genre later even sparked a particular publisher to create their own “Men’s Love” BL, intended to cater more to male, gay readers.
Many geikomi artists whose styles are of the “gachimuchi” type participated, and by the end of 2003, a new sub-genre of gachimuchi BL was starting to gain traction. At the beginning of the 2000s, many publishers began catering to female fans of muscle BL, resulting in some anthologies such as Kinniku-Otoko and Bakudan.
However, some initiatives for gay comic magazines did not sell well due to BL’s popularity in the 1990s. A lot of the art style for gay manga (“ geikomi“) and popular illustrations, especially the ones appearing in the “Bara” message boards in the 1990s, were of the “gachimuchi” art style-leading to the misinterpretation of “Bara” as a name for that style by English-speaking fans. The word “gachimuchi” was first used in Japan’s gay community to describe men who are muscular (“gachigachi”) but still also has the attractive plump (“muchimuchi”) features. It is different from the word “maccho”(マッチョ) since its nuanced meaning refers more to a bodybuilder’s muscular body type.
“Gachimuchi” is written as ガチムチ and is born out of meshing two different words: ガチガチ (“gachigachi” or muscular) and ムチムチ (“muchimuchi” or plump), resulting in “gachimuchi” which implies an attractive, wrestler-like plump and muscular body type. The art style for “gachimuchi” is perhaps more commonly known to the English-speaking fans as “ Bara,” a term that is not used by Japanese fans in general. “Gachimuchi” is a term commonly used by Japanese-speaking fans to talk about the sub-genre of gay or BL manga depicting characters drawn as muscular-sometimes exceptionally so-wrestler-like men.
0 kommentar(er)
