50 Best Yaoi Anime Worth Watching

Ah, boy love anime – so dramatic, so emotional, and so – on occasion – very forceful with physical love.

For many years, yaoi and shounen ai anime was seen as something for a certain selection of female anime fans. There is much debate as to why the homosexual relationships between men in boy’s love anime appeals to women, but boy’s love is for everyone to enjoy!

Whether you are interesting in the old school yaoi where love blooms through straight up sexual assault or you’ve come to enjoy the newer wave of shounen ai where the characters enjoy a wholesome romance not unlike heterosexual romance anime, you have a fair bit of boy’s love anime recommendations to enjoy.

Best Yaoi Anime

What is the Difference Between Shounen Ai and Yaoi?

You may hear the terms “yaoi,” shounen ai,” and “boy’s love (BL)” used interchangeably here and throughout the internet, but there is some important distinctions between them.

It is easiest explained, for those who don’t know, that shounen ai, literally translated from Japanese to English as “boy’s Love,” is more your standard romance anime. You get a few kisses if you are lucky and the lewdest thing that happens is ungloved hand-holding.

Meanwhile, yaoi will also feature romance, but they show a lot more flesh. They can drift into the NSFW areas, sometimes very graphically.

As some people enjoy the romance, but not so often the sexual assault that comes from explicit yaoi, particularly older yaoi, I have marked each series as either “yaoi” or “shounen ai.” If there is any kind of sexual content at all, even if it is just two silhouettes clumsily thrusting in the darkness, I counted it as yaoi.

Boy’s Love Anime Series

If you are looking for emotional relationships between men and not necessarily physical relationships between men, boy’s love TV Anime is often a better bet than OVAs or movies.

TV anime is given more time to develop the relationship between the characters. However, do note that some older boy’s love TV anime series love to make characters act like horny rape animals. Newer boy’s love TV anime has left that old, increasingly unloved trope behind in lieu of having characters act like people.

Junjou Romantica

• Yaoi
• TV Anime
• 3 Seasons, 36 Episodes Total + 1 OVA

Like with the yuri anime list, it is best to start with the most popular, right? Just so you can get to watching it right away if you haven’t seen it already.

Junjo Romantica is the most popular yaoi anime from the old guard, perhaps because it is also the longest-running.

Throughout its multiple different seasons, Junjou Romantica tells the stories of multiple different couples. You get a lot of that steamy sexual tension as well as the dominant-submissive relationships that are typical of yaoi anime.

What’s best is that it has quite a few couples to keep you occupied so that no singular story becomes stale with rehashed drama.

Twilight Out of Focus

• Yaoi
• TV Anime
• 12 Episodes

Do you want something with multiple couples to enjoy like Junjou Romantica that isn’t filled with the toxic relationship dynamics, but is also still seductive?

Twilight Out of Focus is that. It too follows three different couples, this time all of whom are involved in the film club at their all-boys school. It has a relationship type for everyone and doesn’t eschew the sexual element, but also isn’t graphically showing anything either.

World’s First Great Love

• Yaoi
• TV Anime
• 2 Seasons, 24 Episodes Total + 2 Movies

This series title gives it some pretty big expectations to fulfill, but it lives up to them.

The story of World’s First Great Love follows a young editor named Ritsu who works for his father’s publishing company. However, after some co-worker jealousy, he switches to a new company in order to prove himself on his own merits.

There, he ends up placed in the manga division where he meets his editor-in-chief, Takano, who strives hard for results. However, Takano is actually Ritsu’s high school love who broke his heart. Yet, in the workplace, the two end up rekindling their relationship, with Takano out to make Ritsu fall in love with him again.

As you’d expect, it follows the same typical yaoi tropes, but it is all those tender moments within that make it so beloved.

You will note the similar art styles between World’s First Great Love and Junjo Romantica. The source material shares an author and the series shares the same universe.

Love Stage

• Yaoi
• TV Anime
• 10 Episodes + 1 OVA

Love Stage is a yaoi show, but it is also a genderbender, which makes it for a very curious and exciting affair.

It follows the story of Sena who, despite having famous family, doesn’t want to be famous. Yet, he is pulled in, and worse yet, forced to dress as a girl.

His co-star in a commercial, young actor Ryouma, falls in love with “her” at first sight. Now with a besotted young boy pursuing him and wooing him, will Sena tell him that he is really a boy?

Understandably there is a lot of drama here, but there is also a lot of passionate kisses.

Loveless

• Shounen Ai
• TV Anime
• 12 Episodes + 6-episode Special

For long-time yaoi fans, Loveless is famous and infamous.

It has all those somewhat creepy things those unfamiliar with the genre think all yaoi is – the young characters, the coercion, the creepy forced nature of it all, the catboys…

Along with that, it also has a slightly supernatural and dark story about fighting pairs where one attacks and the other receives damage.

It’s a dark anime with a lot of mind games and predatory men, but that just makes it so intriguing.

Super Lovers

• Shounen Ai
• TV Anime
• 2 Seasons, 20 Episodes Total + 1 OVA

Although one of the newer yaoi series, Super Lovers still sticks true to some old tropes. It follows the eldest son of the family taking care of the youngest adoptive son that was abused previously, now preferring the company of dogs to people.

While this young boy is distrusting, they grow close over the course of one summer. Years later, the younger brother tries to move in with him, but after an accident, his older brother has lost all memories of that summer.

Super Lovers is kind of uncomfortable at times due to the predatory nature of the older brother and the age of the young adopted brother.

However, there are some sweet moments hidden in there, and of course there is plenty of painful past to explore.

Betrayal Knows My Name

• Shounen Ai
• TV Anime
• 24 Episodes

While it bears a dramatic title, Betrayal Knows My Name is not about just relationship drama.

Unlike many boy’s love anime, it is has plenty of action with characters fighting demons. However, you get your dramatic dose in the form of a main character that can see the troubled past of people just by touching them.

As an orphan, he is out to discover his purpose in life and the mystery behind his power.

However, this shounen ai anime makes its purpose clear – it is about pretty boys in pain, emotionally and physically connecting with each other. The story is rather generic, but it is chock full of eye candy.

Antique Bakery

• Shounen Ai
• TV Anime
• 12 Episodes

This series, in all honesty, is often less boy’s love and more slice of life.

It follows the owner of a bakery that hates sweets, so he hires a pastry chef. Fortunately, this pastry is as good at making sweets as he is at making everyone fall in love with him.

There’s lots of teasing, of course, but also very little pay off.

Sukisho

• Shounen Ai
• TV Anime
• 12 + 1 Special

This show has one of the more interesting plots of all romance anime, not just boy’s love.

It follows the story of two roommates, both of which have split personalities. When conscious, they are two normal boys, but both of their split personalities are actually in love with each other.

It is kind of like the ultimate way to craft a romantic comedy while not needing a whole bunch of extra characters.

Gravitation

• Shounen Ai
• TV Anime
• 13 Episodes + 2-Episode OVA

This series is putting on the years, but it is nothing less than a boy’s love epic, especially if you revel in drama. 

It tells the torrid love story of a young rising pop idol and a bitter older novelist. This is one of those stories where the older dominant man starts off as the brooding cold type and then slowly warms up over time.

Of course, that cold persona is the source of much of the drama in the show – the dickishness at first and then the impending jealousy later.

As a music show, it has a nice soundtrack. It can also be quite cute at times. It can also be predatory at times too.

No. 6

• Shounen Ai
• TV Anime
• 11 Episodes

Although very rarely realized, No. 6 is a boy’s love anime that managed to sneak its way into the mainstream.

No. 6 has a superbly complex plot that unravels a world where the elite and the poor are separated in city-states after the world effectively ended. Classism and secret yaoi overtones make for a very fun watch.

If you like mild boy’s love, and love post-apocalyptic dystopia anime, this is for you.

Descendants of Darkness

• Yaoi
• TV Anime
• 13 Episodes

Descendants of Darkness is a yaoi classic with a supernatural twist. It follows a pair of shinigami detectives that are charged with making sure the dead stay dead.

Of course, they work towards solving a supernatural crime, but these two shinigamis also have their own dark pasts that they need to confront with the help of each other.

Hitorijime My Hero

• Shounen Ai
• TV Anime
• 12 Episodes

Hitorijime My Hero tells the story of a young thug who is pretty much terrible at the thug life. So much so that other bullies use him to run errands.

One day, he meets his new teacher that has such a fierce reputation for fighting, and is famous in his neighborhood. This teacher protects him and suddenly, the thug, who insists he isn’t interested in men, gets pulled into his affairs.

This anime has the same sub-dom relationship of other yaoi series, but the way it is set up in the plot makes it feel all shiny and new. Unfortunately, as a shounen ai, you might not get as much pay off in the relationship as you’d like.

Yuri On Ice

• Shounen Ai
• TV Anime
• 12 Episodes + 1 Special

You know it, you love it, and if you haven’t seen it yet, you should probably get on that.

As an anime about figure skaters, you might expect a least some homosexual tones to the series, but I remember when it first came out and people couldn’t decide if it was going to cross that line or not.

It did and the world went crazy. Though still, to this day, they debate on is Yuri on Ice is indeed boy’s love.

The animation of the figure skating could use some work, but the sexual tension in Yuri on Ice makes it always worth the watch.

Given

• Shounen Ai
• TV Anime
• 11 Episodes + 3 Movie + 1 OVA

Given has given (!?) boy’s love anime fans a tender and new romance to chew on with the added benefit of having the excellent soundtrack that comes with music anime.

Unlike Yuri on Ice where it languishes in the “will they won’t they” fall in love, Given makes it pretty apparent early on.

This allows Given more time to develop its characters, not just romantically, but as people. Boy’s love anime sometimes skips the character development for the steamier bits, so it is nice to see the commitment from newer anime.

Dakaichi – I’m Being Harassed by the Sexiest Man of the Year

• Yaoi
• TV Anime
• 13 Episodes + 1 Movie

The love affair between two beautiful people is not something unseen in yaoi anime before, but delving into the male modeling antics of two models is something a bit new.

Dakaichi also happens to be as comical as it is pretty sexy as an aging male model is blackmailed by his younger, rising star peer.

Mirage of Blaze

• Shounen Ai
• TV Anime
• 13 Episodes, 3-Episode OVA

If you enjoy your boy’s love relationships with a side helping of actual plot besides romance, this Mirage of Blaze is for you.

Mirage of Blaze features a reincarnation of a previous spirit hunter who is then aided by his past life’s subject.

It is, of course, a set up for a very complicated BSDM-type relationship where the hate-love each other.

Banana Fish

• Shounen Ai
• TV Anime
• 24 Episodes

Banana Fish is a fun series because it has got people not typically into boy’s love to watch it, love it, realize it is shounen ai, and be a bit weirded out by that.

Still, Banana Fish, without the boy’s love romance, is still an excellent thriller all on its own, and that is an achievement. Boy’s love anime doesn’t always do plot so well.

Togainu no Chi

• Barely Shounen Ai (See Below)
• TV Anime
• 12 Episodes

Togainu no Chi is based on a popular, albeit gorey, boy’s love visual novel that was beloved by the fans.

The anime adaptation, although lovely-looking, is less beloved by the visual novel fans. So, what was the problem?

Oops, they forgot the boy’s love! And also a good chunk of the plot.

You still see breadcrumbs of the yaoi relationships from the visual novel given the relationships of the characters, but instead they are distinctly just a couple of suggestive “bros.”

Dramatical Murder

• Shounen Ai ( TV) / Yaoi (OVA)
• TV Anime
• 12 Episodes + 1 OVA

This series, like Togainu no Chi, is also based off a beloved boy’s love visual novel game by the same company.

In the Dramatical Murder anime adaptation they did a little better job wedging the plot in, but not the yaoi elements.

There is lots of innuendo, beautiful boys, and one kiss for you.

Of course, the OVA, which compiles all the bad ends from the game, is a little more …Rewarding? Graphic? Depressing? It’s gorey and sexual.

Monochrome Factor

• Shounen Ai
• TV Anime
• 24 Episodes

This one is an odd beast.

In the Monochrome Factor manga, there are no boy’s love elements. In the anime, they put a whole bunch of shounen ai in for reasons no one understands.

I guess there are a lot of handsome men in it, and they wanted to appeal to the shippers.

The Night Beyond the Tricornered Window

• Shounen Ai
• TV Anime
• 12 Episodes

The Night Beyond the Tricornered Window looks like it would be part of the “Love Through Sexual Assault” age of yaoi and shounen ai anime, but it is actually part of the new age of shounen ai romance anime where the characters are developed and not terminally horny.

In fact, if you are looking for shounen ai anime with a good plot outside of just exploring romance, The Night Beyond the Tricornered Window is for you.

It is the type of supernatural investigative series that you’ve likely seen before in anime like Ghost Hunt or Jujutsu Kaisen if you cut the shounen action out. It’s just that it has slightly more obvious flirting between the male main characters.

I recommend it for plot, but it may not satisfy those looking for romance.

Sasaki and Miyano

• Shounen Ai
• TV Anime
• 12 Episodes + 1 Movie

In many newer boy’s love anime, you may have noticed that they’ve given up a chronic drama addiction for something more grounded and realistic, and this is perhaps the most grounded of them all.

The relationship in Sasaki and Miyano is less frantic thrusting between the main characters and more wholesome slice of life moments as they bond over enjoyment of boy’s love manga.

Sasaki and Miyano series is perhaps slower moving than some would like in its romance, but is genuinely one of the most wholesome of shounen ai anime you can enjoy.

Gakuen Heaven

• Shounen Ai
• TV Anime
• 13 Episodes + 12-episode Special

Gakuen Heaven takes the popular plot of focusing on a new transfer student to a prestigious and conveniently all-male school.

There, the boys all immediately begin to fawn over his adorable self, but one of the more popular boys takes a specific interest and corrupts his innocent young heart.

While that is a simple premise for a lot of romantic shenanigans, not much happens in Gakuen Heaven. Mostly it is just cute moments between handsome boys. Although, for a series depending heavily on the handsomeness of its boys, there is not much variety in them.

Princess Princess

• Shounen Ai
• TV Anime
• 12 Episodes + 12-Episode Specials

Does it count as shounen ai if one character is cross-dressing? I leave that as a judgement for you to make, because that’s what this is.

Princess Princess follows an all-boys school that chooses the prettiest looking select few boys to dress as girls for them to enjoy.

Mostly the anime is a weird form of comedy, but there is also a character relationship developing that is distinctly shounen ai. However, in terms of shounen ai, the actual boy’s love is sparse in this one.

Cherry Magic! Thirty Years of Virginity Can Make You a Wizard?!

• Shounen Ai
• TV Anime
• 12 Episodes

Cherry Magic is fully built around the comical meme that if you stay a virgin until you are 30, you gain magic powers. It happened to the main character, and now he can read a person’s thoughts while touching them. However, this leads him to find out his handsome and popular-with-the-ladies co-worker is actually crushing hard on him instead.

Like Given or Sasaki and Miyano, Cherry Magic is everything fans enjoy about modern shounen ai media. Cherry Magic follows a main couple and a side couple who interact wholesomely and fall in love as part of their daily lives.

Instead of homophobia and sexual aggression, the couples support each other in their troubles, realize their sexuality, and are further supported in their relationship by those around them.

Tadaima, Okaeri

• Shounen Ai
• TV Anime
• 12 Episodes

While those deep into boy’s love will likely already have made the acquaintance of the sub-genre, Tadaima, Okaeri is the anime fan’s fist look into the Omegaverse.

The Omegaverse is an alternate universe in which humans either alphas or omegas. Omegas can give birth regardless of gender and face discrimination for their differences from the more preferred alphas.

That said, this series does offer what some BL fans have always wanted – wholesome family life stories. The main couple is already married with a child, and you enjoy their mostly happy life that is only broken up by moments of scratching at the scabs of past traumas.

Boy’s Love Anime OVAs / ONAs

While not always the case, the boy’s love OVAs are where the smut dwells. As OVAs are often made as a treat for manga readers, or just to give a broader audience a taste of a manga series in anime form, they often don’t last long and only showcase the good bits – the yaoi bits – the bits where the characters are touching each other’s bits.

As most Chinese animation is often labeled as ONAs, this is where the gayer Chinese anime dwell as well.

It is worth noting that there are actually a ton of boy’s love OVAs out there, but I left some short, one-episode OVAs off this list because they are hard to find, and not really worth the search. That said, most if not all of the OVAs below also have great manga series that will give you a lot more of what you liked.

Hey, Class President

• Yaoi
• OVA
• 2 Episodes, 30 Minutes Each

If you like your yaoi with a good dose of laughter-inducing comedy, then this is a watch for you.

Hey, Class President has a simple school yaoi anime premise where the student council president unnaturally attracts perverts and it is the vice president’s job to beat them off with a stick.

Of course, those two have their own special relationship central to the plot as well.

As the premise suggests, there is a lot of great comedy to be had and the touching moments aren’t too bad either.

The Titan’s Bride

• Yaoi
• ONA
• 9 Episodes, 6 minutes per episode

Isekai has infiltrated anime so far that it has made it to the yaoi genre. Personally, I could do with a few more of these as they have the potential to be pretty sexy.

The Titan’s Bride features a guy getting transported to a world of giants and having a giant prince declare that he shall be his bride.

It’s as fun of an adventure as it is a sultry love affair. Although, it is filled with small hole, large pole shenanigans.

Hybrid Child

• Shounen Ai
• OVA
• 4 Episodes, 25 minutes per episode

Seeing as Hybrid Child is about androids that are created to be conscious, feel emotions, and raised like regular children by their masters, the whole idea of Hybrid Child as a boy’s love anime is a little uncomfortable.

Since they start young and grow up, this can create all sorts of uncomfortable plotlines, but this shounen ai anime is more of a tearjerker than anything else.

It tells three separate tragic tales about these androids and their bonds with their masters without being creepy.

The Tyrant Falls in Love

• Yaoi
• OVA
• 2 Episodes, 29 minutes per episode

Yaoi has often been criticizing for glossing over the rampant lack of acceptance for same-sex couples in Japan and many places in the world with unrealistic tales.

Unfortunately, while the plot of The Tyrant Falls in Love tackles the classic story of falling in love with someone who isn’t gay and does touch on that, unfortunately it still goes the same “love conquers all” route of other yaoi anime.

The Romantic Tale of a Foreign Love Affair

• Yaoi
• OVA
• 2 Episodes, 27 minutes per episode

Now this story is one of the most wonderful dalliances in the yaoi genre.

A young yakuza heir gets married on a cruise ship, but it is a guise. He spends the night, not with his bride, but with the handsome ship captain, and thus a wild love story begins.

As you would expect, this is one of the steamier yaoi manime, which is why it is a shame that it is a short OVA.

However, it also has the benefit of not being the typical sub-dom relationship either as the men treat each other more as equals. That alone makes The Romantic Tale of a Foreign Love Affair one of the best yaoi anime.

Embracing Love

• Yaoi
• OVA
• 2 Episodes, 30 minutes per episodes

The main characters in Embracing Love are both adult video actors that want to someday become real actors.

They meet on the audition set for one of those real parts and while one falls in love, the other denies he is in love.

While you would think much of the drama comes from their adult video jobs, it actually stems from friends and rivals that show up around them and get in the way of them realizing their true feelings.

Ai no Kusabi

• Yaoi
• OVA
• 2 Episodes, 54 minutes per episodes (1994), 4 Episodes, 25 minutes per episode (2012)

Ai no Kusabi takes place in an interesting dystopian world in which a person’s class is decided by their hair color. Of course blondes are at the top and the brunettes work as slaves.

Although not a trope-breaking plot, the whirlwind love between a blonde and a brunette in this show is a touching one.

Needless to say, the classism provides all the drama, but a forbidden love is often the most enticing.

Hyperventilation

• Yaoi
• ONA
• 6 Episodes, 3 minutes per episode

Hyperventilation, a rare Korean yaoi anime, is the typical love affair between tormented individuals that you are likely used to seeing in yaoi.

It follows a guy with lung problems that starts a torrid love affair with a married man. While short, the anime is captivating in how it plays out this forbidden relationship.

Fake

• Yaoi
• OVA
• 58 Minutes

Fake is more famous for its manga than its OVA, but it is a fun watch anyway.

It takes the whole buddy cop plot to the natural yaoi anime extreme where two police partners end up in love with each other.

They solve crimes, and then you get the mushy stuff.

Papa Datte, Shitai

• Yaoi
• ONA
• 8 Episodes, 6 minute episodes

On occasion, yaoi anime can mean glamorously beautiful boys in glamorous jobs. However, this series is a little more low-key.

It tells the story of a single father and his new young housekeeper. You watch feelings grow and them grow together as a family.

It’s really quite the touching romance without much of that drama that feels the need to be injected into boy’s love.

I Became a Gal So I Fucked My Best Friend

• Yaoi
• ONA
• 8 episodes, 6 minutes per episode

I Became a Gal So I Fucked My Best Friend one is complicated as a yaoi anime.

A playboy gets turned into a girl, and his playboy best friend commits lascivious acts with him in his female form. However, the friend does so knowing that it is is best friend and is still into it when he eventually turns back into a man.

So I Became a Gal So I Fucked My Best Friend is both straight and gay romance, but all graphic lewdness.

Reincarnated Into Demon King Evelogia’s World

• Yaoi
• ONA
• 9 Episode, 6 minutes per episode

It is nice to see newer yaoi anime listening to some fans and adding consent into the relationships like in this yaoi isekai anime.

Reincarnated Into Demon King Evelogia’s World follows the hero sent into the world of his favorite game and told to be is the hero that should kill his favorite character, the demon king.

Instead, he allies with him and carries on a torrid love affair.

This is one of the smuttier ones, but the character relationship and dynamic is really quite refreshing.

Yarichin Bitch Club

• Yaoi
• OVA
• 2 Episodes, 26 minutes per episode

Are you ready for the most smut manga plot of all the smut manga yaoi OVAs plots?

Yarichin Bitch Club follows a boy who goes to an all-boy’s school. There, he is forced to join a club, but the low effort Photography Club he joins is actually a front for a sex club.

The members of this club offer their services to the pent-up school for free, but as he accidentally joined the club, the main character has reservations on meeting his monthly sex quota.

Spiritpact

• Shounen Ai
• ONA
• 2 Seasons, 32 Episodes Total, 14 minutes per episode

China often enjyos wrapping in boy’s love in a safe double wrapper of strong subtext and a fantasy setting, perhaps to dodge a censorship bullet of some kind.

That said, Spiritpact does manage to tell an engaging story about a newly-dead spirit and an exorcist that forms a spirit pact (!!) with him to keep each other safe.

It has your standard shounen action trappings, but distinctly more relationship drama and gay subtext than most shounen anime.

Kirepapa

• Yaoi
• OVA
• 2 Episodes, 29 minutes per episode

This saucy little OVA follows an overprotective father who tries to keep his son’s friends away because he thinks they are all predators/yaoi protagonists.

Luckily, the relationship happens between the father and one of his son’s friends – and not the father and son.

Papa to Kiss in the Dark

• Yaoi
• OVA
• 2 Episodes, 30 minutes per episode

Dodged the incest bullet with Kirepapa, only for Papa to Kiss in the Dark to aim that gun right back at you.

This yaoi OVA does have a relationship between father and son, but the son’s adopted. Unfortunately, the son is also real close to being problematically young.

Outside of that, there are a lot of horny side characters trying to get their own action from the main couple here too.

Tight Rope

• Shounen Ai
• OVA
• 2 Episodes, 23 minutes per episode

Despite Tight Rope following a yakuza family heir, a rather violent profession, who is in love with his best friend, this OVA has a rather tender, non-rapey relationship.

That said, the art is good, but the animation is rather… sparse. Tight Rope is very clearly an advertisement for the manga series, which is classified as yaoi for its sexual content. The anime leaves that content out, however.

Maiden Rose

• Yaoi
• OVA
• 2 Episodes, 24 minutes per episode

While Maiden Rose is intriguing with its relationship between a handsome man and a much more gruff man serving as his protector in a war zone, Maiden Rose is peak “Rape Era” yaoi anime.

It’s rather graphic and will completely ruin any enjoyment except for the fans who are into that. I think they mistook the brutality of war for the sexual assault of war.

Sex Pistols

• Yaoi
• OVA
• 2 Episodes, 33 minutes per episode

This story has an interesting new twist on “animal people” in anime in that there are humans that evolved from animals other than apes. The concept is intriguing, but the execution is lacking in finesse.

Sex Pistols is yet another OVA that gives you a bad taste of a probably better explained manga. It also can be quite rape-centric, though at least with “animal men” that is slightly more fitting.

Finder Series

• Yaoi
• OVA
• 2 Episodes, 43 minutes per episode

Finder Series is one of the top echelons of yaoi manga, but its OVA is definitely lacking since it speeds past all the moments of depth to get to the sexual assault that they were sure fans wanted to see.

While Finder Series details the sadomasochistic relationship between a crime boss who caught a photographer taking pictures of his dealings, it actually ends up an intricate crime drama with a rather deep and detailed relationship between the main couple.

That said, their relationship started with a rape and kidnapping, so definitely not a yaoi anime for everyone.

Antidote

• Shounen Ai
• ONA
• 13 Episodes, 18 minutes per episodes

This Chinese boy’s love anime details the accidental meeting between a guy down on his luck and a gang leader who ends up renting him an apartment.

As the man also is not great at doing menial tasks, he has to call the gang leader a lot and start bonding. Now, that would have been a fine shows with BL undertones, but the characters both have a dark past that starts to creep up and insert drama.

Hey, Your Ears Are Showing!

• Shounen Ai
• ONA
• 2 Seasons, 24 Episodes Total, 3 minutes per episode

While not to stereotype, it is usually safe to say that yaoi fans also may enjoy catboys. Hey, Your Ears Are Showing is a shounen ai anime where a man falls in love with his catboy. If his catboy was a touch older, I’d be all for it.

However, though the catboy is in his teenage years, he acts younger. A rather large caveat is that this is more a comedy anime than romance. As it is a Chinese boy’s love anime, it never crosses explicit lines.

Caramel Honey

• Shounen AI
• ONA
• 30 Episodes, 2 minutes per episode

If you perhaps watched the aforementioned Sasaki and Miyano shounen ai anime, Caramel Honey is a lot like that, but with the “Sasaki” portion of the character couple being a lot more aggressive.

Caramel Honey takes place in a school full of delinquents where the king of the bad boys sets his sights on the new, innocent transfer student.

While this sounds like a set up for sexual assault, it is more comedy. Caramel Honey leans heavily on shounen ai tropes for that comedy, but never becomes sexual.

Someone Else’s BL Comic Animation

• Shounen Ai
• ONA
• 12 Episodes, 3 minutes per episode

Chinese boy’s love anime is sparse, Korean boy’s love anime is even harder to find. However, Korea has a general lack of anime in general.

In this series, it follows a gay character who cross dresses in order to read boy’s love manhwa. He is searching for someone who will accept him, but things go horribly awry when a classmate spies him on a bad date.

The series itself is interesting, but the animation is bad. That said, it is very obviously a ONA to hype the manhwa from which it is adapting.

Heaven’s Official Blessing

• Shounen Ai
• ONA
• 2 Seasons, 23 Episodes + 1 OVA

One more Chinese boy’s love anime so steeped deeply in fantasy and subtext that their government can’t possibly censor it – or so the author thought! As Heaven’s Official blessing source material is written by a pseudonym, no one can say for sure (because China sure won’t), but the author is believed to be in jail for distributing illegal homosexual pornographic material.

That aside, Heaven’s Official Blessing, both the anime and the novel, are widely beloved internationally for its relationship between deities across an 800-year journey through the different realms unraveling a series of mysteries and growing closer to each other.

The fun subtext here is that someone higher up the deity ladder wanted these two to be together, regardless of what gender they are, further legitimizing their relationship.

It is a tender and surprisingly lore-dense romance anime that does indeed toy with some careful lines of Chinese legality.

Mask Danshi: This Shouldn’t Lead to Love

• Shounen Ai
• OVA
• 1 Episode, 23 minutes

Mask Dashi follows a common dynamic between a popular guy who decides to take up playfully teasing a boy who always wears a mask since he can’t stand people touching his mouth. The popular guy agrees to tutor him, but only if he can do whatever he wants with what is under the mask.

I think you know what goes on from here. A lot of teasing and suggestive flirting, but the OVA keeps things pretty PG.

Shin Yaranai ka / Kusomiso Technique

• Shounen Ai
• OVA
• 1 Episode, 31 Minutes

Imagine a one-shot manga so ridiculous that it spawns a meme, and that meme spawns a crowdfunding campaign that spawns a small OVA adaptations, because that is exactly Shin Yaranai ka.

The OVA is a comedy, PG adaptation of the Kusomiso Technique one-shot manga, which is very much erotica. It follows a student going to the public toilets in the park, he meets eyes with a sexy mechanic and the mechanic asks if he want to do it.

It’s good for a laugh, and nothing else. Though if you are going to make a crowdfunded OVA of an erotica, it seems weird to leave out the erotica.

Boy’s Love Movies

While TV Anime is more the home of softer Shounen Ai and OVAs are home to more salacious Yaoi, boy’s love movies are actually kind of a mix of both. You can find some touching emotional stories, and often those touching emotional stories come with… physical touching.

However, as BL movies have a more limited runtime, they often forsake the rougher, rapier bits of a relationship that the “yaoi” label likes to wedge in unless they are specifically aimed at having a darker tone.

Stranger By The Shore

• Yaoi
• Movie
• 58 Minutes

Having an openly gay main character right from the start without being sexed into it is excessively rare in yaoi and even shounen ai. That is exactly what makes Stranger By The Shore a refreshing breath of fresh air.

The movie follows an openly gay author who lives in Okinawa after his parents rejected him for his sexuality. He meets an orphaned high schooler on the beach and they enjoy time growing closer until the orphan returns back to the Japanese mainland.

Three years later, the orphan returns and they reconnect, but time does have a way of changing many things.

What people love here is how they let the relationship and the characters change and mature. However, that is more fleshed out in its manga source. What people often really love about this movie is the aesthetic it shows off with its brilliant visuals.

While Stranger By the Sea seems like an advertisement for the manga, it is at least a very good one. It gives you a great taste, but leaves you unsatisfied. It gives you a beautiful movie to watch, and leaves you wanting even more.

Doukyuusei

• Shounen Ai
• Movie
• 60 Minutes

Doukyuusei is like Kids on the Slope, but the two characters from different background explore first love instead of form a solid friendship.

In Doukyuusei, a slacker boy in a rock band discovered the sullen honor student of his class practicing – and being bad at – singing for mandatory participation in the school’s choir festival. Feeling the tingle of interest, he decides to teach them.

Fans of any romance anime will immediately know that spending more time together fuels their feelings.

Doukyuusei is much like a slow coming-of-age story, but the coming-of-age focus isn’t their future or their careers, it is their feeling of sexuality. It is slow and sensual, but never moves into explicit yaoi territory.

It feels very much like a well done first love romance anime movie.

Yes, No, or Maybe?

• Yaoi
• Movie
• 53 Minutes

Yes, No, or Maybe follow a newscaster that is pleasant on the outside and rather mean on the inside. One day, he develops an interest in a stop-motion animator who actually met both his pleasant side and his mean side, but doesn’t realize they are the same person. As his interest grows, he begins to wonder if he can love both sides of him.

Yes, No , or Maybe is beautifully animated, and tells an interesting Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde romance story. However, it has old school yaoi anime problems. The sexual element of their relationship is of the old “Rape Era,” though less violent about it. Still, boy’s love is changing, and this movie didn’t necessarily want to.

Happy-Go-Lucky Days

• Shounen Ai
• Movie
• 54 Minutes

Happy-Go-Lucky Days is a movie that tells three love stories. One is girl’s love, one is boy’s love, and the two-parter at the end is a heterosexual romance.

The boy’s love story focuses on a closeted teacher receiving a confession from his graduating student at an all-boy’s school.

This is one of those movies that invites you to make a lot of your own speculation. The stories often end up unsatisfying in order to be ponderous.

Twittering Birds Never Fly

• Yaoi
• Movie
• 85 Minutes + 1 OVA

Twittering Birds Never Fly initially has the earmarks of “Rape Era” yaoi. It follows a yakuza leader who receives a new bodyguard that he is wildly attracted to. The bodyguard resists, and his boss continues to pursue.

The unique thing about the movie is how it plays that. Both main characters have their sexuality shaped by past trauma. One is a masochist pursuing only physical relationships after being hurt emotionally and the other is impotent from a past trauma.

Their relationship isn’t necessarily the panacea to that, but it helps them explore it.

Do you have more good yaoi or shounen ai anime that fans would enjoy? Let them know in the comments section below.