Bara (genre)

Bara (薔薇, "rose"), also known by the wasei-eigo construction "Men's Love" (ML, メンズラブ, "menzu rabu"), is a Japanese technical term for a genre of art and fictional media that focuses on male same-sex love usually created by gay men for a gay audience. The bara genre began in the 1950s—ADONIS was launched in 1952—with fetish magazines featuring gay art and content. Besides bara manga, also called gei komi (ゲイ コミ, "gay comics"), and illustration, a number of bara erotic games exist, as well as novels and memoirs. Bara is mostly a Japanese phenomenon, with limited western exposure through manga scanlations and online homoerotic art communities. While bara faces difficulties finding western publishers, it has been described as "the next big porn wave coming out of Japan".

Bara can vary in visual style and plot, but typically features masculine men with varying degrees of muscle, body fat, and body hair, akin to bear culture (熊, kuma) in gay culture. While bara usually features hentai (adult content, sometimes violent or exploitative) and gay romanticism, it often has more realistic or autobiographical themes, as it acknowledges the varied reactions to homosexuality in modern Japan.