There are a lot of terms thrown around on this blog that make absolutely no sense to some but make perfect sense to others, so here’s an explanation for them.

Anime

Anime originally comes from the word animated in animated film or show and can cover anything animated. I use this to refer to both Japanese and Japanese-inspired/looking animated shows and films, both 2D and computer graphic ones.

Aphantasia

Aphantasia is a condition that results in the person being unable to voluntarily create mental images. One could say they can’t “imagine.” Some can see some hazy things, like shapes, but others can’t create any images (I can’t).
This means I don’t make mental images of what I read and have no mental visuals of what happens. If I get immersed in something, the “imagining” I do is more in physical sensations. Like sitting by a fire or listening to birds. Watching the stars with someone (though I can’t see the stars) or running for one’s life. I feel those things rather than see them, and I am essentially blind to anything that happens.
That includes my own fiction.

BL

BL is an abbreviation of Boys Love (or Boys’ Love) and is a gay romance genre targeted at girls and women. It’s not the only kind of gay romance, though. It usually has good-looking, slender, and/or men with “hidden” muscles (ie, they don’t look muscular when dressed), and it’s not uncommon that one is more feminine than the other.
There are a lot of common tropes, such as “surprise butt sex”, which can be found in older works and can be jarring, but newer works may not have such tropes, and BL is not always exclusive to other LGBTQ folks these days.
The term BL doesn’t distinguish between sexual content or not; it just means that it’s mainly targeted at women and includes gay romance.
There are games targeted towards women with gay romance, which are called BL-ge (BL game, Boys Love game, etc.).

Danmei

This is the term for Chinese BL. Generally speaking, I will only use this to specify that it’s Chinese, but I almost exclusively use the term BL.

Danmei has some similarities to its Japanese counterpart, but it also has its own tropes, ranging from common couple dynamics to themes and genres. Some of these tropes may be the opposite of common Western tropes, and the cultural context is often important to some degree.

Most danmei novels I read were originally published on either Jinjiang Literature City or Changpei, although some are also from Shudan.

Donghua

Donghua comes from “Zhongguo donghua,” which means Chinese animation, so I use this to refer to Chinese animated shows and films.

Fujoshi/fudanshi

Fujoshi, written “rotten girl” and a play of a homonym meaning a respectable wife/woman, used to be a derogatory term towards women who read BL, but is now a badge of pride for some and is commonly used by girls and women who read the genre.
Men who read BL are called fudanshi, “danshi” meaning boy.

Galge

Galge (also called gal game, or bishoujo game) is a genre of visual novels that includes an important, but not always dominant, romance in which the male main character tries to romance one or more girl characters. These are commonly called “dating sims”, though dating might not be the dominant factor.
Bishoujo games, at least I connect to 18+ games specifically, and when I speak of galge, I mean non-sexual games.

GL

This is an abbreviation of Girls Love (Girls’ Love) and is a genre of Japanese lesbian romance. GL can be subtle in its interaction, often has a theme of might-be-might-not-be friends, and can often leave the reader to decide for themselves. Not all GL is like this, but unlike BL, which tends to be very much in your face, this is more hand-holding than surprise sexy times, I suppose. At least what I’ve read and watched.

Gong

The Chinese term for seme/top. I generally use this while writing about Chinese BL.

JJ/JJWXC

This is a popular and well-known Chinese webnovel site. The abbreviation stands for Jinjiang Wenxue Cheng, or Jinjiang Literature City. Many of the English releases of danmei novels originate from JJ.

Josei-muke

These are games targeted at women. In other words, it’s a demographic. I don’t use this term much, but it covers rhythm games and gacha games targeted to women, for instance, but technically also includes otoge.

Light Novel

Light novels aren’t referring to the weight of the books or whether they are lighthearted and fun reads. A lot of light novel series are very long, and it’s not uncommon for them to have really long titles to go with the length of the series. Light novels are more in the demographic of young and new adult, with stories that can range from light to dark, from easy reads to heavy.

Manga

Manga means comics in Japanese, but because of the widely accepted term, I use this to cover Japanese and Japanese-inspired/looking comics. This doesn’t necessarily include all you think of, because just like anything else, all comics have a wide variety of styles, and manga alone can range from very realistic in style to very stylised.

Manhua

Manhua is the Chinese counterpart to manga and is as such Chinese comics.

Mobage

This is a Japanese abbreviation for mobile games. I use it because it’s shorter than “mobile games”, “cellphone games”, “phone games,”, etc. So when this is used, I’m talking about games I play on my phone and nothing else.

NSFA

Not Safe For Anny. This abbreviation started as a joke that some more mature content is fine to consume, while other content makes me extremely uncomfortable. Content that is considered NSFA is sexual content (even hinting that it could happen), and abuse. Murder or murder attempts don’t count as NSFA by default, but may.

OE/OELN/OEWN

OE stands for “Original English”, LN is “Light Novel” and WN is “Web Novel”. It’s that simple. The abbreviation is used to ensure there’s no mix-up between Asian and English works, since there’s still quite a difference between them and LNs at least are originally from Japan (and tend to be Young Adult to New Adult in content).

Otaku

Otaku has both bad and neutral connotations. The meaning is a bit like “nerd” but it has a special cultural connotation that is difficult to translate. Otakus are often depicted as socially awkward or introverted, and sometimes even as people who have withdrawn from society for some reason or other, and are often interested in anime, manga, and games.
The truth is that otakus can be interested in anything and are very enthusiastic about their interests.
The word “nerd” would likely suit the socially awkward and introverted otaku, but not the socially adept cosplaying otaku, to give some examples. It’s also not unusual for otaku to share their fandoms or interests with others with self-made content, models, long discussion on whether a character is in love with one or another character, etc.
In very simple terms, otaku means someone who is very enthusiastic about something — manga, anime, trains, games, cars, history, etc.

Otoge/Otome Game

Otome game (otoge or otomege for short) is a genre of visual novels that are targeted at women but specifically have a romance (man-woman relationships, in general) aspect to them. It’s not always dominant, but the romance should still be relatively important. Sometimes called dating sims for women/girls or reverse harem.

Seme

The Japanese term for gong/top. I generally use this while writing about Japanese BL.

Ship

Two or more people in a relationship, or the act of supporting a pairing (not necessarily just 2 characters though). In some circles, CP is used for the main ship as short for Central Pairing, but I need to do mental gymnastics to reach that conclusion, so I continue to use the term “main ship” to avoid the confusion.

I personally might ship more than 2 people together, and I can ship non-romantic ships as well, so friends being shipped as friends is perfectly normal for me.

Shou

The Chinese term for uke/bottom. I generally use this while writing about Chinese BL.

Uke

The Japanese term for shou/bottom. I generally use this while writing about Japanese BL.

WA

An abbreviation for World Anvil, a site for worldbuilding in particular, but also fiction writing, TTRPG campaigns and so on.

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