The tag alias #76052 barazoku -> manly is pending approval.

Reason: There is little distinction between what the two tags for the purpose of tagging, the only difference is that barazuko is a genre of Japanese manga. All descriptors of barazuko is covered by other tags, and the barazuko wiki itself admits it should be used with other more specific tags anyways. It is redundant.

No. Reread both of the wikis if you need to, but barazoku is distinct enough in its range of bodyshapes alone. It is a genre and art style. Half of the Manly wiki describes behavioral characteristics and there're plenty of images that use the Manly tag would not constitute the bara, considering a broad portion of bara include varying levels of obesity, which is antithetical to the manly trait. Bara is an umbrella term that manly can fall under but not exclusively or necessarily.

Manly does include fat guys. It's in no way 'antithetical'.
post #5421702post #4356282post #4517551

regsmutt said:
Manly does include fat guys. It's in no way 'antithetical'.
post #5421702post #4356282post #4517551

That first one flies directly in the face of the Manly wiki, so that's a mistag. The second one can easily be argued that he's not fat, he's bulky because that's almost all muscle. And that third one is only manly if "having a beard and barely defined biceps" is all that it takes, otherwise it's another mistag.

Showing images with the tag that contradict the tag's definition/wiki is not a valid argument unless your argument is that people are misusing the tag.

nin10dope said:
That first one flies directly in the face of the Manly wiki, so that's a mistag.

Does it?

Manly defines a male, andromorph, or maleherm character who shows some physical and/or behavioral characteristics that denotes its masculinity and are traditionally associated with men

A bearded overweight potbelly physique is among characteristics traditionally associated with men. You may be confusing the "developed musculature" bit as being a requirement, but the wiki says that's a notable example, not the whole of what's covered. Certain types of overweight and musclegut body types also work.

watsit said:
Does it?
A bearded overweight potbelly physique is among characteristics traditionally associated with men. You may be confusing the "developed musculature" bit as being a requirement, but the wiki says that's a notable example, not the whole of what's covered. Certain types of overweight and musclegut body types also work.

Being a characteristic that men can have is not inherently manly. By your argument, femboys would be considered manly because having a penis "is among characteristics traditionally associated with men."

nin10dope said:
Being a characteristic that men can have is not inherently manly. By your argument, femboys would be considered manly because having a penis "is among characteristics traditionally associated with men."

I wording issue with the wiki. The tag's use more clearly indicates when these behavioral or body features are given special focus or attention in the image, it's clearly meant for something more than just "has a penis".

watsit said:
I wording issue with the wiki. The tag's use more clearly indicates when these behavioral or body features are given special focus or attention in the image, it's clearly meant for something more than just "has a penis".

That's the argument people can use with misused tags. The wiki is the standard/rule

nin10dope said:
That's the argument people can use with misused tags. The wiki is the standard/rule

problem is that wikis can be edited by anyone, bar a few wikis that are locked.

I have no input on this alias, just thought to mention that, sometimes wikis can be wrong or outdated, so it always helps to update them when they are! : )

manitka said:
problem is that wikis can be edited by anyone, bar a few wikis that are locked.

I have no input on this alias, just thought to mention that, sometimes wikis can be wrong or outdated, so it always helps to update them when they are! : )

I agree that is a problem. I suppose I was talking more in a way of what it's intended to be

nin10dope said:
That's the argument people can use with misused tags. The wiki is the standard/rule

Not really, the wiki is written by users to try to define the intent of a tag. They're not made by admins, wikis can be and have been wrong and in need of changing. They're not perfect, and can be subject to bias from specific users, though in this case it's just unclear language. If it was the rule, then both manly and barazoku should be invalidated since they can be broken down to "has a penis" or "has a beard".

As it is, barazoku is defined as

Barazoku, often shortened to "bara", is used to describe a post featuring erotic and pornographic imagery of particularly masculine muscular, chubby, or overweight male characters.

"muscular, chubby, or overweight" covers basically all "manly" body types. The term "particularly masculine" is vague; masculine is just manly (it used to be aliased, but was that was removed? I couldn't find any BUR or discussion about removing the alias), and how "particularly masculine" differs from just "masculine" is unclear and subjective. And since manly already covers when masculine traits are more focused on, any difference between manly and barazoku is vague and subjective. Other topics on this issue also highlighted how people disagree on what counts as "bara" vs "manly".

I still doesn't understand the what a difference. You will still got daddy, overweight, muscular and other manly characters like on manly tag that definetly feels manly. For me bara is just more convenient shorten name.

These are not the same thing, manly generally is closer to a actual body type of a specific character were as barazoku/bara more closely describes a specific content type/focus of the entire post/image.
This tag should not be aliased however if people insist on an alias then male_focus would be more accurate as bara always has the masculine physique in focus, posts tagged with manly could still include females in focus which is very much not at all something that people searching barazoku would be wanting to see.

yetanotheraiuser said:
I still doesn't understand the what a difference. You will still got daddy, overweight, muscular and other manly characters like on manly tag that definetly feels manly. For me bara is just more convenient shorten name.

Bara is maybe manly+kemono, but there's a good number of bara posts that don't fit that.
As far as the discussion about fatness- imo there's a visible difference between how people portray a 'masculine' fat distribution and 'feminine' or 'androgynous' fat distribution. It tends to be more 'uniform' in thickness with less tapering in the limbs and more 'solid' with less rolls/folds. Under the belly bulge, these characters are shaped like bricks. Compare manly overweight -barazoku with barazoku overweight -manly. These are basically interchangeable except with slightly less 'kemono' style images popping up in the first search. Now compare either with male overweight -manly -barazoku. There is still a lot of overlap due to manly/bara being subjective, but there's a lot more diversity in body shapes and attitudes.

ryu_deacon said:
These are not the same thing, manly generally is closer to a actual body type of a specific character were as barazoku/bara more closely describes a specific content type/focus of the entire post/image.
This tag should not be aliased however if people insist on an alias then male_focus would be more accurate as bara always has the masculine physique in focus, posts tagged with manly could still include females in focus which is very much not at all something that people searching barazoku would be wanting to see.

According to the wiki, barazoku says nothing about the content type or focus, just that is depicts manly men. Even still, out of "manly"s 16000+ results, "manly ~ambiguous_focus ~female_focus ~intersex_focus" is 12. And I'd argue some of those shouldn't be tagged manly since you can't see enough of the male character to know anything beyond them being muscular_male. People can't seem to agree on what constitutes barazoku, given it's been tagged on posts that some say it shouldn't, while it's not been tagged on posts some say it should, without any clear distinction that fits TWYS. It ends up as an "I'll know it when I see it" deal, which isn't a good way to handle tags.

if barazoku was tagged correctly it would help filter searches where overweight or manly/muscular would collide with content that you are trying to find.
its definitely a kemono style.

perhaps instead of being aliased away it should be enforced.
i would like to see less of it personally.

In all honestly if someone is unable to recognize the subject then they shouldn't even vote on it. It doesn't concern them, it doesn't cater to them, they can't see it and/or internally discern it from other things. Do not arbitrate something you don't understand.

valthar said:
if barazoku was tagged correctly it would help filter searches where overweight or manly/muscular would collide with content that you are trying to find.
its definitely a kemono style.

perhaps instead of being aliased away it should be enforced.
i would like to see less of it personally.

I made that point exactly on an earlier post, asking people to more reliably tag it. It was devolved by people who don't get it arguing the semantics of "contentious or objectionable" content.

I don't have any strong feelings on this, as I generally just search male ~overweight ~muscular instead of these tags.

valthar said:
if barazoku was tagged correctly it would help filter searches where overweight or manly/muscular would collide with content that you are trying to find.

I still don't know how it's different. It can't be tagged correctly or reliably if there's no clear definition, some people will always tag it where other people think it shouldn't be and vice-versa, and the only parts that can be widely agreed on makes it no different from manly. So when searching or blacklisting, it'll just be catching manly +/- random posts that different people have different opinions on.

watsit said:
I still don't know how it's different. It can't be tagged correctly or reliably if there's no clear definition, some people will always tag it where other people think it shouldn't be and vice-versa, and the only parts that can be widely agreed on makes it no different from manly. So when searching or blacklisting, it'll just be catching manly +/- random posts that different people have different opinions on.

You're conflating you being unable to tag it correctly and are suggesting fictional disagreements of people fighting a post to not have the tag. And your "widely agreed" is just blatantly false. This tag clearly isn't for you, and you've shown in the past that you have a bias against it because "it's some Japanese term" as you've said in the past. So just move on to something you're more knowledgeable in.

watsit said:
Personally, I think barazoku should be aliased away. It's basically a tag for muscular males, which we already have a tag for, using a japanese word that many people don't know. Any further details someone thinks should apply to the tag is vague and subjective, a case of "I know it when I see it", as you say, which different people disagree on beyond the basic muscular_male.

And your claim that the only thing people can agree on is muscular_male is also unfounded. At this point it's almost sounding malicious at how hard you fight this tag's existence despite it being a very well known and documented genre of art.

nin10dope said:
You're conflating you being unable to tag it correctly

As well as the examples in previous threads showing it tagged on characters you claim don't fit the tag. Just because you have your own idea of how it should be used, and just because other people want the tag kept, doesn't mean you all agree on how to correctly use it either.

And it's still not relevant to you.

nin10dope said:
And it's still not relevant to you.

It's relevant to me. I like the art in the bara and manly tags. It's annoying having them split into two tags because of a collection of mystery criteria nobody can define or explain.

regsmutt said:
It's relevant to me. I like the art in the bara and manly tags. It's annoying having them split into two tags because of a collection of mystery criteria nobody can define or explain.

They have been several times, repeating that is untrue

nin10dope said:
They have been several times, repeating that is untrue

Care to link the comment this explanation exists in?

alphamule said:
Hmm, compare:
barazoku -muscular_male
-barazoku muscular_male

There's definitely stylistic differences between the two.
It's also a reference to 'bears'.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barazoku The OG.

nin10dope said:
If you really really need a definitive description, it's the "bear" body type aesthetic
"masculine men with varying degrees of muscle, body fat, and body hair" and "lack of definition in abdominal muscle"
Just because you might be ignorant of the genre and might be unable to recognize it doesn't mean it doesn't exist

For the people struggling with this concept: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bara_(genre)

You should remember, you were there
But also the tag's own wiki on here is pretty helpful

nin10dope said:
You should remember, you were there
But also the tag's own wiki on here is pretty helpful

Gonna be real, those two searches are not super different. The biggest difference is less chunky guys in the muscular_male -barazoku search. Now manly -barazoku and -manly barazoku? These ARE functionally the same. Flipping between those and going through a few pages I could not tell which search was which without looking.

The Wikipedia article about the magazine (which included photos of men that do not fit the current definition of the genre) and genre also don't answer how the tag here on e6 is different from the manly tag. If anything, the genre Wikipedia suggests english usage of the term is generally wrong.

I feel like I would understand Bara implying Manly, but I don't really think they're the *same* thing. I'm a big fan of bara myself, and quite honestly I think this is just a situation where TWYS is failing the genre. The main reason behind that failing, of course, is due to Bara being rather distinctly about gay men (when obviously gay isn't an e6 tag). I don't really use the Bara tag as a search on e6 due to how many pieces of art are tagged as Bara when they don't fit the traditional definition, but I do think if someone took the time to clean the tag from all the pieces that don't actually fit the traditional definition might at least help the distinction between the two, even if, as mentioned earlier, gay isn't a tag on it's own.

seraphfallen said:
I feel like I would understand Bara implying Manly, but I don't really think they're the *same* thing. I'm a big fan of bara myself, and quite honestly I think this is just a situation where TWYS is failing the genre. The main reason behind that failing, of course, is due to Bara being rather distinctly about gay men (when obviously gay isn't an e6 tag). I don't really use the Bara tag as a search on e6 due to how many pieces of art are tagged as Bara when they don't fit the traditional definition, but I do think if someone took the time to clean the tag from all the pieces that don't actually fit the traditional definition might at least help the distinction between the two, even if, as mentioned earlier, gay isn't a tag on it's own.

Thank you. I try to clean the tag in the reverse order, by adding it to posts that I think deserve it because it is a genre/art style that I am personally not fond of, but am very aware of.

And Regs? You are right that they're not super different. But I stand that they are different enough to maintain separation. Because even if many posts dignify both tags, plenty of posts only serve one.
And the Wikipedia was trying to tell you of how it was adopted and evolved through integration with the english language and the internet as a whole.

At one point people started to misuse the word bara to refer anything not slim and sometimes kemono in general.

Years ago my uploads that are mostly overweight+kemono were called bara, when almost what I upload is "cute" and not manly muscular topic #21945 topic #21995

In the 00s at various imageboards, bara was almost exclusively used for muscular male manly kemono. No idea when or where people started to use bara for overweight. I guess it happened the same like the word himbo losing the original meaning, buff but not very bright man, and is used now sometimes to any muscular man.

nin10dope said:

And Regs? You are right that they're not super different. But I stand that they are different enough to maintain separation. Because even if many posts dignify both tags, plenty of posts only serve one.
And the Wikipedia was trying to tell you of how it was adopted and evolved through integration with the english language and the internet as a whole.

solo manly -barazoku solo -manly barazoku
Pick a few images from each and explain why they cannot, at all, fit into the other under tag what you see.

watsit said:
According to the wiki, barazoku says nothing about the content type or focus, just that is depicts manly men. Even still, out of "manly"s 16000+ results, "manly ~ambiguous_focus ~female_focus ~intersex_focus" is 12. And I'd argue some of those shouldn't be tagged manly since you can't see enough of the male character to know anything beyond them being muscular_male. People can't seem to agree on what constitutes barazoku, given it's been tagged on posts that some say it shouldn't, while it's not been tagged on posts some say it should, without any clear distinction that fits TWYS. It ends up as an "I'll know it when I see it" deal, which isn't a good way to handle tags.

The tag is named for the genre of gay manga generally targeted at gay men, which features and glorifies masculine, muscular, and frequently hairy male bodies. Outside of Japan, this term was adapted to more broadly describe any erotic imagery focused on muscular or overweight masculine men. Often synonymous with the "Bear" body type in gay culture.

Clothing

Barazoku-themed artwork frequently feature characters fitting the features (as described above) wearing clothing that is relatively skimpy, and which accentuate the character's masculine traits.

::ORIGINAL WIKI::

This tag is generally defunct. It is generally better to use more specific terms like muscles and chubby whenever possible.

Genre of gay manga generally targeted at a male audience, also known as Mens' Love. Bara is short for barazoku, and describes a type of Japanese gay genre for muscular, often hairy men that glorify masculinity. Barazoku translates to "the rose tribe" in Japanese.

In American culture, the term has been assimilated by chan-style imageboards to refer to erotic images glorifying muscular masculine-identified males -- and the term barazoku is now used to contrast the more chubby men seen in the Western-based "gay bear" culture.

On e621.net, because the tag bear is used to reference the animal, barazoku is now the replacement tag for both Western and Japanese-styles of masculine, muscular, usually gay-themed, erotic imagery.

82 images tagged with female can be found under 29k worth of barazoku
- no female focus

639 images tagged with female can be found under 16k worth of manly
- 12 female focus

both tags can feature the same kind of male figure but they differ in implied exclusions, under manly there are no conditions or expectations on whether or how non-male characters might be presented alongside the male character that is being tagged were-as bara necessitates that non male characters are ether absent or not in the focus hence my stance that one tag only covers a specific character were as the other tag covers the contents of the entire image. bara is ls also exclusively male/male were it comes to sexual intercourse were as the manly tag may feature strait sex as well.

ryu_deacon said:
82 images tagged with female can be found under 29k worth of barazoku
- no female focus

639 images tagged with female can be found under 16k worth of manly
- 12 female focus

both tags can feature the same kind of male figure but they differ in implied exclusions, under manly there are no conditions or expectations on whether or how non-male characters might be presented alongside the male character that is being tagged were-as bara necessitates that non male characters are ether absent or not in the focus hence my stance that one tag only covers a specific character were as the other tag covers the contents of the entire image. bara is ls also exclusively male/male were it comes to sexual intercourse were as the manly tag may feature strait sex as well.

Thank you very much
I do make sure that if a post does have a woman in it, no matter how much any character's involved has the artstyle or appeal of bara, that I will never tag it as bara.

regsmutt said:
solo manly -barazoku solo -manly barazoku
Pick a few images from each and explain why they cannot, at all, fit into the other under tag what you see.

From the first page of each results screen.

So for the manly/no bara it's usually very easy because of the overall shapes throughout the image. You'll see that 1, 2, 3, and 5 are much too slim. They could even be summed up as toned instead. 4 I picked out because I can see that the artistic intent is not fetishizing his body shape, that's just the shape of the character (from Sing) as a normal(anthro) gorilla
post #5455179 post #5455125 post #5451312 post #5453207 post #5451287

With bara/no manly it's admittedly more subjective/harder to put into brief words. 1 is the easiest example, because he's just a sweaty fat guy, note the little clouds around him and the excessive roundness of all of the lines/shapes of his body. 3 is also easy because he simply just doesn't look manly, in appearance and demeanor. 2 is harder, but again note the overall roundness through his entire body shape, his bashful/embarrassed demeanor and facial expression, not something you'd associate with manly. 5 is a similar argument, this time less with a perceived emotion and moreso the content of the image, yoga is definitively a typically-perceived feminine activity. Again with the outwardly curving lines everywhere and his slightly visible embarrassed face. 4 is one where I think some people wouldn't be able to tell at all but it matches a lot of the prior criteria. Yes he's muscular, but also very bulky in a (human-not animal version) Bear body aesthetic. He's also blushing with little clouds around him and the art is full of the outward curving roundness. Although one giveaway is that he's wearing a fundoshi (that particular string underwear from traditional japanese bara content)
post #5454163 post #5451868 post #5454976 post #5454200 post #5454251

I hope this is helpful or satisfactory

nin10dope said:
From the first page of each results screen.

So for the manly/no bara it's usually very easy because of the overall shapes throughout the image. You'll see that 1, 2, 3, and 5 are much too slim. They could even be summed up as toned instead. 4 I picked out because I can see that the artistic intent is not fetishizing his body shape, that's just the shape of the character (from Sing) as a normal(anthro) gorilla
post #5455179 post #5455125 post #5451312 post #5453207 post #5451287

With bara/no manly it's admittedly more subjective/harder to put into brief words. 1 is the easiest example, because he's just a sweaty fat guy, note the little clouds around him and the excessive roundness of all of the lines/shapes of his body. 3 is also easy because he simply just doesn't look manly, in appearance and demeanor. 2 is harder, but again note the overall roundness through his entire body shape, his bashful/embarrassed demeanor and facial expression, not something you'd associate with manly. 5 is a similar argument, this time less with a perceived emotion and moreso the content of the image, yoga is definitively a typically-perceived feminine activity. Again with the outwardly curving lines everywhere and his slightly visible embarrassed face. 4 is one where I think some people wouldn't be able to tell at all but it matches a lot of the prior criteria. Yes he's muscular, but also very bulky in a (human-not animal version) Bear body aesthetic. He's also blushing with little clouds around him and the art is full of the outward curving roundness. Although one giveaway is that he's wearing a fundoshi (that particular string underwear from traditional japanese bara content)
post #5454163 post #5451868 post #5454976 post #5454200 post #5454251

I hope this is helpful or satisfactory

Hm, I can see the argument for manly-but-not-bara (though 2, 3, and 5 aren't what I'd tag as manly) but I really do not see how the bara examples do not fit manly. Maybe I can see 3, but the rest are definitely manly.

regsmutt said:
Hm, I can see the argument for manly-but-not-bara (though 2, 3, and 5 aren't what I'd tag as manly) but I really do not see how the bara examples do not fit manly. Maybe I can see 3, but the rest are definitely manly.

Yeah the separation is definitely more one-way than the other. 3 and 5 in the top set I agree probably shouldn't be tagged as manly other than him posing with that "I'm hot" energy. The biggest investment I personally have is that I blacklist barazoku, but not manly, as a conscious choice.

The bulk update request #10884 is pending approval.

create implication barazoku (35484) -> manly (16892)

Reason: While all barazoku can be regarded as manly, not all manly is barazoku.

ryu_deacon said:
The bulk update request #10884 is pending approval.

create implication barazoku (35484) -> manly (16892)

Reason: While all barazoku can be regarded as manly, not all manly is barazoku.

At the end of the day, it makes sense on paper. I'll freely admit my own bias against overweight_male and obese_male not being a manly characteristic, even so far as contradictory, but that's a matter of personal taste. Traditional Bara would likely self define as manly men

I still feel there is not clear distinction of bara provides that isn't covered by other tags. It's tag what you see, not tag how you feel.

Like I said initially, Barazoku is a genre. Yaoi (Aliased to male/male) is also a genre, that of homosexual relationships whose target audience is woman, barazuko is the counterpart who's target audience is men. These terms are relevant to japan. That's why one is more pretty boy, and the other is often more burly. It's artistic direction of the portrayal of artwork either of gay men or for the consumption of gay men. Therefore, barazuko is not an umbrella term, it is a subcategory of gay artwork which it's name comes from the publication of gay manga in japan. If yaoi is aliased, barazuko should be aliased as well. There is precedent.

Would everyone find that create implication barazoku -> male/male makes more sense?

fluffermutt said:
I still feel there is not clear distinction of bara provides that isn't covered by other tags. It's tag what you see, not tag how you feel.

Like I said initially, Barazuko is a genre. Yaoi (Aliased to male/male) is also a genre, that of homosexual relationships whose target audience is woman, barazuko is the counterpart who's target audience is men. These terms are relevant to japan. That's why one is more pretty boy, and the other is often more burly. It's artistic direction of the portrayal of artwork either of gay men or for the consumption of gay men. Therefore, barazuko is not an umbrella term, it is a subcategory of gay artwork which it's name comes from the publication of gay manga in japan. If yaoi is aliased, barazuko should be aliased as well. There is precedent.

Would everyone find that create implication barazoku -> male/male makes more sense?

Where's the "male" only requirement coming from here? Both andromorph and maleherm are also masculine genders, and should be just as valid. An implication to male has already been suggested in topic #56197 and has been met with an overwhelmingly negative response

donovan_dmc said:
Where's the "male" only requirement coming from here?

It came from the fact that Yaoi is aliased to male/male. If it's an issue of inclusionary/exclusionary, then shouldn't yaoi be unaliased by that same merit? The main difference between Yaoi and bara is target demograpghic, which in turn influenced stylistic decisions.

donovan_dmc said:
An implication to male has already been suggested in topic #56197 and has been met with an overwhelmingly negative response

I did not see that thread, I withdraw my suggestion for barazoku -> male/male

fluffermutt said:
It came from the fact that Yaoi is aliased to male/male. If it's an issue of inclusionary/exclusionary, then shouldn't yaoi be unaliased by that same merit? The main difference between Yaoi and bara is target demograpghic, which in turn influenced stylistic decisions.

There's a difference here, one is aliased, one is not
Tags are aliased to their closest equivalent, even if said equivalent may cause some minor mistags (ex gay being alised to male/male, this will usually be correct but not always, though this alias has also been argued against)
In reality yaoi will almost always mean two explicitly male characters

fluffermutt said:
If yaoi is aliased, barazuko should be aliased as well. There is precedent.

I don't think this stance necessarily makes sense. yaoi, as an english loanword, really has a watered down definition where it essentially just means any drawn m/m regardless...

honestly, even if it wasn't, its subject matter feels more broad than bara, to the point where its aliasing could be considered a "don't tag the defaults" situation.

donovan_dmc said:
There's a difference here, one is aliased, one is not
Tags are aliased to their closest equivalent, even if said equivalent may cause some minor mistags (ex gay being alised to male/male, this will usually be correct but not always, though this alias has also been argued against)
In reality yaoi will almost always mean two explicitly male characters

But doesn't barazuko also almost always mean specifically male characters? barazoku -male only yields 87 posts out of 30286 for barazoku alone. That's 0.287%

fluffermutt said:
But doesn't barazuko also almost always mean specifically male characters? barazoku -male only yields 87 posts out of 30286 for barazoku alone. That's 0.287%

I just want to point out, that's like 2.5 times the reletive population of male to ~maleherm ~andromorph (0.112%).

although, a lot of the stuff in barazoku -male is seemingly pretty undertagged. however, barazoku -male ~maleherm ~andromorph is 0.142%, which is still slightly higher than the overall population.

After going through the barazoku -male search, I have come to the conclusion that, if we are to respect the barazoku tag as an artstyle instead of its contemporary definition, it indeed can include non-male characters. I've seen enough art that goes out of its way to explicitly showcase the bara style while simultaneously specifying that the characters are andromorphs or maleherms.

It's Practice vs Definition and by golly artists sure do practice freely.

nin10dope said:
As with the mentioned forum I made that has the large amount of negative reactions, Bara is intended to be exclusively male characters. Considering it's evolved into a slang/loan word, communities can dictate the desire to make it inclusionary, whether that's objectively incorrect or not (I personally don't care if that's what people decide).

The reason I would say no to a male/male implication is that Bara does not require more than one character, unlike gay sex.
Searching the definition of Bara and Barazoku all explicitly point to same-sex and homoerotic appeal, which is why it is exclusionary. It's appeal and design is based on sexuality, not gender identity.

And as was mentioned there, I see nowhere that it would be trans exclusionary. I'll also draw the same parallel to femboys, which definitely are not trans exclusionary. You're treating the gender tags like they're each an entirely different species, in reality they're just labels for body parts or lack thereof, and each 3 of male/andromorph/maleherm and female/gynomorph/herm should be thought of as masculine & feminine gender groupings which are further broken down into those 3 labels. There is usually not a reason to exclude 2/3 of either side from a tag. Were our gender tagging differently would you also be arguing an AMAB and a trans man are completely different, and that the latter should not be included in bara? I'm well aware that many andromorph or maleherm characters are not trans, but it's still just about the best parallel I can come up with. I'm also not trying to suggest you are transphobic.

nin10dope said:
Let's not get preachy lol
This is a very self-contained topic about a very particular genre of goon material
Like the second half of that quote you replied to says, it's about sexuality, not gender identity

I'm not being preachy? I'm also not sure what you mean by "it's about sexuality, not gender identity". Someone can be gay and still into men with vaginas

nin10dope said:
I'm not touching that debate with a 20 foot pole

This reply says way more than not speaking on it at all does, there's no debate to be had there

nin10dope said:
Searching the definition of Bara and Barazoku all explicitly point to same-sex and homoerotic appeal, which is why it is exclusionary. It's appeal and design is based on sexuality, not gender identity.

I don't agree with this. I would argue that for some, how a character identifies directly affects how a person perceives and engages with a character, whether consciously or not. Appeal is subjective. Creating a divide between sexuality and gender identity does not work because it's inherent. If you are a gay cisgender male and you are dating a transgender man, many people would accept that as a homosexual relationship based on the fact that you both identify as male, but it gets even more nuanced than that. Gender identity is who you are, and sexuality is who you're attracted to, masculine physicality removed from gender identity is called Androphilia, which has been criticized for removing gender identity from the equation and reducing people to body parts which is seen as offensive to non-cisgender people. By "based on sexuality, not gender identity." Did you mean to say based on physicality and/or biology, not gender identity? Is it the genre that's being exclusionary? Or the people who accept the premise narrowly?

nin10dope said:
if we are to respect the barazoku tag as an artstyle

You can't tag an art style. It's too fluid and subjective to be useful for the purposes of tagging, and too broad for it to be searched for with any degree of frequency. Every single artist has their own art style, and even the ones who mimic the style of others generally cannot do so perfectly, even if we were to attempt such a radical change (Which would be ill-advised) It would effectively just become "artist tag 2.0"

Once again, barazoku is a genre.

nin10dope said:
Bara is intended to be exclusively male characters. Considering it's evolved into a slang/loan word, communities can dictate the desire to make it inclusionary, whether that's objectively incorrect or not (I personally don't care if that's what people decide).

If you acknowledge that the term has evolved beyond it's original depiction from 50 years ago to be more inclusive, and that you are indifferent to that evolution, why even bring it up? What matters is how it's being used by people today.

Aliasing an umbrella tag with more than twice the usage to a more specific tag that does not always match is ill-advised.