Most sales are digital, and the content is HEAVILY pirated.

Since, unfortunately, many gay men are still closeted, too many bara fans are still embarrassed to be seen walking out of a store or comic market carrying bara manga. Both the manga and the artwork tend to have a bigger life online, but that’s hard to measure. In terms of the “classic” manga market, bara is a small category and practically invisible to publishers with the resources to finance anime adaptations.

Yaoi やおいThe word yaoi is derived from the first syllables of each word in the expression, “ yama nashi, ochi nashi, imi nashi,” which means “no peak, no point, no meaning,” and originally referred to badly drawn self-published fan comics (doujinshi).