Bishōnen (美少年, literally, "beautiful boy") is a specific Japanese aesthetic concept of the ideally beautiful young man. The prefix bi- (美) specifically refers to feminine beauty (bijin, lit. "beautiful person", refers to a beautiful woman.) The bishōnen is typically quite slender and not very muscular, with a tapered chin, stylish hair, and an overall effeminate or androgynous appearance. The aesthetic of the bishōnen began as an ideal of a young homosexual lover, likely arising from the effeminate male actors who played female characters in Kabuki theater. It is perpetuated today in anime and manga, especially shojo (girl) anime, shonen-ai, and yaoi. Most okama and homosexual characters in anime are bishounen.
Some western anime and manga fans use the term (incorrectly) to refer to any handsome male character regardless of age, and some fans prefer to use the more all-encompassing 'bishie' (which may be equivalent to bijin, although that term is not popular). It is occasionally even used to describe some androgynous female characters (such as Lady Oscar in Rose of Versailles, Karou no Kimi and Hana no Saint Juste in Oniisama E ), or any women with traits stereotypical to bishounen. The portmanteau bifauxnen is sometimes used to refer to "female bishounen".
Alternative spellings are bishonen and bishounen. The term binanshi was popular in the 1980s. Occasionally biseinen (lit. "beautiful young man") is seen as a synonym, but biseinen usually refers to a handsome man older than a bishounen, since the age range of a bishounen tends to be from 14-19, while a biseinen is often 20+. A handsome male below 14 is sometimes referred to as a bishota, although that is usually equated with a slight underage fetish.
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