Any Shounen-ai fans? Please help.

[floatin_pancake]

For starters, what I'm looking for may be asking a lot out of you guys, but if you can, bear with me.

What I'm looking for is an anime where there is gay subtext between two male characters. I'm not really looking for full-on yaoi or shounen-ai. I've watched several shows labelled shounen-ai, and from my limited experience those shows have focused too much on drama and theatrics for my taste. If anyone's read the manga Pet Shop of Horrors, then the relationship between Count D and Leon most closely resembles the type of relationship I'm looking for. There was never any sex, kisses, or declarations of love between those two, but I doubt anyone who has reached the end of volume 10 could deny that those two deeply cared for each other. What I liked about D and Leon's relationship was the antagonism from the start, and the slowly deepening respect and care that grew over the subsequent volumes.

Another example would be the relationship between Tsuzuki and Hisoka in the manga/anime Descendants of Darkness. There was never anything explicit involved, but you still understood they cared about the other. I'm looking for a show where the relationship is not the main feature of the show, but a nice addition (hello, Touya and Yukito from Card Captor Sakura). I guess you could say I'm searching for an anime bromance. lol

Any suggestions would be really helpful and appreciated.

[Minuit]

I think GetBackers should be exactly what you're looking for - there's certainly plenty of subtext between the two main characters, not to mention several of the side characters. If you want a relationship with antagonism deepening to reluctant respect and don't mind that one of the boys is also enthusiastically in love with a girl, xxxHOLiC is a good choice too (although I much preferred the manga to the anime in that case).

[TalonG4]

I've only seen the first episode but I can see tons of potential innuendo in Big Wind-Up. It's probably sports shoujo if you want to label it and has nothing to do with shounen-ai really, but if you want to look between the lines...

[Jen526]

^Ditto to GetBackers and Big Windup!

The first two that pop to mind are Mirage of Blaze and X, the TV Series. Both have pairings similar to Descendants of Darkness in how the "subtext" is pretty much right there in the "actual text" instead of dancing around it.

There are quite a few animes that seem to be slashy on purpose without crossing into outright BL. Loveless, Tactics, Saiyuki, DN Angel, Nabari no Ou, 07-Ghost, Kyo Kara Maou, Angel Sanctuary, to name a few more.

I really love Generator Gawl largely for the relationship between the three main characters. I'm not sure it's intended to be read as slashy, but it definitely pushed that button for me.

[sir_integra]

Originally Posted by Jen526;1777325I really love [I

Generator Gawl[/i] largely for the relationship between the three main characters. I'm not sure it's intended to be read as slashy, but it definitely pushed that button for me.

Intended, no. Slashy, yes. Nice series.