Main Page | See live article | Alphabetical index Bishounen (美少年. literally, "beautiful boy") refers to 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 bishounen is typically quite slender and not very muscular, with a tapered chin and effeminate or androgynous appearance. The aesthetic of the bishounen began as an ideal of a young homosexual lover. It is perpetuated today in anime and manga, especially shoujo (girl) anime, shounen-ai, and yaoi. Some western anime and manga fans use the term bishounen to refer to any handsome male character, although this usage is, strictly speaking, imprecise. The equivalent term for a very beautiful girl is bishoujo. See also the film Bishonen. This article is from Wikipedia. All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.