Are you familiar with yaoi? Randy & Co. are not. But thanks to the town’s Asian-American population, everybody learns a valuable lesson this week about a lesser-known genre of art, as well as acceptance as it pertains to love!
Yaoi, a.k.a. boys’ love, is a subgenre of Japanese manga that typically depicts a fictional or fan-fictional romance between two popular male characters, aimed primarily at a female audience. (In preparation for the episode, South Park asked its fans for their own yaoi art, much of which made it into the episode.)
Turns out, Tweak and Craig have been a yaoi couple for sometime. Tweak and Craig are not actually gay, but their faux romance leads to questions all over South Park from those who take the art literally: For the kids’ parents, how does one properly support a child who has been outed? For Tweak and Craig, what does consent look and sound like? For Stan and Randy, how do the Japanese kids divinely determine who should be gay? Oh, and for Cartman, how can he get involved?
Matt Stone and Trey Parker reflect those questions back onto the viewer, all while critiquing the dangers of lying for attention, the pressures of being too politically correct, and the fact people still don’t know how to react to change or the unknown.
The result is a very provocative episode, jam-packed with drama, lovers’ quarrels, and karaoke:
You can watch the whole installment, which notably showcases a lot of miniature Cartman penis, here.
