Coupling

Coupling (カップリング, kappuringu) is a word used in doujin and fan culture for the pairing of two characters in a romantic relationship. It means roughly what English-speaking fans call shipping.

It applies to BL, which depicts romance between men, and to yuri (百合), which depicts romance between women. Male-female pairings work the same way. Shortened, it is written kapu (カプ) or CP. CP is widely used as a shared term among fans across East Asia, particularly in Chinese-speaking communities.

An oshi-kapu (推しカプ) is a coupling you personally love and root for. On social media, people use it like "So-and-so and so-and-so are my oshi-kapu."

A pairing that the original work presents as a couple is called an official coupling. The word coupling itself is not limited to unofficial interpretations. Even so, what sits at the center of fan activity is the fun of imagining and interpreting pairings that the original never shows.

There are spin-off labels too. Pairing a character with themselves is called nijō (二乗), meaning "squared." A bond of friendship or partnership rather than romance is called konbi (コンビ), and to keep it apart from a romantic A×B, it is written A+B or A&B.

From the English Word Coupling

The loanword kappuringu comes from the English coupling, a word that means a link or a combination. Within Japanese fan culture, that sense gradually shifted to mean a romantic pairing.

English-speaking fandom hardly ever uses coupling in this sense. For the same idea, it reaches for a different word, shipping.

Shipping itself grew out of the word relationship. It is traced back to the fandom around The X-Files, an American science fiction series from the mid-1990s. Fans who wanted the two leads to end up together called themselves relationshippers, shortened to shippers. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the oldest use on record is from 1996, in a post to Usenet, an online message board of that era.

The same English word “coupling” takes on a different meaning in the music business. A coupling track is a song included on a CD single besides the title track. The usage traces back to the B-side of vinyl records and is also written C/W, from the initials of "coupled with." It is this musical and engineering sense that Japanese dictionaries record, while coupling as a fan term remains the kind of word explained in subculture references like pixiv Encyclopedia.

Within Doujinshi Culture

In Japan, the term took root in the doujinshi culture of the late 1970s and 1980s. That was when the fan works called yaoi and aniparo were spreading. Yaoi is an old name for fan works dealing with romance between men, and aniparo means anime parody.

What set off the big surge in women-oriented fan doujinshi was the Captain Tsubasa boom of 1985 to 1986. Fans produced a great many doujinshi built around the characters of the soccer manga.

At the same time, no one is sure when the term coupling itself first appeared. There is no verifiable record of how the shortened forms kapu and CP spread, either.

The A×B Notation

A coupling is written by joining two character names with a ×, as in A×B. The × is read kakeru, the verb for multiplying, and it is loosely called kakezan (掛け算), multiplication.

In BL, the character on the left of the × is the seme (攻め), and the one on the right is the uke (受け). This is a role distinction, where the seme is the one acting on the other and the uke is the one receiving. Which of the two goes on the left is taken very seriously among fans.

Reversing the order to B×A is called gyaku-kapu (逆カプ), a reverse coupling, and even with the same two characters it counts as a different pairing. Mixing them up can spark trouble between fans.

The × notation applies to male-female couplings as well. In yuri, seme and uke are often not marked so clearly.

Coupling names are often made by joining parts of the characters' names. For Haruka and Michiru from Sailor Moon, for instance, their coupling name becomes HaruMichi.

Coupling-Related Terms

Kotei (固定), literally "fixed," is a preference that will accept only one specific pairing, or only one order. Zasshoku (雑食), literally "omnivorous," runs the other way, a taste for enjoying pairings broadly, gyaku-kapu and all.

Jirai (地雷) is a pairing or depiction that a person simply cannot stand. The word literally means a landmine, and the metaphor comes from the heavy damage of stepping on one. Fans have a self-defense custom of noting their own jirai in their profile so that others can avoid it beforehand.

How English-Speaking Fandom Differs

English-speaking fandom tends to join the two names with a /. The habit is traced to 1970s fan works built around Star Trek, the American science fiction series, where fans wrote the Kirk-and-Spock pairing as K/S.

Blending the two names into a fresh label, the way Reylo does, is widely used as well. Reylo joins Rey and Kylo Ren from Star Wars.

In English-speaking fandom, the concern for order is said to be looser than in Japan. That said, English Wikipedia makes a point of noting that in Japan and East Asia, XY and YX are clearly distinguished.

The coupling someone loves best is called an OTP, short for one true pairing, a term close to the Japanese oshi-kapu.