 Mizoguchi traces the tales back to the "tanbi" romances of Mori Mari.The term "tanbi" was used for stories written for and about the worship of beauty, and romance between older men and beautiful youths using particularly flowery language and unusual kanji (Chinese characters appropriated into Japanese script).Mori Mari in , considered "the first work of ["yaoi"]", used such unusual kanji for her characters' names that she converted to spelling their names in "katakana", a script used to transcribe foreign words.