Japan Gender Reader: June – Dec 2017

In this gender reader: how to discuss nonbinary genders in Japanese, gross anime tropes, a shôjo manga release and a 20th anniversary, and more!

Image: Chihiro from Spirited Away runs through the town as the spirits come out to go to the bathhouse

LGBTQ

Julian Ryall. “What’s It Like Being a Gay* Student in Japan?” South China Morning Post. 15 Oct. 2017.

(*Also covers trans issues.)

“In a ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ society, teachers receive directives but no training to support anxious, closeted children when they are ‘outed.’”

Vera Papisova (trans. Mariko Peeling). ジェンダーとは女性と男性の二択ではない！　「ノンバイナリージェンダー」について知っておこう。Vogue Girl. 26 May 2016. Translation of “Here’s What It Means When You Don’t Identify as a Girl or a Boy,” Teen Vogue, 12 Feb. 2016.

One of my friends who teaches English in Japan asked my advice on Japanese vocabulary for nonbinary genders, and luckily, Vogue Girl, the Japanese version of Teen Vogue translated this article into Japanese.

Note: One of the issues with LGBTQ rights and awareness in Japan is that many of the words to describe sexuality and gender identity are loan words from English and require translation. You often see explanations like B: バイセクシュアル = 両性愛 where the term has to be translated and explained, and the translation isn’t always caught up to how the term is used in English. Japanese has a word for bisexual (両性愛, ryôseiai, “attracted to both genders”) and for pansexual (全性愛, zenseiai, “attracted to all genders”), the Japanese translations typically only have “both men and women” for bi, while English-speaking bisexual communities have a more expansive view of attraction to “same and different genders” or “genders like me and not like me.”

Kathryn Hemmann. “Queering the Media Mix: The Female Gaze in Japanese Fan Comics.” Transformative Works and Cultures, no. 20. 2015.

In dōjinshi, or self-published fan comics, female readers create their own interpretations of stories, characters, and relationships in narratives targeted at a male demographic. In BL (boys’ love) fan comics, which are notable for their focus on a romantic and often physical relationship between two male characters, the female gaze has created its own overtly homoerotic readings and interpretations that creatively subvert the phallocentrism implicit in many mainstream narratives. The interactions between texts and their readers found in dōjinshi illustrate how cycles of narrative production and consumption have changed in the face of active fan cultures. Because of the closely interrelated nature of the components of increasingly international media mixes, communities of fans have the potential to make positive and progressive contributions to the media mix ecosystem.

(You may know also Dr. Hemmann as my co-panelist/author on our work on the trope of “cross-dressing” and on gender in 1970s shôjo anime.)

 

Anime and Manga

Cecilia d’Anastasio. “Come On, Anime.” Kotaku. 29 November 2017.

In the category of “gross anime things,” let’s talk a little about an increasingly popular gross anime thing commonly referred to as “Really 700 years old.”

That’s when a 700-year-old demon with the body of a young girl who, somehow, finds herself in a sexually compromising position. Yep.

 

Nina Coomes. “What Miyazaki’s Heroines Taught Me About My Mixed-Race Identity.” Catapult. 16 October 2017.

When I was seven, my family moved from Nagoya, Japan to Chicago, though we often returned to spend summers in Japan. The summer I got my hair cut short was two years into my family’s residence in the States. Still reeling from our trans-Pacific upheaval, I was happy to return to what once was home, yet had found Japan suddenly tinged with a steely alienness. And that summer, it was not just home that seemed alien to me. My body was beginning to lack familiarity, too, and a slow, cold realization was dawning.

 

“Seven Seas Expands to Classic Shoujo With Release of Riyoko Ikeda’s CLAUDINE Manga.” Seven Seas Entertainment. 15 Nov. 2017.

Born as “Claudine” …[and experiencing gender dysmorphia that*] doesn’t reflect the man inside, this heart-wrenching story follows Claudine through life, pain, and the love of several women. Master shoujo mangaka Riyoko Ikeda, considered part of the influential Year 24 Group, explores gender and sexuality in early twentieth century France in this powerful tale about identity. Riyoko Ikeda’s career of over forty years is most defined by her epic The Rose of Versailles, and she was awarded the French Legion of Honour in 2009.

*original copy is unintentionally cissexist; that said, after reading the plot summary of the manga, the book seems to fall into the tropes about “tragic transgender people” so, ugh, Ikeda-sensei….
Erica Friedman. “Retrospective of a Revolution – 20 Years of Shoujo Kakumei Utena.” Okazu.  22 Oct. 2017.

When the series was running on Japanese TV and we were talking about it obsessively on the original Anilesbocon Mailing List (which was rendered defunct by Yahoo in 2001) the series was often spoken of as a subversion of a magical girl series. And certainly, one could see it as such. It takes the stock characters of any anime and manga set in a school, layers on a “purpose” that isn’t saving humanity, or making people happy, or even stealing back people’s precious belongings. That purpose is flatly stated to be a “revolution” – although what that meant to the world is never explained.

Note: Utena is bi, and when a bisexual girl drives off with another queer girl, that doesn’t make it a “lesbian” relationship or ending. It can be a queer ending, or a bisexual ending, but we bisexual folks don’t use “lesbian” to describe our relationships. See the GLAAD Media Resource Guide.

“The Shadow Faced Influence of Junichi Nakahara.” 2016.

A look at the art that inspired the silhouette art in Utena and other anime, including Yuuri Katsuki’s description of the narrative of his “On Love: Eros” routine.

Gender in the Workplace

Elise Hu. “Japanese Lawmaker’s Baby Gets Booted From the Floor.” NPR. 24 November 2017.

When a municipal lawmaker, Yuka Ogata, brought her 7-month-old baby to her job in a male-dominated legislature, she was met with such surprise and consternation by her male colleagues that eventually, she and the baby were asked to leave. Officials of the Kumamoto Municipal Assembly, of which she’s a member, said although there’s no rule prohibiting infants, they booted her citing a rule that visitors are forbidden from the floor.

Elisabeth Sherman. “Japan’s First Female President of a Sake Brewery Says She’s ‘Lucky to be a Woman.’” Food & Wine. 14 Nov. 2017.

[Kayo] Yoshida has transformed her brewery into one where creativity and youthful energy reign. The majority of her employees are under 35, many of which are women; Yoshida says that Umenoyado employees a “female-to-male ratio of over 40%.

Something fun: Japanese mascots getting stuck in turnstiles, doors, and other things.