Subverting Heteronormativity in Japanese Shônen-Ai Manga
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Subverting Heteronormativity in Japanese Shônen-Ai Manga: Gender, Sexuality, and Identity in Tsuda Mikiyo’s Princess Princess and The Day of Revolution, Kôga Yun’s Loveless, and Earthian, and Murakami Maki’s Gravitation 1 Table of Contents: Index of Images: Page 2 Chapter 1: Introduction Page 3 Chapter 2: The Subversive Nature of Gender Transformations in Tsuda Mikiyo’s Princess Princess and The Day of Revolution Page 12 Chapter 3: Identification and the Other: Representations of Violated Heteronormative Space in Kôga Yun’s Earthian and Loveless Page 33 Chapter 4: Assertions of Non-Identity in Kôga Yun’s Earthian and Murakami Maki’s Gravitation Page 53 Chapter 5: Conclusion Page 74 Glossary: Page 77 Appendix A: Page 78 Bibliography: Page 90 2 Index of Figures: Figure 1: Page 16: The Day of Revolution volume 1: Figure 2: Page 17: The Day of Revolution volume 1: Figure 3: Page 19: The Day of Revolution volume 1: Figure 4: Page 20: The Day of Revolution volume 1: Figure 5: Page 22: The Day of Revolution volume 2: 115 Figure 6: Page 23: The Day of Revolution volume 2: 184 Figure 7: Page 27: Princess Princess volume 4: 158-1599 Figure 8: Page 29: Princess Princess volume 2: 90 Figure 9: Page 30: Princess Princess volume 4: 67 Figure 10: Page 37: Loveless volume 7: 93 Figure 11: Page 38: Loveless volume 7: 94 Figure 12: Page 41: Loveless volume 4: 80 Figure 13: Page 42: Loveless volume 4: 81 Figure 14: Page 45: Earthian volume 1: 69 Figure 15: Page 50: Earthian volume 4: 131 Figure 16: Page 59: Gravitation volume 12: 59 Figure 17: Page 63: Gravitation volume 1: 126 Figure 18: Page 69: Gravitation volume 3: 22-23 Figure 19: Page 71: Earthian volume 2: 365 3 Chapter 1: Introduction The world is based on a model of heteronormativity that exists in all societies worldwide. Within this context, the only forms of identities that are acceptable are ones that support a belief in the nature of heterosexuality as normal and natural. Heterosexuality is not a concept that is always routed solely in sexuality, but also carries connotations of gender and sex normality. Under notions of heteronormativity, it is only acceptable for a person’s gender, which is based on a conglomeration of social and personal portrayal of culturally specific notions of masculinity and femininity, to match their sex, which is either male or female. However, current social understandings have acknowledged that not only does gender not have to represent sex, but sex itself is not the binary reality presented in heteronormative thought. These identities, commonly regarded as the other in social thought, represent a challenge to the dominance of heteronormative society. While these identities exist and to some extent pose a threat to heteronormativity, they can also be seen as extensions of heteronormative thought. Identities are formed based on portions of the selves that people choose to represent themselves to society. They give people frames of references in which to construct their own identities and their own responses. For example, someone may introduce themself as a teacher to which another person may respond as a fellow teacher, student, or administrator.1 Without identities, people may lose the ability to interact with one another and ultimately fail as a species. Despite the necessity for identities, heteronormativity constructs identities as sources of discrimination. 1 Had the person chosen to represent themself as a male to someone who then responds either as male or female depending on the individual. 4 Within its own title, heteronormativity contains the implication that the heterosexual identities are normal, which extends to the abnormity of non- heteronormative identities. Heteronormativity is essentially the discrimination by society of the non-heteronormative individuals who are othered by their sexual and/or gender identities. Even so, the need to carry gender and sexual identity is manufactured by heteronormative society as a way of preventing any form of androgynous individuals. These identities are developed and portrayed based on social interactions among people. However, these identities are also developed via the consumption of cultural icons such as literature and film. Literature and film offer both an interpretation of an identity and the establishment of identity, as the cultural exchange between interpreter and interpreted changes. In the making of the cultural work, the interpreted is reality and the interpreter is the work of art, but upon release to the public, the public becomes the interpreter and the work becomes the interpreted. Thus, not only do cultural works, such as film and literature, represent, how ever unrealistically, society, but also establishes society and identities through its presentation. For that reason, we see films that are typified as a genre based on who the intended viewer is and who is represented in the film. Likewise, it is possible to undergo the same process with newer forms of cultural mediums such as the Japanese graphic novel, manga. Identity in the Land of Manga 5 While heteronormativity is shared worldwide, identities are all culturally based and differ from society to society. In Japan, some identities are stressed more than in other countries. For example, the identities relating to family such as father, mother, son, daughter, husband, wife, carry more weight than westerners can comprehend because these identities are formed in the context of Confucian and Buddhist traditions. Traditionally, Japan has not cared much about gender or sexual identity so long as it did not interfere with aspects of practically based social obligations. As a result, queer identities have not only been present, but flourished for a time, just not based on the notion that same-sex relationships were the basis for an identity.2 Even now, “queer identities” in Japan are not equivocal matches to those found in the west, which has resulted in the western view that Japan is behind and not progressive from an LGBT3 standpoint. The disunity in the base group in the Japanese gay liberation movement, as revealed in Mark McLelland’s article “Is there a Japanese gay identity?” is a result of certain social constructs as well as issues regarding identity. McLelland reveals that while to possibility of identity allows for freedom, it also results in conformity. He argues that gay identity does not allow for ambiguities, as it is a social construct. Furthermore, the Western gay identity does not allow for the possibility of heterosexual relationships. A gay man married to a woman is often seen as hiding in the closet. His marriage is only a marriage of convenience designed to hide his gay identity. However, marriage in Japan is an important rite of passage into society and is not necessarily looked at as concealing identity so much as fulfilling societal and familial obligations. McLelland has done 2 Homosexual and heterosexual were nonexistent to an extent in Japan before 1868. 3 Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender + Asexual, Queer, Questioning, Intersex, Pansexual… 6 further work involving the study of homosexuality in Japan, particularly in popular culture, which begs the question of why so much focus is being drawn to these works and not the reality of Japanese sexuality. Over the past decade, the study of Japanese manga and anime has increased drastically, including the study of shôjo manga, or girls’ comics. Manga and anime are separated based on the intended demographic that is drawn based on gender. Within each gendered genre are the numerous sub-genre that are familiar: action, romance, fantasy, comedy, etc. However, within shôjo manga, there is a sub-genre known as yaoi, an acronym for yama nashi, ochi nashi, imi nashi, which means no climax, no point, no meaning, that was originally used to describe amateur comics known as dôjinshi. The yaoi sub-genre is significant because they are all stories of beautiful boys involved in romantic, sexual, or suggestive relationships with other boys. Furthermore, these comics are marketed to a female demographic and created by women, which is the reason why in Mizoguchi Akiko’s PhD dissertation she claims that yaoi has the potential to not only be a feminist genre, but a lesbian feminist genre because of women objectifying men for their own pleasure and desire. Mizoguchi is one of the few scholars that have written on the yaoi genre who happens to also be a lesbian, feminist, Japanese, and a fan of the genre. Mizoguchi, as well as other scholars of yaoi such as James Welker and Mark McLelland, have all written on the problematic nature of the representation of homosexuality within the yaoi genre. While they recognize the boys’ love portion of yaoi as potentially homophobic, enforcing at times offensive denials of homosexuality, Mizoguchi is the only one to really absolve the genre because of its impact on women. 7 None of these researchers have really looked in depth and focused on individual texts. Mizoguchi’s dissertation contained mostly an investigation into the demographics of yaoi, while the others have sought mostly to contextualize the genre as a whole, which is largely impossible because of the variety. However, Mizoguchi provides an exceedingly brilliant argument with her discussion on the issues surrounding character identification and the formation of adolescent identities, which informed one of the chapters of this study. In addition to scholars, the yaoi phenomena have been discovered by consumers of popular culture and who have produced their own guides. Patrick Drazen wrote a general guide on the explosion of Japanese anime in the west attempting to explain the reason behind its popularity spike. Both he and Helen McCarthy and Jonathan Clements, the authors of The Erotic Anime Movie Guide, write about the yaoi anime that has been released in America.