University of Massachusetts Amherst ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014 January 2008 The Representation Of Marginal Youth In Contemporary Japanese Popular Fiction: Marginal Youth And Ishida Ira’s Ikebukuro West Gate Park Jonathan W. Lawless University of Massachusetts Amherst Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/theses Lawless, Jonathan W., "The Representation Of Marginal Youth In Contemporary Japanese Popular Fiction: Marginal Youth And Ishida Ira’s Ikebukuro West Gate Park" (2008). Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014. 139. Retrieved from https://scholarworks.umass.edu/theses/139 This thesis is brought to you for free and open access by ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. It has been accepted for inclusion in Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014 by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. For more information, please contact [email protected]. THE REPRESENTATION OF MARGINAL YOUTH IN CONTEMPORARY JAPANESE POPULAR FICTION: MARGINAL YOUTH AND ISHIDA IRA‘S IKEBUKURO WEST GATE PARK A Thesis Presented by JONATHAN W. LAWLESS Submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Massachusetts Amherst in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS May 2008 Asian Languages and Literatures THE REPRESENTATION OF MARGINAL YOUTH IN CONTEMPORARY JAPANESE POPULAR FICTION: MARGINAL YOUTH AND ISHIDA IRA‘S IKEBUKURO WEST GATE PARK A Thesis Presented by JONATHAN W. LAWLESS Approved as to style and content by: ___________________________________________ Stephen D. Miller, Chair ___________________________________________ Amanda C. Seaman, Member ___________________________________________ Bruce Baird, Member _______________________________ Zhongwei Shen, Director Asian Languages and Literatures Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures ________________________________________ Julie Candler Hayes, Chair Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This thesis would not have been possible without the help of the following people. Thanks are in order for the members of my thesis committee, who continually pushed me to write something better: Professor Miller, for his invaluable help with my translation and the overall setup of my thesis; Professor Baird, for opening my eyes to more philosophical ways of looking at the topic and for pushing me to ―foreshadow;‖ and Professor Seaman, for making me read a lot, providing me with a solid background in Japanese literature, and for questioning everything I did, which only pushed me harder. Although not a part of my official committee, I would also like to thank Sharon Domier for her assistance in gathering resources and especially for her assistance in regard to the formatting of this thesis. Her willingness to help me whenever I had a question, coupled with a genuine interest in how things were progressing, helped me immensely. I appreciate all of the sincere support from my family – thank you for believing I could do this. I would especially like to thank my uncle, Eben Cobb, for taking the time to sit down with me and explain why I was writing this thesis in the first place, and for showing me what it truly means to be (and succeed as) a graduate student. Finally, I never could have completed this work without the patience, understanding, and occasional reality check from my wife, Yumi. She always knew when I needed her to be there, and when to ―love me alone‖ so I could write. This thesis as an accomplishment pales in comparison to what I gained in marrying her. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS................................................................................................iii CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION.......................................................................................................1 2. IKEBUKURO WEST GATE PARK..........................................................................7 3. ASPECTS OF MAINSTREAM JAPANESE SOCIETY AND MARGINAL YOUTH IN AGING JAPAN........................................................63 The Japanese Social System: Education and Employment...............................63 The School System..................................................................................64 Gakkōka.......................................................................................66 Employment............................................................................................69 Recent Trend in the Employment System...................................70 Women and Work........................................................................74 Views of Youth and Youth Culture...................................................................75 An Aging Japan.......................................................................................76 The ―Wild‖ Child....................................................................................78 Marginal Youth.......................................................................................79 Examples of Marginal Youth......................................................81 Freeters and NEETs........................................................81 Enjokōsai (Schoolgirl Prostitution).................................83 Hikikomori.......................................................................85 The Disabled....................................................................86 Homosexuals and Transgender Individuals.....................88 Juvenile Delinquency..............................................................................90 4. YOUTH IN IKEBUKURO WEST GATE PARK....................................................93 Character Types.................................................................................................94 iv Delinquents and Gang Members.............................................................94 Dropouts..................................................................................................98 Youth Engaged in Non-regular Employment..........................................98 Youth Beyond Gender...........................................................................101 Women as Victims................................................................................102 The Bad Guys........................................................................................104 Other Marginalized and Stigmatized Groups: the Disabled, the Antisocial, the Homeless, and Foreigners.............................107 Makoto.............................................................................................................110 Normality and Marginality in Ikebukuro West Gate Park..............................120 Relationships between Youths and Adults......................................................121 Marginal Youth: Community and Identity......................................................125 5. MOTIVATION AND MESSAGE..........................................................................129 Writing ‗The Now‘..........................................................................................130 Writing and Breaking Stereotypes...................................................................134 Popular Fiction and the Effects of Genre........................................................143 6. CONCLUSION.......................................................................................................149 Questions and Topics for Further Consideration.............................................154 BIBLIOGRAPHY.........................................................................................................158 v CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION Popular fiction can take many forms and is primarily written and read for pleasure. Sometimes, however, it can contain more than just a good story; there are times when it can also be used to subtly prove a point, or provide critical commentary on some aspect of society. Contemporary Japanese popular fiction is no exception. There is a trend in recent Japanese popular fiction to provide criticism on the state of traditional social institutions, particularly those of education and employment, as well as a movement toward shedding light on little-spoken of problems in society. One such area that has received much attention recently is the issue of youth and their portrayal in society. Counter to an often negative representation of modern youth by the media, many popular Japanese authors have begun to consciously attack media-driven stereotypes and attempt to create a positive image of youth, while at the same time continuing to bring to the everyday reader important social questions often reserved for discussion among academics and critics. For the purposes of this thesis I intend to concentrate on the topic of marginal youth in twenty-first century Japan and how they are portrayed in popular Japanese fiction. While mainstream Japan is guided by a strict set of rules, there is a subculture of youths who have either failed out of the Japanese ―system‖ or left it of their own will. Because these kids have ―failed‖ the normal system of education and employment (the two factors most frequently used to determine status and success in Japan), they are cast out from ―normal‖ society, seen and treated as outsiders, and thus deemed ―bad‖. Yet, 1 in popular Japanese fiction it is often these youths that have the power to affect true change and help people, and it is these youths that represent the ―good‖ in these stories; in fact, members of ―normal‖