Blonde is the new Japanese: Transcending race in shojo manga
PDF

Keywords

shōjo manga
race
Japaneseness
Ōgi Fusami
Ishida Minori
racial representation
otherness

How to Cite

Antononoka, O. “Blonde Is the New Japanese: Transcending Race in Shojo Manga”. Mutual Images Journal, no. 1, Aug. 2016, pp. 22-46, doi:10.32926/2016.1.ANT.blonde.

Abstract

There is not much research available on the issue of race in generic manga. If addressed at all, the focus is on manga as overcoming the confines of race. The assumption that manga representations overcome racial barriers can lean on the fact that characters’ supposed race and visual representation frequently do not correspond, creating a character design visually abstracted from any specific race. Furthermore, on a global scale, manga has a racially diverse readership: readers project themselves onto allegedly Caucasian manga characters regardless of their own skin colour. In this paper I will focus specifically on sh?jo manga, and will trace how visual racial abstraction transcends specific race, yet remains involved with race-related topics such as alienation and otherness. I will start by analysing possible meanings of race-relevant elements in character design with emphasis on gender. In order to
do that, I will begin with investigation of Oshiyama Michiko’s analysis of essential gender traits in sh?jo manga. Further, I will introduce several discourses of race in manga, such as theory of “speciesism” by Thomas LaMarre’s and Terry Kawashima’s theory of “selective reading” of racial traits. In the framework of sh?jo manga, I will focus specifically on the image of the Westerner, from early sh?jo manga elaborated on by ?gi Fusami and Ishida Minori, and proceeding with analysis of the eroticized image of the foreigner in contemporary women’s manga by Nagaike Kazumi. I will introduce theory of “plastic lines” by Thomas LaMarre in order to focus on the construction of “the other” in relation to the visual representation of race via specific lines. I intend to conclude that sh?jo manga may transcend visual traits of any specific race, but that it retains the recurring theme of conflict and otherness, which in part is related also to racial issues. Visual abstraction from specific race, however, appears to imply “otherness” as an external feature, placed by society upon the characters’ bodies, while the visual representation of their interiority facilitates the impression of sameness, or absence of otherness.

https://doi.org/10.32926/2016.1.ANT.blonde
PDF

References

AZUMA, HIROKI (2001), Dōbutsuka suru posutomodan: otaku kara mita nihon shakai. Tokyo: Kōdansha Gendai Shinsho; (2009), Otaku: Japan’s database animals. Transl. Jonathan E. Abel & Kono Shion. Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press.

BANDŌ, TAMASABURŌ (2009), Waraku: Bandō Tamasaburō – subete wa butai no bi no tameni. Tokyo: Shogakukan.

BAUWENS-SUGIMOTO, JESSICA (2016), Queering Black Jack: A Look At How Manga Adapts to Changing Reading Demographics. In: Berndt, J. — Linder, G. (eds), Orientaliska Studier: Proceedings from the 2016 NAJAKS Conference at Stockholm University. Stockholm: Linder, pp. 111-140

BERNDT, JAQUELINE (2013a), Ghostly: ‘Asian Graphic Narratives,’ Nonnonba, and Manga. In: Stein, D. — Thon, J.N. (eds), From Comics Strips to Graphic Novels. Berlin: DeGruyter, pp. 363-385.

BERNDT, JAQUELINE (2013b), The Intercultural Challenge of the ‘Mangaesque’: Reorienting Manga Studies after 3/11. In: Berndt, J. — Kümmerling-Meibauer, B. (eds), Manga’s Cultural Crossroads. London: Routledge, pp. 65-84.

BERNDT, JAQUELINE (2016a), Introduction: Manga Beyond Critique?, Kritika Kultira. Manila: Ateneo de Manila Univ. Pr, pp. 163-178.

BERNDT, JAQUELINE (2016b), Manga, Which Manga? Publication Formats, Genres, Users. In: Targowsky, A. — Abe, J. — Kato, H. (eds), Japanese Civilisation in the 21st Century. New York: Nova Publishers, 121-134.

BUTLER, JUDITH (1997), The Psychic Life of Power. Stanford University Press, California.

BUTLER, JUDITH (2004), Undoing Gender. New York: Routledge.

BUTLER, JUDITH (2005), Giving an Account of Oneself. New York: Fordham Univ. Pr.

BUTLER, JUDITH (2006), Gender Trouble. London: Routledge.

FRAHM, OLE (2000), Weird Signs: Comics as Means of Parody. In: Magnussen, A. — Christiansen, H. (eds), Comics & Culture: Analytical and Theoretical Approaches to Comics. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum, pp. 177-192.

FUJIMOTO, YUKARI (2004), Transgender: Female Hermaphrodites and Male Androgynes. US-Japan Women's Journal, Saitama, Josai Univ. Pr., No. 27, pp. 76-117.

FUJIMOTO, YUKARI (2008), Watashi no ibashō doko ni aru no. Tokyo: Asahi bunsho.

FUJIMOTO, YUKARI (2015), The Evolution of BL as “Playing with Genders”: Viewing the Genesis and Development of BL from a Contemporary Perception. In: McLelland, M. — Nagaike, K. — Sunaguma, K. (eds), Boys’ Love Manga and Beyond: History, Culture, and Community in Japan. Jackson: Mississippi Univ. Pr., pp. 76-92.

GALBRAITH, PATRICK W. (2015), Moe Talk: Affective Communication among Female Fans of Yaoi in Japan. In: McLelland, M. — Nagaike, K. — Sunaguma, K. (eds), Boys’ Love Manga and Beyond: History, Culture, and Community in Japan. Jackson: Mississippi Univ. Pr., pp. 153-168.

GROENSTEEN, THIERRY (2000), Why are Comics Still in Search of Cultural Legitimization? In: Magnussen, A. — Christiansen, H. (eds), Comics & Culture: Analytical and Theoretical Approaches to Comics. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum, pp. 29-41.

GROENSTEEN, THIERRY (2013), Comics and Narration, transl. Miller, A. Mississippi: Mississippi Univ. Pr.

ISHIDA, MINORI (2007), Hisoyakana kyōiku: yaoi, bōizurabu zenshi. Kyoto: Rakuhoku Shuppan.

ITŌ, GŌ (2005), Tezuka izu deddo: Hirakareta manga hyōgenron e. Tokyo: NTT Shuppan.

ITŌ, GŌ (2012), Manga no futatsu no kao. Nihon 2.0 Shisō Chizu vol. 3. Tokyo: Genron Co. Ltd, 436-483.

KACSUK, ZOLTAN (2016), “From “Game-Like Realism” to the “Imagination-Oriented Aesthetic”: Reconsidering Bourdieu’s Contribution to Fan Studies in the Light of Japanese Manga and Otaku Theory”. Kritika Kultura, pp. 274-292.

LAMARRE, THOMAS (2009), The Anime Machine: A Media Theory of Animation. Minnesota: Univ. of Minnesota Pr.

LAMARRE, THOMAS (2010), Manga Bomb: Between the Lines of Barefoot Gen. In: Berndt, J. (ed.), Comics Worlds and the World of Comics: Towards Scholarship on a Global Scale (Global Manga Studies, vol. 1). Kyoto: Kyoto Seika University, International Manga Research Centre, pp. 262-307.

LEITER, SAMUEL L. (2012), From Gay to Gei: The Onnagata and the Creation of Kabuki’s female Characters. In: Leiter, S. (ed.), A Kabuki Reader: History and Performance. New York: M.E. Sharp, 211-230.

MEZUR, KATHRINE (2005), Beautiful Boys, Outlaw Bodies: Devising Kabuki Female-Likeness. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

MIZOGUCHI, AKIKO (2015), BL shinkaron: bōizurabu ga shakai wo ugokasu. Tokyo: Ohta Shuppan.

NAGAIKE, KAZUMI (2012), Fantasies of Cross-Dressing: Japanese Women Write Male-Male Erotica. Leiden: Brill.

ŌGI, FUSAMI (2001), Beyond Shoujo, Blending Gender: Subverting the Homogendered World in Shoujo Manga (Japanese Comics for Girls). International Journal of Comic Art, vol 3.2., pp. 151-161.

ŌGI, FUSAMI (2004), Shōjo manga to seiyō – shōjo manga ni okeru “nihon” no fūzai to seiyōteki imēji no hanran ni tsuite. Honyaku no keniki: bunka shokuminchi aidentitī, Tsukuba Univ. Pr., pp. 525-554.

OSHIYAMA, MICHIKO (2007), Shōjo manga jendā hyōshōron – “dansō no shōjo”no zōkei to aidentitī. Tōkyō: Seiryūsha.

OTOMO, RIO (2015), Politics of Utopia: Fantasy, Pornography, and Boys’ Love. In: McLelland, M. — Nagaike, K.

OTOMO, RIO; Sunaguma, K. (eds), Boys’ Love Manga and Beyond: History, Culture, and Community in Japan. Jackson: Mississippi Univ. Pr., pp. 141-152.

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Copyright (c) 2016 Olga Antononoka