Fudanshi (“Rotten Boys”) in Asia: A Cross-Cultural Analysis of Male Readings of BL and Concepts of Masculinity (original) (raw)

Abstract

This chapter delineates the characteristics of fudanshi (“rotten boys,” male fan of BL) in other Asian countries, including Japan, the Philippines, mainland China and South Korea. The primary thematic question which this study attempts to explore is whether or not the kind of “soft” masculinity exemplified by Japanese fudanshi is also seen in other Asian sociocultural contexts. This cross-cultural analysis is further enhanced by an examination of the ways in which fujoshi (“rotten girls,” female fan of BL) communicate with fudanshi, as well as by a consideration of how fujoshi in other Asian countries respond to the desire of fudanshi to access (and appropriate) the space within a specifically female-oriented cultural sphere.

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Notes

1. 1. Such terms as shōnen ai, yaoi, june mono (_June_-type fiction), bishōnen mono (fiction concerning beautiful boys) are also sometimes used to signify this genre, and each term needs to be examined in relation to its specific historiographic implications. However, I have chosen to use BL as an umbrella term to refer to the tradition of Japanese female fantasies of male homosexuality. See the chapters by James Welker, Yukari Fujimoto and Kazuko Suzuki in Boys’ Love Manga and Beyond: History, Culture, and Community in Japan (eds. Mark McLelland, Kazumi Nagaike, Katsuhiko Suganuma, and James Welker, 2015) for further historiographic analysis of Japanese BL.
2. 1. See Nagaike, “Do Heterosexual Men Dream of Homosexual Men?” in Boys’ Love Manga and Beyond (2015).
3. 1. Yoshimoto, Fudanshi ni kiku, 30.
4. 1. Yoshimoto, Fudanshi ni kiku, 30.
5. 1. Yoshimoto, Fudanshi ni kiku, 60.
6. 1. Yoshimoto, Fudanshi ni kiku 2, 41.
7. 1. Yoshimoto, Fudanshi ni kiku 2, 41–42.
8. 1. Four of my interviewees are female and the fifth is male. They are editors of the BL magazines Gush (Kaiōsha Publishing), Be-Boy (Libre Publishing), Karen (Nihonbungei Publishing), and June (Magazine Publishing). All interviews were performed in September 2012.
9. 1. Yoshimoto, Fudanshi ni kiku 2, 10.
10. 1. Yoshimoto, Fudanshi ni kiku, 37.
11. 1. It is clear that shota has nothing in common with pedophilia, so these two traits must be analyzed on different theoretical bases. Rather than expressing any explicitly sexual inclination toward boys, shota narratives merely feature idealized images of boys, without overtly homoerotic connotations.
12. 1. Yoshimoto, Fudanshi ni kiku, 29–30.
13. 1. Yoshimoto, Fudanshi ni kiku, 35.
14. 1. See Nagaike, “Perverse Sexualities, Perversive Desires: Representation of Female Fantasies and Yaoi Manga as Pornography Directed at Women,” for a detailed analysis of female beating-fantasies, which can also be discussed in terms of the three-stage Freudian structure. Freud emphasizes the differences between male beating-fantasies and female beating-fantasies, although he focuses more on the psychological orientation underlying female beating-fantasies in this famous article.
15. 1. See Sigmund Freud, “‘A Child is Being Beaten’: A Contribution to the Study of the Origin of Sexual Perversions,” in The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud vol.17, ed. And trans. James Strachey (London: The Hogarth Press, 1955).
16. 1. Saitō, “Otaku Sexuality,” 245.
17. 1. Superflat is a postmodern art form, originated by Takashi Murakami, which shows influences of both Japanese manga and anime. Superflat art is based on the notion that “present” postmodern realities may be best expressed in terms of an “absence” of reality (flatness).
18. 1. See Kaoru Nagayama (2006), which also analyzes men’s desire for shota in terms of their subconscious desire to “become cute boys themselves” (241).
19. 1. See Ishida (2007, 2015) for more details on the Japanese yaoi debate.

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Authors and Affiliations

1. Global Education and Intercultural Advancement Center, Oita University, Oita, Japan
   Kazumi Nagaike

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1. Kazumi Nagaike
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Editors and Affiliations

1. Department of English, Chikushi Jogakuen University, Dazaifu, Fukuoka, Japan
   Fusami Ogi
2. Japanese Studies Department, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia
   Rebecca Suter
3. Global Education and Intercultural Advancement Center, Oita University, Oita, Japan
   Kazumi Nagaike
4. International Journal of Comic Art, Drexel Hill, PA, USA
   John A. Lent

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Nagaike, K. (2019). Fudanshi (“Rotten Boys”) in Asia: A Cross-Cultural Analysis of Male Readings of BL and Concepts of Masculinity. In: Ogi, F., Suter, R., Nagaike, K., Lent, J.A. (eds) Women’s Manga in Asia and Beyond. Palgrave Studies in Comics and Graphic Novels. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-97229-9\_5

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• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-97229-9\_5
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