Deborah Shamoon | National University of Singapore (original) (raw)
Papers by Deborah Shamoon
ASIANetwork Exchange: A Journal for Asian Studies in the Liberal Arts, 2010
Japanese Studies, 2021
Kawabata Yasunari (1899–1972), Japan’s first Nobel laureate in literature, is best known today fo... more Kawabata Yasunari (1899–1972), Japan’s first Nobel laureate in literature, is best known today for highbrow novels such as Yukiguni (Snow country, 1935–1947). But in the 1930s and 1940s, Kawabata was deeply involved with the girls’ literary magazine Shōjo no tomo (The girls’ friend) as an editor and an author of novels for girls (shōjo shōsetsu). This article calls for a critical reevaluation of Kawabata’s fiction in terms of his involvement with and appropriation of girls’ culture, through analysis of the novels Otome no minato (The girls’ harbor, 1937–1938) and Utsukushii tabi (Beautiful journey, 1939–1941). Kawabata’s use of the idealized shōjo is consistent in his writing for girls and adults, and is a parallel to the fascist aesthetics and colonial ideology in his work of this time period.
U.S.-Japan Women's Journal, 2020
The novel Manji (Quicksand, 1931) by Tanizaki Jun'ichirō, about a destructive love affair between... more The novel Manji (Quicksand, 1931) by Tanizaki Jun'ichirō, about a destructive love affair between two women, has been analyzed extensively for its use of Kansai dialect and its complex narrative style. This article argues for a new interpretation of Manji as a parody of 1920s girls' culture (shōjo bunka), in particular the S relationship (S kankei) or romantic friendship between two girls. Tanizaki uses signifiers of girls' culture in Manji to spin a tale of comedy and perversion. The novel reconfigures the S relationship to cater to the male gaze, containing and controlling the potentially disruptive shōjo character. Although the novel embeds the female characters in girls' culture, rather than a chaste friendship between two girls, Manji features a perverse sexual relationship between two adult women, ending in an attempted love suicide. By examining the references to girls' culture in the novel, as well as the theme of love suicide and censored content related to abortion and birth control, this essay shows how Tanizaki comedically, deliberately revised girls' culture tropes for male readers. Tanizaki uses mockery to contain and control the aspects of the S relationship threatening to the patriarchal order, using the recognizable markers of girls' culture to create a sexualized, voyeuristic tale of the shōjo as perverse and dangerous.
Cultural Studies, 2020
In the 1920s in Japan, girls attending single-sex secondary schools developed a girls’ culture (s... more In the 1920s in Japan, girls attending single-sex secondary schools developed a girls’ culture (shōjo bunka) or subculture to insulate themselves temporarily from the pressures of patriarchal society. Part of this subculture was a practice called s kankei (s or sister relationships), also called Class S, which were same-sex romantic attachments between classmates, condoned at the time as a temporary practice relationship that would end upon graduation, followed by an arranged marriage. Although s relationships were not ‘lesbian’ in the contemporary sense, literature and film created by men in the 1920s through the 1960s appropriated aspects of girls’ culture, including exploitative representation of female homosexuality. One example is Manji (Quicksand, 1928) by Tanizaki Jun’ichirō, which depicts an s relationship as lurid and perverse. Kawabata Yasunari plagiarized from his female disciple Nakazato Tsuneko in order to publish the most popular Class S novel of the era, Otome no minato (Harbor of Girls, 1937). Kawabata also included exploitative scenes of female homosexuality in his novel Utsukushisa to kanashimi to (Beauty and Sadness, 1963). Both Tanizaki’s and Kawabata’s novels were made into films by New Wave directors, Manji in 1964 by Masumura Yasuzō and Beauty and Sadness in 1965 by Shinoda Masahiro, and featured the first depictions of ‘lesbianism’ in Japanese film. Although these films reinscribe the male gaze, they helped inspire a nascent gay culture and opened the way for more authentic gay cinema. This essay recenters girls’ culture in modern Japanese literature and film, and discusses the variable meaning of female homosexuality for different audiences.
Japanese Media and Popular Culture https://jmpc-utokyo.com/keyword/shojo/, 2020
Analysis of the media image of shōjo (teenage girls) using the example of Miura Ira, the main cha... more Analysis of the media image of shōjo (teenage girls) using the example of Miura Ira, the main character in the shōjo manga Banana Bread Pudding by Ōshima Yumiko (1978).
The International Encyclopedia of Gender, Media, and Communication, 2020
Teenage girls are a central part of Japanese popular culture. The term shōjo (girl) came into usa... more Teenage girls are a central part of Japanese popular culture. The term shōjo (girl) came into usage at the beginning of Japan's modern era, in the late 19th century, to indicate the liminal state between childhood and adulthood, usually spent attending secondary school. Girls' secondary schools in the early 20th century formed a discrete girls' culture. Representations of girls in popular culture can be roughly divided into two groups, those created by and for adult men, and those created within girls' culture and for a teenage girl audience. The former often features sexualized or exploitative depictions of girls and represent male desires and fears about the sexuality of young women, while the latter emphasizes purity, innocence, and freedom, if in proscribed or limited ways.
Mechademia Second Arc, 2018
Translation of Ibunka to shite no kodomo by Honda Masuko
Routledge Handbook of Japanese Media edited by Fabienne Darling-Wolf
The popularity of shōjo manga (romance comics for teenage girls) in Japan from the 1950s to the p... more The popularity of shōjo manga (romance comics for teenage girls) in Japan from the 1950s to the present day, and its social significance, not only as a form of entertainment, but also its role in allowing girls and young women to form communities and find self-expression, indicates its importance to scholarly discourse on Japan and on pop culture in general. A significant turning point for shōjo manga was Mizuno's series Fire! (1969-1971), which introduced 1960s counterculture ideals of personal liberation. This essay discusses Mizuno's early career, and Fire! in particular, in comparison with American and British romance comics of the same era, to show how the genre developed.
Introducing Japanese Popular Culture, 2018
In the manga series Ōoku: The Inner Chambers (2005-), Yoshinaga Fumi presents an imagined history... more In the manga series Ōoku: The Inner Chambers (2005-), Yoshinaga Fumi presents an imagined history of Japan's Edo period in which women rule the country. A plague reduces the male population to one quarter of the female, forcing a reassignment of gender roles. Women take over the government and all levels of public and private life. The story follows the succession of female shoguns and the men of the Inner Chambers, kept as a male harem.
The gender-swapped premise of Ōoku allows Yoshinaga to explore not only Japanese history but also the conventions of the shōjo manga genre. Yoshinaga, who got her start as a manga artist creating Rose of Versailles fan fiction (dōjinshi), alternately celebrates and critiques the bishōnen (pretty boy) aesthetics of shōjo manga, and the reliance on homosexual and homosocial themes. This essay discusses how Ōoku plays with shōjo manga genre conventions and ultimately transcends those conventions to give a more nuanced critique of received gender roles.
Asian Cinema and the Use of Space: Interdisciplinary Perspectives, Ed. Lilian Chee, Edna Lim, Routledge, 2015
Space in Japanese animation is superflat. Rather than attempting to mimetically reproduce 3D spac... more Space in Japanese animation is superflat. Rather than attempting to mimetically reproduce 3D spaces and movement in depth, Japanese animators have tended to emphasize sideways 2D motion and a dynamic iconography. This technique originated in low-budget TV animation, and over time grew into a distinctive style, which pop artist Murakami Takashi termed superflat. Even with the increased use of CGI, many directors have still chosen to explore the aesthetic potential of a radically 2D picture plane.
One recent intriguing example of superflat style is Puella Magi Madoka Magica (dir. Shinbo Akiyuki, 2012), a two-part theatrical release based on the television series of the same name. A shockingly dark reimaging of the childish "magical girl" genre, Madoka contrasts brutally modernist, spare architectural settings in the "real" world with a baroque "magical" world composed of superflat montages. This contrast of space, between a non-localized collection of depopulated buildings symbolizing the real and the strobing, abstract, superflat images symbolizing the magical is typical of the sekai-kei (end of the world) genre in anime, in which seemingly closed worlds suddenly turn apocalyptic. As the teenage characters negotiate transitioning from school life to the larger world, personal struggles of love, friendship and sexual maturation take on literally earth-shattering dimensions.
This essay will compare the short film Bean Cake with the source of its plot, the Lafcadio Hearn ... more This essay will compare the short film Bean Cake with the source of its plot, the Lafcadio Hearn short story "The Red Bridal" (1894), both examples of Japanese masquerade by non-Japanese artists, and further discuss the appeal and risk for foreigners in the appropriation of Japanese aesthetics.
Manga and Philosophy. Ed. Adam Barkman and Josef Steiff. Chicago: Open Court Press, 2010
Takemiya Keiko's To Terra (Tera e), originally serialized between 1977 and 1980 is a major classi... more Takemiya Keiko's To Terra (Tera e), originally serialized between 1977 and 1980 is a major classic of science fiction manga. This essay reads To Terra as a metaphor for the maturation process, not only of the characters, but of humanity itself, using the theories of Freud and Lacan.
At the heart of To Terra is a preoccupation with reproduction, mothers and fathers, and the trauma of the maturation process. Using this story as an example, this essay explains Lacan's theories for a general readership.
Mangatopia: Essays on Manga and Anime in the Modern World. Ed. Timothy Perper and Martha Cornog. Libraries Unlimited, 2011
The use of cinematic conventions such as the pillow shot appears in gekiga in the 1960s and 70s, ... more The use of cinematic conventions such as the pillow shot appears in gekiga in the 1960s and 70s, as part of a general trend to create more sophisticated stories for older readers. This essay examines the use of cinematic narrative devices, particularly the pillow shot, in gekiga, particularly in the work of Tatsumi Yoshihiro in the short storie "Abandon the Old in Tokyo" (1970), and also the series Lone Wolf and Cub (Kozure ôkami, Koike Kazuo and Kojima Goseki, 1970-1976).
Pulling together film theory, comics theory, and narratology, I argue that early gekiga artists such as Tatsumi and Kojima innovated a cinematic method of storytelling which has since spread from gekiga to manga of all genres.
Japan Forum, 2014
This article examines how enka evolved from the earlier genre of kayo ̄kyoku, looking at the musi... more This article examines how enka evolved from the earlier genre of kayo ̄kyoku, looking at the musical markers of Japaneseness and considering issues of authenticity and originality in those earlier genres. The careers of composers Koga Masao and Hattori Ryo ̄ichi and singers Misora Hibari and Kasagi Shizuko show the development of a hybrid style of popular song both before and after the Pacific War, which would by the 1960s evolve into enka. As its core audience has aged, enka has become increasingly rigid and concerned with nostalgia for a ‘pure’ Japanese past, even though the music itself is quite distant from traditional musical forms. Analysis of three movie musicals from the late 1940s and early 1950s, Ginza kankan girl, Carmen comes home and Janken girls, also demonstrates the performance practices of popular music at the time, and the complex relationship between popular music and national identity.
Marvels & Tales, 2013
Many anime and manga narratives draw on Japanese folklore, re-imagining tales for a modern audie... more Many anime and manga narratives draw on Japanese folklore, re-imagining tales for a modern audience, and contain references to or examples of supernatural creatures, or yōkai. Yōkai, a general term which might be translated as monsters, spirits, or demons, are a rich source of material for contemporary pop culture narratives, especially for stories in science fiction, fantasy, action, and adventure genres. There are many websites and books for non-Japanese fans listing the references to folktales and yōkai in popular manga and anime, to help make them accessible to foreign audiences. But how else can we talk about them besides simply explaining the references to traditional culture? What is the deeper connection between yōkai and anime, or between modes of anime and yōkai discourse?
Popular discourse on both anime and yōkai seem to have an affinity for the creation of databases, or vast compendiums of knowledge, wherein each data point is equally important. This essay explores the tendency towards the creation of databases in both yōkai and anime, and how the database makes yōkai available for modern narratives. I begin with discussion of Mizuki Shigeru's updating of Toriyama Sekien's yokai encyclopedia in Gegege no Kitaro and related publications, and continue with analysis of Inuyasha by Takahashi Rumiko, one of the most popular recent manga/anime series to draw extensively on folklore. The database is one way to talk about both anime and yōkai more productively, and also to expand the ways we talk about how texts are produced and consumed.
Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 2009
Journal of Japanese and Korean Cinema, 2011
The science fiction film Casshern (Kiriya, 2004) presents a nightmare vision of an alternative f... more The science fiction film Casshern (Kiriya, 2004) presents a nightmare vision of an alternative future in which Japan was not defeated in the Pacific War. The story references Japan's war crimes in Asia during World War II, particularly human experimentation at Unit 731, and suggests that lingering memories of the war have not lost their grip on the Japanese psyche, even in the 21st century. The film conveys a dire warning of the disastrous consequences of repressing wartime memory, expressed through the dual imagery of polluted, exploited bodies and landscapes. This essay reads the monstrous, Frankenstein-like bodies and the retro-inspired, CGI cityscapes in the film as symbolic of the film's anti-war message. While anti-war themes are common in Japanese science fiction, Casshern is extraordinary for its sympathy for the colonial subjects and its condemnation of atrocities perpetrated by Japan in mainland Asia.
ASIANetwork Exchange, 2010
ASIANetwork Exchange: A Journal for Asian Studies in the Liberal Arts, 2010
Japanese Studies, 2021
Kawabata Yasunari (1899–1972), Japan’s first Nobel laureate in literature, is best known today fo... more Kawabata Yasunari (1899–1972), Japan’s first Nobel laureate in literature, is best known today for highbrow novels such as Yukiguni (Snow country, 1935–1947). But in the 1930s and 1940s, Kawabata was deeply involved with the girls’ literary magazine Shōjo no tomo (The girls’ friend) as an editor and an author of novels for girls (shōjo shōsetsu). This article calls for a critical reevaluation of Kawabata’s fiction in terms of his involvement with and appropriation of girls’ culture, through analysis of the novels Otome no minato (The girls’ harbor, 1937–1938) and Utsukushii tabi (Beautiful journey, 1939–1941). Kawabata’s use of the idealized shōjo is consistent in his writing for girls and adults, and is a parallel to the fascist aesthetics and colonial ideology in his work of this time period.
U.S.-Japan Women's Journal, 2020
The novel Manji (Quicksand, 1931) by Tanizaki Jun'ichirō, about a destructive love affair between... more The novel Manji (Quicksand, 1931) by Tanizaki Jun'ichirō, about a destructive love affair between two women, has been analyzed extensively for its use of Kansai dialect and its complex narrative style. This article argues for a new interpretation of Manji as a parody of 1920s girls' culture (shōjo bunka), in particular the S relationship (S kankei) or romantic friendship between two girls. Tanizaki uses signifiers of girls' culture in Manji to spin a tale of comedy and perversion. The novel reconfigures the S relationship to cater to the male gaze, containing and controlling the potentially disruptive shōjo character. Although the novel embeds the female characters in girls' culture, rather than a chaste friendship between two girls, Manji features a perverse sexual relationship between two adult women, ending in an attempted love suicide. By examining the references to girls' culture in the novel, as well as the theme of love suicide and censored content related to abortion and birth control, this essay shows how Tanizaki comedically, deliberately revised girls' culture tropes for male readers. Tanizaki uses mockery to contain and control the aspects of the S relationship threatening to the patriarchal order, using the recognizable markers of girls' culture to create a sexualized, voyeuristic tale of the shōjo as perverse and dangerous.
Cultural Studies, 2020
In the 1920s in Japan, girls attending single-sex secondary schools developed a girls’ culture (s... more In the 1920s in Japan, girls attending single-sex secondary schools developed a girls’ culture (shōjo bunka) or subculture to insulate themselves temporarily from the pressures of patriarchal society. Part of this subculture was a practice called s kankei (s or sister relationships), also called Class S, which were same-sex romantic attachments between classmates, condoned at the time as a temporary practice relationship that would end upon graduation, followed by an arranged marriage. Although s relationships were not ‘lesbian’ in the contemporary sense, literature and film created by men in the 1920s through the 1960s appropriated aspects of girls’ culture, including exploitative representation of female homosexuality. One example is Manji (Quicksand, 1928) by Tanizaki Jun’ichirō, which depicts an s relationship as lurid and perverse. Kawabata Yasunari plagiarized from his female disciple Nakazato Tsuneko in order to publish the most popular Class S novel of the era, Otome no minato (Harbor of Girls, 1937). Kawabata also included exploitative scenes of female homosexuality in his novel Utsukushisa to kanashimi to (Beauty and Sadness, 1963). Both Tanizaki’s and Kawabata’s novels were made into films by New Wave directors, Manji in 1964 by Masumura Yasuzō and Beauty and Sadness in 1965 by Shinoda Masahiro, and featured the first depictions of ‘lesbianism’ in Japanese film. Although these films reinscribe the male gaze, they helped inspire a nascent gay culture and opened the way for more authentic gay cinema. This essay recenters girls’ culture in modern Japanese literature and film, and discusses the variable meaning of female homosexuality for different audiences.
Japanese Media and Popular Culture https://jmpc-utokyo.com/keyword/shojo/, 2020
Analysis of the media image of shōjo (teenage girls) using the example of Miura Ira, the main cha... more Analysis of the media image of shōjo (teenage girls) using the example of Miura Ira, the main character in the shōjo manga Banana Bread Pudding by Ōshima Yumiko (1978).
The International Encyclopedia of Gender, Media, and Communication, 2020
Teenage girls are a central part of Japanese popular culture. The term shōjo (girl) came into usa... more Teenage girls are a central part of Japanese popular culture. The term shōjo (girl) came into usage at the beginning of Japan's modern era, in the late 19th century, to indicate the liminal state between childhood and adulthood, usually spent attending secondary school. Girls' secondary schools in the early 20th century formed a discrete girls' culture. Representations of girls in popular culture can be roughly divided into two groups, those created by and for adult men, and those created within girls' culture and for a teenage girl audience. The former often features sexualized or exploitative depictions of girls and represent male desires and fears about the sexuality of young women, while the latter emphasizes purity, innocence, and freedom, if in proscribed or limited ways.
Mechademia Second Arc, 2018
Translation of Ibunka to shite no kodomo by Honda Masuko
Routledge Handbook of Japanese Media edited by Fabienne Darling-Wolf
The popularity of shōjo manga (romance comics for teenage girls) in Japan from the 1950s to the p... more The popularity of shōjo manga (romance comics for teenage girls) in Japan from the 1950s to the present day, and its social significance, not only as a form of entertainment, but also its role in allowing girls and young women to form communities and find self-expression, indicates its importance to scholarly discourse on Japan and on pop culture in general. A significant turning point for shōjo manga was Mizuno's series Fire! (1969-1971), which introduced 1960s counterculture ideals of personal liberation. This essay discusses Mizuno's early career, and Fire! in particular, in comparison with American and British romance comics of the same era, to show how the genre developed.
Introducing Japanese Popular Culture, 2018
In the manga series Ōoku: The Inner Chambers (2005-), Yoshinaga Fumi presents an imagined history... more In the manga series Ōoku: The Inner Chambers (2005-), Yoshinaga Fumi presents an imagined history of Japan's Edo period in which women rule the country. A plague reduces the male population to one quarter of the female, forcing a reassignment of gender roles. Women take over the government and all levels of public and private life. The story follows the succession of female shoguns and the men of the Inner Chambers, kept as a male harem.
The gender-swapped premise of Ōoku allows Yoshinaga to explore not only Japanese history but also the conventions of the shōjo manga genre. Yoshinaga, who got her start as a manga artist creating Rose of Versailles fan fiction (dōjinshi), alternately celebrates and critiques the bishōnen (pretty boy) aesthetics of shōjo manga, and the reliance on homosexual and homosocial themes. This essay discusses how Ōoku plays with shōjo manga genre conventions and ultimately transcends those conventions to give a more nuanced critique of received gender roles.
Asian Cinema and the Use of Space: Interdisciplinary Perspectives, Ed. Lilian Chee, Edna Lim, Routledge, 2015
Space in Japanese animation is superflat. Rather than attempting to mimetically reproduce 3D spac... more Space in Japanese animation is superflat. Rather than attempting to mimetically reproduce 3D spaces and movement in depth, Japanese animators have tended to emphasize sideways 2D motion and a dynamic iconography. This technique originated in low-budget TV animation, and over time grew into a distinctive style, which pop artist Murakami Takashi termed superflat. Even with the increased use of CGI, many directors have still chosen to explore the aesthetic potential of a radically 2D picture plane.
One recent intriguing example of superflat style is Puella Magi Madoka Magica (dir. Shinbo Akiyuki, 2012), a two-part theatrical release based on the television series of the same name. A shockingly dark reimaging of the childish "magical girl" genre, Madoka contrasts brutally modernist, spare architectural settings in the "real" world with a baroque "magical" world composed of superflat montages. This contrast of space, between a non-localized collection of depopulated buildings symbolizing the real and the strobing, abstract, superflat images symbolizing the magical is typical of the sekai-kei (end of the world) genre in anime, in which seemingly closed worlds suddenly turn apocalyptic. As the teenage characters negotiate transitioning from school life to the larger world, personal struggles of love, friendship and sexual maturation take on literally earth-shattering dimensions.
This essay will compare the short film Bean Cake with the source of its plot, the Lafcadio Hearn ... more This essay will compare the short film Bean Cake with the source of its plot, the Lafcadio Hearn short story "The Red Bridal" (1894), both examples of Japanese masquerade by non-Japanese artists, and further discuss the appeal and risk for foreigners in the appropriation of Japanese aesthetics.
Manga and Philosophy. Ed. Adam Barkman and Josef Steiff. Chicago: Open Court Press, 2010
Takemiya Keiko's To Terra (Tera e), originally serialized between 1977 and 1980 is a major classi... more Takemiya Keiko's To Terra (Tera e), originally serialized between 1977 and 1980 is a major classic of science fiction manga. This essay reads To Terra as a metaphor for the maturation process, not only of the characters, but of humanity itself, using the theories of Freud and Lacan.
At the heart of To Terra is a preoccupation with reproduction, mothers and fathers, and the trauma of the maturation process. Using this story as an example, this essay explains Lacan's theories for a general readership.
Mangatopia: Essays on Manga and Anime in the Modern World. Ed. Timothy Perper and Martha Cornog. Libraries Unlimited, 2011
The use of cinematic conventions such as the pillow shot appears in gekiga in the 1960s and 70s, ... more The use of cinematic conventions such as the pillow shot appears in gekiga in the 1960s and 70s, as part of a general trend to create more sophisticated stories for older readers. This essay examines the use of cinematic narrative devices, particularly the pillow shot, in gekiga, particularly in the work of Tatsumi Yoshihiro in the short storie "Abandon the Old in Tokyo" (1970), and also the series Lone Wolf and Cub (Kozure ôkami, Koike Kazuo and Kojima Goseki, 1970-1976).
Pulling together film theory, comics theory, and narratology, I argue that early gekiga artists such as Tatsumi and Kojima innovated a cinematic method of storytelling which has since spread from gekiga to manga of all genres.
Japan Forum, 2014
This article examines how enka evolved from the earlier genre of kayo ̄kyoku, looking at the musi... more This article examines how enka evolved from the earlier genre of kayo ̄kyoku, looking at the musical markers of Japaneseness and considering issues of authenticity and originality in those earlier genres. The careers of composers Koga Masao and Hattori Ryo ̄ichi and singers Misora Hibari and Kasagi Shizuko show the development of a hybrid style of popular song both before and after the Pacific War, which would by the 1960s evolve into enka. As its core audience has aged, enka has become increasingly rigid and concerned with nostalgia for a ‘pure’ Japanese past, even though the music itself is quite distant from traditional musical forms. Analysis of three movie musicals from the late 1940s and early 1950s, Ginza kankan girl, Carmen comes home and Janken girls, also demonstrates the performance practices of popular music at the time, and the complex relationship between popular music and national identity.
Marvels & Tales, 2013
Many anime and manga narratives draw on Japanese folklore, re-imagining tales for a modern audie... more Many anime and manga narratives draw on Japanese folklore, re-imagining tales for a modern audience, and contain references to or examples of supernatural creatures, or yōkai. Yōkai, a general term which might be translated as monsters, spirits, or demons, are a rich source of material for contemporary pop culture narratives, especially for stories in science fiction, fantasy, action, and adventure genres. There are many websites and books for non-Japanese fans listing the references to folktales and yōkai in popular manga and anime, to help make them accessible to foreign audiences. But how else can we talk about them besides simply explaining the references to traditional culture? What is the deeper connection between yōkai and anime, or between modes of anime and yōkai discourse?
Popular discourse on both anime and yōkai seem to have an affinity for the creation of databases, or vast compendiums of knowledge, wherein each data point is equally important. This essay explores the tendency towards the creation of databases in both yōkai and anime, and how the database makes yōkai available for modern narratives. I begin with discussion of Mizuki Shigeru's updating of Toriyama Sekien's yokai encyclopedia in Gegege no Kitaro and related publications, and continue with analysis of Inuyasha by Takahashi Rumiko, one of the most popular recent manga/anime series to draw extensively on folklore. The database is one way to talk about both anime and yōkai more productively, and also to expand the ways we talk about how texts are produced and consumed.
Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 2009
Journal of Japanese and Korean Cinema, 2011
The science fiction film Casshern (Kiriya, 2004) presents a nightmare vision of an alternative f... more The science fiction film Casshern (Kiriya, 2004) presents a nightmare vision of an alternative future in which Japan was not defeated in the Pacific War. The story references Japan's war crimes in Asia during World War II, particularly human experimentation at Unit 731, and suggests that lingering memories of the war have not lost their grip on the Japanese psyche, even in the 21st century. The film conveys a dire warning of the disastrous consequences of repressing wartime memory, expressed through the dual imagery of polluted, exploited bodies and landscapes. This essay reads the monstrous, Frankenstein-like bodies and the retro-inspired, CGI cityscapes in the film as symbolic of the film's anti-war message. While anti-war themes are common in Japanese science fiction, Casshern is extraordinary for its sympathy for the colonial subjects and its condemnation of atrocities perpetrated by Japan in mainland Asia.
ASIANetwork Exchange, 2010
Interest in Japanese popular culture is high among students at all levels, driving enrollment in ... more Interest in Japanese popular culture is high among students at all levels, driving enrollment in Japanese Studies programs. However, there has been little reflection on the pedagogy of teaching Japanese popular culture. Now is the time for critical reflection on teaching practices related to teaching about and with Japanese popular culture. This volume encompasses theoretical engagement with pedagogy of popular culture as well as practical considerations of curriculum design, lesson planning, assessment, and student outcomes. While the main focus is undergraduate teaching, there is also discussion of K–12 teaching, with authors discussing their experiences teaching Japanese popular culture not only in North America, but also in Australia, Germany, Singapore, and Japan, both in Japanese-language and English-language institutions.
Shojo manga are romance comics for teenage girls. Characterized by a very dense visual style, fea... more Shojo manga are romance comics for teenage girls. Characterized by a very dense visual style, featuring flowery backgrounds and big-eyed, androgynous boys and girls, it is an extremely popular and prominent genre in Japan. Why is this genre so appealing? Where did it come from? Why do so many of the stories feature androgynous characters and homosexual romance? Passionate Friendship answers these questions by reviewing Japanese girls’ print culture from its origins in 1920s and 1930s girls’ literary magazines to the 1970s “revolution” shojo manga, when young women artists took over the genre. It looks at the narrative and aesthetic features of girls’ literature and illustration across the twentieth century, both pre- and postwar, and discusses how these texts addressed and formed a reading community of girls, even as they were informed by competing political and social ideologies.
The author traces the development of girls’ culture in pre–World War II magazines and links it to postwar teenage girls’ comics and popular culture. Within this culture, as private and cloistered as the schools most readers attended, a discourse of girlhood arose that avoided heterosexual romance in favor of “S relationships,” passionate friendships between girls. This preference for homogeneity is echoed in the postwar genre of boys’ love manga written for girls. Both prewar S relationships and postwar boys’ love stories gave girls a protected space to develop and explore their identities and sexuality apart from the pressures of a patriarchal society. Shojo manga offered to a reading community of girls a place to share the difficulties of adolescence as well as an alternative to the image of girls purveyed by the media to boys and men.
Passionate Friendship’s close literary and visual analysis of modern Japanese girls’ culture will appeal to a wide range of readers, including scholars and students of Japanese studies, gender studies, and popular culture.