While in Tokyo, I decided to have a look inside the bookstore by the Takarazuka-An in Yurakucho and I stumbled upon vol. 2 of Haruna Lemon’s Zucca x Zuca on the “new manga” shelf with a staff recommendation. I can’t tell you how surprised I was to see a manga created by an self-professed “Zuka-Ota” (ヅカヲタ, Takarazuka otaku) about the fandom. Of course manga-ka have written otokoyaku-like characters into their manga before: Oscar de Jarjeyes in Berubara, Haruka/Sailor Uranus in Sailor Moon, the Zuka Club in Ouran High School Host Club (jokingly)–but a manga about fan-life was something I’d never seen, so I bought volume 1 and was not disappointed!

Shopping at Takarazuka-an (panel 4): Buy ALL the things?

The manga is a series of self-contained 6-8 panel comics. Rather than a storyline about a group of fans and their adventures, Haruna instead gives the reader a glimpse into the lifestyles of a number of unnamed female fans, many of whom seem to be office workers. (Haruna herself worked as a temp before becoming a manga artist.) The manga takes place around 2009-2010 in so much as the top stars and shows referenced are ones that were playing or were on DVD during that time period. Since I was living in Japan at the time and got to see a number of these shows, I got the jokes, but if you are new to the fandom or theatre, Haruna defines four terms out of each four-comic “set.” For example, on p. 32 she defines 宝塚アン, the used Takarazuka goods store; パック, the show Puck; 全国ツアー, the national tour; and 退団, retirement from the Revue; better still, the definitions are 2-3 sentences rather than the simple ones I’ve included here and give a fan’s perspective on the concepts.

I love this manga because it is written for fans by a fan. Haruna’s in-jokes about shows and fan behavior are spot-on, but more importantly, she treats her fellow fans with respect. While the mainstream Japanese media covers the stars in the entertainment section just as they do other idols and talents, English-language media coverage of fans and their activities is often lumped in with “weird Japan” and its “weird” herbivore men; the coverage can be derisive, because, in addition to being labeled as fans (geeks), Zuka fans have an added distinction of gender-bending, both in terms of the otokoyaku and in terms of the otokoyaku‘s popularity among straight-identified women.* In Zucca x Zuca, Haruna doesn’t try to explain the appeal of the stars, the fans’ behavior, or to convert readers to the fandom. Instead, the manga is about community through shared experiences–for instance, the following, which is based on a fan-favorite scene from the musical Elisabeth:

1 A: Ahhh, I won’t be in Tokyo for Mizu’s retirement—I can’t go on living!

2 B: “Then why don’t you die?”
A: Gyaaa! Just like der Tod!

3  A: Wait! I’ll be Elisabeth!– “What shall I do? I can’t go on living!”
B: [waiting]

4  “Then why don’t you die?!”

5 [throws aside the curtain]
A: Hahaha, you look just like her!

6: Mother: [heart-pounding]

If you aren’t familiar with this scene (SPOILER ALERT), der Tod (Death) has just informed Elisabeth that Franz has been cheating on her, to which she replies that she can’t go on living, to which he responds, hoping that he’s won her love and that she will follow him to the underworld, “Why don’t you die?” I can’t tell you how many times my Zuka-fan friends and I have discussed this scene: which der Tod did it best** (I vote for Mizu Natsuki and Haruno Sumire), the nuances in the line, the body language, the voicing of the line, etc. Unfortunately, this is not a good discussion to have around non-fans, because you essentially are telling the other person it’d be good if s/he were dead over and over, which is exactly the reaction the mother bringing the girls tea has. Even though I haven’t attained Zuka-Ota level of fandom myself, I found myself laughing along with all the comics–if you ever wanted to know what life as a fan in Japan is like, here is document-based evidence in convenient manga form!

Speaking of which, I found it quite interesting that comic was first published as a webcomic. I tend to think of webcomics as an American thing, since the US comic-strip industry doesn’t seem to be as historically diverse as Japan’s manga industry. Also of note is that Takeuchi Sachiko’s Honey & Honey was also originally published as a webcomic before being collected and printed. Most manga is published in chapters in large periodicals (monthly or bimonthly) along with other manga in the same category (shônen, shôjo, etc.) before being collected and published as books, but for manga like these, slice-of-life daily comics that appeal to a niche market, webcomics are a perfect format, especially as the markets turn to the Internet for information and to create networks.

Volumes 1 & 2 of Zucca x Zuca are available for sale in bookstores and on Amazon.co.jp (link below). You can read the comics that were not collected in these online (link below).  Although such a slim volume (126 pages) is a little pricey at 980 yen, the illustrations are in color, and I’m happy to pay that much for a lovely book that has essentially documented my fan-life in Japan since I returned in 2009.

I’d like to  end this review with an illustration of Yuuhi in the revue Funky Sunshine (2010), an image readers have seen on this site. Ôzora Yuuhi will be retiring this summer after her last show, so this illustration is extra special to me. Enjoy!

Text: This is actually just Yuuhi singing “I love you!” over and over.

Zucca x Zuca I (ヅッカヅカ）
by Lemon Haruna （はるな檸檬)
Kodansha Publishing (講談社）
Tokyo, Japan
2011
Webcomic: http://morningmanga.com/blog/zuccazuca

Note
*Though the overall fan base includes people of all nationalities, gender expressions, sexes, and sexualities, the media seems to be unnerved that straight-identified femme Japanese women are drawn to the theatre and especially to the otokoyaku. While media and reporters don’t get the appeal in a way that a reporter might not understand cosplayers at an anime con, the problem seems to be that Zuka fans problematize sexuality in a way that makes “nonkei” (ノンケイ- “no-type,” heteronormative people) uncomfortable. That is, no reporter would ever suggest on air that the fans might include women who identify as lesbian or bi, but the idea that a straight-identified woman could also be queer is far complicated for the mainstream news. It’s entirely possibly to be sexually attracted to only one sex but to also find someone of your non-target sex romantically interesting. We all have types for persons we would like to have as trusted companions, as romantic partners, and (barring asexual people) as sexual partners. The three types probably overlap to some degree for most people, but there are exceptions, of course. Dating someone who “isn’t your type” is brought up all the time, and yet “the exception,” the attraction to someone who isn’t your preferred sexual or romantic type, whether that’s body shape, gender expression, personality, or physical sex (cisgender, transgender, intersex, etc.), happens, I believe, to everyone whether we admit it or not. So, if we accept this idea, we can understand how fans who are not sexually attracted to women might see in the masculinity an otokoyaku plays on stage as a romantic ideal, the perfect life partner.

**You have to sign up for Nico Nico Douga to view this, but it is SO SO worth it. If you don’t want to register, a youtube user has kindly gathered some of the key Elisabeth scenes of a number of performances so you can compare them on her channel.

Finally! I’ve been waiting and waiting for some teaser photos from the new Ôoku TV series (Ôoku Tanjô, Oct. 2012) and film (Ôoku Eien, Dec. 2012), and here they are!

TBS Drama. Ôoku: Tanjô (Arikoto/Iemitsu) (『大奥：誕生』[［有功・家光篇]). Release date: Oct. 2012.

“The Shogun is a woman; her retainers are 3000 beautiful men….” Photo from TBS: http://ohoku.jp/eien/index.html

Oh.

Let me talk about effective uses of visual media for marketing to potential viewers and to rabid fans. When you release the first promotional photos into the wild, you want your audience to have an immediate all-caps reaction Tumblr-style:

WHAT IS THAT I MUST SEE IT NOW
ALL THE FEELS
CAN’T BREATHE

John Barrowman after David Tennant kissed him at ComicCon

Instead, TBS presents non-emoting Tabe Mikako (多部未華子) and non-emoting Escher-girl-necked Sakai Masato (堺雅人). (Plus, they cut off the iconic design on his kataginu!) This doesn’t look like a drama featuring the best love story and treatise on gender in society since The Rose of Versailles (BeruBara), this looks like Yet Another Boring Period Drama Set in the Ôoku.

Let’s compare this promo to the ones from the first Ôoku (Mizuno/Yoshimune) movie.* Here we have the poster and DVD cover:

Image from amazon.co.jp

Even if they are still basically the main cast lined up, we get a much better sense of the characters. Yoshimune looks every bit a confident shogun; Mizuno looks tough but a bit apprehensive. Those two engage our vision and look straight at the viewer; they are the same size, but Yoshimune is placed higher to illustrate her power; Mizuno occupies the foreground to illustrate his role as protagonist. All the supporting characters, not just the women, are turned and looking in other directions, and we can see in just one photo a look into their personalities.

Along with posters, you need photos to provide a reason to go see the show/film. For the first Ôoku, this was one of the images that was featured in movie magazines like Cinekon and, to me, one of the most iconic visuals of the film.

シネコン. August 2010. pp. 26-7.

As I flipped through the movie guide that came with my ticket to Inception, I screeched to a halt on this page.  A heavenly choir sang out,「こちらが将軍」(“woman shogun”)! Every fiber of my gender-bending fangirl heart sang out “This is a movie just for you, dear! Because the universe loves you and wants you to be happy!”

I’m just not feeling it with this promotion for the TV series. It’s like TBS is saying “Oh, hey, Ôoku fans. Here’s a show you’re going to watch because you love the first movie and manga.” Impress me, TBS! I know you can do more dynamic work, like NHK did with Haken no Oscar. Just because you have an existing fan-base doesn’t mean you don’t get to put in effort!

Haken no Oscar. Image from amazon.co.jp

This lackluster promo is all the more infuriating because Yoshinaga Fumi draws such exquisite facial expressions. Just look at the covers of vols. 2 and 3:

Image from Amazon.co.jp

Image from amazon.co.jp

Look at those covers, especially back-to-back. The concept is simple, but it showcases very complex facial expressions–apprehension, doubt, pity, longing. Why not have them looking at each other or back to back or trying harder with establishing a connection between the two?

Hopefully there will be better pictures coming.

Film. Ôoku: Eien (Emonosuke/Tsunayoshi) (『大奥：永遠』[［右衛門佐･綱吉篇]). Release date: Dec. 22, 2012.

Image from http://ohoku.jp/eien/index.html

Luckily, where the TV promo falls flat, the promotional image for the film is excellent. Both Sakai and Kanno Miho are engaging the camera, and his serious look is much more suited to Emonosuke, whom I would describe as Arikoto’s doppelganger with chronic bitchface. I think Kanno, who was amazing as Matsukata in Hatarakiman, is going to be a perfect Tsunayoshi. I love the combination of playfulness and uncertainty in her expression here. The Pekinese is an excellent touch, given the plot line about Tsunayoshi’s policies protecting dogs.

On the bright side, director Kaneko Fuminori will be reprising his role as director of both the film and the drama, which gives me have faith in his bringing Yoshinaga’s vision to the screen. Also, Matsumura Takatsugu will be composing the music for the film, which means another spectacular score. I can’t wait. Here’s to hoping for something worthy of a Barrowman-style reaction!

UPDATE: Trailer for the film here!

Cast Lists

Ôoku: Tanjô (Arikoto/Iemitsu)
MADENOKOJI Arikoto (万里小路有功) – SAKAI Masato (堺雅人)
TOKUGAWA Iemitsu/Chie (徳川家光 / 千恵) – TABE Mikako 多部未華子
GYOKUEI (玉栄) – TANAKA Kôki (田中聖)（member of KAT-TUN）
INABA Masakatsu (稲葉正勝) – HIRAYAMA Hiroyuki (平山浩行)
YUKI (雪) – MINAMISAWA Nao (南沢奈央)
MURASE Masuke (村瀬正資) – OMI Toshinori (尾美としのり)
Myôkei (明慧) – Suruga Tarô (駿河太郎)
MATSUDAIRA Tsubutsuna (平信綱) – TANDA Yasunori (段田安則)
SAWAMURA Denemon (澤村伝右衛門) – NAITÔ Takashi (内藤剛志)
KASUGA Tsubone (春日局) – ASÔ Yumi (麻生祐未)

Ôoku: Eien (Emonosuke/Tsunayoshi)
Emonosuke (右衛門佐) – SAKAI Masato (堺雅人)
TOKUGAWA Tsunayoshi/Tokuko (徳川綱吉 / 徳子) – KANNO Miho (菅野美穂)
YANAGISAWA Yoshiyasu (沢吉保) – ONO Michiko (尾野真千子)
AKIMOTO Sôjiro (秋本惣次郎) – EMOTO Tasuku (柄本佑)
Young Gyokuei (玉栄)- TANAKA Kôki (田中聖)（member of KAT-TUN）
KOTANI Denben (小谷伝兵衛) – KANAME Jun (要潤)
Ôtsuke (大典侍) – KIRIYAMA Ren (桐山漣)
Shinnaishi (新典侍) – RYUSEI Ryo (竜星涼)
Sanosuke (佐之助) – MITSUSHIMA Shinnosuke (満島真之介)
NAKAMURA (中村) – KAKU Tomohiro (郭智博)
SAITÔ (斉藤) – NAGAE Yûki (永江祐貴)
ASANUMA (浅沼) – MIURA Takahiro (三浦貴大)
MAKINO Narisada (牧野成貞) – ICHIGE Yoshie (市毛良枝)
ÔTO Aguri (阿久里) – ENOKI Takaaki (榎木孝明)
MINASEGAWA (水無瀬権中納言氏信) – YUKI Saori (由紀さおり)
Ryûkô (隆光) – SAKAI Masa-aki (堺正章)
TAKATSUKASA Nobuko (鷹司信平) – Kûdo Kankurô (宮藤官九郎)
Keishôin (桂昌院) – NISHIDA Toshiyuki (西田敏行)

Notes

*Why are all the male characters getting top billing on the arc titles? Mizuno x Yoshimune, Arikoto x Iemitsu, Emonosuke x Tsunayoshi. I guess for movie 1, we start out with Mizuno as the protagonist and see most of the film from his POV. But Iemitsu and Arikoto are more evenly divided, and Tsunayoshi is in the plot way longer than Emonosuke. If we’re going from a purely fanfic reading of the order of the pairing where you have top/bottom, I assure you that Yoshimune and Iemitsu belong in the front.

More articles on Ôoku.

The official trailers for Ôoku: Tanjô and Ôoku: Eien have both been released.

Ôoku: Tanjô (Iemitsu/Arikoto)

Image from TBS. http://www.tbs.co.jp/ohoku2012/

Trailer: http://www.tbs.co.jp/ohoku2012/movie/movie01.html

The new image is definitely an improvement over the original. I still don’t know how I feel about Sakai Masato playing Arikoto, and I can’t get a good look at him at the rate this trailer goes!

Kasuga Tsubone apparently found the fountain of youth while searching for men for Iemitsu II.

Asô Yumi, the actress playing Kasuga, looks way too young for the character at this point in the story. What happened to her grey hair?

Iemitsu II

Tabe Mikako looks amazing as cross-dressing Iemitsu. This point was really important to me because I’ve seen wardrobe/makeup for dramas take fairly feminine-looking actresses and make them seem completely androgynous, like Fukuda Saki (福田沙紀) as Hoshino Haru (星野はる) in IS: Otoko demo onna demo nai sei (IS/Intersex: A sex that’s neither male nor female). In the manga, Iemitsu looks like a boy when wearing men’s clothes and a top knot but makes herself look very feminine when she wears make-up and women’s clothing. I’m glad to see that Tabe can pull it off, especially considering her point of reference is a manga character, albeit a realistic looking one. (How will Sakai fair in Arikoto’s awesome drag scene, though?)

The TV drama will be aired on TBS on Friday nights at 22:00 beginning on October 12. I will definitely be reporting on this (especially if I set the DVR and can get screencaps.) In the meantime, check out the posts I wrote last year on the Iemitsu arc and gender: “Bodhisattva and the Beast” (vol. 2) and “Like Goldfish: The Sexual and Cultural Revolution in Ôoku” (vols. 3-4).

Ôoku: Eien (Tsunayoshi/Emonnosuke)

Image from http://ohoku.jp/eien/index.html

Trailer: http://ohoku.jp/eien/movie2.html

I cannot say enough about how good Kanno Miho and Sakai look as Tsunayoshi and Emonosuke. I’m a little baffled by the Gone with the Wind poster pose on the website–Tsunayoshi’s story, I felt, was less of a “love story” than Iemitsu’s, but the visual comparison to Rhett and Scarlett, two other compelling flawed characters with power issues and a tragic love story, is interesting.

The same poster was used in some  Japanese releases.  Image from amazon.com

See also

Image from amazon.com

To be fair, the Eien image is from an actual scene in the film/manga, not just a reproduction of a romance-novel-esque cover. Speaking of which, judging by the trailer, all the key/memorable/iconic scenes will be in the movie:

Yep.

I haven’t written about this story arc because it deals less with the reestablishment of the gendered status quo than the Iemitsu-Arikoto story. For now, let me say that I am incredibly impressed with Yoshinaga’s ability to write complex characters. Tsunayoshi is one of the least sympathetic characters in the entire canon, and yet, by the end of her storyline, I actually felt really bad for her. As with Iemitsu, Yoshinaga writes a really powerful story about what it means to be a woman in power, the limitations of human biology, and living life as a hereditary ruler. Incidentally, this story arc also contains my favorite reinterpretation of the Chushingura, which is something I should actually write about here.

Eien is scheduled for a Dec. 22, 2012, domestic theater release in select cities.

Ooku, Vol. 2, p. 205

Ooku, Ep. 3. Ain’t no party like an ooku drag party… Image via TBS

Hello to my new readers from d-addicts, where my blog was linked on the Ôoku drama thread. I know I’m rather behind on the write-ups, but I do hope you enjoy them as I get them out.

Episode 2 recap here. For other past posts about the films, manga, and drama, see the Ôoku category.

Warning: spoilers, rape, violence.

I’m a great fan of stories (regardless of medium) that make me experience a range of complex and subtle emotions. Or, as one might say, something that hits me right in the feels. The events of Vol. 2, Ch. 4 in the manga–Ep. 3 in the drama (aired 26 Oct. 2012)– are the precursor to a truly epic emotional roller coaster.

Yoshinaga’s writing and art is extraordinary in that she uses a lot of subtle nuance, particularly in the art and the character’s expressions, combined with a very blunt narration that often closes the chapters with “And then he died two years later” or “But her given name was ______.”

This is one of those chapters where nuance is absolutely necessary, as it sets up the romantic relationship between Iemitsu and Arikoto. Without a good set-up, there can be no angst later.

And there will be angst. Lots of it. On a Rose of Versailles level.

Unfortunately, this episode has a good lead-up and falls flat on its face in the last five minutes. More on that in a moment.

Summary
This episode follows the plot of Vol. 2, Ch. 4. This is a longer summary than the others so far, but bear with me.

Gyokuei hears a rumor from the room-boys that a samurai is going around in Edo and cutting off women’s hair. Judging by Iemitsu’s longing glance at Kasuga’s hair and her frustration with her own short-for-a-woman top-knot, I bet you can’t guess who’s behind it. Iemitsu pays a visit to Arikoto and the cat, Wakamurasaki, and tells him about how Kasuga’s selection of a variety of types of men for the ôoku was like when Kasuga tried to get her father, Iemitsu I, to eat by offering him seven kinds of rice. (This makes a little more sense in the manga where we can see how “beautiful” Arikoto is compared to the other men. Ahem. More on that later.)

Wakamurasaki goes missing; Arikoto and Gyokuei find Shigesato, the concubine who lead the rape and torture of Gyokuei in episode 2, playing with the cat and creepily calling it “Uesama,” the honorific given to the Shogun (Your Highness, literally). Gyokuei steals Shigesato’s sword and murders the cat late at night in the garden, then blames Shigesato for it. Iemitsu is present when Shigesato is accused and unsheathes her sword to strike him down, but Arikoto stands in her way and refuses to move. Eventually Kasuga talks her down, but Iemitsu orders Shigesato to commit seppuku, which he does. Gyokuei is quite pleased with himself and tells the kitchen staff how amazing Arikoto was defending Shigesato from Iemitsu. This act earns Arikoto the respect of the male staff, who had often gone along with the other concubines’ plots against him.

Arikoto defending Shigesato from Iemitsu. Image via TBS

Iemitsu thinks Arikoto is ridiculous for making a grave for the cat, but Arikoto says that people deal with grief differently, and she should deal with hers about the cat and about her daughter who died shortly after birth. He also points out that revenge wouldn’t bring the cat back. At some point in the conversation, he realizes that Iemitsu has been sending Denemon, her retainer, out to steal girls’ hair because she’s mad about her lot in life. She shows him the box of ponytails and he yells at her for her cruelty. Iemitsu responds that no one really thinks she’s the Shogun; she’s just a place-holder until they can get a man (read: until she as a son).

Iemitsu is really upset by Arikoto’s condemnation of her actions, so she and Kasuga decide to throw a party. They order the concubines to dress in drag for Iemitsu’s amusement. As Iemitsu laughs at how strange the men (sans Arikoto, who is absent) look, we see a flashback to her past. To preserve Iemitsu I’s line, Kasuga found his illegitimate daughter Chie (Iemitsu II’s given name) and had her mother and nurse murdered before essentially kidnapping her. A few years later, Chie, now dressed as a boy, attempts to escape from the grounds when she is overpowered by a strange man, who is surprised to discover she’s a girl and rapes her. By the time Kasuga and her retainers get there, Chie has murdered the man with her own sword, saying that anyone who violates the body of the Shogun will die. She gives birth to a girl as a result of the rape, but the baby, whom she seems to love very much, dies shortly after birth; according to Inaba, she hasn’t been the same since then.

In the present, Iemitsu sends everyone at the “party” away, and Arikoto enters the room alone (not in drag. NOT. IN. DRAG.). He carries the women’s clothes Iemitsu sent for him to wear, and he narrates a voice-over about how he thought he could do the most good by being a priest and saving others but now has decided his job is to save Iemitsu. After placing the outer robe around her, he removes her sword and sheath and cuts the string holding her top-knot in place, freeing her hair. She hugs him and cries.

Best Performance
Sakai and Tabe did exceptionally well in the scene in which Iemitsu says that no one respects her as the Shogun. Their facial expressions really showed how each of them handles anger differently–Iemitsu a bit ferally (she reminds me of San from Mononoke-hime sometimes), while the anger Arikoto feels rolls over him like a wave. Tanaka as Gyokuei shone during the scene in which he tells the kitchen staff how awesome Arikoto was when he stopped Iemitsu from killing Shigesato. I think that Tanaka’s doing a great job conveying Gyokuei’s love for Arikoto as well as his character’s dark side.

Compared to the Manga

Wrong.

Wrong.

Wrong.

The moment Arikoto came into the room in his regular clothes, I basically did this:

Who cares if Iemitsu is the one he “has to save” because what was the point of this whole scene if he doesn’t cross-dress?

Let me explain.

Vol. 2, p. 117. This is not fanart. This is official art by Yoshinaga.

What I like about Manga!Arikoto is that he is not afraid of androgyny. When he asks Iemitsu at their first meeting to call him “Arikoto” instead of “O-man,” he’s afraid of being emasculated; he would really just rather be called by his first name. (We should note that the other current concubines really seem to hate this practice.) When he is angry about being forced into the ôoku, it’s not because he’s afraid of being treated like a woman, but because he had to give up his calling to be a priest. Later, when he accepts that he loves Iemitsu, he even references his desire for philanthropy in that maybe he can do more good in the world by saving her than he could have in the temple. When the other men in the ôoku tease him for being an ex-priest from an aristocratic family rather than a samurai and for having an “effeminate” Kyoto accent, he turns the other cheek but seems generally unconcerned with what they think of him. Although he later trains in martial arts and speaks perfect Edo-ben, he does so because that’s the path of solving conflict, not because he is ashamed to be “feminine.” Furthermore, while he is surprised at Iemitsu’s appearance at first, he is not intimidated by the fact that she cross-dresses for political reasons, that she prefers to wear lipstick and women’s kimono later, or that she is in a higher position of power at a historical point when many men are downright terrified about changing gender roles and norms. (Most of this is detailed in my posts on Vol. 2 and series on Vol. 3-4.)

“What does Your Highness think? How do you find my wig?”

“I’ve wanted to help the many people suffering in this world…but the one person I needed to save was right before my eyes.”

“See, it suits you far better than me, Your Highness.”

However, the biggest indicator of Arikoto’s being completely okay with his gender and sexuality is his willingness to participate in Iemitsu’s cross-dressing game. The other men seem awkward and unhappy to be dressed as women, and Iemitsu keeps laughing at them because they seem so odd. But when Arikoto enters the room, he stuns everyone with how good he looks in drag. As I’ve stated, Arikoto is androgynous in appearance and has good taste in fashion, but what makes his performance flawless is his willingness to participate in this gender play.

Compare this to the drama version: when he gives Iemitsu the women’s robe she sent him for the party, removes her sword, lets down her hair, and says, “It would suit you better,” I felt like the message was “I’m not a woman, but you are, so you should have this.” However, in the manga, when he takes off the outer robe and puts it around her shoulders, telling her “it suits you better,” he seems to be saying, “Wearing this for you doesn’t insult my gender identity. We don’t have to play into gendered roles of any kind. I love you for you, and if you want to wear women’s clothing, you ought to. I won’t think less of you as the Shogun.”

Furthermore, in the manga, he does not take away her sword or cut her top knot. He is not trying to feminize her. Manga!Iemitsu eventually settles into her own gender expression as she becomes more comfortable as a woman in power. Arikoto’s physically feminizing her appearance for her in the drama seems patronizing and patriarchal.

So why change it? From a practical standpoint, Sakai isn’t as androgynous as the manga Arikoto is, though, as I’ve said before, casting an actual androgynous ikemen-type actor, of which there are many in Japan, would have solved the problem. From a gender standpoint, perhaps the director or network did not want to “emasculate” their leading man or felt that having Arikoto in drag would be too “distracting.” Arikoto’s physical and performative androgyny, however, is a really critical part of his character. By changing the narrative to have him reject Iemitsu’s “demeaning” request, the drama detracts from what sets Arikoto aside from the other characters, most of whom have ideas about the way men and women out to act, whether it’s misogynistic Lord Asano (the 47 loyal ronin are proto-MRA types) or Onobu’s assertion that “men are weaker.” By changing this scene, the drama has erased Arikoto’s gender expression and his rejection of gender policing.

Honestly, I’m so angry with this point that it overshadows the good things about the episode, like the dynamic between Arikoto and Iemitsu as they warm up to each other, or the love that Gyokuei feels for Arikoto. This series deals with a lot of complex gender issues, and if the director or network won’t do them justice, they should let someone else handle it.

Read more about Ôoku here.

Next time on Ôoku: trouble in paradise.

After Ep. 3, my will to watch this show waned a lot. Fortunately, the drama picks up more in this episode, and there are points I was willing to overlook or accept for the sake of adapting this manga for TV. Arikoto’s cross-dressing scene in Ep. 3 was not one of them, so I’m still a bit sore about that.

Warnings: spoilers for the manga and drama, including some from later episodes/chapters.

More Ôoku here.

http://www.tbs.co.jp/ohoku2012/gallery/p04-02.html

Summary
Iemitsu (TABE Mikako), now dressing in women’s clothes and make-up when not fulfilling official duties as the Shogun, grants Dejima as a landing place for foreigners. She seems really happy, quite a changed person. Arikoto (SAKAI Masato) tells her about the ocean, and she expresses her desire to leave the ôoku and travel there with him someday. There’s a scene of them chatting in bed and kissing, which was pretty convincing–one of the problems a lot of Japanese dramas I watch seem to have is that the kissing scenes are awkward. Yoshinaga draws really good kisses, but sometimes the actors don’t seem into it when they should be. (I’m looking at you, Horita Maki– that part in vol. 1 when Mizuno kisses Onobu was supposed to be really passionate and you didn’t even kiss him back in the film!)

In the town of Edo, there are women everywhere, not unlike the scenes of town in the first film. Kasuga (ASÔ Yumi), who is angry that Arikoto has not produced an heir, is in her palanquin spying on Sutezô (KUBOTA Masataka), a rakish, devil-may-care young man who is openly walking with and kissing his female escort. (Bravo on the kissing!)

Back at the castle, Iemitsu thanks Kasuga for finding Arikoto for her. Kasuga confronts Arikoto about his perceived infertility and tells him that Iemitsu needs to sleep with other men to produce an heir. Arikoto is heartbroken but tells Iemitsu what Kasuga told him; Iemitsu completely loses it and slaps him around; he doesn’t fight back. She breaks down and asks him, “Will you die with me? When I can’t have children, will you go down with the Tokugawa? With me?” She tells him he might not be the problem; she suspects she has fertility issues since her first child died shortly after birth. The episode ends with a dream sequence of the two of them at the sea.

Image from TBS. http://www.tbs.co.jp/ohoku2012/gallery/p04-09.html

Best Performance
When Kasuga tells Arikoto that Sutezo will replace him as Iemitsu’s lover since he has failed to produce an heir, he gives a monologue about how he never wanted to come to the ôoku, but by loving Iemitsu, he had found a new purpose in life. Sakai’s performance was spot-on–he looked like he had been punched in the gut and is on the verge of a panic attack. “You’re treating the Shogun as if she were a tool!” he cries. “What is the point of continuing the Tokugawa line?” After he gives this impassioned speech, the camera cuts to Kasuga, who appears completely nonplussed. She sits up straighter, and says, completely deadpan, “For no more battles. For peace.” The contrast between Arikoto’s anger, especially since he rarely raises his voice, and Kasuga’s matter-of-fact tone was great; and the cuts to their reactions, especially his lowering his eyes in realization, really made the scene. I really like the chemistry Sakai and Asô as antagonists.

Compared to the manga
I was disappointed that Iemitsu didn’t ask Arikoto to speak Kyoto-ben in bed. I really liked that part in the manga! Perhaps it’s tied to the masculinization of Arikoto’s character for the drama. Since Kyoto-ben is considered to be feminine by the samurai in the ôoku and Arikoto only speaks it to Gyokuei, I took Iemitsu’s desire for him to speak it in the manga as a sign that she accepts him and his perceived gender expression.

Additions for the drama: Arikoto has a cute scene in which he is reading The Tale of Genji (fanboy) and imagines himself and Iemitsu as Genji and his lover. Oyuki, Inaba Masakatsu’s wife, is a character added for the drama. She actually plays an important role in Ep. 8, so you’ll have to wait for it. The discussion of going to the sea with Arikoto is another addition.

I though Sutezo’s depiction as brazen–kissing in the street, robe open to reveal his chest, red accents on his under-kimono–was really excellent. He’s arm candy and he knows it, and the other women in the street are openly jealous. I also love the dynamic with his father, who slut-shames him, especially in comparison to some of the other young men we see with their parents, all of whom are disappointed with their sons for being too “feminine.” These scenes really bring out the idea of generational gender gaps and highlight the changing times. Sutezo’s father, I should note, is sitting in the dominant position in the room as head of house, a role we will see reversed in other families later, most notably Mizuno’s family in the first film, where his mother occupies the position.

Image from TBS. http://www.tbs.co.jp/ohoku2012/gallery/p04-13.html

This episode played with the themes of being trapped in the castle. Just like modern royal women, the “gilded cage” is a serious issue. Iemitsu and Arikoto want to be free to love each other, but since the infertility issue is a matter of state, it will eventually destroy their relationship. In the manga, Yoshinaga very skillfully ties this theme to the current low birth rate in contemporary Japan’s being addressed by politicians and the media as something that could take down the state. With the high level of social gender inequity combined with legal gender inequity in contemporary Japan, something I have written about many times here, having children here comes with the high cost of living; the recession making marriage seem fiscally difficult; the often inadequate social structures for childcare; the long working hours and lack of vacation time; the M-curve for women’s employment (working – not working – returning part-time) making advancing in a company difficult or balancing a career and family; the glass ceiling; the sexism against men who take family leave: sexist divorce laws and family registry laws–all of these problems hurt chances of people wanting children (or more than one child) or being able to care for their children, and yet the problem continues to be blamed on women’s education and/or selfishness. Gods forbid women should want to lead their own lives.*

In the drama, I feel like the theme is approached from more of a romantic/love angle: even though Arikoto and Iemitsu would rather have each other at the cost of being childless, they are forced apart by the issue. More importantly, Yoshinaga makes the point again and again that social constructs of gender can evolve and change enormously but that basic biology (read: childbirth) cannot. For Tsunayoshi in the next major story arc, age and infertility are a major theme. As for the current arc, the cruel irony of Iemitsu and Arikoto is that Iemitsu eventually dies from complications from a series of miscarriages–had she and infertile Arikoto been allowed to be together, she might have lived.

Next time on Ôoku: Tanjô: Sutezô’s debut and a whole lot of angst.

Note

*Here’s a link to a recent Japan Times article that addresses the changing face of motherhood if you want to see how matters of women’s roles are discussed in non-academic media. Even in its discussion of sexism in the home, the author fails to address feasible solutions or create a real dialogue. I can’t say I’m surprised, but you can see what we are dealing with here. Speaking of which, according to a new Cabinet poll of the Japanese public,  “51% want wives to stay home.” (Who are these 3000 survey-takers?)

Aired Nov. 9, 2012 on TBS.

This recap contains spoilers for the drama and the manga, including the Tsunayoshi story arc (vol. 4-6 and the film Ôoku: Eien). Episode 4 recap here; manga analysis here; Ôoku category (film, manga, and drama) here.

Before I start the recap today, I did see the Ôoku: Eien movie, and damn, is it good. Sakai is much, much better suited to playing Emonnosuke, and Kanno Miho was such a great Tsunayoshi. I need to collect my thoughts (and maybe see it again), but the sets are gorgeous, the music is great, and it’s a great “sequel” to the first film.

Image via TBS. http://www.tbs.co.jp/ohoku2012/gallery/p05-14.html

Having seen the film, I really wish the drama could have had a film budget, because the dynamic cinematography and lushness of the world are missing from the drama in a really palpable way.

Summary

The episode opens with Sutezo (KUBOTA Masataka) dreaming about his past–considering whether to take his companion’s offer of marriage and an easy life or to beat her up and take her money. When he wakes up, Masakatsu (HIRAYAMA Hiroyuki) and Kasuga (ASÔ Yumi) explain to him his job in the ôoku: to produce an heir with the shogun Iemitsu (TABE Mikako), whom they view as a regent until a male heir is born. They are concerned with Sutezo’s lack of class, particularly compared to Arikoto (SAKAI Masato), and worry that Iemitsu won’t like him. Kasuga meets with him to lecture him about how to best approach Iemitsu (don’t talk), then, in a particularly cruel twist, assigns Arikoto to mentor him since Arikoto is the only concubine to whom Iemitsu is actually attracted.

Gyokuei (TANAKA Koki) is concerned for Arikoto, but Arikoto explains that he thinks he can handle Iemitsu sleeping with other men as long as she only loves him.* Meanwhile, as Iemitsu prepares to meet Sutezo, she treats Kasuga with cold contempt. Kasuga begs forgiveness–it’s for the sake of the Tokugawa line! (See “Compared to the Manga” for more on this.) Iemitsu still doesn’t care and plans to go down with the Tokugawa line since she suspects that she may have fertility issues, but decides to go through with sleeping with Sutezo to prove her point. Arikoto helps get Sutezo dressed and ready for his debut with Iemitsu. Unfortunately, Sutezo decides to tell Iemitsu that he’s surprised that she’s “such a young, cute princess,” then, gaining confidence, says that he’ll take it from here. She reacts violently, throwing him across the room and kicking him onto the futon for his insolence before delivering one of the most memorable lines of this arc: “You aren’t going to take me. I’m going to take you.”

Image via TBS. http://www.tbs.co.jp/ohoku2012/gallery/p05-14.html

The next morning, Gyokuei comes in to find Arikoto seated in the middle of his room, which he has completely destroyed with his sword. Arikoto tells Gyokuei that he is a hypocrite and that Gyokuei was right about his not being okay with Iemitsu’s seeing other men. Later, Masakatsu gives Arikoto a kitten he found–a white one that looks just like Wakamurasaki/Oneko-sama from episode 3. Gyokuei sees the kitten and is shocked; later, he confesses to killing Wakamurasaki and framing Shigesato to get revenge on him. He breaks down, telling Arikoto that even though he has acted in revenge and against Shigesato and has thoughts of hurting Sutezo, that saintly Arikoto should be dragged down into the muck too is unbearable. Arikoto, of course, forgives him, telling Gyokuei that he is “a good child” (ええ子や).

Soon after, Iemitsu is confirmed to be pregnant. Her face belays mixed feelings–fear of possibly losing another child; sadness that the father is not Arikoto, who has been banned from her quarters; and even a twinge of relief. Arikoto sends congratulations; Sutezo is beside himself with joy. That summer Iemitsu gives birth to a girl.

Best Performance

I loved the scene in which Sutezo meets Iemitsu for the first time. Even though Tabe slight and Kubo stands a full head taller than her, her violent refusal of his offer to let him “take the lead” was very convincing, perhaps because one can see how easily he would have underestimated her strength and will. Interestingly, in the manga, Iemitsu then disrobes facing him; her face is hard to read (anger? determination? resignation?). In the drama, she turns away from Sutezo to disrobe; this may be to make it more dramatic or for fear of showing too much chest on TV. Tabe makes the same face as manga!Iemitsu, too, which was a nice touch. Also, the cut to Arikoto alone in his room was a great transition; this highlighted his inability to lie to himself about what was going to happen with Iemitsu and Sutezo as well as his loneliness and anger.

Compared to the Manga

On a humorous note, one of my friends watching this expressed displeasure at Sakai’s “smug-zen” face, which she pointed out didn’t happen at all in the manga. His acting is good, but I like him so much more as calculating Emonosuke in the Eien film!

On a more serious note, this is where the story starts getting really depressing and runs my emotions through the wringer. (In tumblr terms: gross creys and all-the-feels start here.) If you have only seen this series once, I recommend rewatching it or reading the manga–if you’re like me, you’re going to spend the next few hours alternately whimpering and yelling at the screen/book. (See also: rewatching Doctor Who, rereading The Rose of Versailles, or any other really emotional drama when you can see all the foreshadowing and character arcs.)

One of the shared themes of the Iemitsu and Tsunayoshi arcs is the parent-child relationship: in Iemitsu’s, Iemitsu II’s relationship with mother-figure Kasuga (as well as Masakatsu’s, Kasuga’s biological son, relationship with his mother) and Gyokuei/Keshoin’s relationship with his daughter Tsunayoshi. Although Iemitsu dies while Tsunayoshi is very young, both women have a parent or parent-figure who constantly stresses the importance of carrying on the family line and goes to extreme measures to ensure she do so.

I find it interesting that Gyokuei’s later echoing of Kasuga really interesting–even though Tsunayoshi is his and Iemitsu’s daughter, Iemitsu’s unhappiness at her separation from Arikoto and death from complications of miscarriages does not deter him from urging Tsunayoshi to continue the line. On the other hand, perhaps because he has had the importance of carrying on the line (versus naming an heir from the Owari or Kii branches of the Tokugawa family) drilled into his head, knowing the Iemitsu basically died trying, and also knowing his daughter occupies the most important position in the country makes him press on, even when she is too old to bear another child. (Tsunayoshi states at one point that a former monk who has lived surrounded by men his whole life probably knows nothing of female biology.) Even though we see many of the main characters from their adolescence to their old age, the difference between young Gyokuei and old Gyokuei is so stark that it actually reminds me a little of the character development in Citizen Kane in so much as we see a “bright young thing” full of ambition turn into a lonely old man who pushes away or loses everyone he has cared about.

Speaking of Gyokuei, one of the added scenes was the one of the Wakamurasaki/Oneko-sama doppelganger. Gyokuei sees the cat and freaks out, an episode that leads him to confess that he killed the cat and framed Shigesato. I found this neither added nor detracted from the plot, but it might have helped reminder the audience of that incident prior to his confession.

Next time on Ôoku: problematic persimmon trees.

Note

*While this is actually a really progressive stance on having partners outside a primary relationship, Arikoto actually discovers he can’t handle it as well as he had hoped. I feel that this is not a condemnation of non-monogamy but evidence that individuals fall on a spectrum of how they personally feel about open relationships. It wasn’t right for Arikoto and Iemitsu because neither of them were willing (it is a duty) and because of their personal desires for exclusivity, but that doesn’t mean it can’t work for others in different situations–for example, in vol. 7, Yoshimune has a happily companionate relationship with her attendant (infertile) Sugishita, who also acts as a father to her daughters, but sleeps with all the eligible men of the ôoku in turn (as well as some of the low-ranking staff).

I Want to Be a Man! My Boyfriend Used to Be a Woman (『男になりタイ！私の彼氏は元女』)
By Sachiko TAKEUCHI (竹内佐千子)
Published by Media Factory (メディアファクトリー）
Color; black and white
2008
1100 yen
Amazon.co.jp

Hello, my name is Sachiko. I’m a woman.
Up until now, I’ve dated women. I’m a lesbian.
Recently, I’ve taken a new lover. His name is Kai, and he’s a man.
But Kai was born a girl. Kai’s body is female, but his heart is male. (p. 5)

The title of Takeuchi Sachiko’s third volume of autobiographical manga contains one of the best untranslatable puns I’ve seen in Japanese. 『男になりタイ！』 literally means “I want to be/become a man!”; however, Takeuchi has written the verb ending for “to want” (~たい, ~tai) as the katakanaタイ. In this case, the katakana refers to Thailand (Tai), the setting of most of the manga.

(This review contains spoilers for honey & honey, honey & honey deluxe, Otoko ni Naritai, and Straying Love Game.)

pp. 10-11

p. 10 “Hello, I’m Sachiko. This is Kai. We’re lovers.”
p. 11 ”As a Kansai native and a Kanto native, our tastes don’t suit each other at all.”
Getting okonomiyaki:
Kai: Let’s get a squid okonomiyaki aaand a pork one, aaand rice and kimchi.
Sachiko: Why are you getting rice?*
“As for what we have in common, we both like cats and we’re both female.”

In honey & honey deluxe, Takeuchi continues her autobiographical manga about her life as a sexual minority in Japan and her relationship with her girlfriend Masako. At the end of the book, the two break up, and Otoko ni Naritai picks up from there. After the breakup, Sachiko’s friend Kai asks her out. Kai, whom we met briefly in the first honey & honey, is a transman (FtM); he works as a salaryman in an office job. 

p. 15 

[Kai asks Sachiko to date him several times.]
1: “At the time, I was worried. Kai is FtM…”
2: “and I’m a lesbian.” [♀_♀]
3: “If I were to diagram Kai and me, it would look like this:”
Sexual Minorities
Kai: FtM. Soul [心] is male. Body is female. I like women as a man.
Kai’s Graph: FtM, MtF, MtX, FtX. There are bi and gay trans* people, too.
Sachiko: Lesbian. I like women as a woman. Both my body and soul are female.
Sachiko’s Graph: Lesbian, gay.
We’re in different fields.
4: “In my case, I became aware of my sexuality when I fell for a girl in junior high.”
Likes girls who like girls.
“Up until now, everyone I’ve dated has been a girl.”
Has never dated a man.

At first, Sachiko is very confused by her attraction to Kai–am I still a lesbian? Do I only like women? Is it rude for me to be torn over this?–but eventually decides that she likes Kai and that’s what matters most to her.**

Kai invites Sachiko somewhat out of the blue to come with him on a two-week trip to Thailand, where he plans to have sex reassignment surgery (SRS): a masctomy and hysterectomy. Many Japanese people who elect to have SRS go to Thailand– Kai states that his reasons are that it’s “cheap, good, and fast.” Sachiko has reservations–”what, like gyûdon [beef bowl]?” she retorts (p. 20). She’s afraid the surgeries will be dangerous, and she tells Kai that she likes him and his body the way he is, but Kai simply says, “This is an issue with my identity and my body. I’m not going to change my mind no matter what you say.” Sachiko agrees to go with Kai, and the rest of the manga covers the surgery and their (mis)adventures in Thailand.

“No heavy lifting; avoid alcohol for two months. Don’t drive or ride a motorbike right away. And don’t ride any elephants.” 

p. 145 Kai decides to accompany Sachiko anyway…

One of the issues Sachiko addresses in this manga and its sequel Straying Love Game (『迷走ラブゲーム』) is the idea of straight privilege. Sachiko, an only child is not out to her parents and, as such, has never introduced them to any of her past girlfriends. Sachiko now finds herself “passing” for straight, even bringing Kai home to meet her parents.*** Furthermore, thanks to the Gender Identity Disorder Act of 2004, Kai is able to change his legal sex to male in the koseki (the Japanese conservative’s greatest tool for suffocating sex-and-gender equality). While she and Masako half-joked about who would enter whose family registry if they got married (homogamous marriage is still illegal in Japan), Kai and Sachiko could actually get married.

1: Kai: So…
2: Kai: Now that I’ve officially changed my sex to male in the family registry, I was thinking of getting married. What do you think?
3: [Kai expects her to say "I'd be happy" and blush.]
4:　…
5: Kai: You don’t love me….
Sachiko: N-No!! It’s not like that! Come on! What was I supposed to do? I panicked!
“Even after we got back from Thailand, we went back to our slapstick ways.”

In the sequel, Kai asks her time and time again to marry him as their relationship deteriorates due to personal issues. Sachiko makes it very clear that Kai’s being a transman is not the reason for their break-up; rather, it is their incompatible personalities and hobbies, mismatch in sex drives, and frequent arguments that leds her to break up with him.

What I like most about Takeuchi is that she is perfectly clear that her books are not meant to be The Definitive Guide to Being Queer in Japan but to tell her story and to give others the resources to understand a portion of the life of those under the rainbow umbrella. Takeuchi also writes in the epilogue of Straying Love Game, ”Not all transmen are like Kai. Not all lesbians are like me.” She writes honestly about her experiences, but she clearly states that these four volumes of manga are about her relationships with two individuals; her romantic incompatibility with Kai and Masako (who is bi) are not a product of their sexualities, gender expressions, or sex, but of individual personality. (Happily, she and Masako have a good relationship as friends after their breakup, and she and Kai eventually get back on better terms.)

p. 143

Like honey & honey, Otoko ni Naritai‘s strength comes from Takeuchi’s ability write queer slice of life narratives. She shows that the general aspects of romantic relationships like stressing out about travel, worrying over a partner’s surgery, and being supportive of a partner are universal, but at the same time, she highlights what is is like living as a sexual minority: legal procedures after SRS, questioning your sexuality, legal discrimination, and the idea of “passing.” For those not well-versed in trans*-related vocabulary, Takeuchi has included explanations about sex-reassignment surgeries, hormones, and more.

As for the art, I wish the whole book could have been in color! The combination of the really colorful and sometimes intricate drawings of Thailand are a wonderful contrast to her otherwise simple but still expressive style.

On the sequel: I liked Straying Love Game, the continuation of her relationship with Kai, less as it lacks the feeling of fun of the first three books and gets repetitive. One has to remember, though, that the volume essentially documents the implosion of a relationship and when art is autobiographical, it’s not always going to be pleasant. It seems like her other manga return to the tone of the first few, so I am really looking forward to reading about her further adventures and interests in『花より女子』(Girls Over Flowers), 『午後のハレンチ　ティータイム』(Shameless Afternoon Teatime),『くされ女子!』(Spoiled Girl!), 『おっかけ!』(Fangirl!).

“E-elephants? It was a very Thai-specific warning.”

Notes
*People from the Kansai area tend to eat rice and miso soup with their okonomiyaki, whereas people from the Kanto region eat okonomiyaki as a meal in and of itself.

**For a similar story of love and identity crisis, see Erika Moen’s “Dyke with a Boyfriend” and her series DAR.

*** Koseki, Japan’s family registry, is used as the excuse for preventing a married couple from legally retaining both spouses’ last names; was for preventing trans* persons with children or previous marriages from changing their legal sex, though Takeuchi points out this was relaxed in 2008 if the child was not of legal age; for allowing employers and prospective marriage partners/matchmakers to discover if a people is dôwa (同和). With the modern census (in which I participated in 2010!) as a viable way to keep track of individuals, the koseki is an archaic system that needs to adapt to the contemporary world instead of being used as an excuse to oppress citizens.

In this gender reader: women overlooked in recovery hiring, gendered violence in Fukushima, Koyuki Higashi’s big damn wedding, Flootchism, empowerment in Sailor Moon, and more.

Image credit: Haruko Kudo. Via Higashi Koyuki’s blog.

Mind the Gap

NPR. Hosted by Celeste Headlee. ”Technology In The Classroom, Jamaica Kincaid, and Rhye.” Weekends on All Things Considered Podcast.  3 March 2013. From 12:18: The recession’s effect on women’s jobs and hiring, as well as men and the “glass elevator”:

As the economy began to recover… men were gaining jobs and continued gaining jobs at higher rates than women. And compounding that is, even during the recession, although men’s unemployment rates were higher, the wage gap was still very real. And during the recovery, women began to lose jobs, particularly jobs in the public sector.

[For the record: nursing was a largely male profession until the Civil War in the US. It's been a pink-collar industry for about 150 years. Where does "tradition" begin?]

And from 41:50: The 100th anniversary of the birth of classical composer, pianist, and arranger Margaret Bonds, a Black American composer who was popular in her time but largely forgotten today.

Lindy West. “If I Admit That ‘Hating Men’ Is a Thing, Will You Stop Turning It Into a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy?“ Jezebel. 28 March 2013. A longer piece (but worth your time) about dismantling claims that feminism is misandry and elaborating on how feminism helps men, too. This has all been said before and will be again, but it’s nice to have it all in one place.

There might be a lot of women in your life who are mean to you, but that’s just women not liking you personally. Women are allowed to not like you personally, just like you are allowed to not like us personally. It’s not misandry, it’s mis-Kevin-dry. Or, you know, whoever you are. It is not built into our culture or codified into law, and you can rest assured that most women you encounter are not harboring secret, latent, gendered prejudices against Kevins that could cost you a job or an apartment or your physical sanctity. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t isolated incidents wherein mean women hurt men on purpose. But it is not a systemic problem that results in the mass disenfranchisement of men.

William Foreman. “Coping with the Personal Aftershocks of Disaster.” Michigan Today. 19 March 2013. A new case study on the violence toward and exploitation of women and children after the 2011 Tohoku disaster. This is a side that hasn’t been covered in the news. (Warning: discussion of stalking.)

Although she lives alone, the Japanese woman keeps a large pair of men’s shoes near her front door—part of her strategy to scare away stalkers. She began feeling threatened by unwanted visitors after she lost her home two years ago in Japan’s horrific triple disaster—the earthquake that triggered a tsunami and nuclear crisis. She was living in temporary housing when a repairman who fixed her bath began stalking her.

Will I Be Pretty?

Kate Makkai. “Pretty.” (Via Upworthy, “This Woman’s Beef With Prettiness Will Leave You Speechless“). “No! The word pretty is unworthy of everything you will be and no child of mine will be contained in five letters!”

Alyssa Rosenberg. “Jon Hamm Is Being Treated Like an Actress. He Hates It.” Slate. 28 March 2013. How the media hoopla around the way actor Jon Hamm’s pants fit echoes how actresses are treated (“upskirts,” “nip slips,” etc.) and why it all needs to stop.

He has outrage left to burn, rather than being exhausted by endless appearance-based prying and insane body standards. It might be easy for men to brush off how women are treated when they’re unaffected. But when they’re subject to the same standards, men often discover quickly how difficult to endure they really are.

What Brings Us Here Today

Koyuki Higashi’s Disney Wedding

On March 1, 2013, Japanese LGBT-rights activist Koyuki Higashi, a former Takarasienne, and her partner Hiroko held a wedding ceremony at Tokyo Disney, the first in its history. (Homogamous marriage currently is not legally recognized in Japan.) Here’s just a few links to articles about the couple in Japanese and English. おめでとうございます！！

Koyuki Higashi. ”東京ディズニーリゾート初の同性結婚式を挙げました。” ["We Had Tokyo Disney's First Same-Sex Wedding."] koyuki’s blog.

私とひろこさんが、「一緒に生きていきたい」と思うことに、同性も異性も関係ありません。。。 Hiroko and I think that wanting to share your life with someone isn’t a matter of “gay” or “straight.”

Hiroko Tabuchi. “Gay Wedding Is Embraced by Disney in Tokyo.” The New York Times. 4 March 2013.

“This could prompt Japan to question why it so often ignores or discriminates against minorities,” Hiroko said. “Mostly we just want people to know that gay people exist for real, and we would like to throw weddings like everyone else.”

Andrew Cohen. “History Won’t Be Kind to the Supreme Court on Same-Sex Marriage.” The Atlantic. 28 March 2013.

Moving to the current SCOTUS debate: What happened in 1996 and what was missing in the oral arguments over Prop 8 and DOMA in the US.

This is what our grandchildren are going to mock us for: for our refusal to admit what we know to be true about this law, and for the reason it was enacted, and for our hesitancy, in 2013, to confront it with the scorn it deserves.

You’re Doing It Right

“Some General Thoughts While Re-Reading Sailor Moon.” GAR GAR Stegosaurus. 24 March 2013.

I think some would quibble about Usagi having a boyfriend the whole time, questioning how “feminist” that aspect truly is, but I would argue that one of the things at work here isn’t that Usagi needs a boyfriend, but instead that you don’t have to go become a helpless damsel if you have a boyfriend, or that you can’t have one if you’re powerful and capable of protecting yourself and the entire world.

Via 16-Bit Sirens’ “CONsent.”

Mutant and Proud

“Beyond Categories: Non-Binary Sexuality” Panel at Emerald City Comic Con. Erika Moen. 7 March 2013.

This video is an hour long and worth every single minute of your time. From the discussion of biphobia-fueled homophobia to “wibbly wobbly” sexuality (to appropriate the Tenth Doctor’s description of time), the all-star panelist cast of Randall Kirby, Leia Weathington (a fellow Yoshinaga Fumi fan!), Charles “Zan” Christensen, Ellen Forney, Jason Thompson and Erika Moen

gathered together to discuss having bi/pan/queer sexualities in a monosexual world where both the straights and the gays don’t accept you (or straight up view you as The Enemy) and our experiences with biphobia– all with a healthy dose of dick jokes and wise-crackin’.

Root. “The Five Best Genderqueer Characters in Comics.” Bitch.  6 March 2013.

Speaking of which, here’s a list of genderqueer characters (more in the comments) in American comics. My favorite right now? Hiraga Gennai from Yoshinaga Fumi’s Ôoku.

Cosplay is Not Consent

Jill Pantozzi. “When Professionals Aren’t:  The PAX East Tomb Raider Cosplay Harassment Story.” The Mary Sue. 28 March 2013.

A cosplay (or any) outfit is not an invitation. Pantozzi writes about the harassment of Lara Croft cosplayers at a convention and the culture of harassment as it relates to cosplay.

“He proceeded to tell me that ‘I was one of those oversensitive feminists’ and that ‘the girls were dressing sexy, so they were asking for it.’ Yes, he pulled the ‘cosplay is consent’ card.”…

Wizemann said, “Honestly, I couldn’t think of a less sexualized costume at the event, but I suppose anything worn by a woman can be ‘sexualized.’”

Sushi Killer. “The Beginnings of CONsent.” 16-bit Sirens. 3 April 2013. [Via The Mary Sue.]

In this brilliant photo essay, Sushi Killer takes back the con:

I presented cosplayers with a wipe off board, simply reading “Cosplay =/= Consent” and asked them about their experiences of harassment. I was not surprised to hear many horrible stories from women and men alike. These can be as seemingly harmless and annoying as not asking for permission before taking a picture or bothering them for a picture or interview while they were taking a water or food break. But the majority of the stories were more serious and ranged from threats of violence to inappropriate touching, and from lewd facebook messages to stalking.

Susana Polo. “What if Feminist Ryan Gosling… Was Pictures of Con Staff?“ The Mary Sue. 10 April 2013.

Also in response to the PAX East fuckery, the Feminist Pax Enforcers were born.

A bit older, but still relevant:

Then something awesome happened. Dark Horse Comics editor Rachel Edidin staged a “cheerful coup” to overrun the Quickmeme page for the Idiot Nerd Girl with image macros written from the perspective of a Genuinely Nerdy Girl who’s tired of being automatically labelled a poser just for being female. Now a majority of the newest pictures at Quickmeme are of this type, and I f–king love it.

Mind the Gap

Mathilda Gregory. “Why Doctor Who needs more female writers.” The Guardian. 27 March 2013.

Doctor Who hasn’t had a female writer since 2008, and the show has had only one female writer since its reboot in 2005. What’s happening with the lack of women behind the scenes in contemporary sci-fi TV and film? (And when will the Doctor get his wish to be a [ginger] woman?)

“We can knock and knock, but if they won’t let us in, we’ll never get to see how big the Tardis really might be inside. Right now, the Tardis only holds men, so maybe it’s not that big, after all.”

Susana Polo. “Game Developer Had to Specifically Request that Focus Groups Include Women.” The Mary Sue. 9 April 2013.

Fact: overlooking women in focus groups and marketing for video games doesn’t actually help market video games to women.

In fact, if the folks who were responsible for problematic portrayals of female characters or poor representation of real women in games industry were doing it all purely deliberately, it’d probably be a lot easier to fix. The reality is that a lot of this stuff is far more subtle than that, and the sad fact remains that all of us are capable of having noble or even neutral intentions while still overlooking the subtle ways in which we’re contributing to a stereotype, operating on a false assumption, or missing out on a different but important perspective.

Caperton. “How to write about lady-scientists (e.g., stuff they cook that ISN’T dinner).” Feministe. 2 April 2013.

Caperton discusses some articles on Beef-Stroganoff-gate, otherwise known as the sorry excuse for rocket scientist Yvonne Brill’s obituary:

Brill developed the concept for a new rocket engine, the hydrazine resistojet, but the paper of record starts off with her beef noodle skills.

Double Dose of Awesome

(Okay, a lot of these were awesome. But have some more!)

Kathryn Hemmann. “Writing ‘Strong’ Female Characters.” Contemporary Japanese Literature. 9 April 2013.

Hemmann lays out some ground rules for writing female characters well. (The inclusion of Kushana from Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind made my heart explode from joy. Manga!Kushana is one of my all-time favorite characters in the history of literature.)

Since gender is an important component of any work of fiction, I feel that this is an excellent opportunity to clarify my own opinions about what makes a “strong” female character, with “strong” meaning “well developed” in a literary sense.

Lindsay Ellis and Antonella “Nella” Inserra. 50 Shades of Green. Chez Apocalypse & Blip.

Tired of “steamy” Twilight fanfic getting published while your favorite AU slashfic is overlooked? Never fear, the minds behind Nostalgia Chick have come to the rescue!

Crowdsourcing the next, worst erotic paranormal romance novel.

The riveting romance between Cthulu (Edward) and Lego Brick (Bella) as told by every one of us who threw Twilight across the room, screamed “THAT’S NOT HOW S&M WORKS” at 50 Shades of Grey (please see Mark Reads‘ Mark Oshiro attempt to tackle this crap here and here),  and now want to shake Simon & Schuster because it just needs to stop.

My favorite part of using the “global messaging service” LINE is being able to chat with my friends for free even if they use another carrier or are in another country. A close second is the “sticker” (スタンプ [stamp] in Japanese) function, which are basically bigger and better emoji. On April 11, LINE released 5 new paid sets of stickers, including a BeruBara (The Rose of Versailles) set:

Image from LINE

The BeruBara stamps/stickers were 199 yen. Some of my favorites are below the cut.

Most of the stickers are of Oscar, Antoinette, and Oscar, but Louis XVI, Louis Charles, Fersen, and Rosalie make appearances, too. The stickers often depict scenes from the manga. I’m not exactly sure when I’ll get to use the one of Andre with the text “Someday I’ll give my life for you” (おれはいつか。。。おまえのために命をすてよう) one, but I fully expect to use the one of Oscar laughing uproariously at her “engagement party” frequently.

進撃！(Charge!)

More posts about BeruBara here.

My friend Toranosuke over at the Japanese-art blog A Man With Tea has been looking for a good Japan-and-gender blog, something like a Japan-focused version of the excellent The Grand Narrative, which focuses mainly on Korea. My blog has a broader focus, but if I do occasional Gender Readers, why not do a Japan/Asia-specific one? Readers, if you have links or blog suggestions, please send them my way in the comments! よろしくお願いします.

via Contemporary Japanese Literature

Harassment

「働く妊婦いじめ深刻　マタニティー・ハラスメント」。東京新聞。2013年6月22日　(“Maternity Harassment: A Serious Problem for Working Women.” Tokyo Shimbun. 22 June 2013.) [Japanese]
Via @kotowanko via @MariInTokyo.
According to recent surveys by the Japan Federation of Medical Worker’s Unions, 1 in 4 women in Japan has experienced maternity harassment (matahara). Maternity harassment includes being pressured to or forced to quit, being fired due to a pregnancy, not being allowed to return to work postpartum, and being psychologically or physically harassed at work during pregnancy. The number of nurses who experienced threatened miscarriages (tw: medical images of unrelated conditions) on the job has risen 10 points in 20 years to 34% in 2009; many nurses felt pressured to hide the symptoms and continue working.

Satoko Kakihara. “What We Talk About When We Talk About Sex.” UC Humanities Forum. 24 June 2013.
“We Need to Talk About This: Chikan” was cited in this piece by the author, a Ph.D. student in the Department of Literature at UC San Diego.

But I can talk about how many times Japanese men have called me “strong” or “scary”, seemingly for nothing more than having an opinion that differed from that of someone else at the dinner table (and expressing it), or being unable to keep my mouth shut when I had a suggestion to someone (a man) to try something different from what he’d been doing before.

The Personal is Political

Isabel Reynolds & Takashi Hirokawa. “Abenomics for Women Undermined by Men Dominating in Japan.” Bloomberg. 17 June 2013.

“There’s always been this futile tug-of-war,” said Koichi Nakano, a professor of political science at Sophia University in Tokyo. “There’s always been a voice within the conservative camp that the economy should make better use of women. On the other hand, there are the sort of ’traditionalists’ who want to keep women at home.”

Ken Y-N. “Simple tasks around the home Japanese husbands cannot manage.” What Japan Thinks. 17 June 2013.

What Japan Thinks translates online poll results into English. The question this time: “What household task are you astonished that your husband doesn’t do?” (My two cents: Gender socialization begins immediately after one exits the womb [in utero as far as your parents are concerned], but that’s no excuse for adults not to learn how to care for themselves.)

Ken Y-N.”Thirtysomethings and love in Japan.” What Japan Thinks. 24 June 2013.

goo Ranking had an interesting survey on stereotypes of single people in their thirties and looking for love, for both women and men.

Pop Culture

Kathryn Hemmann. In Defense of Fujoshi. Contemporary Japanese Literature. 16 May 2013.
Extremely NSFW: graphic images, graphic content. (There are more NSFW and trigger warnings above the fold, too!)

Fujoshi (腐女子) (“fangirls”) and the female gaze are often criticized in light of BL manga, dôjinshi, and slashfic. Hemmann takes this idea to task, comparing actual bara manga to actual BL manga, to prove that there’s a huge variety in both genres.

Korea

Toranosuke. “K-Pop and an Alternate Masculinity.” A Man with Tea. 13 June 2013.
Gender is never static; it is constantly in flux, changing across time and space. How do contemporary K-Pop masculinities look, and why can’t we all rock pink Chucks?

Have any interesting gender links (Japan or otherwise) or articles? Send them to me in the comments!

Vol. 8, p. 188. Yoshimune and Hisamichi

I know most of my readers are familiar with Yoshinaga Fumi’s Ôoku, but in case you’re new here or would like to recommend the manga to a friend, I wrote a guest post over on Have You Nerd? introducing the English-version of the manga.

In 1716, Tokugawa Yoshimune, the great-granddaughter of the first Tokugawa shogun, become shogun herself, despite being the third daughter of a branch family and having a low-ranking concubine as a father. During her reign as Shogun, Yoshimune enacted a number of reforms, though she maintained Japan’s closed-country status for fear of a foreign invasion if anyone learned that the country was actually run by women.

Not the version of Japanese history you learned in school? Then get thee to a purveyor of fine manga, for you have much to study.

Full article: “History Lessons from the Tokugawa Matriarchy: Ôoku: The Inner Chambers” on Have You Nerd?

If you’d like to read my more in-depth analyses of the Japanese version, check out my Ôoku category here on the blog or start here.

Spoilers for the Iemitsu (vol 2-4) and  Tsunayoshi arcs (vol. 4-5), including the drama and the Ôoku: Eien film.

I have been thinking about this post for three years.

Vol. 4, p. 123. “Bored! Bored! Bored!” and sick of all her concubines.

Initially, when I finished reading the Iemitsu-Arikoto story arc (see here for manga and here for drama recaps), I was emotionally raw. I don’t mean like when I finished volume one and was a little sad because I wanted more Yoshimune. Ietsuna’s inadvertent “betrayal” of Arikoto by essentially repeating her mother’s words about having children with other concubines but only loving him twisted the knife a little too hard. I was ready to walk back to Kyoto with him, shave my head, and become a monk.* I wasn’t really mad at Yoshinaga the author as much as I felt badly for Arikoto because of her amazing writing. I think this is the only media that has made me cry harder or stuck with me longer in that sort of “beautiful pain” way than BeruBara.

With that feeling in mind, I started the next chapter. Yoshinaga doesn’t try to ease you into the narrative–the chapter essentially starts with the new shogun, Tsunayoshi, who is the third daughter of Iemitsu, complaining that she is “bored! bored! bored!” to Gyokuei (now Keshôin and back in the ôoku in his capacity as the Shogun’s father), then proceeding to emotionally and physically destroy an entire family because she wants to sleep with the husband of a daimyô. Yeah.

Vol. 4, p. 120. Tsunayoshi: you’re kind of the worst, and yet….

Normally I love reading about well written but highly unlikable characters. Occasionally I enjoy writing about them. However, I just could not deal with Tsunayoshi and her entourage of equally terrible people, including the delusional Keshôin, the devious Emonnosuke, and the sycophantic advisor Yoshiyasu. I decided I’d write more about Ôoku when I didn’t hate all the characters so much. I finished Tsunayoshi’s story and continued reading several more volumes, and then got involved in writing about the TV show, which took forever, and I saw the Eien movie twice in the theater.

In watching, reading, writing about Iemitsu, Arikoto, and Gyokuei again, I began to see the connected themes with the Tsunayoshi arc, and I realized that, after all these years, I actually did want to write about Tsunayoshi and that I felt that her story was important to discuss.

Yoshinaga’s stories are a slow burn. Other critics (even myself!) have complained that there was not enough character development or gender issues in volume 4-5, but that’s not true at all. While the arc deals less with societal changes, the political is personal, to turn the phrase, for Tsunayoshi, whose story is ultimately very much about gender, and there’s obviously enough character development that I felt truly sorry for one of the most morally reprehensible Shoguns in the canon. It’s a hard arc to get through, but it’s beautifully written, subtle, and under-appreciated.

I’m going to try to tackle this in three parts–this introduction, an analysis of the manga, and a look at the film version.

Notes

*Let me be clear that there’s a big difference between Yoshinaga’s tragic love story vs. a narrative with “girlfriend in the fridge,” or my other least favorite, “rape as a character-building plot device,” which has, in the past, made me decide to stop watching or reading some media. Iemitsu wasn’t killed off because Arikoto needed to grow as a character.

Introduction here. Spoilers for the Iemitsu (vol 2-4) and Tsunayoshi arcs (vol. 4-6), including the drama and the Ôoku: Eien film. Warnings: the plot of this story arc contains sexual assault and abuse, dubious consent, suicide, murder, and all the back-stabbing. I’ve kept the mostly images PG-13 (there’s a little gore in one) but the content is not safe for work.

“I’m not like the former Shogun, who agreed to anything.” Vol. 183.

Brought to you by the Bechdel test

Let’s start with the most obvious point: Tsunayoshi can be a morally reprehensible woman precisely because the Ôoku has equal gender representation, both in her story arc and the work at large. Part of the problem with gender imbalance–as well as lack of representation for sexual and racial minorities, et al.–is that token characters tend to become the de facto representative for their group and are often reduced to their one distinguishing characteristic or a set of stereotypical characteristics, a la the Smurfette Principle (original piece here): “My only personality trait is ‘femininity’!”

Yoshinaga, however, devotes equal time to male and female characters in her work even though there is a severe gender imbalance (1:4 male: female) in the population in the world they inhabit. All characters have their flaws (even Saint Arikoto) and even with minor characters, we can always see that there’s a lot going on beneath the surface. Because none of the women characters are standing in for the whole of their sex as “good girls” or “strong female characters” or “cautionary tales,” Yoshinaga can actually write her cast as realistic people. The fact that I just wrote that sentence seems ridiculous, but when so many films only offer these characters, Ôoku seems astonishing.

In writing Tsunayoshi and her arc’s cast, Yoshinaga breaks open many of the tropes surrounding women characters, as well as tropes surrounding anti-heroes, villains, and protagonists. A character doesn’t have to be likeable to be interesting, or well written, or feminist. Tsunayoshi and the rest of the main characters are easy to dislike, but all of their poor traits are never implicated as a result of their genders, sexual preferences, or gender presentation.

The Plot

To really understand Tsunayoshi, we’ll need to look at her story arc. (Spoilers; all warnings apply here.) After the fourth Shogun Ietsuna dies, Tsunayoshi inherits the Shogunate and moves with some of her advisors and staff from Tatebayashi to Edo. The story begins with her being bored of her concubines, but her father, Gyokuei–now “Keshôin,” having taken vows after Iemitsu’s death–wants her to bear a second heir for security (and maybe have fun in the process).

“You may leave us, Narisada.” Vol. 4, p. 142.

One of her advisors, Yoshiyasu Yanagisawa, suggests a home visit to another of the advisor’s estates. The Baron of Bizen, Makino Narisada, just happens to be married to one of Tsunayoshi’s former lovers; having no daughters, their son Sadayasu has married and received permission to inherit her position. At Yoshiyasu’s recommendation, they gather a number of young men for the Shogun to have for the sleep, but to everyone’s surprise, Tsunayoshi choose’s Narisada’s husband Kunihisa (or “Aguri,” her old nickname for him) despite his advanced age and the protests of both Narisada and Aguri. After Aguri falls ill, Tsunayoshi takes his son as her concubine. Narisada and her daughter-in-law Tokie are emotionally destroyed, and the latter commits suicide. After her son dies of illness in the ôoku, Narisada returns her lands; and Yoshiyasu secures her place as chief advisor.*

Meanwhile, Tsunayoshi’s legal husband, Prince Nobuhira, is not the father of her child; rather, Denbe (O-den), her first concubine, is. Nobuhira and Keshôin are in a power struggle, and the Nobuhira hires Emonnosuke, a new chamberlain from Kyoto in hopes that Emonnosuke will become her concubine and father a child with her so both of them will gain favor. Keshôin takes the side of Denbe out of dislike for husband. Yet it turns out that Emonnosuke is turning 35, too old to be a concubine, and so he wrangles a position as the head of the ôoku, leading to a confrontation with Yoshiyasu, who also used devious methods to attain her position.

At this time, Tsunayoshi’s only daughter Matsu dies leaving Denbe permanently grieving, Tsunayoshi in shock, and the Shogunate with no heir. Emonnosuke organizes a variety of events–feats of strength like carp-catching–to help Tsunayoshi pick out new partners to bear an heir; when nothing comes of it, Keshôin turns to spiritual answers and creates new laws to protect animals in penance for his murder of Wakamurasaki, Arikoto’s cat, years ago.

As Tsunayoshi ages, her strange edicts, ordering the death of the 47 ronin, and “wasting” her concubines on herself post-menopause results in widespread distrust, culminating in an attempt on her life by a concubine, who is then executed. Giving up at last, she names Ienobu, the head of the Owari branch family, as her heir. Finally free of the Shogunate, she and Emonnosuke share a night of passion–her (and possibly his) first time having sex purely for fun instead of duty–but he dies soon after of an aneurysm. Tsunayoshi’s health declines, and she is eventually murdered by Yoshiyasu after Nobuhira tries to strangle her. (The real Tsunayoshi was actually murdered by his wife.)

The Pit of Vipers

Yoshiyasu is not amused by Emonnosuke’s tricks. Vol. 5, p. 26.

Returning back to the Bechdel test discussion, Tsunayoshi and the other main characters are all bad people but are not badly written. For example, Tsunayoshi herself is very vain but very insecure about her appearance; she is vindictive against those she feels may politically betray her; she feels she has to prove that she’s tough, unlike her sister; she uses both backstabbing and violence to show everyone who is in control.

One of the first major plot points is her using her position of power to coerce Aguri and his son into sex. Although Aguri had been her (consenting) lover before Tsunayoshi became Shogun, he married Makino Narisada instead, which set a series of events into motion: Tsunayoshi’s marriage to Nobuhira, who wanted her more than she ever cared for him; her request for Denbe to be her concubine; and her discovery of Yoshiyasu’s betrayal.

At the time, Omoto, the girl who became Yoshiyasu, was a mere attendant and a favorite of Tsunayoshi. When Tsunayoshi discovered the affair between her father and Omoto, she stabbed Omoto in the thigh to both prove her power and Omoto’s loyalty. Yoshiyasu grows to hate Tsunayoshi both for her indifference to others (including to Yoshiyasu herself) and for her position.

“Do not double-cross me!” Vol. 6, p. 152

The men are equally as manipulative and cunning. Denbe and Nobuhira both crave Tsunayoshi’s love and affection, but her marked indifference toward both of them as partners after the birth of Matsu causes Keishôin to conscript Denbe, whom he grudgingly approves of as the father of the heir, against Nobuhira, whom he finds “mincing” and soft. Denbe really only wants Tsunayoshi’s affection and to be with her and his daughter, so he’s willing to play into the game in exchange.Nobuhira’s retaliation by hiring Emonnosuke, who has ambitions of his own to secure a safe position of power close to the Shogun without having to worry about losing her favorite because of his age, backfires.

The minor characters tend to be more sympathetic and better people: Narisada and Tokie don’t see a male heir as a problem even though Sadayasu is teased for it. Akimoto, the auditor, comes from a poor background and tries to stay out of the way of others; his secret is that he came to the ôoku to support (and possibly avoid) his sister, with whom he had an affair.

Yoshiyasu confronts Emonnosuke. Vol. 5, p. 27.

Also, the Asano incident occurs in this arc: Lord Kira is a pompous and privileged old woman, and Lord Asano is a bumpkin misogynist, an Edo-period men’s rights activist whose family only employs male samurai.**

I always get the feeling there’s a lot more going on in the background that we get to see in the narrative, and writing good characters means that even the minor characters are treated as complex themselves. In addition to having equal representation between men and women characters*** the main characters are all using the same backhanded techniques so often attributed to women when taken out of the context of working the system. Tsunayoshi is ultimately the only one with recognized power, but she’s trapped in broken a system (partially by a parent) that privileges biological heirs, and this comes at a cost to her agency.

In sum, Yoshinaga’s skillful writing shows that, by giving equal representation and not attributing character flaws to gender, writing flawed or unlikeable characters doesn’t have to be anti-feminist. This is particularly salient in terms of writing flawed female characters: flaws may develop from socialization and the social systems may stunt their ambition or twist them, but writing flawed women as “hysterical,” “weak,” or as needing to be punished for not following social rules is lazy writing. The depth and breadth of her characters shifts the focus to the individuals their interactions with institutions and society instead of relying on tired tropes about gender that still infiltrate SFF writing.

This post got pretty long, so I’ve separated the manga post into two and will write more about the themes of obsession with beauty and of toxic and failed love next time, and then cover the film in fourth post.

Notes 

*Yet, despite her position of extreme privilege, Tsunayoshi is also somewhat of a pawn in the system she supposedly controls. That said, nothing at all entitles her or anyone else to have sex with anyone who does not or cannot consent.

**The Chushingura section deserves its own post.

***No genderqueer characters in this particular arc but more are coming!

New to Ôoku? Start here. Introduction to this arc here.

Major spoilers for the Iemitsu (vol 2-4) and Tsunayoshi arcs (vol. 4-6), including the drama and the Ôoku: Eien film. Warnings: the plot of this story arc contains sexual assault and abuse, dubious consent, murder, the death of a child, and back-stabbing, and is generally NSFW.

Tsunayoshi plays a game with her daughter Matsu-hime. Vol. 5, p. 16.

Hideous Beauty

One aspect of Tsunayoshi’s character that I found fascinating was her relationship to beauty ideals. While her small face, round eyes, plump lips, and large breasts would be considered very attractive by today’s beauty standards in Japan, she would have been unconventionally attractive in her own time, in which long, thin faces; narrow eyes; and a willowy figure like would have been more ideal–just like Yoshiyasu.¹

Tsunayoshi’s somewhat “unusual” features, and more so, Keishôin’s insistence on raising her to be beautiful but not overly educated in hopes of attracting concubines, cause her pathological sense of self-doubt. In flashbacks to her youth, we see that her first lovers were Aguri and Denbe, men whom she directly asks if they thought she is pretty before engaging with them. Later, starting in her 30s, Tsunayoshi begins to heavily rely on makeup and hair accessories in middle-age in order to distract from or hide her perceived imperfections from her concubines. Although–or perhaps because–she is the Shogun, Tsunayoshi spends her life constantly seeking validation. No matter how much Emonnosuke trains the concubines to butter her up or how enthusiastically they consent, Tsunayoshi lives with the fear that she is unattractive, even repulsive.

“I dreamed of Matsu-hime. I’m an aging woman who’s lost a child, and it’s taken a toll on my skin. I don’t want the concubines to see, so please paint my makeup thicker… Matsu-hime, why did you leave your mother behind?!” Vol. 5, p. 54

Although unobtainable beauty standards for men is a running theme throughout the next arc, Yoshinaga tackles the cultural obsession with women’s beauty being tied so strongly to youth and the appearance of fertility in Tsunayoshi’s. Although women hold the political and financial power in Edo Japan, they are not immune from beauty standards even if they have purchasing power to buy husbands or sex workers. Although we often think of the ubiquitous visual messages with which contemporary girls of the digital age are bombarded from a young age, fashion and beauty standards, as well as treatises on beauty and behavior, were widely distributed to a literate population.2 We see some of this in Iemitsu’s arc, when she noticed the women of Edo have all adopted a updo more suited to movement. Yet while Iemitsu’s endeavors into fashion bring her joy in expressing her individuality, Tsunayoshi appears to feel that her worth as a person is directly proportional to how attractive others find her. When Aguri suddenly rejects her to marry Makino, this sows the seed of doubt that she could ever be attractive or loved.

At first, the doubt seems like the childish vanity of a first break-up, or even the general self-loathing after being dumped; but she doesn’t move on. After becoming Shogun and establishing her heir, she grows bored of her concubines, Denbe, and her husband. At this point, then she returns to Aguri again. Now in a position of even more power, Tsunayoshi coerces the happily married Aguri into a sexual relationship because, in addition to being attracted to him and wanting revenge, she feels she is entitled to him, and she destroys the Makino family without a single regret other than losing Narisada as an advisor.*

My Darling Matsu-hime

This is our introduction to Tsunayoshi: a vain, spoiled, petty, selfish ruler who abuses her power. At the point in the narrative when I didn’t think I could hate Tsunayoshi more, Yoshinaga introduces us to her young daughter, Matsu, and show us an entirely different Tsunayoshi. Both Denbe and Tsunayoshi genuinely love their daughter and enjoy spending time with her. In fact, one of the only times we see Tsunayoshi happy is when she is with Matsu. When Matsu suddenly takes ill and dies, Tsunayoshi and Denbe are destroyed. Although Keshôin rather callously encourages Denbe to have another child with Tsunayoshi, Denbe is broken-hearted over the loss of his daughter and largely withdraws from court life.

Vol. 5, p. 120

When Tsunayoshi’s position is secure and she has full control and virtually unlimited power (and free time), she is a monster. Yet, when the fate of her family line suddenly comes to depend on giving birth to another heir, the her self-doubt returns, and she is consumed by the need to appear young and beautiful, turning to heavy makeup and hair ornamentation. Her own father also doesn’t allow her to grieve for Matsu, urging her to bear another heir immediately to secure the family line. Everyone deals with loss in their own way, but this isn’t the way Tsunayoshi wants to cope, and it’s obvious that while she is pursuing sex with her concubines, she’s just going through the motions.

At this point, Emonnosuke devises a series of events to peak her interest: contests of strength and daring like carp-catching, dancing, and what appears to be capture-the-flag chicken fight. Although the activities do distract her and although she does find a number of concubines who interest her and who enjoy sleeping with her, she never has another child and never connects with any of them on a romantic or long-term sexual level.

Keshôin’s realization. Vol. 5, p. 92

During all of these sexual escapades, Tsunayoshi realizes that she has begun menopause; at the same time, Keshôin begins exhibiting signs of dementia. After consulting with a priest, he comes to believe that Tsunayoshi’s infertility was caused by of his own sins, particularly his killing Arikoto’s cat while he was a youth. He makes her enact edicts to protect animals, especially dogs, and continues pressuring her to have a child, truly believing she can since, as she puts it, he was brought up in a monastery and doesn’t know much about the biological factors of conception.

Ironically, Keshôin’s behavior begins to resemble Kasuga’s more and more. The pressure to both bear an heir as well as to care for her aging father place Tsunayoshi in an emotional bind. There is little joy to be taken from life other than from sex, but even that doesn’t bring her happiness. Meanwhile, with those outside the castle hearing about her harem of men and not being allowed to kill even a mosquito, public opinion of her plummets.

I want to point out that this part of the plot steps sideways several tropes:

• The insecure pretty-ugly girl who needs a makeover: Tsunayoshi has been beautiful all along, but there is no cure for her insecurity about her looks.
• The unattractive man–or, in this world, woman–whose power and money attract partners: Tsunayoshi has no scruples when it comes to her sex life (except with Emonnosuke for some reason); she has an entire harem of 300 men all to herself and many of them would like to be with her, but she’s generally not interested
• The bad or neglectful mother: despite being a terrible person, Tsunayoshi genuinely loves her daughter.
• Parenthood, specifically motherhood, making a character a better person: Tsunayoshi loves Matsu, but she has little regard for other families or people.
• Character death, especially of a loved one or child, making the character a better person or acting as a plot device (aka women in fridges): Matsu’s death makes Tsunayoshi realize her ironic lack of body agency–even as her actions limit or remove the agency of others–but it doesn’t make her a better person even if it does drive the plot.

“I’ll tell you what the Shogun is–even worse than the men who sell their bodies in a whorehouse!… Matsu-hime, why did you die?” Vol. 5, p. 132

Most Deeply in Love With You

As for the men, Keishôin, Emmonosuke, and Nobuhira are all constantly moving their pawns around behind the scenes in hopes of gaining not just power and influence but Tsunayoshi’s affection. In the end, no one truly succeeds.

The person Tsunayoshi fears losing the favor of most is her father, who has doted on her his entire life, which is why she hesitates so long in naming an heir. Had she named someone earlier, when she realized she had hit menopause, she might have been able to retire gracefully. Yet because of Keishôin’s distrust of the other branch families, as well as his Kasuga-like insistence that she bear the heir and keep the line going, her failure to act against him loses her the support of her advisors, the daimyo, and the people.

Returning to her relationships with sex partners, Tsunayoshi’s self-doubt is coupled with the conniving of the people around her. To her, the affair between her father and Yoshiyasu is proof that Yoshiyasu doesn’t love her. Although Nobuhira was an arranged marriage, he fell in love with her at first–until she showed her indifference to him and Denbe fathered her heir. Ironically, Denbe is overly affectionate and emotional in a way that makes her feel smothered. She does not seem to connect with any of the other concubines, even the ones with which she enjoys sex.

Emonnosuke and Tsunayoshi, Vol. 6, p. 57

Over the years, Tsunayoshi and Emonnosuke genuinely connect over their being forced into having sex for the sake of their families (his mother and sisters prostituted him; she is required to bear an heir); their knowledge of literature and wry sense of humor; and their physical attraction to each other. However, political issues (his age and her infertility) keep them apart for years. After he saves her from an assassination, he finally confesses that he loves her and kisses her. Everything seems to be going well until Emonnosuke starts to remove her robe. She protests because no one has seen her nude in years because she feels like she’s old and repulsive. Unlike what he told the concubines to say– “like all the men of the ôoku, I am deeply in love with you”–he exclaims in Kyoto-ben, “I have dreamed of this all my life, and I won’t let it go! I love you!” This is the first time he has ever had sex for pleasure rather than procreation, and the first time she has had sex with someone she really cared about.

This love affair spurs her to name an heir, and there’s a beautiful scene in which her father protests, saying that the heir must be her child. As she turns to leave the room, Keishôin grabs a hold of the hem of her outer robe, and she slips out of it, free at last from the mantle of the Shogunate and from him, finally her own person.

Vol. 6, p. 67.

Unfortunately, Emonnosuke dies suddenly, probably of an aneurysm, before she gets to return to him. Tsunayoshi lives out her life believes herself to be alone in the world, until she’s visited by Nobuhira, who tries to kill her because “she never loved him.” Yoshiyasu rescues her only to murder her for the same reason: everyone, especially her, loved Tsunayoshi so much and wanted her favor and attention, and she ignored them and pushed them away. In a very intense scene that mirrors the sexual tension of Tsunayoshi’s stabbing Yoshiyasu, Yoshiyasu smothers Tsunayoshi with a wet cloth while holding her, telling her that no man will ever take her away from her again.

Everyone is Terrible and Maybe that’s Okay

The reader’s eventual feelings of sympathy or pity for these unlikable characters is a testament to Yoshinaga’s writing. Everyone claims that they just wanted to be loved, but they each dealt with their feelings in the most dysfunctional way possible. Yoshinaga makes it clear that feeling pity for a character doesn’t excuse a character’s actions. Tsunayoshi may be mourning her child, but that doesn’t redeem her prior actions of sexually abusing or destroying the Makino family; her lack of agency regarding her body doesn’t justify her taking away the agency of others.

Is this storyline still about gender? The narrative focuses less on gender in politics or relationships than Iemitsu’s did, but the theme of gender is present: Tsunayoshi’s story repeats, in many ways, her mother’s trope of being the most powerful person in the nation but not having control over her person or her personal life. One might draw parallels to contemporary fears of the birth dearth and women’s choices about work and family being hampered by the government and society at large, particularly in the face of the decade-long “birth dearth.” Or, to look at Tsunayoshi’s own actions, the persistence of rape culture. In particular, the idea that sex should be consensual, fun, and caring and not just for duty or power play is especially poignant because it reflects back onto contemporary society.

From a writing perspective, however, Tsunayoshi’s arc, as I’ve stated before, is important because women are allowed to be flawed and complex characters and to do terrible things, just like male characters have been and still are in popular media. No women has to be a saint or a villain purely on virtue of her being female; anyone can have a tragic backstory but still be an awful person. No woman has to stand in for all women; women’s experiences and characterizations are as diverse as men’s. Characters still have to deal with problems socially and biologically (fertility, here) specific to their gender. There are no “strong female characters” in the reductive sense.

What critics miss by looking only to the plot, especially if you’ve only read Vol. 4, is the meta aspects of gender. Focusing on characterization may be more subtle than the in-text discussion of women becoming the heads of household and even the Shogun in the prior story, yet Yoshinaga’s versions of Tsunayoshi and Yoshiyasu are novel among female characters. It took me three years to really process how deep the story really is, and I hope I’ve done the themes justice here.

Next time: how does the movie compare?

Notes
1. For a concise description of changing beauty ideals for women from the Heian to the Heisei, see Laura Miller (2006), “Changing Beauty Ideology.” Beauty Up: Exploring Contemporary Japanese Body Aesthetics, University of California Press, pp. 19-26.

2. See Yuki Yabuta, “Rediscovering Women in Tokugawa Japan,” Edwin O. Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies, Harvard University, May 2000.

Today I’m pleased to bring you an essay version of the panel I gave with Dr. Kathryn Hemmann of Contemporary Japanese Literature on cross-dressing in anime and manga at Sakura-Con in Seattle on April 19, 2014. Because we’re no longer limited to 70 minutes and a projector, we’re able to include more notes, resources, and a proper discussion of Ôoku, which we unfortunately had to cut short at the panel. Enjoy!

–

Oscar Françoise de Jarjeyes: hero, soldier, noble, woman of the people. Ikeda Riyoko, The Rose of Versailles, vol. 3, p. 296.

Introduction

Gender bending is often cited as one of the defining themes of contemporary anime and manga, which are filled with examples of handsome women and beautiful men, not to mention cross-dressing characters who never fail to steal the spotlight. What is cross-dressing? How does it challenge and reinforce gender roles? What role has cross-dressing historically played in popular entertainment in Japan? Does a female character cross-dressing as a man mean something different than a male character cross-dressing as a woman? In this essay, we’re going to discuss ideas about gender, provide some terminology, and examine a few examples of how cross-dressing is used by characters in anime and manga as a means of exploring gender issues in contemporary Japanese society.

This essay is divided into four parts. In the first part, we’re going to outline several terms and issues related to gender fluidity. In the second part, we’ll discuss Japanese theatrical traditions, specifically those of kabuki and Takarazuka, which continue to inform contemporary popular culture in Japan. In the third part, we’ll talk about cross-dressing as it appears in comedies, romantic or otherwise, to demonstrate how laughter can both undermine and bolster personal agency in choices relating to gender identity. In the final part, we’ll move on to cross-dressing in anime and manga that are more serious in tone and content in order to explore the more transgressive and more potentially transformative aspects of gender fluidity.

Content note: This essay contains minor spoilers for the anime and manga series we discuss. Although we’ll be focusing on stories and characters we love, our discussion will include issues relating to transphobia, misogyny, sexism, and bullying.

The Superpositionality of Gender

We’d like to start off our discussion with a serious topic: cats. And by “cats,” I obviously mean “quantum physics” by way of the famous thought experiment often referred to as Schrödinger’s cat. Quantum physics is a branch of mechanical physics that deals with matter at the nanoscopic level, at which matter does not behave in the same way that matter on the scale of human beings does. It is in fact very difficult for us to calculate how matter on the scale of individual atoms does behave. We describe this mathematically indeterminate nature of micromatter as a wave function: measured abstractly, an atomic particle such as an electron does not exist at a single point but rather at multiple points at the same time, like a wave, or a picture taken with a timed exposure. It is only when we try to physically measure it that the wave function collapses, a paradox that is known as the “measurement problem.”

The Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger tried to describe this paradox back in 1935 with the following thought experiment: A cat is put into a sealed steel box along with a vial of deadly hydrocyanic acid, a bit of radioactive substance, and a Geiger counter. If, over the course of an hour, an atom in the radioactive substance decays, the reaction of the Geiger counter will trigger a break in the vial holding the acid, which will kill the cat. Since it is impossible to predict or measure the behavior of atoms in this situation, we wouldn’t know whether or not a single atom of the radioactive substance decayed or, by extension, whether or not the cat is alive or dead. Until we open the box, and thus freeze a moment in time, we must understand the cat as being both alive and dead at the same time.

Source: mentallicohullic

Schrödinger’s point was that this is a ridiculous paradox, as a cat can’t be both alive and dead at the same time. Other great minds have come with various explanations for the apparent paradox of wave function collapse, which does exist, no matter how ridiculous it may be. One of the more interesting explanations was provided in 1957 by Hugh Everett, who suggested that, instead of collapsing, the wave function of any given quantum system will instead branch. In other words, instead of being either alive or dead, the cat is both alive and dead, and the only limitation is the level of our perception. This type of both/and situation, as opposed to an either/or situation, is called “superpositionality,” which refers to a situation in which two apparently diametrically opposed states can both exist at the same time, and wherein any given object can simultaneously occupy multiple positions.

To return to the level of everyday experience, we would like to posit something that we’re going to call “Schrödinger’s gender,” which should be understood not as a paradox but instead as an infinitude of possibilities: Gender exists as a wave function. We are all, always, simultaneously both male and female and all points in between, and it is only when someone tries to measure us – Are you a boy? Or are you a girl? – that this wave function collapses and we feel compelled to choose one out of many possibilities. However, even though we are all constantly choosing over the course of a stream of countless moments every day, often without being aware of these choices, the possibilities not chosen at that precise moment still exist.

Source: This Love of Life

We’ve sketched out this analogy at the beginning of our essay not just because quantum physics is like magic and magic is awesome, but rather because it’s important to spend some time explaining our goals and limitations. For instance, we’re not going to attempt to figure out the “real” gender of any of the characters we discuss. Also, when we talk about a female character cross-dressing as male, or vice versa, it’s important to understand that terms like “female” and “male” are relative and do not denote anything with any degree of certainty.

This is not to say that gender does not exist, or that it has no relationship – either complementary or antagonistic – to physical sex. To quote the influential American sociologist Judith Lorber, from her 1993 book Paradoxes of Gender,

Every society classifies people as “girl and boy children,” “girls and boys ready to be married,” and “fully adult women and men,” constructs similarities among them and differences between them, and assigns them to different roles and responsibilities. Personality characteristics, feelings, motivations, and ambitions flow from these different life experiences so that the members of these different groups become different groups of people. The process of gendering and its outcome are legitimated by religion, law, science, and the society’s entire set of values.

What Lorber is saying is that gender plays a strong role in the life of each and every human individual from the moment of birth, despite our difficulties in defining what “gender” is and our inability to agree on what qualities constitute the characteristics of and differences between genders. We participate in a constant reinforcement of culturally prescribed gender roles, which we perform and challenge not only in our everyday lives but through our art as well. Because gender is such a major element of what defines us as individuals, it’s only natural that we explore it and test its boundaries through the stories we tell ourselves. Animation and sequential art, which facilitate character development by shaping and transforming images, are fertile grounds for gender play.

Language and Terminology

In our work, we are crossing not only a language “barrier” but also a barrier of time and culture, and we’d like to briefly describe some of the issues in discussing gender in light of these barriers. First, language and identity politics change over time, so in the case of some characters, there are authors who have not been specific about their characters’ identities, either because they may not have had the terms we have available now or because they purposely didn’t want give a name to their identity.With regard to the question of translation, what and how words are gendered is rather different in Japanese and English; in Japanese, pronouns and titles are less gendered in some ways, and you can actually go through whole conversations (as evidenced by Haruhi’s first appearance in Ouran High School Host Club) without explicitly referring to your or another person’s gender. Unfortunately, there is also a problem of translators with no training in gender issues lagging behind in learning how to translate terms positively and correctly in English subs and dubs. I’m sure in 20 years the terms will have evolved further in both languages. In cases where it’s unclear what the character’s identity is, it may be more useful to give specifics about the character and discuss a range of identities instead of selecting just one.

Takeuchi Sachiko’s chart of sexual minorities, Otoko ni Naritai!, p. 15.

Gender¹ tends to be thought of in the broader culture as a series of oppositional identities: male vs. female, masculine vs. feminine, man vs. woman, but these starting points create a false binary. Ideas about gender and gendering affect everything from jobs to colors to behaviors to fashions and vary across time and space. A few examples include contemporary men in Japan, who have a lot of pink options for clothing and accessories, in a country where the color seems to be relatively absent of gendered connotations, unlike in the US. In pre-revolutionary France, flowing locks, a shapely calf, and wearing heels were manly, though they wouldn’t be seen as such today.

Portrait of Louis XV of France (1710-1774) by Louis-Michel van Loo (1707–1771) via Wikipedia. The Sun King’s portraits all seem to show off his legs–I couldn’t stop thinking of this.

In addition to masculine/feminine being a false dichotomy for cisgender people (people who identify as the sex they were assigned at birth), there are also non-binary genders, identities that don’t fall under “male” or “female.” The terms DMAB/AMAB (designed/assigned male at birth) and DFAB/AFAB (designated/assigned female at birth) describe the first speech act (performative utterance) act upon one exiting the womb: “it’s a boy” or it’s a girl!” People may use AMAB and AFAB to indicate that they were assigned one gender at birth but do not identify as that gender, such as in the case of transmen, transwomen, and nonbinary people. While lagging popular culture tends to use terms like “used to be a man/woman”, these terms more accurately and respectfully describe the experiences of trans- and nonbinary people and are also useful for intersex people who were assigned to one gender at birth and may not identify with that gender.

Detail from Sam Orchard, Queer 101 (3rd ed.), Rooster Tails. Used with permission. Please do not repost.

In addition, there non-binary gender identities: in addition to intersex as an identity, these include androgyne, non-binary, genderqueer, genderfluid, as well as a number of culture-specific terms, like two-spirit. In Japanese, there are many terms that are not offensive if used by the subject but are offensive if someone is called that, and official translators tend to not be aware of this.² “Sexual minority” (セクシャルマイノリティー「セクマイ」) or “not-straight”(非異性愛者) are the closest to the English umbrella term “queer” in Japanese. A lot of the contemporary terminology is katakana-ized from English, though some writers will add explanations or use both a Japanese term and a katakana-ized English term, like doseiai/同性愛 (lit. “homosexual”) and gei/ゲイ (“gay”).

Dan Savage and Ellen Forney, No Straight Lines, p. 216

In this piece, we define “cross-dressing” as limited to characters who identify as one gender, and for a variety of reasons, dress or live as a different gender. That is, dressing in clothes of the gender you identify is not cross-dressing, as in the case of transgender and nonbinary people. There will be a discussion of perceived cross-dressing in Wandering Son as a counterpoint to show how cross-dressing and trans identities often get pathologized and lumped together. That is, people who appear to be cross-dressing may not categorize their dress as such, but the characters or their authors of the media we’ve selected do identify their actions as cross-dressing.

Gender and sexuality are incredibly complex, fluid, and personal. The possibilities are endless, and they don’t fit neatly into boxes. While that can be kind of scary and overwhelming to think about, it’s also exciting and wonderful, and in this essay we hope to share some of the thrill of this endless potential with our fellow fans of anime and manga.

Part 2: Cross-dressing in Japanese theatre.

Notes
1. Recently there’s been a shift from making a distinction between “sex” and “gender” to just using the term “gender.” Philip N. Cohen has a great summary of the arguments for the shift on Family Inequality.
2. See the use of the term okama in Ouran and Wandering Son; I typically see this word as a derogatory term for an “effeminate” male (wikipedia: 女性的な男性全般), including drag queens, but it seems like it’s a term that can be owned by the community itself (such as the personal, positive use of fag/dyke by gay men and women in US English) but in these shows it’s always translated as a slur for transgender people. What gives?

Speaking of cross-dressing, Ikeda-sensei is publishing new BeruBara stories and no one told me?! Excuse me while I go swim to Japan. I should get there by August, right?

Contains some major spoilers for BeruBara. But it’s been 40 years, right?

Via Crank-In. Copyright Ikeda Riyoko Productions.

Original:『ベルばら』新作読み切りで仏革命後のアラン描く！40年ぶりに新刊発売も決定 on Ameba News. Translation by me.

Drawing Alain after the French Revolution: New One-Shot BeruBara Story! First New Volume in 40 Years! 

The shôjo-manga magazine Margaret (Shûeisha Publishing) will publish The Rose of Versailles “Episode 4,” a new installment in manga-ka Ikeda Riyoko’s famous historical manga The Rose of Versailles, in issue #12 on May 20, 2014. Shûeisha has also announced their plans to publish an 11th volume of The Rose of Versailles along with a reprint of Vol. 1-10, featuring a retro cover [ed. I have the five-volume set, in which each vol. contains two of the original volumes].

The Rose of Versailles ran weekly in Margaret from April 1972 to December 1973. Lovingly referred to as “BeruBara,” the best-selling manga has sold over 20 million copies. In the past, BeruBara has been adapted into a variety of media in the past, including an anime, a film, and a Takarazuka Revue musical, and even now, the series is a widely recognized and popular part of the cultural landscape, with BeruBara stickers for the LINE text app and character goods.

Via Crank-In. Copyright Ikeda Riyoko Productions.

The self-contained (one-shot) piece in issue 12 is the fourth in a series of continuing new works called The Rose of Versailles: Episodes that began in 2013. The protagonist of “Episode 4″ is Alain de Soisson, Oscar’s subordinate in the army, and his life after the French Revolution and the deaths of his beloved Oscar and sister Diane in a 56-page (5 in color) manga.

The new Episodes series will be collected and published as an 11th volume. The gorgeous color pages will be reproduced and the 15-page “Episode 1” will be retouched for printing in the first new work in 40 years (a miracle indeed). Furthermore, in honor of the 11th volume’s publication, vol. 1-10 will be reprinted with a retro design.

Issue 12 of Margaret will be loaded with BeruBara news and will be published on May 20. The Rose of Versailles Vol. 11 will be published on August 25, 2014 (price not set). The entire reprint of vol.  1-10 will be all at once published on July 1 (each volume will cost 410 yen).

—

The drawing style looks more flat and the backgrounds simpler than in her original manga. Alain isn’t the type of person to be surrounded by flowers and sparkles, I guess? Has anyone read Episodes yet?

Part Two: The Theatre

How can she be a girl if I love her so much?: A novel by Rosalie Lamorlière.
(Joyce Farmer discovers Ingrid Bergman’s Joan of Arc in No Straight Lines, p. 25.)

In this section, my co-author and I explore cross-dressing in the theatre, specifically all-male kabuki and all-female Takarazuka Revue, how these productions queer our views of the gender binary, and how the main character of The Rose of Versailles disrupts tropes about women cross-dressing as men.

Premodern Masculinities

Because of the various issues involved in translating the slang and vocabulary of gender, a reader might be wondering about the applicability of contemporary Western gender-related theory and terminology to Japan. Can we really talk about “queerness” and “gender fluidity” in the context of Japan? Is it wrong to use Western terms to describe Japanese culture?

To briefly summarize a complicated and fascinating story, Japan began to import all manner of industrial, military, civil, and medical technologies from European countries starting in the 1860s, after a certain American naval officer brought a fleet of warships into Tokyo Bay in 1852; and, from then on out, a young urbanite in Japan would have been just as familiar with Shakespeare and jazz and sexy French cinema as any inhabitant of New York or Berlin or Shanghai.

Still, one might argue that, before the widespread acceptance of nineteenth-century German medicine, with its Judeo-Christian insistence on pathologizing anything that doesn’t fit into clear binary categories, the line between “female” and “male,” as well as the line between “queer” and “straight,” was not so clear-cut in Japan. Because many schools of Confucian and Buddhist thought considered women to be inferior beings, scholars and monks would take on male apprentices (referred to as chigo) as companions with sexual benefits. Samurai warriors, manly men who spent the majority of their time with other manly men, also had little use for women, and so they devoted a great deal of attention to the cultivation of their relationships with each other, often offering their sons to their superiors as squires in order to cement their friendship. The Tale of the Heike, a military epic from the thirteenth century, is filled with tender scenes of men crying in each other’s arms in between feats of strength and bravery. This is not to say that scholars or monks or warriors were necessarily “gay” as we think of the term, as they often had wives and children and female consorts on the side, and this is also not to say that the younger partners in these relationships were characterized as effeminate or identified as queer (or as female or even as a third gender), but rather that gender and sexuality in premodern Japan did not fall naturally into an either/or style of categorization.

It is perhaps partially for this reason that gender bending in Japanese theater was so readily accepted in the Edo period, the era of peace, prosperity, and gradual urbanization that lasted from roughly 1600 to 1870. One of the most popular forms of entertainment for city dwellers was the kabuki theater, in which epic tales of swashbuckling, honor, and love were enacted by all-male casts. The actors who specialized in female roles were referred to as onnagata (女形), a word which could be translated both as “female role” and “female form.” As opposed to the theatrical context of Shakespeare’s day, in which playwrights made all sorts of jokes and innuendos concerning the fact that all of the players performing female roles were young men, onnagata were more or less accepted as women, both onstage and occasionally offstage as well. In fact, certain famous onnagata were praised by their contemporaries as being more beautifully feminine than actual women, and many of the famous woodblock prints that have come down to us from the Edo period portray not physically female courtesans but rather onnagata performing the dramatic roles of female courtesans.

Via Pandora

We don’t mean to suggest that gender roles were not clearly defined in the Edo period, because they most certainly were. Cross-dressing was also not something that respectable people did, and kabuki actors, with their slippery genders, were most certainly not respectable people in the social order of the day. Still, nobody batted an eye at male actors performing female roles and loving men, or at the men (and women) who enjoyed watching male actors performing female roles and loving men.

All of this changed, however, with the rising popularity of Western-style theater around the turn of the twentieth century, when prominent theater troupes began casting female actors to play female roles onstage, a process that was referred to as “straightening” theater (seigeki). Aided by the emerging medium of cinema, female actors quickly became extremely popular, both among adult audiences and among legions of young female fans who wanted to become actresses themselves.

The Takarazuka Revue

That leather jacket ruins lives. Ôzora Yuuhi and Nono Sumika in For Whom the Bell Tolls. Le Cinq, vol. 123.

The Takarazuka Revue draws on some of this history of kabuki, except all the roles are played by women, who are divided into male roles, called otokoyaku (男役), and female roles, musumeyaku (娘役). The musical revues they perform tend to be Western musicals, but they also perform plays based on Japanese literature and theatre as well as in-house plays produced specifically for them. There’s also a lot of feathers and glitter.

The 96th Graduating Class of the Takarazuka Music School, 2010. The otokoyaku have had their hair cut short. Le Cinq, vol. 117.

Students at the Takarazuka music school are sorted into otokoyaku and musumeyaku in their second year. There’s a height requirement and vocal range requirement, of course, but after the division in their second year, which requires hair cuts for the otokoyaku, it’s uncommon, though not unheard of, to change roles or to play a character outside of the role. The notable exception is for strong female characters, who are sometimes played by otokoyaku (Scarlett O’Hara, Empress Elisabeth of Hungary). The roles are enforced off stage as well, so as not to break the magic, and the actors have a “don’t ask, don’t tell” clause regarding their sexuality and gender identity.

Ôzora Yuuhi Photobook “I’m Here.” Photo by Ninagawa Mika.

The musumeyaku tend to present as hyperfeminine, while the otokoyaku are more chūseibi (中性美), a beautiful androgyny leaning toward the masculine. The ideal otokoyakushould take the very best aspects of cultural femininity and cultural masculinity and combine them into the ideal “man” (ideal person)–someone who is caring, kind, gallant, heroic, romantic, good at listening and expressing emotion, attractive, cool, loving, understanding, and active.

Kiriya Hiromu as Sir Percy Blakeney and Ryuu Masaki as Chauvelin in the 2010 production of The Scarlet Pimpernel. Le Cinq, vol. 117.

Kiriya Hiromu as Sir Percy Blakeney and Aono Yuki as Lady Marguerite Blakeney in the 2010 production of The Scarlet Pimpernel. Le Cinq, vol. 117.

The Rose of Versailles (BeruBara)

“Charge!” Oscar leading her soldiers into battle in The Rose of Versailles, vol. 4, p. 357.

One of Takarazuka’s most beloved musicals is The Rose of Versailles (BeruBara), based on the 1972-73 manga by Ikeda Riyoko. The production is meta in that the main character is Oscar François de Jarjeyes, a woman who lives socially, for most intents and purposes, as a man during the years leading up to the French Revolution. (Because Oscar identifies as a woman, we’ll be using female pronouns here.) While otokoyaku don’t live as men in the way onnagata were encouraged to live as women, the role of Oscar is always played by an otokoyaku rather than a musumeyaku.

Oscar is one of our favorite characters precisely because she’s so complex and yet takes her identity in a stride. A lot of gender-focused narratives are centered around coming-of-age and coming-out stories, and while these narratives are useful, significant, and important to people beginning to discover their identities, it’s rare to see a narrative about an adult who is forced to spend time considering their identity and body but is also okay with who they are. Oscar generally doesn’t question who she is but rather if she’d be happier if she had be raised as a girl like her sisters. Would she ever be able to be happy as a nobleman’s wife instead of as Commander of the Royal Guard? She concludes that she would not.

Oscar’s gender being decided. The Rose of Versailles, vol. 1, p. 9.

Oscar is even more rare in that she is DFAB and DMAB: baby Oscar is declared female by the midwife, but her father, having no sons of his own, then declares Oscar will be raised as his son to inherit his title. In some narratives, like Ikeda’s later work The Window of Orpheus (「オルフェウスの窓」), a girl forced to crossdress and act as a male heir is often rightly dissatisfied because she can’t be free to be who she is, both in the sense of the personal–being able to freely express one’s gender identity and pursue romance– as well as in the sense of safety: the danger of being found out and losing one’s position or even one’s life. Typically in these stories, such as The Window of Orpheus, Twelfth Night, Victor/Victoria, Mulan, etc., the narratives of cross-dressing women involve the character wanting to pursue a romantic relationship with a straight man; however, he invariably isn’t interested in her as a man and she can’t tell him the truth because it would jeopardize her position. Often, our heroine also finds that straight woman is in love with her because she appears to be a man, but she isn’t interested in women. These narratives are often played for laughs, but they tend to be heterocentric and don’t typically allow for queer love, trans and nonbinary characters, or bi/pansexual characters.

Fersen recognizes Oscar as the mysterious noblewoman at the ball. The Rose of Versailles, vol. 3, p. 76.

Yet, Oscar’s narrative completely defies all of these narrative tropes. Everyone who has met Oscar more than once knows she is a woman–though she and her nurse do have to tell some people– and generally no one cares.² Furthermore, almost everyone finds her attractive regardless of how they consider their sexuality, although the 1780s’ concept of bi/pansexuality, would have differed from our contemporary understanding. Several men and women fall in love with her, including Rosalie, Oscar’s ward, who remains in love with her even after finding out Oscar is a woman, although it’s a shock to her at first. Yet Oscar’s other admirers typically develop a crush on her knowing full well who she is.

As for Oscar herself, at one point, she does question if Count Axel von Fersen would actually notice her if she presented as more feminine, so she attends a ball in “drag” (in a dress) to find out. Unlike in other narratives, her crush on Fersen remains unrequited not because he is repulsed by her gender identity but because he’s in love with Marie Antoinette.

The ladies love her. The Rose of Versailles, vol. 3, p. 292.

Another point of difference is that Oscar doesn’t eventually go back to or start living as a woman, as in many tales of temporary cross-dressing situations. She has the opportunity to marry a man (Girodelle) who wants her to quit her job and be a “normal” wife; she refuses him because she doesn’t want what he presents as an easy way out of her troubles. On the other hand, Andre, her childhood friend and former servant, who has loved her all along, eventually realizes that making Oscar into something she’s not is not actually love. It takes him more than a decade, but when he decides wants to be with her just as she is–military captain, androgynous, masculine, free to be herself–they finally begin a romantic relationship.

Oscar’s story is very much informed by the social climes of the 1970s and women’s liberation (and failed liberation), but once of the most important lessons we learn from her is that no matter how you identify, you get to choose what sort of person you are, whether that’s a man who likes make-up or a femme androgyne or a dapper nonbinary person.

For all of these reasons, Oscar was and still is an iconoclast among characters in narratives about cross-dressing. As such, she was hugely inspirational in the creation of characters that buck gender norms, including Tenoh Haruka (Sailor Moon), Tenjo Utena (Revolutionary Girl Utena), and Fujioka Haruhi (Ouran High School Host Club); and in new ways of characterizing cross-dressing women characters.

Next: Part 3: How is cross-dressing used in comedy, and can it be more than the butt of the joke?

Notes
1. Note that these are not the same terms as those used in the context of kabuki theater. The yaku (役) of otokoyaku and musumeyaku connotes “role,” as opposed to the gata (形) of onnagata, which connotes “form” or “shape.” To simplify many years’ worth of discourse and ideology, the idea is that, while a man can effectively become a woman due to his high level of skill and artistic mastery, a woman can only temporarily play the role of a man, and only in the limited sphere of the theater stage. The 1993 documentary film Dream Girls, directed by Kim Longinotto and Jano Williams, explores the strongly gendered aspects of such ideologies. A brief and insightful review of the film that addresses these issues can be found on Erica Friedman’s blog Okazu.

2. When Oscar leaves the Royal Guard and joins the army as an officer, the insubordination she experiences is partially gender-motivated but also partially class-motivated since she is part of the nobility and her men are commoners.

In Part 3 of this series, Kathryn and I will be examining cross-dressing in comedies and comedic tropes about cross-dressing. Can cross-dressing be treated as more than the butt of a joke? Yes!

Part 1 and content warnings here. All images safe for work.

Haruhi Fujioka has no time for your gender nonsense. Via Gagging on Sexism.

“Dude Looks Like A Lady”

A bit less classic than the BeruBara manga, but still occupying an important niche in fandom history, is a popular anime music video from the late 1990s featuring an epic anime mashup set to the tune of Aerosmith’s “Dude Looks Like A Lady.” This video plays with the trope of the same name and spawned numerous imitations (here’s one of the more recent). It opens with a scene from the adventure anime Slayers in which the tall and muscular male swordsman Gourry is disguised as a blushing maiden with Sailor Moon pigtails so that the heroes can safely board a ship without being recognized. In the AMV, as in the show itself, this role reversal is played for comedic effect, which is heightened by Gourry’s surprising willingness to embrace certain stereotypes of femininity and the exaggerated degree to which the dockside roughs are attracted to him. After giving viewers a glimpse of Gourry’s lovely hair sparkling against a pink background card, the AMV then jumps to Ikari Shinji of Neon Genesis Evangelion fame cowering and embarrassed while wearing the plugsuit of one of his female comrades in arms. The video references several anime series popular at the time, such as Tenchi Muyo! and Trigun, that contain scenes of male characters in women’s clothing played for laughs. It also includes shots of attractive and androgynous bishōnen characters such as the male love interest from the OVA Dragon Half, who is named – we kid you not – Dick Saucer.

Source: The Slayers (1995), Episode 17, “QUESTION? He’s Proposing to THAT Girl?”

The humor of this video, as well as that of the original Aerosmith song, comes from the destabilization of expectations concerning normative gender roles and gendered behavior. Taking our cue from the silly and carnivalesque tone of the music and animation, we are amused by the sight of a male character temporarily switching gender codes. This switch is “safe,” and therefore enjoyable, precisely because it is temporary. The song itself describes a one-time encounter, the cross-dressing portrayed in the AMV is similarly a one-time plot device, and the androgynous men in the AMV are background characters who only appear in their respective shows for the purpose of creating an opportunity for a quick gag.

There are, of course, many acceptable modes of male beauty in contemporary Japan. Boy band (and rock band) members with impeccably styled hair and perfectly manicured nails exude masculine charm, as do grizzled oyaji, or middle-aged men. Gingitsune, or “silver foxes,” are attractive, as are metrosexual urbanites and down-to-earth farmboys. In anime, manga, and video games, long flowing locks on a male character are less of a sign of effeminacy than they are of masterful martial prowess, but this is not to say that buff muscle men and lanky teenage boys are any less powerful or masculine. For the record, we have multiple variations on masculine bodies and appearances in the West as well, and standards for masculinity change over time just as standards for femininity do (see prior post for more examples).

The situational humor suggested by men cross-dressing as women is therefore not directly tied to a feminine or androgynous appearance but is instead derived from the playful nature of the temporarily switch from one strongly demarcated identity to another. This sort of play is something that many of us enjoy during the festival atmosphere of events like Halloween, in which we can dress up and adopt another persona for the evening. The key to the fun, however, is the temporary nature of the border crossing; it’s safe because we know we can always go back to “normal.” Once the switch becomes more permanent, things start getting “scary.” [Ed. Transphobia and transmisogyny will be discussed again in Part 4 in a different context.]

Source: Sword Art Online (2012), Episode 1, “The World of Swords”

We are thus thrilled and delighted when we encounter Sailor Man or Man Faye at an anime convention, but there is a darker side to cross-dressing, both in terms of tropes as well as social consequences. In the first episode of Sword Art Online, for instance, when all of the player avatars are suddenly made to look like the players themselves, people get upset to find that many of the cute young girls are actually middle-aged men. In the opening episodes of the Black Butler anime, when Ciel is persuaded to present himself as a debutante in order to infiltrate a human trafficking ring, he is extremely upset about having to give up the power and prestige associated with his status as a young man of a noble house, and he is in fact treated with less respect by those around him, which he clearly resents. What we can see from these two examples, and countless others like them, is that many male characters who engage in cross-dressing, regardless of their intentions in doing so, are mocked and treated with disdain.

While a woman can gain access to spaces of power and privilege by donning the clothing of a man, a man cross-dressing as a woman has little to gain but everything to lose. At least, that seems to be how many comedic anime and manga suggest that we view cross-dressing men, who are not allowed the flamboyant empowerment that men in the real world seek to represent by dressing in drag or otherwise challenging mainstream fashion. These characters are instead acutely uncomfortable, and we find their discomfort amusing because the story presents them as powerful men temporarily forced into a position of weakness by means of the guide of femininity. In other words, the element of darkness in this type of humor is that such representations reinforce gender norms by punishing or ridiculing deviations from normative dress and behavior. What goes unspoken is that, according to these norms, “feminine” is a shorthand code for “disempowered.”

Gender Rebels, Gender Sloths

When we first discussed the idea of cross-dressing and humor, we struggled to think of examples where the act of cross-dressing was not treated as the (typically transphobic) butt of a joke in comedy. The treatment of cross-dressing characters in Hatori Bisco’s manga/anime comedy Ouran High School Host Clubis generally positive, and shifts the focus of the humor from the act of cross-dressing itself onto the parody of tropes and the characters’ refusal to be defined by social norms. Fujioka Haruhi, a new scholarship student at the super-rich and elite Ouran High School, accidentally wanders into the host club and breaks an expensive vase. Under the impression that Haruhi, who has a gender-neutral name and wears pants and a sweater instead of either the girls’ or boys’ full school uniform, is a boy, the all-male host club conscripts this “commoner student” to the host club to pay off their debt. It’s not until one of the characters finds Haruhi’s student ID with an old photo and asks her about it that they realize Haruhi is not a boy at all.¹ However, because Haruhi’s makeover into a cute boy is so successful and the clients seem to like her, the club convinces her to continue working as a host and cross-dressing at school, where no one has realized she’s a girl, to pay off her debt faster.

Part of the humor in Hatori Bisco’s treatment of Haruhi’s cross-dressing is that Haruhi does not care about gender at all, commenting that “It doesn’t matter either way–men, women, appearances, etc? What’s important is on the inside,” and “My sense of being a boy or a girl is less important than being a person.” Haruhi is less of a gender rebel than a gender sloth. The “joke” that she is mistaken for a pretty boy because of her use of gender-neutral and masculine-leaning language and dress is humorous because she doesn’t care about her gender presentation. She tends to use a gender-neutral pronoun (jibun, 自分, lit. myself). “I didn’t really care if I looked like a boy,” she says, regarding her appearance in the first chapter/episode.

Hair: accident with gum; clothes: hand-me-downs/can’t afford Ouran uniform; glasses: lost contactsSource: Ouran Wikia

Although there’s fear that Haruhi’s gender will be “found out” during a school medical exam, Haruhi is more comfortable occupying a gender-fluid space than other heroines who have to cross-dress. Where Oscar from BeruBara wears a dress once just to try it, Haruhi doesn’t have a problem wearing dresses and wigs when the host club needs her to disguise herself as a girl.² When she’s outside school and free from having to wear a uniform, which are very gendered in Japan but even more so at Ouran, Haruhi prefers a more androgynous look; in the first episode, she wears men’s hand-me-downs in an approximation of the boys’ school uniform. At home, she wears sundresses with pants underneath–anything comfortable but nothing fussy.

Tamaki imagining Haruhi in a girl’s uniform. Source: Funimation

Tamaki, the “prince” of the host club, has a crush on her and sometimes likes to imagine her in feminine clothes and performing a more feminine gender, and Haruhi’s blunt, deadpan reactions to his assumptions about gender and her personal preferences turn the joke onto him. Nothing gender-related phases Haruhi: she doesn’t care about having to chat up girls as part of her work; she doesn’t care about being mistaken for a gay boy or accidentally kissing a girl; she doesn’t care when the club members finds out about her being a girl; she doesn’t care about the club asking her to wear a boy’s school uniform or to wear a dress and a wig as a disguise. Haruhi identities as female but since she states that her sense of gender is less important to her than her sense of humanity, her genderfluidity and cross-dressing are treated as fairly unremarkable in the majority of the narrative.

Additionally, the other characters also poke fun at gender tropes: the boys of the host club each play to a type, not unlike in a dating sim: the prince, the stoic megane-type, the strong-but-silent type, the shota, and the rascally twins. The “proper young women”  students who frequent the host club tend to appear hyperfeminine– in part because of the gown-like girls’ uniform–but they are not shamed in the narrative for being feminine. Some of them are catty, yes, and some of the are sincere; at least one is explicitly a fujoshi (fangirl) who immediately sees the dating-sim-esque tropes the characters play at the club. Like the male characters and Haruhi, even when they are making fun of tropes, the characters have a real humanity about them. Parody, after all, has to have the element of love for the original narratives to be successful.

Ranka returns home. Source (these are floating around the web)

One important point we should mention in discussing Ouran is the concept of  passing and passing privilege, which factor heavily into the everyday lives of real people who don’t fit neatly into the false social gender binary. Haruhi is androgynous enough that she passes for a girl or a boy depending on her clothing. However, Haruhi’s father Ryouji, who works as drag-queen hostess Ranka and describes himself as bisexual, does not benefit from the same level of passing as their daughter does.³ The subtitled version is a perfect example of what happens when your translators are not trained about gender in translation, and some characters use translated transphobic language toward Ranka out of ignorance rather than malice.

Haruhi and Ranka (sources here, but floating around internet)

As we mentioned previously, to put it very simply, men performing femininities and transwomen bear the brunt of transphobia and gender policing, because to be a woman or to be like a woman disrupts male privilege and is a source of social anxiety for masculinity, which must constantly be proved. Contemporary women accessing masculinities and their privileges are “cool.” Haruhi’s gender fluidity, particularly her cross-dressing then, is less “dangerous” to social structure than Ranka’s, who could easily be the locus of transmisogynistic “humor” in other media. In Ouran, Ranka’s life outside the binary is not the joke; rather, the trope of the expected reaction of others to Ranka being averted is the joke.

For instance, there’s a wonderful scene in episode 10 of the anime where Ryouji and his boss at the bar think that Haruhi is too ashamed to bring him to parents’ day because he works as a transvestite. In reality, Haruhi’s reluctance stems from her feeling that her father is working too hard and should rest. Like many teens, Haruhi is embarrassed by her parent’s affection for her, but she is never ashamed of Ranka’s or her own gender expressions.

Furthermore, Ranka, as she allows the host club boys call her, has a gender fluidity about them not unlike their daughter’s. We see her “on” as gorgeous Ranka as well as “off” as a bandana and “Dad” t-shirt. The host club members, especially Kyoya, respect Ranka, and Ranka and Tamaki bond over wishing Haruhi liked feminine pursuits as much as her father, though they still respect Haruhi’s decisions. Tamaki and the host club also cross-dress to show Haruhi that they’re just as good as the Lobelia Academy Zuka Club (a Takarazuka parody troupe⁴) and show no anxiety over the act of dressing in drag.

Stage-makeup game is strong! Source: Funimation

As evidenced in the last chapter of the manga, even when her classmates misread Haruhi’s gender or sexuality (some of them assume she’s a gay boy dressing as a girl to be “acceptable” to be seen romantically with Tamaki in the end), the world of Ouran is by and large respectful of gender expression as well as lacking anxiety about genderfluidity. Hatori Bisco explores the shôjo tropes through the lens of Haruhi the gender sloth and her friends, and Haruhi’s lack of concern about gender and the host club’s defiance or aversion of shôjo tropes reflects back on the ridiculousness of the gender binary in contemporary society.

Next time: how is the theme of cross-dressing used in more serious manga and anime to explore identity construction and social consequences?  

Notes
1. This scene plays out differently in the anime and the manga, but in both, the members of the club mistake Haruhi for a boy at first, and she doesn’t care enough to correct them because, she says, she doesn’t really think or care about gender.

2. Let us be clear that Oscar and Haruhi have different gender expressions and both are valid. Just because Haruhi is more genderfluid doesn’t make her better than anyone who wants their pronouns respected. There’s a lot of different ways to inhabit nonbinary spaces, and all are valid.

3. We’re trying to approximate the same situational pro/nouns Ryouji/Ranka uses to refer to themself. Ryouji describes himself as bisexual okama (which can be a feminine man, transwoman, or drag queen) and as Haruhi’s father; often drag queens are referred to with female pronouns in English. We’re using a mix of male/female/neutral (they) pronouns as it seems appropriate.  Interestingly, Ranka’s stage persona is more of a beautiful OL in office clothes than the high-fashion, hard femme, heavily made-up look associated with drag queens. Also, Ranka, like Haruhi, interestingly enough, have the same appeal as “the natural.”

4. Lobelia Girls’ Academy is a case where it seems like Hatori Bisco intended to blatantly lampoon Takarazuka’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” clause by saying that they’re very gay, but the portrayal of the Zuka Club and Lobelia Academy students as man-hating lesbians also could be read as a stereotype about (literally) “feminazis.” See the comments, particularly this one, in Gagging on Sexism for a useful discussion of the show’s failings and discomfort about Lobelia.

Part 4: Gender Trouble and Phantom Femininities

In the final part of our essay, we’re going to move on to some of the more serious issues surrounding cross-dressing, specifically those involving social consequences and identity construction. We’ll begin by focusing on men who habitually crossdress as women before focusing on queer and transgender issues in manga involving characters cross-dressing against sex instead of gender.

Content warning: this section contains discussions of transphobia, transmisogyny, and sexism. 

Again, when we typically talk about cross-dressing, we’re talking about a character dressing in the clothing of a gender with which she or he does not identify. We’re therefore not going to discuss series like Ranma ½ or Birdy the Mighty, in which a male character is caused by magical means to either temporarily or permanently inhabit a female body. Many of these boy-turns-into-a-girl series are meant for a shōnen audience young enough to think that girls are silly but old enough to have begun to see girls as sexy. Thus, boy-turned-girl characters complain about having to wear dresses and form-fitting bodysuits while simultaneously delighting in the fact that they have breasts that they can touch any time they want. In addition, in manga especially, there are many male-to-female stories like Kashimashi and Otome wa boku ni koishiteru drawn expressly for the titillation of an adult male audience. Not only is there a “wolf in sheep’s clothing” appeal to such stories, but gender confusion and vulnerability in young women is so very, very moé.

If we set aside shōnen humor and moé sex appeal, we’ve got two basic categories of habitual male-to-female cross-dressing in anime and manga: boys who don’t want to cross-dress but are forced to and then get used to it, and men who cross-dress in order to preserve the memory of a woman who has vanished from their lives.

Princess Princess

A good example of boys who don’t want to crossdress is Kōno Toru from Princess Princess, who is chosen through various plot devices to dress as a girl at his all-boys school. Although he resents it at first, he gradually comes to enjoy it, especially in the company of the school’s two other “princesses.” Another example drawn from Uta no Princesama is Tsukimiya Ringo, an aspiring idol who was repeatedly told by his manager that he needed to be more feminine. Since his devotion to music was stronger than his attachment to conventional codes of masculinity, Ringo took on an ultra-feminine persona and stuck with it, which ultimately proved successful. Neither character is socially penalized for crossdressing; but, then again, both occupy school-themed fantasy spaces that would be difficult to imagine outside of an anime. Moreover, both of these characters are gender scapegoats. In homosocial, all-male spaces, they take on female-coded roles so that everyone else is, in comparison, unquestionably male. They therefore serve as a kind of “phantom femininity” that the other male characters can use as a psychological Other against which to contrast their own masculine identities.

Speaking of phantom femininities, anime and manga occasionally employ the tropes of the grieving man who crossdresses in order to keep the memory of a dead woman alive. We can find examples in numerous contemporary anime and manga and light novel series ranging from Stein’s Gate to Ano Hana, but one of our favorite characters who embodies this trope is Nuriko from Fushigi Yūgi, who was so traumatized by the loss of his sister that he vowed to assume her appearance so that she would never be forgotten. Despite his appearance, Nuriko maintains stereotypically masculine characteristics as well, such as incredible strength and an impetuous temper. Just as the adorable boys in girls’ bodies of series like Kashimashi are fanservice for men, perhaps “masculine” men in women’s clothing – and men with stereotypically feminine interests, as in the case of Masamune Asuka from Otomen – are fanservice for shōjomanga fans, who enjoy fantasizing about a romantic partner who represents the best of both worlds by being not only sexually attractive but also friendly, sensitive, and approachable.

Screencap: Le Chevalier d’Eon: d’Eon Beaumont as Lia

A more literal type of “phantom femininity” appears in Le Chevalier D’Eon, in which in d’Éon de Beaumont, young member of the king’s secret police, takes the form of his murdered sister Lia in battle. His male body thus becomes the conduit for her female vengeance. (By the way, d’Éon’s character is based on a real historical personage from the late eighteenth century who lived for fifty years as a man and thirty years as a woman and was absolutely fabulous as an international person of mystery for all of those years.) Likewise, in the Sailor Moon anime series, the Sailor Starlights, sailor scouts from a doomed planet, are physically male in their “civilian” bodies but become physically female when they transform into Sailor Scouts. What we see here is an insinuation that certain feminine feelings and powers can only be expressed through female bodies, and that men can never truly become women as long as they maintain male bodies. In other words, such fandom femininities suggest that gender is not fluid, and it takes more than clothes for a man to escape his physically mandated masculinity.

Princess Jellyfish

This is not to say that all anime and manga series treat male-to-female cross-dressing in a way that suggests that a more fluid gender identity is either undesirable or unobtainable. For example, Princess Jellyfish features a young man by the name of Koibuchi Kuranosuke who crossdresses in order to upset the rigid patriarchal social order represented by his straight-laced father and brother. Kuranosuke identifies as male and is attracted to women, but he finds freedom and a wider range of self-expression by dressing in gorgeous, outrageous, and stylish women’s fashions. Another good example of a sympathetic portrayal of a person clothing a male body in feminine fashion can be found in Paradise Kiss, in which the genderqueer character Isabella is treated with respect by both the other characters and by the author herself. Of course, both Princess Jellyfish and Paradise Kiss were originally josei manga written for college-age and adult women, who are presumably more interested in the challenges presented by social realities than boob jokes and saccharin high school romance.

It’s important to take the intended audience into account when we analyze cross-dressing in popular media. If the series is for boys who think female bodies are strange and funny, or for young women who are fixated on the idea of a perfect boyfriend, gender slippage as represented by cross-dressing is more than likely going to follow gender binary and heteronormative patterns. In media for older and more emotionally mature readers, however, it is possible to see more complicated portrayals of gender bending and crossdressing, not to mention transgender issues.

Next time, we’ll turn to Wandering Son, to see how transphobia and perceived acts of cross-dressing affect transgender preteens who are dressing as their gender identity; this includes issues of masculine privilege, transmisogyny, and social fear of gender transgression. In the final part of this section, we’ll examine cross-dressing in Ôoku, a scifi/alternate history manga in which Japan becomes a matriarchy and how this social shift affects gender privilege.