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  • The Education of Desire:Futari etchi and the Globalization of Sexual Tolerance
  • Timothy Perper (bio) and Martha Cornog (bio)

Step up love story: Futari etchi, by Katsu Aki, is a sexually explicit manga published by Hakusensha since 1997 in at least thirty volumes in several series. It has appeared in French, German, and Spanish editions and has recently been licensed by TokyoPop for English translations. An original animated video also exists, but we focus on the manga in French and Japanese.1Futari etchi is an extraordinary piece of work that raises difficult but fascinating questions about the portrayal of sexuality in manga and about globalization of sex-tolerant views of sex education and behavior.

The Japanese title blends English and Japanese. Futari means "couple" and etchi (or ecchi) means "H," an abbreviation for hentai, "perverted" or "sexy." We'd probably translate the title as something like "Step-by-step love story: X-rated couple." It is the story of the newlyweds Yura and Makoto as they confront a transition from complete sexual inexperience to an arranged marriage and its sexual and erotic challenges. Throughout, Katsu uses their story as a platform to provide not only an ongoing narrative but also systematic and well-designed serious lessons in sexuality itself. This combination of story plus sex education gives Futari etchi a unique place in manga and in the world's sex education literature. [End Page 201]

Futari etchi will pose some questions for American readers literate in Japanese, French, German, or Spanish. These center on differences between education in sexuality and education in morality. In U.S. sex education in schools, moral lessons are often incorporated. Teaching about sexual anatomy and physiology is often linked didactically to lessons in those social ideals that specifically perceive obligatory linkages among sexual activity, marriage, marital exclusivity, and heterosexuality (e.g., "abstinence-only" sex education). But teaching about moral themes like these plays little role in Futari etchi. Responsibility, yes; morality, no.

For some U.S. readers, Futari etchi will raise issues of pornography, meaning the portrayal of sexual activity for purposes of arousal or pleasure. In the normative American sexual script, pornography exists only as stigmatized and marginalized depictions that operate at the edges of moral, meaning bourgeois, society. However, Futari etchi systematically surrounds a marital narrative with explicit depictions of sexual activity and with equally explicit lessons in sexual anatomy, physiology, behavior, and statistics.

Futari etchi can be compared to American sex manuals like The New Joy of Sex or What Your Mother Never Told You about S-e-x.2 Such sex manuals are usually explicitly illustrated, but none integrates a sustained graphic narrative with statistical sidebars, information, and advice-which Futari etchi does. The combination probably attracts readers who would disdain standard sex manuals even if they need or want the information. Such manuals cannot create the reader traction delivered by plot and character embodying the educational messages of Futari etchi.

Futari etchi raises some serious questions about manga, sexuality, and sex education. The series is very popular-the back cover of volume 11 (French version) claims that more than sixteen million copies have been sold in Japan. Moreover, editions in the three European languages suggest that many non-Japanese read the story: eleven volumes in French, sixteen in Spanish, and twenty-three in German as of January 2006. What gives Futari etchi its unique features and what might account for its popularity?

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The Creation of Desire

Broadly speaking, four elements create and maintain interest in manga: character, narrative, artwork, and setting. Koike Kazuo has suggested that first among these is strong character development.3 Makoto and Yura certainly qualify.

We encounter here a visual asymmetry widespread in manga. Women characters are often visually more salient-certainly more beautiful-than men. In Katsu's skilled artwork, again Yura qualifies. She is extremely pretty, with lush black hair, large eyes, a winsome smile, and a full-breasted figure.4 Her wavy hair may not meet older traditional views of Japanese beauty-which stressed that a woman's hair should be straight-but the gracefully illuminated curves of her hair give her an eroticism that appeals to male and...

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