-
Introduction
- University of Minnesota Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
Discourses of Desire When Western readers look at the manga (graphic novels) that have been so popular in Japan over the course of the last few decades, they are often struck by how often male–male affection and eroticism appears in their pages. In fact, male–male love has been one of the most important thematic elements in manga, especially manga for adolescent girls(shōjo manga), since the 1970s. One thinks, for instance, of the classics Tōma no shinzō (The heart of Thomas, 1974) by Hagio Moto and Kaze to ki no uta (The song of the wind and the trees, serialized 1976–84) by Takemiya Keiko, both of which present groundbreaking depictions of male–male friendship, jealousy , desire, and eroticism within the all-male world of European boarding schools.1 By using flowery images, language ripe with florid overstatement, poetic expressions of desire, and bursts of passion throughout their work, these two manga artists presented same-sex desire and eroticism in a language that appealed immediately to their young, female readership. At the same time, they also explored society’s tendency to shun same-sex eroticism through the reactions of the many schoolboys to the sexually active characters at the heart of their stories. The wild success of these manga were instrumental in forming the mold for many shōjo manga published in years to come. Still, where do these modes of depicting love and erotic desire between men come from? Were the passionate, romanticized expressions of schoolboy desire found in Hagio’s and Takemiya’s work new in the 1970s? In some Introduction 1 2 Introduction ways, they seem a product of their era. Certainly, the 1970s, an era in which Georges Bataille, Jean-Paul Sartre, and the Marquis de Sade were considered essential reading for any fashionable student in Japan, were revolutionary in their willingness to explore the cultural and existential ramifications of sexuality, especially in its nonheteronormative forms.2 At the same time, however, the fascination with the cultural ramifications of sexuality is far older than just the 1970s. The particular combination of florid expressions of passionate, personal desire that one finds so often in manga about male– male desire has its roots in the early twentieth century, when a number of popular authors began to explore new modes of representing same-sex desire in literature. Needless to say, the Japanese, like all people, have always been interested in sexuality, and there is a long historical and literary record describing instances of nonheteronormative forms of eroticism. It is, however , one of the principal arguments of this book that it was during the early twentieth century that a core group of several key authors struggled to find a new language to write about the subject, and in the process developed modes of depiction that would prove influential for many years to come. Among the tropes that came to be associated with representations of male–male desire in the early twentieth century were schoolboy innocence , acute aestheticism, and almost “decadently” strong expressions of personal passion—tropes repeated in different variations within contemporary manga. In exploring the Japanese preoccupation with homoeroticism in literature and popular culture, this study turns to the formative years of the Taishō period (1912–26) and the first decade of the Shōwa period (1926–89). These years witnessed tumultuous changes and tremendous cultural developments on virtually every front. The country experienced the thriving years of economic development and political involvement known as the “Taishō Democracy.” This vibrant period of economic growth came to a halt, however, with the economic troubles surrounding the suspension of activities of the Bank of Taiwan in 1927, the rush on banks throughout Japan, and the series of economic “corrections” that cost many people their livelihoods . These economic problems were only exacerbated by the depression that spread across the world in 1929—a depression that, in turn, set the stage for the socioeconomic pressure and political turbulence that led up to the Manchurian Incident in 1931, the establishment of the puppet state of Manchukuo in 1932, and the full-fledged Japanese invasion of China in 1937. Meanwhile, changes in the ideological climate of the Japanese empire [18.223.107.124] Project MUSE (2024-04-17 21:46 GMT) Introduction 3 were equally dramatic. The interwar years saw the spread of psychoanalysis, modern social engineering, feminism, socialism, cosmopolitanism, nationalism , and many other ideologies and social movements. Directly or indirectly, these phenomena all presented the population with new ideas regarding...