Archive for the History of Yuri Category


Passionate Friendship: The Aesthetics of Girls’ Culture in Japan

February 6th, 2014

passionateDeborah Shamoon’s Passionate Friendship: The Aesthetics of Girls’ Culture in Japan traces the development of girls’ literature and, eventually, Shoujo manga from the end of the 19th century through the 1970’s, with particular attention to the girls’ magazines of the 1930’s, the Magnificent 49-ers and the birth of Shoujo, Josei and BL manga. Shamoon addresses Yoshiya Nobuko’s writing, but does not talk about “Yuri” as a genre. Nonetheless, anyone interested in the formative years of Yuri and its literary precedents may want to read this book. There is some definite value in here, and I promise to spend time on the good points, but before we get there, there are several major negatives with this text that I want to address, in ascending order of importance.

The first serious problem I encountered with Shamoon’s work is her tendency to dismiss all theories but her own, particularly if she can hold up a shield of a Japanese scholar’s work to support her theories. You might not see this as a problem, unless, like me, you have an issue with absoluteist thought.

At no point in time does Shamoon ever imagine that another interpretation – especially that of the audience which reads the work –  might be as valid as her own. Any suggestion, any filter other than her own is immediately dismissed, something that strikes me as…kind of ridiculous. When I am repeatedly cautioned to stop interpreting what I read through the filters that make up my life experience well, there’s really no polite response for that. Instead of acknowledging that other scholars have other interpretations, she brings them up only to wholly, completely, utterly dismiss them.

Whether I actually agree that girls’ literature revolves around a “culture of sameness” as Shamoon does, I would not here suggest that this is a terrible idea. Tween and teen girls culture is, largely, defined by the pressure to fit in. In that sense, I agree with her, but in the sense that Shamoon proposes her theory to define the illustrative style for early 20th century Japanese girls’ lit, I would say that she’s missing a major factor here. Which brings me to my second point.

It’s not until well past the first half of the book, into the chapter about Takahashi Makoto’s (Sakura Namiki) influence on Shoujo manga, that Shamoon acknowledges the literary and artistic constraint of commercial art. As a friend so succinctly put it, “Commercial art must sell.” Well yes, and Shamoon acknowledges this has an effect on Takahashi’s art. But she completely fails to acknowledge what every commercial artist knows…deadlines are brutal. There is not enough time in the world to get things done, so we create macros, templates, stencils, tones and other shortcuts. Some of the illustrations she chooses to make her “culture of sameness”  point could far more simply be explained as artistic stylings made sensible by deadlines. Anyone who reads manga knows that manga artists often begin with the same face or one of a few body types, then elaborates on instantly identifiable characteristics. Change hair and skin tone slightly and you have a new character (or the same character pretending to be differrent, as Sailor Moon fans all know.)

Which brings me to my third and most important point.

This is what my copy of the book looks like:

Thoughts

What you can’t really see is that I began making notes on these cute little sticky strips, then graduated to the small sticky pads, then the 3″x4″ size, then, in a moment of crisis switched to a 7″ note pad, entire pages of which were filled. I eventually moved back to the small stickies, but *a lot* of them.  And here’s why:

In Shamoon’s chapter on Yoshiya Nobuko’s work, she begins by “cautioning” us to not use the obvious filter of reality and allow Yoshiya’s actual life with an actual female partner to cause us to mistakenly interpret her work as in any way lesbian.  She then follows that eye-roller up with the conclusion that because Yoshiya does not write about a separatist vision of society, or exhort her readers (tween Japanese girls of the 1920s and 30’s,) to adopt a separatist vision of society, her works cannot be seen as feminist.

Let me refer back to my second point – commercial art must sell. Yoshiya was a female writer, living on her writing, in early 20th century Japan. Her work was subject to male editorial supervision and had to be approved by government censors. And even within the restrictions of writing stories that would sell to their target audience, on deadline, that would be approved of by male censors and editors, she wrote a novel in which two women chose to step away from society and make a life together (Yaneura no Nishojo), one in which a woman creates an alternative adoptive family for herself, after redeeming her reputation which has been smeared (Ban-sensei) and told tale after tale of young women growing up, some marrying, some not, but all finding their way into adult life (Hana Monogatari Volume 1, Volume 2.) Creating one’s own family outside the constraints of society is, IMHO, the very essence of feminism…the right for every woman to choose for herself what her love, her family…her life….will be. If we take off the incredibly narrow blinders Shamoon would have us wear, Yoshiya’s work is unremittingly feminist in nature.

I did say that there was value in this book. And there is. Shamoon’s more factual passages, historical discussions of girls’ literature, magazines and manga are exceptionally useful to a student of Yuri or BL. As a result of reading this book, I have recently concluded reading Otome no Minato, by Yasunari Kawabata (for which I have a posted a 2-part special review.) And I’ve added Ban-sensei to my to-read pile, because I can already see some great analogies with manga and anime series you’ll know in what appears to be a very Dickensian tale. So, yes, definitely worth the time it took me to read it. But I would have loved it, had Shammoon not been so intent on refuting all other scholars and insisting that Yoshiya could not be read as feminist (much less lesbian) because none of her books follow Straw Feminist doctrine.

Ratings:

Value as a Chronology – 8

Overall – 6





Love on the Edge of Admiration and Desire – Proto-Yuri Manga: Sakura Namiki (さくら並木)

January 17th, 2013

Everyone who pays attention to the historical context of manga and anime has at least some knowledge of the better-known periods of Japanese history. We know the Heian period for being the background to ever so many ghost/magic/supernatural tales. Of course the Edo period plays host to any number of samurai epics. The Meiji period was a time of intense upheaval and saw a rather abrupt “westernization” of Japan. The Taisho period was a time of economic growth and nationalism. Post-WWII Showa Japan is shown in a million fragmented ways, from emotional tales of war life to the most idealized (and deeply fetishized) backgrounds possible.

In the early 20th century, magazines for young women created a whole new feminine ideal. How to dress, act, what accomplishments were expected, all of these melded into a culture half focused on physical perfection and half on emotional well-being. Take a look at any rack of “women’s magazines” in America or Japan (and most other countries) you’ll still see the same pressure expressed through whatever is the fashion of the day.

In pre-war Japan, readers were introduced to idealized romance between girls in Yoshiya Nobuko’s works (Wasurenagusa, Yaneura no Nishojo, Hana Monogatari). Sakura Namiki (さくら並木) is a post-war look at the same themes. The book begins with art and design familiar to readers from the magazines they consumed. These artistic stills accompanied by narration were a direct descendant from Edo-period Ukiyo-e prints, especially those of the popular Utagawa artists. These prints, the pop culture of their time (which were, you might be interested to know, so popular that they were copied and sold illegally) often had a portrait image with accompanying text.

A child of  the post-war boom, Sakura Namiki is balanced deliciously between Ukiyo-e prints and modern manga, with both narrated stills and panels with dialogue.

We are told by the author, Takahashi Makoto, of the emotional trials and joys girls encounter at this particular private school. We are then introduced to our protagonists, Yukiko, first-year, her beloved onee-sama Chikage, a third-year and the conniving second-year Ayako, who gets between them. For a very excellent summary and discussion of the story, I’ll refer you to Katherine H’s post Marimite in the 50s. ^_^

I would like instead to talk about something else, as I so often do. ^_^ Today I am talking about the human ability to notice connections between things. (A habit that leads us to create connections where there are none. This is why conspiracy theories exist and remain powerful long after anyone who was affected is gone.)

Sakura Namiki is a tale instantly recognizable to any fan of Yuri. The hothouse environment of Akiko’s YWCA, Nagisa’s St. Miator, Yumi’s Lillian, Rie’s St. Azaria is once again explored in the guise of Sakuragaoka Girl’s Academy in, we are told, Osaka.

I’ve seen this setup so many times that it frankly had no effect on me at all this time. I remained wholly  unmoved until page 18 when we learn that Yukiko is currently in the middle of a sports match with Ayako. What a modern girl!

You know I’m always pining over the lack of sports Yuri. But if you’re a regular reader here, you know there is one recent sports Yuri manga…can you guess what sport?

Here’s today’s lecture punchline:

No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.

– John Donne, Meditation XVII

So there I am, with the one sports Yuri manga I know of sitting on top of the “to be reviewed” pile and I start to read Sakura Namiki. At which I realized that no Yuri manga is an island entire of itself, either. ^_^

Without Akiko, we would not have Yukiko. Without Yukiko we would not have Nagisa, or Yumi…or, well…click here  for the next chapter in this saga.

In the meantime, we can relax and be happy with the knowledge that Yukiko and Chikage move into the future together as so many young women have.

Sakura Namiki, by Takahashi Makoto is available as a deluxe edition, packaged with another shoujo manga from the 1950s by Takahashi. It’s currently available on  Amazon JP in limited quantities. If you can find it, it’s worth it for another island in the Yuri archipelago. ^_^

Overall – 8

Futher Reading: Prolegomena to the Study of Yuri, Part 1





Prolegomena to the Study of Yuri

September 2nd, 2012

(This article is not for reproduction. No portion of this article may be reproduced, in part or whole, without the express permission of the author. You are of course welcome to link to it, but if you want to quote chunks, please be so kind as to contact me first. Thanks.)

Introduction

Some time ago, I made an off-hand remark about 2011 being the beginning of the “Fourth Age” of Yuri in a post and immediately, some of you wanted to know what I meant by that. I spend a lot of time thinking about Yuri, obviously, and that got me thinking what, in fact, did I mean by that off-hand remark? Well, after pondering it for some time, I realize that it’s not as simple as saying any one date range equals “an era” of Yuri, but that there are definitely trends to be understood in the evolution of Yuri as a genre. Before we can understand what those trends are, or what they mean, we really need to be grounded in where they came from.

In my articles for Hooded Utilitarian, “40 Years of the Same Damn Story“ Part 1 and Part 2, I discuss some of the common tropes of Yuri, tracing them from their literary roots through to modern examples. Each one of these articles puts a pin in a moment in time, a single work of literature or art, that defined the tropes that grew from those works.

Yuri, the grandchild of Class ‘S’

To my mind, the moment when “Yuri” was born is the moment that Yoshiya Nobuko’s Yaneura no Nishojo was published. This story told a tale about a girl trying to understand the world she inhabited and her place in it. Akiko starts the story as a hesitant young lady, with dreams of grandeur, who finds herself slowly drawn into society precisely because she is isolated.  In the end of the book, no longer unsure, Akiko makes a decision to live her life the way she wants to – the kind of decision that was unheard of when the book was published. (This, despite the fact that the author of the book, Yoshiya herself, had made that same decision already and became successful because of her decision.) The social and political implications of this story are clear; women do not need to have their lives defined for them and two women are perfectly capable of making a life together without men – and of wanting that for themselves.

When we read Yuri now, we start from that perspective and it rarely occurs to us that there was ever a time in which that would be revolutionary thinking. We often find ourselves referring to the early 20th century “S” school of thought, without recognizing that it was not about lesbians in private schools (as the genre of literature it spawned might make one believe,) but a proto-Feminist movement brought about by newly imported ideas of wealth and leisure, and with them, freedom. Women who were part of the”S” movement ran into many of the same dynamics the American feminist movement of the 1970s encountered – some women felt that they simply wanted to have their contributions valued, others that only a  separatist society could ever be fair to women, while others wanted male privilege, or simply the right to have their own gender’s privilege. And, just as with the later American feminist movement, the inclusion of sexuality and gender in the mix caused a split between the straight women, who felt that political equality was more important that social liberalism and women who felt that there was no separation between the two. (See Voices from Japan, Eds. McLelland, Suganuma and Welker and Tales of the Lavender Menace by Karla Jay)

Now, nearly 100 years later, we look back at Akiko’s decision to leave Catholic school and live with Akitsu as a personal decision, one that any woman might make. It’s equally important to recognize that, at the time, it was a political decision. Even more importantly, a woman making a decision to step out of the traditional path assigned to a woman to make a life on her own, is effectively cutting herself off from her family and society. Every personal decision become political, as Carol Hanisch said, when the body politic states that that decision is not a viable alternative. (I have many times explained in conversation that, in Japan, taking a female lover and “being gay” are almost entirely unrelated things. To identify as gay, lesbian or any sexual minority in Japan is to take a political stance, much as the same was true for the members of the Mattachine Society or Daughters of Bilitis in the America of the 1950s. Saying “I am gay” in an apparently homogeneous society is to label one’s self as “other,” and “minority.” This is, in any society, a political act.)

As Hafl and I discussed in our review of Yaneura no Nishojo, this novel set up many of the tropes of what is now known the as Class S genre. These tropes will later be appropriated by male authors, but are arguably most effectively used by women who will write stories for girls and women later in the 20th century.

For those of us interested in Yuri, reading Yaneura no Nishojo gives a distinct impression of being witness to the birth of something great. And so, I start our chronology in 1920, with the publishing of this novel by Yoshiya Nobuko and I honor her as the grandmother of Yuri.





A Genre of One’s Own – Yuri Comes of Age

August 28th, 2012

Everyone who follows manga in Japan is familiar with the four demographic-based “genres” of Japanese manga – Shounen, Shoujo, Seinen and Josei, that is for boys, for girls, for men, for women. There are other demographic-based genres and subgenres that are less well-known; things like manga for children, and various subgenres of erotica/porn for both adult men and women, but those are four basic categories into which most manga is divided.

Western fans of Japanese manga tend to be of the opinion that these demographics serve no real function when it comes to the western market. So what if Death Note is “for boys” when clearly, loads of girls love it? Or so what if Hetalia is “for girls,” when all the smart guys know cosplaying as /fillinyourfavecharacter/ will make them instantly hot? ^_^

My argument for the understanding of these demographically aligned genres is merely as a gateway to one’s own personal enlightenment. In a story that is in every other way sexless, like One Piece, it just makes sense to understand that the audience is still presumed to be teen, male and…well, let’s be honest, horny. Hence Nami and Robin’s inexplicably ever-largening breasts. It’s a Shounen series. QED. It sounds aggressively ignorant to my ears when people hate an element of a manga that is a common trope of the demographic/genre for which that manga is written. Often the answer to these kind of complaints is “it’s a manga for girls, that’s why.” Or, “it’s a manga for men, that’s why.” That *is* the answer, whether you like that or not. Each of these demographic/genres has specific tropes of its own, just as scifi in America has specific tropes, or action, or mystery, or romance.

In recent years there has been a slow growth of a fifth “genre” – manga for people who like manga. Jokingly, we refer to this around here as the Fifth Column of manga and I’ve written about it at length elsewhere. The most interesting thing about this fifth “genre” is that it is largely genre-less. Manga Erotics F is as likely to appeal to an adult woman as it is to an adult man. This is so breathtakingly different in Japan that it’s really worth mentioning. The Japanese Magazine Publishers Association puts out sales numbers for manga magazines…all of which are categorized into those four demographic categories. There is no “Other” category. Publishers there are still thinking inside this box. So it’s important when something, anything, breaks through the wall of this self-imposed limitation.

Okay, so it’s pretty well known that BL/Yaoi is a subset of Shoujo and Josei. But there’s enough of it – and the tropes of the genre have become so ingrained (and in fact have a nickname – the Royal Road) – that it warrants its own section in Japanese manga stores. Nonetheless, it’s still “for females” and so far, nothing that BL has done has changed that. I’d love to see this shift…I think there’s some room for growth there, but a lot of things have to happen before we’ll see any movement in that area.

Well, okay, BL is “for females,” so GL is “for males,” right? And here is where Yuri is and always has been the dark horse, the red-headed child of manga. Because the answer is…no, not really. Let’s turn to the history of Yuri briefly. Conceived in the 1920s as part of ‘S’ class literature, what we now call Yuri was mostly drawn and written by women. There are early proto-Yuri ‘S’ manga as far back as the 60’s, manga that exposed the intense platonic love of girls – the same exact kind of thing that made Maria-sama ga Miteru so popular. These were manga meant for girls. By my reckoning, the first truly Yuri manga is Shiroi Heya no Futari, also a Shoujo manga, published in the early 70s.  Yuri was not, of course a genre name then, although lillies as visual imagery was already common.

Of course lesbian porn manga for guys existed. Frankly, I think that has about as much to do with Yuri as Playboy magazine has to do with literature and art. ^_^ In the 70s, Yuri was primarily a feature in girls’ manga. After Sailor Moon in the 1990s we started to see more and more manga/anime-based lesbian porn. In the way of such things, this was when the term “Yuri” started to become more commonly used and, in the way of such things, the things men did completely overwrote the things women did. Yuri now equaled explicit lesbian porn….even if it didn’t.

The 2000s saw the birth of Yuri as a sub-genre. Sure, Maria-sama ga Miteru was an insanely popular girl’s Light Novel series, but Kannazuki no Miko was an insanely popular anime series based on a comic for men that used Yuri as a fetish…Yuri was firmly fixed as a subset of Seinen. Yuri was for men…women need not apply. Girls could read love between girls in girl’s manga, but that wasn’t “Yuri.”

In the 2000s, there were warring factions, Yuri for men had the “Girls Keep Out” sign affixed on their door, the Yuri is for anyone faction lived at Yuricon. (We still do.  Heck, the party has barely started!) A third party – women drawing women in love for other women were quietly changing the world in Japan, but no one noticed for a long time, and then it was like, “Yeah, we’ve been here all along.” ^_^

The 2010s have born Yuricon out. Yuri is drawn by and for men and women. If I ask you to name your top three Yuri artists, you’re just as likely to come up with male or female names.

But this isn’t the end of this story, it’s really just the beginning. Shoujo, Shounen, Josei and Seinen each have specific tropes associated with them. And, as Yuri moved into each of these demographic/genres, it took on some of those tropes. The boyish hottie from Shoujo, the sexy femme fatale from Shounen, the young professional woman from Josei, the badass from Seinen and the hyper cute girl from all of them…Yuri now includes all these things side by side.

JManga today listed Yuri as a separate genre page. Shounen, Shoujo, Josei, Seinen, BL…Yuri.

What does this mean for us? It means that finally, freed of being associated with any one specific demographic, one set of tropes, one audience, Yuri stands on its own, with its own styles and messages.

Yuri is the very first genre that belongs to everyone.

How fucking awesome is that? ^_^