Abstract
This chapter demonstrates how shōjo manga has had a strong cultural impact on recent generations of pop culture fans in North America. Since the 1990s, fan production has nourished diverse interests in Japanese cultural products, which have in turn exerted a strong influence on mainstream geek media. Using American artist M. Alice LeGrow’s graphic novel series Bizenghast and Cartoon Network’s animated series Steven Universe as focal points, this chapter argues that contemporary American entertainment media has been shaped both by the visual styles and narrative tropes of shōjo manga and by the creative production of transnational fandom communities.
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Notes
- 1.
Ed Chavez, “Do You Think Anime/Manga Entertainment Is Getting Ever More Niche as Time Passes in the West?” Ask.fm post, January 18, 2015. https://ask.fm/VerticalComics_Ed/answers/123069851704
- 2.
Johanna Carlson, “Has Manga Become a Niche Category?” in Comics Worth Reading, January 23, 2015. https://comicsworthreading.com/2015/01/23/has-manga-become-a-niche-category/
- 3.
Mikikazu Komatsu, “Japan’s 2014 Manga Sales Up 1% from the Previous Year.” Crunchyroll, January 27, 2015. https://www.crunchyroll.com/anime-news/2015/01/26-1/japans-2014-manga-sales-up-1-from-the-previous-year
- 4.
Annie N. Mouse, “Invisible Women: Why Marvel’s Gamora & Black Widow Were Missing from Merchandise, and What We Can Do about It.” The Mary Sue, April 7, 2015. https://www.themarysue.com/invisible-women/
- 5.
Deborah Shamoon, Passionate Friendship: The Aesthetic of Girls’ Culture in Japan (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2012), 82.
- 6.
Horn, “Clamp: Swords and Sorcery – Shojo Style!”
- 7.
ICv2, “Two Million ‘Fruits Baskets’: Tokyopop’s All-Time Best-Seller,” ICv2, December 6, 2006. https://icv2.com/articles/comics/view/9724/two-million-fruits-baskets
- 8.
Nia Howe-Smith, “‘Steven Universe’ Creator on Growing Up, Gender Politics, Her Brother.” Entertainment Weekly, June 15, 2015. https://ew.com/article/2015/06/15/steven-universe-creator-growing-gender-politics-her-brother/
- 9.
Adam Arnold, “Full Circle: The Unofficial History of MixxZine,” Animefringe Online Magazine, June 2000. http://www.animefringe.com/magazine/00.06/feature/1/index.php3
- 10.
The website Animecons.com hosts a constantly updated list of all anime conventions held in the United States. The archived page for 2014 can be found at: https://animecons.com/events/schedule.php?loc=us&year=2014
- 11.
Animecons.com also hosts a list of all fan conventions related to anime and manga held anywhere in the world, beginning in 1975. The first listings for conventions in North America are on the “1983” page, which can be found at https://animecons.com/events/schedule.php?year=1983
- 12.
Amo, “Anime Expo 2016 Shatters Record with Over 100,000 in Attendance.”
- 13.
This description was taken from the “About Us” page on the organization’s website, which can be found here: https://www.spja.org/AboutUs
- 14.
Although LeGrow no longer updates her account on DeviantArt, it exists as an archive, which can be found at http://sadwonderland.deviantart.com
- 15.
Casey Brienza, Manga in America: Transnational Book Publishing and the Domestication of Japanese Comics (New York: Bloomsbury, 2016), 62.
- 16.
Chris McDonnell, Adventure Time: The Art of Ooo (New York: Abrams, 2014).
- 17.
Elizabeth Minkel, “Harry Potter Isn’t Over, But What Happens When a Fandom Grows Up?” in New Statesman, August 21, 2015. https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/2015/08/harry-potter-isn-t-over-what-happens-when-fandom-grows
- 18.
John Jurgensen, “Rewriting the Rules of Fiction.” The Shoebox Project is archived at: http://shoebox.lomara.org/
- 19.
Minkel, “Harry Potter Isn’t Over.”
- 20.
Kaitlyn Tiffany, “When Tumblr Bans Porn, Who Loses?” in Vox, December 4, 2018. https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2018/12/4/18126112/tumblr-porn-ban-verizon-ad-goals-sex-work-fandom
- 21.
Lillian Min, “The Strange Story of How Internet Superfans Reclaimed the Insult ‘Trash’,” Splinter, May 19, 2016. https://splinternews.com/the-strange-story-of-how-internet-superfans-reclaimed-t-1793856895
- 22.
Michal Daliot-Bul and Nissim Otmazgin, The Anime Boom in the United States: Lessons for Global Creative Industries (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Asia Center, 2017), 21.
- 23.
Martin, “Future of ‘Anime’ Industry in Doubt.”
- 24.
Yusuke Kato, “Weekly Shonen Jump: In Grip of Midlife Crisis, or Still a Big Draw?” in The Asahi Shimbun, August 15, 2018. http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ201808150008.html
- 25.
Kohki Watabe and Yasuhito Abe, “Pixiv as a Contested Online Artistic Space In-between Gift and Commercial Economies in an Age of Participatory Culture.” ejcjs: Electronic Journal of Contemporary Japanese Studies 16, no. 3 (2016). http://www.japanesestudies.org.uk/ejcjs/vol16/iss3/watabe.html
- 26.
Nele Noppe, “Social Networking Services as Platforms for Transcultural Fannish Interactions: deviantART and Pixiv,” in Manga’s Cultural Crossroads, ed. Jaqueline Berndt and Bettina Kümmerling-Meibauer (New York: Routledge, 2013).
- 27.
Kabi Nagata, My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness, trans. Jocelyne Allen (Los Angeles: Seven Seas Entertainment, 2017), 127.
- 28.
These imprints include Frontier Works’s Liluct Comics imprint and Tokuma Shoten’s Zenon Webcomics imprint. Other established manga publishers, such as Kodansha and Kadokawa, do not have separate imprints but use the same 5 × 8 cm format for comics originally posted on Twitter.
- 29.
Paul Booth, Digital Fandom, 8.
- 30.
Kristina Busse, “Fan Labor and Feminism: Capitalizing on the Fannish Labor of Love,” SCMS Cinema Journal 54, no. 3 (2015): 111.
References
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Arnold, Adam. 2000. Full Circle: The Unofficial History of MixxZine. Animefringe Online Magazine, June. http://www.animefringe.com/magazine/00.06/feature/1/index.php3
Booth, Paul. 2017. Digital Fandom 2.0: New Media Studies. New York: Peter Lang.
Brienza, Casey. 2016. Manga in America: Transnational Book Publishing and the Domestication of Japanese Comics. New York: Bloomsbury.
Busse, Kristina. 2015. Fan Labor and Feminism: Capitalizing on the Fannish Labor of Love. SCMS Cinema Journal 54 (3): 110–115.
Carlson, Johanna Draper. 2015. Has Manga Become a Niche Category? Comics Worth Reading, January 23. https://comicsworthreading.com/2015/01/23/has-manga-become-a-niche-category/
Chavez, Ed. 2015. Do You Think Anime/Manga Entertainment Is Getting Ever More Niche as Time Passes in the West? Ask.fm post, January 18. https://ask.fm/VerticalComics_Ed/answers/123069851704
Daliot-Bul, Michal, and Nissim Otmazgin. 2017. The Anime Boom in the United States: Lessons for Global Creative Industries. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center.
Horn, Carl. 2011. Swords and Sorcery – Shojo Style! Dark Horse Blog, June 23. http://www.darkhorse.com/Blog/465/swords-and-sorceryshojo-style-carl-horn
Howe-Smith, Nia. 2015. ‘Steven Universe’ Creator on Growing Up, Gender Politics, Her Brother. Entertainment Weekly, June 15. https://ew.com/article/2015/06/15/steven-universe-creator-growing-gender-politics-her-brother/
ICv2. 2006. Two Million ‘Fruits Baskets’: Tokyopop’s All-Time Best-Seller. ICv2, December 6. https://icv2.com/articles/comics/view/9724/two-million-fruits-baskets
Jurgensen, John. 2006. Rewriting the Rules of Fiction. The Wall Street Journal, September 16. https://web.archive.org/web/20070705224847/http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB115836001321164886-GZsZGW_ngbeAjqwMADJDX2w0frg_20070916.html
Kato, Yusuke. 2018. Weekly Shonen Jump: In Grip of Midlife Crisis, Or Still a Big Draw? The Asahi Shimbun, August 15. http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ201808150008.html
Komatsu, Mikikazu. 2015. Japan’s 2014 Manga Sales Up 1% from the Previous Year. Crunchyroll, January 27. https://www.crunchyroll.com/anime-news/2015/01/26-1/japans-2014-manga-sales-up-1-from-the-previous-year
Martin, Alex. 2009. Future of ‘Anime’ Industry in Doubt. The Japan Times, March 4. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2009/03/04/national/future-of-anime-industry-in-doubt/#.XEYW1817k2w
McDonnell, Chris. 2014. Adventure Time: The Art of Ooo. New York: Abrams.
Min, Lilian. 2016. The Strange Story of How Internet Superfans Reclaimed the Insult ‘Trash’. Splinter, May 19. https://splinternews.com/the-strange-story-of-how-internet-superfans-reclaimed-t-1793856895
Minkel, Elizabeth. 2015. Harry Potter Isn’t Over, But What Happens When a Fandom Grows Up? New Statesman, August 21. https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/2015/08/harry-potter-isn-t-over-what-happens-when-fandom-grows
Mouse, Annie N. 2015. Invisible Women: Why Marvel’s Gamora & Black Widow Were Missing from Merchandise, and What We Can Do About It. The Mary Sue, April 7. https://www.themarysue.com/invisible-women/
Nagata, Kabi. 2017. My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness. Trans. Jocelyne Allen. Los Angeles: Seven Seas Entertainment.
Noppe, Nele. 2013. Social Networking Services as Platforms for Transcultural Fannish Interactions: deviantART and Pixiv. In Manga’s Cultural Crossroads, ed. Jaqueline Berndt and Bettina Kümmerling-Meibauer, 141–157. New York: Routledge.
Shamoon, Deborah. 2012. Passionate Friendship: The Aesthetic of Girls’ Culture in Japan. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press.
Tiffany, Kaitlyn. 2018. When Tumblr Bans Porn, Who Loses? Vox, December 4. https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2018/12/4/18126112/tumblr-porn-ban-verizon-ad-goals-sex-work-fandom
Watabe, Kohki and Yasuhito Abe. 2016. Pixiv as a Contested Online Artistic Space in-between Gift and Commercial Economies in an Age of Participatory Culture. ejcjs: Electronic Journal of Contemporary Japanese Studies 16 (3). http://www.japanesestudies.org.uk/ejcjs/vol16/iss3/watabe.htm
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Hemmann, K. (2020). The Cultural Cross-Pollination of Shōjo Manga. In: Manga Cultures and the Female Gaze. East Asian Popular Culture. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-18095-9_7
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