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Doing Manga as Leisure and Its Meaning and Purpose: The Case of Japanese Female Manga Fans Called Fujoshi

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Global Leisure and the Struggle for a Better World

Part of the book series: Leisure Studies in a Global Era ((LSGE))

Abstract

Fujoshi refers to female comics (manga) and related products such as animation (anime) fans who enjoy works that feature male homosexual relationships. What they consume are predominantly parodies of works in which, originally, male homosocial bonds were depicted. Fujoshi re-read these original works and replace homosocial bonds with homosexual ones, making parodies so that they can develop fantasies of male-male relationships that as females they can never experience in reality. This chapter examines the meaning and purpose of this unique type of leisure activity, which is experienced in Japan and other Asian countries today. By analyzing data collected through interviews with seven fujoshi women, we identify aspects of manga that makes them feel satisfied, fulfilled or happy in their activities, and we present contradictory findings, namely, the significant contribution of this type of leisure activity to the enhancement of quality of life of people engaged with these activities. At the same time, we consider the existence of tensions in the process of differentiation among these people as well as between them and others outside their communities. This chapter addresses the importance of sociological perspectives on the social differences within a fan community, even if such a community offers space to its members for mutual exchange, learning, understanding and respect.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Tokyo Big Sight, n.d., History, viewed March 4, 2017. http://www.bigsight.jp/topics/history.pdf

  2. 2.

    The Official Comic Market Site n.d., Chronology of Comic Market, Comiket, viewed March 4, 2017, http://www.comiket.co.jp/archives/Chronology.html

  3. 3.

    Dōjin is often spelled as doujin in English language materials.

  4. 4.

    In Japan, books and magazines are typically sold by publishers via distributors to bookstores. This is still the only formal way of selling printed media, though the emergence of Internet bookstores such as Amazon affects this established distribution system and the relative power of distributors.

  5. 5.

    In 2004, the Nomura Research Institute revealed major findings of their research about an otaku market in Japan, explaining the market has 2.8 million consumers and worth 2900billion yen. See Nomura Research Institute (2004).

  6. 6.

    It was 202.5 billion yen in 2015, which is about 1.75 billion USD. See Media Development Research Institute, Inc. (MDRI)’s Press Release on the animation market of 2015, published December 16, 2016, http://www.mdri.co.jp/review/data/2015anime.pdf (accessed November 3, 2017)

  7. 7.

    According to a monthly report published by Zenkoku shuppan kyōkai/ Shuppan kagaku kenkyūjo (2017), digital comics accounted for 32.8 percent, digital comics magazines 0.7 percent, printed comics 43.7 percent, printed comics magazines 22.8 percent. Digitalization of media makes difficult the increase of sales of printed media, including comics, but manga as printed media appears to remain important, at least so far.

  8. 8.

    According to Kaneda (2007, p. 165), some 50,000 to 60,000 dōjin, or amateur artists, exist, and about 70 percent of them are women. Most of these women can be regarded as fujoshi.

  9. 9.

    We conducted semi-structured interviews with seven fujoshi in November 2013 and February 2014 in Tokyo and conducted a qualitative content analysis of the interview data. Our informants were seven heterosexual women aged from 20 to 32, who resided in the Tokyo metropolitan area. We approached them either directly or through mutual acquaintances, and they agreed to cooperate with our study. We made their names anonymous in this article. Regarding fujoshi’s sexual orientation, it is important to note that not all fujoshi are heterosexual women. However, little academic research exists elaborating sexual differences among fujoshi. Though not a systematic, empirical analysis, Mizoguchi (2015) briefly discusses a lesbian way of enjoying Boys Love, drawing on her personal experience.

  10. 10.

    As Hori (2009, p. 118) states, a majority of participants at Comic Market, both sellers and buyers, are women, yet, media reports usually cover male fans. According to Murase (2003, pp. 138–139), one reason for this is that female otaku (manga and anime nerds) were so despised that they were pushed away from media discourses. This has been exacerbated by the stealth identify shared by most fujoshi in Japan.

  11. 11.

    Today, JUNE is published as a DVD manga magazine by JUNET. Its official homepage is at http://www.june-net.com.

  12. 12.

    For example, Saint Seiya (1986–1996) was also popular for parody production, but this was a manga about action or combat, not men’s sports.

  13. 13.

    This episode, broadcast on May 19, 2007, was titled ‘Datte suki nandamon! Fujoshi datte koi wo suruだって好きなんだもん!~”腐女子”だって恋をする~’. It featured female junior high school students who are fujoshi as main characters. One of these girls worries about losing her love because of her fujoshi identity.

  14. 14.

    Though shōnen manga are produced for young male audience, their audiences include young and adults, both male and female. Also, recently, an increasing number of female artists publish their works in shōnen manga magazines. In contrast, not many men read girls manga. See Ishii et al. (2009).

  15. 15.

    For example, ONE PIECE, one of today’s most popular shōnen manga, includes a male homosexual character. He is highly trivialized as being passive, cowardly, weak, not good looking. He even despises himself as a ‘faggot’ (okama). See Sawada et al. (2017).

  16. 16.

    Some even see this reading as a kind of women’s ‘revenge’ against men. See Nimiya (1995).

  17. 17.

    More recently, some fujoshi enjoy role switching, which they call ‘riva’ (reverse or reversible). This is, however, rather a new trend.

  18. 18.

    As far as the authors are informed, stealth identity may not be not so important for fujoshi in other countries.

  19. 19.

    More recently, it has been observed that some fujoshi even in Japan do not share such stigmatization. This needs to be examined in future research.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Information and Communication, Meiji University, Tokyo, Japan

    Hiromi Tanaka

  2. Gender Center, School of Information and Communication, Meiji University, Tokyo, Japan

    Saori Ishida

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  1. Hiromi Tanaka
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  2. Saori Ishida
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Government Meera Girls College, Rajasthan, India

    Anju Beniwal

  2. Department of Sociology, University of Rajasthan, Jaipur, India

    Rashmi Jain

  3. School of Film, Music & Performing Arts, Leeds Beckett University, Leeds, United Kingdom

    Karl Spracklen

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Tanaka, H., Ishida, S. (2018). Doing Manga as Leisure and Its Meaning and Purpose: The Case of Japanese Female Manga Fans Called Fujoshi . In: Beniwal, A., Jain, R., Spracklen, K. (eds) Global Leisure and the Struggle for a Better World. Leisure Studies in a Global Era. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-70975-8_10

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-70975-8_10

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