Abstract
Asia was an untouchable arena for many mangakas of shōjo manga in the 1970s, said Keiko Takemiya, one of the leading mangakas who led shōjo manga at that time. Shōjo manga seems to have maintained the farthest distance among other genres of manga from the concept of Asia—even now, owing to its appearance, which is often called the shōjo manga style. Although the narrative portrays Asia, it just betrays its setting by making every ideal character Western with long legs, round eyes, and blond curly hair. However, it is also true that the number of works dealing with Asia has increased and now there are many works considered as masterpieces in the history of shōjo manga. As Gayatori C. Spivak remarks, Asia is not a place, yet the name is laden with history and cultural politics that it cannot produce a naturalized homogeneous “identity.” This chapter will explore Asian images that shōjo manga has historically employed as a genre, considering how they exclude and include Asia with the concept of the global and the local.
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Notes
- 1.
- 2.
- 3.
Spivak (2009: 137).
- 4.
- 5.
Ogi (2004).
- 6.
Translated titles are shown in square brackets. Officially translated titles in English are shown in italics. Other translations are mine.
- 7.
Tezuka (1979: 188).
- 8.
Since its debut performance in 1914, the Takarazuka Revue, an all-female musical theater in the city of Takarazuka, in Hyōgo prefecture, has played one of the most popular and important roles in Japanese culture for women.
- 9.
- 10.
In 1899, the Japanese government made a law, Kōtō jogakkō rei, that encouraged female students to continue on to higher education after elementary school.
- 11.
- 12.
Ogi (2004: 526).
- 13.
In 1963, two major weekly shōjo magazines changed their titles and became shōjo manga magazines. Shōjo Book (by Shueisha since 1951) took the new title of Weekly Margaret. Shōjo Club (by Kodansha since 1923) became Weekly Shōjo Friend.
- 14.
Miyadai (2010: 73–91).
- 15.
Ogi (2004: 535–536).
- 16.
Ogi (2010: 133). For example, among all 48 covers of Shōjo Comic, a shōjo manga magazine by Shogakukan, in the year 1976, 21 had a character with blond hair, 24 had a character with brown hair, and no cover had a character with black hair.
- 17.
Cf. Ogi (2010: 121). The contrast of hair color between black and white often expresses each shōjo’s character and sentiment rather than her ethnic identity. For example, in Garasu no kamen [Glass Mask] (1976–present, Hakusensha) the heroine, who is not beautiful and is born into a poor family, wears a black hairstyle, while her rival, born into a rich family, wears white long hair with gorgeous curls and her hairstyle lets readers imagine her nobleness like a Western princess. Both girls are Japanese.
- 18.
The first socially noted event for women’s liberation in Japan was a woman-only anti-war demonstration in October 1970 (Inoue et al. 2006: 134).
- 19.
Takahashi, Macoto, interview, 2013.3.20.
- 20.
The Global Gender Gap Report 2017. According to The Global Gender Gap Report 2013, Japan was ranked 105th.
- 21.
Matsui (1989).
- 22.
Matsui (2003: 73).
- 23.
- 24.
The following are examples of shōjo manga regarded as masterpieces by young female authors in the 1970s: Tomoko Naka’s Hana no bijyohime [Beautiful Princesses in Full Bloom] (1974–1976) presents twin brothers who come from France to Japan. They are admired as “Beautiful Princesses” for their beauty from their surroundings in the story; Waki Yamato’sHaikara san ga tōru [Miss Modern] (1975–1977) focuses on young women’s lives from their teens to their twenties in the Taisho period (1912–1926) when Japanese women began to be interested in human rights, including suffrage; Toshie Kihara’s Mari to Shingo [Mari and Shingo] (1977–1984) centers on friendship among male students in pre-war Japan; Machiko Satonaka’sAsunaro zaka (1977–1980) portrays a woman’s life of upheaval from her girlhood in the Meiji period to her death right after the Pacific War.
- 25.
In the opera, a Japanese woman named Cio-Cio-San is waiting for her lover Pinkerton’s return from the US. After she learns that he is bringing his American wife, and will not come back to her, she sends their son to the US and commits suicide.
- 26.
In the examples of note 22, the twin brothers in Naka’s Hana no bijohime have a grandfather who was born in the nobility in France, while their grandmother was Japanese; in Yamato’s Haikara san ga tōru, the mother of the heroine’s future husband is German; in Kihara’s Mari to Shingo (1977–1984), Mari, one of the main characters, has a German mother, too; in Satonaka’sAsunaro zaka, the heroine’s granddaughter finds a Russian orphan, who becomes one of main characters of the story in the end.
- 27.
In 1979, BE•LOVE was published as a special issue for manga of Weekly Young Lady. Weekly Young Lady was a women’s magazine started in 1963. In 1980 when the new manga magazine for women started, its name changed into BE IN LOVE and it was monthly. In 1982, it began to be published every two weeks and the name became BE•LOVE.
- 28.
The Research Institute for Publications (1999: 226).
- 29.
Fujita (2008: 52–53).
- 30.
Hong Kong Working Girl was serialized in Monthly Young Rose (Kadokawa shoten) from 1995 to 1996. “Working Girl” in the title does not have any connotation to or image related to comfort women.
- 31.
Emma was serialized in Comic Beam, a monthly magazine for comics published by ENTERBRAIN.
- 32.
A Bride’s Story has been serialized in Fellows!, which became Harta in 2013, by ENTERBRAIN since 2008. Vol. 1 of A Bride’s Story was published by HARTA COMIX of ENTERBRAIN in 2009. In 2013, HARTA COMIX changed into BEAM COMIX and KADOKAWA took over ENTERBRAIN.
- 33.
This work was serialized in three magazines by Kodansha: One More Kiss, Kiss, and Kiss Plus. The final episode appeared in Kiss Plus January 2013, which was published on December 8, 2012.
- 34.
Cf. Iwabuchi (2002: 24–28). Iwabuchi’s argument for mukokuseki, cultural odorlessness of Japanese cultural products such as animation and computer games that promoted their globalization, inspired our project to find diverse cultural odors that have developed locally after the globalization.
- 35.
Ace Vitangcol, interview, 2013.7.6.
- 36.
Ace Vitangcol, interview via e-mail, 2014.2.5 and 2014.2.15.
- 37.
Shiraishi (2013: 158).
- 38.
See note 22. This manga, adapted into several anime and live action films since its publication, was turned into an animated film again in 2017: http://haikarasan.net
- 39.
Azisa Noor, interview via e-mails, 2013.9.19.
- 40.
Larasati (2011: 134–142).
- 41.
These artists contributed to Nanny (Bandung: Curhat Anak Bangsa, 2011) and Liquid City (3 vols., Image Comics, 2008–2014). Both are anthologies of Southeast Asian artists. The second volume of Liquid City was nominated for the Eisner Award in 2011.
- 42.
Lee and Iwanaga (2016: 3 and 6).
- 43.
Foo Swee Chin, interview via e-mails, 2013.9.20.
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Ogi, F. (2019). How Women’s Manga Has Performed the Image of ASIAs, Globally and Locally. In: Ogi, F., Suter, R., Nagaike, K., Lent, J.A. (eds) Women’s Manga in Asia and Beyond. Palgrave Studies in Comics and Graphic Novels. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-97229-9_7
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