Genderbent: From Seiko Time to the Wandering Son

After watching Lovely Complex episodes 4 & 5, fellow otaki-in-arms causeiambetta was bothered by Otani's easy acceptance of Seiko's homosexual crush and cross dressing. I explained to him that cross dressing and gay relationships are accepted staples in shoujo manga. The rank 800 pound gorillas lurking in the background are shounen ai [1] and yaoi [2]. Lovely Complex is published in the shoujo anthology Best Margaret and can expect its audience to accept the conventions set in other shoujo publications, even if the story is not primarily shounen ai.

One only needs to look through the science fiction and fantasy section at a bookstore to see other examples of the unusual becoming convention. Dennis McKeirnan's LoTR clones and Dungeons and Dragons fiction followed in Tolkein's footsteps and made human-like elves and dwarves staples of swords and sorcery stories. Rice's "Interview with a Vampire" and Vampire: the Masquerade helped to push a shift from eternally damned monsters ("Dracula" and "Salem's Lot") to suavely sexy immortals.

A bit of digging unearthed an article by post-doc Mark McLelland from around 2000. [3] Most yaoi manga are fantasies made by women for women. At one gay film festival, about 8 out the 10 audience were women. The reasoning is simple, shounen ai create fewer female characters to clutter the eye candy.

The manga series "Hana Kimi" and "W Juliet" feature protagonists in drag. "Hana Kimi" features a girl infiltrating a girl's school, while "W Juliet" has a guy going the other way. Old school manga "Here is Greenwood" takes place at a boy's school and features shounen ai relations. Even the kiddy series Cardcaptor Sakura has BL elements between the heroine Sakura's older brother and his best friend. Her grade school rival Li also has a boy crush on Yukito.

The pretty boy potential for slash fics in "Fruits Baskets", "Prince of Tennis", and even Gundam Wing cannot be ignored. The last two aren't shoujo, but intentionally or incidentally drew some of the shoujo fanbase.

Shounen ai is a prevalent theme in girl's comics. It also appears in some non-girls comics as a nod to the fans. The accepted convention is that gayness is accepted or, if it is not, it should be. Since these are fantasies for non-homosexuals, the eye candy is played up, while the challenges of being in an often reviled minority are played down or all together ignored. McLelland wrote:

"An article in the American gay magazine The Advocate (February 4, 1997, p. 66) discusses the 'gay' relationship between Ranmaru and Enjoji portrayed in the Japanese animation Kizuna based on a manga by the female artist Kazuma Kodaka. The review is dismissive of the plot, stating that 'never once is their gayness questioned or explained'."

McLelland then tries to defend the omission of the gender identity issues.

"However, it should be remembered that YAOI is not written by or for gay men and should not be criticised for failing to represent their concerns accurately."

I disagree. Try this quick thought experiment. Substitute gay with blacks. Imagine if a sub-genre of gangster rap and hip-hop were entirely produced and made by non-blacks for a largely white suburban audience. Gangster rap IS largely consumed in the the white suburbs, and I think that's strange and crosses the line into soft exploitation. [4]

I also believe that it is possible for a non-gay to write a sincere story with homosexual themes. Otherwise, we could automatically dismiss the opera "Porgy and Bess" consign Tennessee William's "Streetcar Named Desire" to the rubbish bin. Nor does every story that features gays need to relentlessly hammer home the gender identity struggle. The strangeness lies in the pervasiveness of homosexual depictions with nary a gay reader in sight. [5]

The other factor that cannot be ignored is the Lowest Common Denominator or MTV factor. Metrosexual fashion, "Real Life" unreality, and shounen ai manga are inundating young minds with a usually neutral to positive image of homosexuals as opposed to vilification. The effects of these depictions should be evaluated for what they are worth. My stance is read it if you like, but recognize the fantasy for what it is.

Shuuichi getting his temperature taken by his mother in "Houro Musuko". The author brings the reader close enough to feel the characters' body warmth.

On the flip side of shoujo convention is "Houro Musuko" by Shimura Takako . [6] The story follows a 5th grade boy Shuuichi Nitori, who transfers to a new school. The quiet and feminine Nitori meets a tomboy name Takatsuki. Takatsuki wants to be a boy badly enough to dress up in her brother's castoff middle-school uniform and eventually gets Nitori to come out with her in her sister's old sailor uniform.

The pair ventures into town in drag. A comradery develops between Nitori and Takatsuki and the others who share their secret. The story goes far beyond dressing up and delves into their complex feelings and the condemnation of their classmates. The Kotonoha team is up to volume 3 chapter 20 and the ring of secrecy and safety around Nitori has been broken, driving a hard wedge between Nitori and his best friend. The pain and tears are palpable.

A less warm moment between Shuuichi and his sister Mahou. (right to left)

Shimura breaths life into her distinct cast. Nitori's sister Mahou has a fantastically defective personality. His friend Saori has the potential of becoming as crazy and charismatic as Kashiwa-sempai from "Welcome to NHK". The mangaka give the characters' families important roles. If there's one genderbent work that you read, make this it. [7]

[1] Shounen = boy, ai = love. Shounen ai is also called boy love or BL. This is the softer side of the genre. Yaoi is the harder stuff. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yaoi#Yaoi_vs._BL

[2] forum writers for the Naruto fansite www.tokehgecko.com invented the term Yaoimaru as a dark presence that infects fanfiction.net and other websites. I thought the idea was hilarious until I heard read about Harry Potter slash fics in the Boston Globe.

[3] McLelland, Mark. "Why are Japanese Girls' Comics full of Boys Bonking?" http://web.archive.org/web/20050401090315/http://www.cult-media.com/issue1/CMRmcle.htm

[4] In the movie "The Office", there is a scene of geeks destroying a fax machine to hard core gangster rap. It's kind of like that.

[5] Blogger disclosure: I suppose that I might sound stridently pro-gay rights in this article. I'm actually not, frankly I believe that there are a lot more important issues to be dealt with in the political arena at this juncture. However, I want to clarify what I think about this genre.

[6] scanalated by Kotonoha, which fan translates some great stuff. Houro Musuko can be translated as Wandering Son. http://kotonoha.monkey-pirate.com/ongoing-series/hourou-musuko/

[7] As an aside, I think that Kano Yashuhiro's "Pretty Face" is second. It has a dumb-as-dirt premise with a dumber-than-dirt hero, but manages to pull off the mess with heart. This manga is better and funnier than it has any right to be.