Chapter twelve. A Series of Ugly Feelings: Fabulation & Abjection in Shōjo Manga

2020 ◽  
pp. 268-290
Keyword(s):  
Shojo Manga

scholarly journals Japanese Concepts of Angels: Analyzing Depictions of Celestial Beings in the shōjo Manga Kamikaze Kaitō Jeanne

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Dunja Sharbat Dar
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
The Other ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
Cultural Perspectives ◽  
Christian Religion ◽  
Hermeneutic Approach ◽  
Shojo Manga ◽  
Insight Into

White wings, long hair, 'pure' faces: the appearance of angels frequently follows similar aesthetics connected to Christian imagery. Angels and Christian religion also are popular themes in manga, Japanese comics, often intermingled with Buddhist or Shinto notions. Since imagery in popular culture resonates and shapes vernacular and cultural perspectives, manga like Kamikaze Kaitō Jeanne (KKJ) provide an important insight into the conceptualization of angels in Japan. This article therefore analyzes the contrary role of angels in KKJ as the Other, the mysterious, serene one, while simultaneously angels are depicted as part of the circle of life every creature undergoes in Buddhist cosmology. Based on a visual hermeneutic approach, this article demonstrates how the intermix of both visual and religious traditions in Japan shape the depiction of angels in Japanese popcultural media.

When girls draw the sword: Dansō, cross-dressing and gender subversion in Japanese shōjo manga

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-18 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marta Fanasca
Keyword(s):  
Japanese Society ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Main Character ◽  
Gender Performances ◽  
Cross Dressing ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Shojo Manga ◽  
Gender Subversion

This article focuses on the representation of FtM cross-dresser characters in Japanese shōjo manga and their gender performances. The first cross-dresser heroine in manga is Sapphire, the main character from 1953s Ribon no kishi. Following this first example, similar characters have continued to appear in shōjo manga, obtaining very positive responses from the audience. While they are seen as rebellious characters challenging stereotypical views on gender in the Japanese society, the narratives where they appear do not always fully explore this aspect. The aim of this article is to investigate the role of cross-dresser heroines in manga as a tool to reinforce the sociocultural patriarchal status quo and as a different gender embodiment outside stereotyped femininity. It argues that the possibility for those characters to occupy powerful positions and succeed is related to masculinity, symbolized by the sword, stressing how ultimately their revolutionary potential is weakened and limited.

Script variation as audience design: Imagining readership and community in Japanese yuri comics

2019 ◽  
Vol 49 (3) ◽  
pp. 357-378
Author(s):  
Hannah E. Dahlberg-Dodd
Keyword(s):  
Language Use ◽  
Target Audience ◽  
Popular Media ◽  
Female Characters ◽  
Same Sex ◽  
Audience Design ◽  
Second Person ◽  
Female Audience ◽  
Shojo Manga

AbstractBuilding on recent work supporting a sociolinguistic approach to orthographic choice, this study engages with paratextual language use in yuri, a subgenre of Japanese shōjo manga ‘girls’ comics’ that centers on same-sex romantic and/or erotic relationships between female characters. The comic magazine Comic Yuri Hime has been the dominant, if not only, yuri-oriented published magazine in Japan since its inception in 2005. Though both written and consumed by a primarily female audience, the magazine has undergone numerous attempts to rebrand and refocus the target audience as a means to broaden the magazine's readership. This change in target demographic is reflected in the stylistic representation of paratextual occurrences of the second-person pronoun anata, indicating the role of the textual landscape in reflecting, and reifying, an imagined target audience. (Script variation, manga, popular media, Japan, yuri manga)

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