Aino Minako-chan

You know how sometimes you find a quote that reflects your exact view on a subject to a T? And it shocks you because it's so rare to find people that even agree with your POV, moreorless to such a degree of accuracy? Well, that happened to me yesterday. I was reading Frederik L. Schodt's "Dreamland Japan" (it was research material for my final project, dead serious), and met up with a quote that simply astounded me. It's my EXACT view on yaoi/shounen-ai/ladies/boys-love comics, summed up by Sagawa Toshihiko, the male apparent developer of the idea for June Comics. I was simply balled over. I could have written an entire essay on the topic, but here it is, summed up in three little paragraphs:


"The stories are about males," Sagawa says, "but the characters are really an imagined ideal that combine assumed or desired attributes of both males and females. Thus the heroes can be beautiful and gentle, like females, but without the jealousy and other negative qualities that women sometimes associate with themselves. The women readers are also attracted to the friendship and bonding that they assume takes place between males; the idea that men would die for each other on the battlefield, for example, is seen as a type of 'love,' when for men it's probably seen as comradery. On the surface these characters are gay males, but in reality they are a manifestation of females; they're like young women wearing cartoon-character costumes.

"Also, girls and young women in Japan still have constraints on them socially. They feel the characters are freer if they are male, both socially and sexually.

"Finally, society expects men and women to fall in love, but there are still taboos associated with homosexual love. Therefore, to many of our readers, gay love seems more 'real.' Gay characters have to overcome many social obstacles, thus engendering sympathy and occasional tragedy, and again making their love seem very 'real.'"


I... could write a 20 page essay on that topic, an entire book even, but I don't think I could add anything to that statement.

That was my entire day, I swear.

First, we were studying some Japanese films in my Pop Culture class: the classic horror and anti-war film Onibaba, the hysterical yakuza film Minbo that got the director stabbed by REAL yakuza, and Okoge. Okoge is a Japanese word that originally referred to the rice that burns and sticks to the pot when you're cooking; in more recent times it refers to women who befriend lots of gay men. I know basically the whole plot of the movie and watched clips of it, but I can't wait to sit down and see it all. It's about a female seiyuu Sayako who befriends Goh and Toshi, a cute little gay couple, and lends them her place to use for "fun" since Toshi's a married salaryman (which gives him like 20 million reasons he doesn't want to get caught) and Goh's now living with his mother who's slowly dropping into insanity. The story is about them and their love and heartache and moving on and all. It's a comedy, and it's damn funny, too. But it's also really touching in spots and really thoughtful in others. For example, Goh has Sayako and all of his gay friends (half of which are drag queen dancers) over for a little party. Goh's mother seems to suddenly realize Sayako's a woman and drags her out of the room to try to get Sayako to marry her son. After the mother leaves, Goh explains that his mother feels that it's her fault he's gay, since she cut herself with a rusty knife while he was in the womb (she thinks she ended up getting some gay bacteria). So Goh and his friends have a big discussion about whether being gay is biological or environmental. Finally Sayako and the mother come back into the room; the mother orders Goh to marry Sayako. One of the men suddenly spurts out, "Goh!? Marrying a WOMAN!?" And then all of the gay men burst out in unstoppable laughter. It was one of the funniest scenes I'd ever seen. But in the end, it's just reeeeally cute and seems to portray gay men pretty well. I mean, sure, Goh's drag queen friends are pretty flaming, but Goh and Toshi themselves, for example, are just your average guys. Kinda good looking, not effeminate, they spend their time doing normal guy things, not adjusting their make-up. They have some other very "normal" seeming guys in the story, too, and even a 70-year-old man who hangs at the club with everyone a lot. And Goh's just damn cute as hell. Goh admits to Sayako in a bar that he likes this guy he sees in another booth; Sayako gets the three of them in a booth together and tries to set them up. But Goh's too shy to say anything, so he just watches the other guy the entire time and goes "Un" every time Sayako directs a question at him. He was soooooo adorable. Literally, every girl in our class went, "Awwwwww~!" at one point in the scene. He was THAT cute. It was also interesting because the girl who did the presentation watched the film with her host family. She said that her host sisters got sent out of the room at the sex scene; the host dad stayed longer sheerly because it seemed polite. But she and her host mom loved the movie; both had hankies out by the end. But the girl who did the presentation said that both the host dad and the daughters didn't understand why the host mom could watch the movie and be interested in gay men. The host mom basically replied that she didn't see what difference it made; it was a cute story. I just thought that was interesting. Seems like that's the way most women in Japan rationalize it... It was also interesting because she said that the host family seemed to think that the way the women were protrayed was the funniest part of the movie. We asked her what her host family thought of the scene of Goh's party, especially where the mother explained her "gay bacteria" theory. Because frankly, all of us were DYING of laughter at her sob story about the "gay bacteria," it was just that absurd. She said they didn't laugh at that part at all. Just thought that was interesting...

SPEAKING of gay men in Japan, got a volume each of Z/ETA and G-Defend in the store today, simply because they're on the list. Of course, it was the most recent volumes of each, giving me Z/ETA 3 and G-Defend 11. Yes, I've given up COMPLETELY on G-Defend. G-Defend's special defense team is made up of twenty million characters, all of which have names and seperate personalities. To give you an idea, Sensei had TWO pages of sketchbook for the characters. Just head shots. 45 heads total. NOT including the main characters. I nearly cried and gave up on the story right away. ;;;^_^ Z/ETA was odd, only because I don't know what's the deal with Hyobu. He and Takayuki are... fighting? Trying kill each other? But last I heard they were partners? I don't get it at all; all I know is that Hyoubu didn't show up until the end of the volume where his new buddy, hot sword-weilding man, attacked Takayuki. And let's just say he didn't look like he was there to say hi. I'm confused. Although Seki-san's character, Takayuki's too-genki-for-his-own-good, cactus loving Washikata Hatsune shows up. He's always super-genki-ultra-happy, and you can tell when he's entering the room when you hear his cry of "Doumo desu~!" PLUS a new character, ultra cute little rich boy shows up, just waiting to be protected from bullies by Takayuki-san. His name: Mushiyanokouji Takamaro. That's a whopping SEVEN kanji in a row. Er, I think I understand the bullying frankly... what a name... The best part had to be the little Dr. PT extra. Dr. PT cracks open a brand new package of expensive tea, serves up two cups, and wanders into his teddy bear room for a date. He politely starts saying hello to all of his bears, telling them each how lovely they look that day, when he sees... IT. ...A STUFFED BUNNY. So shocked is Dr. PT at finding a BUNNY in his teddy bear collection, he faints dead away, spilling tea all over. In a translation of stuffed animal language, you follow the drama of the teddy bears bravely trying to band together to rid themselves of the horrible, evil, newcomer bunny. At the end, Dr. PT comes to himself and rather roughly chucks the bunny into the trash. The end. It was great.

And in the category of people who aren't NECESSARILY gay, but darned should be, watched Gakkou e Ikou again. (NO not hosts V6, that's another story...) The show has their band of six effeminite junior high boys, who's goal is to put on dramas or something (their not effeminite but quirky leader can't dance, the only reason musicals are out). And, technically, one is a girl. But she's hysterical, since she never talks and just sits there looking pissed as hell. V6 loves her. But, of course, no one is loved more than the one who made the creation of this group a reality, the ever cute Makki. I forget his actual name, but Makki is, by far, THE most adorable boy I've ever seen in my life. The V6 guys love him, since they just meet up with him and then get to go off about how kawaii Makki is, while he smiles back at them shyly. He's just toooo adorable and really really sweet (and is, quite frankly, a knockout in drag). This last episode, he decided that he was Makki, and the leader was Satou-buchou, so everyone else needed a nickname, too. He even came up for a cute nickname for the outcast girl of the group, which made her smile. The first time ANYONE'S seen her look anything other than ready to kill. Anyway, the group's task of the episode was to prepare a couple of short scenes from well-known love-type dramas. Makki was SCARY. I mean, he was a pretty good actor, not horrible at least, but the thing was, he always played the girl. And he was GOOD~! I've never seen anything so adorable as Makki was after his schoolgirl character was slapped to the floor (he just turned this big hurt eyes on the camera), and he was simply scary in the second scene as the sexy, good-looking woman. V6 was gaping. Afterwards, they complimented on what a good girl he made. Makki just responded with his cute little happy-but-confused smile. V6 exclaimed he was too cute. I'm sorry, but like Sayako, I've made it my new life's goal to find Makki a good man. I suppose I could find him a good woman if he wanted, but I think he needs a good man (any good woman would be able to break him in two...). In any case, I'm at least getting him a basket full of puppies. That last one's just for me, though. ^_^ Ka-wa-i-i~!