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Cuteness, josō , and the need to appeal: otoko no ko in male subculture in 2010s Japan
Abstract
This article explores the rise of specific new modes of gender ambivalence from within male subculture and mass media in the 2000s and examines the emergence of the cute cross-dressing ‘otoko no ko’. The broader context of this emerging orientation towards girlishness and cuteness is the now widely-documented circumstances of the recessionary period, particularly in the decade from the steepening of the recession and labor market deregulation from around 2006–2008 forwards. Interestingly, this precise period also correlates with a moment of creative escalation and bifurcation in male subcultural positions and forms: witnessing the emergence of self-defined himote (‘don’t haves’ [partners/ sex]) as well as otoko no ko in manga, animation and bedroom and upload subculture. Hints about the relatively weak position of fans and readers of otoko no ko in the labor market, and aspects of the language and ideas underlying the process of transformation through josō fashion, will be explored. Suggestions will be posed about the: undetermined qualities of male cross-dressed parodies of shōjo idols; the increased importance of self-discipline and self-transformation, and the personal effort to be ‘cute’ and ‘appeal’ and in order to fulfil the proscriptions for success in the late capitalist economy; and finally, the fuller significance of finding an ‘orientation’ for both financial and psychological survival.
... While josō in Japan has a long history and cultural meanings of its own (Mihashi 2008), today the culture of josō circulates widely through contemporary media, such as social media, TV programs, and magazines, and its visible influence on popular and youth subcultures can be observed in various corners of society, from josō cafés in Akihabara, the fashion of sukāto danshi (men wearing skirts), to cute otokonoko (boy daughter) characters in manga and cosplay. Kinsella (2019) observes that this new mode of josō sprang from Japanese cultural history, such as moe animation, the aesthetic of kawaii (cute), and otaku subcultures, among others, and became popular in minor genres and leading boys' manga magazines from the turn of the century through the 2000s. By the mid-2010s, as Kinsella points out, josō was no longer a niche or otaku subtrend but a widespread theme in both social and mainstream media. ...
... Although there is still a persistent stigma for josō practitioners, it has become a concrete option for men who would like to dress as women. This mode of new josō, which is different from the earlier gay and nyū-hāfu (transgender) tradition, and which is not clearly related to sexual orientation, has become a new norm among young generations (Kinsella 2019). ...
... The Japanese josō scene has since been largely transformed. Josō practitioners in Miyata's and Ishii's recent study (2020) on commercial facilities for josō in Osaka seem to exhibit features similar to those of the new wave of josō that Kinsella (2019) described. Josō for these practitioners is no longer a practice tied only to sexual minority identities but often a tool to express the fluidity of identities and to go back and forth between men and women, and femininities and masculinities. ...
In gender and sexuality studies, recent diversifications and changes in masculinities have garnered much attention. In particular, the concept of hybrid masculinities is a useful tool to understand the complexity of masculinity construction. This chapter examines how Japanese youth at university josō (male-to-female cross-dressing) contests negotiate the meanings of gender and femininities through their josō practice. Many contestants explained that their motivations for josō are either internal and gender-based or external with social and performative purposes. By closely analyzing the reflexive accounts of these contestants, however, it will become evident that their motivations are too complex to analyze either with the internal/external axis or using the notion of hybrid masculinities, because their femininities and masculinities are deeply intertwined in different ways, hence escaping from a binary framework. I conclude that josō practitioners engage in complex negotiations of gender and sexual normativities, while simultaneously blurring and reinforcing gender hegemony.KeywordsHybrid masculinitiesCultural and linguistic appropriation
Josō
Cross-dressingFemininitiesFirst-person pronounHeteronormativityIndexicality
... In other words, otoko no ko went from manga and screen media and stepped into the physical world. According to Kinsella (2020b), this is a notable social phenomenon as men negotiate alternative ways of being in Japan. ...
... Second, according to Iida (2004: p. 69), men's "feminine" aesthetics can be deployed to distance oneself from hegemonic masculinity and perform gender identity strategically. Third, the distancing from dominant norms and the attempt to negotiate alternative ways of being in Japan is further discussed by Kinsella (2020aKinsella ( , 2020b in her articles about otoko no ko presented in this paper. ...
... In other words, otoko no ko went from manga and screen media and stepped into the physical world. According to Kinsella (2020b), this is a notable social phenomenon as men negotiate alternative ways of being in Japan. ...
... Second, according to Iida (Iida, 2005: p. 69), men's 'feminine' aesthetics can be deployed to distance oneself from hegemonic masculinity and perform gender identity strategically. Third, the distancing from dominant norms and the attempt to negotiate alternative ways of being in Japan is further discussed by Kinsella (2020aKinsella ( , 2020b in her articles about otoko no ko presented in this paper. ...
There is a predominance for cute characters among Japanese virtual YouTubers (VTubers). Men who publicly use feminine avatars to conduct online entertainment are called babiniku in Japan. This research paper investigates whether embodying cute avatars impacts males' perception of self. Examining the process leading some online performers to turn into outwardly feminine characters, we address the reasons why babiniku reproduce gender stereotypes. Our presumption is that such role play is part of a strategy with purposes yet to be deciphered. We deployed quantitative and qualitative methods, such as survey and semi structured interviews, to collect first-hand testimonies from 24 babiniku participants. This article contributes to an existing literature about digital gender swapping with avatars and Japanese cross-dressing from an anthropological perspective. As stressed by the babiniku who took part in this research, digital cross-dressing enables them to create a world where they can indulge in fancy and fantasy. All together with their fans, babiniku build a notion of femininity that allows users to act and live outside of societal pressures.
... Similar to Hibari-tei, Paradise initially opened as a futeiki eigy o at a rented venue and eventually became a permanent fixture due to customers' positive responses. At its height, the otoko no ko boom comprised an explosion of specialized magazines like Wai! and Otonyan featuring anime, manga, and adult games and the know-how to practice jos o, "B-men" (Before face/transformation) and "A-men" (After face/transformation) photos and videos uploaded to social media and niche websites displaying the makeover process, and shows and beauty contests on college campuses and beyond, notably Inoue Miya's Tokyo Cosme Boy beauty contest (Inoue, 2012;Kinsella, 2020aKinsella, , 2020bYoshimoto, 2015). However, this form of mainstreaming also angered otaku-individuals invested in anime, manga, and games-who wanted to safeguard two-dimensional otoko no ko characters from so-called "three-dimensional otoko no ko" (Kawamoto, 2014). ...
... While reflecting neither his gender identity nor sexual orientation, Ando's jos o practices might be interpreted as gender presentation on the margins of femininity and masculinity. Scholars (Dale, 2012;Kinsella, 2020a) have described otoko no ko as a category that does not fit into existing categories and a reaction to this condition of belonging nowhere. Ando's and Tobari's jos o practices, therefore, raise important questions about what feminine and masculine gender expressions are, how their boundaries are demarcated, and who can embody them. ...
This article investigates “ toransujendā” (transgender), “ josō” (male-to-female crossdressing), and “ otoko no ko” (boy/male daughter) as categories that bind through ethnographic research in Tokyo’s contemporary josō gyōkai (scene and business circles). Building on queer and transgender scholarship, I ask what these categories mean, what they do, and how they figure in trans people’s everyday lives and the institutionalization of seidōitsuseishōgai (Japanese translation of Gender Identity Disorder). I argue that categories are imbued with asymmetrical power relations and operate affectively, emerging from contact between bodies and practices. Ultimately, they are important sites for questioning categories of “gender” and “sexuality” in transnational sexuality and transgender studies.
... The term otokonoko originally was defined as male identification with a female manga character, but since 2010 it has come to mean a cute male character, often identical to bishōjo ('beautiful girl') characters. Cross-dressing in a uniform manner as a parody of shōjo idols, men adopt familiar female performance and not actual femininity (Kinsella 2019). The shōjo idol character is a 'female protagonist' who displays characteristics that are the opposite of what is considered to be ideal femininity in Japan; instead of weakness and passivity, they possess such typically masculine traits as power and strength. ...
Male cross-dressing as a form of aesthetic expression by something or someone has been practised in fashion globally. This article aims to investigate what role cross-dressing plays in contemporary men’s fashion. Does it transform or confirm gender norms? In what ways can cross-dressing be used as a tool to produce visual politics? Cross-dressing or transvestism is a particular type of event affected by the multiple social, economic and cultural implications that continuously shift the meanings and objectives of the practice. I think of fashion in a broad sense, i.e., similar to a verb in that it focuses on the action or process of negotiating, differentiating and self-presenting in everyday life. My scholarly inquiry is situated in the context of the social, the cultural and the historical. This epistemological study applies an interdisciplinary approach that employs visual interpretative analysis and queer reflexivity. Cross-dressing practices in men’s fashion cannot be explained without an awareness of sociocultural context, narrative, gender performance and how clothing is selected and worn. I conclude by discussing the broader implications of understanding gender performance, sexuality and institutional power in men’s fashion.
Purpose
This study aims to examine the construction of feminine beauty by onnagata kabuki actors in Japan’s history, with a focus on their narratives in modern advertorials about beauty products. The objective is to identify emerging themes in their narratives and to analyze the symbolism and rhetoric used to persuade the audience to enhance traditional feminine “beauty” by using the specific brand in the wake of Japan’s modernization and Westernization.
Design/methodology/approach
The study primarily employs semiotic analysis of advertorials in the newspaper and in the kabuki theatre’s program. They are supplemented with images from premodern prints. Visual content is described and analyzed as well.
Findings
The narration of the onnagata in the advertorial is the process of “truth-telling,” where the primary concern of the storyteller is persuasion about truth, such as belief in the new method of makeup with the advertised brand, and falsehood, such as belief in the old method of skincare. Four themes and binary oppositions of values emerged from the data: (1) Identity: selves vs others; (2) Material objects, cosmetics: scientific vs primitive; (3) Practice: competent vs incompetent, and (4) Transformations: intentional vs incidental.
Originality/value
The research shows that Japan’s onnagata transvestism tradition and its influences on women’s beauty practice have existed since the premodern period, preceding contemporary cross-gender beauty practices observed in social media.
Gender and Sexuality in Modern Japan describes the ever-changing manifestations of sexes, genders, and sexualities in Japanese society from the 1860s to the present day. Analysing a wide range of texts, images and data, Sabine Frühstück considers the experiences of females, males and the evolving spectrum of boundary-crossing individuals and identities in Japan. These include the intersexed conscript in the 1880s, the first 'out' lesbian war reporter in the 1930s, and pregnancy-vest-wearing male governors in the present day. She interweaves macro views of history with stories about individual actors, highlighting how sexual and gender expression has been negotiated in both the private and the public spheres and continues to wield the power to critique and change society. This lively and accessible survey introduces Japanese ideas about modern manhood, modern womenhood, reproduction, violence and sex during war, the sex trade, LGBTQ identities and activism, women's liberation, feminisms and visual culture.
This article explores the phenomenal growth in the popularity of the “little fresh meat” (xiao xian rou) androgynous, effeminate male beauty trend and the rise in the demand for male cosmetic surgery in the context of neoliberal consumer culture in China. This new male beauty trend is rooted in traditional Chinese gentle/benign wen masculinity, but it has also been influenced by the “flower boys” of South Korea and Japan and by Western metrosexuals. Drawing on men’s accounts in Beauty Diaries posted on cosmetic surgery apps, the author argues that gentle wen and tough wu are not perceived dualistically by the men who opt for cosmetic surgery. Rather, “gentle yet manly” is a common narrative now invoked in the construction of masculinities. In a neoliberal consumer culture, men have more agency and freedom to engage in the beautification practices associated with femininity, but they are also constrained by hegemonic masculinity and must therefore negotiate with the dominant existing masculinity discourses to find their position in society. The resultant paradoxes in male identity associated with male cosmetic surgery reflect the fluidity and the unsettling nature of the constructions of hybrid masculinities in China.
It was not so long ago that being described as a "dolled-up woman" or a "doll-like woman" would not have been seen as a particularly good thing. This is probably still true today. To think of a woman as a doll gives the impression of someone pretty as can be yet totally scatterbrained, without a thought in her head. It's not far from this to the idea that the doll beauty just "wants to be human" in the adorable manner of Pinocchio.
In 1972, when the American writer Ira Levin published The Stepford Wives, the women's liberation movement, begun in the early 1960s, had already had an enormous impact on society. Even in the world of science fiction, things were such that looking at a woman as a doll was completely inadmissible. Women were autonomous human beings, ones who thought for themselves (put another way, as Ursula K. Le Guin has written, feminists are rational beings). Attitudes have changed, however, and the trend of looking at women as dolls has become so pronounced that we cannot ignore it any longer.
To give an example, albeit one that may not be entirely representative, when the American science fiction critic Marleen S. Barr, in the first chapter of her book Lost in Space: Probing Feminist Science Fiction and Beyond (1993), discusses Ridley Scott's Thelma and Louise (1991), she compares the circumstances of the heroine's sidekick Thelma to that of the Stepford wives:
Thelma, no longer a Stepford wife (Ira Levin's term), and Louise, no longer a servile meal server, proclaim that women are not components of a mindless female herd that men shepherd, that women are not electric sheep who follow automatically whenever patriarchy plugs in sexist master narratives.1
We might go back even further in time than Barr and compare Thelma to Nora in Henrik Ibsen's play A Doll's House (1879); at that time as well, it is striking the extent to which metaphors of the robot, the pet, the doll, or alien entity were used to speak of the social position of women, to describe their confinement within a patriarchal system.
The doll is just another metaphor for death. This becomes perfectly clear in Thelma and Louise. After all, the two women who strive to escape from their plight decide in the end to drive their car over a cliff. It all boils down to a desperate choice: choosing death or resigning yourself to life as a doll, pet, or robot.
The film version of The Stepford Wives (1975) appeared some three years after Levin's novel and, interestingly enough, at the very height of the women's movement in America; its heroine undergoes an experience that is like traveling back in time to a past that is the complete opposite of women's liberation. For all that we know, this return to an anachronistic past is done just for the sake of horror, since there is something seriously scary about this film. Even now, there is something scary about it.
But the situation was rather different some thirty years later, with the remake of The Stepford Wives (2004). The most dramatic change concerned horror: that is, was there any? Thirty years earlier there was something serious, even absolute, about horror. Placing a woman in a situation in which she risked complete annihilation was a ruthless gesture. Subsequently, as the rhetoric of horror became at once more popular and diverse, the line between horror and comedy became finer. Today we are likely to burst into laughter, for gruesome transformations and harrowing chases feel somehow artificial. I suspect that these shifts in attitude are related to advances in film technologies.
While I am not sure that he is entirely responsible, I find it significant that the director of the remake was Frank Oz, renowned for his work as a "Muppeteer." He is clearly a fantasy fan. After all, he was also one of the directors of The Dark Crystal (1982), a film that brought to life a thoroughly fantastical other world.
The Dark Crystal gained renown as a fantasy film that presented another world...
Terayama Shūji (1935–1983) was an avant-garde Japanese poet, dramatist, film director, and photographer known for his highly provocative art. This book examines Terayama’s life and art to show that a conventional notion of him does not do full justice to the meaning and importance of his wide-ranging, often playful body of work. The book places Terayama at the center of Japanese and global counterculture and finds in his work a larger story about the history of postwar Japanese art and culture. It sees Terayama as reflecting the most significant events of his day: young poets seizing control of haiku and tanka in the 1950s, radio drama experimenting with form and content after the cultural shift to television around 1960, young assistant directors given free rein in the New Wave as cinema combated television, underground theater in the politicized late 1960s, and experimental short film through the 1970s after both the studio system and art house cinema had collapsed. Featuring close readings of Terayama’s art, the book demonstrates how across his oeuvre there are patterns that sidestep existing power structures, never offering direct opposition but nevertheless making the opposition plain. And, it claims, there is always in Terayama’s work a broad call for seeking out or creating pockets of fiction—where we are made aware that things are not what they seem—and to use otherness in those spaces to take a clearer view of reality.
Shōjo manga are romance comics for teenage girls. Characterized by a very dense visual style, featuring flowery backgrounds and big-eyed, androgynous boys and girls, it is an extremely popular and prominent genre in Japan. Why is this genre so appealing? Where did it come from? Why do so many of the stories feature androgynous characters and homosexual romance? This book answers these questions by reviewing Japanese girls' print culture from its origins in 1920s and 1930s girls' literary magazines to the 1970s “revolution” shōjo manga when young women artists took over the genre. The book traces the development of girls' culture in pre-World War II magazines and links it to postwar teenage girls' comics and popular culture. Within this culture, as private and cloistered as the schools most readers attended, a discourse of girlhood arose that avoided heterosexual romance in favor of “S relationships,” passionate friendships between girls. This preference for homogeneity is echoed in the postwar genre of boys' love manga written for girls. Both prewar S relationships and postwar boys' love stories gave girls a protected space to develop and explore their identities and sexuality apart from the pressures of a patriarchal society. Shōjo manga offered to a reading community of girls a place to share the difficulties of adolescence as well as an alternative to the image of girls purveyed by the media to boys and men.
In this article, I build on the notion of precarity to argue that Japanese host clubs are sites in which a particular kind of intimacy and sense of 'belonging' are produced. The analysis highlights host clubs as necessary spaces among many in the precarious economy and as important venues for the production of subjectivity for the male hosts (both migrant and Japanese) as well as for the migrant women who frequent these establishments. In particular, host clubs provide a lucrative employment opportunity for young men - particularly young men who are migrants from the rural parts of Japan or the Philippines (and often Japanese-Filipino young men) who are trying to make a living in the context of what has been characterised as 'precarious Japan'. I draw on extended ethnographic fieldwork to show how the host clubs, though a part of the precarious economy, provide sites of home and belonging for both hosts and their clients.
Shojo manga are romance comics for teenage girls. Characterized by a very dense visual style, featuring flowery backgrounds and big-eyed, androgynous boys and girls, it is an extremely popular and prominent genre in Japan. Why is this genre so appealing? Where did it come from? Why do so many of the stories feature androgynous characters and homosexual romance? Passionate Friendship answers these questions by reviewing Japanese girls' print culture from its origins in 1920s and 1930s girls' literary magazines to the 1970s "revolution" shojo manga, when young women artists took over the genre. It looks at the narrative and aesthetic features of girls' literature and illustration across the twentieth century, both pre- and postwar, and discusses how these texts addressed and formed a reading community of girls, even as they were informed by competing political and social ideologies. The author traces the development of girls' culture in pre-World War II magazines and links it to postwar teenage girls' comics and popular culture. Within this culture, as private and cloistered as the schools most readers attended, a discourse of girlhood arose that avoided heterosexual romance in favor of "S relationships," passionate friendships between girls. This preference for homogeneity is echoed in the postwar genre of boys' love manga written for girls. Both prewar S relationships and postwar boys' love stories gave girls a protected space to develop and explore their identities and sexuality apart from the pressures of a patriarchal society. Shojo manga offered to a reading community of girls a place to share the difficulties of adolescence as well as an alternative to the image of girls purveyed by the media to boys and men. Passionate Friendship's close literary and visual analysis of modern Japanese girls' culture will appeal to a wide range of readers, including scholars and students of Japanese studies, gender studies, and popular culture.
What does it mean to be oriented? How is it that we come to find our way in a world that acquires new shapes, depending on which way we turn? If we know where we are, when we turn this way or that, then we are oriented. We have our bearings. We know what to do to get to this place or to that. To be oriented is also to be oriented toward certain objects, those that help us find our way. These are the objects we recognize, such that when we face them, we know which way we are facing. They gather on the ground and also create a ground on which we can gather. Yet objects gather quite differently, creating different grounds. What difference does it make what we are oriented toward?
My interest in this broad question of orientation is motivated by an interest in the specific question of sexual orientation. What does it mean for sexuality to be lived as oriented? What difference does it make what or who we are oriented toward in the very direction of our desire? If orientation is a matter of how we reside in space, then sexual orientation might also be a matter of residence, of how we inhabit spaces, and who or what we inhabit spaces with. After all, queer geographers have shown us how spaces are sexualized. If we foreground the concept of "orientation," then we can retheorize this sexualization of space as well as the spatiality of sexual desire. What would it mean for queer studies if we were to pose the question of the orientation of sexual orientation as a phenomenological question?
This article takes up the concept of orientation to put queer studies into a closer dialogue with phenomenology. I offer an approach to how bodies take shape through tending toward objects that are reachable, which are available within the bodily horizon. Such an approach is informed by my engagement with phenomenology, though it is not properly phenomenological; one suspects that a queer phenomenology might enjoy this failure to be proper. Still, you might ask, as others have, why start with such an engagement? I start here in part because phenomenology makes orientation central in the very argument that consciousness is always directed toward objects and hence is always worldly, situated, and embodied. Given this, phenomenology emphasizes the lived experience of inhabiting a body, or what Edmund Husserl calls "the living body" (Leib). Phenomenology can offer a resource for queer studies insofar as phenomenology emphasizes the importance of lived experience, the intentionality of consciousness, the significance of nearness or what is ready to hand, and the role of repeated and habitual actions in shaping bodies and worlds.
A queer phenomenology might turn to phenomenology by asking not only about the concept of orientation in phenomenology, but also about the orientation of phenomenology. This article hence considers the significance of the objects that appear in phenomenological writing, as orientation devices. At the same time, to queer phenomenology is also to offer a queer phenomenology. In other words, queer does not have a relation of exteriority to that with which it comes into contact. A queer phenomenology might find what is queer within phenomenology and use that queerness to make some rather different points. Phenomenology, after all, is full of queer moments, moments of disorientation, which involve not only "the intellectual experience of disorder, but the vital experience of giddiness and nausea, which is the awareness of our own contingency and the horror with which it fills us." Maurice Merleau-Ponty gives an account of how these moments are overcome, as bodies are reoriented in the "becoming vertical" of perspective. A queer phenomenology might involve a different orientation toward such moments. It might even find joy and excitement in the horror.
In offering a queer phenomenology, I am indebted to the work of feminist scholars who have engaged creatively and critically with the phenomenological tradition. This includes feminist philosophers of the body such as Sandra Bartky, Judith Butler, Rosalyn Diprose, Elizabeth Grosz, Iris Marion Young, and Gail Weiss. Through the corpus of this work, I have learned to think about not only how phenomenology might universalize from...
For the first time in English, we present many of Hijikata's aesthetic and poetic texts. These texts are put into context by Kurihara Nanako's introductory essay. The section includes an interview with Hijikata and a conversation between Hijikata and Japanese experimental theatre innovator Suzuki Tadashi.
Hijikata Tatsumi died in 1986, but his impact on Japanese and world performance remains strong. One of the founders of butoh, Hijikata's dances were “blistering images of emaciation and death”, yet beautiful.
This paper not only gives an overview of the transgender word in contemporary Japan but also attempts to illustrate the male to female cross‐dressing (MTFCD) community in Shinjuku, Tokyo, which plays an important role in the overall transgender world and how people in the community think and live, by conducting comprehensive fieldwork. The MTFCD community consists of amateur cross‐dressers and their patrons, and it is formed around about ten bars/clubs in Shinjuku. This community differentiates itself from the gay community in their customs and consciousness; they tend to recognize gender based on gender performance rather than biological sex, which is usually accepted for distinguishing sex. Therefore, a MTF cross‐dresser with feminine performance is considered as a ‘woman,’ regardless of one’s physical and biological conditions. Because of this recognition of gender based on gender performance, people in the community are able to develop the ‘quasi‐heterosexual’ relationships as men and ‘women.’
Contemporary Japanese society has seen the emergence of aesthetically conscious young men who employ ‘feminine' aesthetics and strategies as ways of exploring and practising new masculine identities. In this paper, I explore the significance of this emerging trend of male beauty by observing and analysing the expressions, strategies and intentions of those young men who have taken to aesthetically representing themselves in these ways. This cultural trend is often described as the ‘feminization of masculinity,' echoing the gendered articulation of rising mass culture in terms of the ‘feminization of culture,' which acknowledges aspects of the commercialization of masculine bodies in Japan of the 1990s onward. While this view successfully links important issues, such as femininity, beauty, and the gendered representation of the self in a broader context of capitalist culture, it does not sufficiently convey a sense of agency in the young men's lively practices of exploring and expressing new masculine values and ideals. Rather than viewing ‘feminization' simply as a sign of commodification, I argue that these young men strategically distance themselves from conventional masculinity by artificially standing in the position of the ‘feminine', where they can more freely engage in the creation of alternative gender identities. From this point of view, the use of the phrase ‘feminization of masculinity' often implies a fear and anxiety on the part of patriarchy over the boundary-crossing practice that seriously challenges the stability of gendered cultural hegemony. Moreover, such anxiety driven reactions easily merge with nationalist inclination, as those threatened tend to seek the consolidation of patriarchal/hegemonic order by eliminating ambiguities and indeterminacy in cultural/national discourse. I conclude that the cultural hegemony of contemporary Japan could better sustain itself by incorporating non-hegemonic gender identities, which would allow it maintain an open space for critical imagination and effectively diffuse an obsessive and ultimately self-destructive desire for transparency/identity.
In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:
TDR: The Drama Review 44.1 (2000) 10-28
Figures
Hijikata Tatsumi: The Words of Butoh
The founder of butoh,
Hijikata Tatsumi, passed away in 1986 at the age of 57. In contrast
to another butoh founder, Ono Kazuo, who is 93 years old and still
performing internationally, Hijikata never left Japan. Nonetheless,
Hijikata's influence is worldwide and evident in films,
photographs, writings, and the many dancers who were trained or
affected by his art.
Hijikata's physical absence seems to strengthen his presence in
the remnants of his life's work. A documentary film by Ouchida
Keiya of a performance of Hosotan (A Story of Small Pox,
1972), one installment of a serial work entitled Shiki no tame
no nijushichiban (Twenty-seven Nights for the Four Seasons,
1972), allows us to see a classic Hijikata dance: lying down on the
floor, he writhes to the accompaniment of "Bailero" by Joseph
Canteloube. Only a loin cloth covers his skinny body, his rib bones
are clearly exposed, the result of many days of fasting. His white
butoh makeup is sliding off his skin, like scabs off a healing
wound. Perhaps this fallen person is dying but trying to get up, a
situation and image that Hijikata often talked about. Through the
blistering image of emaciation and death, this ugly figure reveals
the beauty of life. Hijikata's butoh seems to contain the secret of
being.
The word "butoh," now the accepted name of the genre, originated
as ankoku buyo in the early 1960s. "Ankoku" means "utter
darkness." "Buyo," a generic term for dance, is used in many
compounds: for example, gendai buyo, modern dance; and
koten buyo, classical dance. Later in the 1960s, ankoku buyo
evolved into ankoku buto. The word "buto" is used in
compounds such as buto-kai, a European-type ball dance, or
shi no buto, the medieval European dance of death. That is,
"buto" was used to refer to Western dance forms. However, according
to the Japanese dictionary Kojien, buto also means
haimu, a specific ceremonial salutation at the imperial
court in which a person flings the long sleeves of traditional
Japanese dress and stamps the feet (Shinmura 1991:2037). "To" means
stamping feet. Although a stamping movement is not typical of
butoh, Hijikata created the term "ankoku butoh" to denote a
cosmological dance which completely departed from existing dances
and explored the darkest side of human nature.
Hijikata's relatively early death, self-mystifying character,
and extraordinary works have made him a mythic figure. Recent
efforts to reexamine his legacy have begun to expand our
understanding of both the man and his work. In November 1998 a
week-long symposium about Hijikata was held at the Theatre Tram in
Tokyo. Dancers, visual artists, poets, and scholars of various
disciplines discussed aspects of Hijikata's life and career, such
as his idiosyncratic use of language and his relationship with
classical dance. One night was dedicated to a discussion by
non-Japanese butoh dancers. The frank opinions of these dancers
from various cultural contexts offered a valuable contrast to the
insular tendencies of the butoh world in Japan. The Hijikata
Tatsumi Archive was recently opened at Keio gijuku University Art
Center in Tokyo, and more sources are becoming publicly accessible,
their abundant materials awaiting critical study. We are only just
beginning to assess Hijikata, his butoh, and what he was trying to
achieve in his life and his work.
This issue of TDR is probably the first publication in
which Hijikata's words are translated into English in complete
texts rather than in excerpts. Until now, only selections from his
evocative writings have been translated, and usually presented with
a number of photographs. Although they definitely stimulated the
imagination of English-speaking readers, these partial translations
were very limited, especially considering the vast numbers of words
Hijikata left behind. Japanese readers can easily obtain several
books of his writing, most nobably the two-volume Hijikata
Tatsumi zenshu (The Collected Works of Hijikata Tatsumi,
1998).
With this history in mind, we have decided to translate a range
of complete texts dating from 1960 through 1985: a lecture, an
interview, a conversation, and notes from his scrapbooks for
butoh...
Raito no kankaku de kawaisa tsuikyū
- Tokyo Shinbun
Otoko No Musume Dōshi Renaichū
- Kaoru Oshima
Nippon no sekkusu nenpō
- Sagami Rubber
Concerning the Epoch of Cute and It’s Terms and Conditions
- Shintaro Akutsu
Bye Bye Kitty: Between Heaven and Hell in Contemporary Japanese Art
- David Elliot
Schoolgirls, Money and Rebellion in Japan. Abingdon: Nissan Institute/Routledge Japanese Studies
- Sharon Kinsella
Tekunogoshikku. Tokyo: Hōmusha
- Mari Kotani
Ooki na Koe de wa Ienai Otoko No ko Manga No Himitsu” [The Manga Secret of Otoko No ko That Can’t Be Said out Loud
- Kaoru Nagayama
Contemporary State of Unmarried Adults Living with Parents
- Sōmuchō
Near Equal Aida [DVD]. Tokyo: BBB
- Makoto Aida
An Introduction to X-Jendā: Examining a New Gender Identity in Japan
- S P F Dale
Pop Culture Critique 2: Shôjotachi No Senreki
- Tamaki Saitō
Re-Narrating Social Class and Masculinity in Neoliberal Japan
- David Slater
- Patrick Galbraith
Gyaru No Kōzō. Tokyo: Kōdansha
- Kazuma Yamane
New Cross-Dressing Event “DIFFUSION” Report
- Nikkan Spa
A Man Pretending to Be a Woman” [Trans. Reiko Tomii
- Kaori Chino
Moe: Exploring Virtual Potential in Post-Millenial Japan.” Electronic Journal of Contemporary Japanese Studies Article 5
- Patrick Galbraith
Tokyo: Kawade Shobō Shinsha
- Nao Kawamoto
Imoto No Unmei: Moeru Kindai No Bungakushatachi [Little Sisters’ Destiny: The Passionate Literatti of Modernity
- Eiji Ohtsuka
Yuridanshi. Tokyo: Maiwei Shuppan
- Naoko Tachibana
Jiyu to yokuatsu no hazama de kawaisa wo mi ni matou” [Between Freedom and Oppression: Wrapping Themselves in Cuteness
- Toko Tanaka
Preliminary Materials for a Theory of the Young-Girl
- Tiqqun
Kurata Uso Yuri Danshi ni Arawasareta Yuri Fandamu No Sugata ni tsuite no ichi kōsatsu
- James Welker
Net Business No Owari. Tokyo: PHP Kenkyūjō
- Ichiro Yamamoto
Kawaiiron [Cute Theory
- Inuhiko Yomota