English

Hiromi Tanaka and Saori Ishida

77

Enjoying Manga as Fujoshi: Exploring its Innovation and Potential for

Social Change from a Gender Perspective

Hiromi Tanaka 1 and Saori Ishida

2

Japanese comics known as manga and its related products such as anime play an

important role in contemporary cultural consumption in Japan and beyond. This paper

focuses on female manga fans called Fujoshi and examines their unique way of

enjoying manga from a gender perspective. Drawing on theories of media consumption

and enjoyment in leisure and using qualitative research methods, this paper identifies

three factors that characterize they way Fujoshi enjoy manga: the importance of

enjoyment or an experience of what Csikszentmihalyi calls „flow‟, the lack of

oppositional reading, and the importance of interaction with other Fujoshi. The authors

conclude that Fujoshi‟s way of enjoying manga involves ambivalences. Though it has

positive impact on their quality of life, its contribution to the transformation of gender

relations is limited. Also, interactions within a Fujoshi fandom can not only nurture

mutual understanding and friendship but also cause certain tensions among them.

Keywords: manga, gender, popular culture, leisure, Japan

Japanese comics known as manga play an important role in contemporary cultural

consumption in Japan and beyond. They are sold across borders and their fans can be found

in many regions from Asia, North America to Western Europe. Some of them even come to

Japan, visiting towns in which famous stories are located, or going to areas in Tokyo being

famous for comics.

Manga and anime or their animated productions have drawn much attention from

Japanese gender and media researchers, because they represent a strongly gendered form of

media. Many analyses of media representations of male and female characters stress that

gender stereotypes are often transmitted through stories and visual images, whereby a binary

system of masculinities and femininities is reinforced (Fujita, 2011; Fujita, 2012; Saito, 2001;

Takai, 2005; Wakakusa, 2003). It is also pointed out that manga fans appear to be passive in

their reading and accept rather than reject gendered cultural codes embedded in media text

they are engaged with (Tanaka, 2013). And yet, one should not exclude the possibility for

media audiences‟ active engagement, as critical media researchers have long pointed out

(Blumer & Katz, 1974; Hall, 1980).

In this paper we shed light on a unique form of enjoying manga that led to the

emergence of a manga fandom called Fujoshi, which literally means „rotten girls‟. These

female manga fans typically love yaoi 3 and BL (boys‟ love), a genre depicting male-male

romantic and sexual relationships 4 . Similarly to fans of the western slash fiction

5 , Fujoshi not

only read yaoi or BL works produced by professional artists. Many of them are also amateur

artists. They produce their own versions of popular works, usually those produced for boys.

In other words, they transform homosocial 6 bonds between male characters featured in

1 Assoc. Prof., School of Information and Communication, Meiji University, Tokyo, Japan

2 Ph.D. Student, Graduate School of Information and Communication, Meiji University, Tokyo, Japan

International Journal of Behavioral Science Copyright 2015, Behavioral Science Research Institute

2015, Vol. 10, Issue 1, 77-85 ISSN: 1906-4675

Enjoying Manga as Fujoshi

78

original works into homosexual relationships in their fantasy and then produce parodies with

a homoerotic motif. This queer reading is in a way innovative, because it challenges the

conventional way of reading and allows a new way of interpretation, expanding the scope of

conventional manga reading.

Drawing on existing studies about gender, media, and consumption as well as leisure

and enjoyment, we examine Fujoshi‟s way of enjoying manga. We pay a particular attention

to their active way of enjoying manga including the re-interpretation of original works, the

production, distribution, and consumption of derivative works as well as simply reading the

original works. We also explore whether these readers simply accept or negotiate and/or

reject hegemonic codes based on the traditional gender ideology embedded in the original

stories. It is an interesting question from a gender perspective because in case of such

rejection readers show their agency in intervening the seemingly static process of cultural

consumption in which the conventional gender stereotypes are repeatedly produced and

reproduced while being uncritically consumed by readers. We discuss this question of social

change, too.

In the following sections we first review existing research about manga and gender in

Japan relevant for our study. We will then offer a conceptual framework for our analysis.

After explaining our hypotheses and research methods, we will present and discuss our

findings.

Literature Review

The term Fujoshi began to proliferate in the 2000s. It is therefore only until recently

that it became an object of inquiry 7 . In 2007, a literary magazine, Yureka, published a special

issue on Fujoshi. This contributed to the expansion of the term‟s usage in Japan.

Besides literary critiques published in non-academic media (Nakajima, 1991; Nimiya,

1995; Sugiura, 2006), only a few academic studies about Fujoshi have been published so far 8 .

Galbraith (2011), one of the earliest academic publications about Fujoshi, investigates a

Fujoshi community. Drawing on his own ethnographic work, he stresses the importance of a

space created by Fujoshi for their fantasy, mutual exchange, and friendship. Importantly, he

points out that in the process of space creation, Fujoshi differentiate themselves from non-

Fujoshi whom they call ippanjin or normal people.

Galbraith‟s study succeeds earlier works about yaoi or BL (e.g. Levi, McHarry, &

Pagliassotti, 2010; Thorn, 2004; Vincent, 2007; Welker, 2006; Zanghellini, 2009). But he

misses an important gender issue raised by earlier works such as Thorn (2004) and Ueno

(1998) that female manga and anime fans of yaoi and BL may be discontent with the

conventional norms of gender and sexuality existing in Japanese society, that women are

dominated by men in the public (e.g. corporations, institutional politics) and the private (e.g.

3 Yaoi is an abbreviation of „yamanashi, ochinashi, iminashi’ or „No build-up, no foreclosure, and no meaning‟

(Kinsella 1998:301). Though Fujoshi is a new word, manga works about male homosexual relationships has

been popular since 1970s. See Galbraith (2011). 4 For a good overview of yaoi and BL, see Zanghellini (2009).

5 See Thorn (2004).

Hiromi Tanaka and Saori Ishida

79

family, intimate relationship). Such discontent has been seen as an important factor to drive

women and girls into the world of queer reading, in which these women and girls enjoy

making male homosexual couples, seeing both an aggressor and his target are male, thus no

female being subordinated.

Kaneda (2007) discusses various aspects of a Fujoshi phenomenon, particularly their

manga reading and community. Her study lacks a systematic, theoretically and empirically

grounded analysis, but it significantly connects Fujoshi studies with critical media studies. Of

particular importance is her reference to Hall‟s theory of encoding and decoding. Here she

assumes that Fujoshi does no oppositional reading: Fujoshi does not challenge the dominant

meanings encoded in the media text, even though they do queer reading.

Kaneda‟s suggestion overlaps with the findings of Tanaka (2013), which examined

young people‟s reading of boys‟ sports manga. She examines how male and female fans of

Japanese sports manga “SLAM DUNK”, a phenomenally popular work published in the early

1990‟s 9 , consume hegemonic codes based on gender ideology and embedded in messages

disseminated through the manga. She found no sign of contestation against traditional gender

norms among her informants. She concludes that boys‟ sports manga reading by young

readers contributes to rather than intervenes the reproduction of the existing gender structure.

Though Tanaka‟s study is not about Fujoshi, it would be interesting to explore the same

question about social change regarding Fujoshi.

Objectives

In this paper we investigate how Fujoshi enjoy manga and in which way their reading

is different from other dominant forms of manga reading. We also explore its possibility for

their intervening the existing gender structure, for example, whether they accept the

mainstream gender and sexuality norms (see Literature Review).

Conceptual Framework

For our analysis we use Stuart Hall‟s encoding/decoding model of media

communication (Hall, 1980), and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi‟s theory about “flow”, which is

an experience or the psychological state of an individual that shall bring about enjoyment and

thus enhance the quality of life of that individual (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990).

Hall‟s theory offers a typology of media audiences‟ reading or consumption of a

media text. According to Hall (1980) there are three types of reading, depending on how the

audience receives or reacts to the media messages. Dominant, preferred or hegemonic reading

6 The term homosocial refers to a male group in which non-sexual male bonds are emphasized. Theoretically,

two factors characterize such a group: the exclusion of women (misogyny) and a taboo of homosexuality

(homophobia). See Sedgewick (1985). 7 Though the term Fujoshi was a recent invention, the depiction of male homosexual bonds can be traced back to

around 1970, first in shojo manga or manga for girls and later in yaoi/BL as an independent genre. In this paper

we focus on Fujoshi who enjoy reading yaoi/BL and producing sexualized „parodies‟ of originally non-yaoi/BL

works. 8 One reason is that the fandom of yaoi and BL has been rarely researched before the term Fujoshi was coined.

See Zanghelini (2009, p. 280). 9 SLAM DUNK is popular among Fujoshi. There are homoerotic parodies made by Fujoshi.

Enjoying Manga as Fujoshi

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means that readers accept hegemonic meaning coded in the media text on the basis of

dominant ideology (e.g. mainstream gender ideology) in the society. This type of reading

helps reproduce the existing cultural structure. In negotiated reading readers accept a

hegemonic meaning, but they may modify (i.e. negotiate) its meaning, reflecting on their own

social position or experience. In case of oppositional reading readers reject dominant

meanings. We are interested in exploring how Fujoshi‟s reading fits this typology or how

their reading can be understood in this framework offered by Hall.

Csikszentmihalyi (1990) discusses the state of an individual in which s/he is absorbed

in a certain activity, enjoy or is amused by something. He calls this state a “flow” which is

conceptualized as something that can make leisure as what it is supposed to be. He

differentiates between pleasure and enjoyment. According to him, both are important

constituents of quality of life, but he places a stronger emphasis on enjoyment, because it

leads to a “flow”. He argues that enjoyment promotes one‟s growth or development and thus

enhances his or her quality of life. Pleasure does not have this quality. What makes these two

elements clearly different is a challenge, for which one needs to use expressive skills. In

contrast to instrumental skills needed to adapt to the environment, expressive skills enable

one to express subjective experiences. He contends that only with these expressive skills

utilized, leisure activities can be meaningful and bring about enjoyment. Expressive skills are

regarded as crucial in building and keeping friendship or companionship, which shall

eventually promote enjoyment.

For our analysis, Hall‟s model is useful for a critical examination of the relationship

between Fujoshi and a media text they enjoy. The model of Csikszentmihalyi is important for

us to identify and investigate dimensions of their enjoying manga. We combine these models

with a gender perspective that allows us to critically look at the social practice and process

related to Fujoshi and pay attention to the possibility of their intervention in the society‟s

gender order that characterizes today‟s media including manga and their audiences.

Hypotheses

Our study belongs to qualitative research of which strength lies in generating

theories rather than testing pre-fixed hypotheses. As working hypotheses, however, we

expected to find that Fujoshi may not necessarily reject gendered hegemonic codes embedded

in the original manga and their way of manga reading has thus only limited potential for

intervening a gendered dimension of the society. We also expected that Fujoshi enjoys

manga, but we were determined to carefully examine on the basis of our data how exactly

they enjoy it and whether this enjoying can be seen as what Csikszentmihalyi called

enjoyment.

Method

We conducted semi-structured interviews (see Table 1 for interview topic guide) and

qualitative content analysis of interview data (see Ritchie, Lewis, Nicholls, & Ormston,

2013). We interviewed seven heterosexual women, aged from 20 to 32, between November

2013 and February 2014 in Tokyo (see Table 2). All these women resided in the Tokyo

Metropolitan Area. We contacted them either directly or through mutual acquaintances. All

the persons we contacted accepted to cooperate for this study. We paid utmost attention to the

privacy of our informants and carefully managed collected data. For data analysis we

Hiromi Tanaka and Saori Ishida

81

individually coded the data and discussed the results of our coding together, particularly

when any differences arose.

Table 1

Interview Topics

- Self-introduction

- Favorite works, favorite characters

- Intensity of reading/buying manga (how often)

- The number of manga works possessed

- Money invested for related activities (purchase of books, etc.)

- Beginning as Fujoshi (how you became Fujoshi)

- Beginning to transform a homosocial world of boys‟ manga into a homosexual world (how started)

- Pleasure of such transforming (How do you like the transforming? What is exciting in that?)

- Only to those who write derivative works: How you started doing that? What is fun?/How do you like that?

- Interaction with other Fujoshi (Do you have any friends with the same hobby?/ Do you have any contact with other Fujoshi?/ Do you want to get to know other Fujoshi?)

- What is the most beautiful experience you have since you became Fujoshi?

- What is the hardest thing you experienced since you became Fujoshi?

Table 2

List of Informants

Name Age Occupation History of being Fujoshi A 22 College student Since the age 10

B 20 College student Since the age 16

C 20 College student Since the age 8

D 27 Office worker Since the age of 13 or 14

E 22 College student Since the age of 10

F 32 Office worker Since the age of 13

G 26 Office worker Since the age of 16

All the informants had fun in reading boys‟ manga, both original works and parodies.

Four of them were college students, while three of them were employed. Interviews were

structured around a set of topics, ranging from years of experience of being Fujoshi,

opportunity to become Fujoshi, favorite works, to interaction with other Fujoshi (see Table

2).

All of them except one started reading yaoi or BL in teens (see Table 1). They

devoted their spare time in their busy school life 10

to reading manga and eventually grew out

of passive readers into active agents who enjoy producing their own artworks. Many of them

first got to know yaoi or BL through peers in school and/or family. Many others came across

works of this genre accidentally on the Internet or in bookstores (while many parodies are

shared outside a commercial book market, some works are sold in common bookstores).

Enjoying Manga as Fujoshi

82

When they first encountered homoeroticism in yaoi or BL, all of them except one informant

accepted it naturally, because they were young and did not yet fully internalize the

conventional heteronormative gender norms 11

.

Results

Our analysis led us to identify the following three dimensions that characterize

Fujoshi‟s way of enjoying manga: the importance of enjoyment, lack of oppositional reading,

the process and the practice of social differentiation within Fujoshi‟s community as well as

between their community and outside.

Importance of Enjoyment

Our informants were attracted to Fujoshi‟s way of enjoying manga for two reasons.

First, the queer reading helped them open up a new avenue in enjoying manga. The

conventional, non-queer way of reading appeared to be static to them. With the queer reading

they learned a different way of developing their fantasies and creativity. Second, they “have

fun” (Informant G) in mutual exchange and build a friendship with other Fujoshi. The fact

that they share a hobby, which is not easily understood by non-Fujoshi people, increases the

intensity of their interaction. Csikszentmihalyi (1990) says that the shared objectives and

activities in friendships bring about enjoyment. This applies to Fujoshi, too, particularly those

who share fun by using expressive skills for producing their own artworks.

We also found that Fujoshi as amateur artists feel positively challenged in producing

their own works. It is because they make tremendous efforts in their production. Our

informants who are such artists feel a sense of accomplishment, when they see their efforts

turn out to be successful. That‟s why they are so engaged in their activities. This can be seen

as a “flow”, but to keep an experience of “flow” they need to retain their original motivation.

An impetus to produce an artwork has to emerge internally without any external impetus. As

one informant (C) put it well, many Fujoshi artists produce their own works basically for

self-contentment. However, this simple impulse may eventually be replaced with something

else, as another informant (E) said: “if you are forced to produce, it is (not a leisure but) a

job.”

Self-development is another key element. Some informants enjoy reading works

produced by other Fujoshi. This is because they “could […] learn different perspectives”

from others (Informant C). This promotes their mutual exchange in public events in which

they can present their works and have conversations with others. Their desire to learn is

obvious here.

Negotiated Reading and the Lack of Oppositional Reading

We found Fujoshi‟s manga reading is negotiated one. They accept homosocial,

heterosexual elements in original works. They are in fact fans of the original works and

usually avoid criticizing them. In case there is a discrepancy between what is

described in heterosexual romance in an original work and Fujoshi‟s fantasy developing out

of this original work, there are at least two options for them. Either that they stop their

fantasy (Informant G: “the world I have been creating is shaken by the official (work) and I

Hiromi Tanaka and Saori Ishida

83

came back to reality” or that they allow both their own world and the original world to

coexist (Informant B: [Mine] exist outside of the original).

What they negotiate in their reading is a homosocial element in the original works.

They are obviously attracted to homosocial male bonds, but it is just one way to treat their

taste for homosocial male bonds that they transform these bonds into homosexual ones.

(Informant E: “It does not have to be romance”; Informant C: “I just love that [certain male

characters] are fond of each other”; Informant G: “A male friendship can be smoothly

transformed in a romantic one”. Nevertheless, they do so, because “[they are] not [male

homosexuals]” (Informant C) or “as a woman, [Fujoshi] cannot not experience such a gay

relationship” (Informant E). “If it were a heterosexual relationship between a man and a

woman, I would compare it with a real one in my real life. […] A homosexual one between

men appears very special” (Informant E).

All of our informants are heterosexual women. They reject a feminine passivity in a

heterosexual relationship and make pairs of male characters. However, it is not that they do

not allow women to exist in their fantasy. They do positively accept female characters, even

the gendered way of representation of these characters in original works (Informant C: “[A

heroin is] a beautiful flower among guys”. There is another contradiction that such a

feminine passivity as they reject characterizes a male-male sexual relationship they create.

We will discuss this point in detail in the final section (see Discussion).

External and internal differences

On one hand, Fujoshi differentiate themselves from non-Fujoshi people. One

informant (D) is ashamed of spending much money on manga and related activities, saying

“some people have a financial plan and save money but I spend so much money on things

like that. I feel so bad.” Similarly, another informant (E) compares herself with other women

who “invest money in improving their appearance, going to a beauty salon, and saving

money for their future marriage”. These narratives imply that these informants internalize

certain social norms and have conflicts with them, because they as Fujoshi do not conform to

these norms (in this case what an adult or adult woman should do). Here they may feel they

are deviant and feel stigmatized.

At the same time, Fujoshi tends to be exclusive to non-Fujoshi people. One of our

informants (C) assumed that Fujoshi are different from others and said that “basically they

should not come out”. This informant does not like Fujoshi‟s artworks being disposed to the

public. Other informants (B, D) told that they hide their Fujoshi identity from their families,

saying they were just manga fans. The practice of differentiation between Fujoshi and non-

Fujoshi is clearly seen here.

A Fujoshi fandom is also internally differentiated. Their tastes for favorite works,

characters and couples created in each work, and interpretations vary. Different tastes often

lead to the formation of groupings. A clash of opinions between such groupings can even

“aggravate relations” (Informant B).

10 Japanese students have usually packed schedules, because most of them go to cram schools in the evening to

prepare for entrance exams for an upper school. 11

One informant said she wondered at first, why male characters are in romance, but she got used to it quickly.

Enjoying Manga as Fujoshi

84

Internal differences can also arise with regards to a varying degree of resources each

Fujoshi possesses. According to Kaneda (2007), the following factors are important elements

of their cultural capital: drawing skills, interpretative skills, and a commitment or what she

calls an “attachment” to artworks without seeking any return. All our informants stress the

importance of artistic skills in producing their artworks. But due to this, some feel frustrated.

One of our informants (F) said, “I cannot express as I want.” Her frustration may worse by

comparing her own works with those produced by other Fujoshi artists. In fact, internal

differentiation between Fujoshi artists based on artistic skills can produce a certain hierarchy

among them, and some feel self-humiliated in contrast to others who appear to be more

skilled (Kaneda 2007). This may have a risk or what Csikszentmihalyi (1990) warns in his

study: If a competition intensifies, the original objective of producing own artworks in the

pursuit of happiness may give way to the pursuit of success in such a competition.

Discussion

Like other studies, our study has certain methodological and theoretical limitations.

The number of informants is limited, only a certain set of theoretical approaches were

applied, and thus our scope might have been narrow. Nevertheless, our findings crystalized

important aspects of our research object, Japanese female manga fans called Fujoshi, and

how they enjoy manga. Importantly, as we discuss below, our findings point to ambivalences

surrounding Fujoshi‟s way of enjoying manga.

First, their community is united and divided. Their community tends to be exclusive,

sometimes hidden from outside. The process and practice of external differentiation between

Fujoshi and non-Fujoshi people reinforces internal coherence of their community. At the

same time, this may strengthen their feeling of being deviant and marginalized in the society.

Also, internal differences can be problematic, because they can lead to a conflict or a

competition among them. Internal differences among women have long been an important

issue in gender studies. In case their orientation to form a closed community intensifies and

their intra-group competition exacerbates, their feeling of self-humiliation may intensify. We

argue that whether Fujoshi continues to have enjoyment in reading and producing manga

depends on how they negotiate these ambiguities.

Second, fuojshi‟s manga reading appears to be conservative as well as innovative. Its

innovation lies in expanding an interpretative framework of original works and thus opening

up a new level of interpretation of the original stories. And yet Fujoshi do not necessarily

challenge the gendered images and messages embedded in the original works. Even

heteronormative codes of sexuality are actually used in their parodies, too. For example, a

male homosexual relationship is typically formed between an aggressor and a recipient or an

aggressor‟s target. A recipient is often conceptualized as a character with a „feminine‟ look

and personalities (e.g. being emotional, jealous, good at cooking, etc.). This kind of practice

reproduces rather than subvert the existing gender order that typifies manga. To change this

practice is probably difficult, because, as our study revealed, it is likely that most Fujoshi

internalize the mainstream social norms.

And yet, it is premature to conclude that Fujoshi‟s way of enjoying manga has no

potential for social change. As Hall (1980) and other cultural studies researchers stress, media

audiences are no passive beings. It is thus important to keep an eye on the further

development of Fujoshi.

Hiromi Tanaka and Saori Ishida

85

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