<em>Otoko no ko</em> Manga and New Wave Crossdressing in the 2000s: A Two-Dimensional to Three-Dimensional Male Subculture

Abstract

Otoko no ko Manga and New Wave Crossdressing in the 2000sA Two-Dimensional to Three-Dimensional Male Subculture Sharon Kinsella (bio) In twenty-first century Japan, male cross-dressing (josō) has become a popular element of culture at multiple levels, from the most convivial and grassroots amateur and fan participation to mass media entertainment. The cute and moé animation style and diverse range of media involvement in new wave josō distinguish it from earlier and less mediated currents of gay, nyū hāfu (transgender), and cross-dress culture1 and community.2 Playful josō and male gender transformation in millennial Japan echo the growing presence of transgender and between gender modes throughout international culture in the 2000s, but are simultaneously rooted in the local cultural landscape and semiotic system. Contemporary josō in Japan is impacted by the long history of cultic interest in girls (shōjo) and the associated aesthetic of gamine cuteness (kawairashisa), as well as the grassroots redigestions of these themes in male animation subculture (otaku-ism), which has had a significant influence on the new generation of cute and girlish josō. As it is currently a key term in contemporary Japanese culture, josō will largely be used in the original Japanese in this article. When translated it will be translated as "cross-dress," since "female-dress," which is the more exact translation, does not exist in English and "cross-dress" is the closer term in style of usage. Josō male characters emerged in manga, animation, and computer games at the turn of the century into the early 2000s as they became popular in minor genres and leading boy's manga magazines. The "net slang" term otoko no ko ("boy daughter") was first used among eroge (dating simulation) computer game players and covert male fans of shōjo manga,3 then became widely used to identify the new wave of cross-dress culture. Otoko no ko (男の 娘) is a witty term in which the Chinese character for child in the homophonous term "boy" (otoko no ko 男の子) is replaced with "daughter" to create the effect in meaning of a "boy daughter." Around 2010, cute male otoko no ko characters, often identical to bishōjo (beautiful girl) characters, [End Page 40] moved beyond the page and screen through the vector of 2.5-dimensional cosplay. Otoko no ko cross-dressing began to emerge not as street style but as a cosplay, bedroom, and upload fashion. Niche josō websites that allowed participants to upload images or videos of themselves during make-up and transformation, or demonstrated how to apply josō make-up and fashion, contributed to an online otoko no ko boom. Simultaneously, on college campuses a wave of cross-dressed josō bands and josō parody and beauty contests emerged, illustrating the expansion of the theme from niche or otaku subtrends, to more widespread social and grassroots participation. Interested readers are encouraged to look out for a longer article, film, and forthcoming book that explore this complicated and layered phenomenon in the context of twenty-first-century human conditions. This brief pilot article centers on the emergence of otoko no ko characters in manga and their entrance from the shadow-sphere of the animation/manga/computer games media mix into three-dimensional social life. This article presents preliminary observations and thoughts largely of related cultural material rather than actual ethnography and as such it does not offer extensive and conclusive theorization of the motivations of otoko no ko subculture. Readers are advised to find a forthcoming book and later articles to be rooted in ethnographic fieldwork to be carried out in 2020 for more developed evidence and theorization. The Birth of Otoko no ko in Two-Dimensional Josō Youth Characters It is widely noted that gender charade, ambivalence, and revelation have been recurrent elements of the design of gender in manga characters across the postwar period. Manga critic Nagayama Kaoru suggests that two key genre roots of the "boy disguised as girl" narratives of contemporary otoko no ko manga are, firstly, the many "polymorphously perverse" asexual and "hermaphrodite" hero/ines created by Tezuka Osamu in the later 1940s and 1950s, which became the staple reading matter of children hungry for stories...