Maiko Masquerade: Crafting Geisha Girlhood in Japan by Jan Bardsley

Abstract

Reviewed by: Maiko Masquerade: Crafting Geisha Girlhood in Japan by Jan Bardsley Rebecca Corbett (bio) Maiko Masquerade: Crafting Geisha Girlhood in Japan. By Jan Bardsley. University of California Press, 2021. xvi, 283 pages. $85.00, cloth; $29.95, paper; $29.95, E-book. Anyone who has spent time in Kyoto in the 2000s has likely noticed the "maiko boom" which Jan Bardsley masterfully unpacks in Maiko Masquerade. The ubiquity of the maiko figure in souvenir shops, on tourism posters, in-person with domestic and international tourists playing "dress up," and even occasionally a real maiko, permeates the city and its representation. Bardsley takes an interdisciplinary cultural studies approach to examining the media and popular culture representation of the maiko in twenty-first-century Japan, her research inspired by a question posed by her students: "What kinds of geisha stories exist these days in Japan?" In the 2000s, it is not so much the geisha (or geiko, in Kyoto, used in this book) but the teenage apprentice maiko who is the figure of popular imagination. Bardsley is particularly concerned with representation of maiko in media and popular culture. Using an impressively diverse range of sources from movies, manga, light novels, visual art, and biographies to popular guides, [End Page 214] photobooks, and even tenugui (cotton hand towels), Bardsley crafts a lively and richly nuanced narrative about this "millennial maiko." Themes that emerge in Maiko Masquerade are the performance of "maiko-likeness," maiko agency, and maiko as quintessential Japanese good girl. "Maiko-likeness" (pp. 3, 31–35), or maiko rashii maiko, is a compelling through line and where the idea of masquerade, in the title, comes from—maiko-likeness being something performed. Bardsley shows how this performance is linked to the performance of femininity in millennial Japan. This is perhaps a topic that could have been further explored by bringing in historical studies of the performance of different types of femininity in Japan. Maiko agency is found in accounts that foreground becoming a maiko as a path of a girl's own choosing, "largely due to her love of kimono and dance" (p. 3). Interwoven within this narrative is a distancing of the work of maiko from sexual servitude and exploitation which, as Bardsley shows in chapter 4, characterize earlier popular narratives of the maiko in the twentieth century. One question not fully explored is whether this distancing presents a danger of erasing historical realities of exploitation and sexual servitude. The maiko, and particularly the maiko rashii maiko that she strives to be, is "especially mannered and contained" (p. 3). As the quintessential Japanese good girl, who values traditional arts and textiles, she stands in direct contrast to other figures in popular culture such as kogal (delinquent high school girls) (pp. 13–14). Each of these themes is complex and interwoven with the others; as they recur throughout the book, Bardsley draws them out at key moments for the reader. Given the range of sources and disciplinary approaches that Maiko Masquerade employs, it will be of interest to scholars in fields such as literature, cultural studies, media studies, theater and performance studies, and gender and sexuality studies. It builds upon and makes important theoretical contributions in all of these fields and should be read by anyone with an interest in millennial Japanese culture and society, whether the figure of the maiko intrigues you or not. It is particularly nice to see a book that thanks students who inspired it as the first acknowledgment. It is clear that conversations in the classroom shaped this book in ways that make it suitable for use in the classroom itself. Chapter 5 on the "Adventures of a Boy Maiko" provides a great case study for students interested in contemporary Japanese literature, culture, and gender studies, for example. Structurally the flow between chapters is excellent, each building on themes of the preceding chapters, making the book particularly enjoyable to read as the story develops and gathers pace. It begins with a discussion of the spaces the maiko occupies, with descriptions of the five hanamachi (neighborhoods) in Kyoto where maiko live and work, alongside geiko, tea-house and okiya managers, and other workers. While each hanamachi is distinct...