Queer seduction in Japanese essay manga: an analysis of manga physicality and gay, lesbian and Fujoshi eroticism

Abstract

ABSTRACT Contemporary manga artists have easily incorporated autobiographical elements into their manga creations, initiating the essay manga subgenre. An analysis of essay manga may therefore represent an especially apt way to consider both the possibilities and impossibilities of the realistic expression of physicality and eroticism in fictional queer characters. The complicity between a limitlessly resilient, virtually immortal queer body and its constant revitalisation in essay manga can be discussed in relation to kawaii, or cuteness, discourse. The inherent instabilities of queer reality and fictionality may be seen in the gay essay manga of both Poohsuke Kumada and Mochigi, as well as in Kabi Nagata’s Harvey Award-Winning My Lesbian Experience With Loneliness. Humour is another aspect which enables the journalistic queer realism – outing, orgies, STIs, gay escorts, and so forth – of essay manga to coincide with (fictional) ‘manga realism.’ T I also discuss the corporeal eroticism of fujoshi (fervent female fans of BL or Boys Love), as represented in the best-selling fujoshi essay manga titled Tsuzui-san, the Fujoshi. Here I expand on Hiroki Azuma’s theory of ‘game realism,’ which proposes the existence of an endlessly produced and consumed (non-individual) collectivity in the postmodern context.