Vision

VISION
CULTURAL AND COMMUNICATIVE PERSPECTIVES
WI T H MANGA ART I ST
QUEENIE
CH A N
EDI T E D BY SA R A H P A S F IE L D - N EO FI TO U AN D CATH Y SELL

MANGA VISION
MANGA
VISION
Cul t ur al and Communicat i ve Per spec t i ves
EDITED BY
S AR AH PAS FIELD- NEOF IT OU
AND CATH Y SELL
WITH M ANG A A R TIS T

QU EENIE CHA N
© Copyright 2016
Copyright of this collection in its entirety is held by Sarah Pasfield-Neofitou and Cathy Sell.
Copyright of manga artwork is held by Queenie Chan, unless another artist is explicitly stated as its
creator in which case it is held by that artist.
Copyright of the individual chapters is held by the respective author(s).
All rights reserved. Apart from any uses permitted by Australia’s Copyright Act 1968, no part of this
book may be reproduced by any process without prior written permission from the copyright owners.
Inquiries should be directed to the publisher.
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www.publishing.monash.edu/books/mv-9781925377064.html
Series: Cultural Studies
Design: Les Thomas
Cover image: Queenie Chan
National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry:

Title: Manga vision: cultural and communicative perspectives / editors: Sarah
Pasfield-Neofitou, Cathy Sell; Queenie Chan, manga artist.
ISBN: 9781925377064 (paperback)
9781925377071 (epdf )
9781925377361 (epub)
Subjects: Comic books, strips, etc.--Social aspects--Japan.
Comic books, strips, etc.--Social aspects.
Comic books, strips, etc., in art.
Comic books, strips, etc., in education.
Subculture--Japan.
Other Creators/Contributors:
Pasfield-Neofitou, Sarah E., editor.
Sell, Cathy, editor.
Chan, Queenie, artist.
Dewey Number: 741.5973
C ON T E N T S
Introduction
Tuning in to Manga: Cultural and Communicative Perspectives. . . . . . . . . . 1
Sarah Pasfield-Neofitou
Section One
Appropriation and Expansion: Cultural Expression . . . . . . . . 13
Chapter One
Image to Object, Illustration to Costume: Australian Cosplayers and
Cosplay ‘Ways of Seeing’ Manga . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Claire Langsford
Chapter Two
Beyond ‘Japaneseness’: Representative Possibilities of Original English
Language Manga in Svetlana Chmakova’s Dramacon. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
Angela Moreno Acosta
Chapter Three
The Changing Role of Manga and Anime Magazines in the Japanese
Animation Industry. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
Renato Rivera Rusca
Chapter Four
From Victim to Kira: Death Note and the Misplaced Agencies of
Cosmic Justice. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
Corey Bell
Chapter Five
Exploring Yaoi Fans’ Online Practices in an Online Community. . . . . . . . . 87
Simon Turner
Chapter Six
An Evaluation of Physicality in the Bara Manga of Bádi Magazine. . . . . . . 107
Thomas Baudinette
MANGA VISION
Chapter Seven
Finding Music in Manga: Exploring Yaoi through Contemporary Piano
Composition. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
Paul Smith
Section Two
Communication and Engagement: Language Exchange. . . . . 145
Chapter Eight
Nodame’s Language Lessons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
Tomoko Aoyama and Belinda Kennett
Chapter Nine
Writing Another’s Tongue: Orthographic Representations of
Non-Fluency in Japanese Manga . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
Wes Robertson
Chapter Ten
Factors Influencing Non-Native Readers’ Sequencing of Japanese
Manga Panels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178
James F. Lee and William S. Armour
Chapter Eleven
Manga in the English as a Foreign Language Classroom. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194
Lara Promnitz-Hayashi
Chapter Twelve
Impolite Language in Manga. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209
Lidia Tanaka
Chapter Thirteen
Ken-Honyaku-ryū: Issues in the Translation of Controversial Texts
Focusing on the Manga Comics Hate Korean Wave and Hate Japanese
Wave . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227
Adam Antoni Zulawnik
vi
Contents
Chapter Fourteen
The Sound of Silence: Translating Onomatopoeia and Mimesis in
Japanese Manga. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251
Cathy Sell and Sarah Pasfield-Neofitou
Chapter Fifteen
Manga Spectacles: Manga as a Multimodal Research Tool. . . . . . . . . . . . 271
Cathy Sell
Manga by Queenie Chan

Tuning in to Manga . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . viii
Cultural Expression . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Language and Engagement. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
Manga Spectacles. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 270
About the Contributors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281

Index. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 287
vii
IN T R ODUC T ION
T UNING IN T O M A NG A
Cultural and Communicative Perspectives
SARAH PASFIELD-NEOFITOU
Glancing at Manga’s Past

Manga [漫画], or Japanese comics, are today a globally recognised art form,
but they have a rather complex history. Some manga historians emphasise the
cultural influence that the USA had on the form, particularly the impact of
Disney cartoons and American comics and newspaper strips during the post-
war occupation of Japan (see Fusanosuke, 2003; Ōtsuka & LaMarre, 2008).
Other historians give more weight to the continuity of Japanese cultural and
aesthetic traditions that may be observed in manga (see Schodt, 1986): we may
glimpse, for example, the influence of the caricatured drawings featured in an
eighth-century temple (Horyuji Temple), or in Toga’s twelfth-century ‘Animal
Scrolls’ (Ito, 2005).
As Ito notes (2005), the art of the Tokugawa or Edo period (1603–1868)
made for a particularly rich legacy for Japanese comic art, with the emergence
of the popular and accessible otsu-e (folk-art pictures, sometimes religious
and sometimes satirical in nature), and toba‑e (comical scroll pictures from
the Kyoto region) and the publication of early akabon, or ‘red books’, which
were precursors to modern manga. According to Schodt (1991), manga may
be considered a direct descendent of two other forms popularised during this
period: kibyoshi, or ‘yellow-jacket books’, which grew out of children’s picture
books, and ukiyo-e, or ‘pictures of the floating world’, a genre of popular folk
pictures.
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MANGA VISION
Katsushika Hokusai, a famous ukiyo-e artist, is credited with coining the

term ‘manga’, which he used for a series of his sketchbooks, published as
instructional manuals for artists in the first half of the nineteenth century.
Hokusai is particularly well known for his woodblock prints depicting
Mount Fuji. In 2013, one of these works, The Great Wave off Kanagawa, was
reimagined for the cover of Ian Condry’s book The Soul of Anime, with Unit-01
– a cyborg from Neon Genesis Evangelion, a manga and later an animated series
– striding through the great wave. Thus this image depicts a link not only
between ukiyo-e and manga, but also between manga and anime. As Condry
notes, around 60 per cent of anime is derived from manga. The relationship
between the two forms is a theme that Rivera Rusca expands upon in chapter
three of this book.
Regardless of how far back we trace manga’s roots, the medium exploded in
popularity in the post-war period, largely thanks to the work of prolific manga
artists, such as Tezuka Osamu, who created the manga series Astro Boy, which
later became the first popular anime series, and Hasegawa Machiko, who
created Sazae-san, which would also became one of the most popular animated
series on Japanese television (Schodt, 1986). Manga would go on to influence
animation, video games, film, the music industry, ‘character goods’, the emoji
we use every day on our smart phones, and indeed, much of what belongs to the
global phenomenon we now know as Cool Japan.
Viewing Manga in Japan

Manga continues to be an extremely popular medium in Japan, and is read by
millions of people of all ages worldwide. A broad array of thematic genres exist,
including action/adventure, comedy, history, horror, mystery, romance, science
fiction, sport, suspense and even business/commerce (Gravett, 2004). Manga
biographies of successful investors Warren Buffett and George Soros, by Ayano
Morio (2005) and Kaoru Kurotani (2005) respectively, have been published in
English. Dan Pink’s The Adventures of Johnny Bunko: The Last Career Guide You’ll
Ever Need (2008) has been described as ‘America’s first business book in the
Japanese comic format known as manga’ (Pink, 2014) and has been translated
into Japanese, among other languages. Even the works of Shakespeare have
been given new life in the Manga Shakespeare series published in association
2
Tuning in to Manga
with Historic Royal Palaces in England and in the Manga de dokuha literary
classics series in Japan.
In addition to these thematic genres, there are also broad categories based on
the age groups and genders of the target audience. In the 1950s and 1960s, the
manga scene solidified into two major marketing genres (Toku, 2005), shōnen,
aimed at boys, and shōjo, aimed at girls, which in part drew on Hasegawa’s
focus on the daily lives and experiences of women depicted in Sazae-san (Lee,
2000; Gravett, 2004).
Manga Genres and Audiences

Shōnen manga are ostensibly aimed at boys aged ten and above, and an add
itional category, seinen, targets men of university age or older. However,
pinning down manga audience demographics is notoriously difficult and
distinctions are often blurred. Shōjo represents a more ‘female-focused’ alter
nat ive to shōnen and is generally marketed towards girls aged ten and above,
but shōnen manga also has a substantial female readership. Shōjo manga,
like shōnen, has an adult counterpart: josei, or ladies’ manga, is typically
read by women aged fifteen to forty-four (Ito, 2003). Yet the most popular
seinen manga magazine, Young Magazine, with an approximate circulation of
725,000 copies, while still not as popular as the bestselling shōnen magazine,
sells approximately five times as many copies as the most popular josei manga
magazines (three josei magazines claim circulation of approximately 150,000
copies) (JMPA, 2012). Sales of the top shōnen (Weekly Jump at 2,890,000
copies) and shōjo magazines (Ciao at 654,584 copies) also considerably out
strip any of the josei magazines, as outlined in Sell and Pasfield-Neofitou (see
chapter fourteen).
Finally, we have kodomo manga, which is aimed at young children (often
below the age of ten). It represents another important genre alongside shōnen
and shōjo. Two of the most prestigious manga awards include specific awards
for kodomo. The Kodansha Manga Award distributes awards according to the
categories of children, shōnen, shōjo and ‘general’. Similarly, the Shogakukan
Manga Award uses the categories children [ jido], boys [shōnen], girls [shōjo]
and general [ippan]. The ippan award was originally called the seinen award. A
separate josei award appears not to have existed.
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MANGA VISION
The late 1960s saw the first major group of female mangaka [manga artists]
enter the Japanese comics scene. These artists became known as the Year 24
Group (for the group’s most common year of birth according to the Japanese
calendar). Its artists include Yamagishi Ryoko (Arabesque), Ikeda Riyoko (The
Rose of Versailles), Hagio Moto (The Poe Family) and Takemiya Keiko (Kaze to
Ki no Uta) – the ‘founding mothers’ of the ‘boys’ love’ genre – and Oshima
Yumiko (The Star of Cottonland), who is credited with popularising the ‘catgirl’
character type, a human female character with feline traits, such as a cat’s tail
and ears.
Manga in the Japanese Media Landscape

Most manga are published initially in manga magazines that contain
instalments from several series, alongside one-shot and four-panel comic strips
(yonkoma). Manga magazines normally consist of a large stack of low-quality
paper with monochrome printing, their hundreds of pages better resemble a
bulky phonebook than a glossy magazine. After a popular series has run for
a while, these stories are often collected into dedicated book-sized volumes
known as tankōbon, similar to trade paperbacks or graphic novels in the USA
and elsewhere. Most manga published outside of Japan take a similar format
to tankōbon, although they are occasionally published in a slightly larger size.
The influence of manga can be seen not only in bookshops, but also in other
institutions in Japan. The most common form of Japanese cultural institution
dedicated to manga is the manga library and, of course, general libraries in
Japan also frequently incorporate manga into the their collections (Toshokan
Mondai Kenkyūkai, 1999, as cited in Ito, Tanigawa, Murata, & Yamanaka,
2013c). Private manga libraries are accessible in manga kissa, or manga cafés,
which serve as a space for fans to read manga. Proprietors charge customers
for the amount of time they spend in the café and may offer snack vending
machines, beverages, Internet access and even reclining chairs and shower
facilities for those who want to stay overnight. Similar establishments can
be found in Korea’s manhwabang and have recently opened in Europe. In
Australia, Monash University’s JSC Manga Library, modelled on the manga
kissa concept, caters for both educational and entertainment needs (Taiyaki,
2007), and celebrated ten years of operation in 2012 (Sell, 2012).
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Tuning in to Manga
A number of other cultural and scholarly institutions in Japan pay hom

age to manga. It is estimated that some fifty to sixty manga museums exist
in Japan (Tanigawa, 2013). The Takarazuka City Osamu Tezuka Manga
Museum, which opened in Takarazuka city in 1994, was a pioneer in the
field. A number of cities followed its lead and established museums honouring
their own homegrown talents (Tanigawa, 2013). Tanigawa identifies a second
boom, which concerns expectations surrounding the notion of Cool Japan and
government initiatives to further promote and enhance Japan’s soft power. The
Kyoto International Manga Museum is one example of a prominent institut
ion intended to incorporate the dual functions of library and museum, and
conceived of as a facility to collect, manage and organise manga for research
purposes (Ito, Tanigawa, Murata, & Yamanaka, 2013a). There are a multitude
of institutions relating to manga in Japan and they deal with the medium in
various ways. Some are galleries that treat manga as original artworks; some
are museums that treat manga and related materials as historical artefacts;
‘manga artist memorial halls’ celebrate a particular local figure (Ito, Tanigawa,
Murata, & Yamanaka, 2013a). Surveys of visitors to the Tezuka museum
revealed that the museum is viewed as both a social educational facility and as
a theme park of sorts (Ito, Tanigawa, Murata, & Yamanaka, 2013b).
Manga exhibitions have been staged in galleries, manga museums and even
department stores in Japan. These events were more or less well established
by the early 2000s, but it was perhaps not until Inoue Takehiko’s work was
exhibited in the Ueno Royal Museum in Tokyo in 2008 that contemporary
artists and their works were prominently featured (Tanigawa, 2013). In recent
years, this specialised interest in manga has spread out from Japan (Tanigawa,
2013). In 2009, European museums featured manga in two large-scale events.
London’s British Museum hosted ‘Manga: Professor Munakata’s British
Museum Adventure’ (Sell and Pasfield-Neofitou elaborate on this in chapter
fourteen), and Paris’s Musée de Louvre hosted ‘Cartoons: The Louvre Invites
Comic-Strip Art’. To exhibit comics – viewed by many as a diversion meant
for children – in such revered venues as the British Museum and the Louvre is
to challenge the distinction between ‘high’ and ‘low’ culture (Tanigawa, 2013)
and it demonstrates the value manga has come to hold, not only in Japan, but
around the world.
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MANGA VISION
Spotting Manga on a Global Scale

Over the past few decades, manga’s popularity has spread throughout Asia
and to the West. Companies like MadMan Media and Viz Media distribute
both translated Japanese manga and Original English Language (OEL)
manga in mainstream bookstores. In Japan, the market for manga is estimated
to be worth US$5.5 billion annually (Syed, 2011), and significant markets
are emerging in Europe and the Middle East (combined, worth around
$250 million annually), and the USA (valued at US$120 million) (Davidson,
2012). A surge of Asian interest in red wine from Bordeaux has been attrib
uted by the New York Times international edition to a Chinese translation of
The Drops of God, a Japanese manga series about the son of a famous wine
critic (Vorndick, 2014). A vast manga fan culture – expressed in costume
play (cosplay) events, conventions, fan fiction, fan art (including dōjinshi) and
unauthorised sharing practices – has contributed to a transnational manga
culture and language.
The artistic style of manga has been a significant influence on Western
comic books and cartoons in recent years. American comics giant Marvel,
for example, has looked at giving more creative control to local artists in Asia
in recent years, given manga’s stranglehold on the medium (Syed, 2011).
Hakuhodo market research cited by Syed (2011) shows that more than 60
per cent of comic books sold in Taiwan are manga, while sales of Western
comics make up about 10 per cent. A recent survey of children’s programming
on Australian broadcast television showed that three out of the six half-hour
timeslots on one popular free-to-air channel were held by Japanese animations
– Beyblade, Bakugan and Pokémon – while a fourth slot featured Redakai, a
seemingly Japanese-inspired production (Pasfield-Neofitou, 2013).
According to Hyoe Narita, the president of Viz Media, the top manga titles
in Europe include One Piece, Naruto, Detective Conan, Fairy Tail, Dragon Ball
and Ranma ½, all similarly popular in Japan and the USA according to a CNN
blog (Davidson, 2012). As the blog observes, these manga are all shōnen, or
boys’ manga. While shōjo, or girls’ manga, has not been as popular as shōnen
with Japanese or Western audiences, recent exhibitions such as Shojo Manga!
Girl Power! in the USA and Canada, in 2007, and The World of Girls’ Manga in
Australia, in 2012, have highlighted the ‘unique richness’ of shōjo manga art
6
Tuning in to Manga
(Iwashita, 2011). Japanese manga’s focus on a female audience is often viewed

as filling a gap in comics in Western countries (particularly in the USA). In
recent years, a number of female-oriented ‘boys’ love’ titles achieved popularity
in the West (see Davidson, 2012) (see also chapter five and chapter seven).
Around the time of the Shojo Manga! Girl Power! exhibition, shōjo manga was
described as one of the ‘fastest growing segments of publishing in the US’
(Toku, 2008, p. 15).
Comics influenced by manga exist in various parts of the world, including
Taiwan, China and Hong Kong’s manhua and South Korea’s manhwa (see
Zulawnik in chapter thirteen of this book). In France, La nouvelle manga has
developed as a form of French bande desinée comic (Boilet, 2010).
Manga’s influence as an art form has been described as a great contributor to
Japan’s soft power or ‘gross national cool’ (McGray, 2002), and is even viewed as
a major contributor to many students’ desire to study the Japanese language (The
Japan Foundation, 2011; see also Lee & Armour in chapter ten of this book). As
a result, manga has begun to receive academic attention in recent years. How
ever, much exploration of the links between image and language, comics and
manga, ‘Japanese’ and ‘non-Japanese’ manga remains to be undertaken.
Manga under the Scholarly Microscope

In addition to our ability to appreciate manga through the library, the museum,
the manga café, fan practices, translations and reinterpretations, we can also
view it from an academic perspective: Manga Studies is rapidly becoming
an established area of scholarly enquiry. In 2006, Kyoto Seika University
established its Faculty of Manga, where many of the professors are established
mangaka, or comic book artists. One of their major projects is the Genga’
(Dash) project, in collaboration with the University’s International Manga
Research Centre. The artists made use of computerised fine colour adjustment
and printing to create detailed reproductions of original manga artwork for
public display (Takemiya, 2011). The resulting reproductions were exhibited
in Shinjuku, Tokyo, in celebration of the tenth anniversary of the project
in 2011, and in Melbourne, Australia, at Monash University’s JSC Manga
Library in celebration of library’s tenth anniversary in 2012 (with the support
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MANGA VISION
of the Japanese Studies Association of Australia, The Japan Foundation and

the Kyoto International Manga Museum).
In museums, galleries and universities, manga is being studied for its cultural
and artistic properties. The study of manga provides a valuable context for the
contemplation of fan practices (see chapters one, three and five), the nature
of ‘Japaneseness’ (see chapter two), morality (see chapter four) and readers’
relationships with the manga medium (see chapters six and seven). One recent
volume examines manga’s hybrid culture through a special focus on the pop
ular manga franchise Naruto (Berndt & Kümmerling-Meibauer, 2013).
Scholars have also turned their attention to the linguistic properties of
manga, including manga literacy among native speakers of Japanese (Naka
zawa, 2002; 2004; 2005) and among learners (see chapter ten). As previously
mentioned, the ability to better understand manga and anime in their original
Japanese is a motivation frequently cited by students of Japanese. Indeed,
manga is actively used as a tool for Japanese language acquisition, an idea
pioneered by the journal Mangajin (Simmons, 1988–1998), and adopted by
a number of subsequent books (Bernabe, 2004; Lammers, 2004). It is also
used to teach English. In chapter eleven of this book, Promnitz-Hayashi
examines of the use of manga to teach English as a Foreign Language (EFL),
in an innovative approach that locates manga firmly in the global sphere
and explores international and linguistic boundaries. Similarly, Aoyama and
Kennett, in chapter eight, and Robertson, in chapter nine, explore linguistic
and typographic depictions of foreign languages and foreign-language speakers
in manga.
Language in manga has been the subject of two other foci: the translation
of manga (see chapters seven, thirteen and fourteen) and the use of manga
as a source for linguistic data (see chapter twelve for an introduction, see
also chapters eight and fourteen). Given manga’s globalisation, it is ideal for
researching translation, and as chapter twelve demonstrates, its meticulous
depiction of dialogue makes manga a potential source of language data in
difficult to research circumstances like conflict. These examples demonstrate
the ways in which research on manga not only contributes to our understand
ing of the medium, but also enriches our understanding of communication in
general.
8
Tuning in to Manga
The Many Lenses of Manga Vision

Manga Vision is divided into two main themes: cultural perspectives and
communicative perspectives. However, each chapter deals with both of these
themes to some extent. The first section explores manga as an expansive med
ium through which personal identities and group cultures are expressed and
developed. The section explores appropriations of Japanese manga aesthetic
for personal uses by both individuals and reader fan groups, and in turn,
the ownership and expansion of manga culture internationally. The chapters
in section two examine linguistic expression and communication in manga,
treating manga as a multi-modal medium through which to understand, learn
and interact. It examines how Japanese and other languages are depicted in
manga, the interplay between language and visuals, and the use of manga as a
resource for teaching and research.
As well as presenting readers of this book with the perspectives of its
contributing authors, a mix of international scholars and emerging researchers,
on the under-explored field of manga, Manga Vision also provides readers with
a unique multimedia experience. The hyperlinks and QR codes (quick response
3D printed barcodes) used throughout the volume invite you to explore a
number of online components. Readers can view photographs of manga fans’
actual cosplay practices, see examples of original manga artwork commissioned
especially for this volume, listen to musical compositions inspired by the
popular ‘boys’ love’ genre of manga and access an extensive database of manga
sound effects. Manga is a deeply intertextual medium, combining language and
visuals, and Manga Vision aims to be the same.
Manga Vision is a highly international collection of scholarship, comprising
chapters from authors based in Japan, Australia and Europe. The foci of the
chapters are equally diverse. Several authors look at the influence of manga
in Japan, while others examine its influence on Japan-Korea relations and
interactions between Japanese and Western cultures (particularly Australia and
North America). The international impact of manga via translation and OEL
manga is another areas of focus, as is the use of manga in language learning.
The authors of Manga Vision also take a number of approaches in addressing
their subjects: theoretical/background (Bell; Moreno Acosta; Rivera Rusca),
methodological (Aoyama & Kennett; Promnitz-Hayashi; Tanaka), empirical
9
MANGA VISION
(Baudinette; Langsford; Turner), as well as professional and practice-based (Lee

& Armour; Sell & Pasfield-Neofitou; Smith; Zulawnik;). Together, we invite
you to view manga through the lenses of sociology, literary studies, journalism,
ethics, ethnography, queer studies, musical composition, linguistics, education
and translation.
Online Multimedia Component

Manga Vision is enhanced with a variety of online multimedia components via the Manga
Studies website, including a gallery of cosplay photos, music files, teaching resources, and a
sound effects glossary.
Visit http://mangastudies.com/mangavision/ or scan the below QR code. Relevant chapters with

accompanying online materials will all have a QR code provided.
References
Bernabe, M. (2004). Japanese in MangaLand. Tokyo: Japan Publications Trading Co.
Berndt, J, & Kümmerling-Meibauer, B. (Eds.). (2013). Manga’s cultural crossroads. New
York: Routledge.
Boilet, F. (2010). Nūberu manga [Nouvelle manga]. Retrieved from http://www.boilet.net/
am/dernieres_nouvelles.html
British Museum. (2011). Manga at the British Museum: Drawings by Hoshino Yukinobu
(29 September 2011 – 9 April 2012). Retrieved from http://www.britishmuseum.org/
whats_on/past_exhibitions/2012/manga_at_the_british_museum.aspx.
Condry, I. (2013). The soul of anime: Collaborative creativity and Japan’s media success story.
Durham: Duke University Press.
Davidson, D. (2012, January 26). Manga grows in the heart of Europe. CNN. Retrieved
from http://geekout.blogs.cnn.com/2012/01/26/manga-in-the-heart-of-europe/.
Gravett, P. (2004). Manga: Sixty years of Japanese comics. London: Laurence King
Publishing.
Ito, K. (2003). The world of Japanese ladies’ comics: from romantic fantasy to lustful
perversion. The Journal of Popular Culture, 36, 68–85.
Ito, K. (2005). A history of manga in the context of Japanese culture and society. The
Journal of Popular Culture, 38, 456–475.
Ito, Y., Tanigawa, R., Murata, M., & Yamanaka, C. (2013a). Visitor survey at the Kyoto
International Manga Museum: Considering museums and popular culture. In
Ryuichi Tanigawa (Ed.), Cias discussion paper no.28: Manga comics museums in Japan:
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Tuning in to Manga
Cultural sharing and local communities (pp. 15–27). (C. Sell, Trans.). Kyoto: Center for
Integrated Area Studies, Kyoto University.
Ito, Y., Tanigawa, R., Murata, M., & Yamanaka, C. (2013b). Visitor survey at the Osamu
Tezuka Manga Museum: Do manga museums really promote regional development?
In Ryuichi Tanigawa (Ed.), Cias discussion paper no.28: Manga comics museums in Japan:
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Hiroshima City Manga Museum: What it means to deal with manga in libraries. In
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Iwashita, H. (2011). Shōjo manga shōji (A brief history of shōjo manga). In Keiko
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( J. Bauwens-Sugimoto & C. Sell, Trans.). Kyoto: Kyoto Seika International Manga
Research Centre, Kyoto International Manga Museum.
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magazine.or.jp/data_002/c4.html#001.
Lammers, W. P. (2004). Japanese the manga way: An illustrated guide to grammar and
structure. Berkeley: Stone Bridge Press.
Lee, W. (2000). From Sazae-san to Crayon Shin-Chan. In T. J. Craig (Ed.), Japan pop!
Inside the world of Japanese popular culture (pp. 186–203). Armonk: M. E. Sharpe.
Mcgray, D. (2002, May 1). Japan’s gross national cool. Foreign Policy, pp. 44–54.
Nakazawa, J. (2002). Manga dokkai katei no bunseki [Analysis of manga reading
processes]. Manga Kenkyū, 2, 39–49.
Nakazawa, J. (2004). Manga dokkairyoku no kitei’in toshite no manga no yomi riterashii
[Manga literacy skills as determinant factors of manga story comprehension]. Manga
Kenkyū, 5, 7–25.
Nakazawa, J. (2005). Manga no koma no yomi riterashii no hattatsu [The development of
manga panel reading literacy]. Manga Kenkyū, 7, 6–21.
Pasfield-Neofitou, S. (2013). ‘Kūru Japan’: Intaanetto, media to ibunka komyunikeeshon
[Cool Japan: The Internet, media, and intercultural communication]. Gurōbaru-ka to
kaigai ni okeru Nihongo kyōiku seminaa. Chiba: Chiba University.
Pink, D. H. (2014). The adventures of Johnny Bunko. In Daniel H. Pink [author webpage].
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Schodt, F. L. (1991). Sex and violence in manga. Mangajin, 10, 9.
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& J. Breaden (Eds.), Manga studies: A symposium celebrating 10 years of the JSC Manga
Library at Monash (pp. 3–4). Melbourne: Monash University.
Simmons, V. (Ed.). (1988–1998). Mangajin. Marietta: Mangajin Inc.
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International Manga Research Centre/Kyoto International Manga Museum.
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Takemiya, K. (2012) Genga’ (dash). (C. Sell, Trans.). Kyoto Seika University International
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12
SECTION ONE
A P P ROP R IATION AND E X PANSION:
CULTUR A L E X P R ESSION
CHAPTER ONE
IM AGE T O OB JE C T,
IL L U S T R AT ION T O C O S T UME
Australian Cosplayers and Cosplay ‘Ways of Seeing’ Manga
CLAIRE LANGSFORD
Introduction
That manga are read, interpreted and used differently by different cultural
groups is a point that has long been established within Manga Studies. Within
this school it is widely understood that the meanings, uses and roles of this
particular medium vary considerably in difference cultural contexts, not only
in the ways that manga are experienced by readers across different geographic
locations and language groups, but also on a more micro level in the varied
positions that manga occupy in different communities of practice. Manga
are valued, used, seen and understood in unique ways within professional
communities, communities of readers and consumers, academic communities
or fan communities (the focus of this chapter), which may be localised or
operate on a national or global level.
Character Design and Cosplay

Character designs from popular manga are a key source of inspiration for
cosplay, a fan practice centred upon constructing and wearing character
costumes. The term cosplay is believed to be Japanese in origin, a portmanteau
word combining the English words ‘costume’ and ‘play’ (Lunning, 2011).
Driven by an affinity for the character or its source text, an admiration for
14
Image to Object, Illustration to Costume
the aesthetics of the character design or by the desire to create a costume that
is valued by the cosplay community, cosplayers can spend considerable time,
effort and money in attempting to re-create manga character designs in the
form of wearable costumes (Lunning, 2011; Okabe, 2012).
Drawing upon the author’s ethnographic field work among Australian
cosplayers, this chapter explores the (re-)creation processes of manga cosplays,
charting the cosplayer’s transformation of an illustration into a costume. It will
examine the particular ways cosplayers ‘see’ manga during cosplay construction:
as a source of creative inspiration, as ‘research’ materials and as a style guide
for achieving accuracy for both costumes and the cosplayer’s performance of
a character. With manga characters’ clothing and weapon designs frequently
reflecting bizarre and gravity-defying dimensions, cosplayers struggle to re-
create fantastical illustrations using physical, often mundane materials such
as cardboard and packing foam. With the development of particular cosplay
visual skills, cosplayers learn to see costume objects in manga illustrations and
potential clothing and accessories for manga characters in everyday items.
Furthermore, the chapter demonstrates how, in the contexts of conventions,
competitions and photo shoots, the costumed cosplayer attempts to re-create
the manga character through performance, be it physical and/or verbal.
Cosplayers may draw more heavily upon the narrative or the written text of the
manga, as well as the visual, as scenarios, poses and catchphrases (translated or
in Japanese) may be incorporated into their interpretation of the character to
create an ‘accurate’ and entertaining performance. Through an examination of
the different roles of manga in the community, ‘cosplay vision’ is revealed to be
a way of seeing that is both skillful and playful.
‘Cosplay’ as a Community of Practice

Data for this chapter derives from ethnographic field work that I conducted
among members of cosplay communities in Australia between 2010 and 2012
for the creation of a doctoral thesis in anthropology. This multi-sited field work
involved: participant observation at numerous cosplay events throughout the
country, including thirteen Australian convention events, parties and social
gatherings; personal participation as a cosplayer; in-depth, semi-structured
interviews with twenty key informants; and the production, collection and
15
MANGA VISION
analysis of cosplay-related texts, including photographs, videos, magazines and

websites. In the tradition of anthropological studies of communities of practice
(e.g. Grasseni, 2007; Lave, 1996), ethnographic methods were used in order to
best explore both the everyday, lived experiences of cosplayers as practitioners,
and the material, digital and textual works they produce.
My field work was carried out in accordance with the ‘follow the thing’
ethnographic approach advocated by Marcus (1998) and it traced the many
contexts in which cosplayers in Australia participate in the cosplay practice:
as individuals, in friendship groups and circles, as part of official associations
and guilds, in competition circuits and through online forums and websites.
Exact numbers of participants in the Australian community are difficult to
estimate. According to survey data collected by the organising committees of
individual convention events (sites where cosplay is commonly practiced), they
have attracted over ten thousand attendees, the majority of whom are aged
between 16 and 35.1 However, the number of those attendees who participate
in costume is unrecorded.
Studies of cosplay in Japan and the USA have argued that cosplay
communities are predominantly comprised of female participants (Lunning,
2011; Okabe, 2012). While statistical data concerning the gender ratio of
participants in Australian cosplay is not currently available, observations
conducted during field work suggest that the gender ratio of participation may
be similar to those in international communities.2
As this chapter will discuss, cosplay practices are partly focused around
events: anime, manga, and general pop culture conventions, competitions,
parties and meet-ups, which are typically held in major capital cities. Australian
cosplayers also engage heavily in online activities, including participating in
forums and sharing photographs, videos and tutorials on cosplay websites and
social networks.
Drawing on the concept developed by Lave and Wenger (1991), the Aust
ralian cosplay scene can be described as a community or as communities of practice
– they are social groups centred upon shared participation in a particular
practice, a practice with its own values, structures, body of knowledge and
1 Interview with Dustin Wilson, AVCon Promotions Co-ordinator, 2010.
2 At competitions, the number of female entrants often doubled or tripled those of male
entrants. However, these figures do not represent cosplayers who do not enter competitions,
or the male cosplayers who attend competitions as teachers, judges and finalists.
16
skill set (Okabe, 2012). Recent sociological and anthropological expansions

of the concept have highlighted the importance of examining the materials
in practice communities – objects, texts and resources – and the roles they
play: they are a crucial element in both the continuance and transformation
of these communities (see Shove, Pantzar, & Watson, 2012). For particular
practices to occur, community members must use and interact with materials.
Knowing how to ‘correctly’ interpret and use these materials are important
skills that practitioners must learn; skilled practitioners are those capable of
fully participating within the community (Shove, Pantzar, & Watson, 2012).
Manga are important materials within Australian cosplay communities and
exploring their role in this context can reveal insights into both community
values and the diverse ways in which manga are experienced.
The Global Consumption and Remixing of Manga

The idea that different uses and understandings of manga are produced within
different cultural contexts is evident in a growing body of literature exploring the
localised readings and consumption of globalised manga. Their subjects include
readerships in the United States (Goldberg, 2010), Europe (Bouissou, Pellitteri,
Dolle-Weinkauff, & Beldi, 2010) and South East Asia (Wong, 2010). Studies
have also explored the ways that more specific sub-groups of readers experience
manga, such as localised groups of LGBT readers (Brenner & Wildsmith,
2011), students living abroad (Sunaoshi, 2006) and fan communities (Kinsella,
1998; Okabe & Ishida, 2012). These studies reflect the diverse ways that manga
can be used, understood and enjoyed within cultural contexts. For example,
homesick students might read them as a form of nostalgia (Sunaoshi, 2006)
and LGBT readers in the United States might read them for pleasure, fantasy
and personal identification (Brenner & Wildsmith, 2011).
Fan theorists have long argued that fan engagements with media texts
such as manga are distinctive in that they are frequently participatory and
productive (Hills, 2002; Jenkins, 1992; Kelly, 2004). Fans read and use texts in
specialised ways, especially in their ‘poaching’ (Jenkins, 1992) and ‘remixing’
of textual elements (narratives, characters, settings, imagery, film footage)
into new forms: websites, wikis, dōjinshi, fan art, slash fiction or Anime Music
Videos. By re-creating and materialising character designs from manga and
17
MANGA VISION
other textual sources, cosplayers certainly engage in a very participatory form

of reading.
Different communities of manga fans see and use manga in particular ways,
possessing different bodies of knowledge and producing highly differentiated
fan works. The visual skill set required to produce a dōjinshi, for example, may
be quite different to that required to produce an English-language scanlation.
These practice-specific skill sets are an aspect of manga fan communities
that have been seldom addressed by Manga Studies or by more general fan
literature. Reading and interpreting manga has been identified as a visual skill,
an ability to decode the layout of manga panels, establish the reading order,
understand genre characteristics and symbolism as well as text features, such
as onomatopoeia (Drazen, 2011; Sell, 2011). As studies of readers of manga
and other graphic novel demonstrate cross-culturally, this skill does not come
naturally, but must be acquired. Producers of dōjinshi, fan art and cosplay must
learn to view manga in specialised ways – identifying different visual features,
foregrounding some and backgrounding others – which differ from other
modes of manga readership.
‘Skilled Vision’
Grasseni and other visual anthropologists and sociologists (e.g. Goodwin,
1997; Gowland 2009) have argued that ways of seeing, observing and reading
are culturally specific to particular groups and communities. Decoding and
interpreting manga illustrations – noticing and recognising particular visual
or textual features and disregarding others – is a form of ability that Grasseni
(2007) might term ‘skilled vision’: a culturally specific way of seeing things that
is acquired and learnt by newcomers to a community of practice and which must
be acquired in order to participate fully or correctly in that community. Drawing
on the situated learning theories of Lave and Wenger (1991), Grasseni argues
that this type of learning is primarily a social activity and one that is tied to the
formation of a person’s identity as a member of a community of practice. This
development can take place in highly formalised learning environments such
as lectures and classes, and in the everyday lives and experiences of community
members (Grasseni, 2007). This chapter will explore the ways that cosplayers
develop and practice a very particular way of viewing and using manga and
18
how this practice of skilled cosplay vision defines the roles of manga within
Australian cosplay communities of practice.
Manga as a Source of Inspiration for Cosplay

The first role of manga to be explored in this chapter will be manga as a source
of inspiration for cosplay. To use manga as the starting point for a costume
requires cosplayers to learn and practice a community-specific form of skilled
vision. To outsiders, designing and planning a cosplay costume may initially
appear to be a straightforward affair: the cosplayer creates a costume that simply
copies a pre-existing design, originally produced by another author or authors.
However, a closer analysis of the planning activities involved in this re-creation
reveals that cosplayers employ a number of skills in redefining and reassembling
the appearance of the chosen character from an array of pre-existing images.
These activities require problem-solving and creative choices on the part of the
cosplayer, who must decide how their re‑creation of the character is going to look.
To accurately re-create the details of the chosen character’s visual appearance,
the cosplayer must also demonstrate competency in a cosplay ‘way of seeing’ –
being able to view films, anime, manga and video games as potential sources
of useful information, to be able to focus on specific details of the character’s
appearance that may be unnoticed by a viewer in most contexts.
Australian cosplayers do not privilege manga as their sole inspiration for cos
play, instead they view manga as part of a group of text types that are considered
appropriate source material. Different cosplay circles and communities have
differing rules as to what is acceptable inspiration, some cosplay circles or clubs
like to focus on particular media or types of characters and certain events or
competitions may have specific themes. Within the wider Australian cosplay
scene, anime, manga, live-action films, video games (Japanese or otherwise),
webcomics and even fan art are all tolerated as legitimate sources of cosplay
inspiration.
Convention organising committees and other structuring organisations
play a limited role in influencing the kinds of cosplay performed at events.
Competitions at more broadly themed conventions, such as Supanova, Arma
geddon and OzComic Con have few restrictions on the inspiration sources for
cosplays worn by their competitors. In these contexts, costumes from Western
19
MANGA VISION
films, television programs, comics and video games are regularly seen alongside
those inspired by anime and manga. At conventions that specifically focus
on anime, manga and video games there can be more exclusive criteria. For
example, the competition rules at Melbourne’s Manifest convention specify
that costumes must derive from ‘a Japanese/East Asian anime/manga/video
game series’; costumes inspired by dōjinshi, J-Rock/Pop, Visual Kei or FRUiTS
are explicitly excluded (Madman Entertainment, 2012).
In practice – despite these restrictions on competition entry – non-anime,
manga or Japanese video game cosplays are frequently worn to these more
specific conventions and paraded around informal, non-competition spaces.
Indeed, cosplaying informants dressed as characters from Doctor Who received
far more attention and requests to pose for photos from convention attendees
at AVCon, Adelaide’s anime and video games convention, than I did dressed
as Juri Arisugawa from the anime Revolutionary Girl Utena. Even the judges
of cosplay competitions, elders, gatekeepers and experienced members of the
cosplay community, dressed as characters from Western-originated franchises
such as Iron Man and Harry Potter.
Based on these observations and others during my field work, the level of
debate that appears to be present in some other fan communities – for example,
over authenticity, originality, a defined canon, dubbing and subbing in translated
anime (Cubbison, 2005) – is less pronounced in the Australian cosplayer
community, which seemed less concerned with discussions over which version
of the text, anime or manga were original or superior. In interviews, panels,
tutorials and casual conversations, the Australian cosplayers I encountered
were more concerned with alternative measures of value. The ability to create
spectacular, technically challenging and highly detailed costumes was regularly
mentioned by interview participants, cosplay judges and hosts as the hallmark
of a master cosplayer. While cosplayers did perceive self-created costumes as
more ‘authentic’ than store-bought items (see also Norris & Bainbridge, 2009),
they also considered these handcrafted costumes superior because they were
perceived to be more accurate and detailed.
In place of authenticity, perhaps, the value that most concerns Australian
cosplayers is the value of accuracy – the re-created costume’s ability to mimic
the visual appearance of a single chosen character design, regardless of whether
that design was sourced from a manga, anime, live-action film or video game.
20
Costume Construction
Cosplay construction activities usually begin by the cosplayer deciding to
re-create a particular character, such as Sebastian Michaelis of Kuroshitsuji
(Toboso, 2006) or Yuki Kuran of Vampire Knight (Hino, 2005). Australian
cosplayers tend to focus on the character as an entity that can be extracted
from particular narratives or mediums in a similar manner to the practices of
Azuma’s database otaku (2012). The reasons cosplayers reported for choosing a
particular character were varied, and included a personal identification with or
admiration of the character, the character’s aesthetic appeal and the technical
challenges provided by the construction of the character’s outfit.
Characters and Costumes in Manga, Anime and Other Sources

Just the act of choosing a character requires cosplayers to find, scrutinise and
analyse visual images, and compare the multiple versions of characters that
appear in multimedia franchises. During field work activities, it was observed
that the most popular manga characters chosen by cosplayers were characters
from titles that had been officially licensed by Western publishers or distributers
and translated into English. The most common were those belonging to locally
popular media franchises with easily accessible anime-adaptations, such as
Naruto (Kishimoto, 1997), Bleach (Kubo, 2002), Attack on Titan (Isayama 1991)
(see Figure 1.1) and the works of CLAMP.
The characters that are the most likely choices for cosplay re-creation by
Australian cosplayers do not exist as a singular version. Instead, these characters
have been visually interpreted a number of times across media franchises or
across a range of interconnected texts. The cosplayer may, therefore, be faced
with an overwhelming array of different visual looks and styles for the same
character. For example, the character Himura Kenshin, who originated in
Nobuhiro Watsuki’s (1994) manga Rurōni Kenshin, has featured in multiple
anime and video game adaptations and, recently, a live-action film adaptation.
Each media interpretation of the character presents subtle visual differences. In
Watsuki’s depictions of Kenshin, the character wears a kimono that is usually
coloured red in cover illustrations, and his long, bright orange hair is depicted
in a loose ponytail. In Studio Deen’s (1999) OVA adaptation, the character’s
hairstyle is softer and a darker colour and he is usually depicted wearing a
21
MANGA VISION
deep blue kimono. Finally, in the recent film adaptation (Warner Bros, 2012),
the actor Satō Takeru, who plays Kenshin, wears a wig of a more naturalistic
reddish-brown colour and a red kimono, referencing the robe worn in Nobuhiro
Watsuki’s manga. For a cosplayer, these differences have serious implications
for the creation of a Kenshin costume. Will the wig be orange, red or reddish-
brown? What colour will his kimono be? His hakama?
Figure 1.1. Titan Eren.

Photograph by Patrick Korbel. Cosplay by Daniel.
The visual appearances of characters may differ even within one form of
media. The protagonist Usage Tsukino from Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon
(Tekeuchi, 1991), for example, is depicted in numerous visual forms through
out the manga series as she adopts different roles and gains abilities. Indeed,
transformation sequences can be considered a staple trope of many manga
and anime genres (Brown, 2006; Kinsella, 2006; Napier, 2001). While a
character’s appearance may be fluid and constantly changing, cosplayers are
limited in their ability to represent that character’s appearances in cosplay:
they are creating, typically, one physical outfit. For the purposes of assembling
a cosplay, the cosplayer has to decide on a single visual look. The planning
stage of re-creation, therefore, poses a conundrum to cosplayers.
22
Creative approaches to addressing this problem are regularly used by cos

players. They may choose to focus on exclusively re-creating one particular
version of the character, such as the manga representation of Queen Esther
Blanchett from Trinity Blood (Yoshida & Kujo, 2004), as opposed to other de
pictions of the Queen in anime or light novels. Alternatively, some choose to
create a costume that combines elements of different versions of their chosen
character’s visual appearance. In the 2011 Madman National Championship
Final, South Australian finalist Miss Ollie did just that for her entry, creating a
costume that featured design elements from both manga and anime depictions
of a dress worn by the character Kuranosuke from Kuragehime (Higashimura,
2008). The accuracy practiced and valued within the cosplay community does not
necessarily, therefore, involve straightforward mimicry, but rather a creative form
of hybridisation. Cosplayers blend elements from different versions of character
designs, perhaps borrowing colourings from anime and details from manga.
Cosplay research
Once cosplayers have assembled a version of the character for re-creation, they
embark on an activity that is typically referred to by practitioners as ‘research’.
This involved looking at images or, in the words of Australian cosplayers,
‘reference pictures’, and researching information about their chosen character.
In essence, research activities are focused on answering two questions: what
does the character look like – front, back, sides, proportions, details, colours
– and what materials can be used to re-create this visual look? In this stage of
the process, manga illustrations fulfil their second role in cosplay communities
as they are viewed by cosplayers as potentially wearable, created objects and are
used to provide a guide or pattern for construction activities.
The materials and technologies used by cosplayers during the research
stage can be extensive. Research is undertaken both online and offline, and it
utilises digital and material resources. Cosplayers undertaking research must
sift through large quantities of reference materials. Manga illustrations are an
important source of ‘reference pictures’ and they are accessed both via files
of images scanned by fans, including licensed and unlicensed online digital
versions, and in physical magazine or tankōbon form (tankōbon are book-sized
publications similar to graphic novels). Cosplayers gather these images and
23
MANGA VISION
store them as digital files and/or printed copies that they can easily refer
to throughout costume construction process. Reference images are deemed
necessary tools as they provide models of the design’s component parts, which
can assist the cosplayer in their creation of an accurate and detailed costume.
The idea that manga illustrations can be used in this manner is promoted in
online cosplay tutorials and convention panels.
‘Breaking Down’ the Image

Once a cosplayer has gathered a selection of images, they then examine them in
a particular way, a process described by one experienced cosplayer as ‘breaking
down’ the image, whereby all the different elements of a character design
are viewed as potential costume parts, things that will have to be physically
rendered by the cosplayer. The way that clothing is depicted in an illustration
indicates the type of material from which it could be constructed, as a member
of an Australia Costumers Guild (ACG) panel described:
When you see an image and it’s close fitting it’s more than likely that it’s
going to be a stretch fabric. And also look at the way it hangs. Looking
again when someone’s moving, if they’re moving slow it’s likely to
be a heavyweight fabric. If it’s following out behind it’s likely to be a
lightweight fabric. Little hints like that will give you an idea of what
the fabric type might be. (Liz, AVCon, July 23, 2011)
The importance of a cosplayer being able to recognise details and distinguish

between the important and the less important is emphasised in many contexts
of cosplay practice: in panels, in online tutorials, in competition interview
narratives and in informal conversations between cosplayers. The accurate re-
creation of details such as belt buckles, earrings or armour patterns is viewed
as a hallmark of excellence in a cosplay and evidence of the cosplayer’s skill
and dedication. The gaze of the cosplayer must be so attentive that they can
distinguish between subtle variations in the colours of manga illustrations. For
example, they would need to perceive that Naruto’s forehead protector, as it is
depicted on the covers of a tankōbon, is not merely ‘blue’; it is a particular shade
of blue that needs to be distinguished from other shades of that colour. The
limitations of human visual memory usually prevent readers from remembering
the more minute details of a manga character’s appearance. In most contexts,
24
the reader does not need to notice how many buttons are on a character’s tunic
or on which side the character’s hair is parted. To achieve this level of accuracy,
cosplayers need to locate and scrutinise illustrations that prominently feature
these particular details, to find those panels that depict a sword handle or a
buckle, for example. Finding these particular images may require the cosplayer
to spend considerable time searching through images online or, alternatively,
sifting through tankōbon volumes page by page.
The Learning of ‘Cosplay Vision’

As a form of skilled vision, cosplayers’ ability to ‘break down’ manga illus
trations is not intrinsic but learnt. The ability to notice and engage in colour
differentiation, for example, is a skill that is valued, and thus acquired, within
particular situational contexts (Goodwin, 1997). By learning to break down
illustrations, cosplayers are learning to see manga as a cosplayer. Sometimes this
form of looking is taught by experienced cosplayers in formal contexts, such
as panels and workshops held at conventions. In these forums, the panellist
will verbally and visually explain to an audience how to break down an image.
These instructional sessions often involves the panellists proposing questions
for the audience members to ask themselves when participating in their cosplay
activities. For example, an ACG panellist suggested to his audience at AVCon
that the following questions be asked:
Consider the type of texture of the material – the shine, the drape,
transparency, the type of garment it is. Is it tight or loose fitting on
the body? How easy it is to make it or source it? (Ben, AVCon, July 23,
2011)
In Goodwin’s exploration of the ways that specialised forms of vision are

taught and discussed in professional settings, he describes how a member of a
community of practice may draw attention to particular features of an image or
physical thing in order to identify for an audience aspects that may not appear
relevant to an untrained eye, an activity that he terms ‘highlighting’ (1994).
Cosplay panelists, using speech and visual examples, highlight the features that
make a costume accurate and cosplayers are expected to internalise this value
for accuracy that when turn to creating their own costumes.
25
MANGA VISION
The learning of cosplay vision can also occur in less formal settings, especially
in informal conversations between cosplayers, both online and offline, about
the level of detail in character designs or whether, say, a character’s dress is
green or blue. However this cosplay ‘way of seeing’ is acquired, it can sometimes
be difficult for the cosplayer to switch it off – to read a manga without a view
to potential construction activities. As cosplayer Julia said to me during an
interview:
I can’t look at things these days without thinking, ‘Oh, how could I make
that as a costume?’ (Julia, interview, February 27, 2012)
Cosplayers train their bodies and the bodies of others to see manga in a
distinctive and skilled way that enables them to create detailed and accurate
costumes that are valued within the community.
Cosplay vision involves cosplayers reading manga images as components
of potential costumes, but it also allows cosplayers to view objects – craft
materials, everyday items (including toilet rolls) and pre-made garments – as
potential means of physically re-creating the look of manga characters. This
is particularly apparent during online and offline cosplay shopping activities.
When shopping, cosplayers, particularly experienced cosplayers, will usually
have reference images to hand in digital or physical forms. On shopping
expeditions, Julia would bring her smart phone with her and would use it to
display her reference pictures, placing the phone against fabric to check for
accurate colour matches. Again, this way of seeing is explicitly taught and
promoted to newcomers to the cosplay community as form of creativity. As
with the act of assembling a single character model, the cosplayer is required
to see the potential for things to be reused, reformed and reassembled into
something new. In this case, the things in question are not illustrations, but
material objects. At conventions, cosplay panellists often describe how they
have transformed various everyday objects, including items from hard-rubbish
collections, into costume parts, and urge newcomers to do the same, as did one
ACG panellist at AVCon in 2012:
Never underestimate anything as being able to be used in a costume.

Eventually you’ll get to the point where you’ll view anything and
everything as costume parts. (Cassandra, AVCon, July 28, 2012)
26
Reading Manga Illustrations

Creativity and problem-solving skills are required by cosplayers attempting
to re-create illustrations as material objects. Reading manga illustrations as
patterns for cosplay construction can prove a challenging activity, as some
character designs have features that are difficult for cosplayers to translate
into a material form and require considerable interpretative efforts on the part
of the cosplayer. A particular challenge posed by some manga illustrations is
an absence of colour. While main characters may appear in coloured images
on the covers of tankōbon or magazines, secondary characters may only be
depicted in black and white. Cosplayers rarely re-create an uncoloured manga
illustration with a black and white costume3 , so cosplayers often choose to guess
or interpret a colour scheme for the character. One female cosplayer proudly
remarked to me that she cosplayed a character from Bleach before the character
had ever appeared in colour. She told me she was pleased when she finally
saw the character on the cover of a tankōbon volume and discovered that she
had been able to guess the colours with a high degree of accuracy. Cosplayers
may also derive colour information for their costumes from anime adaptations
of the manga or from art book illustrations, both of which may interpret the
character’s colouring differently. For example, the hair of the Ame-warashi
character from the CLAMP manga XXXholic is depicted as an unshaded white
space in the manga, as red in the anime and as blue in the CLAMP art book
illustrations. These differences in interpretation may not be problematic for
readers or viewers of the texts in other contexts, but for a cosplayer wondering
what colour wig to purchase from a Hong Kong wig seller on eBay, these small
details become significant.
While the artwork of manga, particularly the visual appearances of manga
characters, is heavily used and referenced by cosplayers in costume construction,
written textual elements such as dialogue, characterisation and narrative arcs
are also used, reimagined and re-created in cosplay performance. While cosplay
practices have distinctive craft components, they are also highly performative,
with the costume often being created and the character performed by the same
individual (Lunning, 2011; Norris & Bainbridge, 2009). This final section will
discuss how other elements of characterisation and narratives from manga are
3 I observed one instance of a deliberately ‘black and white’ costume styled to resemble a
manga illustration.
27
MANGA VISION
used and explored by cosplayers in two forms of cosplay performance: cosplay

photography and cosplay skits.
Cosplay Photography
Cosplay photography is a popular storytelling practice in which cosplayers
and photographers work together to visually represent the character’s bodily
stances and perceived personality (figures 1.2 and 1.3). Australian cosplay
photography exists broadly in two forms: event photography – images
captured during convention activities – and staged photography, which is
created during organised photo shoots. As with the costume assembly pro
cess, research for an in-character performance often involves re-reading
the text or searching specially for further references online to identify
and collect the character’s well-known physical poses and spoken phrases.
Figure 1.2. L with Strawberry.

Photograph by Patrick Korbel. Cosplay by Alice.
28
Figure 1.3. Juri Arisugawa.

Photograph by Patrick Korbel. Cosplay by author.
29
MANGA VISION
Cosplay photography panels and tutorials advise cosplayers to re-create

trademark poses or gestures performed by manga characters, facial expressions,
postures and martial arts stances. Again, the community value of authenticity is
promoted here, as one panellist pointed out, in relation to CLAMP characters,
accurate re-creation can be almost physically impossible due to the exaggerated
physicality of some characters. Authenticity can be improved by incorporating
other elements of manga texts; settings can be referenced, for example, through
the use of backdrops and mise-en-scène elements. Cosplay photography may even
be displayed in a sequential order in fan-produced booklets with photographs
conveying a visual narrative in the manner of manga panels.
Cosplay Skits
Another storytelling practice performed by cosplayers is the cosplay skit. Cos
play skits are short, two or three-minute acts that are performed in the agonistic
context of cosplay competitions. They may feature all kinds of performative arts,
including singing, dancing, acting, playing a musical instrument and acrobatics.
Cosplay skits incorporate elements of manga narrative, characterisation and
dialogue (typically translated) in many different ways. For Miss Ollie’s skit
in the 2011 Madman National Cosplay Championship Final, the South
Australian finalist incorporated excerpts of translated text from Higashimura
Akiko’s manga Kuragehime (2008) to tell a short version of the manga’s narr
ative from the perspectives of central characters Tsukimi and Kuranosuke. The
dialogue was pre-recorded with Miss Ollie providing the voice of Tsukimi
and her boyfriend providing the voice of Kuranosuke. Onstage, the characters
were visually represented by Miss Ollie, dressed as Kuranosuke, and by video
footage of Tsukimi from the anime adaptation of the original manga.
The success of a cosplay skit relies heavily on both the cosplayers’ abilities
to create visually identifiable representations of the character through costume
and embodied performance, and on spectators possessing an understanding of
the narrative of the text and of characters’ personalities, trademark poses and
phrases, and relationships to other characters. The performers must be skilled
enough to create a visually identifiable performance and the spectators must
be knowledgeable enough to understand and interpret the performance. To
assist with this visual identification, many competitions reinforce the cosplay’s
30
relationship to its ‘original’ by projecting images of the manga illustrations on

a screen behind the performing cosplayers.
Cosplay performances of manga characters may attempt to re-create a
canonical interpretation of the characters and narratives, as in the afore
mentioned example of Miss Ollie, or they may make take a more playful
approach. One example of the second approach was encountered at a com
petition at Perth’s WaiCon. A group of seven cosplayers from Blue Tongue
Cosplay performed a skit called ‘The seven days of Naruto’, a version of the
traditional Christmas carol ‘The twelve days of Christmas’, that referenced
characters from the manga Naruto. The skit, which received an enthusiastic
response from the audience, featured references to romantic links between
characters in the manga, some of which were deemed canonical by the
audience and some of which referenced popular fan interpretations of the
characters’ relationships, including an implied homosexual desire on the part
of the villainous Orochimaru for the character Sasuke. Another element of the
skit included characters breaking the ‘fourth wall’; at one stage, Orochimaru
threatened to attack the competition host.
The success of the ‘The seven days of Naruto’ skit was due to the humour
it derived from the audience’s understandings of the characters and narratives
of the manga and from the juxtaposition of the canonical appearances of the
costumed cosplayers with non-canonical actions and dialogue. However, this
creative mash-up was still perceived as accurate in some sense, as its non-
canonical representations of characters referenced the way they have been
portrayed within other fan communities. This example demonstrates, again, the
interesting relationship to accuracy and creativity found in these communities
of practice.
Conclusion
An exploration of the roles that manga occupies in Australian cosplay com
munities of practice yields important insights into the unique ways that manga
can be seen in different cultural contexts. It also reveals how the positioning of
manga within a community of practice reflects key skills that are celebrated by
that community. Within Australian cosplay communities of practice, manga
images are frequently seen as material that can be used, as tools to assist in the
31
MANGA VISION
production of their own artistic work, which may include costumes, photo
graphs and performances. In order to use these tools successfully, cosplayers
must be able to skillfully read and interpret manga imagery in the cosplay way:
to identify and re-create tiny details in illustrations, to recognise the cosplay
potential of everyday objects to materialise manga designs and to re-create the
postures and gestures of manga characters in embodied performances. These
visual skills must be learnt by newcomers to the community and are taught and
promoted by experienced practitioners in a range of different settings including
convention panels. In this manner, a cosplay ‘way of seeing’ manga is valued
and reproduced within these communities.
The ways that manga is seen and used by cosplayers within Australia reflects
some of the shared values of its communities, especially the values of ‘accuracy’
and ‘creativity’. Cosplayers aim to accurately re-create character designs in
their costumes, but accuracy is achieved through creative hybridisation, not
mimicry. Character costumes can be based on a fusion of design elements from
both manga and an anime adaptation. Narratives, dialogue and elements of
characterisation can be extracted from manga texts and reconstituted as cosplay
skits. Cosplayers must be both skillful in their attention to and recognition of
visual details and playful enough to envision illustrations as potential objects
and objects as manga illustrations. The term cosplay is a combination of the
words ‘costume’ and ‘play’, and ‘play’ is indeed often what Australian cosplayers
seem to do with manga.

A gallery of high-quality full-colour cosplay photographs from this research can be accessed
online at http://mangastudies.com/mangavision/cosplayphotos.php or scan the above QR code.
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34
CHAPTER TWO
BE YOND ‘JA PA NE S E NE S S ’
Representative Possibilities of Original English Language Manga
in Svetlana Chmakova’s Dramacon
ANGELA MORENO ACOSTA
Introduction
Initially regarded as ‘pseudo-manga’, Original English Language (OEL)
manga has been accused by some of simply mimicking Japanese manga
without contributing to the form creatively (Jüngst, 2006, p. 251). Artists who
started out writing and drawing OEL during the manga boom in the West
(2002–2008) imitated what they perceived to be manga aesthetics – using
monochrome shading, arranging panels in the Japanese reading direction or
utilising Japanese scripts for onomatopoeia and sound effects – regardless of
whether they or their readers possessed a working knowledge of the Japanese
language. This was done with the intention of creating original works to be
consumed in the same manner as imported Japanese manga, but this approach
led to it being viewed by the public as an inferior and unoriginal imitation, and
ultimately it became stigmatised in the American comics industry and anime/
manga communities.
In 2006, Tokyopop, the best-known translated manga and OEL manga
publisher in the United States, announced that they would be ‘relabeling’ their
original manga, calling it ‘global’ manga instead of OEL or ‘world’ manga,
the other often-used label for the genre (Anime News Network, 2006). The
intention was to move away from the reputation of OEL and expand beyond
the stereotypes born from those early examples of grassroots professional
35
MANGA VISION
manga. For a genre to be regarded as pseudo anything is not very helpful in

understanding the ways in which it is creative. However, changing its name did
not deter some from continuing to define OEL manga (or world manga, global
manga etc.) by inabilities, problems and mistakes. Such an attempt may also
lead to an oversimplification of the medium and obscuration of its potential.
While this chapter retains the term ‘OEL’ for practical reasons, it will
outline several pitfalls that come from adhering to certain beliefs about the
medium and discuss how they can be overcome. The chapter suggests a shift in
perspective, from focusing on defects to focusing on strengths, and delineates
several strong, creative characteristics of OEL using Dramacon as an example
of an OEL manga that shows potential for creative content and style using an
evolving medium.
‘Japaneseness’ as OEL Manga’s Identity

As Internet use became more widespread in the late 1990s, online exposure
allowed greater numbers of fans to encounter the original sources of the manga
and anime they had been consuming in translated and adapted editions. It
also enabled them to connect with each other on a massive scale in online
forums, anime circles and art communities (such as DeviantArt), in which
critical discussion of the work was quite usual and spawned an interest in
Japanese culture, the source culture of manga and anime. Fans’ sensibilities
shifted towards a preference for works that were closer to their source material
and had fewer modifications. Up until the early 2000s, American publishers
and distributors of anime and manga (such as Viz and Mixx Entertainment,
Tokyopop’s previous incarnation) had ‘utilized the “culturally odorless”’ principle
in their manga and animation-related products (Iwabuchi, 2002, pp. 94–95),
toning down their ‘Japaneseness’ (Wong, 2006, p. 36). This was a move that,
according to Wong, had been previously applied to Asian markets with relative
success. Regarding manga specifically, this toning down of ‘Japaneseness’
basically consisted of adapting the work to fit local tastes: colouring manga
pages that are normally monochrome, flipping artwork and panels so they will
read left to right, translating and rewriting large amounts of text and dialogue,
if necessary, to fit the language and cultural expectations of the target audience
(Brienza, 2009, pp.103, 113; Matsui, 2009, pp. 4, 10; Wong, 2006). However,
36
Beyond ‘Japaneseness’
to satisfy the new preferences of their fans, publishers and distributors began to
market anime and manga with minimal alterations (e.g. subtitles, rather than
dubbing, were now favoured).
Part of this shift in marketing strategy was the ‘100% authentic manga’
campaign that American publisher and distributor Tokyopop launched in
2002. This campaign focused on supplying ‘authentic’ Japanese manga, i.e.
manga that is uncoloured, unflipped and still uses Japanese script to depict
onomatopoeia and sound effects. Tokyopop published this ‘100% authentic
manga’ in the same format as Japanese tankōbon (small book-sized volumes
in which manga is published after magazine serialisation) and it is sold at an
affordable price (no more than $10 a book). Besides satisfying readers’ demands,
it also proved cost-effective, as publishing with minimal alterations meant a lot
of saved time and money (Thorn, 2011).
Tokyopop also encouraged local artists by means of a talent-seeking contest,
‘Rising Stars of Manga’, which started in 2002 as part of the ‘100% authentic
manga’ campaign. The winners were granted a book deal – the possible start to
a career as a professional mangaka (the Japanese word means ‘comic artist,’ but
is used here to specify ‘manga’ making in contrast to making ‘comics’). Fans
eager to pursue manga creation as a profession submitted their stories, created
on the basis of their understanding of manga as readers. This unfortunately led
to the criticism that such works are merely ‘simulating’ manga (Jüngst, 2006,
2008). There appears to be a loss of awareness that happens when fans shift
from readers to creators. Since their knowledge of manga is sourced from their
experience reading translations, they may sometimes unknowingly re-create
them stylistically. The same desire for ‘Japaneseness’ that fans feel towards
‘100% authentic’ manga plays itself out when these fans turn to creating OEL
manga, resulting in frustration and, consequently, rejection by readers who do
not consider the manga sufficiently ‘Japanese’.
As it is obvious that translated manga has to be somewhat adapted and
modified for consumption by local readers (in this case, American readers),
the manga resulting from the ‘100% authentic manga’ campaign, despite
efforts to create less modified comics, could not be considered, in truth,
‘100% authentic’. The text was translated linguistically and puns, slang and
wordplay were localised. The visuals were also altered: the artwork follows the
Japanese reading direction (right to left), since the pages stay unflipped, but
37
MANGA VISION
the text naturally follows the Western reading direction (left to right). In order
to remind readers (and educate new ones) that manga should be read in the
Japanese reading direction, publishers placed small arrows on page corners or
markedly labelled the back and front of the book. Such attempts to mitigate
the inherent impossibility of translations being ‘100% authentic’ may have led
to certain beliefs about what rules OEL manga must adhere to.
Characteristics of ‘Japaneseness’ in OEL Manga

Initially, in an attempt to have their works professionally published, many
OEL manga artists created their manga according to the OEL ‘rules’. This
gave rise to several issues that resulted in an overgeneralised understanding of
OEL manga as definable by a perceived attempt at ‘Japaneseness.’
When drawing comics and/or manga, the page design depends greatly
upon the reading direction. It is imperative for good storytelling to create a
smooth flow of panels for the gaze to follow, so that the narrative can proceed
unimpaired (Cohn, 2011). As we know, OEL manga artists tended to adopt
the conventions of the manga translations they read, disregarding the fact
that they were looking at unflipped, yet altered, pages. Although some expect
‘authentic’ manga to be laid out in the Japanese reading direction, many do not
notice that their understanding involves discrepancies with regards to the visual
‘flow.’ The disparity in macro (artwork) and micro (text) reading directions
is compounded by the need to accommodate horizontal text in what is, by
design, a vertical page layout. This results in a slightly mismatched narrative
flow. Most publishers leave the word bubbles (also known as speech balloons)
untouched visually, and translate only the text inside the balloons. However,
in Japanese manga, the text is written vertically instead of horizontally, and
to accommodate vertical script, word bubbles tend to be very thin and tall.
Manga artists take typographic requirements into design consideration, so the
bubbles do not obstruct the underlying artwork and vice versa. However, in
translations, publishers often insert horizontal English script into the bubbles
without altering their vertical shape. Consequently, word bubbles in translated
manga contain English text with too much blank space on the bubble’s top or
bottom. Despite this problem, OEL manga artists started to design their word
bubbles in the same vertical fashion.
38
Some other motifs of Japanese manga adopted by OEL artists include the
application of Japanese manga-style screen tones and the use of speed lines and
impact lines to achieve aesthetic goals. Depictions of characters may include
sweat drops to convey embarrassment or exasperation, nosebleeds to express
sexual arousal, the ‘bulging nerve’ to indicate anger or frustration and ‘dropping
lines’ to signify fear or anxiety. This technique of physicalising emotion is called
‘Super Deformation’, or ‘SD’. Smaller, chubbier versions of a certain character
may be drawn whenever something funny happens to them (a tool typical of
shōjo manga, but not exclusive to it), or exaggerated, ‘bulging eyes’ may be
drawn in to express rage or surprise. Stylised backgrounds are also used to
express a character’s inner feelings. Within the so-called ‘grammar of manga’
(see Cohn, 2010), the backgrounds in frames not only signify a characters’
spatial position, they also foreground characters’ emotions: their nervousness,
fear or anger. These tools facilitate the reader’s empathy and immersion.
Dramacon: Possibilities beyond ‘Japaneseness’

OEL manga’s attempt at ‘Japaneseness’ has been, to a large degree, the primary
reason for it being labelling ‘bad’ manga; for some, it is an endeavor best left
unpursued. For many aspiring manga artists in the West, to be recognised as
a mangaka has become undesirable, for the word is inextricably linked to lack
of professionalism and originality. Consequently, many emerging artists are
staying away from the OEL label and from publishers that wish to promote
their work as such, preferring to self-publish and use the word ‘manga’ very
loosely to describe their work. This does not mean they have abandoned making
manga, just that goals are being redefined according to the artist’s ability to
avoid said negative stereotypes. Making original manga in English that can
sell may ultimately lead beyond this ‘Japaneseness’ and towards connecting to
readers on a deeper, perhaps more subjective, level. Apparently, fans of Japanese
manga culture are uncomfortable with emotional content being expressed in
a Japanese-like manner in original work that is a product of an Anglophone
culture (Wong, 2006, p. 39). This could suggest OEL manga cannot achieve
‘authenticity’ though adherence to a Japanese manga style or through other
modes of reference to Japanese culture and context, but through references to
the emotional reality of readers through the ‘familiar’. When it speaks to the
39
MANGA VISION
emotional reality of the reader through familiar expressions, words, images,

content and so on, rather than trying to master the art of portraying Japanese
manga references ‘correctly’, OEL manga can be enjoyable and ‘good’ and it
can feel ‘authentic’.
Dramacon can be seen as an example of an OEL manga that achieves this
authenticity: an OEL manga that tries to reference characters’ emotional
responses in a way that is relevant to its source culture. This is made interesting
by the fact that its creator, Svetlana Chmakova, is not originally from North
America: she was born in the Soviet Union in 1979 and immigrated to Canada
when she was sixteen years old. Her relocation to Canada exposed her to North
American culture and it also granted her access to Japanese media through
broadcast anime, fansubs and imported Japanese manga of the time (Shiina,
2012). It provided opportunities to engage in anime and manga-specific
communities in her local area, and in activities such as cosplay, anime circles
and conventions (where the inspiration for Dramacon came). Inspired to pursue
a career in sequential art, Chmakova started making manga and publishing
it online. Shortly afterwards, Chmakova was approached by Mark Paniccia
(her initial editorial contact at Tokyopop) who was impressed by the talent
in one of her online comics, ‘Chasing Rainbows’ (Lau, 2009), and signed her
with Tokyopop to create Dramacon. Chmakova ‘figured the book might at
least interest a few con-goers and romance lovers’ (Chmakova, 2008, p. 612).
Working closely with her editor, she developed characters, storylines and panel
layouts that appealed to readers’ tastes in content, style and form (Chmakova,
p. 607). Although Dramacon was released annually (2005–2007) in book form
and readers therefore had to wait a comparatively long time between volumes,
it gained a reputation as a successful product and helped cement Chmakova’s
career as a professional artist.
Localising Narrative and Genre

Dramacon is about a high-schooler named Christie, who is a newcomer to
anime/manga conventions. She attends one with her boyfriend, with whom
she has created an OEL manga. They hope to sell their manga at the conven
tion and they also hope to be noticed as a writer/artist team. However, her
boyfriend, Derek, seems more interested in flirting with other girls at the con
40
than representing their manga. Overwhelmed by the convention and frustrated

by Derek, Christie storms off crying and inadvertently bumps into Matt, a
handsome and mysterious cosplayer. The love story that then develops, filled
with drama and obstacles, is a typical subject of shōjo [girls’] comics. This may
show that Chmakova was inspired by the influx of shōjo manga imported to the
USA and Canada in the early 2000s.
Dramacon addresses the need to connect to the target audience by re
interpreting shōjo manga tropes and localising them in a scenario familiar to
North American female readers. The specific characteristics of the characters’
psyches (the nerdy/quirky manga fangirl, the sarcastic and jaded ‘bad boy’, the
abusive boyfriend) reference the readers’ shared realities, for they themselves
are most likely nerdy/quirky manga fangirls and they may have come across
boys like Derek and Matt. The locations and, more importantly, the situations
these characters face are particular to their experience as North American
high-school-aged anime/manga fans. Shōjo manga emphasises the emotional
aspect of a story and this emphasis is crucial to those who enjoy this kind of
manga. Whereas OEL manga about love that takes its emotional cues from
the Japanese context would fail to connect to Western readers and ‘bring them
inside’ the story (McCloud, 2006, pp. 216–220), Dramacon portrays characters
who are emotionally comprehensible to their readers because they mirror
them. Readers easily understand the characters’ experiences because they are
similar to their own; they are from the same cultural/social background as the
characters. For example, in the Figure 2.1, we see Matt and Christie becoming
very physically close prior to establishing a formal relationship with each other.
While not unusual in the West, it may be seen as culturally out of context in
Japan, where a developing love between characters would often be internalised
first before reaching physical expression.
Another way Dramacon locates itself in its source culture is in its represent
ation of ethnically diverse characters. Beth, who is African-American, replaces
Derek as Christie’s manga artist in volume two. Two other ‘non-white’
characters, Hyu-Jeong (Korean-American) and Raj (Indian-American), are
introduced at the same time and become friends of Christie and Beth. Rather
than treat them as agents of exoticism or focus on their superficial difference, the
text focuses on the characters’ relationships and on the internal characteristics
of their personality, mostly via dialogue.
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MANGA VISION
Figure 2.1. Example of Matt and Christie kissing.

Dramacon, pp. 552–523 © 2008 Svetlana Chmakova. Courtesy of Tokyopop.
Meta-Referencing
As a manga that reflects on North American manga practices, Dramacon
addresses the problem of ‘Japaneseness’ in OEL manga and manga-related
activities within North American fandoms. It does so implicitly and also ex
plicitly within the plot itself as a heated debate about whether ‘OEL’ manga
should be called ‘manga’. Throughout her story, Chmakova comments how few
fans encourage creators to reinterpret the medium, which results in artistic
stagnation and a greater focus on fan art than the publication of their own
original work. The resistance of manga fans to OEL manga creates great
obstacles for aspiring manga artists who would like industry jobs. She uses a
scene early in the second volume of the story to bring awareness to this problem:
While Christie and Beth are waiting for customers at a conference, some kids
stop at their table and look at their comic (Chmakova, 2008, p. 234). They like
42
it, but one girl comments that it is ‘not real manga’. The others disagree, but
do not end up buying it either. Christie is frustrated at this situation and Raj,
sitting nearby, overhears and explains that he and his team make dōjinshi [fan
comics] and fan art of popular Japanese titles instead, as they sell better. When
Beth asks if they have ever created original characters, Raj replies ‘Ha ha, no –
we tried once, and we bombed so bad!’ (Chmakova, 2008, p. 236).
Later, as people are praising Christie and Beth’s manga, a young boy
approaches the table and yells out that their comic is not manga. He aggressively
disagrees when other fans challenge him by pointing out their comic ‘looks like
manga’. Lida, a professional OEL manga artist, walks over and tries to calm
things down and is recognised by fans as ‘Lida-san, the manga artist’. This
angers the young boy even further, replying that she is not a manga artist and
that her work ‘isn’t manga either’ (Chmakova, 2008, p. 251). After Lida’s fans
insist her work really is manga, the boy screams that she is not Japanese and
only Japanese people can make manga. When this view is challenged further
by Lida, applying the ‘pizza counter-argument’ (that by the same logic, a pizza
can only be pizza if made by an Italian in Italy), the boy insists that Lida cannot
make manga because she is not Japanese, and neither can Beth, because not
only is she not Japanese, ‘she’s not even white’ (Chmakova, 2008, p. 254).
This scene raises another issue of importance which is that of the OEL
mangaka’s acknowledgement as a manga artist. The boy classifies Lida as in
ferior to a Japanese person in regards to her ability to be a mangaka. Further
more, racism is added when he places Beth even lower down the scale because
she is black. These prejudiced and racial slurs may indicate underlying senti
ments within manga fandoms in North America. Chmakova is not unaware
of manga’s ability to hide such a loaded subject, and chooses how to discuss
this issue through the story, knowing that the style is insufficient to drive the
point. The scene also reflects the power that OEL manga can have in changing
mindsets that are based on prejudice, encouraging fellow artists and addressing
further exploration of issues of importance to fandom and the industry.
Re-imagining Femininity in Shōjo

Throughout Dramacon, Christie repeatedly admires Beth for having a ‘strong
work ethic’ (Chmakova, 2008, p. 528) and pursuing her dream in spite of
43
MANGA VISION
adversity (Chmakova, 2008, pp. 276, 332, 377, 531–532). Beth is appreciated
as a talented artist and as a person capable of holding any kind of position in
society, rather than judged according to stereotypes about her gender or race.
Christie, in turn, is encouraged to find her own strengths rather than
seeking a ‘strong, male presence’ in her life. Only when Christie is able to
assert herself independently of Matt in her professional and personal life do
they come together as a couple. Christie, Beth and the rest of the female cast
exist without the need of male presence or power. The opposition they face is
not some external force that causes them suffering or destroys their world, as
is common in magical shōjo genres; rather, it is something they need in order
to grow beyond personal expectations. This addresses the audience’s reality
in regards to the empowerment of women, especially women in love. With
a cultural background that involves the revolution of women’s rights, North
American fans of anime and manga are familiar with women like Christie
and Beth. That is, those who do not take their identity from their relationships
with men and who can assert themselves. From a Western perspective, it may
appear that within Japanese entertainment media, the role of women is still
very submissive. Usually, female characters are depicted as being in need of
saving and this is reinforced as an attractive trait, and not just in the shōjo genre.
Some exception to this can be seen in Sailor Moon, where female characters
have power of their own and are allies of men and of each other, instead of
competitors for their attention/power. This could be why Sailor Moon gained so
many fans in the West (cf. the popularity of ‘girl power’ in the early 2000s, as
seen in the emergence of girl bands, such as the Spice Girls, and girl-centred
animated shows, like The Powerpuff Girls). However, in Sailor Moon, ‘girl power’
and strength comes from ‘femininity’: their magic comes from artefacts that
resemble makeup tools. Although they are warriors, whose goal is saving the
world, ‘ultimate success’ is still considered beauty, marriage and children. In
counter-examples of role-reinterpretation such as Revolutionary Girl Utena
(which was also hugely popular in North America), the lead is a female char
acter who asserts herself as equal to men, but in order to do so, casts away her
femininity as weakness.
In Dramacon, traditional female roles and counter-roles are reinterpreted
by having women who pursue professional success over romantic relationships
without the need to act ‘male’ as a definition of strength; when Christie is
44
upset, for example, she allows herself to cry and feel sad without feeling inferior
for doing so (Chmakova, 2008, p. 235). They also show no particular interest
in being ‘pretty’ (Chmakova, 2008, pp. 542–543). Furthermore, by having
male characters that support, admire and are attracted to them for these traits
(Chmakova, 2008, pp. 270, 554–555, 593–594), the women in Dramacon take
on multiple levels of female identity that reflect women’s roles within their
communities and ultimately reinterpret what it means to be strong, beautiful
and lovable in manga.
Culture-Specific References in Pictograms and Gags

The artwork and style of Dramacon supports the emotional focus of the story via
the use of abundant page spreads with floating panels, expressively patterned
backgrounds and facial close-ups, in the spirit of typical Japanese shōjo manga
(see Figure 2.2; see also Chmakova, 2008, pp. 119–120, 218–219, 307–308).
Figure 2.2. Examples of patterned background depicting an emotional state.

45
MANGA VISION
Other pictograms, such as sweat drops, crosshatches and speed and impact
lines, can be found very frequently. Chmakova uses mini-panels inside larger
ones and these are filled with chibi [mini] versions of characters, which depict
Christie’s feelings towards people and events in her life. We also see a back
ground of lightning bolts expressing Christie’s mortification at being outed as
a con ‘noob’ [newcomer] (Chmakova, 2008, pp. 16–17). On the other hand,
early in the first volume, Christie gives Matt a nudge on his shoulder with her
fist, to jokingly get him to stop teasing her, a gesture that may come across as
more ‘American’ than ‘Japanese’ (Chmakova, 2008, p. 19). A more culturally
specific example can be observed in a scene where Christie is drawn with jagged
teeth and a split tongue, to resemble a snake. Although a crosshatch is used,
the more widely known ‘snake tongue’ gag specifies that Christie’s retort is
‘venomous,’ as such reactions are sometimes described in English (Chmakova,
2008, p. 31).
‘Flow’/Reading Direction
As stated previously, manga should bring together all visual elements (artwork,
dialogue, speech bubbles and landscapes) in the same direction to ensure
seamless ‘flow’ of the reader’s gaze across pages. This allows for the delivery of a
comfortable reading/consuming experience. Avoiding OEL manga’s pitfalls of
copying ‘flipped’ and ‘mirrored’ aesthetics of translated manga and observing
the English reading direction from left to right allows Chmakova’s artwork
and layout to be ‘scanned’ seamlessly. In the example in Figure 2.3, she has
used a dynamic forty-five-degree angle from top-left to bottom-right panels,
creating a ‘slope’ that the reader can visually ‘ride’ as they read the text. To
relieve the tension created by such a strong diagonal line, she places a close-up
of Christie facing up and right in the bottom-left corner panel. The angle of
Christie’s hand and gaze match that of Matt’s on the top-right corner of the
spread. This creates an opposite-angled imaginary line that holds the artwork
in balance like an invisible ‘x’ (Chmakova, 2008, pp. 20–21).
Of course, reading direction is not just an issue of character placement,
since floating agents such as word bubbles must enhance page-flow as well. As
is typical in most OEL manga, Chmakova draws randomly shaped bubbles,
sometimes referencing the light and flowing ones seen in shōjo. Nonetheless,
she draws them for the most part horizontally instead of vertically, to better
46
accommodate English script, and refrains from inserting too much dialogue
into each bubble (Chmakova, 2008, pp. 62–63). That being said, the manga
is not without inconsistencies, such as a scene in which the dialogue between
Matt and Christie in the third panel is supposed to read: ‘you’re soaked’,
followed by, ‘so are you’ (Chmakova, 2008, p. 355). The bubble containing the
second phrase is drawn a little higher than the first and so the eye registers it
first, therefore mixing up the order of the dialogue.
Figure 2.3. Example of an OEL manga page spread.

Onomatopoeia and Mimesis

Cathy Sell suggests that while OEL manga artists do not need to use a lot of
onomatopoeia and mimesis (also known as sound effects) in their work, when
they are used well they can add ‘powerfully to the aesthetic of the artwork’
(2011, p. 99). Sound effects are a rich part of Japanese manga tradition and
an inextricable part of the visual identity of manga. Therefore, in order to
adhere to this characteristic of manga’s aesthetics, one method that OEL
47
MANGA VISION
artists utilise to increase their use of onomatopoeia is to employ Japanese script

or romanisations of Japanese terms (Sell, 2011, p. 100). Dramacon is full of
references to manga-specific emotional expressions (e.g. Chmakova, 2008,
pp. 17, 54–55, 84, 483). However, it does try to include references to English-
language slang. For example, Christie and Beth are once drawn as animated
rugs to visually represent the phrase ‘lying like rugs’ (Chmakova, 2008, p.
333). With specific regard to onomatopoeia and mimesis, many sounds used
are typical of English, such as the use of ‘tromp’ to symbolise trampling and
‘hahaha’, laughter (Chmakova, 2008, pp. 50–51), but many words are also used
as mimesis, such as ‘squish’, ‘push’ and ‘shove’. Using word and sound references
specific to the source language, while staying away from using Japanese script
and romanisations of Japanese onomatopoeia, may help position the work more
closely within the target audience’s emotional comfort zone.
Character Design
Chmakova writes the character of Matt as an aloof, sarcastic college guy who
is handsome, but difficult to get along with. By drawing Matt as always wear
ing sunglasses, Chmakova emphasises his emotional detachment. While there
is a back story that explains this, the visual prop provides immediate insight
into his personality. Christie, on the other hand, is drawn in a way that clearly
shows her profound sensitivity: she has large eyes and a very wide range of
facial expressions (the chibi-versions of herself also show this). Chmakova draws
attention to Christie’s practical and assertive side by dressing her in baggy
jeans and t-shirts rather than girly, elaborate outfits. The characters are multi-
layered: Matt is not always interested in ‘doing the right thing’ and Christie
appears more concerned with pursuing a career than a boyfriend. These choices
in physical attributes, fashion style and moral traits may challenge stereotypes
regarding the traditional hero/heroine figures in a romantic manga story, but
may bring the characters ‘closer to home’ for North American readers.
Further, the only distinguishing characteristic between white and non-
white characters is in the use of darker tone for their skin. Nothing in the way
their face is drawn suggests racial differences. In an interaction between Raj
and Beth late into the third volume, there is nothing in the drawing style that
points to their realities as people of different ethnicities (Chmakova, 2008,
p. 553) (see Figure 2.4). The same intensity of screen tone is used for both
48
Raj and Beth, and no other distinguishing characteristics (their clothing, for
example) are made to tell the reader that these characters are different from
each other physically in any way other than in their gender.
Figure 2.4. Depiction of characters who are people of colour in Dramacon.

Conclusion
Wendy Wong argues that ultimately ‘less “Japaneseness”’ in OEL results in
better ‘transnational circulation’ of the forms of manga and anime. Regarding
the American audience, she suggests that ‘they might have found a “mixture
of familiarity” in Japanese manga from their imaginations and the collective
memories within their own cultural context’ [emphasis mine] (Wong, 2006, p. 40).
This ‘mixture of familiarity’ requires striking a delicate balance between
utilising elements of Japanese manga and referencing what is familiar for the
audience. This could explain how OEL manga’s attempts at ‘Japaneseness’ may
be what is generating criticism and driving readers away, even in works that
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MANGA VISION
have been awarded for their superiority in technique. It is well known that
OEL manga tends to be set in fantastic make-believe worlds, where references
to culturally specific issues are not particularly important to the story and, in
some cases, even undesirable (see Gan, 2011). But this need not mean that
the default cultural context for original characters should always be Japanese,
especially after it has become apparent that most fans dislike this tendency in
OEL.
If the intention were to make a Japanese manga, then it would not be an
issue for a work to be as ‘Japanese’ as possible. However, OEL manga seeks
to tell original stories in English, using manga as the medium. It is obvious
that certain rules must be obeyed regarding language, and in the case of the
artwork, manga style may sometimes need to be negotiated aesthetically to
fit a language it was not conceived for. Perhaps it is not just through original
handling of manga style, but in its referencing of the familiar and the emotional
reality of its source culture, that OEL manga may be capable of offering novel
perspectives on traditional manga genres and tropes, as well as allowing for a
hybrid form of expression to emerge through the sampling and remixing of
media content. Whatever label we choose to apply to it, OEL manga is opening
doors for manga and comics in general with its potential to make personal
experiences and perspectives known on a global scale, no matter where they
originally came from.
References
Anime News Network. (2006, May 5). Tokyopop to move away from OEL and world
manga labels. In Anime News Network (website). Retrieved from http://www.
animenewsnetwork.com/news/2006-05-05/tokyopop-to-move-away-from-oel-and-
world-manga-labels.
Brienza, C. E. (2009). Books, not comics: Publishing fields, globalization, and Japanese
manga in the United States. Publishing Research Quarterly, 25(2), 101–117.
Cohn, N. (2010). Japanese visual language: The structure of manga. In T. Johnson-Woods
(Ed.), Manga: An anthology of global and cultural perspectives (pp. 187–203). New York;
London: Continuum.
Cohn, N. (2011). A different kind of cultural frame: An analysis of panels in American
comics and Japanese manga. Image [&] Narrative, 12(1). Retrieved from
http://www.imageandnarrative.be/index.php/imagenarrative/article/viewFile/128/99.
Gan, S. H. (2011). Manga in Malaysia: An approach to its current hybridity through the
career of the shōjo Mangaka Kaoru. International Journal of Comic Art, 3(2), 164–178.
Iwabuchi, K. (2002). Recentering globalization: Popular culture and Japanese transnationalism.
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Jüngst, H. (2006). Manga in Germany – From translation to simulacrum. Perspectives,

14(4), 248–259.
Jüngst, H. (2008). Translating manga. In F. Zanettin (Ed.), Comics in translation (pp. 50–78).
Manchester: St. Jerome.
Lau, L. (2009, December 22). Podcast #5: Svetlana Chmakova. Girlamatic. Retrieved from:
http://girlamatic.com/blog/2009/12/22/delayed-gratification-podcast-5/.
Matsui, T. (2009). The diffusion of foreign cultural products: The case analysis of Japanese
comics (manga) market in the US. Princeton University Center for Arts and Cultural
Studies Working Paper Series, 37(Spring 2009). Retrieved from http://www.princeton.
edu/~artspol/workpap/WP37-Matsui.pdf
McCloud, S. (2011). Making comics. New York: HarperCollins.
Sell, C. (2011). Manga translation and interculture. Mechademia: User enhanced, 6, 93–108.
Shiina, Y. (2012). Manga sutairu Nōsu Amerika-ten – ‘Kore mo manga?’ Beikoku de katsuyaku
suru mangaka-tachi minibukku [Manga Style, North America – Is this manga too?
Manga artists active in North America Minibook]. ( J. Bauwens-Sugimoto, Trans.).
Kyoto: Kyoto International Manga Museum.
Thorn, M. (2011, April 11). The Tokyopop effect. In Matt Thorn’s Blog. Retrieved from
http://matt-thorn.com/wordpress/?p=495.
Wong, W. S. (2006). Globalizing manga: From Japan to Hong Kong and beyond.
Mechademia: Emerging Worlds of Anime and Manga, 1, 2345.
Manga
Chmakova, S. (2008). Dramacon: Ultimate edition. Los Angeles: Tokyopop.
51
CHAPTER THREE
T HE CH A NGING R OL E OF M A NG A
A ND A NIME M AG A Z INE S IN T HE
JA PA NE S E A NIM AT ION INDU S T RY
RENATO RIVERA RUSCA
Introduction
Recent years have seen a global growth in Manga Studies – both in Japan, with
the establishment of the Kyoto International Manga Museum and the Kyoto
Seika University International Manga Research Center, and overseas, with
publications such as the University of Minnesota’s Mechademia, which partly
spurred on the development of anime studies. Furthering Lamarre’s (2009)
theories regarding anime in terms of its characteristic exploitation of Tezuka’s
limited animation process, Condry’s The Soul of Anime (2013) has attempted to
bring a new perspective forward – that of a collaborative culture of creativity,
connecting fans and creators of animation. Condry’s research shows that
around 60 per cent of anime is derived from manga. It also suggests that
the ‘sharing’ of manga content within fan circles is an important factor in it
receiving critical acclaim. This fan culture is allowed to thrive independently
of industry involvement, in a process he calls ‘democratic capitalism’ (2013,
pp. 106–107). As this chapter demonstrates, the same process seemed to form
in anime fandom during the early anime boom, but this has recently entered a
decline, for reasons that will be discussed throughout the chapter.
In terms of manga, this collaborative culture is most apparent in the fan
activities surrounding so-called ni-ji-sōsaku [derivative works], such as dōjinshi.
52
The Changing Role of Manga and Anime Magazines in the Japanese Animation Industry
Dōjinshi are fan-produced publications, predominantly (but not necessarily)

derivative of an existing official work. The production process – dōjinshi are
usually produced by ‘circles’ of fans – is key. Through collaboration based on a
keen shared interest in an anime series or a particular subject, circles publish
books to sell through channels such as Comic Market and other ‘sokubaikai’
sales events. In most cases, these dōjinshi are fan-produced manga that parody
or build upon existing intellectual property (IP) and provide an opportunity for
artists to build a portfolio that may help them to become professionals. Here,
we can see a cyclical pattern begin to emerge between creators and fan circles,
and their co-existent, nearly interdependent nature. Professional artists and
manga publishers could, in theory, shut down the dōjinshi operations under
the claim of copyright infringement, but clearly choose not to, prioritising the
relationship between fans and pros. Furthermore, not all dōjinshi are manga;
some are text-only, commonly referred to as shiryō-kei dōjinshi. Mandarake, the
largest-scale second-hand retailer of subculture items in Japan, holds annual
events dedicated to the exclusive sale of this type of niche hyōron/kenkyū/shiryō-
kei dōjinshi [critique/research material dōjinshi] (Mandarake, 2014). Echoes of
the fan–pro mutual relationship with manga can be seen in the case of anime
too, with the producers of manga publications going on to effectively establish
the market for anime magazines.
This chapter aims to provide insights for further development of the study of
the culture of creativity surrounding manga, anime and fandom via a historic
overview of anime magazines. Such an examination gives us hints as to the past,
present and future of this culture of fans and creators, and of the relationship
between manga and anime.
From Manga to the Anime Magazine

Social change and public opinion may be partially gauged through the vocab
ulary of the era. ‘Japanese animation’, or ‘anime’ today, was once known as
‘terebi manga’ [TV manga], or ‘manga eiga’ [manga film]. The first generation
of televised animation viewers in Japan, in the 1960s, watched animated
versions of characters such as Tetsuwan Atom, Tetsujin 28-gō and Eightman,
already well known from manga. The implication that these are ‘comic book
images on television’ is clear in the terminology and overlap between genres,
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MANGA VISION
where anime is seen as almost a high-tech version of kami-shibai (traditional

storytelling using placards to illustrate key points). Despite the success of Atom
as an animated serial, the phrase ‘terebi manga’ indicates a vague understanding
of the concept of animation and points to a movement still struggling to gain
momentum.
Reading material for the young viewers of terebi manga (apart from
the manga upon which those shows were based) consisted of a number of
magazines – Terebi-land, Terebi Magazine and Terebi-kun. These were similar
in format to children’s manga magazines such as Korokoro Comic, complete
with the busy and colourful collage-style covers. Their tendency to feature
tokusatsu [special effects] and robot shows like Kamen Rider or Mazinger Z
makes it clear that these were squarely aimed at boys. Invariably, they would
include a free gift [furoku] as an incentive, often stickers of characters or
papercraft games and toys. This practice continues today in manga magazines
(including those aimed at teenagers and older readers, such as Newtype Ace 1
– a magazine full of serialised manga based on anime works, reversing the
usual trend).
Over a decade after Atom, in 1974, Space Cruiser Yamato made its first
appearance on television. Unlike Atom and most other shows at the time, Yamato
was an original planned-for TV project with no basis in manga.2 It was no
coincidence that it came at a time when the first generation truly brought up
on television were coming of age and were exposed to heavy messages borne
from latent post-war social and psychological effects. Kelts (2006) also picks
up on these themes, citing the trauma of the atomic bomb and its repeated
echoes in popular culture, where apocalyptic scenarios are played out (2006,
pp. 39–40). The animated Atom and Tetsujin also contain references to weapons
and nuclear technology, but are more figurative and open to interpretation
than the literal radiation bombing of Earth, subsequent intergalactic war
and concepts such as the pride and honour of soldiers that we see in Yamato.
Needless to say, Yamato was a gateway to the interpretative possibilities of
Japanese animation for many adults and children, and so it gave rise to many
fan circles across Japan.
1 Newtype Ace is ‘in hiatus’ (defunct) as of July 2013.

2 Matsumoto Reiji later penned a manga version for Akita Shoten starting in 1975.
54
Despite this, Yamato did not fare well in the ratings battle against its time
slot rival, Heidi, Girl of the Alps, and eventually succumbed to a truncation of
twenty-six episodes from a planned thirty-nine (see Hasebe & Ito, 2012, p. 2).
Desperate to get the word out, numerous fans – the now-prolific anime critic
Hikawa Ryūsuke among them – organised events and publications to try to
revive the show, and catalogued the production process in order to save as many
pieces of memorabilia and information as possible, thus expanding the in-world
history, physics, characters and locations.
After the shaky performance of the TV show, it was the movie edition that
really made an impact in the mainstream. In 1977, science fiction returned to
centre stage, with the anticipation of Star Wars3 and the Yamato movie, and
animation came of age. However, there was no mainstream press outlet for fan
discussion.
In the late 1970s, in the pages of Manga Shōnen, a manga magazine in which
Takemiya Keiko’s science fiction masterpiece Toward the Terra was serialised
(it became an animated feature in 1980 and a TV series in 2007) alongside
work by other manga revolutionaries, such as Matsumoto Reiji and Azuma
Hideo, there ran a brief collection of columns and articles related to non-manga
media, such as science fiction movies. A section entitled ‘Animation world’ ran
in the 1977 October issue, featuring the ‘best’ anime series as voted by readers
(Yamato came out on top). Yamato’s animation director, Ishiguro Noboru, was
interviewed alongside now-legendary voice actor Kamiya Akira in a roundtable
discussion format, setting up the template for anime journalism to follow. The
November issue followed with ‘Animation world part 2’, which introduced ‘All
about Ishinomori anime’4 (Hirose, 1977).
These manga magazine sections, though small, proved very popular with
fans, leading to the offshoot publication, TV Anime no Sekai. This early ‘mook’
(magazine and book) studied animation from all angles. Writer Oguro Yui
chirō, as part of his regular column for the Web Anime Style site, recalls his
youth reading this mook, and describes how the sheer volume of content (film
comics, scripts, manga, reports and many more articles) was overwhelming
3 Star Wars was released in Japan in 1978, but hardcore science fiction fans knew that it was
causing quite an uproar in the United States, where it opened the previous year. In the interim,
Japan was producing its own similar fare, such as Uchū Kara no Messeeji [Message from space].
4 Ishinomori Shōtarō was the creator of Cyborg 009, which was number two on the ‘best anime’
list in the previous issue.
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even by today’s standards (Oguro, 2008). While magazines such as Terebi-kun

provided information on new episodes and toys being released, they lacked the
insider, ‘making-of ’ aspects that older viewers appreciated.
Other publications appeared almost simultaneously in 1977, with Yamato
featured on most covers. Fantoche was an avant-garde fanzine dealing with
science fiction and fantasy, which also ran a Yamato special in 1977. This
increased exposure for both the work and animation as a medium, but the
fanzine remained rather underground: ‘for fans, by fans’.
Out was a magazine focused mostly on Hollywood B-grade movies and
science fiction. It included original illustrations by Japanese artists depicting
cutaway views of the biological innards of the aliens from the 1953 War of the
Worlds movie adaptation, for example, and science fiction manga, with clear
Western influences. Hikawa Ryūsuke and other members of Yamato fan clubs
across the country collaborated to bring about a special Out issue on Yamato,
which would serve as an encyclopaedia of sorts to the series. Yamato fan-
club members handled all the diagrams, photographs, writing and editing.
The feature was a surprise hit, selling so many copies that there were not
enough for the contributors themselves. The ‘Yamato world’ feature returned
in September 1977, containing interviews with director Ishiguro Noboru and
producer Nishizaki Yoshinobu, original pre-production character sketches
and dōjinshi-style parody illustrations, for example, ‘Yabu’s run’, a send-up of
the movie Logan’s Run, with the titular character replaced by the cowardly
Yabu from Yamato (Out, 1977, pp. 131–132). This issue also contained much
variety, such as a feature entitled ‘How we learned to stop worrying and love
SF movies’, and another about the protests surrounding the historic Spanish
general election that year. Eventually, Out dropped the B‑grade movie and
non-anime content and became a magazine entirely devoted to Japanese
animation.
Next, a publication titled Animage appeared in 1978, marking the ‘official’
start of anime magazines. Animage was technically the first real animation
magazine, as other magazines that featured anime content had been broader
subculture publications or manga magazines (as mentioned, Out eventually
became anime-specific, but did not make that transition until later). At this
point, it was unclear whether Japanese society was witnessing a Yamato boom
or a fully fledged animation boom. Thus, it was seen as risky to launch a
56
regular magazine on the back of a still nascent trend. Nevertheless, publisher

Tokuma Shoten’s first issue of Animage, coinciding with the theatrical release
of Farewell, Space Cruiser Yamato, and having the advantage of Yamato’s iconic
silhouette on the cover, sold wildly. However, manga continued to play a role
and possibly the most important element in Animage was the serialisation of
Miyazaki Hayao’s Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. This would lead to Tokuma
Shoten’s funding of the 1984 movie and the film’s subsequent success led to the
establishment of the now-ubiquitous Studio Ghibli.
The arrival of these magazines indicated the coming of what is now known
as the ‘Anime Boom’, where the generation raised on television in the 1960s
‘came of age’, ready to dissect, analyse and critique animation content.
The ‘Anime Boom’ and the Decline of Anime in Manga

As publishers realised that animation magazines were a viable market, more
and more standalone magazines appeared, each with its own interesting niche.
Examples not introduced thus far include Animedia (Gakken), which targeted
younger readers and was more focused on illustrations and visuals than deep,
thought-provoking articles. Gakken is recognised as a provider of educational
material for children, largely via the manga format and so parents may have
been convinced by the company logo that Animedia would provide the most
wholesome content, suitable for their children as a reward for their hard work
at school (Gakken, 2016). Another example is Animec (Rapport), which started
as the eponymous shop’s own publication and ended up with nationwide
circulation. The magazine was otaku-centric, catering to hardcore fans, and
refrained from explaining basic concepts, preferring to hold discussions with
creators and producers. Animec made bold attempts at critique, pondered the
viability of a theory of animation as a genre and discussed media influences.
Other publications, like My Anime and The Anime, appeared soon after these
were established.
Combined, these anime magazines painted a fairly accurate cross-section of
animation viewership, with most subgroups serviced. Manga magazines still
featured anime-related content within their pages, even though Manga Shōnen
ended and was replaced by Duo in 1981. The soaring popularity of animators
themselves led to the publication of magazines such as Manga Animec, a spin-off
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of Animec, featuring comics by Yūki Masami (Mobile Police Patlabor) and others,
and The Motion Comic, which serialised manga by animators with celebrity
status, such as Mikimoto Haruhiko (Super Dimension Fortress Macross), Itano
Ichirō (Mobile Suit Gundam), Hirano Toshihiro (Iczer-1), who is now known as
Hirano Toshiki, and Kanada Yoshinori (whose Birth comic series ran in these
pages before its release as an OVA/feature film in 1984). The Motion Comic,
in particular, due to its roster of artists mostly working for animation studio
Artland, often featured columns on what was happening in the studio, with
comical anecdotes by the president Ishiguro Noboru and other staff members
(The Motion Comic, 1984).
During these boom years, anime magazines played several roles, which may
be summarised in three categories: ‘world-building’, ‘critique’ and ‘community’.
World-building refers to the use of magazines to present information that fills
in gaps in the anime work, while critique refers to the critical and sometimes
controversial content of anime magazines in relation to individual works, or the
media itself and its position within society. The category of community, which
intimately ties manga and anime fandom, will be discussed below.
Manga, Anime, and ‘Community’

The use of magazines to foster a sense of community refers to a framework
of relationships between fans (readers), creators and writers, as illustrated in
Figure 3.1.
Figure 3.1. The flow of ‘fans’ in the 1977–1986 period.
58
One of the aims of magazines such as Out and Animec was to cultivate
links between viewers/readers (fans), editors and production staff. Readers of
these magazines could appreciate the content because of the synergy between
the fans and the writers. That is not to say that all fans made the transition
to becoming producers, but their relationship was very much reciprocal. For
instance, out of necessity, the editorial departments of early anime magazines
were made up of fans. Higher management were of a different generation.
During the 1977–1983 boom, fans worked within the anime industry itself,
since they too were from the Terebi-kun generation, having been influenced as
children by television and anime, while the producers of the anime shows they
grew up with only had manga.
Kawamori Shōji, the creator of Super Dimension Fortress Macross, and
Izubuchi Yutaka, the director of Space Cruiser Yamato 2199 (the 2012 remake
of the original series), were often seen on the pages of Animec describing what
they enjoyed about science fiction or other such topics, before most people even
knew who they were (both have become industry icons) (Animec, 1981, pp.
36–37). Kawamori, Izubuchi and others, such as Mikimoto Haruhiko, knew
the readership intimately, since they themselves had been part of fan circles and
had produced amateur fanzines. There was a reciprocal sense of appreciation: a
very ‘inclusive’ environment for all involved (Tsuji, 2012, p. 389).
As well as the aforementioned columns by animators and producers them
selves, the participatory nature of this framework also led to readers having
many opportunities to contribute to magazines. Animec, once again, led the
field by sometimes publishing entire interviews of staff members conducted by
readers, some of them high-school aged.
The ‘lighter’ magazines, such as The Anime, had community pages with
sections where readers would post ‘wanted’ and ‘for trade’ messages or invite
other readers to their fan clubs. This community concept was further em
phasised in later magazines, such as Animec’s sister magazine, Fanroad, which
was predominantly made up of fan-produced artwork, parodying anime and
manga works, much like a collection of dōjinshi. In fact, as a testament to the
importance of community in the world of anime and manga, this Fanroad
formula has survived through the decades and outlived its parent publication.
Break Time was a short-lived, self-styled ‘industry magazine’, which
provided insights into the workings of animation studios and acted as an
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educational resource for anime fans looking to find their way into the industry.
The second issue published a large feature on employment opportunities within
the animation industry. A photograph shows a young visitor to an animation
studio, clutching a paper envelope with a semi-comical speech bubble reading
‘ano… sumimasen’ (‘excuse me, may I come in?’ [lit. ‘um… excuse me’]). The
caption alongside it reads: ‘Now, the path to the anime industry. Anime
industry career information’. The photograph illustrates a common trend of
the time – young and inexperienced fans wanted to become professionals and
were literally knocking on doors, hoping for their portfolio to get a look (Break
Time, 1984, p. 17). The very existence of such a magazine serves to highlight
the relationship between fans and producers shown in Figure 3.1.
Manga-Based Anime and Anime’s Turning Point

The anime boom carried magazine publications into the 1980s, but in the middle
of the decade, a definite decline began. Anime magazines and science fiction/
robot anime were clearly great partners – the magazines could fill in the blanks
that the anime sometimes truncated and left out, and carry advertisements for
merchandising, largely toys and model kits. The companies producing these toys
and kits were invariably the main sponsors of the most popular shows at the time.
Because these science fiction/robot shows were original television projects,
there was little conflict of interest in the content the magazines selected. While
producers of original anime were often willing to give permission for their
series to be featured in magazines, manga-based anime series were often owned
by rival publishing companies and thus required copyright clearance.
Although anime itself was seemingly more popular than ever, the ‘coming of
age’ of anime fans proved a double-edged sword. Creators took advantage of the
medium to tell ever more mature stories and were increasingly unable to meet
the demands of their sponsors, which were focused largely on toy production.
Essentially, there was a generational gap between the animation industry and
its partner industry, toy companies. Although Yamato was cancelled because
of low ratings, the demise of Gundam came when its partnership with the toy
manufacturer Clover ended. Director Tomino Yoshiyuki’s vision differed to
that of the more traditional, hero-style image that Clover was trying to push
in order to market its line of Gundam toys. As a result, toy sales were poor
60
and Clover pulled out of the partnership, leaving the show with no funds and
no choice but to end (Condry 2013, pp. 124–125). Eventually, the brand was
revived through a movie adaptation (and Bandai marketed a range of scale
model kits to a higher age group), but it had set a precedent: the needs of the
sponsors and the demands of the creators were beginning to diverge. In the
middle were the magazine publishers. Some, like Animec, tried their best to
support the underdogs. In his memoirs of his time as Animec’s editor-in-chief,
Komaki expounds his theories regarding the anime boom, a period which
seemed rather puzzling for those outside of anime fandom (Komaki, 2009).
Anime TV shows needed to target an age group of no older than twelve to enjoy
the support of the merchandise industry. Yet it was attracting an older audience
with the growing trend for content like that of Gundam, with its talk of space
colonies based on real-life NASA physicist Gerard O’Neill’s conceptual designs
(Animec, 1986, pp. 54–63). In contrast, Animec’s own fan-oriented readership
was made up of middle-schoolers and high-schoolers. Komaki recalls meeting
Imai Makoto, the Nagoya TV producer, who was at the time struggling with
Gundam’s low ratings, and reassuring him not to worry, insisting that ‘ten
years from now, Gundam will be an invaluable asset to Nagoya TV’ (Komaki,
2009, p. 87). Komaki reasoned that popularity could no longer be measured
by ratings alone and he showed Imai all the letters and fan-art he had received
from the readers of Animec. In a way, Animec was a haven for these supporters,
and though Animec covered Gundam heavily from the start, other magazines
followed after autumn because, ultimately, ‘their editing teams were simply
Gundam fans’ (Komaki, 2009, pp. 86–87).
The period of 1985 to 1986 represented a turning point in the history of the
anime magazine to rival the milestone year of 1977. Reasons for this turning
point include the rise of ‘slice-of-life’ manga-based anime, original video
anime (OVA) and the introduction of production committees. The following
sub-section will focus on the rise of slice-of-life, manga-based anime before
summarising the associated issues of OVA and production committees.
Slice-of-Life/Manga-Based Anime on the Rise

Anime based on slice-of-life manga increased in popularity around the mid-
1980s – that is to say, anime without fantastical aspects, which takes place in
a recognisable, everyday setting, such as a suburban high school, and which
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focuses on human relationships that are often romantic in nature. While their
audiences grew larger, this type of anime received limited coverage in anime
magazines, compared to science fiction anime. The settings of slice-of-life anime
do not need explanation, which limited magazine commentary and analysis
to character profiles and perhaps some staff interviews. When they covered
slice-of-life anime, magazines were unable to maintain their traditional role of
world building, one of the reasons for their existence. In addition, magazines
had to get permission from the copyright holders of the relevant IP in order
to run pieces on them – this was simple enough in the case of science fiction/
robot anime, which were usually planned as original works, but most slice-of-
life series tended to be based on previously published manga and copyright was
owned more often than not by rival publishers. Therefore, despite the increasing
popularity of shows such as Touch and Maison Ikkoku – both Shōgakukan
properties – most anime magazines tended to scale back their coverage of
them, so as not to promote a competitors’ product, while they maintained a
focus on science fiction animations, like Takahashi Ryōsuke’s Blue Comet SPT
Layzner (eventually axed) and the feature-length OVA science fiction parody
Project A-ko.
At the same time, Betamax and VHS, affordable home video media, were
becoming increasingly popular and this was a major game changer for the
animation industry. Televised anime remained a mainstay on the airwaves, but
the development of ‘anime subculture’ led to content unsuitable for children,
which could not air on television. A divergence in anime media came to
be seen between the two formats: OVA for the hardcore fans and TV for
more family-friendly content. Coinciding with this divergence, a shift from
sponsor-driven production to a committee style of production occurred. In the
traditional system of production (illustrated in Figure 3.2) the creative agencies
sought sponsorship from a company, which would produce toys or other such
merchandise based on the designs seen in the show. Under the new model, the
‘product’ became the animation itself, rather than the spin-off goods.
As a result, the magazines that emerged from the ashes of those that folded
in the mid-1980s were rather different from their predecessors. They included:
Anime V (Gakken) which featured the latest in OVA news and regular advice
columns for buying hardware for VHS, Laserdisc (LD) and Video High
Density (VHD) formats; Newtype (Kadokawa), a ‘gravure’ anime magazine,
62
with exclusively-commissioned artwork for their colour spreads; and Globian

(Hiro Media), which was owned by an OVA distributor and primarily used
to plug Hiro Media’s own products, but which still featured a wide variety of
content, including fandom abroad and non-anime-related stories.
Figure 3.2. The pre-production process for anime series – before

production committees were established.
With the arrival of the OVA-centric Anime V, Newtype and Globian – which
essentially had the main goal of pushing sales of anime videos and LDs – the
‘community’ became more hierarchically structured, with editors bonding with
the anime companies, essentially acting as their marketing division. Readers
would still receive posters and exclusive spreads, but the writing became less
‘inclusive’. It focused less on sharing information and exchanging ideas with
like-minded individuals and more on promoting the latest product news direct
from the source. This naturally led to decreased room for ‘critique’. Critique
can only truly occur when there is freedom to discuss ideas, but production
committees were now in control of most of outlets for discussion. This left the
dōjinshi peripheral subculture to develop thoughts and theories. This change of
affairs appears to point to a regression in what Henry Jenkins calls ‘participatory
culture’ (2006), which seemed to exist in anime’s boom years:
The term participatory culture contrasts with older notions of passive

media spectatorship … Rather than talking about media producers
and consumers as occupying separate roles, we might now see them
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as participants who interact with each other according to a new set of

rules that none of us fully understands. (Jenkins, 2006, p. 3)
Jenkins warns that ‘not all participants are created equal’, even within a culture
that exhibits participatory qualities: ‘Corporations – and even individuals within
corporate media – still exert greater power than any individual consumer or
even the aggregate of consumers’ (2006, p. 3). We can therefore infer from the
history of early anime magazines that the participatory culture surrounding
anime developed through dōjinshi activities. When fans eventually held pro
fessional editorial positions, the traditional makeup of producers and consumers
was disturbed. However, the fandom was too feverish to sustain this nebulous
framework in business and a new model had to be implemented, which once
again positioned the corporations at its heart and re-established the linear
‘provider and receiver’ relationship, illustrated in Figure 3.3, at the expense of
‘community’.
Figure 3.3. The breakdown of relations between production, magazine

publishers and readers after the introduction of the production committee
system.
‘Anime Journalism’ and Manga Today

Today, critique has little place in anime magazines. There are very few active
writers with a working understanding of the history of the animation industry.
However, those with such an understanding are making efforts to spread that
knowledge via a variety of formats and to stimulate discourse on relevant issues.
For example, the aforementioned Hikawa Ryūsuke has contributed a number
64
of detailed histories for DVD and Blu-ray booklets and self-publishing critical
pieces for sale at dōjinshi events. He also teaches a course on anime critique
at Ikebukuro Community College and recently started an anime course for
postgraduate students at Meiji University.
In a bizarre twist of fate, the fan culture that created the anime boom and
kickstarted the anime magazine industry ultimately led to the downfall of
anime magazines as a space for discussing the mainstream value and acceptance
of anime. There are writers willing to produce critical content, but anime
magazines are the domain of powerful multimedia corporations and fan culture
remains active only within the dōjinshi circles that research, share and discuss a
wide range of ideas – not in the pages of the magazines on the bookstore shelf.
Several magazines, such as Animage Original and Anime Style, have attempted to
fill this critical gap, some more successfully than others. Animage Original is an
offshoot of Animage and caters to the older generation of anime fans interested
in production techniques and behind-the-scenes commentary on old and new
anime, with rough production sketches featured on the covers as opposed to
commissioned artworks like regular magazines. However, the publication
ended in its seventh volume. Anime Style, in its incarnation as Gekkan (Monthly)
Anime Style, was a similar magazine in tone, but each issue devoted almost
its entire content to one seminal work of animation. Gekkan Anime Style was
able to select ‘old’ titles with no new sequels or spin-offs as its main special
features, because it was not actually marketed as a serialised publication.
Instead, each issue came with a small ‘Nendoroid Petit’, a smaller version of
Good Smile Company’s Nendoroid figures, which are deformed versions of
popular characters spanning a wide range of anime, old and new. The figure
was marketed as the main product, with the accompanying magazine, despite
having over a 150 pages, being the ‘bonus’ included.
Strictly speaking, prior to becoming a monthly in 2011, Anime Style (under
Oguro Yuichirō’s direction) attempted to promote critique, though its life as a
print magazine was short and ended in the same year as its inception (2000).
Web Anime Style, the online version that followed, provided information on
animation production and history through exclusive interviews and its return to
print as a monthly through the Nendoroid marketing venture proved successful.
However, it was clear that the figures were the major pull and after a hiatus upon
its sixth volume in February 2012, it became a quarterly until April 2014 after
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which it released issues sporadically; however it recently succeeded in a 2015

crowd-funding campaign to turn it back into a quarterly. Having dropped the
Nendoroid gift, the latest issues focused on recent big-name anime movies such
as Hosoda Mamoru’s Wolf Children and Kenji Kamiyama’s 009: Re:Cyborg, and
hit series like Shirobako and Sound! Euphonium – demonstrating the belief that
anime magazines indeed need to deal with current works to be relevant.
In terms of manga, the committee system of animation production has
allowed for publishers to have more control over IP, and multimedia diffusion
of IP has become the norm. The four-pronged strategy combining manga,
OVA, TV and theatrical animation releases was revolutionary for the Patlabor
franchise in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Now that such cross-platform
media is commonplace, anime-based manga has increased and, in some cases,
manga based on video games have kickstarted spin-off anime productions. As
mentioned above, animators drawing manga was a novel concept in the 1980s
and formed the basis for The Motion Comic and other such manga magazines.
In 2011, Kadokawa Shoten led the field with Newtype Ace, a 600-page monthly
manga magazine running serialised comic adaptations of major Bandai Visual
anime properties such as Macross, Yamato and Tiger & Bunny. The magazine
was established after the relatively short life span of Macross Ace, a spin-off of
Gundam Ace (in turn, a spin-off of Shonen Ace), which were manga magazines
collecting stories set in the Macross and Gundam worlds, respectively, thus
expanding the scope of the anime shows and, in a sense, serving the fan base
by providing ‘world building’ aspects in a way that marked them as different
from the old anime magazines. However, Newtype Ace also folded very quickly
in 2013, after only twenty-three monthly issues. Many of the series it hosted
have moved over to other Kadokawa publications and some have re-launched
on their new Comic Walker online service, viewable free of charge.5 Numerous
publishing houses launched similar online manga services in 2014 and at time
of this writing one can sense a new paradigm on the horizon for the Japanese
comics industry and its now symbiotic relationship with other media.
5 Mikimoto Haruhiko’s Macross the First is one such example: a new adaptation of the 1982
anime in the style of Yasuhiko Yoshikazu’s Gundam the Origin, the latter having been
greenlit as a new anime series in 2015, coming full circle from anime to manga back to
anime.
66
Conclusion
As this chapter has shown, it took around fifteen years from the advent of
‘terebi manga’ in 1963 for Japanese animation to be recognised in as a viable
subject for magazines in its own right. Once anime magazines were established
separately from the manga magazines in which they originated, anime steadily
developed from a minor subculture to a major one. Many hurdles still remain
for the further development of anime journalism. Today, manga critique and
studies is making commendable headway, but it seems that the analysis of
the history and evolution of animation, its techniques and its position within
society, is undergoing stagnation.
These days, hardcore fans get their behind-the-scenes information from
Internet sites and discussion boards, negating the need for animation magazines
to provide scoops. Yet, the illustrative aspects of magazines remain intact,
where the goal is to run manga serials and produce commissioned illustrations
the reader can own and keep. This gives further justification to the notion of
a magazine as a predominantly visual medium and recent years have seen a
resurgence of anime-based manga in many anime magazines. It would seem
that serious analysis and critique has little place within the visually dominant
magazine format. Even if an anime journalist wants to stimulate discourse,
the production committee system poses many obstacles: editorial control and
unreasonable conditions for interviews result in neutral, ‘safe’ articles. Thus,
simple visual illustrations are favoured.
Fans originally established the market for anime magazines at a grassroots
level, working in tandem with writers and creators, when publishers had little
knowledge of the subject. Today, anime magazines interact with writers and
creators much less. This activity has largely been taken on by dōjinshi. These
trends are seen in the evolution of the formats of the magazines themselves.
They do not simply reflect trends in animation style and content, they also
reflect the changing relationship between the readers and publishers. While
aspiring manga and anime professionals may have once made impromptu
visits to studios (see Break Time, 1984, p. 17) or become involved through
personal acquaintance, the proliferation of animation schools and academies
is establishing a structure for entry into the industry. It remains to be seen
if software like MikuMikuDance will provide budding animators with their
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big breaks.6 Even if this were to happen, the independent nature of such
productions would relegate most (if not all) discussion and critique to online
forums and blogs rather than the pages of an anime magazine.
There do appear to be other avenues for anime critique and journalism,
such as the courses previously mentioned and dōjinshi by writers like Hikawa
Ryūsuke and Fujitsu Ryōta, some of who are also involved in government-
sponsored oral history archives currently in development (Media Geijutsu,
2015). Already, there is a wealth of information stored in these publications
in need of proper cataloguing and recording. The continued analysis of anime
magazines can provide a clearer image of the make-up of the animation
subculture, the industry itself and its relation to society on the whole; it can
also draw many comparisons between the growing fields of anime and manga
studies.
References
Animec. (1981). Sōryoku tokushū: SF anime to wa nanika? SF anime ga mitai!
[Collaborative special feature – What is SF anime? We want to see SF anime!],
Animec, 20, 13–43.
Animec. (1986.) Z Gandamu waarudo, mekanikaru manyuaru [Zeta Gundam world
mechanical manual]. Animec, January 1986, 54–63.
Break Time. (1984). Ima, anime e no michi: Anime gyōkai shūshoku jōhō [Now, the path
to anime: anime employment information], Break Time (2), 17–24. Tokyo: Break Time
Editorial.
Condry, I. (2013). The soul of anime: Collaborative creativity and Japan’s media success story.
Gakken. (2016) Gakken Group (website). Retrieved from http://hon.gakken.jp/child/study/
comic/.
Hasebe, D. & Ito, H. (2012). Uchū Senkan Yamato TV BD-Box Sutandaado-ban Fairu
[Space Cruiser Yamato TV BD Box Standard Edition File]. Tokyo: Gin’ei-sha/Bandai
Visual.
Hirose, K. (1977). Animeeshon waarudo paato 1: Dai-1-kai dokusha ga erabu terebi anime
besuto 10 happyō!! [Animation world, part 1: We reveal the best 10 TV anime as
chosen by readers!!], Manga Shōnen, (14), 283–285. Tokyo: Asahi Sonorama
Jenkins, H. (2006). Convergence culture: Where old and new media collide. New York: New
York University Press.
Kelts, R. (2006). Japanamerica: How Japanese pop culture has invaded the U.S. New York:
Palgrave Macmillan.
Komaki, M. (2009). Animec no koro [My days at Animec]. Tokyo: NTT Publishing.
Lamarre, T. (2009). The anime machine: A media theory of animation. Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press.
6 Straight title robot anime, an animated show that aired in 2013 on Japanese terrestrial
television, was produced solely using MikuMikuDance, so there is some precedent.
68
Mandarake (2014). Mandarake: Shiryō-sei Dōjinshi Hakurankai [Data Resource Dojinshi

Exposition]. Mandarake (website). Retrieved from http://www.mandarake.co.jp/
information/event/siryosei_expo/7/report.html.
Media Geijutsu. (2015). Media Geijutsu [Media Arts] (website). Retrieved from www.
mediag.jp/news.
Oguro, Y. (2008), Anime-sama 365-nichi, dai-3-kai: ‘Terebi Anime no Sekai’ [Mr. Anime’s
365 days, no. 3: ‘The world of TV anime’]. Web Anime Style. Retrieved from
http://www.style.fm/as/05_column/365/365_003.shtml
Out. (1977). Yabu’s run (illustration). Out, (5), 131–132.
The Motion Comic. (1984). Artland Newspaper: Dai-4-kai sutajio shinbun: Aatorando no
maki [Artland Newspaper: Studio Newspaper, Issue 4: The Artland issue]. The Motion
Comic, 9, 203–211. Tokyo: Tokuma Shoten.
Tsuji, S. (2012). Makurosu tanjō 30 shūnen kinen taidan: Kawamori Shōji x Mikimoto
Haruhiko [Macross 30th anniversary celebration discussion: Shōji Kawamori and
Haruhiko Mikimoto]. Gekkan Newtype Ace, 13, 388–395.
69
CHAPTER FOUR
F R OM V IC T IM T O K IR A
Death Note and the Misplaced Agencies of Cosmic Justice
COREY BELL
Introduction
Death Note [デスノート], originally a manga by Ohba Tsugumi, has seen in
carnations as an anime and a live-action two-movie series released in Japan
between 2003 and 2006. The story revolves around a young genius named
Light Yagami, who uses the ‘death note’, the book of a god of death, to rid
the world of criminals. ‘L’, a brilliant but quirky freelance detective, tries to
stop him. Death Note shares elements and archetypes with a common subgenre
of detective fiction wherein the intellect of the misfit detective is seen as the
ideal instrument to unearth the deviant machinations hidden beneath the
debonair facade of the seemingly upstanding criminal. Yet Death Note by no
means portrays a conventional crime narrative. Rather than exposing depravity
as a hidden complement of our struggle to conform, it reveals some of the
values that society exemplifies as depraved through the clever use of the occult
plotline. Rather than merely delving into the deeper psychology of deviance,
Death Note addresses the ways in which texts can become objects of mistaken
authority, and ultimately be given a misplaced currency in society.
Death Note and the Occult
The ‘occult’ dimension, which Death Note manipulates, is manifest in the figures
of the grotesque gods of death, the shinigami, and also their instrument of death
– the death note, which can be used by a mortal human to kill anybody whose
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From Victim to Kira
name they write down in its pages. Napier (2010) asserts that the shinigami is
a symbol of the omnipotence of thought, revealing the hidden pathologies in
contemporary urban society. I would argue that Death Note’s underlying moral
message is symbolised by the book that is its namesake.
The mortal Light, alias Kira (a Japanese transliteration of ‘killer’), is able
to exact his vision of divine justice by merely writing the name of his victim
(his ‘judgements’) in the shinigami’s death book. However, through killing,
he ultimately lengthens the shinigami’s lifespan. This symbolism links to
Judeo-Christian ideas of true god(s) as eternal and demonic forces as able to
sustain a worldly presence only through human collaboration and supernatural
instruments. While the shinigami symbolises dark power, the intermediary
facility – the book – can be said to symbolise discourses. Thus, via the death
note – and in reference to Napier’s observation about omnipotence – words
indeed give form to thoughts. Moreover, as with the case of religious and
other texts, it is the divinised medium (‘text’) that empowers these thoughts
to produce an effect in the real world. The moral danger in the act of reading
is thus related to the misplaced sanctification of texts and their authorship,
manifest in Death Note when the ‘enlightened’ language of ‘cosmic justice’ is
shown as not divinely inspired, but co-opted in the service of our/the author’s
demonic morbidities.
Death, Justice and Victimhood

Napier (2010, p. 358) finds in Death Note a social commentary that addresses
many issues in contemporary Japan such as bullying, sensationalist reporting,
the judicial system’s apparent impotence and the danger of cult leaders. While
one cannot deny the multidimensionality of Death Note’s morals, many of these
issues intersect through a relationship to ‘victimhood’. This concept brings to
the fore the intersection between ‘justice’ as cosmic moral principle, and ‘death’
in the sense of our preoccupation with mortality.
Victimhood can act as a powerful instigator of moral indignation, yet it also
marks the terror of facing unprepared the imminence of our own mortality.
The juxtaposition of the godly and demonic reminds us that the latter can
often disfigure the former and that uncritical faith in the moral sanctity of
our indignation can have grave consequences. This is particularly true, as the
symbol of the ‘notebook’ cleverly intimates, when the private machinations of
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the victimised are received more widely. This is often seen in detective dramas
when proof of guilt is presented and the perpetrator speaks of their own
victimisation. Sympathising with, but ultimately rejecting, these discourses,
we are given grounds to counterbalance our ongoing fear of being victimised
and our condemnation of the perpetrator with the view that society should
share in the moral burden. However, when the discursive power to popularise
victimhood empowers us all to share a claim to victimhood and an entitlement
to retribution, evil is given its ultimate absolution. In such a world, justice serves
the desire to bring death to that which threatens to intensify the propinquity
of our own mortality. When the measure of justice is that killers are ultimately
destined to become victims, the collective victim is destined to empower and
bring into the world our own inner kiras.
Attending to the above themes, this chapter examines Death Note’s com
mentaries on the ramifications of the public empowerment of ‘victimhood’ and
its surreptitious role in sanctifying misplaced authorities (especially in Japan’s
mainstream media) in regard to both ‘voice’ and ‘discourse’ in contemporary
Japanese discussions on crime and punishment. While this chapter does not
take a cultural studies approach in the narrow sense, it is concerned with the
intersection of social commentary and religio-moral discourse, addressed
through an investigation focused on the cinematic adaption of the Death Note
manga.
Crime Reporting and Criminal Justice

Prior to protagonist Light (Yagami Raito) using the shinigami Ryuku’s (i.e.,
Luke = Lucifer?) death note to administer what he regards as divine justice, he
is a law student disillusioned by what he sees as the impotence of the justice
system. As Napier points out, much of Death Note is dedicated to depictions of
Light and other death note users’ extra-judicial killings of criminals (2010, p.
356). Many of the deaths are the subjects of live media coverage, commented
on sympathetically by the media and receiving support online. Despite being
condemned by law enforcement, Kira garners significant support from the
broader public.
In many ways, these themes reflect overtly what Hamai and Ellis (2006)
and other scholars (i.e., Miyazawa, 2008; Leonardsen, 2010) have observed to
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From Victim to Kira
be a rapid rise in public fear of crime, together with a growth of the sentiment
that the justice system is failing and that a more punitive approach to criminals
is required. It has been asserted in Japan that one of the key causes for such
sentiments is sensationalist reporting of crime and judicial incompetence in the
mainstream media. This has been expressed most overtly in a rare journalistic
mea culpa, published in early 2007 (just after the release of Death Note), by
Japan Times writer Debito Arudou, who stated that his profession was largely
to blame for what had become a ‘disturbing gap between actual crime in Japan
and public worry over it’ (Arudou, 2007). This narrative of the media as the
site of ethical abatement combined with undeserved potency in swaying public
opinion forms a key theme in Death Note’s social commentary, revealed most
directly in Napier’s statement that media figures such as ‘television moguls’ are
depicted as ‘probably the least attractive characters in the whole series’ (2010, p.
158) on account of their self-serving and unprincipled manipulation of public
sentiments surrounding the Kira phenomenon.
Though perhaps the product of earnest professional self-reflection, Arudou’s
mea culpa was partly inspired by Hamai and Ellis’ 2006 article, which found
that while Japan had one of the lowest crime victimisation rates, surveys
indicated that public fear of crime was particularly high, a mismatch larger
than in any comparable nation. Hamai and Ellis conclude that much of the
blame for this mismatch lay in the presentation of a partial, inaccurate picture
of crime trends in the media, including most prominently homicide and violent
crimes with high ‘news value’. They assert that because people ‘rely more on
media sources for opinions on crime than they do on official statistics’ media
panic has had a very real effect on public perception (Hamai & Ellis, 2006,
p. 169).
Hamai and Ellis’s research strongly resonates with Death Note in that the
‘moral panic’, which they attribute to this heightened fear, fed on the per
ception of the media’s portrayal of an incompetent police and judiciary and
the sharp change in crime statistics that policy response to these earlier per
ceptions resulted in. They note that in the late 1990s the coverage of police
scandals provoked policy reactions ‘that ensured that more “trivial” offenses
were reported, boosting overall crime figures’ (Hamai & Ellis, 2006, p. 206).
However, rather than a rise in trivial crimes, the media focused on violent
crimes, resulting in the general rise in recorded crime being linked to a
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heightened likelihood of becoming a victim of serious crime and lowered

chances of it being investigated and solved. This vicious cycle led to a loss of
confidence in the criminal justice system, morphing into the legitimisation
of the ‘myth of the collapse of secure society’ (Hamai & Ellis, 2006, p. 169).
Hamai and Ellis drew attention to anecdotal evidence that this perspective
has become institutionalised, manifest in what they call ‘popular punitivism’,
similar to that seen in the UK and USA and evident in policy changes, which
include higher rates and longer durations of incarceration for increasingly
trivial transgressions.
Death Note reflects the focus placed on the roles of the media and the justice
system; it is noteworthy that the majority of the characters are either employed
as journalists or police. When the narrative introduces two other characters who
have become kiras – Misa and Kiyomi – they are in fact media personalities.
Death Note also uses an abundance of cuts to sensationalist headings in papers,
vox pops and exploitative television coverage of the kira phenomena – the
most striking example being a producer’s excited reaction to the ratings gained
by exclusive live coverage of the killings of innocent people orchestrated by
the second kira, Misa. While the media is denigrated as narcissistic and self-
serving in its coverage, the police – in spite of Death Note’s sober appreciation
of their limitations – are dealt with more sympathetically. While it is arguable
that they are the story’s ‘heroes’, the group that assists L are depicted generally
as earnest, courageous and self-sacrificing people that make the best use of
their limited abilities to try to protect society, while maintaining respect for
legal procedure and due process. This principle is exemplified by L’s sacrifice
of his own life to ‘prove’ beyond doubt what he already knew intuitively to be
Light’s guilt.
In relation to the perceived incompetence of the police and judiciary, Light,
the son of a high ranking detective, is able to get access to records of non-
prosecuted cases. He reveals early on that he had lost faith in the effectiveness
of the police and courts. This inspires him to seek out the criminal Takuo
Shibuimaru – which leads to his acquiring the Death Note and becoming
‘Kira.’ This theme is strengthened by interviews and cuts to social media
where Kira is praised for moving beyond the criminal justice system to reduce
crime. Furthermore, in several scenes, Kira kills criminals after what are un
ambiguously depicted as their false exoneration in court. On top of this there
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From Victim to Kira
is a symbolic expression of the antagonism between the media and the police:
each of the three ‘kiras’ (two of whom are media personalities) use death notes
at various times to ‘sacrifice’ innocent officers acting in the course of duty
without any expression of remorse.
This parallels between the actions of media figures and those of the kiras
directly symbolises the ramifications of the improper bestowal or acquisition of
textual/discursive authority – in the case of the media, this occurs when its duty
to protect the ‘common’ good is hijacked by base intentions for advancing self-
interest through manipulation. The most overt expression of this is Kiyomi’s
use of a death note to further her journalistic career: she kills a rival newsreader
and organises ‘timely’ deaths at her own interview locations. She tells herself
that her actions are justified as they bring retribution and reduce crime.
At a deeper level, Death Note’s drawing together of the kiras and the media
could also be read as emphasising the ability of textual authority to ‘weaponise’
language, and in the absence of proper self-examination, to give effect to our
darker instincts. In Death Note there is arguably an inherent call for those who
exert influence on public discourse to reflect on the gravity of their respons
ibility. This is made more explicit in its manga version, in which L’s prodigy
‘Near’ tells Light that a normal person would be shocked on learning the de
structive power of the death note and would be reticent about using it again.
However, part of the allure of the death note is the disassociation it creates
between its use and the gruesome violence of ‘killing.’ As the newsreader-
come-kira Kiyomi says, she did not actually kill anyone – all she did was ‘write
names’ in a book. When text is an intermediary between dark thoughts and
their realisation in the world, there is a temptation to consider that the text has
a moral immunity with regards to its consequences on account of the absolute
right to freedom and impunity associated with the act of writing. This may be
compared with the notion that freedom of speech does not imply freedom from
consequences.
Victim Status and the Cycle of Abuse

Death Note contains an alluring flipside to the media campaign for punitivism
and ‘judicial imprudence’ manifested primarily in sympathy for and valorisation
of ‘victims’. Hamai and Ellis (2006) note in their research that ‘victims and
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advocates’ constitute one constituent – the media, police/politicians and experts

being the others – of what they call an ‘iron quadrangle’, which institutionalises
concern about crime and the idea that Japanese society is in constant danger.
According to their report, the press has largely facilitated the rising influence
of victims and advocates. As they note, the print media is now more interested
in representing the victim’s perspective and ‘victims and/or bereaved family
members are far more visible to the public’ as a result (2006, p. 171).
Hamai and Ellis’s (2006) research implies that the Japanese media has
gone beyond valorising and bringing attention to victims. The moral panic it
has invoked has caused ‘a collapse of the pre-existing psychological boundary
dividing the ordinary world where crime is rare, and another world where
crime is common’ (Hamai & Ellis, 2006, p.170). Through the frequent,
sensationalist reporting of grotesquely violent crimes, the media may be said
to have ‘collectivised’ crime-induced trauma, proliferating a sanctified victim
identity as the prerogative of non-victims of the non-criminal mainstream.
Death Note pays significant attention to the dangers inherent in the
widespread valorisation and appropriation of victim status. This is realised
because the links it makes between the media and kiras can be regarded as a
symbolic commentary on the psychology of ‘victim identity’ and its discursive
legitimisation. A pop-psychology interpretation of the theory of the cyclic
transformation of those who strongly identify as victims – wherein, on account
of this identity, victims become perpetrators or abusers – forms a central
theoretical tool. As a medium for realising the omnipotence of thought, the
shinigami notebooks reveal how the victim identity, prompted by a heightened
reactive narcissism and facilitated by the principle of ‘cosmic justice’, causes
the ‘victim’ to be transformed into kira. This is symbolised by the arrival of
the shinigami and consummated by patterns of killing that move from being
narrowly targeted and retributive to increasingly indiscriminate and self-
serving.
The Psychology of Victimhood

The term ‘victim identity’ in psychology refers to the state in which a person
identifies strongly with their status as a victim, whether they have experienced
abuse or imagined abuse. It is one response to victimisation and not an inevit
able one. Victim identity denotes not only a sense of seeing oneself as a passive,
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From Victim to Kira
innocent victim, it is also an identity that is often imbued with retaliatory

impulses. Violent criminals, similarly, are assumed to have, and justify their
crimes on account of, a victim identity. Victim identity, in this sense, is a source
of abusive behavior – the key instigator of a cycle in which victims become
abusers.
Death Note focuses its moral discourse on how the sanctification of victim
hood empowers those that appropriate it to visit abuse on their abusers,
and ultimately on others, with self-claimed impunity. Zur offers a succinct
description of the basis and general constitution of this phenomenon:
In claiming the status of victim … a person can achieve moral

superiority while simultaneously disowning any responsibility for one’s
behavior and its outcome. The victims ‘merely’ seek justice and fairness.
If they become violent, it is only as a last resort, in self-defence. The
victim stance is a powerful one. The victim is always morally right,
neither responsible nor accountable, and forever entitled to sympathy.
(1994, n.p.)
The Birth of Kira in Death Note

How is this theory of the cyclic transformation from victim to abuser manifest
in Death Note? Firstly, we may note that despite Death Note talking about
public opinion regarding the notion of judicial punitivism, there appears to
be an omission regarding the characters of criminals. No questions are asked
about what led them to their crimes, or whether criminals can be rehabilitated.
Other than the kiras, no criminal characters are developed beyond the crudest
archetypes – the most common being the deranged, cold-blooded and often
relatively young psychopaths of the type Hamai and Ellis (2006) identify as
the subjects of sensationalist reporting (a rare exception being corrupt officials
and businessmen). Criminals are presented not as people, but as demonised
caricatures of the type portrayed in popular media, perceived though the eyes of
society as the collective victim. In a Jungian sense, these characters are merely
the psychological projection or ‘shadow’ of the victim identity (1966), themes
elaborated on by von Franz (1964) – they are anonymous, evil perpetrators
contrasted with innocent, upstanding victims. They are, in a sense, the ultimate
rationalisation for the empowerment of Kira.
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In Death Note, we are shown innocent victims of crime, several of whom

are seen to be supportive of Kira, rejoicing when Kira brings them vengeance.
In one early scene, a phone is shown with a message stating that since Kira’s
killings, the writer has not been the victim of bullying at school. In another,
a boy holding a picture of his sister rejoices in the ‘gift’ he receives when Kira
kills his sister’s murderer. More importantly, one of the central characters – the
television personality Misa – is a victim of a deranged young criminal who
killed her entire family. Misa’s life is reinvigorated, and she falls in love with
Kira, after he kills this criminal. Misa was also ‘saved’ by a shinigami herself
when on the verge of being murdered by a crazed fan.
In her identification as a victim, Misa is not alone amongst the kiras. Each
of the death note users – Light, Kiyomi and Misa – are shown at various times
to have been victims of abuse and each came to use the death note to exact
revenge. More importantly, while each claims justice and the promise of a
better world as their motivation, victimisation is revealed as a key instigator
of the symbolic process through which each of the protagonists come into
possession of death notes and are shown the shinigami. In the case of Misa, the
death note appears when she is on the verge of being murdered and she first
uses it to kill her attacker. Similarly, Kiyomi is the victim of bullying at her
workplace and it is when her desire for retribution is at its most intense that the
death note drops before her.
The most richly symbolic juxtaposition of the pursuit of divine justice
and the retaliatory impulse brought about by victimisation occurs with the
acquisition and early use of the death note by Light. His ideals and belief in the
efficacy the legal system are shaken when he uses his detective father’s (Yagami
Soichiro) access to view secret files, wherein he finds that many of society’s
worst criminals escape justice. Light seeks to investigate one of these cases
himself and is almost killed by one of these criminals, the young psychopath
Shibuimaru Takuo. Immediately afterward, Light throws his law textbook
away and at this very moment notices the notebook, which had apparently
fallen from the sky, mysteriously untouched by the rain that fell around it. As
in the case of the other two kiras, the notebook was soon after used by Light to
retaliate against the person who threatened him. Before this act of retribution,
he uses it to kill a deviant who preyed on schoolgirls – just before a scene where
Light expressed his fear for the safety of his schoolgirl sister.
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From Victim to Kira
Of the three kiras, Light’s acquisition of the death note emphasises most
emphatically the blurred line between the idealistic pursuit of realising cosmic
justice (an ideal he espouses to his girlfriend Shiori) and the darker retributive
impulses prompted by victimisation. This is closely intertwined with another
form of corruption, between the desire to shape the world to conform to an
ideal (justice) and the drive to reshape it to mitigate the fragility of one’s own
mortality (death). A contrast exists between Light’s discussion with Shiori
about his desire to save the world and his more private desire to become
immortal. Such conflict is arguably symbolised by the divine image of the
death note when Light first encounters it. Confusion between the divinity and
the demonic power of the death note can be read as mirroring the confusion
between the ‘divine’ mission which Light ostensibly commits his use of the
death note to realising and the baser intentions that actually drive him.
The gap between Light’s discovery of the death note and the arrival of the
shinigami relates to the confusion between a preoccupation with mortality and
the rationalisation of ‘divine’ justice. In the cases of Misa and Kiyomi, the
shinigami arrived almost immediately after they touch the death note. The
order in which the death note arrives before the shinigami is important. Kiras
are empowered ultimately on account of the ‘discourses’ (i.e., the ‘book’) that
‘victims’ have formulated to legitimise or bring authority to their right to visit
retribution upon perpetrators. Only then are they capable of overcoming the
initial shock of first confronting the demonic grotesqueness (i.e. the shinigami)
of the impulse to kill. In the case of the first kira, Light, Ryuku does not
arrive until after he has confirmed the power of the death note and Light’s
shock at Ryuku’s form (bat-like wings, sharp teeth, grey skin and gothic
adornments replete with skull symbols) is much more subdued (in fact, in the
original manga it is minimal). This may represent the notion that Light has
meticulously built the ideological infrastructure for accepting the role of Kira
on the foundations of his former idealistic yet naïve commitment to use himself
and the law as an agent of cosmic justice. Having already discarded the law,
when the shinigami arrives Light is able to bear both his grotesque form and
the grave consequences the shinigami warns him of (in fact, Ryuku wryly notes
that it seems these consequences will not trouble Light). Light is, in fact, keen
to bring the shinigami and his powers (or demonic impulses) into the service of
his grander ideals.
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Narcissism and Kiras’ Consumption of Conscience

As the story unfolds, it becomes apparent that the death note cannot bring
Light immortality or godhood. Befitting his mortal status, he is ultimately
used by the shinigami to write his own ‘judgment.’ Light is similarly never able
to control the shinigami and is instead ultimately manipulated into the service
of Ryuku’s inane whims. Ryuku sees Light as a toy for avoiding ‘boredom’ and
extending his lifespan, which grows every time Light uses the death note to kill
someone. The ultimate immunity of Ryuku from the fetters of his book’s master,
and the human world in general, matches the growing liberation of the kiras,
as both Light and Kiyomi in particular succumb to their narcissistic impulses,
becoming more random, malicious and self-serving in their dispensation of
death. In one of the last scenes, Light yells uncontrollably at Ryuku to kill the
Kira special investigation squad, which includes his own father.
The acquisition of the death note can be said to represent the birth of
kira from the shadow of the victim. However, much of the movie deals with
the ramifications of kira’s subsequent empowerment and influence over con
sciousness. This point constitutes perhaps the key dimension of the social
and moral commentary in Death Note. This theme can be seen as reflecting
theories on victim-induced narcissism, in particular the ‘popular psychology’
writings of Vaknin. Vaknin considers narcissism as the process by which
a person creates a ‘false self ’ that they intend to shield them from hurt ‘by
self-imputing omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence’ (n.d.). Vaknin
talks specifically about the transformation from victim to abuser, identifying
‘professional victims’ as ‘people whose existence and very identity rests solely on
their victimhood’ and who can become ‘more cruel, vengeful, vitriolic, lacking
in compassion and violent than their abusers’ (2003, pp. 349, 350). Vaknin goes
on (describing, in many ways, the transformation of Light and Kiyomi):
The affected entertain the (false) notion that they can compartment
alize their narcissistic behavior and direct it only at the narcissist …
they trust in their ability to segregate their conduct … to act with
malice where the narcissist is concerned and with Christian charity
towards all others … This, of course, is untrue … To their horror, these
victims discover that they have been transmuted and transformed into
their worst nightmare: into a narcissist. (2003, p. 349)
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From Victim to Kira
Reflecting this theory, Kiyomi and Misa – self-absorbed media personalities –

indeed show narcissist inclinations. Light is a classic cerebral narcissist, which L
is quick to pick up on, who sees in Kira a mirror image (‘shadow’) of himself.
Light’s narcissism is reinforced by his arrogance, his oft-stated confidence
in his intellectual abilities and his desire to assume god-like status. As this
narcissism grows, so does the range of his victims, which includes FBI officers,
L’s assistant, the team of investigators he infiltrates and befriends, his own
girlfriend and even his father. In the last, ultimately unsuccessful examples,
Light – bloodied and out of control – resembles the depraved young psychopath
we see depictions of throughout the movie series. It is a transformation where
through his narcissism the victim ultimately becomes not a kira or a shinigami,
but a ‘killer.’ This is perhaps most fully captured by the anime ending in
appraisal of Light’s downfall by L’s protégé, Near:
You’re just a murderer, Light Yagami. And this notebook is the deadliest
weapon of mass murder in the history of mankind. You yielded to
the power of the shinigami and the notebook and you have confused
yourself with a god. In the end, you’re nothing more than a crazy serial
killer. (2006, episode 37)
The end of the movie features a more sympathetic treatment of Light, adopting
elements associated with a classic tragedy. This offers a key for understanding
the movie’s particular emphases in terms of moral discourse and social
commentary. When Light dies, he justifies his actions by referring to the
‘powerlessness’ of law enforcement and the judiciary, and notes how crime rates
plummeted due to his influence. Adopting the subjectivity of the collective
victim, Light rants about his legitimacy as a ‘god’ in bringing justice to the
‘worthless scum’ who prey on innocents and who, in his eyes, do not deserve to
live. After Ryuku writes his name in the death note, Light is embraced by his
saddened father and begs him to agree that his intentions were, in fact, noble –
that all he wanted was ‘real justice’ – leading his father to lament his misguided
stupidity. It is later decided that the official explanation for Light’s death is his
murder by Kira. The film ends a year after his death, with Light’s mother and
sister still mourning the loss of a ‘model’ son and brother (contrasting with the
subdued reaction to L’s death). Light’s sister says to her father that since Kira
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left, crime has increased – but when asked whether she wanted Kira to return,
she does not, as he had taken ‘their Light’. Soichiro consoles his daughter by
saying that Light fought Kira to the very end.
Soichiro’s comment seems to convey that as long as we identify with
our vulnerability to become victims, we are all in a perpetual battle against
kira. The seemingly misplaced and belated valorisation of Light in this sense
appears to be an attempt to invoke an archetype that straddles the boundaries
of the tragic hero and antihero, to blend critical social commentary with an
exhortative moral story. The point about Kira taking away their ‘Light’ could be
a symbolic reference to the social ramifications of empowering kira at a broader
level. However, the moral fall of Light shows at a more personal level that
good people with high ideals can be misguided and become consumed by kira.
This ‘fight’ with kira, Soichiro appears to imply, is that Light never completely
abandoned his originally upstanding ideals (in spite of their corruption almost
rendering them beyond recognition). In this sympathetic reading, we are led to
re-apportion blame to the persuasive power of the death note – the discursive
divinisation of the victim as infallible triggers narcissism, legitimising his right
to remotely, and with impunity, formulate ‘judgments’.
Justice, Morality and Mortality

Death Note can be seen to show the inherent danger of viewing oneself as the
voice, or sole agent, of cosmic or universal justice. As Soichiro points out in
his censure of his son, Light, it must be accepted that the law is not perfect
because the humans who devise it are not. As we are ultimately not ‘gods’, the
foundation of this architecture must be built on our personal struggles with
the immutability of our mortality. Unless we reflect on and abate our inner
cravings for what we regard as justice, we cannot hope to extract it from vices
concomitant with our deeper narcissistic impulses.
Death Note makes numerous references to cultism and religious deviance in
depictions of Kira’s supporters, some of who demand ‘faith’ in him. Frohlich
(2012) feels that this depiction could be seen to encourage participation in
apocalyptic cults (see also Thomas, 2012). However, in the movie version, at
least, cultism is neither a major theme, nor is it portrayed sympathetically. The
portrayal of ‘faith’ in Kira makes sense if we compare the rational proposition
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From Victim to Kira
that law is a product of imperfect human society, as put by Soichiro (the

detective Near, similarly, implies there is no universal right and wrong), with
the idealistic, naïve and empirically unsupported proposition that the arch
itecture of justice is the product of an infallible cosmic principle, as advanced
by Light. ‘Faith’ in the case of the latter, can be regarded as a willing or
religiously mandated ignorance of the flawed subjectivity that is the actual
architect of what are self-serving discourses of retributive justice (the sancti
fication of media and especially ‘victim’ perspectives). Cult membership is in
this sense also about affirming the better place in the dyad of killers that
become victims and victims that become willing and protected accomplices to
Kira’s retribution.
While the serious issue of cultism and false divinity in public discourse
weaves into this meta-theme of victimhood and justice, there are other
dimensions of religiosity pertinent to the social commentary of Death Note.
One that may be understated in popular critiques is Death Note’s observation
that popular dialogues of justice have particular ramifications for a ‘post-
religious’ secular society (religion is meant here in the sense of conventional/
world religions). Death Note reveals that what Light calls ‘real’ justice is not
to be found in law or in death – the latter is just a plaything for the shinigami
Ryuku. Religiosity matters in public discourses on law, justice and victimisat
ion in society, because widespread reactions to flaws in judicial justice and the
injustices of ‘good’ people dying as victims can be de-radicalised when there
is a belief in an overarching and infallible mechanism of moral causation
that transcends the temporal boundaries of our mortal existence. Living in a
post-religious world thus presents an intense conundrum for those who would
devoutly believe in the sanctity and supposed infallibility of ‘justice’. Inevitably,
as we see in the ideology of Light, when belief in the justice system waivers
beyond restitution, there is a perceived need that justice be played out in this
world – humans must somehow be the infallible agents of cosmic justice. This
would explain the juxtaposition of Ryuku’s statement that there is no ‘heaven
or hell’ for the user of the death note, with the presence of judgment-themed
cults and Light’s desire to become a new god of this world.
It should be noted that Ryuku’s belated revelation to Light before he dies –
that the death note user will neither go to heaven nor hell and will experience
‘nothingness’ – has another related, and perhaps more integral, implication for
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our reading of Death Note’s religio-moral messages. Namely, that a causal link
between a belief in the potential of an infallible agency of human law and the
wavering of religious morality operates in reverse order. If the consequences of all
moral behaviour play out without fail in the human world, it can be argued that
actions are no longer likely to be precipitated on moral grounds, but ultimately
on cynical or rational ones. In such a world – as perhaps pointed out by Shiori
in her reference to ‘freedom of choice’ – society will not become more moral,
but is essentially fated to be amoral. This is perhaps the key point underlying
Ryuku’s statement that the user of the death note will enter neither heaven nor
hell – a symbolic abrogation of the moral impetuses associated with a belief in
the eternal soul. Rather than bringing Light his coveted ‘godly’ immortality, a
theme more explicit and fully developed in the manga series, such a severing
of the links between moral causation and the notion of the eternal soul is more
likely to serve to increase one’s identification with, and bind oneself further to,
the mundane shackles of corporeal existence (hence, Ryuku talks about the user
of the death note disappearing into ‘nothingness’). Under the new orthodoxy
of this moral discourse, moral observance is ultimately fated to cease to be
an expression of freedom of will and instead become an instrument of self-
preservation. Killers will lose their unjust triumph over victims and ultimately
‘become victims’ – one of the ideals stated explicitly by Light. Yet Light failed
to see that in such a world, victims will ultimately be given the prerogative
to themselves assume the narcissistic triumph of being ‘kira’. Victim and kira
would, in such a society, be essentially undifferentiated, with the lingering fear
of persecution for victimising and the promised empowerment of the ennobled
victim in this dyad becoming the new primary impetus of (a)moral action.
Manga/Anime and Social Commentary/Moral Discourse

Several themes dominate academic appraisals of the moral discourse/social
commentary of manga and anime (and in this case, the manga/anime-inspired
film), the most notable being Shinto-informed discourses of environmentalism,
the perceived propensity of humanity for self-destruction (often with
apocalyptic themes resonating with Japan’s experience of the atom bomb) and
the ethical and social repercussions of the movement towards a closer interface
between humans and technology. Through Death Note, this chapter emphasises
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From Victim to Kira
the more pronounced thematic diversity, intellectual depth and methodological

creativity and flexibility that can imbue social commentary and moral discourse
in manga/anime genres.
Various manga have made unconventional reflections upon, or contributions
to, dimensions of contemporary Japanese culture and society, as examined
throughout this book (c.f. Zulawnik, Baudinette, Aoyama & Kennett,
Promnitz-Hayashi, Tanaka). Focusing on the medium’s capacity for critical
social commentary and moral discourse, here we have seen that Death Note
focuses on the critical appraisal of a currently prominent, but not conventional
manga theme – the valorisation of victims and media/popular discourse on
law enforcement and judicial reform. However, the emphasis is not on crime,
the justice system, or problematic judicial reforms in modern Japan, but on
its psychological wellspring and religio-moral ramifications. Despite these
heterodox conflations in discourse and methodology, its plot is not disjointed
and its message is compelling. Death Note exemplifies the strengths of the
pictorial/cinematic medium to present creative commentary and moral/
philosophical reflections that enable different ‘discourses’ to coalesce around a
thematic unity. This is a quality that requires a more open, flexible and multi-
disciplinary approach to academic reading and interpretation.
Acknowledgements
Thanks to Dr Lewis Mayo for feedback on this chapter.
References
Arudou, D. (2007, February 20). Upping the fear factor. The Japan Times. Retrieved from
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/community/2007/02/20/issues/upping-the-fear-factor/.
Frohlich, D. O. (2012). Evil must be punished: Apocalyptic religion in the television series
Death note. Journal of Media and Religion, 11(3), 141–155.
Hamai, K. & Ellis, T. (2006). Crime and criminal justice in modern Japan: From re-
integrative shaming to popular punitivism. International Journal of the Sociology of Law,
34, 157–178.
Ito, K. (1993). Research on the fear of crime: Perceptions and realities of crime in Japan.
Crime and Delinquency, 39(3), 385–392.
Jung, C. G. (1966). Collected works of C.G. Jung, volume 7: Two essays in analytical psychology
(2nd ed.). London: Routledge
Leonardsen, D. (2010). Crime in Japan: Paradise lost? Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Miyazawa, S. (2008) The Politics of increasing punitiveness and the rising populism in
Japanese criminal justice policy. Punishment and Society, 10(47), 47–77.
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Napier, S. J. (2010). Death Note: The killer in me is the killer in you. Mechademia: War/
Time, 4, 356–360.
Thomas, J. B. (2012). Horrific ‘cults’ and comic religion manga after Aum. Japanese Journal
of Religious Studies, 39(1), pp. 127–151.
Vaknin, S. (2003). Malignant self-love: Narcissism revisited. Prague: Narcissus Publications.
Vaknin, S. (n.d.). The dual role of the narcissist’s false self: Frequently asked question #48.
Retrieved from http://samvak.tripod.com/faq48.html.
von Franz, M-L. (1964). The process of individuation. In C. G. Jung (Ed.), Man and his
symbols (pp. 168–172). New York: Dell.
Zur, O. (1994). Rethinking ‘don’t blame the victim’: Psychology of victimhood. Journal of
Couple Therapy, 4(3/4), 15–36.
Manga
Ohba, T. & Obata, T. (2005–2006). Death Note Vols. 1–12). San Francisco: Viz Media.
Film/DVD
Kaneko, S. (Director). (2006). Death Note (Movie 1 & 2 collection special edition) [motion
picture]. Japan: Madman Entertainment, EYE300.
86
CHAPTER FIVE
E X P L OR ING YAOI FA N S ’ ONL INE

P R AC T ICE S IN A N ONL INE
C OMMUNI T Y
SIMON TURNER
Introduction
In recent years, there has been an increase in research concerning yaoi both
within Japan (Nagaike, 2003; Suzuki, 1998) and outside of Japan (Levi,
McHarry, & Pagliassotti, 2010; McHarry, 2003; McLelland, 2001a, 2001b,
2001c, 2005). Gender and sexuality has represented a major focus of this
research, with previous studies emphasising the sexualities and gendered
identities of characters and fans. Studies focus upon the liberating aspects of
yaoi; specifically, how readers feel that the feminised male character represents
a ‘safe body’ for them to explore their own sexualities (Kee, 2008; McHarry,
2003, 2008; McLelland, 2001a, 2001b, 2001c; Suzuki, 1998). These studies
draw heavily upon Mulvey’s ‘female gaze’ (1975), Butler’s theories of perform
ativity (1990) and Radway’s work on female audiences (1991), suggesting that,
through yaoi, fans construct and explore gendered identities.
This chapter moves away from past scholarship to focus upon interaction with
Japanese culture through yaoi. Napier (2000, 2007) and Newitz (1994) have
claimed that there is no direct link to Japanese culture to be found in forms
of Japanese popular culture such as anime and manga. Napier claims that fans
of anime and manga focus on the ‘difference’ of manga and anime, one that
is disarticulated from ‘Japaneseness’. However, by separating ‘difference’ from
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Japan, Napier risks losing many fans’ identification with and understanding of
Japanese culture.
Discussions in yaoi fan communities do not always focus on identification
with characters or sexuality, either the characters’ or their own. As Lunsing
(2006) has pointed out, a homogenous view of yaoi fans and their relation to
the text is unsatisfactory. Such homogenising approaches have pathologised
yaoi fans as females obsessed with ‘boys bonking’ (McLelland, 2006). This
chapter calls for more focus on the ways that fans engage with one another, thus
displacing a focus on the interactions between readers and texts and looking at
readers’ interactions with one another. It is suggested that yaoi fans experience
Japanese culture through community participation involving discussions
amongst fans on website message boards. By paying attention to fans’ own
perspectives and how they perceive yaoi manga as a ‘Japanese’ text, this chapter
brings fans’ discussions with one another to the forefront of analysis.
This chapter categorises fans’ learning processes about Japan into five stages.
As will be outlined below, learning about Japan and Japanese culture does not
necessarily equate to learning about a ‘static’ Japanese identity, but is instead a
process through which fans interact with one another.
Method of Data Collection

Participants for the present research were recruited by posting four introduct
ory threads in the Community Café discussion board of the AarinFantasy
forum, from which seventy-nine individual responses were collected. Of these
seventy-nine responses, twenty-five were willing to take part in in-depth semi-
structured interviews and the remaining fifty-four agreed to complete a shorter
survey posted on the website that was less intrusive and less time consuming.
The responses included in this paper are taken from interviews conducted
textually online via Skype. All fan names reported in this study are the fans’
usernames on AarinFantasy1.
Information was also collected from publicly accessible threads on the
website. However, the fact that online communication is sometimes readily
available for the public to access does not necessarily mean that the members of
1 The author gained permission to use participants’ usernames, as well as their communication,
for this chapter.
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Exploring Yaoi Fans’ Online Practices in an Online Community
such online communities see their communication as public. James and Busher
(2009, p. 86) advocate a position of full disclosure and stress how important it
is that participants know when and what data will be stored and disseminated,
and how their identities will be protected if they wish them to be. Therefore,
all original posters have been contacted for permission to use their comments.
Where permission was refused or the poster did not reply, data has not been
used. Finally, the researcher also contacted the administrator of the group,
explaining their position as a participant researcher and the intentions of
research in order to gain approval, as well as to request a short explanatory
posting from the administrator to introduce the researcher to users. Gaining
access through ‘gatekeepers’ has been identified as one of the best ways to
facilitate ethical access and trusted membership on websites (López-Rocha,
2010, p. 295) and to ensure informed consent.
How Do Fans Enter Yaoi Fandom?

Some fans have an interest in Japanese culture that predates their interest in
yaoi. For others, there appeared to be no prior interest in Japanese culture and
their interest in yaoi was the result of an introduction from friends or a family
member. Regarding the former group, many fans on AarinFantasy connect yaoi
to Japanese culture. For example, Gloomy Gloo states that she is interested in
various facets of Japanese culture:
I’ve always been interested in Japan… even the architecture… and one
day I stumbled upon yaoi. (Gloomy Gloo)
For Gloomy Gloo, it was her interest in Japanese culture that led her to do
further research and eventually she ‘stumbled upon’ yaoi. Other fans mention
that their interest in yaoi blossomed from an interest in Japanese art, music and
traditional Japanese culture such as geisha, samurai and calligraphy amongst
others. On the other hand, some fans have an interest in Japanese culture that
is born out of yaoi, rather than being a precursor to it. In some cases, this
interest is due to a family member:
If I remember well, it was my siblings that introduced me to yaoi.

(Solene)
For others, it was a friend:
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I thank my friend for the rough introduction. He always reminds me of

the first yaoi every time we go out for coffee. (Namsoon)
For these fans, their interest in yaoi did not stem from a prior interest in
Japanese culture. However, similarly to those who had a previous interest in
Japanese culture, they first came across yaoi through friends and family.
The friendly/familial introductions to yaoi highlight the very social aspect
of yaoi fandom. This is further developed in this chapter in order to build a
more coherent understanding of yaoi fans’ activities that involves not only
fans’ relation to their chosen fan text, which has been the focus of previous
scholarship, but also their interactions with one another online. This is im
portant, as yaoi fans do not always engage with their fandom solitarily which
has been the implication of studies focusing on the reasons that individuals
are fans of yaoi. Such approaches will naturally isolate fans to understand their
personal reasons; however, this study moves to understand what fans do with
one another. This is important as the existence of sites such as AarinFantasy
demonstrates that fans do indeed interact with one another and do not exist in
isolation.
How Do Fans Connect Yaoi to Japan?

As yaoi is increasingly found in different countries, scholarship relating to
the genre has also become more widespread. Within these studies, there
are few instances of comparison with what is termed ‘slash’ fiction, a genre
of fan fiction, supposedly originating in the USA, that focuses on same-sex
relationships between fictional characters. If slash is mentioned, it is often in
passing to explain the nature of yaoi to a wider audience within fan studies who
may not be familiar with yaoi but who may be familiar with slash.
Whilst other researchers on Japanese fan cultures, such as Sharon Kinsella
(2000) and Mark McLelland (2001), have examined yaoi manga and their
popularity outside of Japan well, it is interesting that they have not made
connections between yaoi and slash. Both genres feature homosexual themes
and often contain characters appropriated from commercial media texts. The
obvious similarities between the two have led some, such as Matt Thorn (1997),
to argue that slash and yaoi are almost identical. Thorn himself writes on the
idea of a global media community and argues that pop culture today creates a
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set of shared idioms that go beyond any geographical differences. In respect to

girls’ manga, he argues that it ‘binds girls and young women who will never
meet in a media community’ (Thorn, 1997).
It would appear that the reason yaoi and slash have often found themselves
isolated from one another in scholarly literature is because, as Busse and
Hellekson (2006) state, Western scholars, lacking in contextual knowledge of
Japan or Japanese culture, are wary of misrepresenting yaoi. At the same time,
those studying yaoi fandoms tend to focus on the Japanese context of the genre
so as to emphasise the specificity of their study, which – at times – encloses yaoi
in an orientalist bubble (Busse and Hellekson, 2006).
Yaoi manga and its fandom are often described as one of the few ways that
Japanese women have been able to criticise and fight back against patriarchal
Japanese society. In Male Homosexuality in Modern Japan (2000), McLelland
describes yaoi manga with its ‘androgynous’ characters who ‘combine feminine
sensibilities with the freedom to live and act as men’ – as the only way for
Japanese women to be able to fight back against ‘constraining roles imposed by
[Japanese] marriage and family system[s]’ (McLelland. 2000, pp.78–79). By
making this argument, he creates an image of Japanese society that is patriar
chal and slightly closed minded in relegating Japanese women to a ‘subservient
role in life’ (McLelland, 2000, pp.78–79) – a common theme in research
concerning yaoi manga that has been hard to read against. By not mentioning
that there is a genre in the West that also deals with male homosexual themes
and which has also been widely interpreted as a means of female resistance
to Western patriarchy, work such as McLelland’s runs dangerously close to
reinforcing Orientalist stereotypes of the Japanese woman as ‘she-who-must-
be-saved’ (Yamamoto, cited in Galbraith, 2011).
It may seem obvious that a prior interest in Japanese culture would make
a natural link to yaoi if fans found the genre whilst searching for Japanese
culture. Nonetheless, it has proved interesting to pay further attention to how
fans start, and continue, to connect yaoi with Japanese culture. Through an
analysis of AarinFantasy and the fans’ responses, it may be suggested that fans
connect yaoi manga with Japanese culture by definition, content and art style.
Fans often cite their own definitions of the word yaoi. For example, some
argue that yaoi is Japanese because the artists are Japanese:
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Most of them [yaoi manga] are by artists who live in Japan who write
about … Japan. (Gloomy Gloo)
Others claim it can only be Japanese because of the very word yaoi:
[I]n order to be called yaoi, a story, picture or whatever needs to be

influenced from where the word yaoi comes from, aka, Japan. (Solene)
Yaoi, as a term, is an acronym that stands for yama nashi, ochi nashi, imi nashi
[no climax, no end, no meaning] and is generally accredited to Japanese
mangaka Sakata Yasuko and Hatsu Akiko who created it in the 1980s (Saito,
2007, p. 223). According to Ingulsrud and Allen (2009, p. 47), the term was
used as a euphemism for the homosexual romance narratives to distinguish it
from what were considered the more complex narratives found in shōnen [boys’]
manga of the time.
Fans also compare yaoi texts from Japan to homoerotic texts produced in
different countries by non-Japanese artists. These are often known as Original
English Language (OEL) and the fans on AarinFantasy are familiar with so-
called yaoi OEL. In particular, fans mentioned GloBL Manga, a producer of
OEL manga explicitly marketed as yaoi, owned by the publishing company
SuBLime. Fans argue that the publications of GloBL should not be considered
yaoi, or even manga, but viewed as Western comics that plagiarised yaoi manga
themes and artistic styles:
These works [OEL manga] are fake yaoi, as in not really yaoi at all. The
term yaoi refers to Japanese anime and Japanese manga. Anything with
the ‘yaoi’ description must first be Japanese in origin. (Adjani)
If it has nothing to do with yaoi then why use the title?

(LadyPhantomHive)
Adjani and LadyPhantomHive suggest that the term yaoi itself is somehow
Japanese and, therefore, anything described by this term should come from
Japan. These comments reflect assertions by other fans on AarinFantasy that
yaoi is Japanese by definition and anything else should be called ‘comics’ or
‘graphic novels’.
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Fans also mention that the presentation in terms of reading style and
publishing methods of yaoi manga is connected to Japanese culture. In the yaoi
fan community, the drawing style and method of storytelling is considered
Japanese. For the fans, a major aspect of this Japanese style is the traditional
right to left reading direction of manga. Some fans feel particularly strongly
about keeping the original reading direction:
Right to left is more natural for manga. I think left to right is more
good [sic] for OEL manga and manwha for example. (CactusMaid)
The thought of flipped art makes me want to die. It should always be

right to left. (Sleeplesstown)
Fans have such strong opinions on keeping the original reading direction that
attempts to change it can, and have, been an issue for some manga publishers.
TokyoPop, a publisher that translates and sells manga from Japan, originally
flipped manga so it could be read left to right for its English-speaking cus
tomers. However, sales immediately dropped and fans complained until the
original right to left reading direction was reinstated. In the series Blade of the
Immortal, fans did not want flipping because the symbol stitched onto the back
of the character’s clothing would change from a Buddhist symbol to a Nazi
swastika, highlighting that fans are also sensitive to manga content. A senior
editor at Tokypop, Forbes, confirmed that many of the fan complaints they
received were about content issues in relation to flipping (Fletcher, 2012).
For other fans, yaoi is Japanese because of what they can see, with many
talking about the cultural content of yaoi, such as where the characters live and
the localities that surround them:
They might start with a scene where Japan is everywhere such as the
signs, or the schools. They’re obviously growing up in Japan. (Pweedie)
I think the characters are Japanese because they have Japanese names
and their daily customs. (Lokeira1)
By citing these reasons for connecting yaoi to Japan – through content (customs,
daily life, and names), art style and definitions – fans are establishing their own
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definition of Japan. This chapter now turns to consider the reasons why fans
come to believe that what they are consuming is Japanese by examining the
final three stages.
How Do Fans Learn about Japanese Culture?

Learning more about yaoi and Japan is a recurrent theme that came up in
interviews with AarinFantasy members. But how the fans come to understand
Japan is a complex process. In order to fully explore this issue, this chapter
now introduces motivations for learning more about Japanese culture (stage
three), how they get their information about it (stage four), and, finally,
the evaluation of this information in terms of the perceived accuracy and
authenticity concerning Japanese culture (stage five). Simply put, this process
boils down to fans asking a question, getting an answer and evaluating that
answer. In total, three motivations have been established from the message
boards and interviews with fans by analysing and categorising responses. These
three categories are to learn more about yaoi manga, to check the validity of
the things they have read or seen and to learn about Japan and Japanese culture
generally.
On AarinFantasy, fans often seek to assess the validity of Japanese culture
in a series that they have read as manga:
I have seen in some series that vending machines are everywhere in

japan [sic] … is there any validity to this? (Ziv)
I see so many teenagers that are high school students living on their
own … what’s all that about? (Mellusia)
They will often come across something that they have seen in a yaoi series and
then question whether or not this is an accurate depiction of everyday life in
Japan. This type of motivation also raises the questions of expertise, of who
arbitrates validity in the community and how do they disseminate it amongst
the community? These questions will be addressed in stage five.
As fans ask whether or not something seen in yaoi represents an authentic
‘everyday’ occurrence in Japan, many ask why yaoi manga employs certain
common tropes. Sometimes these are related to the everyday lives of the
characters:
94
Why is there so many yaoi manga with high school settings? Also in
high-school yaoi, I often see stuff going on at the roof-top, is this just
the mangaka’s attempt to advance the characters’ interaction, or do they
have a lot of rooftops in Japan’s high-schools? (Trifoilum)
Trifoilum wonders whether the depictions of high schools found in yaoi manga
are indeed typical of high schools in Japan. Fans also want to know why yaoi
regularly uses high school settings, which leads them to ask about Japan as a
country and Japanese culture:
I’m here to ask for your input on Yakuza culture whatever else you want
to add to it. Anything you could probably find in Wikipedia, I know
them as well… unless you have more to add? (Applette)
Applette demonstrates that, as well as wanting to know if something is true,

he also wants to know more information about the wider cultural contexts
embedded within the yaoi manga which he is reading. This demonstrates a
motivation to know about Japanese culture on a more general level that is not
directly related to any yaoi series or story.
These motivations indicate the types of things that fans are looking for in
their pursuit of information and demonstrate that fans do have an interest in
Japanese culture beyond their primary interest in yaoi manga.
How Do Fans Get Their Answers?

In this stage, attention is paid to how fans receive answers to their questions.
When a fan on AarinFantasy requests new information, they invariably get an
answer from other fans and if these other fans cannot provide an answer they
will be directed to another source. Rather than focusing on individual answers
to individual questions, emphasis will be put on the sources. The sources of
information that will be explored in this section are educational sources such
as classes, citations of personal experiences and citations of manga and anime
as sources of information.
The most common examples of formal educational sources are references to
learning Japanese in an educational institution such as high school or university
(including from teachers). Fans discuss what they learn in school and university
courses:
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After taking 2 semesters of Japanese in college, we learned A LOT

about how very formal and full of rules Japan is … I was totally not
forced to read 3 academic articles on it this year ;) (Shattered)
By referring to these sources of information, Shattered indicates that formal

institutions or scholarly works will give correct information about Japan. This
also occurs when fans mention education professionals who teach them. In one
case, fans were discussing the historical roots of the Japanese writing system:
If my Japanese course lecturer was not mistaken, hiragana was not any
more Japan’s ‘native script’ compared to ‘Chinese’. (Mimo)
This example of using an education professional to endorse legitimate knowledge

is not uncommon. There are other examples where fans refer to their teachers
whilst also indicating that they are fellow fans:
Our teacher … is also a fan of yaoi … [she] explained in our classes

… various kinds of hentai … from normal hentai’s laws … to yaoi
(KarumA)
KarumA mentions that her teacher is also a fan of yaoi who explained the
difference between yaoi and hentai (hentai is not strictly a genre but rather
an adjective that describes perverse or strange sexual acts; however, it has
also found parlance as a descriptor for anime and manga that depict explicit
and extreme sexual themes. Yaoi are homosexual texts that may, but do not
necessarily, include explicit or graphic sex). By creating this sense of connection
between information provider and fellow fan, KarumA indicates that fellow
fans of the genre are to be trusted (particularly if they are in a position of
power, such as teacher).
When fans discuss Japanese culture and want to give their opinion, they
sometimes draw upon personal experiences. These typically involve time spent
in Japan, or an individual or individuals that they personally know who have
been to Japan or are Japanese. Some members of AarinFantasy have visited
Japan themselves as tourists, exchange students or because their family moved
there. Often fans would cite this time spent in Japan to support their opinions.
Referring to the aforementioned discussion of Japanese high schools, the fan
Ato explained his answer to the original question:
96
I noticed several ‘template A1 school buildings’ just on the way from

home to Tokyo … On the other hand, schools that don’t fit the template
won’t be identified as such by me, so I’m fairly sure your average fan will
only notice the school architecture of yaoi manga fame, thus reinforcing
the ‘all schools look the same’ idea. (Ato)
This is interesting because this fan’s explanation is that because he is not very
knowledgeable about Japanese schools, the only buildings he will identify as
such will be those that look similar to the ones he sees in yaoi. This suggests
that fans’ perceptions of Japan are strongly based on what they have seen in
yaoi manga. Ato acknowledges his own narrow understanding of an aspect of
Japanese culture, revealing an understanding that this aspect of culture cannot
be simply reduced to what he has seen in yaoi.
A second common fan experience is related to knowing or having contact
with Japanese people:
If you want to understand Japanese culture, you have to speak with

someone who knows Japanese culture from experience or is part of it.
(Jiyutenshi)
Knowing a Japanese person gives a sense of authority to a fan’s posts. In one

example, a fan had asked about Japanese houses; in particular he wondered if it
was true that the houses could get very cold because of a lack of central heating.
The reply to this was:
Speaking generally, yes. During the summer they don’t tend to stay very
cool either, I spent a few weeks with my uncle in Tokyo … and in the
summer it becomes ungodly hot. My aunt is Japanese, and believes in
many of the Japanese housewife superstitions such as: Air-conditioning
is bad for you. She would leave the air conditioning off all day in more
than 100 degree heat and only turn it on when my uncle or I got home.
(Mit7059)
In his answer, Mit7059 includes information about Japan’s weather and one
of the ‘many … Japanese housewife superstitions’. By doing so, he provides
cultural information about Japan to support his answer. By using his knowledge
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of Japanese people and his time in Japan, Mit7059 appears to have legitimised
his knowledge of Japan.
The final information source commonly utilised by fans on AarinFantasy to
explain Japanese culture is yaoi manga itself. Fans typically guide other fans to
a particular yaoi series to find further information. For example, one fan was
looking for manga that included themes of traditional Japanese festivals:
Hey there. I’m looking for anything that includes traditional Japanese
festivals or holidays. An example of what I’m looking for would be
something like watanagashi [cotton drifting festival] from Higurashi no
Naku Koro ni [Higurashi when they cry]. (Farro)
In response, a fan suggested that they look to a specific type of yaoi manga that
may be found on the site:
I’d say you should just look into some Slice of Life series that take
place in japan [sic] and interest you somewhat as it’s almost inevitable
for them to feature some Japanese holiday and/or festive [sic] sooner or
later. (Konakaga)
Konakaga refers to what fans call ‘slice-of-life’ manga, which focuses heavily on
everyday experiences rather than supernatural or magical themes. ‘Slice-of-life’
yaoi manga is suggested to be an adequate source of information on Japanese
culture that fans may use for their own pursuit of information or use to inform
others.
These three sources of information fans offer in response to questions from
fellow fans include: educational sources, including teachers and course content
from institutions such as high school and university; experiential sources,
either personal first-hand experiences of Japan or second-hand experiences
from Japanese friends and relatives; and, finally, yaoi manga as a source
of information in itself. Interestingly, it appears that fans do not accept the
information they receive at face value, but will assess the efficacy of what they
are told in response to their questions.
How Do Fans Judge the Accuracy of the Information?

Whilst all fans may be readers of yaoi, not all have access to knowledge about
Japanese culture. Some fans have never been to Japan, had contact with
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Japanese people or learnt about Japan in school or university or schools, and so

their judgements are sometimes based on the information provided to them by
others.
When receiving information from other fans in the discussions boards and
posts, fans have to make a judgement on whether or not they trust that other
user, with judgement often being based on the amount of time that a member
has been registered to the site:
I respect and trust their opinion according to… the amount of time
they have spent being a member of the site. (Alex Dekibo)
Alex Dekibo trusts information offered by a member who has spent a

considerable amount of time in the community. This transcends positions on
the site, implying that a long-standing general member’s information is of
higher value than that of an administrator or moderator who has invested less
time on the site. This raises the question: how long must one be a member of
the site in order to be considered trustworthy?
On AarinFantasy, the Aarin Buddy System pairs up an inexperienced/
newer member with an established/older member. The members are known by
the Japanese terms senpai and kōhai, with senpai referring to the older member
and kōhai referring to the newer member. In order to be considered a senpai,
a user must have been registered with the site for at least six months and have
made at least 200 posts on the boards. Two fans involved in my study are in
one such senpai-kōhai relationship: Gloomy Gloo and Jaiden. Jaiden is the kōhai
and Gloomy Gloo the senpai. Coincidentally, Gloomy Gloo was the creator
and instigator of the Aarin Buddy System. Speaking about their relationship,
Gloomy Gloo states:
[I] have no trouble taking care of new members and questions they
have about thing [sic]. I’m just one of the members that … others turn
to when they have questions. (Gloomy Gloo)
Jaiden mentions:
I can ask Gloomy [Gloo] about anything I don’t understand … I really

learnt a lot from her and I trust her completely. (Jaiden)
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The existence of this buddy system leads to an interesting phenomenon

whereby fans may trust other fans regardless of potential inaccuracies in the
information that they may provide. This suggests a system of hierarchy where
the senpai controls access to understanding; long-standing members act as
‘gatekeepers’ to knowledge and can potentially influence the group’s under
standing of Japan and Japanese culture in various ways. However, one fan has
told me:
There are different levels of authority of course, I mean the admins can
end threads or ban members but you never see them doing those things.
They’re really friendly and we can talk to them. (Diepenhorst)
Fans are adamant that there is no hierarchy, but they do favour their friends’
interpretations of Japanese culture, highlighting the importance of community
for the members of the site. The focus on community over potential accuracy
is further reflected in fans’ discussions of ‘bad fandom’. One example of ‘bad
fandom’ may be seen in the case of the weeabo fan. In a more general context,
a weeabo is commonly considered to be someone who is overly obsessed with
Japanese culture (Neal, 2007); in the context of AarinFantasy, some members
use the term ‘weeabo’ to refer to:
Fangirls that bring other yaoi fans down with their … refusal to
compromise. (Diepenhorst)
What is interesting in this particular description of weeabos is that they are

thought to be difficult to get along with. By emphasising socialisation and
openness to interpretations, fans suggest that notions of accuracy concerning
Japaneseness or yaoi are arrived at through a process of collaboration; therefore,
a fan’s interpretation of Japan is a product of interaction.
When judging the accuracy or authenticity of yaoi manga, judgements are
often made on the basis of whether or not a text is a translation produced by
fans, commercial publishers or distributors. Adaptation is the process by which
cultural industries alter a text so that it can be consumed more readily abroad.
The extent to which yaoi is adapted to specific audiences contributes to how
fans perceive it as an accurate source. Fans mention that they prefer texts that
are as close to the Japanese original as possible:
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Sometimes I have the urge to kill the publishers when the manga is
wrongly translated. (Jiyutenshi)
Jiyutenshi explains that he does not mind reading manga in its translated
form. However, he sees the adaptation process as damaging, citing issues of
inaccurate translations. Fans also describe adaptation in terms of loss:
Often bad translation loses the cultural meanings of most of the jokes
… Japanese have a very unique way of expressing themselves. (Jaiden)
A common theme is that fans describe an inaccurate translation in terms of

a loss of originality, which could result in a ‘weird’ text. This raises the issue
of authenticity and who controls what is deemed authentic in the community.
Many fans believe that manga translated by other fans is more accurate. Cindy
Wu demonstrates this attitude towards fan translations of manga and anime:
It’s so much easier to get a better feeling of the original from fan stuff.
(Cindy Wu)
She also explains how fans reject licensed works in favour of scanlations (a
scanlation is a medium of manga which involves a hardcopy of original Japanese
manga being scanned and translated). Jess S shares this trust in fan versions of
original manga and explains in more technical detail the merits of scanlation:
I think they make the story flow better. The licensed manga usually
have this ‘strictly translated’ language that sounds so… overblown,
while the scanlation is from fans for fans with simple words. (Jess S)
Jess S believes that the stories are ‘overblown’ whereas scanlation is more ‘simple’
and is ‘from fans for fans’, thus highlighting the importance of community. She
prefers scanlations because individual fans like her create them.
When fans look towards yaoi manga for authenticity or accuracy, they
have a choice in the type of manga they read, either fan-produced or officially
licensed versions. Fans often opt for fan translations, rather than commercial
translations, because they believe they more authentically capture the nuances
of Japanese culture. On the other hand, some fans express a sense of caution
regarding how much Japanese culture they can understand through reading
manga. Not all participants have had contact with Japan or Japanese people,
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so for many, their contact with Japanese culture comes from their yaoi reading
activities or interactions with other users who have had such experiences.
Sometimes, fans discussed this process of learning objectively. For example,
Milwaen explained the benefits and limitations of yaoi in terms of learning
about Japanese politeness:
While yaoi doesn’t exactly explain all, it does offer the most important
thing of all about Japanese culture, which is the way in which people act
every day. All manga features some things … which make it wackier
than real life. If you can take the craziest stuff with a grain of salt you
can learn a lot. For instance, reading yaoi gives you a general idea of just
how polite Japanese people can really be. (Milwaen)
Milwaen demonstrates that she is apprehensive in claiming a complex

understanding of Japanese culture, but she does believe some aspects are likely
to be true, such as Japanese daily customs. During an interview Milwaen
discussed whether or not the information on Japan and the interpretations of
Japaneseness she finds online are authentic:
I think everybody decides it though his/her own ‘filters’. I mean,

for example, let’s take our little yaoi manga community. We accept
authentic what we judge that belongs to our vision … it’d be ‘my
Japanese culture’. (Milwaen)
Milwaen touches upon two important areas. Firstly, she mentions that
sharing information about Japan forms part of the community’s activities. For
example, they ‘often use manga Japanese in conversations in English, [that’s]
the identity of our own community’. Milwaen further explains that the
users of AarinFantasy ‘interpret and acquire everything through [their] own
lenses made of [their] own basic community’ and that any understanding of
authenticity she reached would be subjective, it would regard ‘[her] Japanese
culture’.
She does not associate this Japanese culture with that of a ‘real Japanese
person’ and is not sure what a Japanese person would think. However, this
is not of crucial importance as it is ‘[her] Japanese culture’ and it does not
need to be compared to that of Japan for validation. It is something that she
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has interpreted for the community’s benefit, as have other fans. This is an
understanding shared by Alex Dekibo:
I usually go into suspended disbelief mode because it’s probably not all
true but that shouldn’t be bad because it’s fun for us, you know? (Alex
Dekibo)
Therefore, it may be better to consider fans’ experiences and understandings

of ‘Japaneseness’ as not necessarily ‘authentic’ in the strictest sense of the
word. However, authenticity is not crucial to the yaoi fan community. This is
expressed clearly in this comment from Sapir Be:
I am aware of all the inaccuracies and idealizations that yaoi manga

has, but it is perhaps the idealizations that allow me to like yaoi and the
community to begin with. (Sapir Be, 22, student)
For fans, the community is more important than the accuracy of represent
ations of Japan, and fans remain engaged with yaoi manga and the comm
unity despite inaccuracies. Trusting other fans and maintaining objectivity
relates to the fan’s relationship with both the yaoi manga and with the wider
community of fans. There are potentially limitless fan interpretations of Japanese
culture, with each new fan bringing their own interpretation of what they have
read. But part of the process of being a fan is negotiating these interpretations
with others and in this process fans show a preference for community over
accuracy.
Conclusion
Yaoi is a cultural text that contains images and information about Japan. It
provides characters, plots and other pieces of information that can be read by
yaoi fans and constructed into ‘image-centred … accounts of strips of reality’
(Appadurai, 1996, p. 35).
As mentioned, Napier (2007) and Newitz (1994) argue that there is not
a link between an interest in manga and an interest in Japanese culture, but
fans on AarinFantasy do establish such a link. There is a process through
which fans learn about Japan: fans first enter the community through a prior
interest in Japanese culture or through friends and family. If they have not
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already done so, they then make a link between yaoi and Japanese culture and
they show an interest in Japan and a desire to learn about it. Fans express the
things they are interested in learning about and other fans answer, drawing
upon anecdotal or experience-based knowledge or directing queries to textual
evidence in yaoi manga. Finally, in this process of learning about Japan, fans
judge the accuracy of the information offered. The potential for inaccuracy in
some of this information does not deter fans from seeking opinions from their
community, as the community may be more important than accuracy for the
yaoi fans under investigation in this chapter.
By examining the aspects of yaoi that fans like and what fans see when they
read yaoi in terms of Japan and Japanese culture, it becomes necessary to explore
the wider issue of what fans do when they are online in their community.
The link between yaoi manga and fan practices remains largely under-studied
and the question of what fans of Japanese popular culture do has become an
important one. It’s a question that foregrounds this chapter’s consideration
of yaoi fans’ online activities, in particular their processes of understanding
Japan and Japanese culture. As part of the wider literature, further studies are
needed that focus on fresh opportunities to examine fan group activities and
interactions in connection with Japan and Japanese culture.
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CHAPTER SIX
A N E VA L UAT ION OF P H YS ICA L I T Y

IN T HE BARA M A NG A OF BÁDI
M AG A Z INE
THOMAS BAUDINETTE
Introduction
A wealth of studies have examined the discourses of masculinity and sexuality
appearing in homoerotic manga marketed towards girls and women, which is
known as yaoi or Boys’ Love (BL) (see Levi, McHarry, & Pagliassotti, 2010)
(see also chapter five). Yet little attention has been paid to the genre of bara,
which is marketed towards homosexual men, and there appears to be very little
consensus amongst scholars about how gay subjectivity is constructed within
bara manga. Indeed, whether or not bara is dominated by depictions of ‘hard’
masculinity is debated (Suganuma, 2012). This is despite the fact that various
literary, sociological and anthropological studies of Japanese gay experience
have highlighted the important role of bara manga, and various other gay
media, as ‘gateways’ to knowledge concerning male homosexuality in Japan
(Lunsing, 2001; Mackintosh, 2010; McLelland, 2000). What little scholarship
exists has tended to be de-contextualised and presents a homogenised image of
the stylistic devices utilised within bara, particularly in regard to depictions of
the male body (Ruh, 2014).
Loosely defined, bara [rose] refers to a genre of manga that depicts male
homosexuality and is produced for and by Japanese gay men (Butcher, 2007).
Butcher highlights the fact that bara may also be viewed as an art form and an
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article in the Australian gay magazine DNA also demonstrates that creators
of bara are often prolific producers of erotic portraiture, illustration and even
photography (Brennan, 2010).
Mackintosh (2006) suggests that the term bara became widely circulated
in the gay press of the 1960s as a result of Bara Kei [Ordeal by Roses], an
anthology of semi-nude homoerotic photographs taken by Eikō Hosoe of the
author Mishima Yukio. This usage was further reinforced by the publication of
Barazoku [The Rose Tribe], Japan’s first mainstream gay magazine, in the early
1970s (Mackintosh, 2006).
Previous research has suggested that hyper-masculine understandings
of homosexuality and homoerotic desires are promoted within bara manga
(Tagame, 2009). Lunsing (2006) has argued that these hyper-masculine
discourses have developed in bara as a reaction against the supposedly
‘androgynous’ and ‘unrealistic’ depictions of homosexual men appearing within
many yaoi/BL manga. Many bara manga artists attempt to deliberately distance
themselves from these images and depict ‘realistic’ homosexual men, argues
Lunsing. Although it appears true that yaoi/BL typically contains somewhat
androgynous representations of gay men (Matsui, 1993; Wilson & Toku,
2003), Lunsing’s argument fails to take into account the full history of the
genre known today as bara, which is quite distinct from that of yaoi/BL, as
discussed below. Furthermore, Lunsing, like researchers before him, has
unassumingly accepted the idea that bara is a homogenous art form and that
all bara promote the same images of masculinity and gay subjectivity. Indeed,
a recent article by Ruh (2014) has highlighted the need for researchers to
challenge this position, especially as bara manga is now becoming available in
formal English translation.
This chapter presents a more nuanced analysis of the discourses of mascul
inity and homosexuality appearing within bara. Through qualitative and quan
titative examination of how stereotypical gay subjectivities are discursively
constructed within the bara manga published in Bádi magazine, this chapter
suggests that depictions of the male body, in conjunction with gendered
language, are stylistically deployed as semiotic resources in the production
of gay subjectivities. The chapter also challenges the belief that bara is a
homogenous genre built around representations of hyper-masculine bodies by
suggesting that the bara found in Bádi may be grouped into ‘thematic clusters’.
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An Evaluation of Physicality in the Bara Manga of Bádi Magazine
Drawing upon Nakamura’s (2007a, 2007b) engagement with discursive

theory, which highlights language as a resource utilised by individuals to index
or ‘construct’ gender, this study will also reference work by Cregan (2012,
pp. 135–138) in order to theorise the body as a resource for ‘constructing’
gender. Firstly, however, it is necessary to examine the history of bara and re
view the literature examining how homoeroticism and masculinity have been
represented within it.
Bara Manga
Watanabe and Jun’ichi (1989) suggest that Japan has long had a tradition
of homoerotic art, typified by danshoku shunga, erotic artwork depicting the
pederastic relationships between older men and younger boys in Buddhist
monasteries. They highlight the fact that the rose was utilised as a motif within
various homoerotic works of this period, and have subsequently argued that
scholars should consider these artworks as representing the beginning of bara
as an artistic genre.
However, the popular bara artist Tagame Gengoroh (2009) suggests
in his survey of the history of homoerotic art published within Japan that,
although it is certainly true that roses were drawn upon stylistically within
danshoku shunga, there is no evidence to suggest that these artworks were
known contemporaneously as bara or that the image of the rose was utilised to
represent homosexuality as opposed to merely being an aesthetic component
of the work. Tagame suggests that it was Mishima Yukio’s knowledge of this
aesthetic practice that led him to also utilise roses within the photographic an
thology Bara Kei, mentioned above, and that bara became subsequently linked to
discourses of male homosexuality due to his use of them. Furthermore, Tagame
(2009) argues that danshoku shunga should not be viewed as part of the genre
of bara, as these artworks depict culturally defined traditions of sexuality as
opposed to the more personal, innate and, what he terms, ‘legitimate’ sexuality
of the so-called ‘modern’ homoerotic bara.
Contrary to Watanabe and Jun’ichi (1989), McLelland (2005) argues that
although bara may draw upon imagery found within traditional Japanese
homoerotic art, it is perhaps more accurate to view the development of bara
as part of a recent artistic tradition referred to by Tagame (2009) as ‘modern
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homoeroticism’. McLelland (2005), through an analysis of post-war gay media,

has suggested that the genesis of bara is situated in the so-called ‘perverse press’
[hentai zasshi] of the 1950s and 1960s. Certain pseudo-academic journals of
sexology, such as the fetish magazine Fūzoku Kitan [Strange Talk About Sex
Customs], which was in print from 1960 to 1974, contained much homoerotic
content, including comics of men engaged in sexual acts, eroticised illustrations
and photographs of the naked male body (McLelland, 2005).
The popularity of these pseudo-academic magazines, as well as the art
published within, led the publisher Itō Bungaku to begin publishing Barazoku
in 1971 (Mackintosh, 2006). It was in Barazoku that the illustrations found
in magazines, the so-called ‘modern homoeroticism’, began to more closely
resemble the bara of today. Interestingly, as bara was beginning to develop
within Barazoku and other gay magazines produced in the 1970s and 1980s,
the genre of yaoi/BL began to develop separately in shōjo manga (aimed at
a teenage female readership), through the influential homoerotic work of
the Hana no 24-nengumi [The Year 24 Group], a collection of female artists
experimenting with themes of love between boys (Shamoon, 2007; Toku,
2007). It is important to note that the emphasis on eroticism and sex present in
bara most likely derives from its development in gay magazines, which, as both
McLelland (2000) and Mackintosh (2010) have highlighted, often serve as
masturbatory aids. Yaoi/BL developed separately within shōjo manga magazines
and the emphasis is less on eroticism than on presenting a safe forum within
which young women could explore their sexualities in a more emotional way
(McLelland, 2000) (see also chapter five).
During the ‘gay boom’ of the 1990s and 2000s (Lunsing, 2001), bara
manga became less confined to the established gay magazines (of which Bádi
is one example). Indeed, with the advent of self-publication [dōjinshi] and
Internet publishing, and the development of gay-friendly publishers such as
Pot Publishing and Terra Publications, bara manga are increasingly available
via other means. This diversification in publication venues for bara has also
led to the diversification of representations of gay subjectivity, as the genre
becomes increasingly influenced by autobiographical and personal reflection
(see Butcher, 2007). Furthermore, there has been an increased foreign interest
in bara, with exhibitions of bara in Sydney (Brennan, 2010), New York (Kidd,
2013) and Paris (Musée de l’Érotisme, 2014). This foreign interest may have an
110
impact on how bara is composed and what images of masculinity are to appear
within, as in the case of recent work by Tagame Gengoroh (Kidd, 2013).
As bara diversifies, there is an increasing need to re-engage with previous
research, as most studies have analysed bara manga produced from the 1950s
to 1970s. This literature shall be reviewed below, with particular attention to
discussions of physicality in the construction of discourses of hyper-masculinity.
Masculinity as Depicted in Bara

One of the first studies to examine gay subjectivity in bara was McLelland’s
(2000) survey of the discrepancy between the lived experiences of Japanese gay
men and the representations of homosexuality in various media. Comparing
what McLelland refers to as ‘gay manga’ in the magazines G-Men and Sabu to
‘yaoi’, he describes gay manga as ‘relentlessly sexual, taking less time to establish
character and mood before getting to the sex scenes [than in yaoi]. The sex is
also of the hard variety … [and features] short-haired, well-built, hairy men
with a strong emphasis on bondage …’ (2000, p. 135). Although a minority
of McLelland’s participants did engage in bondage, he argues that these
images do not necessarily reflect the lives of the majority of his informants,
most of whom were interested in developing loving relationships as opposed to
engaging in quick, ‘hard’ sex.
McLelland suggests that gay manga typically promotes discourses of homo
sexuality that draw heavily upon sado-masochism (SM) through the depiction
of a certain type of physicality. He demonstrates that men are constructed
as hyper-muscular, with the frames in most manga dominated by images of
the torso, the buttocks or the (disproportionally large) penis. Mackintosh
(2010), whose work is reviewed below, terms this type of physicality ‘hard’
masculinity. Usage of images of bondage and abuse in gay manga suggests to
McLelland an attempt to move away from the beautiful and clean imagery of
the so-called androgynous romance depicted in yaoi/BL (2000, p. 136). Instead,
gay manga focuses on raw masculine energy, which leads to the construction of
hyper-masculine discourses similar to, for example, the gay leather subculture
of 1970s/1980s New York (see Levine, 1998).
McLelland’s work represents an important first step in the analysis of gay
manga and it is highly likely the manga discussed in his study are indeed bara
manga. McLelland demonstrates conclusively that physicality is deployed
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by bara manga artists as a semiotic resource in order to say something about

gay subjectivity, namely that is a messy and virile affair. However, the bara
that McLelland analyses is predominantly drawn from gay magazines such
as G-Men and Sabu, which explicitly focus upon SM-themes and so-called
‘hard masculinity’ and thus it would appear problematic to extend McLelland’s
findings to a discussion of all bara manga, as some scholars have attempted in
subsequent work (see Lunsing, 2006). Indeed, in later scholarship, McLelland
(2005) highlights the fact that more nuanced images of gay subjectivity do
appear within Barazoku’s manga.
In his analysis of discourses of ‘manliness’ in 1970s Japanese gay magazines,
Mackintosh (2010) explicitly engages with these more nuanced images of
homosexuality in order to argue that bara manga (as well as other content)
was utilised to promote ‘normative’ gay subjectivity. Mackintosh provides an
alternative reading of the physicality depicted within bara manga to suggest that
instead of promoting a hyper-masculine discourse of gay subjectivity, bara artists
use depictions of highly muscular, hairy bodies to counteract the mainstream
belief that all gay men are somehow effeminate and participate in transvestite
practices (see McLelland, 2000). Thus, for Mackintosh (2010), physicality is a
semiotic resource to challenge and subvert normative assumptions about what
it means to be a gay man in Japan.
Suganuma (2012) has also discussed how so-called hyper-masculinity is
utilised within bara manga to challenge normative assumptions about Japanese
gay masculinity. Focusing upon bara manga and homoerotic art published within
Barazoku, Suganuma explicitly analyses manga depicting Japanese gay men in
‘intercultural contact-moments’ with American gay men. In these bara, it is the
American men who are depicted physically as hyper-masculine, with Japanese
men portrayed as smaller, lither and comparatively more androgynous, with
longer hair and stylistics reminiscent of yaoi/BL characters. Suganuma argues
that the depiction of American men as hyper-masculine represents their
perceived obsession with sex, which is a negative stereotype of American
gay men found within some Japanese gay media (see Mackintosh, 2010). The
American men, depicted as deformed in their overly muscular bodies, are
presented as subjects of ridicule: their hyper-masculine identities are not shown
as desirable, but are instead utilised to promote the legitimacy of Japanese gay
subjectivity (Suganuma, 2012). Suganuma argues that bara is a resource that
112
Japanese gay men turn to in order to affirm their subjectivities and that it
provides them with a Japanese discourse (as opposed to an American queer-
rights based discourse). This Japanese gay subjectivity appears to Suganuma
(2012) to be more moderate.
It is evident that physicality is utilised to strategically promote various dis
courses of gay subjectivity within bara manga. However, problematically, all
of the studies reviewed above argue that bara manga is predominantly focused
upon hyper-masculine discourse, although Suganuma (2012) does in fact
argue that this hyper-masculinity is not always presented as representative of
Japanese gay subjectivity. This chapter extends this discussion of physicality to
include depictions of not only hyper-masculine men, but other stereotypical
gay subjectivities as well. Through a contextualised analysis of physicality,
in conjunction with an examination of gendered language, a more nuanced
understanding of the construction of gay subjectivities in bara manga can be
reached.
Constructing Masculinity
Nakamura (2007a) presents a theoretical understanding of the social construc
tion of gender within Japanese society through a discursive analysis of stylistic
representations of femininity within various media. This owes much to Butler’s
pioneering work on performativity, where gender is viewed as ‘the repeated
stylisation of the body, a set of repeated acts … to produce the appearance of
substance, of a natural sort of being’ (1990, p. 45). Nakamura (2007b) presents
a renewed critical theory of Japanese approaches to gender, which draws upon
the discursive theories of social constructionism. Nakamura affirms that gender
is not an essential category, but is in fact constructed through the repetition
and affirmation of various socially salient practices, which are circulated and
popularised through stereotypical imagery (see Butler, 1990). This chapter
draws upon Nakamura’s work in order to understand how various linguistic
features of Japanese, commonly perceived as inherently masculine, such as
certain referent pronouns and sentence final particles (SFPs), are utilised in
conjunction with depictions of the male body.
Nakamura (2007b) has herself utilised this theoretical approach to analyse
how a heteronormative masculine subjectivity is projected within the language
of Slam Dunk, a popular sports manga published during the early 1990s.
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Nakamura demonstrates that two distinct patterns of personal pronoun and SFP
use exist within Slam Dunk, one utilising ‘predominantly masculine’ linguis
tic features in homosocial speech, while the other presents men who utilise
‘predominantly feminine’ personal pronouns mixed with ‘gender neutral and
somewhat masculine’ SFPs when in discussion with girls they have a crush on
(2007b, pp. 119–120). Nakamura suggests that, on the one hand, the supposed
‘feminisation’ of the males’ speech in fact serves to index their heterosexual
desires, whereas, on the other hand, the ‘predominantly masculine’ speech in
homosocial situations can be viewed as limiting the ‘threat’ of their homosocial
bonding being perceived as somehow homoerotic (2007b, pp. 121–122).
Throughout her scholarship, Nakamura cautions researchers to avoid
reifying gender into a dislocated and decentralised process constructed solely
through linguistic practices and she draws upon Butler’s (1990) work to address
the relationships between embodied and linguistic gender practices. Follow
ing Nakamura (2007b), Mackintosh (2010) and Cregan (2012, pp. 135–138),
this chapter endeavours to map gendered language onto the physical body,
for although gender is understood to be a socially constructed category, there
are many aspects which are still perceived to be biological by the majority of
individuals. The body is a prime example of one such area that is considered
gendered, especially in relation to sexual desirability. Thus, physicality and
depictions of the male body may be important semiotic resources in the
construction of gay subjectivity in bara manga, as demonstrated in the previous
research. The overall aim of this chapter, then, is to understand how physicality,
in conjunction with gendered language, constructs both hyper-masculine and
other discourses of masculinity within the bara manga found in Bádi.
The Data
Bádi, from which the data for the present study is drawn, is the most popular
gay magazine in Japan, with a monthly nationwide circulation of approximately
80,000 copies (Abe, 2011). Bádi targets a diverse audience of gay men, including
young and older men, students and professionals, niche markets such as SM
and bondage enthusiasts, and transgendered and transvestite gay males (Abe,
2011). Within its pages, Bádi contains erotic fiction, HIV/AIDS information,
news articles, reviews of pornographic films, photography of nude men (known
114
as gravure imagery), numerous advertisements for clothing, beauty services and

brothels, and, of course, manga – all of which are explicitly labelled as bara.
Indeed, bara amounts to roughly 20 to 30 per cent of an average issue’s content.
As it contains diverse content and targets a plurality of gay subjectivities, Bádi
may itself be typified as diverse.
It is due, in part, to this diversity that bara manga featured within Bádi
were selected for analysis, as this study focuses upon the construction of diverse
gay subjectivities. Furthermore, very few scholars have previously examined
Bádi and its contents (see Abe, 2011) and it appears that no study to date has
explicitly examined the bara manga appearing within Bádi magazine.
Within this study, 24 issues of Bádi magazine published from 2010 to 2011
were selected for quantitative analysis. The page space afforded to the contents
of the magazine in each issue was tallied so as to understand the importance
and frequency of bara manga within the overall structure of the magazine.
Following this, a critical reading of every bara manga episode in each issue
was undertaken in order to understand their common themes and stylistic
elements. This critical reading resulted in the formulation of three ‘clusters’ of
bara to categorise the three different overarching narrative structures, themes
and artistic styles identified. Each of these thematic clusters present highly
distinct constructions of gay subjectivity and, thus, demonstrate that bara
contain diverse representations of gay subjectivity, which are explored below.
Findings
Thematic Clusters
Through close reading of the bara in Bádi magazine, it became apparent that
traditional descriptions of bara as hyper-masculine did not necessarily fit all the
depictions of gay subjectivity. Indeed, exploratory analysis demonstrated that
hyper-masculine characters represented only a fraction, although a significant
one, of the characters appearing within these manga. Three major themes,
and related stylistic elements, emerged, each containing common plot devices,
narrative themes, character tropes, artistic styles and instances of gendered
language. These clusters – slice-of-life, humorous and erotic – are detailed
below.
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The thematic cluster slice-of-life [nichijō seikatsu] is a popular genre of

manga and anime dealing with mundane, everyday events and circumstances,
often within institutional settings such as the workplace or school. Although
the term ‘slice-of-life’ is not utilised within Bádi itself, it appears to be an
appropriate title for the bara manga grouped within this cluster, as they portray
the mundane, ‘normal’ lives of Japanese gay men, with the presentation of
normality being a traditional plot device found within other slice-of-life manga.
Furthermore, as Rivera Rusca (see chapter three) has indicated, slice-of-life
manga is becoming increasingly visible within Japanese manga magazines, and
Bádi is no different. The narrative themes of bara manga belonging to the slice-
of-life cluster typically revolve around a character’s (usually the protagonist’s)
blossoming homosexual desires and their resulting romantic entanglements, as
well as how Japanese gay men negotiate heteronormative Japanese society.
Slice-of-life bara manga differ substantially from the stereotypically hyper-
masculine bara analysed in previous scholarship, as there is less of an emphasis
on eroticism and intercourse and more of a focus on character development and
romance, suggesting potential commonalities between this cluster and yaoi/
BL manga. However, the depictions of the male body within slice-of-life bara
do not draw upon the androgynous tropes of shōjo manga and instead utilise
a somewhat more masculine physicality to construct gay subjectivity. Indeed,
characters within slice-of-life bara are typically depicted with short, almost
military style, hair, broad shoulders, muscular torsos and rounded, somewhat
plump faces with stubby noses. These stylistic tropes are referred to in Japanese
as gachimuchi [muscular-chubby] and are indicative of a gay masculinity distinct
to that of the hard masculinity found within hyper-masculine presentations
of the male body, and the androgynous depictions of masculinity found in
shōjo (see Baudinette, 2011; Suganuma, 2012). Representative examples of
these tropes can be found in the works of one of the authors in the corpus,
Nohara Kuro (2011). The dialogue in slice-of-life bara promotes a ‘normative’
gay subjectivity, as characters draw upon lexical items indexing a diverse range
of masculinities, such as the mildly masculine boku, the strongly masculine
ore, and the gender-neutral watashi, all of which mean ‘I’ or ‘me’. Interestingly,
the SFPs found within the majority of these bara manga are also only mildly
masculine, with strongly masculine emphatic SFPs such as zo and ze being
utilised less frequently than their mildly masculine counterpart yo.
116
The second thematic cluster, humorous [yūmoa] bara, contains similar plot
devices to those found within slice-of-life, as humorous bara also generally
depict the day-to-day lives of Japanese gay men. Humorous bara differ in two
important ways. Firstly, there is less emphasis on character development and
romantic themes and more emphasis on parodying stereotypical tropes of gay
subjectivity drawn from the broader Japanese gay subculture. For this reason,
humorous bara generally include a more diverse cast of characters than the
gachimuchi characters typically found within slice-of-life. Thus, stereotypically
hyper-masculine men, foreigners and effeminate, often transvestite, Japanese
gay men, known as okama, can be found within humorous bara. Secondly,
humorous bara differ stylistically and structurally to slice-of-life as they utilise
an artistic style in which characters are presented with grossly oversized heads,
small bodies and exaggerated facial features. This artistic style is colloquially
referred to as ‘super-deformed’ style, and representative examples from the
corpus may be found in Niji’iro sanraizu [Rainbow Surprise] (Maeda, 2011).
Humorous bara are usually in yonkoma format, traditionally used for humorous/
parodic manga, wherein each narrative arc is presented as a collection of four
panels, typically as a vertical comic strip. Each page of humorous bara will
typically include two ‘collections’ of yonkoma panels.
Humorous bara is typified by the portrayal of a diverse range of gay
subjectivities, perhaps due to the fact that including as many stereotypical gay
characters as possible allows for greater flexibility in the portrayal of humorous
circumstances, with the super-deformed artistic style indexing the parody of
these stereotypical gay subjectivities. Of particular interest is the image of
the transvestite okama, only found within humorous bara. As sympathetic
representations of okama appear in other sections of the magazine, it appears the
parody of okama in humorous bara is intended to be affectionate and tongue-in-
cheek. This is further supported by the fact that gay men identifying as okama
are prominent members of the editorial board of Bádi magazine. More research
into the presentation of okama in Bádi appears necessary.
Humorous bara succeed in presenting a diversity of gay subjectivities.
Interestingly, due to the super-deformed nature of the artistic style utilised
within humorous bara, the majority of the physical tropes deployed in the
construction of gay subjectivities relate to the presentation of the face and hair.
Gachimuchi gay men are presented with short hair, large eyes and with the
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stubby nose characteristic of this style of character, okama are presented with
long hair, large eyelashes and large pouting lips, whereas hyper-masculine
characters are typically depicted with larger bodies than other characters, bald
or with incredibly short hairstyles and with smaller, more angular and less
rounded heads. Clothing is also utilised in the depiction of gachimuchi and
okama characters, with gachimuchi characters typically wearing shorts and
okama dressed either flamboyantly (for example, with large collared shirts and
jewellery) or in women’s clothing. Linguistically, the gachimuchi characters
utilise similar gendered language to that found in slice-of-life bara, whereas
okama utilise SFPs, such as wa yo and da ne, and self-referents such as atashi
[I], typically considered feminine. Hyper-masculine characters exclusively
utilise strongly masculine lexical items such as ore [I], omae [you] and strongly
masculine SFPs such as zo, ze and ssu.
The final cluster, erotic [ero] bara, is the closest thematically and stylistically
to the hyper-masculine manga about which McLelland (2000), Mackintosh
(2010) and Suganuma (2012) have written. Erotic bara are primarily concerned
with the explicit depiction of homosexual sex acts to the detriment of character
development, although, unlike in the manga referred to in McLelland’s (2000)
study, there do appear to be instances where romance is superficially explored
(often, however, only as a prelude to hardcore sex). The narrative structures of
erotic bara tend to be highly flexible and only sketch in enough detail for the
sexual acts to not come across as overly contrived, a phenomena referred to
as ‘porn without plot’ by Mowlabocus (2007). Erotic bara in Bádi magazine
also draw upon SM plot elements whereby innocent men are captured and
tortured by others, or a willing ‘slave’ awakens the frustrated, sadistic desires
of a typically older man. Examples of this may be found in Tagame (2014).
This inclusion most likely reflects the fact that the majority of the bara within
this cluster were created by Tagame Gengoroh and his disciples, all of whom
profess an interest in SM (Armour, 2010; Kolbeins, 2013; Tagame, 2009). It
may also be argued that the choice of including such content also allows Bádi to
appeal to the niche market of Japanese gay men interested in SM, rather than
this inclusion demonstrating something about the discourse of gay subjectivity
being promoted by the magazine overall.
Similar to Suganuma (2012), this chapter’s findings indicate that, to a
certain extent, the hyper-masculine discourses within erotic bara are not
118
intended to represent a normative depiction of Japanese gay subjectivity. This

is evident when examining the construction of gay subjectivity in erotic bara.
Firstly, characters in these manga are typically depicted with exaggeratedly
muscular bodies, often to the point of being anatomically problematic, with
a similar emphasis on penis size to that found in the manga analysed by
McLelland (2000). Furthermore, the fact that anal and oral penetration is often
presented in ‘close-up’, dominating a single frame, suggests that the images
found within erotic bara are constructed so as to arouse the reader. The use of
strongly masculine language, such as that used by hyper-masculine characters
in humorous bara, also seems to be a strategy to increase the arousing nature of
these erotic bara. Indeed, as Tanaka asserts (see chapter twelve), there are strong
ties between masculine language and roughness/impoliteness, and the choice
to use highly masculine language in erotic bara fetishises this rough language
to form part of a sado-masochistic discourse of desire (see Armour, 2010).
As the intended audience for the majority of these manga are, presumably,
those interested in SM, the use of highly muscular bodies and language is not
necessarily indicative of the promotion of a hyper-masculine gay subjectivity,
but perhaps merely a strategy to sell magazines.
The discussion of the three thematic clusters presented here is limited due
to the scope of this chapter and does not take into account the fact that there
is considerable overlap between these clusters and that certain episodes of bara
manga found within Bádi magazine could be mapped onto more than one
(or even all three) of the clusters. However, it is argued that taking bara as a
homogenous genre that presents a uniformly hyper-masculine discourse of gay
subjectivity is problematic, as the above discussion illustrates wider diversity
than previously acknowledged by scholars. Some bara attempt to depict a gay
subjectivity based upon the tropes of gachimuchi, others attempt to parody
stereotypical depictions of recognisable gay subjectivities such as the okama,
and others that may seem to present hyper-masculine discourses may be best
approached as objects of arousal rather than an endorsement of a specific gay
subjectivity.
The Place of Bara Manga within Bádi

To further contextualise the above discussion of the presentation of gay sub
jectivities, Table 6.1 illustrates the results of quantitative analysis of the content of
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each issue of Bádi from 2010 to 2011. As the results indicate, bara was afforded
the second highest amount of page space of the top five sections in the magazine,
occupying on average 21.6 per cent of the total available page space per issue in
2010, and 30.5 per cent in 2011. Interestingly, although the total average number
of pages per issue decreased between 2010 and 2011 (from 278 pages to 249
pages), the number of pages afforded to bara actually increased during this
same period. This is despite the fact that certain other content, namely reviews of
pornography and gravure imagery, decreased during this period.
2010 (average no. of pages) 2011 (average no. of pages)
Total number of pages 278 249

1. Advertisements 114 (41%) 105 (42.2%)
2. Bara manga 60 (21.6) 76 (30.5%)
3. Reviews of pornography 27 (9.7%) 21 (8.4%)
4. Gravure imagery 16 (5.8%) 12 (4.8%)
5. Erotic stories 10 (3.6%) 11 (4.4%)
Table 6.1. Average page space afforded the top five types of content within Bádi magazine.
Numbers in parentheses represent the average number of pages afforded each section as a
percentage of the whole.
As the editors of Bádi were required to reduce the overall number of pages
per issue in 2011, it appears that they chose to reduce certain content such as
pornography and gravure imagery and mitigate this loss through the inclusion
of more bara manga. Indeed, as is evident in Table 6.2, between 2010 and 2011
there was an increase in the page space allocated to slice-of-life and erotic bara.
Slice-of-life bara once occupied 8.6 per cent of the overall page space in 2010,
whereas in 2011 it occupied 14.5 per cent and erotic bara likewise increased
from 7.2 per cent to 10.8 per cent. Although humorous bara also increased in
page space allocated in the overall magazine (from 5.8 per cent to 6.8 per cent),
it decreased within the overall pages the magazine afforded bara manga in
general – from 26.7 per cent to 17.1 per cent – whereas slice-of-life and erotic
increased from 40 per cent and 33.3 per cent to 47.4 per cent and 35.5 per
cent, respectively. As earlier discussion demonstrated, slice-of-life and erotic
bara features gachimuchi and hyper-masculine discourses of gay subjectivity,
whereas humorous bara produces not only these two discourses, but also the
120
okama discourse. Thus, between 2010 and 2011, the page space afforded manga
that promoted more ‘normatively’ masculine understandings of gay subjectivity
appears to have increased.
2010 (average no. of pages) 2011 (average no. of pages)
Total number of pages 278 249

Total no. of pages of bara manga 60 [21.6%] 76 [30.5%]
1. Slice-of-life 24 (40%) [8.6%] 36 (47.4%) [14.5%]
2. Erotic 20 (33.3%) [7.2%] 27 (35.5%) [10.8%]
3. Humorous 16 (26.7%) [5.8%] 13 (17.1%) [6.8%]
Table 6.2. Page space afforded each thematic cluster of bara within Bádi
Numbers in parentheses represent the average number of pages afforded each thematic cluster as
a percentage of the number of pages afforded bara manga, whereas numbers in square brackets
represent the average number of pages afforded each thematic cluster as a percentage of the whole.
It would be naive to interpret this change as suggesting that in 2011 Bádi

magazine came to conform to the theory that bara as a homogenous genre
promotes hyper-masculine understandings of gay subjectivity. The increase in
page space afforded slice-of-life and erotic bara, however small it may appear,
may instead be read as a strategy the magazine adopted to increase its overall
erotic content as a result of the decrease in gravure image and pornographic
reviews, which traditionally fulfilled these roles. This argument is further
supported by the fact that, as shown in Table 6.1, the page space afforded
erotic stories also increased slightly in 2011. More research into these editorial
strategies will be needed to further investigate these trends.
Looking at trends over time demonstrates that the discourses of gay
subjectivity promoted within Bádi magazine through its bara must always be
understood contextually, and researchers should examine bara as it is situated
in order to avoid overgeneralising the ‘features’ of the ‘genre’ of bara. Bara
manga in other media, such as online media and within self-published dōjinshi,
also appear worthy of further investigation.
Concluding Discussion
This chapter has suggested that while hyper-masculine depictions of the male
body can be found within bara manga, a close reading of the bara published
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within Bádi magazine has demonstrated that tropes of physicality which evoke
hyper-masculinity do not dominate all bara. Instead, these depictions of hyper-
masculinity are embedded within a much more diverse representation of gay
subjectivity, which includes ‘normatively’ gay and masculine gachimuchi and
transvestite okama subjectivities, amongst others. Indeed, this chapter has
shown that the bara manga of Bádi magazine maybe be broadly situated in one
(or more) of three thematic clusters, only one of which (erotic bara) appears to
include depictions of the male body similar to those featured in the gay manga
analysed previously by McLelland (2000) and others.
Furthermore, the contextualised approach adopted within this study has
suggested that it is necessary for researchers to engage with the role bara manga
play within media in order to truly come to terms with which gay subjectivities
are promoted and how this promotion relates to issues such as the construction
and dissemination of ideas concerning masculinity.
Overall, this chapter suggests that researchers must engage with bara manga
as a situated genre and follows Ruh (2014) in questioning claims that bara is
typified by homogeneity. These findings are not only relevant to the study of
bara, but also to the study of other genres of manga. As an emerging discipline,
Manga Studies has the potential to deconstruct reified ideas concerning
stylistic genre whereby all cultural productions from a particular ‘genre’ are
automatically and uncritically perceived to share common characteristics. This
chapter, and the others collected in this volume, mark an important exploratory
step in this direction.
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Butler, J. (1990). Gender trouble. New York: Routledge.

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CHAPTER SEVEN
F INDING MU S IC IN M A NG A
Exploring Yaoi through Contemporary Piano Composition
PAUL SMITH
Introduction
The visual world of manga and anime is readily identifiable as influencing
disparate visual media. Filmmaker Quentin Tarantino used segments of manga
inspired storytelling in Kill Bill: Volume 1 (2003). Artist Murakami Takashi
has adopted the manga character form in large 3D sculptures and American
cartoons such as Futurama1 and The Simpsons2 have depicted characters using
the manga/anime aesthetic for various comic situations or cultural allusions.
Similar to these visual adaptations of the dominant manga aesthetic, this chapter
explores the ways in which I, as a composer, use the visual cues within manga
to help articulate musical material. Having grown up watching anime every
morning on television, I began reading manga in high school. Learning of
more mature material, my reading and viewing broadened into my late teens
and early twenties. This direct involvement with a visual medium is in contrast
to my history as a composer. For the majority of my compositional development,
I have looked towards other composers for musical inspiration and ideas,
which is often of the musical pedagogical model. When I began writing
music for solo clarinet, for example, I looked at the history of writing for the
clarinet, exploring how composers employed the instrument, considering the
1 In season 6, episode 26, ‘Reincarnation’, a short story depicts the main characters as anime
parodies of themselves.
2 In season 10, episode 27, ‘Thirty minutes over Tokyo’, the Simpsons travel to Japan and watch
an anime that causes seizures.
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MANGA VISION
instrument’s possibilities in different ensembles and the qualities of its different

timbres. However, there is no question that my deep affinity for and involvement
with anime and manga as a reader has affected my personal aesthetic. I was
spurred by this to further investigate how I might respond to manga with my
music. I am no longer just a consumer of manga but enter into dialogue with it
as an artist, adding to the creative body of manga culture through intermedial
translation. In the same way that I add to the breadth of the clarinet, I add to
the breadth of manga, albeit through music.
Underscoring this chapter is a broad attention to artistic form, specifically
the unique shape of any given expression within a work of art or the broader
discourse surrounding individual modes of media expression, the musical
form or the manga form, for example. To move between these is to at once
acknowledge these expressions as unique, but also suggest that ‘form’ and
‘media’ are less strict than our senses would have us believe. To expand on
the title of this collection, Manga Vision, perhaps this chapter points towards
manga hearing.
My 2012 piece for solo piano, Tides of Falling Leaves3 , was written in
response to the dominant gestures, tropes and overall design of the manga
subgenre yaoi (referring to manga that focus on homoerotic/homoromantic
sexual relationships). This chapter explains the relationship that exists between
my composition and a dōjinshi manga, randomly purchased in Osaka, My Sweet
Little Cat, upon which the piece is based. The connections between visual and
aural, and how this connection affected compositional decisions are outlined.
Then, the act of music re-mediating manga is explored via the adoption of a
specific definition of two concepts: ekphrasis and translation. While it may
be more common to lead with the theoretical foundations prior to a textual
analysis, as the composition is the first stage of research, it is discussed prior
to the theory so that the structure of the chapter reflects the research process.
The chapter is underscored by poststructuralist notions of non-
representational thinking, which move away from the assessment of texts that
originate in another language or another medium as secondary or mimetic.
According to Belsey,
3 The title, Tides of Falling Leaves, responds to the more general use of the seasons as a
metaphoric and symbolic device in manga and anime. Moving from autumn to winter, the
evocative depiction of falling leaves suggests a melancholic tone, one that resonates, for me,
with many yaoi narratives.
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Finding Music in Manga
poststructuralism names a theory, or a group of theories, concerning

the relationship between human beings, the world, and the practice of
making and reproducing meanings. On the one hand poststructuralists
affirm, consciousness is not the origin of the language we speak and the
images we recognize, so much as the product of the meanings we learn
and reproduce. (Belsey, 2002, p. 5)
These concepts also invite some new considerations within the manga and
anime world itself, given the many language-based translations that already
occur in these fields.
As the composition discussed in this study takes as its impetus something
non-musical, the way poststructuralism deals with complex notions of
representation aid in its analysis. Doel (2010) discusses the problem with
representation, finding it ‘is bound to a specific form of repetition … the
problematic is constrained to keep these repetitions in order to ensure that they
do nothing more than return originals, identities and givens’ (p. 117). Yaoi is
not the ‘original’ version of my work (which would then become a ‘copy’), nor
is it the ‘primary’ version. Tides of Falling Leaves does not seek to repeat the
dominant aesthetic of yaoi; rather, it seeks to express it in ways that it otherwise
could not be. My Sweet Little Cat is used as a fixed object with which to engage;
however, there are connections to the broader yaoi subgenre as well, given the
regularities in design and character. The music opens up yaoi to a new sensory
realm and its composition is viewed as existing in dialogue with yaoi, not in
reliance upon it.
Composition
Tides of Falling Leaves responds both to dominant yaoi gestures and tropes
across the subgenre and takes a primary source material in the form of a dōjinshi
called My Sweet Little Cat. The story follows a young man playing a joke on his
lover, pretending that he can shape-shift between human and cat forms. At the
beginning, he displays his tail and cat ears, though they are later revealed to
be props. My compositional decisions have been affected by yaoi through three
musical parameters: structure, harmony and texture.
Structurally, the work differs from other pieces I have composed in that it
is collection of individual musical gestures that combine to create a whole. I
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generally write music based on anime; however, for this piece I was particularly
interested in the visual structure of manga and the way the page is divided
into panel layouts. While anime is a temporal medium containing clearer
progressions and transitions between animated cells, manga highlights the
possibility for coexisting panels that can act and be viewed separately. These
panels change in shape, mood and aesthetic; they can be stand-alone or
connected in some way. This visual arrangement encouraged me to reconsider
the structure of my music. Rather than compose music that moves fluidly from
one phrase to another, I responded to different manga frames and ideas with
less connected musical gestures. Usually my compositions would make use of a
clear macro structure governing the shape of the whole work. However, within
Tides of Falling Leaves, closer attention has been paid to the individual gestures
possible. They operate in different registers of the piano and use different
techniques.
In order to keep the piece musically cohesive, I based it around an interval
of two notes on the piano, F#-C#. This is an open sound that does not suggest
a specific tone or emotion. The beginning of the work repeats the interval
a number of times in the middle register of the piano establishing it as the
harmonic centre for the work (figures 7.1, 7.2, and 7.3). This interval forms the
basis of the gestures throughout the piece, allowing for a variety of contrasting
musical responses to the yaoi aesthetic that maintain a sense of musical integrity
in terms of creating a cohesive composition. It might be possible to create
different pieces of music based on individual manga frames; however, I wanted
to explore broader, more dominant traits of yaoi.
Figure 7.1. Smith, Tides of Falling Leaves, b. 1–4.

F#-C# interval played in the opening bars of the piece.
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One of the first gestures in the piece, based around the F#-C# interval, played in the upper
register of the piano.
Figure 7.3. Smith, Tides of Falling Leaves, b. 17.

One of the first gestures in the piece, based around the F#-C# interval, played in the lower
register of the piano.
The range of panel sizes that My Sweet Little Cat employs were drawn upon
during composition. The different panels in the manga include small close-ups
of individual body parts, such as hands, eyes or hair, both juxtaposed with
and supporting larger, more detailed panels, often showing the protagonists
in full length. I composed the musical ‘panels’ in Tides of Falling Leaves to
similarly vary in length. Some operate within a single bar of music as only one
chord, while others are longer flurries of notes that take time to develop in their
details.
Responding to the tone of the manga was difficult at first, given the
mixture of romantic, comedic and melancholic moods common to yaoi. It
was not until I engaged with literature surrounding yaoi that aspects of the
genre became more readily apparent and aided in my interpretation. An often-
explored concept is the way yaoi rejects gender norms. There is a usurping of
the male gaze; yaoi is ‘a medium that fetishises beautiful boys, emphasising the
“feminine” qualities such as slender bodies, harmonious features and hairless
skin’ (Meyer, 2008, p. 236). The submissive uke characters are predominantly
the sexual focus of yaoi manga, as is the case in My Sweet Little Cat. This
focus on slender figures rarely drawn in detail, anthropologically, became the
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impetus for the first clear musical gesture in the piece. Figure 7.4 shows how
the original interval is extended into the upper register of the piano with a
sustained open bright chord, which is played arpeggiated, meaning the notes
are played one after another in quick succession as opposed to in unison. This
articulation gives the chord a slight fantasy element, just as uke are often made
the object of fantasy by the narrative. In My Sweet Little Cat, this sense of
fantasy is established when the uke claims to be able to morph freely between
the forms of cat and human. The simple nature of these chords responds to
what Zanghellini (2009) describes as the uke’s characterisation as ‘vulnerable,
innocent and less experienced’ (p. 171). A short tremolo is then played where
two notes are repeated one after another while the left hand plays a short
melody underneath. The melody underneath the shimmering tremolo suggests
the surreal elements of the plot.
There is a visual clash present in much yaoi, which disrupts the depiction
of the uke as serene beautiful boys. When engaging in sexual activity, the uke
is shown to be in discomfort, the experience is painful. The uke is often shown
scrunching his eyes or resisting the embrace of the larger and more forceful
seme character. I have incorporated this into the piece by using frequent low
chords, still consisting of the initial interval F#-C#, but with the addition of
dissonant accompanying notes played at the same time (Figure 7.5). This is
scored for the low register of the piano where the strings are thicker and more
resonant. This makes the dissonances more prominent.
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This visual clash forms a recurring theme for the piece. There is a gradual
return to these two gestures in different forms throughout the work, given that
this depiction of beauty and agony is taken as a dominant aesthetic necessity
for yaoi. As the piece is played, the gestures are extended and eventually
also share musical material. Symbolising the penetration of the uke are high
register chord clusters, the discomfort/dissonance that has been established in
the lower register of the piano eventually appears in the upper register where
we had only heard serene chords previously (Figure 7.6). In addition to the
sexual discomfort expressed by the uke, these gestures and aspects of atonality
have developed from the necessary angst exhibited by the characters’ personal
situations. Zanghellini (2009) explains that ‘the protagonists of yaoi/BL work
are commonly haunted by everything from struggles for self-acceptance,
through memory loss, rejection by others, personality splits and dark pasts, to
traumatizing experiences’ (p. 172).
Texturally, much of the piece is quite still, using held chords, repeated
notes or single melody lines with no accompaniment, influenced again by
the simple design and uncluttered depictions of the character figures and
backgrounds. However, My Sweet Little Cat makes use of a detailed small
crosshatching pattern drawn in small, enclosed boxes, which is often used to
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indicate the passing of time. During the climax of the manga, this pattern is
used again to cover the protagonists, both their skin and clothes, from head
to toe. This creates a vastly different texture than in their other depictions.
Brophy (2005), addressing anime and manga aesthetics, states that there are
often ornamentations that abstractly describe an inner state. A decorative sur
face requires a ‘realignment of one’s optical system in order to focus on its
depth’ (p. 16). Within these textures there are different forms of spatial and
emotional depth. This prominent panel appears in the composition as a sudden
change in musical texture, from open, long and reflective chords to a much
faster rhythmic passage (Figure 7.7). Just as these different surfaces require a
change in one’s optical system, my piece requires a change in one’s aural system
at these moments. The score, too, shows this difference visually. The way the
notes are placed on the stave depicts this textural change.
Seemingly simple, small frames are often included to focus on a specific

body part. These frames are highly suggestive and impart more information
than they would in isolation. Depictions of hands, eyes and tails make up the
impetus for the majority of the beginning of the composition, with smaller
isolated gestures being played. These are more fully explored, musically, when
the frames in the manga become larger and more interconnected, like the
musical material towards the end of the piece.
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In composing Tides of Falling Leaves, I did not view following the narrative
structure of the manga as a necessary part of the response, as the manga
suggests certain musical material that can then be more fully realised through
other compositional conventions, such as exploring the harmonies and rhythms
and their relationship. In this way, compositional practice also acts as a musical
analysis of the manga. The material, once suggested, is musically explored and
fleshed out. Located within the individual gestures is an artistic response to
the aesthetic, characterisation and structure of both My Sweet Little Cat and
broader yaoi tendencies. The way the music moves between two distinct sound
worlds articulates a strong dichotomy in the subgenre between beauty and pain.
Ekphrasis
There are a number of observations that can be made when one art form
re-mediates another. The name for this practice is ‘ekphrasis’. It is a term
used mainly within academic literary discourse to describe specifically the
verbal description of a visual work of art. Within poetry and prose analysis,
it is a technique relating to a detailed description in the text of a book or
poem of a real world painting or sculpture, for example, which thus re-
mediates the visual material into verbal material. Barry (2002) states that
‘the 1990s saw a revival in the critical interest of this practice’ (p. 155), which
brought it to the attention of non-literary disciplines. One of the earliest
forms of ekphrasis is commonly cited as being Homer’s epic rhapsody the
Iliad, in which he describes at great length the shield of Achilles. The word
ekphrasis is of Greek origin and can be broken into two parts, ‘ek’ (out) and
‘phrasis’ (speak). This junction, meaning roughly ‘out-speaking’, suggests
that the subject matter to which the artwork refers lies outside of itself,
‘in the parallel universe of art’ (Barry, 2002, p. 115). The artwork is not
self-contained. Since visual and verbal symbols are heavily codified within
our society, one can draw quite distinct parallels between media such as
these. Abstract art forms, such as music and some avenues of visual art, are
often marginalised in their potential to enact an ekphrasis. Al-Nakib (2005)
informs that ‘the more restricted sense of ekphrasis as a verbal representation
of a visual representation does not become standard until the fourth century
C.E. at the earliest’ (p. 254). It is not limited, though, to these media, and
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the recent focus on the concept has expanded its definition to incorporate a
greater number of direct relationships between two artistic objects of diff
erent media, which may include music.
Composers are able to respond to material just as poets, novelists and other
artists do. While music is reputedly abstract, it can be formed in response to
any number of initial representations. Bruhn (2001) claims that composers
‘may transpose aspects of both structure and content; they may supplement,
interpret, respond with associations, problematise, or play with some of the
suggestive elements of the original image’ (p. 551). Bruhn moves ekphrasis
away from the strict symbolic referential status that it holds in literature and
suggests that, beyond the literal, it may encompass the many varied artistic
responses an artist has in an effort to rearticulate another’s work. It is possible,
then, to explore a sculpture that embodies a novel, a poem that embodies a
painting or a musical composition that embodies manga.
It is not uncommon to hear of composers drawing on non-musical stimuli
for their compositions. The greater Western canon contains many examples
of music that ‘speaks outside of itself ’. Prominent examples include Hector
Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique (1831), in which the movements of the
symphony tell the story of an artist who has fallen in love, and Jean Sibelius’
The Swan of Tuonela (1895), an orchestral tone poem which musically recounts
a tale from Finnish mythology. These compositions come under the category
known as ‘program music’, due to the extra-musical details included in the
program notes of a performance or within the liner notes of a CD recording.
However, in these instances the composers are not drawing from an existing
artwork; rather, the music serves a narrative that has not previously been
mediated by an artist.
In an effort to move away from programmatic music, Bruhn firmly positions
musical ekphrasis within the realm of representation, suggesting that a three-
tiered system exists to denote it:
1. a real or fictitious ‘text’ functioning as a source for artistic representation;

2. a primary representation of that ‘text’ in visual or verbal form; and
3. a re-presentation in musical language of that first (visual or verbal)
representation. (Bruhn, 2001, p. 560)
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Bruhn adapted these tiers for music from her analysis of poetic ekphrasis.
The reason that most examples of programmatic music do not fit Bruhn’s model
is because their inspiration, the folk tale for Sibelius or the story of an artist
for Berlioz, only comply with the first and third tiers of her model.4 There
is no separate artist of another medium who has first interpreted the real or
fictitious text. However, the process of composing Tides of Falling Leaves, as
outlined above, fits these tiers. Although Bruhn does not explicitly define the
first tier, the word ‘text’ may be considered to function as an idea or inspiration,
either a narrative or theme which a visual or verbal artist wishes to explore.
For Tides of Falling Leaves, the first tier can be assessed as the narrative of the
manga and any other inspirations that might have been used by the author
of My Sweet Little Cat. The second tier is the manga itself, My Sweet Little
Cat. It is an initial visual and verbal realisation of the idea and inspiration.
The third tier is the composition, which interprets the manga using musical
language. In a tangential use of the concept of ekphrasis; given that dōjinshi are
in some ways a slightly different medium to more formally published manga, it
could be claimed that they themselves are examples of ekphrasis. The characters
of established manga and anime are in some ways re-mediated by the many
dōjinshi authors who appropriate their relationships and events.
In 2001, the year Bruhn’s article was published, it is slightly ironic for Bruhn
to state that ‘the application to music of the term “representation” has become
more accepted’ and to commends artistic discourse for this acknowledgement
‘that music represent reality’ (p. 560). The irony stems from an avenue of philo
sophical thought within poststructuralism that has predominantly, for the last
decade, moved further away from the concept of representation, highlighting
it as a problematic foundation for analysis. Hasty (2010) opens his discussion
of the topic stating that ‘music’s resistance to representation has long been its
curse and its promise’ (p. 1). He finds, though, that it ‘can provide a useful
vehicle for criticising the doxa of representation’ (p. 3). Bruhn’s definition of
musical ekphrasis and the tiers she has constructed instigate a clear hierarchy
4 While the folktale itself is likely to exist in a represented form, Sibelius does not clearly
respond to an artistic representation, which the second tier requires. Because ekphrasis
is a relationship between two works of art, Sibelius would have to have drawn on either
a painting or poem that depicts the folk tale. A historical recount, while a form of
representation, does not fit the qualities of a musical ekphrasis as it pertains to artistic
representation.
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in which the music sits at the bottom in a power relationship riddled with
issues of primacy and originality. Colebrook (2002) is critical of the term ‘re-
presented’ and in her discussion on thought as a re-presentation claims that
when something re-presents it is as though it were ‘a passive picture or copy’
(p. 1). Drawing on Deleuze, Colebrook ‘wants to reverse and undermine this
hierarchy [of original and copy]’ (p. 1). By employing the terms ‘representation’
and ‘re-presentation’, Bruhn is implying that the resulting piece of music exists
only in relation to the source material, a passive imitation. It is also up for
scrutiny in terms of its success as being representative of the primary artwork.
Given the acknowledged abstract nature of musical gestures, this is problematic
and reductive.
If we consider musical ekphrasis within the realm of representation, by
implication we are assuming that the composer (or by extension any ekphrastic
artist) is attempting to return originals or employ symbolic language, musical
or otherwise, that will connote symbols from another medium. Commenting
on this aspect of representation, Doel (2010) states that when ‘one medium is
transposed into another, which medium will serve as the original and which
the copy is completely arbitrary and contingent’ (p. 119). Ekphrasis beyond
representation allows Tides of Falling Leaves to form a relationship with the
subgenre that is productive, not reductive. The Bruhn model is not fully
appropriate for unpacking the results and outcomes when an artist adopts this
method. The new work should not be considered only in relation to the perceived
‘original’. Their relationship is more dynamic; the works together invite new
information in each other. Unlike in programmatic music, where the music and
composition process serve an exterior narrative, in musical ekphrasis, neither
the initial articulation of material nor the musical articulation is in servitude
to the other. The music may develop in response to the original, but this does
not deny its agency or the listener’s agency to move beyond it or even enhance
it in some ways.
The dynamic relationship between Tides of Falling Leaves and yaoi might
then be viewed as an example of an ‘exchange’, as explored by Al-Nakib (2005).
An exchange involves an interaction between separate and unrelated things.
Al-Nakib, drawing on Deleuze and Guattari, states that ‘what can occur in an
exchange is not simply a quantitative trade of elements reduced to a single unit
of measure but, rather, a qualitative transformation or deterritorialisation that
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affects both sides and creates something altogether different in the process’
(Al-Nakib, 2005, p. 259). Ekphrasis highlights the mutability of form, whereby
an object can be re-expressed, re-mediated or re-articulated in any number of
ways. Depending on the different ways this process occurs, the exchange is
altered, producing different effects on both sides and expanding different aspects
of the source material. By this process, my music reveals yaoi in an original
way. Beyond the fact that the manga was conceived and expressed first, newer
understandings of it are uniquely arranged by the compositional process. Other
ekphrastic works behave in the same way. Structural, harmonic and textural
effects exist in response to dominant yaoi aesthetics in my composition. These
work backwards to impart meaning back onto the subgenre and the specific
manga source material. This notion of exchange can be tangentially ascribed
to the dōjinshi-manga relationship. While dōjinshi are not primary material, in
that they use characters, relationships and locations from other authors, their
inferences can often be mapped back onto the original in occasionally dominant
ways. Incidents of dōjinshi character and relationship depictions becoming
more recognised and accepted than the original have occurred, destabilising
the hierarchy of original and copy.
The exchange between Tides of Falling Leaves and My Sweet Little Cat (and
more general yaoi design characteristics) suggests that the piano piece offers
something back to the manga. To further invert the hierarchy suggests that
the piano work inversely informs the manga, not only the other way around.
What does someone learn about the manga after listening to the work? Do
they hear in the manga new relationships and understandings? Are aspects
of the visual placement, design and structure of the frames informed by my
musical gestures? The answers to these questions lie in individual receptions of
the works.
Translation
In addition to ekphrasis, which is an established inter-art concept, an expanded
definition of translation will additionally frame the understanding and
ramifications of the compositional process outlined above. Rather than viewing
Tides of Falling Leaves as an adaptation or as a piece inspired by manga, the
re-mediation acts as a translation. Composers necessarily deal with musical
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language and there is a relationship between the syntax and phrasing of the
musical material of Tides of Falling Leaves that responds to the visual language
in yaoi. This process does not adapt the plot, characters and dialogue for a new
medium but rather translates the work as a whole between the senses, evoking
an aural manga.
A dominant mode of Western thinking positions the translator of a text
below the author, viewing theirs as a mechanical language-based process that
replaces grammatical structures from language X with those from language
Y. This establishes a hierarchical relationship between both the author and
translator, and the original text and translated text. Zeller (2000), a translator,
critiques this view claiming that ‘translation responds to a deep-seated creative
need to explore new territory’ (p. 139). This suggests that a translated product
is not a reduced or lesser version of the original; rather, it is a product that takes
something beyond its original parameters. Any act of translation is its own
act of authorship. As Zeller concludes, ‘translation is a work of art emanating
from another author’s context’ (p. 139). What occurs during translation, then,
is an act of recontextualisation, not a distillation of information. Languages
are contexts, as are media. Each subsequent translation of a work is its own
work. However, the level of social debate around the merits of certain language
translations of books and films, for example, would suggest that this is not an
accepted view. This is particularly true within the anime and manga world,
where English versions of Japanese ‘originals’ are highly scrutinised in relation
to their attention to cultural and social details by fans. Additionally, Cubbison
(2005) explains that ‘for many sub fans, watching an anime with the Japanese
audio track and subtitles is a more authentic experience’ (p. 48).
At the core of anti-translator/author discourse is the perception that a
translation acts as a representation of an original text. Though Venuti has been
an instigator in promoting the translator outside of the invisible realm, he often
discusses intertextual relations that are reliant upon fundamental binds. He
states that every text is fundamentally an intertext, and goes on to suggest that
it is within these relations that a text forms its ‘meaning, value and function’
(2008, p. 157). He further asserts that ‘reception is a decisive factor. The reader
must possess not only the literary or cultural knowledge to recognize the
presence of one text in another, but also the critical competence to formulate
the significance of the intertextual relation’ (pp. 157–158). This is problematic,
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as it assumes that one must be familiar with any text’s inherent relations in order
to know or assess its value. To use the term ‘fundamental’ could be viewed as
imposing unrealistic restrictions on the act of translation and reception. The
pedestals that originals sit upon, from which these ‘fundamental’ associations
stem, are often put there by their authors. Japanese novelist Murakami Haruki
(as cited in Kelts, 2013) is fluent in both English and Japanese yet he does not
translate his own works into English. He claims that ‘my books exist in their
original Japanese. That’s what’s most important, because that’s how I wrote
them’. Despite Murakami being a translator himself, one who often translates
other authors’ novels from English to Japanese, Murakami has publicly pos
itioned the Japanese versions as ‘most important’.
The representational paradigm implies that a translated novel, poem, or
anime could stay as true as possible to its original. ‘Representational thinking
suggests that there is an ordered and differentiated world’ (Colebrook, 2002,
p. 3) and that order from original language text to translated language text is
measurable and specific. However, Doel (2010) continues to problematise this
view arguing that ‘representation, by necessity, brings forth more than the same,
it is always in excess of itself ’ (p. 117). In the case of Murakami, the translator
might strive to evoke as much of the Japanese tone as possible in a repetitive
endeavour. However, a task that implicitly involves subjective interpretation
rejects repetition. A more productive stance may be to acknowledge that
every translator is an inter-translator. To adapt Venuti’s assertion, the (inter-)
translator brings independent meaning, value and function to the translating
process, rather than that of the text itself. By this logic, any composer who
writes in relation to another text will bring their own meaning, value and
function to that text.
Translations occur across a variety of disparate and potentially endless
media. To limit translation to language is to ignore the variety of expressive
material in our society. Saussure’s notion of the signifier is not limited to
language (Belsey, 2002, p. 12) and neither, then, should translation be. Anime
may translate manga, for example. Many anime are adaptations of popular (or
not-so popular) manga series and, as such, are often assessed as representations
of a perceived original. Within any act of translation, though, there is a
necessary familiarity with the media being translated to and from in order for
representational judgement to be passed. The more fluent a person is in the
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medium being translated to and from, the more they are in a position to judge the
final product as an accurate representation. Is this a worthwhile assessment?
If were I to read an English translation of a Goethe poem, I cannot speak to
the process of translation as I am not fluent in both German and English.
Therefore, I take the poem as its own object and not as a representation of
the original. In line with Zeller’s stance, the English poem is its own work
of art that has emanated from the original German context. It may also be
argued that a grammatical one is not the only type of language translation.
Robertson (see chapter nine), for example, discusses the somewhat unique issue
for Japanese translation of having four scripts with which to express a single
word. Expanding on this issue, one could visually view the German and choose
English words that were visibly similar, or sound them out and choose English
words that were aurally similar. Would these not be types of language-based
translation as well? Johnson provides an appropriate quote here insisting on the
‘necessity of emancipating translation from the drudgery of counting lines and
interpreting single words’ (as cited in Carne-Ross, 2010, p. 151). While Johnson
is not suggesting emancipation from grammatical translation, I am. Ekphrasis
opens the door to inter-media translations and this can only propagate broader
understandings of works, not narrower ones.
It could be said that when English voice actors dub an anime they are
translating the speech patterns of the original since the animation has already
been drawn based on the original seiyu or voice actor. These performances are
not listed as translations of an original performance nor viewed as such by
the audience. When the American voice actors who dub over Studio Ghibli
anime with English are interviewed for publicity, they are often praised for
‘performing’ under such strict parameters. Many voice actors even admit to
listening to the original Japanese version as a guide for their delivery. This is
another example of creative work rising from another’s context.
For my research and practice, I must be aware of the anime or manga I
am drawing on. For someone to assess my translation of the manga, they too
would need to be familiar with it. Where this is not possible, they would judge
the piece purely on its own merits and not as a relational object. Yaoi functions
as another artist’s context from which my pieces are then formed. This could
also be argued as a forced ‘foreignisation’, a concept explored by Zulawnik (see
chapter thirteen). This does not remove my agency as a composer, but also gives
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allusion to the fact that the piece is born of another medium. Discourse that
positions translations in terms of their ability to repeat originals are bound to
representational difficulties. Authenticity is not a synonym for quality and vice
versa.
Skilled translators are perhaps best thought of as artists who are able to
skillfully articulate their critical inspection of a work in another language or
medium. Venuti (2008) argues that ‘translation communicates not the foreign
text but rather one interpretation of it, and that a node of intertextuality is a
productive means of exploring that interpretation’ (p. 170). I do not attempt
to analyse or understand the manga form from the outside, a process which
itself can reveal or produce much information, but rather to use the artistry of
manga to lead my interpreting, composing and thinking. The process is similar
to the performance of a piece of music. Musical performances and translation
are both realisations of a primary material. It is often not the performances that
best articulate the composers score that are well-received, but those who bring
more to the score through their own interpretation. When Tides of Falling
Leaves is performed, the most interesting part for me will be hearing what the
performers bring forward outside of my own thinking, in the same way that
my composition brings forward aesthetic qualities in the yaoi that may not be
in line with the manga author’s intentions. This could even be extended further
back in that the manga as a dōjinshi brings forward its own dominant traits
from the characters’ initial contexts. This complex tag-team of inspiration and
re-mediation warrants a less comparative analysis and a more symbiotic one.
The long-term relationship between any of these iterations will yield new and
evolving meanings.
Conclusion
It may appear that I have taken much artistic license. Were a poet to convey
yaoi in a poem, they might be forced to employ a more tangible analysis that
would more directly make use of semantic association between the lines of the
poem and the depictions of the uke and seme, for example. However, the goal
of Tides of Falling Leaves is rather to consider and explore the way that music
has the potential to translate and explore yaoi and visual forms. Doel (2010)
suggests that representation is second nature, part of everything we do and
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are subject to. He admits ‘there is an original and a copy, and the relationship
between the one and the other lends itself to an evaluation in terms of the
degree of similarity’ (p. 119). However, the term non-representational allows a
proliferation of media, each of which are liberated to follow their own path. Such
compositional practice encourages a broader scope for interpretation, inspira
tion and artistic analysis throughout and between different sensory media.
With Tides of Falling Leaves and My Sweet Little Cat, ekphrasis becomes a form
of translation where a work of art is both recontextualised and re-mediated
simultaneously. Both works gain in the process and new things are revealed in
their association, not in their dependence.

Audio files and music score for Tides of Falling Leaves are available at http://mangastudies.
com/mangavision/mangamusic.php or scan the above QR code.
References
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42(4), 253–276. doi: 10.1353/cls.2006.0012
Barry, P. (2002). Contemporary poetry and ekphrasis. The Cambridge Quarterly, 31(2),
155–165. doi: 10.1093/camqtly/31.2.155
Belsey, C. (2002). Poststructuralism: A very short introduction. New York: Oxford University
Press.
Brophy, P. (2005). 100 anime: BFI screen guides. London: BFI Publishing.
Bruhn, S. (2001). A concert of paintings: ‘musical ekphrasis’ in the twentieth century.
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Carne-Ross, D. S. (2010) Classics and translation. K. Haynes (Ed.). Lewisburg: Bucknell
University Press.
Colebrook, C. (2002). Understanding Deleuze. Sydney: Allen & Unwin
Cubbison, L. (2005). Anime fans, DVDS, and the authentic text. Velvet Light Trap, 56,
45–57.
Doel, M. A. (2010). Representation and difference. In B. Anderson & P. Harrison (Eds.),
Taking-place: Non-representational theories and geography (pp. 117–130). Burlington,
VT: Ashgate.
Hasty, C. (2010). The image of thought and idea of music. In B. Hulse & N. Nesbitt
(Eds.), Sound the virtual: Gilles Deleuze and the theory and philosophy of music
(pp. 1–22). Cornwall: Ashgate.
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Kelts, R. (2013, May 9) Lost in translation, The New Yorker. Retrieved from
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2013/05/lost-in-translation.html.
Meyer, U. (2010). Hidden in straight sight: Trans*gressing gender and sexuality via BL.
In A. Levi, M. McHarry & D. Pagliasotti (Eds.), Boys’ love manga: Essays on the
sexual ambiguity and cross-cultural fandom of the genre (pp. 232–256). Jefferson, NC:
McFarland & Co.
Venuti, L. (2009). Translation, intertextuality, interpretation. Romance Studies, 27(3),
157–173. doi: 10.1179/174581509X455169
Zanghellini, A. (2009). Underage sex and romance in Japanese homoerotic manga and
anime. Social & Legal Studies, 18(2), 159–177. doi: 10.1177/0964663909103623
Zeller, B. (2000). On translation and authorship. Meta: Journal des Traducteurs, 45(1),
134–139. doi: 10.7202004640ar
Manga
Shiro & Kuro. (2008, October 19). Sengoku BASARA 2 Heroes Katakura Kojūrō x Date
Masamune: Neko-sama [My sweet little cat]. Garyō-ya, 10.
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SECTION TWO
COMMUNICATION AND ENGAGE MENT:
L ANGUAGE E XCHANGE
CHAPTER EIGHT
NODA ME ’S L A NGUAGE L E S S ON S
TOMOKO AOYAMA AND BELINDA KENNETT
Introduction
Manga and Language Learning

In contemporary Japan and (increasingly) elsewhere, manga has been used widely
in teaching and learning a number of subjects in a number of fields. Manga has
shaken off notions about the genre as a poor literary cousin or as being at odds
with the educational qualities of other literature. There are manga texts that deal
with history, the modern and classical literary canon, socio-economic issues,
gender issues and many other subjects and areas of knowledge.
The now defunct journal Mangajin (Simmons, 1988–1998) (see also chapter
ten) inducted English-speaking learners of Japanese into the world of manga
as a resource for learning from its spoken language and sociocultural aspects.
In the teaching of Japanese as a second language (JSL), manga are used in
texts and learning materials. For example, the Commonwealth Department
of Employment, Education and Training (DEET) funded the textbook Pera
pera (National Japanese Curriculum Project, 1994), aimed at high-school
learners, in which reading materials designed to introduce learners to both
language and culture are predominantly delivered in a manga format. More
recently, Doraemon no dokodemo Nihongo (Tōsaku, Fujiko & Inahara, 2009)
uses manga in its situational approach to teaching later elementary level
Japanese. Manga Botchan (Matsuyama, 2011) is a textbook, based on the well-
known Japanese novel Botchan, for English speakers at an intermediate level of
Japanese. Manga Botchan’s website espouses the value of its format as being an
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Nodame’s Language Lessons
aid to comprehending the context of the language and promoting interest in its
literature. It claims the text provides the student with the added opportunity
for understanding the historical background of Japan while learning the
language. There is even a manga series that deals with the teaching and
learning of Japanese as a foreign language. Nihonjin no shiranai Nihongo [The
Japanese the Japanese don’t know] (Umino & Hebizō, 2009–2013) focuses on
the comic interactions between a teacher of JSL and her students. As its title
suggests, this manga introduces to its audience (predominantly Japanese) a
range of issues on the Japanese language that its native speakers ‘don’t know’.
The popular manga has also been adapted into a live-action television series
(Yomiuri Television, 2010). These selected examples show that manga itself has
a vast diversity in forms, themes and quality, and that manga’s pedagogical or
instructive function and significance vary.
This chapter focuses on language learning scenes in Ninomiya Tomoko’s
popular manga series Nodame Cantabile, aimed at Japanese readers, and con
sider the insights they offer and how they function both within and outside
the narrative. The manga, serialised in the magazine Kiss from 2001 until
2009, depicts the development of its protagonist, Noda Megumi and her
love interest, Chiaki Shin’ichi. It focuses on the growth of these characters
in their relationships – romantic and otherwise – and in pursuit of eventual
careers in classical music. The manga won the Kodansha Manga Award in the
shōjo category in 2004 and has been adapted into live-action TV drama (Fuji
Television, 2006–2010) and films (Fuji Televsion, 2008), anime (Ninomiya &
Fuji Television, 2010), games, novels and so on, attracting a diverse audience,
including classic music performers, students and educators.
There are three scenes in which Nodame is engaged in language-learning
activities. Two of them concern French and one German. Each depicts an
interesting aspect of foreign-language teaching and learning. These episodes
are not only entertaining; they also give us material to consider such questions
as the following:
• What can second-language teachers and students learn from these
scenes?
• How does Nodame’s language learning relate to various themes of the
manga, including the pursuit of creative and performing arts skills and
personal development?
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• How is the language learning process linked to sociocultural and gender

issues within the narrative?
Before analysing the three scenes in question, it is useful to refer to the six roles
or functions of foreign-language education that J. V. Neustupný outlines in
his book, Gaikokujin to no komyunikeeshon [Communication with Foreigners]
(1982, pp. 122–126). In contemporary society, teaching and learning of another
language is assumed to be for the sake of developing abilities to communicate
in the target language. However, on Neustupný’s list, communication is cited
last, indirectly subverting its usually privileged position in modern language
education discourse. As the commentary on Nodame Cantabile below will
elaborate, its author, Ninomiya, highlights the existence of some of the other
functions of language learning and sets them up for judgement through the
eyes of the characters and the reader.
The first function of language learning is ‘maintenance of the establishment’
(taisei iji), which signifies language teaching conducted in order to maintain
socio-political, cultural and educational systems, including school and univer
sity curricula, the employment of teaching staff and the production of teaching
material. It is expected, or taken for granted, that students learn the language
through the formal language education system, regardless of students’ needs,
interests and ability. Neustupný does not claim that ‘all learners, teachers and
schools in the world have nothing but … [maintenance of the establishment]
in mind’, and notes that ‘language education, like other education programs,
is not determined by one factor’; however, he points out the importance of
observing the extent to which maintenance of system is given priority within
the system (1982, p. 123). In some cases it may be unnoticed. In others, it may
be over-emphasised.
The second function on his list is language learning as ‘hobby’ (shumiteki
kinō), an intrinsically motivated activity for which learners may or may not have
an actual communicative purpose. Neustupný suggests that this motivation
may be found among many learners with lots of free time and also those who
seek diversion from various worldly worries (1982, p. 123).
The third function is the ‘symbolic function’ of language education, which is
frequently seen in social interaction. Neustupný cites an example from Russian
writer Nikolai Gogol’s play Marriage (1842). The protagonist searches for a
wife who can speak French, ‘not because it is necessary to be able to speak
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the language but because French, to this protagonist, signifies culture, that
is, a symbol of a social class’ (p. 124). The symbolic function is also found in
national policy documents or government papers that endorse the learning of
languages for geopolitical, economic or social purposes.
The fourth function is ‘skill formation’. As with mathematics and music,
‘language studies require and nurture advanced discipline, patience and
systematic attitude’ (Neustupný, 1982, p. 125), even if the language skills
themselves may not be perceived as useful outside the classroom. We may
note the parallel Neustupný draws between music and language learning. As
discussed below, this analogy can be applied not just to skill formation but to
other functions as well.
The fifth function of language education is ‘to enable the understanding
of foreign culture’. Students of foreign languages ‘receive direct and indirect
training to be tolerant with another culture and to create a positive relation
between that culture and themselves’, claims Neustupný (1982, p.125).
Learning a foreign language thus functions as an instrumental means to learn
about the target culture and at the same time the language is treated as the
embodiment of that culture.
The final and most putative and self-explanatory function of foreign-
language education is that of ‘communication’. Neustupný states that this is
‘the most basic, and original role’ of foreign-language education; however, as
already mentioned, he does not disregard any of the other five functions stated.
German Lesson
The first example of foreign-language learning in Nodame Cantabile appears
in an early volume of the series (volume three), when Nodame and another
student, Ryū, are desperately trying to avoid failing their final examinations.
There are two subjects left – German and the history of Western music – and if
they fail either, they will have to repeat the second year at the university. They
rely on the superstar senior student (and Nodame’s love interest), Shin’ichi,
to help them. Here we see the first representation of language learning as an
activity divorced form the function or goal of communication. The students
are not interested in the target language or culture; they do not need to use the
language in their lives.
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The tutor, Shin’ichi, is uninterested in teaching such untalented and lazy

students and, since he himself speaks several languages fluently, he simply can
not understand why they have difficulty with such basic German. Here we see
the manga narrative associate language proficiency and skills with sociocultural
symbols. Just as a woman fluent in French represents a certain class in Gogol’s
Russia, in the context of the classical music institutions in this story, German is
the language of the Western classical musical establishment. Shin’ichi suggests
that Nodame and Ryū translate the text into Japanese: ‘after all that’s what’ll be
in the exam’ (vol. 3, p. 13). In doing so, he acknowledges that the goal of this
learning is to pass the exam, which does not test communication skills in the
target language. It is clear that he is disdainful of such a narrow instrumental
goal, but he acknowledges the reality of the situation and gives them a strategy
aimed solely at achieving it.
Even though the textbook they are using is situationally focused, the exam
is stuck in the era of grammar-translation. The existence of the German exam
is itself explicable in terms of Neustupný’s identification of the ‘maintenance
of the establishment’ function of language learning. It is a requirement that,
to the students at least, does not currently serve a particular purpose in their
overall degree or future aspirations.
As already mentioned, it is also clear that German is a symbolic acknow
ledgement of the European musical traditions on which the music degree
builds, and this relates to the third of Neustupný’s functions of language
education, which is the ‘symbolic function’. The narrative juxtaposes Nodame
and Ryū’s poor performance in German with their ignorance of music history
(the other subject they need to pass) and also with the idiosyncrasy of their
musical performance. While Shin’ichi notices some very special musical genius
in Nodame, she is grossly underdeveloped as a pianist at this early stage of the
narrative, in terms of ‘skill formation, cultural understanding and compliance
with the education system.
Returning to the German learning scene, after half an hour, both students
fall asleep ‘thanks to the magic power of the textbook’ (vol. 3, p. 15). Shin’ichi
is irritated by this and tells them to study with more interest and think about
the meaning of the sentences, showing that he is still not committed to the
practical advice he previously gave to the pair and has some investment in them
achieving more lofty communicative goals. However, this new directive from
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Shin’ichi only leads to Nodame and Ryū being distracted by irrelevant ‘interest’
and ‘meaning’. For example, this is demonstrated when they question the logic
of in a model conversation in their textbook in which the Japanese student
Mariko asks ‘Who is the man next to Barbara?’ while ignoring Ingrid who has
just said ‘Hello’ to her. They speculate as to whether Mariko might have no
boyfriend and may be only interested in men and not in women like Ingrid (pp.
16–17). Shin’ichi gets more and more annoyed, but Nodame and Ryū obviously
cannot muster any interest or motivation.
Within the narrative, the difference in attitudes to language learning
between Shin’ichi and his two students has two important functions: first
it contrasts the skills, background and personality of the two protagonists,
Nodame and Shin’ichi. Nodame is regarded as a weak-willed, eccentric
student in everything she does. Though she studies at university majoring in
piano, she is terrible at sight-reading and has an aversion to rules and restrict
ions. Thus, her music learning within the system does not comply or contribute
to ‘maintenance of establishment’, ‘symbolic function’ or ‘skill formation’.
Shin’ichi, on the other hand, seems to possess everything: musical talent
(in piano, violin and conducting), pedigree (his father is an internationally
renowned concert pianist), cultural and financial support, good looks,
intelligence, language skills and domestic skills (for tasks such as cooking and
cleaning).
Besides demonstrating the difference between these two protagonists, the
German language lesson scene also provides some comic moments, which
involve not only slapstick and exaggerated actions, but also some critical or
didactic meaning. After their all-night study session, Nodame and Ryū seem
to have learned just enough to pass their exams. Shin’ichi, on the other hand,
falls asleep and misses his own performance exam. In this scenario, it is the
gifted and disciplined student who ends up repeating a subject, not the lazy and
untalented pair, who get through on their short term strategy.
It is also possible to see a deeper meaning developing through the series.
The episodes/chapters in this manga series are referred to as Lesson 1, Lesson
2, Lesson 3, and so on, which is suggestive of learning as an ongoing theme.
For the aspiring conductor, it is not enough to have music and language skills
and knowledge; Shin’ichi himself has other things to learn. He needs to
understand and learn to communicate his thoughts better to all the members
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of the orchestra, including the less skilled or talented ones like Nodame and
Ryū. Shin’ichi’s lessons develop alongside the main theme of the manga, which
is the pathway taken by Nodame in developing her music with the assistance
of Shin’ichi and others.
From the viewpoint of language teachers and learners, the scene offers
a comic depiction of a number of issues of interest in language pedagogy.
First, the existence of the German exam, seemingly without rationale or
communicative purpose, is critiqued. Second, the learners are not intrinsically
motivated to study German, and because Shin’ichi has largely acquired his
languages through informal learning (in meaningful interactions with speakers
of those languages and in contexts where the languages are spoken), he is not
in a position to mentor Nodame and Ryū as formal, classroom learners, as this
is outside his personal experience. Shin’ichi also lacks pedagogical skills or
training in the teaching of German. He is not motivated to try out a different
teaching approach or to find a path that will help his students learn.
This lesson contains interesting material for further consideration. For
example, the German textbook in the manga seems to be a typical modern
language textbook for beginners, depicting a reasonably realistic situation
in which guests introduce each other at a party. Some simple sentences are
given in German together with photos/illustrations. It is, by no means, the
old ‘Jack & Betty’ type textbook which was parodied by Shimizu Yoshinori
and others (see Aoyama & Wakabayashi, 1999). However, despite efforts
to make the model conversations as natural as possible, slightly awkward se
quences still remain, which could easily distract unmotivated students. In
this sense, Nodame and Ryū actually ‘defamiliarise’ what might be passed off
as ‘natural’ in the dialogues in modern language textbooks. Defamiliarisation
or ostranenie is an important notion in art and literary theory developed by
formalists in early twentieth century, also translated as ‘foreignisation’ or
‘alienation’. It signifies the artistic technique of presenting familiar things
(such as everyday language) in an unfamiliar or strange way. The strangeness
draws our attention to things we normally take for granted. The notion of
defamiliarisation is useful not only for our present discussion of language
learning in this manga, but for a wide range of discussions on manga and
other art forms.
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French
Lesson 1
While Nodame only needs German to pass her exam, French is a language
that is essential to her. From volume ten onwards, Nodame studies at the
Paris conservatorium while Shin’ichi pursues his conducting career. Prior to
the ‘French lesson’ scene we are about to discuss, Nodame has experienced a
series of miscommunications during her first days in Paris. She did not have
the time or opportunity to learn the French language before arriving in Paris
and French was not part of her degree structure. It is no wonder, then, that she
does not understand the instructions at an aural exam at the conservatorium, or
that she is completely at a loss in a restaurant when she cannot read the menu
and does not understand what the waiter is saying. These painful instances of
a failure to communicate in a foreign language are contrasted with Shin’ichi’s
complete ease not only with verbal communication in the French, Italian,
English and German languages, but also with European culture and customs.
However, Nodame cannot rely on Shin’ichi to be her mediator and interpreter;
as a fledging conductor, he will be frequently away from Paris. So out of sheer
necessity, Nodame tries to learn French.
This time the book she uses is a (fictitious) book titled Tsukaeru Furansugo
jiten [A Dictionary of Usable French], which has many supposedly useful
phrases and sentences. Starting with the usual, ‘Enchantée. Je m’appelle …’, she
practices various expressions in a coffee shop with Shin’ichi. The sentences she
chooses reflect her desire and imagination: ‘I’m his wife’; ‘this is my husband’.
In this manga, Nodame is the one who falls in love and expresses her sexual
interest, whereas Shin’ichi remains aloof and uninterested in her as a love
interest (or at least tries to appear to be). However, he is strongly interested in
and almost obsessed with her hidden musical gifts.
In this French learning scene, Shin’ichi tells Nodame not to start with
expressions that won’t be necessary for her, but to concentrate on phrases she
will need in everyday life. Nodame flips through the pages and finds sentences
such as ‘You were snoring last night’ and ‘Don’t forget to take the rubbish
out’. Her humorous selection of supposedly useful French phrases escalates to
include phrases such as ‘Help!’ and ‘I was raped’, which shock the café waiter.
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Needless to say, the point here is not to trivialise serious situations but to
present a comical and carnivalesque reversal of the ‘king’, Shin’ichi, and the
‘fool’, Nodame. As Nodame continues to practice sentences such as ‘Give me
back my money’ and ‘You are disgusting!’, Shin’ichi tries to reassure the waiter
that she is just practicing French.
Nodame’s efforts to learn French function at several levels. Her regurgitated
chunks of language represent her desires and interests in a wooden and comic
manner. They draw attention to the gap between the words and her reality,
playfully mocking the decontextualised language of the phrase book. Even
though learners are trained to role-play in the classroom, this learning strategy
does not always prepare students to meet the expectations of the outside world.
Nodame’s role-playing in the café causes misunderstanding. Phrasebooks are
short on information on context and usage, with each entry appearing to be of
equal value and emotional impact. Nodame plays with this, disempowering
Shin’ichi’s role of mentor and commentator and reducing him to the position
of embarrassment, despite his undoubtedly superior linguistic and cultural
knowledge.
This manga teaches the readers about language and music in an incidental
way. On the page, French sentences are given a katakana guide to pronunciation
and Japanese translation in brackets. These offer a mini-conversation lesson
and transport the reader into Nodame’s linguistic situation, even though it
would be highly doubtful that French expressions read in katakana without the
knowledge of French pronunciation would be understood by French speakers.
For the reader who is already familiar with French, these examples work as a
kind of proof of authenticity.
It is interesting to compare this ‘teaching’ function of the manga with a
much earlier example found in Takahashi Makoto’s girls’ manga, Pari~Tōkyō
[Paris-Tokyo] (originally published in 1956, reprint included in Takahashi,
2006). The main plot of this manga is the protagonist’s search for her father,
who her mother claims died in Paris when the girl was very young. France is
strongly associated with the girl’s longing for her father, as well as with art,
fashion and culture. The French ‘lesson’ for the reader appears in the margin
of each page, outside the main narrative, and yet they are connected with
the phrases and objects that appear in the page. Some very simple words and
phrases such as ‘goodbye’ and ‘a park’ are shown vertically in Japanese and
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katakana (‘ō ruvoaaru’ and ‘paruku’), reminding us of the second and the third
functions of Neustupný’s list: the hobby and symbolic functions. Compared
with the naive image of French culture represented in this early post-war
manga, Nodame’s ‘phrasebook’ offers more usable phrases in everyday life.
However, its communicative function is parodically reversed by Nodame to
cause Shin’ichi embarrassment.
The juxtaposition of teaching and learning, both within the narrative and
for the reader, and its comic carnivalesque reversal, is also repeated in the
development of the main theme of the manga, the pursuit of music. The story
includes many details about aspects of classical music such as the instruments,
particular playing techniques, history, training and competitions. For those
without musical knowledge the manga deliberately introduces this information,
and it is not too difficult to draw an analogy between the functions of musical
learning and the functions of language learning on Neustupný’s list. Again,
for those familiar with classical music and music training and education, the
accurate detail certifies the authenticity of the manga’s portrayal and gives
them the pleasure of discovering identifiable issues. A number of professional
musicians have commented on this quality (see Aoyama 2010), which can be
linked to the more general issue of the educational function of manga narra
tives. Many women artists and critics have commented, for example, that they
have learnt about (or were inspired to study) the French Revolution through
The Rose of Versailles (see Nakamura, 2012). More recently, Yoshinaga Fumi’s
Ōoku [The Inner Chambers] must have triggered interest in the Edo period.
Nodame’s French lesson occupies only a small portion of the complete narrative
but it is connected to the life and culture she experiences in France through
subsequent volumes, and avoids stereotypical touristy jokes about French or
French culture.1
Lesson 2
Anime fandom plays some interesting roles in several episodes in Nodame
Cantabile, including the third language-learning episode discussed in this chap
ter. In this episode, Nodame manages to make some new friends, including
1 Besides numerous earlier examples, there are some contemporary examples with persistent
stereotypes, such as the flautist Jane Rutter’s song ‘The French song (La vie en rose)’, inserted
in her otherwise very respectable An Australian in Paris show. Stereotypically ‘French’ things
are listed to the tune of the famous Piaf song.
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a French otaku anime fan and fellow piano student, Frank, but their comm
unication is extremely limited. In Frank’s room, Nodame notices her favourite
anime is being shown on television. This is an interesting case of fiction within
fiction, which is a common device in manga, often involving parody and meta-
fiction. Since Nodame is thoroughly familiar with every bit of the anime, she
can recite all the lines in original Japanese simultaneously as they are spoken
in the French dubbing on the television. On the surface, it looks as if Nodame
can interpret simultaneously. To other people (Frank and his flatmate, Tanya),
it looks as if she is conversing with the television (vol. 10, p. 74). Already the
comic incongruity of a simultaneous interpreter without the knowledge of the
other language is presented. But Nodame does not stop there; she continues
to watch the same episode of the anime on video again and again and again,
repeating the French lines until she memorises them.
Such repetition is widely used in language learning, especially in the audio-
lingual method, which, as a critical alternative to the traditional grammar-
translation method, emphasises the importance of spoken language. In
audio-lingual classrooms of the past, the linguistic content was often based
on dialogues that were memorised and chorused with a view to developing
linguistic habits in learners. This was in contrast to the grammar-driven
approach, in which students constructed language guided by the application
of rules. The meaning of the target language was often conveyed to learners
through idiomatic expressions in the learner’s first language rather than word
for word translations. In Nodame’s unanalysed repetition and memorisation of
the French in the anime, paired with her existing understanding of the meaning
she had acquired through her previous engagement with the Japanese anime,
she has followed the principles of audio-lingualism. Ninomiya shows that this
application has achieved fluency in terms of technical production of French
(Neustupný’s category of ‘skill formation’), while at the same time critiquing
her engagement with the anime medium as antisocial and uncommunicative.
Using anime clips is also very common in language classes, the material
being usually selected for its representation of certain aspects of the target
language and/or target culture. In Nodame Cantabile it is a dubbed version of a
fictitious Japanese anime that has Nodame’s attention. Her French learning in
this scene is through culturally familiar Japanese material. While currently it is
common for educational institutions to aim for bilingual language programmes
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through which new content material is delivered through the target language,
in this scene it is the love of and familiarity with this Japanese material that
motivates Nodame and draws her focus toward the singular challenge that it
offers, that is, the French language. The episode also shows how anime and
terms such as otaku have gained currency outside Japan. Frank expresses his
admiration for the particular anime Nodame watches: ‘My otaku friends say
it’s too childish but I don’t agree with them. Puri Gorota is a true anime for
grownups, for it softly consoles our distorted minds. But they don’t realise this.’
(vol. 10, p. 80) Thus, the manga offers to its Japanese audience some snapshots
of anime fandom outside Japan. However, Nodame is too absorbed in watching
the video to pay any attention to what he says, and even if she did listen to him,
as he is a French-speaker she would not understand his argument. This seems
to capture certain characteristics of the otaku culture: its globalisation, critical
and theoretical discourse, dedicated fandom, total obsession and absorption,
and the desire for communication and bonding with fellow otaku, which may
not always be possible.
As in previous examples, Nodame’s behaviour and action are contrasted
with Shin’ichi’s. Ninomiya does not avoid stereotypes, but she skillfully com
bines them with comic/ironical twists and subversion. Nodame continues
to exhibit eccentric behaviour, which causes Frank to abandon his budding
romantic interest in her. This is juxtaposed with Shin’ichi maniacally trying to
make Tanya play the notes correctly in another room. Tanya is a Russian piano
student who lives with Nodame, Shin’ichi and others in the house in Paris that
Shin’ichi’s mother owns. The episode concludes with the French boy and the
Russian girl giving up their respective interest in the Japanese newcomers in
the apartment because of their fanatical and obsessive behaviour. While the
differences between Nodame and Shin’ichi are emphasised, their similarities
are also suggested by Frank and Tanya’s observations of the two: Nodame has
out-otakued Frank, and Shin’ichi’s spartan coaching reminds Tanya of another
stereotype, namely the workaholic Japanese. In any case, after intensively
studying the anime video, Nodame becomes able to converse in French as
long as the words and phrases she uses are included in the video. This amazes
Shin’ichi, who is usually very difficult to impress. Here, again, the ‘hidden
ability’ of Nodame, in her use of the dubious language-learning strategy and
maniacal approach, becomes clear as it achieves astonishing results.
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Three Lessons Reviewed

As outlined above, the three language-learning scenes depict different app
roaches to language learning and particular circumstances. The German course
that Nodoame is enrolled in functions partly to maintain the establishment
and a grammar-translation approach is required to pass the exam. The audio-
lingual approach Nodoame takes when she recites Japanese dialogue over a
French-dubbed anime impresses the global otaku but is limited in its usability.
Despite the critique of the system and learning strategies represented in these
episodes, it is clear that they each fulfil certain, albeit limited, functions.
Certainly, each strategy functions differently for the protagonists, reminding
us as teachers and learners that individual differences mean that we should not
be overly precious or narrowly focused on our style of teaching or learning. In
this way, each scene abounds in comic elements as well as hints and insights on
education, pedagogy and second-language acquisition. Narratologically, too,
these scenes have interesting points to consider. The German lesson can be read
as a story of the inferior (weak/lazy/untalented) surpassing the superior and
thereby creating laughter. Carnivalesque reversal of the weak/strong is seen
throughout the manga. The French phrasebook scene can also be regarded as
the weaker speaker (‘fool’) indirectly making fool of the stronger (‘king’). The
anime within the manga contains intricate metafictional issues.
Fujimoto Yukari (1998) has identified the search for one’s place or position
[ibasho] as the key motif and even raison d’être of shōjo manga. Nodame’s
struggle to find her own musical and personal happiness certainly matches
this generic theme. However, as the pioneer of shōjo studies, Honda Masuko,
poignantly remarked, Nodame Cantabile departs somewhat from the narrative
conventions of shōjo manga, especially in gender representations. As Honda
points out, Nodame is not a Cinderella and ‘the story does not progress towards
a happy ending, but […] the process of the development of the story itself is
what continues to interest the reader’ (Honda, 2010, p. 18).
It is tempting to link the three language learning scenes to this. Between
Nodame and Shin’ichi there is a clear gap in terms of language proficiency and
sociocultural knowledge/experience. This kind of gendered teacher-student
relationship we see between Shin’ichi and Nodame is commonly found in
shōjo manga and, as Honda points out, it is also found in The Tale of Genji and
158
numerous texts of world literature and culture. But the relationship that exists
between Nodame and Shin’ichi is not static or defined by gender. Honda cites
Shi’ichi’s domesticity as an example of this. ‘Shin’ichi acts out a traditionally
female role when he undertakes household chores’, she argues (Honda, 2010, p.
19). Moreover, the language lesson episodes show us that even in the putative
teacher/student relationship, the student may surpass the teacher or the teacher
may realise that they need to learn more than the student. The teacher may
not find anything to learn from the student in terms of their technical skills
and geo-cultural and historical knowledge, but the teacher may discover their
student is more skilled in the area of personal relationships, which are essential
for true communication, whether it is conducted in native or foreign languages,
or through music, art and other non-verbal methods.
To quote Honda again, Nodame Cantabile ‘concentrates on the process
of the story rather than its outcome’. This process-focused approach is very
much applicable to language learning. It is not whether one passes an exam or
memorises phrases, it is the process of learning that is invaluable and learning
never ends but continues throughout one’s lifetime. The two-dimensional form
of manga seems particularly well suited to present this process in a convincing
manner. Anime and live-action drama would inevitably leave some traces of
inauthenticity in the sound (pronunciation, intonation and fluency), action and
movement of its characters; the manga text can achieve a satisfactory level of
authenticity precisely because it leaves room for the audience’s imagination to
produce ‘authentic’ sounds and movements from the graphic depictions and
space.
References
Aoyama, T. (2010). Nodame as ‘another culture’. US-Japan Women’s Journal, 38, 25–42.
Aoyama, T. & Wakabayashi, J. (1999). Where parody meets translation. Japan Forum,
11(2): 217–230.
Fujimoto, Y. (1998). Watashi no ibasho wa doko ni aru no? Shōjo manga ga utsusu kokoro no
katachi [Where is my place in the world? The shape of the heart as reflected in girls’
comic books]. Tokyo: Gakuyō Shobō.
Honda, M. (2010). The invalidation of gender in girls’ manga today, with a special focus on
Nodame cantabile. (L. Fraser and T. Aoyama, Trans.). U.S.-Japan Women’s Journal, 38,
12–24.
Masuyama, K. (2011). Eigoken-ban manga Botchan. J. E. Ericson (Ed.). Tokyo: Yumani
Shobō.
Nakamura, M. (Ed.). (2012). Ikeda Riyoko no sekai. Tokyo: Asahi Shinbun Shuppan.
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National Japanese Curriculum Project. (1994). Pera pera. Melbourne: Curriculum

Corporation.
Neustupný, J. V. (1982). Gaikokujin to no komyunikeeshon. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten.
Rutter, J. (2012). An Australian in Paris [CD]. Australia: ABC Classic.
Tōsaku, Y., Fujiko, F. F. & Inahara, K. (2009). Doraemon no dokodemo Nihongo. Tokyo:
Shōgakukan.
Manga
Ninomiya, T. (2002–2009). Nodame kantābire (Vols. 1–23). Tokyo: Kōdansha.
Ninomiya, T. & Fuji Television. (2010). Nodame kantābire [homepage for animated series].
Retrieved from http://www.nodame-anime.com/.
Fuji Television. (2008). Nodame kantābire in Yōroppa [DVD of live-action drama series].
Tokyo: Fuji Television.
Takahashi, M. (2006). Pari~Tōkyō, Sakura namiki. Tokyo: Shōgakukan.
Fuji Television. (2006–2010). Nodame kantābire [homepage for live-action drama series].
Retrieved from http://www.fujitv.co.jp/b_hp/nodame/.
Umino, N. & Hebizō. (2009–2013). Nihonjin no shiranai Nihongo (Vols. 1–4). Tokyo:
Media Factory.
Yomiuri Television. (2010) Nihonjin no shiranai Nihongo [homepage for drama series].
Retrieved from http://www.ytv.co.jp/nihongo/index.html.
160
CHAPTER NINE
W R I T ING A NO T HE R ’S T ONGUE
Orthographic Representations of Non-Fluency in Japanese Manga
WES ROBERTSON
Introduction
The manipulation of text to convey paralinguistic information to an audience is
a long recognised phenomenon. Any cursory review of advertisements, menus,
graffiti or, indeed, manga and comics, will attest to the fact that the visual
nature of writing allows authors to convey messages that are not contained in
the meanings of words themselves (Sebba, 2007). However, written Japanese
affords its writers an additional stylistic option perhaps unique amongst world
languages: the potential use of up to four different scripts to portray a single
word (Iwahara, Hatta & Maehara, 2003). Although the conscious manipulation
of these scripts is not unstudied, previous work has generally focused only
on what non-standard elements are being employed. The contextual, social,
interpersonal and historical influences that determine when this non-standard
orthography can be utilised have often been ignored, as have those which affect
how variation is employed, why it is interpretable by readers and why the use of
other possible scripts was rejected (Masuji, 2011).
This chapter will attempt to investigate the nuances behind the use of
non-standard orthography in Japanese writing, focusing on the portrayal of
non-native speakers (NNSs) in manga. This decision is due to the historical
tendency for the speech acts of NNSs to be viewed as something marked and
strange (Loveday, 1986), making them a potentially fertile ground to witness
orthographic play. Additionally, this study aims to uncover the purposes for
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which these methods are exercised (or ignored) and shed light on the various
contexts and historical influences that affect their employment.
In total, four volumes from two series of Japanese manga will be explored.
Manga makes an ideal object of linguistic analysis due to the medium’s
popularity – over 1.7 billion copies are sold yearly in Japan (Ito, 2000) – its
influence on Japanese media and writing (Tranter, 2008) and its peculiar
status (shared with other comics) as a silent art form that must rely on visual
strategies to indicate sound (Wolk, 2007). Attention will be given to both
non-native and native Japanese speakers’ productions of a second language,
with the similarities and differences in speech between characters and series
given particular focus. Through this analysis, I hoped to expose, somewhat,
the intricate ways in which the conventions of contemporary written Japanese
can be subverted, and deepen our understanding of how these strategies can
provide subtextual meaning to a work.
Manga Under Study

This chapter draws its data from the first and second volumes of the popular
manga series Daarin wa gaikokujin [My Darling is a Foreigner] (henceforth
DWG) and Nihonjin no shiranai Nihongo [Japanese that Japanese People Don’t
Know] (henceforth NSN). Though the mainstream success of these manga is
relevant, a more important criterion behind their selection was that all volumes
feature a large number of NNSs in significant roles. The series are also fairly
recent works, first published in 2002 and 2009 respectively, and purport to
be semi-autobiographical and based on stories and humor from actual events.
DWG deals with the author/artist’s relationship with an American man who
speaks fluent Japanese, while NSN is set inside a Japanese language school in
Japan, and features students who possess a wide range of Japanese ability.
Manga like these provide a particularly fertile location for viewing script
play, both because of their reliance on visuals and because of the abundance
of what Kinsui (2003) refers to as ‘role-language’ existing within them. This
prevalence is linked to the fact that speech in manga lacks the grammatical
scaffolding available to other written mediums. A novel may be capable of
commenting on or describing the style, mode or sound of a character’s speech
without the use of non-standard elements (as it does in a sentence like this:
‘“Let’s go”, he said, his words muffled by the roar of the wind and his thick
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Writing Another’s Tongue
drawl’). Manga does not have the same ability. This has resulted in manga
developing innovative strategies for conveying sound within this silent, visual
medium (McCloud, 1993; Wolk, 2007). Common examples of these strategies
include changes to spelling, font, or the size, shape, and roughness of text
(McCloud, 2006), all methods which make ‘the irregular shapes of letters
resemble the irregular patterns in the way people speak’ (Saraceni, 2003, p. 21)
and which are not often seen in other forms of writing. Although the use of
non-standard orthography in Japanese for similar effect has not gone unnoticed
(Narasaki, 2009; Schodt, 1983; Unser-Schutz, 2011), the question of how this
technique is utilised has received cursory coverage at most (Unser-Schutz,
2010) and the depiction of non-native speech has rarely been examined at all.
Research Questions
Examination of this phenomenon will occur within a case study style of analysis.
Initially, each series will be looked at separately and the various examples of
non-standard orthography contained within will be discussed. These results
will then be compared between the series to look for overarching similarities
that point to more universal strategies, and show some of the ways in which
deviation from orthographic conventions can occur. These findings will then be
used to shed light on the following two research questions:
1. How does each manga utilise non-standard orthography to portray non-

native speech?
2. In what ways do these uses agree with, reinforce, reject or expand upon
the ‘traditional’ semantic or semiotic attributes of each script?
Terminology
The term ‘non-standard’ will be used frequently throughout this chapter to
refer to orthographic choices that do not reflect the norms of Japanese writing.
What is actually normal or standard can be difficult to define, though, as the
guidelines that govern which orthography should be used for a particular word
are much more flexible than the rules used for spelling or grammar systems. Some
proscriptive documents, such as newspaper style guides and the government’s
Jōyō Kanji list (guide for the general use of kanji characters) do exist, but they
cannot be said to contain actual restrictive power, despite their influence
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(Honda, 2009)1. Still, there are general conventions and these are perhaps best
understood by splitting the Japanese vocabulary into four categories: words that
are only written with one script, words that are usually written in one script,
words that are written in two scripts equally, and words that are written in three
scripts equally (Iwahara, Hatta & Maehara, 2003). For example, grammatical
particles like the subject marker は [wa] are formally written in hiragana alone,
relegating them to the first category and marking any other choice of script as
non-standard. In contrast, verbs often allow two different portrayals, such as
もらう or 貰う [morau] for ‘to receive’ (Kess & Miyamoto, 1999). In cases like
these, dictionaries and other such references do not mark which of the familiar
options are preferable unless the kanji for the word is exceedingly rare, and so
this project required a novel method for defining the terms. When competing
representations were found to exist, they were entered into Alexa (2013),2 a
language-learning website which searches a corpus of example sentences from
various sources, with the version garnering the most hits being treated as
standard.
Japanese Orthography
Prior to the analysis of the use of the four main Japanese scripts (hiragana,
katakana, kanji, and rōmaji) in manga, it is important to detail the impressions
and images associated with each one. While they all serve practical roles, they
also are able to ‘convey subtle shades of meaning on the visual level’ (Hiraga,
2006, p. 134) and ‘invoke different connotations, [with] each script type painting
a unique tapestry of emotive imagery and synesthesia’ (Kess & Miyamoto,
1999, p. 107). In more concrete terms, historical and cultural influences have
resulted in each form carrying supplemental impressions that affect a user’s
ultimate choice of which to employ when options are available (Suzuki, 1977).
Perhaps the most similar feature in English would be the use of different fonts,
italics or bolding, although this analogy greatly underplays the depth and range
1 A current version of the Jōyō Kanji list can be accessed here: http://kokugo.bunka.go.jp/
kokugo_nihongo/joho/kijun/naikaku/pdf/joyokanjihyo_20101130.pdf
2 A popular language website that searches a corpus of dictionary resources and real-world
bilingual texts. Though the site is flawed, the number and diversity of examples it provides
does allow it to be used with confidence regarding which scripts are more common, especially
when two different depictions return a significantly different number of results. Search
engines were not used because they return results regardless of whether the example directly
matches the input, i.e., もらう and 貰う [morau] can show results for both versions.
164
of factors that affect choice of script and doesn’t acknowledge that a mixture of
these scripts is necessary for writing the language (Rowe, 1976).
Hiragana is a phonetic script that has been viewed historically as soft,
intimate, emotional, smooth or feminine, and it still carries these connotations
in modern times, with some parents giving their daughters names in hiragana
to create a more feminine image (Haarmann, 1989; Hiraga, 2006; Kataoka,
1997; Kess & Miyamoto, 1999; Miyake, 2007). The early use of hiragana by
women and poets, and in private correspondence, likely plays a role in these
impressions (Iwahara, Hatta & Maehara, 2003). It is also the first script most
Japanese people and foreign learners learn while acquiring the language,
and it serves key roles in both grammar and pronunciation, being the only
script considered acceptable in standard writing for verb endings, inflections
and particles. It is also used to detail the sounds of kanji a reader may not be
familiar with (Backhouse, 1993; Kess & Miyamoto, 1999).
Katakana is also phonetic but is more limited in its employment than
hiragana, with its usage ‘tied to its representational function for foreign loan
words’ (Kess & Miyamoto, 1999, p. 88). Because of this, katakana can also
carry an image of modernity, pop culture or foreignness – a state of being not-
Japanese (Kataoka, 1997; Onishi, 2004). The script often plays an imitative role
also, being used for sounds, animal noises and the like in manga (Nishimura,
2006; Schwartz & Rubinstein-Avila, 2006).
Kanji are perhaps the most difficult aspect of the Japanese writing system
to describe, as they contain visual elements as well as set sound patterns (often
multiple). For this reason, Matsunaga (1996) defines them as morphophonic,
which recognises their ability to be processed as both phonetic representations
and iconic visual allusions (Hiraga, 2006; Nara & Noda, 2003). Originating
from Chinese characters, kanji were initially restricted to the domain of
scholars and men (Backhouse, 1993) and, perhaps because of this, they are
linked to concepts like science, erudition, rigidity, masculinity, formality and
to the elite (Kataoka, 1997; Kess & Miyamoto, 1999; Hiraga, 2006; Honna,
1995; Nishimura, 2006).
Finally, rōmaji, or romanised Japanese, plays a much smaller role in the
language, but can often be found in advertisements, signs and packaging (Back
house, 2003). At times it carries senses of prestige, globalisation or decoration
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(Gottlieb, 2010). These connotations often result in it being employed next to

other scripts in a complementary role (Backhaus, 2010; Blommaert, 2010).
Hiragana Katakana Kanji Rōmaji
feminine, soft, novel, foreign, scientific, rigid, prestigious,

smooth, round, imitative, elite, masculine, global, decorative,
tender, simple, emphasising, hard, formal, hard, international, eye-
childish, lovely, simple, inorganic, difficult, intellectual, catching, symbolic,
unmarked, intimate, fake, marked, young, conspicuous, cool, sophisticated
private, nice, elegant, male, futuristic, learned, visual, adult,
poetic, Japanese neutral, sharp, fresh, Chinese, substantial,
jarring, precise, Japanese
angular
Table 9.1: Summary of the various adjectives cited in this section have been by researchers to
describe the different scripts. Note that some of the terms are contradictory and some overlap.
However, although the various sources cited earlier have provided valid
historical and cultural reasons for the existence of the various associations
carried by each of the four main Japanese scripts, a compilation of which can
be seen in Table 9.1, they have not provided much empirical backing. This is
problematic for any orthographic analysis, as it may cast doubt on whether
these associations are truly active in the minds of non-linguists. Fortunately,
a psychological study conducted in 2003 by Iwahara, Hatta and Maehara
investigated the existence of semantic associations with all scripts besides
rōmaji, and the results do mirror the previous descriptions. In the first section
of the experiment, seventy-five Japanese college students, aged from nineteen
to twenty-one, were asked to write down any term they ascribed to each
script. Hiragana was frequently linked to terms like soft, round, lovely and
feminine; katakana was seen as angular and linked to noun phrases like ‘foreign
language’, ‘foreign country’ and ‘foreign person’; kanji was associated with
terms like hard, difficult, intellectual, masculine and formal. Ultimately, the
study provides strong empirical backing to the assertions mentioned earlier,
concluding that ‘Japanese people do not arbitrarily choose a certain type of script
in writing, but select a particular script based on certain considerations …
[and] the sense of compatibility between the script-type images and the mental
representations of what they want to write must be one of these considerations’
(Iwahara, Hatta and Maehara, 2003, p. 387).
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Manipulation and Play

It is also important to note that these associations are not merely a subconscious
feature of Japanese speakers’ minds; they are associations that people manipulate
and play with to suit their needs, beliefs and the meanings they wish to convey.
In other words, analysis of Japanese script should take into account not only
the passive views of the reader, but also ‘the active perspective the writer
employs when producing a piece of written Japanese … [since] the writer may
consciously choose to place a specific word in a particular script type for the
‘feeling’ it invokes’ (Kess & Miyamoto, 1999, p. 108).
Evidence of these measured deliberations can be easily seen in the
orthographic choices of Japanese poets. Gardner (2006), for example, notes
Anzai Fuyue’s juxtaposition of てふてふ (an archaic term for butterfly) and 韃
靼海峡 (the Tartar Straight) as a conscious attempt to contrast frail fluttering
with the rugged and inhospitable. Gardner later argues that another poet’s
decision to write the word kakumei [revolution] in katakana (カクメイ) instead
of the standard kanji (革命) is to emphasise that the revolution’s origins are in
outside influences. Examinations of the revisions of famous haiku poet Basho
also reveal intense concern with script, as his drafts contain almost twice as
many orthographic manipulations as phonologic, syntactic or semantic changes
(Hiraga, 2006). Often, these adjustments are a constant back and forth,
showcasing the level of reflection behind the selection of each word’s script.
Similar manipulation and play have also been noted in advertising, personal
communication, newspapers and novels (Igarashi, 2007; Masuji, 2011; Rowe,
1976).
Unfortunately, less attention has been given to the orthographic choices
used to portray non-native speech. One of the few researchers to comment on
the topic is Loveday (1986), who notes arguments that Japanese production by
non-natives, especially Europeans, has been long considered an unnatural act,
being rendered through intelligible but non-fluent speech. This strange balance
is achieved by odd turns of phrase, recognisably different voice quality, katakana
use, non-standard word order or simplification. While the demographics of
Japan have changed over the last few decades, Loveday is not alone in asserting
that Japan has a tendency to strongly emphasise the foreign (Onishi, 2004).
As recently as 2009, McDonalds Japan employed a controversial Caucasian
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character in their advertising, whose Japanese was portrayed on billboards

and advertisements with every word and even particle depicted in katakana
(Masters, 2009). This extremely non-standard use of orthography starkly
emphasises the mascot’s non-fluency and provides evidence for the possible
continued validity of these claims.
Manga Analysis
The first series this chapter will examine is Nihonjin no shiranai Nihongo
[Japanese that Japanese People Don’t Know], or NSN, which is a set text in
a Japanese language school for foreign students living in Japan. The main
character, Ms. Nagiko, is Japanese, but it is her interactions with NNSs that
make up the story. Many of these characters play recurring roles throughout
both published volumes.
In this manga, the most obvious use of non-standard orthography can
be seen in the selection of katakana to mark non-fluent speech or a foreign
accent, a selection that very much agrees with Loveday’s (1986) aforementioned
comments. A clear example of this can be found in a panel where a beginner
and an advanced-level student exchange greetings. While both students say
konnichiwa, the skilled student’s utterance is in hiragana, the standard script
for this term3 , while the beginner’s response is portrayed in katakana (コン
ニチワ), creating a stark visual marker of their different abilities. This gap is
further emphasised by the final hiragana は [ha] being changed to the katakana
ワ [wa]; in the greeting konnichiwa, the final sound is normally written with
the mora for ha, but the character’s attempt at using the term sees the actual
mora for the sound wa employed, which supplements the use of katakana in
marking her beginner’s Japanese. The use of non-standard katakana for this
purpose can sometimes be even more pointed, such as when a character asks
‘nande? dōshite?’ [why? why?] in non-standard katakana, while an arrow labeled
‘beginner’ points at his head. In this way, visual asides unavailable to novelists
or many other writers are used along with script by the author to emphasise the
learner’s low level of language.
3 Alc.co.jp gives 210 examples in hiragana and one in katakana. Appropriately enough, the
example sentence using katakana is a translation of a non-native speaker’s comments.
168
However, this is not the only use of katakana in the manga. It is also used
to show imitation, a function perhaps arising as an extension of the scripts’
traditional association with onomatopoeia. The most striking example comes
from a scene in which a low-level learner is reciting what he believes is the
intro to his favourite television show, not realising that he is actually repeating
an advertising blurb. In portraying this utterance, basic function words,
possessives, particles and verb stems – all normally the exclusive realm of
hiragana (Kess & Miyamoto, 1999) – are converted into katakana. Although
this instance differs from those above in that it is literally imitative, it could
be argued that the previous examples of katakana use are also influenced by
this mimetic function of the script, with non-fluent Japanese marked as an
imitation, not a production, of the language.
The use of kanji in NSN is more intricate than that of katakana, and
understanding its link to non-native speech often requires looking at the kanji
these speakers do not use instead of those they do. In one panel, the teacher
Ms. Nagiko employs the kanji for the verb morau (貰う) [to receive], which is
interesting not only in that it is non-standard (3,358 examples in hiragana vs.
14 in kanji), but also in that no other character in the comic can be found using
this kanji. Her ability to use this character thereby subtly expresses her clout
and knowledge; an authoritative tone is conveyed via her use of a character
the learners do not (or cannot) use themselves. A second teacher-restricted
kanji can be found in the verb machigatteiru (間違っている/まちがっている)
[to be wrong]. This word leans towards presentation in kanji (1,218 examples
in kanji vs. 166 in hiragana), yet the only character in the book that follows
this convention is Ms. Nagiko, and she only does so when handing back an
assignment, i.e., this use occurs when she is explicitly acting out her role as an
instructor and judge. That said, two examples of students using difficult kanji
do exist, with a character named Jack using the polite form of morau (itadaku)
in kanji, which also leans towards non-standard (1,491 examples in hiragana vs.
266 in kanji), and a Chinese student using kanji for the word snake.4 However,
Jack is noted as being so skilled he does not actually need to attend the school,
and the difficult character used by the Chinese student is one that is identical to
4 Neither is standard. Both katakana and hiragana have nearly 400 examples, although the
teacher’s speech contains the term in katakana.
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that used in his native Chinese. These exceptions therefore confirm the analysis
rather than contradict it.
The connection of kanji to authority also allows its use to convey confidence
in second-language learners, a possibility especially visible in a series of stories
involving the word maru [circle]. The first time this term appears, students
are complaining about the teacher’s use of circles to mark answers as correct,
stating that it signifies a mistake in their countries. Unfamiliar with the term’s
usage in this context, and perhaps with the word itself, their use of the term is
rendered by the author in katakana (マル). However, a few pages later, one of
these students again uses the word maru to answer a question, this time with
confidence, and the author chooses to render it in kanji (丸). Even though
the student’s guess is ultimately incorrect, this switch in orthography tacitly
shows the reader that this learner has changed from someone who does not
understand a term into someone who has acquired it, accepted it, and can use
it appropriately. Kanji’s association with confidence can also be seen when a
student uses the word ‘body’ [nikutai] instead of ‘necktie’ [nekutai] to answer
a question. Her initial response is written in kanji (肉体) once she recognises
her mistake and states, ‘ah, not nikutai but nekutai’, it becomes katakana (ニク
タイ). This example functions in the opposite way to the previous one, as the
script changes to show the loss of confident and fluent tones via the student’s
speech adopting the semiotic images of a beginner. Still, both examples
function as instances wherein characters speaking with the assumption they
will be understood do not have their errors marked until the speaker notices
them.
The use of non-standard hiragana is much less distinct, but what can be
found seems to agree with Nishimura’s description (2006) of the script as
unmarked. Change in script to hiragana in NSN often simply represents
sounds that do not link to an actual word, like when a student mispronounces
七夕 (tanabata) [a Japanese festival] as たなぼた (tanabota) [meaningless]
in hiragana. This mistake is due to a simple mishearing, with the speaker’s
learning-level not low enough for the words to be portrayed in katakana.
That said, perhaps the most interesting use of non-standard hiragana is found
when it appears in contrast to other scripts, as can be seen in the following
examples:
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い
Nagiko: ‘気に入らない’ を ‘はいらない’ って読む人が多
はい
いな。多いって言うか全員！？もしかして気に入ら
ないと読むのが正しいの…?
‘ki ni iranai’ o ‘hairanai’ tte yomu hito ga ōi na. ōi tte iuka
zenin!? Moshikashite ki ni hairanai to yomu no ga tadashi no?
[Lots of people read ‘ki ni iranai’ as ‘ki ni hairanai’. Not
lots, but all!? Maybe ‘ki ni hairanai’ is actually correct …]
Nagiko: 鼻は「わたし」じゃなくて「はな」
hana wa ‘watashi’ janakute ‘hana’
[‘Nose’ is not ‘watashi’, but ‘hana’.]
Student: ハナ
hana
[Nose.]
In both samples, hiragana can be seen to represent pronunciation that is native-

like in sound but does not reference an extant term. In the first excerpt, the
teacher corrects students’ misreading of ki ni iranai (in kanji) as ki ni hairanai
(in hiragana), reading the mistake out loud but not attaching meaning to the
phrase. However, once she realises that every student made the same mistake,
she questions her own knowledge, and the phrase ki ni hairanai receives kanji
as she wonders to herself if the students may in fact be correct. In the second
excerpt, the word nose [hana] is seen written in three scripts (鼻, はな, and ハ
ナ) allowing for all aforementioned uses of script to be seen in tandem. When
Ms. Nagiko refers to the concept ‘nose’ it is in kanji, when she corrects the
student’s earlier mistake, the native sounds are portrayed in hiragana, and then,
when a student repeats it, her influent or imitative tones disallow her the use of
kanji or hiragana, and her speech is relegated to katakana.
In contrast, Daarin wa gaikokujin [My Darling is a Foreigner] (or DWG)
features less frequent use of non-standard orthography on the whole, although
some of the strategies noted in NSN can be observed. The use of non-standard
katakana, for example, is employed similarly. The most poignant example
actually comes when the main character, Saori, attempts English. In one
panel of the manga, she greets the mother of her partner, Tony, with ‘na…
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MANGA VISION
naisu tu miichuu’, an attempt at ‘nice to meet you’. This is written in katakana,

rather than Roman letters. Her frequently mentioned discomfort with her low
English abilities thereby manifests itself visually through the author’s decision
not to use the Roman alphabet.
Katakana also performs an imitative function in DWG, as can be seen when
a NNS of Japanese mocks Japanese women for fawning over him. Despite
the fact that he is telling a story and therefore technically quoting speech on
both occasions, when he puts words in the girls’ mouths they are in standard
hiragana, yet when he repeats these terms himself the orthography switches to
katakana, while an arrow labeled ‘imitating’ points at him. This is similar to the
use of katakana to portray onomatopoeia (Nishimura, 2006), but in this case
human speech, not animal calls or natural noises, are being replicated.
Kanji, as before, is connected to knowledge or confidence, limiting the fre
quency with which it is used to portray non-native speech. This phenomenon
is perhaps easiest to view when Tony, the titular ‘darling’, attempts to count
pigeons in Japanese. At first he refers to pigeons [hato] in katakana (ハト), but
as be becomes flustered trying to remember the correct way to count them in
Japanese, his incorrect guesses are portrayed in hiragana. When Saori corrects
him, playing the role of a teacher and fluent native speaker, kanji is used for
both the word pigeon and the necessary counter. What makes this interaction
particularly interesting, though, is that Tony then attempts to justify his
mistake, arguing that the Japanese counting system is overly complex, and here
kanji is used for pigeon again. While neither katakana nor kanji are clearly
standard for this term (122 instances in kanji vs. 144 instances in katakana),
the change in script is still able to transmit paralinguistic information to the
reader through comparison with the form employed by Saori. In short, Tony’s
lack of confidence is first portrayed through dissimilarity, and his later attempt
to adopt a knowledgeable stance is reinforced through the use of same script
as the NS.
Hiragana, again, appears to show speech as unmarked, or as representing
sound that is fluent-sounding, but not intended to be linked to an actual word.
The attempt at producing counters in the pigeon story is one example of this,
as is an instance where Tony is shocked by the grotesque title of the ghost story
Miminashi Hoichi [Hoichi the Earless]. Unsure that mimi here actually refers
to ears, he first repeats it twice in hiragana before switching to kanji. These
172
first utterances are interpretable as sounds he does not yet, or does not want to,
attach meaning to, while the latter instances in kanji convey both the sound
and the word ‘ear’ itself. This selection of script again works in tandem with
the art in the panels, in this case Tony’s terrified expression, to guide readers’
interpretation. While in some ways the achieved affect is similar to writing ‘by
ear you don’t mean ear … do you?’, the change of scripts clearly delineates the
depth of Tony’s growing level of comprehension and horror in a way that would
be difficult, if not impossible, to do in other languages or mediums.
Comparing the Series

In regards to the first research question, NSN and DWG show a number of
similarities in their use of non-standard orthography. In both series, katakana
has attachments to foreign, harsh and imitative elements; kanji projects auth
ority, competence and erudition; and hiragana connotes smooth, fluent and
unmarked speech. However, the two manga differ in the extent to which they
point out differences between characters, with level, ability and foreignness
being more starkly emphasised in NSN. This may be rooted in the narrative
needs of the manga themselves, with NSN’s humor and story relying heavily
on the difficulties of being a learner. In contrast, DWG expects the audience
to sympathise with the character of Tony, and has a stated goal of emphasising
that all people are, at heart, the same. As such, its use of orthography seems
to run counter to Loveday’s comments (1986) about foreign speech, as even
speakers with limited abilities are usually depicted via standard orthography,
the content of their message more important to the story than their actual
linguistic ability.
Both series also seem to place more importance on the speaker’s level of
confidence than their actual ability when deciding on a script. Non-standard
orthographies are often used for stuttering, self-correction, lapses of memory
and other such slip-ups, whereas standard portrayals can be employed for
mistakes and mispronunciations that are made with assurance. In other words,
portraying NNSs speech via orthography that matches Japanese norms appears
to be used by both manga to show confidence and fluency, but these terms are
not synonymous with correctness.
As for the second research question, some uses can indeed be seen to
match the psychological and historical associations attributed to each script.
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MANGA VISION
Hiragana is linked to smooth and unmarked speech, while katakana carries

clear connotations of harsh, inorganic or marked utterances as a whole,
hiragana can also serve this function when used in place of kanji-standard
nouns. Katakana is also linked to the concept of ‘foreign’, but at times this
is more in the sense of ‘not-acquired’ than ‘from another place’. The use of
katakana for emphasis, in a similar that italics are used, is conspicuously
absent from the speech of foreigners, and a different font or calligraphic style
is used for emphasis in their speech instead. Nothing about the choice to use
hiragana in these series seems to be directly rooted in its feminine associations.
The masculine connotations of kanji are also missing, but its connections to
the scientific, difficult and erudite clearly influence its application. Somewhat
surprisingly, non-standard use of rōmaji is almost completely absent from
the NNS’s utterances, despite its non-Japanese and international impressions.
This may be due to practical factors, such as the difficulty of reading the
rōmaji script.
It must be mentioned that the explorative and small-scale nature of this
study brings about various limitations, and it may be difficult to extrapolate
these findings into general rules (although this was never the study’s intention).
The fact that neither author is seen to make use of certain connotations that
certain scripts are argued to have does not mean that no authors take such
aspects into consideration. It must also be recognised that some of these
orthographic strategies could be used to portray NSs as well. The speech
of NSs who are, for example, stuttering or confused could theoretically be
presented in a non-standard manner. Although no instances of this were
found in these four volumes, the non-standard use of orthography should
be in no way viewed as something restricted to the depiction of non-native
speech. Further research on this subject that looks at the speech of manga
characters whose salient trait is not related to their foreignness, or the non-
standard employment of orthography in other genres, would greatly expand
the understanding of this phenomenon.
Conclusion
Ultimately, it is clear that the orthographic choices in these manga are deliberate
and strongly influenced by the authors’ viewpoints and associations with each
174
script, as well as the ways they expect their audience will read them. When
different scripts are used for different characters, each one is meant to be read
a certain way and this builds on, plays with and manipulates various socially
proscribed images. This follows a rich historical tradition of orthographic play
in Japanese and shows the continued gravity of these decisions in contemporary
writing.
Different orthographic choices might seem minor and are perhaps un
intelligible or confusing to students of Japanese who are at a beginner level.
But for native or fluent readers who are decoding a text these choices are
significant. In manga this is doubly true, as it must convey aspects of tone or
phrasing largely without the descriptive resources other written mediums allow.
Ultimately, unconventional blends of orthography make up a vital part of the
Japanese literary landscape and can combine with manga’s already existent
receptivity to visual modifications to provide an especially unique and detailed
way for readers to navigate a text when the line between conversation and
writing is blurred.
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CHAPTER TEN
FAC T OR S INF L UE NCING

NON - N AT I V E R E A DE R S ’ S E QUE NCING
OF JA PA NE S E M A NG A PA NE L S
JAMES F. LEE AND WILLIAM S. ARMOUR
Introduction
While it is not possible to exactly pinpoint when manga become a popular
medium for use in Japanese as an additional language (or L2) classrooms, the
publication of the magazine Mangajin (Simmons, 1988–1998) in the United
States in June 1990 could be a potential date to note. In its seven years of
publication, Mangajin presented a different way of approaching Japanese as an
L2, since it differed so much from the textbooks of the day. The magazine also
addressed the huge interest in Japanese-language learning that began in the late
1980s. The focus of Mangajin was on language learning – grammar, vocabulary
(including kanji) and aspects of politeness – and cultural familiarisation –
crucial cultural aspects were often embedded in the selected examples. In June
1993, a monthly Japanese language journal designed for teachers, Nihongo,
published a special feature, ‘Manga o kyōshitsu de tsukau ‘Sazae-san’ kara
‘Kureyonshin-chan’ made’ [Using manga in the classroom: From Sazae-san
to Kureyonshin-chan]. This issue of Nihongo also acknowledged Mangajin as a
useful resource for teaching idiomatic expressions. Jumping ahead twenty years
to the present day, it is unsurprising, then, that The Japan Foundation found
that under ‘knowledge-based tendencies’, the second most popular purpose of
Japanese language study was ‘learning about manga, anime, etc’ (2011, p. 9).
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Factors Influencing Non-Native Readers’ Sequencing of Japanese Manga Panels
Manga seem to have earned a place in the toolbox of resources available to both
Japanese language teachers and learners alike. However, despite the enthus
iasm for using manga as material for pedagogical purposes, there is a paucity of
empirical evidence informing their use in the L2 Japanese language classroom.
The present chapter attempts to fill this gap by investigating a fundamental
skill required by all who engage in the reading of comics or manga, that is, the
correct sequencing of the panels or koma,1 and begins with a review of literature
presenting empirical and synthetic works related to reading Japanese manga
from both first language (L1) and L2 perspectives.
L1 Perspectives
Ingulsrud and Allen (2009) provide a comprehensive treatment of how L1
literacy develops in a cohort of Japanese nationals who read manga. They found
that in regards to the sequence of koma, it ‘is an issue for readers and has to be
learned through experience … Learning how to interpret the panel order takes
much practice’ (p. 133). In a previous study, they point out that ‘teachers and
critics also need to understand that reading manga is not a mindless exercise.
It is an activity that requires a great deal of skill. Readers have to interpret
the conventions of text, illustrations, and format’ (Allen and Ingulsrud, 2003,
p. 681). Their findings reveal that the sequencing of koma is a learned skill
and one that cannot be taken for granted since it is vital to other kinds of
processing, including the comprehension of the narrative itself.
Nakazawa (2005) presents his process model of manga reading comprehen
sion and has conducted considerable research on Japanese children learning to
read manga to support his model. He identifies both the form and arrangement of
koma as features of manga that must be processed. The arrangement of koma is an
element of semantic long-term memory that can influence the functioning of
short-term or working memory. The reader must code information in the short-
term memory, including identifying koma. Once coded, the reader must form
propositions and to do so must connect each koma with others.
Nakazawa and Nakazawa (1993) presented a four-koma manga to children
of different ages and asked them to sequence the koma. Successful sequencing
1 There are manga that have complex and creative or unusual koma arrangements. The length
of the narrative also needs to be factored into the discussion regarding koma sequencing. In
this study, the examples chosen represent a standard arrangement of koma for the genre (an
everyday, slice-of-school-life narrative).
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MANGA VISION
improved dramatically with the age of the children. The least successful were
kindergartners and first graders, with 5.2 per cent and 6.6 per cent correct,
respectively, but the success rate was 80 per cent by fourth grade, 81.2 per cent
by 6th grade and 92.9 per cent by 8th grade.
Nakazawa (2002) examined the effects of manga reading experience on two
seventh grade girls. One indicated that she read manga every day, whereas the
other claimed to read manga once a week. The more experienced reader scored
higher than the less experienced reader on a recall test and a comprehension
test. The two children also showed differences in eye movements and reading
times. The experienced reader moved her eyes in a ‘left, down, left, down’
pattern more often than the less experienced reader; that is, the experienced
reader had a script for the common Japanese arrangement of koma. The less
experienced reader fixated on word balloons more often, relying on textual
elements to understand the story. The more experienced reader skipped more
koma and word balloons and made fewer unnecessary eye movements.
Panel sequencing has also been studied among adult L1 readers in Japan.
Nakazawa (2004) compared the panel sequencing ability of fourth graders,
university students (aged nineteen to twenty-one) and adult students (aged
thirty to seventy). The university students outperformed the other two groups.
The explanation provided refers to the ongoing cognitive development of
fourth graders versus the reading experiences of the two adult groups. The
adult students had less experience reading manga compared to the university
students because they grew up in a time when reading manga was for children
and indicated that they had read manga in childhood but did not read it in the
present.
In addition to panel sequencing, the relationship between manga reading
experience and comprehension has also been examined among adult L1 readers.
Nakazawa (1997) found that university students in their twenties had more
manga reading experience than those in their forties and fifties. He found that
students in their twenties and thirties recalled more and comprehended more
of story manga than university students in their fifties and sixties. Additionally,
Nakazawa compared the results of nineteen to twenty-year-old students who
indicated they read manga one or more days per week to those who indicated
they did not read manga at all. Those with current manga reading experience
recalled more than those who did not currently read manga.
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To summarise, the L1 literature provides the basis for including several

features of the present study of L2 reading. First, the L1 literature identifies
panel sequencing as a necessary ability of reading manga. Will this also be the
case among L2 learners/non-native readers? Second, the L1 literature outlines
a clear role for manga reading experience in how children approach a manga
story and how well adults recall and comprehend manga stories. Will manga
reading experience also play a role amongst L2 learners/non-native readers and
what might that role be in relation to panel sequencing?
L2 Perspectives
Though manga have been used in L2 Japanese language classrooms over the last
two decades, it appears that they have attracted virtually no empirical scrutiny
to support claims regarding their effectiveness in the actual development of
language skills. Brantmeier, Davis and Havard (2011) compiled a comprehen
sive bibliography of empirical research and theory about reading in languages
other than English. These researchers found forty-eight references in both
Japanese and English since 1974, yet none seem to deal directly with manga as
a unit of analysis in spite of a focus on topics such as narrative comprehension,
word knowledge, comprehension of technical Japanese, strategy use, cognitive
load and affective variables (pp. 150–152). Panel [koma] sequencing did not
appear in any of the titles referenced in Brantmeier, Davis and Havard.
Published material specifically concerning manga in the L2 Japanese
classroom context tends to offer an application focus, that is, a series of how-to
activities using manga as a so-called ‘authentic’ materials. The June 1993 issue
of Nihongo is an example of this kind. More recently, Chinami (2004) provides
a comprehensive series of activities using manga for advanced learners, while
Chinami (2005) provides methods for pedagogising manga. In February 2010,
The Japan Foundation launched the website anime-manga.jp, offering interested
parties access to a variety of learning materials using manga as the impetus.
In summary, there appears to be limited or no published empirical work
that has dealt with reading manga from an L2 perspective, let alone the
issue of panel sequencing by non-native Japanese language readers (although
Promnitz-Hayashi describes the use of manga in English teaching in chapter
eleven).
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The Present Study

This chapter examines the reading behaviors of two groups of L2 learners/
non-native readers while reading Japanese manga. One group had studied the
Japanese language through to advanced-level courses and, at the time of the
study, was enrolled in a course in which they read manga for language learning
purposes. The other group was enrolled in a Spanish linguistics course and
some indicated that they had read Japanese manga in English. The purpose
of examining the Spanish group is to gain an understanding of non-native
readers’ initial knowledge state for reading Japanese manga. By comparing the
performance of the Spanish students to the advanced-level Japanese students,
it is possible to gain a sense of the distance L2 learners must travel in becoming
more proficient readers of Japanese manga. Japanese, unlike English (or
Spanish), typically reads from right to left. One important aspect of reading
manga is to move from koma to koma or to sequence the koma right to left and
top to bottom. Therefore, we focus on this aspect of reading manga in the
present chapter.
Research Questions
Given the issues identified in the review of the literature above, the following
research questions guide the present study:
1. Does manner of presentation (panels-only, panels-plus-visuals only,

panels-plus- visuals-plus-text) contribute to the success with which
non-native readers sequence Japanese manga panels?
2. Does L2 proficiency in Japanese (+/- proficiency) contribute to the
success with which non-native readers sequence Japanese manga
panels?
3. Does manga reading experience (+/- experience) contribute to the
success with which non-native readers sequence Japanese manga
panels?
4. Do individual differences contribute to how non-native readers
approach sequencing Japanese manga panels and the success with
which they sequence the panels?
182
Methods and Procedures

Two groups of undergraduate students enrolled in the School of International
Studies at the University of New South Wales participated voluntarily in the
study. They each signed an informed consent form. One group (n = 20) was
enrolled in an upper-level Japanese language course, ‘Learning Japanese by
reading manga’. All members of this group had experience reading manga and
had studied the Japanese language to an advanced level. The other group (n =
15) was enrolled in an upper-level Spanish linguistics course, ‘Spanish/English
contrasts’. Thirteen students in this group had never studied the Japanese
language. Four students indicated they had experienced reading manga in
English, with two of these students having studied Japanese to the advanced
level and indicating that they had experience of reading Japanese manga.
The participants’ task was to sequence manga panels under three conditions
as described above. Each participant was given a booklet of materials that
contained the manga panels for the three manners of presentation (conditions).
The first page of the booklet provided instructions for the various sequencing
conditions. The researcher read aloud the instructions to the participants as
they followed along silently.
The first condition required participants to sequence blank koma (no visuals
or text). The blank koma were prepared by the researchers (see Appendix). A
set of five, six or seven koma was arranged to look like a page of manga.
The participants had five pages to sequence, a total of twenty-eight panels.
They were instructed to write a number inside each panel to indicate the panel
sequence and were given an example. They were given twenty seconds to
number each page. The time restriction pushed them to do the task quickly
and to not over think the sequencing. They were also instructed not to turn the
page in the booklet until instructed to do so.
The second condition required the participants to sequence koma that had
visuals (people and empty speech bubbles). The materials for this condition
consisted of two two-page manga stories in which each two-page story was
presented on a separate page of the booklet. These stories originally appeared in
Taketomi Kenji’s 2006 Suzuki Sensei, volume 1 (pp. 4–5, 42–43). The stories
were photocopied and the text was removed from the speech bubbles. The first
extract had seven panels on one page and eight on the other. The second extract
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MANGA VISION
had eight panels on one page and nine on the other. The participants were given
thirty seconds to number the koma and again were instructed not to turn the
page in the booklet until instructed to do so.
The third condition required the participants to sequence koma that were
graphically and linguistically complete. The materials for this condition consisted
of two two-page stories for which each two-page story was presented on a
separate page. These koma originally appeared in Taketomi Kenji’s 2006 Suzuki
Sensei, volume 1 (pp. 58–59, 100–101). The first extract had six panels on one
page and seven on the other. The second extract had eight panels on one page
and nine on the other. This time the participants were given fifty seconds to
number the two stories (as there was more information to process) and at the
end of the allotted time the participants handed in the booklets.
Analysis
A score for each participant was calculated based on the number of panels
sequenced correctly under each of the three conditions. There were a total of
twenty-eight panels in the first panel-only condition, it was found that certain
panels were sequenced correctly regardless of what other factors influenced
performance. For example, the middle of a three-panel sequence could be
identified as the second one no matter whether the participant was sequencing
from left to right or right to left. Thus, twelve such panels were not included
in the score. The maximum score was, therefore, sixteen. Applying the same
consideration to the second panels-plus-visuals condition, seven panels were
found which could be sequenced correctly under any sequencing orientation.
Thus, the maximum score for condition two was deemed to be twenty-five. Only
one of the panels in the third condition (graphically and linguistically complete
manga) could be sequenced correctly under any approach to numbering, thus,
the maximum score for this task was twenty-nine.
Three factors for analysis were identified, based on participants’ back
ground and performance. First, the participants have different backgrounds
in terms of Japanese language study (+/-) and manga reading experience (+/-).
Second, participants differed in the direction in which they sequenced koma:
correctly, from right to left, incorrectly, from left to right, and a mixture of the
two. Third, when participants sequenced the two-page manga, some sequenced
184
them continuously across the two pages, others sequenced them separately
(starting at one on each page) and others employed a mixture of the two
methods (sequencing one continuously and the other separately). The analysis
of these factors will be discussed in relation to the research questions below.
Results and Discussion

The first research question addresses whether the manner of presentation of
the manga (panels only, panels-plus-visuals only, panels-plus-visuals-plus-text)
contributes to how successfully non-native readers sequence Japanese manga
panels. The results of the analysis are presented in Table 10.1, in which the
column averages, presented in the bottom row, are relevant to this research
question.
Factor Panels-only Panels-plus- Panels-plus- Row TOTALS

(%) Visuals (%) Visuals-plus- (%)
Text (%)
Background +Japanese/ 56.81 67.00 60.17 61.33
+manga
n = 22
-Japanese/ 67.19 44.92 57.76 56.62
+manga
n=4
-Japanese/ 2.06 3.08 0.00 1.71
-manga
n=9
Direction right to left 94.75 89.00 98.86 94.20
n = 12
left to right 0.44 0.28 0.00 0.24
n = 13
mixed 39.38 2.12 36.90 26.13
n = 10
Continuity continuous 45.38 28.00 48.59 40.66
n = 22
separate 49.38 62.00 48.62 53.33
n = 10
mixed 0.00 6.40 0.00 2.13
n=3
Column 39.49 33.64 38.99
Average
percentages
Table 10.1. Percent of panels sequenced correctly in the three manners of presentation by
factor
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MANGA VISION
The average percentages of correctly sequenced panels across the three manners
of presentation are 39.49 per cent, 33.64 per cent and 38.99 per cent, respect
ively. That the differences in correctly sequenced panels are so small – 4 per
cent – suggests that, overall, the manner of presentation does not contribute
to the success with which participants sequence Japanese manga panels. The
similarity in scores supports the idea that panel sequencing is an independent
component of manga comprehension.
This pattern of small numerical differences may be observed in four of the
nine rows of data. However, there is at least a 10 per cent difference between
the three manners of presentation within certain rows: +Japanese/ +manga,
-Japanese/+manga, mixed direction, continuous enumeration and separate
enumeration. Moreover, there is no discernible pattern as to which manner of
presentation was the most or least difficult according to different backgrounds,
directions and continuity of enumeration. The panels-only presentation is the
highest scoring in three of the nine factors and the lowest in three of the nine
factors. The panels-plus-visuals presentation is the highest score in four cases
but also the lowest in another four cases. The panels-plus-visuals-plus-text
presentation was the highest score for one factor and the lowest for three. These
factors and the relationships between them will be discussed below.
The second and third research questions address the background factors of
Japanese language study and experience reading manga in Japanese or any other
language. Three groups of learners were identified based on this background
information: +Japanese/+manga experience, of which there were twenty-two,
-Japanese/+manga experience, of which there were four, and -Japanese/-manga
experience, of which there was a group of nine. As can be seen in the row
averages (the last column) presented in Table 10.1, the most successful participants
were the +Japanese/+manga experience participants, who correctly sequenced
61.33 per cent of the panels. The least successful participants were the
-Japanese/-manga experience participants, who correctly sequenced 1.71 per
cent of the panels. They had neither linguistic nor extra-linguistic knowledge
upon which to draw. The effect of manga reading experience is quite large. The
-Japanese/+manga experience group successfully sequenced 56.62 per cent of the
panels and there was a 54.94 per cent increase in accuracy due to manga reading
experience. There was also a difference in scores between the +Japanese/+manga
experience and -Japanese/+manga experience groups of 4.71 per cent, which
186
suggests that Japanese language study has only a minor influence on correctly
sequencing panels.
Manner of presentation was not expected to affect the participants who
were characterised as -Japanese/-manga experience, because they had neither
linguistic nor extra-linguistic knowledge to bring to the task. These partici
pants did not process the cues that the visuals provided, such as the direction of
the characters’ gaze or the objects presented in the panels to create a continuous
story. The text, when added, was impenetrable to them. The participants
characterised as -Japanese/+manga were expected to benefit from the addition
of visuals because they had the extra-linguistic experience of reading manga.
It was hypothesised that these four participants would process the visual cues
from experience; however, they were less successful in the panels-plus-visuals
condition (44.92 per cent) than in the panels-only condition (56.81 per cent).
The decrease in their success rate may be due to the differences in how visual
cues are organised in Japanese manga compared to English-language manga.
This group’s success rate improved with the addition of text, even though they
could not read the text.
The fourth research question addresses individual differences in non-
native readers’ approaches to sequencing manga panels as well as their success in
sequencing them. The analysis revealed two sequencing behaviours for further
investigation. The first was the direction in which the participants sequenced
the panels. The Japanese manga panels examined were sequenced from right
to left and from top to bottom. The analysis revealed three approaches to
sequencing related to direction: exclusively right to left sequencing, exclusively
left to right sequencing, and mixing of these two directionalities either within
the two-page manga or between different manga. The row averages in Table
10.1 reveal that the most successful sequencing was accomplished by those who
exclusively sequenced right to left, 94.20 per cent, whereas the least successful
was undertaken by those who exclusively sequenced left to right, 0.24 per cent.
Those who mixed sequencing directions achieved some success, 26.14 per cent,
most likely due to the panels they sequenced from right to left.
Analysis revealed that only twelve participants exclusively sequenced
panels from right to left. What are their characteristics? Two of the twelve
were from the -Japanese/+manga experience group – meaning that, surprisingly,
only ten participants of the twenty-two +Japanese/+manga experience group
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MANGA VISION
exclusively sequenced the panels in the correct direction. The analysis revealed
that only ten participants adopted a mixed orientation to sequencing (sometimes
right to left, sometimes left to right). Two of the ten were from ‑Japanese
language study groups, whereas the other eight had studied Japanese. Analysis
revealed that thirteen participants adopted an exclusive left to right orientation
to sequencing. These participants consisted of nine -Japanese language study
participants and four who had studied Japanese language previously. Inter
estingly, and importantly, enrolment in a course in which reading manga is
required did not guarantee that the participant adopted a right to left orientation.
The second sequencing behaviour the analysis revealed was the continuity
with which non-native readers enumerated the panels of the two-page manga
stories used in the panels-plus-visuals and panels-plus-visuals-plus-text manners
of presentation. The participants demonstrated three approaches related to
continuity: enumerating the two-page manga stories continuously, thus overtly
connecting the story line, enumerating the two-page manga stories separately,
starting the sequencing over again on the second page, and enumerating
some two-page stories continuously and others separately (mixed). The row
averages in Table 10.1 reveal that the greatest success was achieved by those
who sequenced the panels separately, 53.33 per cent, followed by those who
sequenced them continuously, 40.66 per cent. The least successful participants,
by far, were the three who mixed their approach to continuity, 2.13 per cent.
Most participants (n = 22) adopted a continuous orientation to sequencing
panels, thus overtly connecting the sequencing of the two pages of manga.
These 22 participants consisted of participants with Japanese language study
experience (n = 16) as well as those without (n = 6) and among those six, some
had manga reading experience (n = 2) and the others had none (n = 4). Among
those adopting a continuous orientation were participants who sequenced
panels from right to left (n = 8), left to right (n = 9) and mixed the directions (n
= 5). The term ‘separate’ in Table 10.1 refers to treating the two-page manga as
two distinct manga. That is, a group of participants (n = 10) restarted at one the
sequencing of panels across the two pages. Thus, they did not overtly connect
the panels into one story line. Once again, it is a diverse group of readers.
Among the group with no Japanese language study, five with no manga reading
experience and one with manga reading experience enumerated the pages
separately. Four of the group with Japanese language study enumerated the
188
pages separately. Readers from each of the three approaches to the direction
of panel sequencing enumerated pages separately: right to left (n = 4), left to
right (n = 3) and mixed (n = 3). Only three participants mixed continuous
and separate enumerations of the panels and all three study the Japanese
language. Their approach to continuity proved extremely unsuccessful (2.13
per cent correct). Two had mixed the direction of their sequencing while the
other adopted left to right sequencing.
Taken together, these results demonstrate that (1) continuity and direction
are separate aspects of sequencing manga panels, (2) the various approaches
to continuity are not associated with Japanese language study (+/-) or manga
reading experience (+/-), and (3) the various approaches to direction are not
associated with Japanese language study (+/-) or manga reading experience
(+/-).
Pedagogical Implications
The pedagogical implication is clear: in order for students to successfully
engage with manga, sequencing strategies should be taught explicitly and
practiced frequently. There is a small literature mostly from a L1 perspective
that advocates using comics in a broad range of curriculum areas, not just in
the language arts. Jenkins and Detamore (2008, pp. 33–35) recommend a
sequencing-in-reading activity be employed. These authors are not concerned
with manga or the initial first step of orientating novice manga readers so that
they can correctly sequence manga koma, they focus more on the reconstruction
of the story from comic strips that have been cut into discreet panels. The
objective here is that the reconstructed story ‘make sense’. Steinberg suggests
a similar activity (1992, p. 9). While these and other comparable classroom
activities are laudable, the present study suggests that in the case of manga
reading, there is a preliminary step before the cutting up of the manga and
that is to inure students to the correct sequencing of koma in the first place.
More recently, Yoshida provides a comprehensive summary of what she calls
‘techniques to take you into the atmosphere of the manga world’ (2010, p. 22).
In this summary, Yoshida, with the help of an actual manga (Aoike Yasuko’s
Eroika yori ai o komete), discusses how to read the sequence of frames in the
example given (pp. 22–23) by providing a chart and written exegesis – ‘How
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MANGA VISION
your eyes should travel through the frames’ (p. 22). Knowledge of this aspect of
reading cannot be assumed or taken for granted.
Directions for Future Research

A much larger-scale study involving many more participants would lend
itself to statistical analysis, such as a multiple regression analysis. Such a stat
istical analysis would allow us to identify factors that could predict successful
sequencing. Based on the data presented, we hypothesise that the factors that
might predict successful sequencing are right to left sequencing followed by
Japanese language study, subsequently followed by manga reading experience.
The non-native readers who participated in this study were overtly focused
on sequencing manga panels. The title of the booklet they received was ‘Manga
sequencing tasks’. They were required to write numbers in each panel and were
given a limited amount of time to complete the task. In the end, the three
manners of presentation we examined showed little effect on successful panel
sequencing. One direction for future research is to examine the role of com
prehension – multi-modal including text and other clues and cues – in panel
sequencing. Such a study would involve instructing the learners to read a manga
story and as they do to indicate the order in which they read the panels. To be
sure that comprehension was in focus, the participants would be told that they
had to answer comprehension questions after reading each manga story.
Furthermore, testing panel sequencing using manga examples from a range
of styles appears necessary. As mentioned above, for the present study, the
researchers chose a manga that could be characterised as a slice-of-life narrative
set in a Japanese high school. The rather simple and regular arrangement of
koma in this manga is more characteristic of shōnen style manga, written for
young males, and contains little koma complexity. When compared with many
shōjo manga in which koma styles are less regular and perhaps less obvious, even
the more experienced manga reader may have trouble in sequencing the koma
correctly.
Finally, a study that replicates those carried out by Nakazawa (see above),
but using L2 Japanese readers as the control group and those without Japanese
language knowledge as a second group appears possible, utilising advancements
in eye-tracking technology. Such an approach may shed light onto when
190
sequencing takes place and how koma are sequenced by the reader before he or
she actually has a chance to think about the sequencing too deeply (that is, how
a reader’s eyes scan both the page and the printed koma while using different
types of manga as discussed above).
Conclusion
The analysis presented above may be summarised as follows in relation to the
research questions:
1. The manner of presentation (panels only, panels-plus-visuals only,

panels-plus-visuals-plus-text) contributes little to the success with
which non-native readers sequence Japanese manga panels.
2. L2 proficiency in Japanese (+/- proficiency) contributes little to the
success with which non-native readers sequence Japanese manga panels.
3. Manga reading experience (+/- experience) contributes greatly to
the success with which non-native readers sequence Japanese manga
panels.
The fourth research question was: Do individual differences contribute to how

non-native readers approach sequencing Japanese manga panels and the success
with which they sequence the panels? The following factors and behaviors are
associated with successful panel sequencing:
1. manga reading experience;

2. sequencing panels from right to left, consistently or inconsistently;
3. a consistent approach (continuous or separate) to enumerating the panels
in two-page manga.
The following factors and behaviours are associated with (extremely) unsuccessful
panel sequencing:
1. a lack of Japanese language study combined with a lack of manga

reading experience;
2. adopting a left to right orientation to sequencing;
3. mixing continuous and separate approached to enumerating panels
between manga pages.
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MANGA VISION
While comprehension of the manga stories was not measured in the current
study, it would appear impossible for non-native readers who are extremely
unsuccessful in sequencing manga panels to successfully comprehend the manga
stories. Thus, in order for learners to make the most of manga, appropriate
instruction in terms of sequencing strategies is crucial.
Appendix: Manga Panel Layout
192
References
Allen, K., & Ingulsrud, J. E. (2003). Manga literacy: Popular culture and the reading habits
of Japanese college students. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 46(8), 674–683.
Brantmeier, C., Davis, S., & Havard, M. (2011). Reading in other languages: A
bibliography for the scholar-teacher. Reading in a Foreign Language, 23(1), 139–160.
Chinami, K. (2005). Manga de manabu Nihongo ~Nihongo kyōiku de no sutorii manga
riyō no kanōsei~ [Learning Japanese through manga – the possibility of using story
manga in Japanese language education]. In M. Kusaka (Ed.), Manga kenkyū e no tobira
(pp. 133–153). Fukuoka, Japan: Azusa Shoin.
Chinami, K. (2004). Manga de yomu Nihon shakai: Hataraku joseitachi [Reading about
Japanese society in manga: Working women]. Kyushu University Centre for
International Exchange Students.
Ingulsrud, J. E., & Allen, K. (2009). Reading Japan Cool: Patterns of manga literacy and
discourse. Lanham: Lexington Books.
Jenkins, R., & Detamore, D. (2008). Comics in your curriculum. Marion, IL: Pieces of
Learning.
Nakazawa, J. (2002). Analysis of manga (comic) reading processes: Manga literacy and eye
movement during manga reading. Manga Studies, 2, 39–49.
Nakazawa, J. (2005). Development of manga (comic book) literacy in children. In D. W.
Shwalb, J. Nakazawa, & B. J. Shwalb (Eds.), Applied developmental psychology: Theory,
practice, and research from Japan (pp. 23–42). Greenwich, CT: Information Age
Publishing.
Nakazawa, J. (1997) Development of manga reading comprehension: Developmental and
experimental differences in adults. Proceedings of the 8th Annual Conference of Japan
Society of Developmental Psychology, 309.
Nakazawa, J. (2004). Manga (comic) literacy skills as determination factors of manga story
comprehension. Manga Studies, 5, 6–25.
Nakazawa, J., & Nakazawa, S. (1993). How do children understand comics? Analysis of
comic reading comprehension. Annual of Research in Early Childhood, 15, 35–39.
Steinberg, J. (1992). Whatcha gonna learn from comics? How to use comics to teach languages.
Markham, ON: Pipping Publishing Ltd.
The Japan Foundation. (2011). Present condition of overseas Japanese-language education:
Survey report on Japanese-language education abroad 2009. Tokyo: The Japan
Foundation.
Yoshida, M. (2010). How to get more out of the manga reading experience. Nippon:
Discovering Japan, 4, 22–23.
Manga
Taketomi, K. (2006). Suzuki sensei (Vol. 1). Tokyo: Futabasha.
193
CHAPTER ELEVEN
M A NG A IN T HE
E NGL I S H A S A F OR E IGN L A NGUAGE
CL A S S R OOM
LARA PROMNITZ-HAYASHI
Introduction
Critics of manga tend to assume that manga are for children, when in fact
adults are also avid readers (Allen & Ingulsrud, 2003; Jacobs, 2007). Walking
into a bookstore or manga café in Japan, one will find a large selection of
genres catering for everyone, including shōnen (boy) bishōjo (girl), dōjinshi
(amateur), sports (especially basketball and tennis), yaoi (love between gay
men), adventure, sarariman (businessmen), OL (female office worker) and
gurume (cooking) (Brau 2004; Lent 2004). While manga and comics have
long been a prominent form of popular culture, they have frequently been
viewed negatively in the education realm, with many educators arguing that
they are for children who have not yet attained ‘the level of reading “real”
books’ (Marsh & Millard, as cited in Fukunaga, 2006, p.220), which if true,
may make manga suitable for second-language learners. Some educators are
reluctant to incorporate popular culture into the classroom at all (Morrison,
Bryan & Chilcoat, 2002). However, Cary (2004) states that between 90 and
95 per cent of literate Japanese people read manga, and if this is the case it may
be a useful medium to bring into the classroom as students already have a basic
knowledge on which to build.
194
Manga in the English as a Foreign Language Classroom
Multiliteracies
Foreign-language classrooms have long used a variety of teaching methods,
such as grammar-translation, audio-lingual and, more recently, communicative
language. In addition, critical thinking has come to the forefront of teaching in
recent years. While textbooks have always had a place in the classroom, it can
be argued that the more ‘modern’ classroom relies on multimodality in order to
enhance multiliteracies:
Literature pedagogy now finds itself confronted with highly sophis

ticated visual as well as textual material that has sprung out of the most
unexpected of sources – the comics … we are in the midst of a cognitive
shift and reading today has become a hybrid textual-visual experience,
as witnessed by the inescapable presence of the Internet, PowerPoint,
cell-phone screens, and the numerous full-colour illustrations and
photographs now found in newspapers. (Tabachnick, as cited in
Vandermeersche & Soetaert, 2011, p. 5)
Chun (2009) argues that by incorporating substantive topics that relate to

students’ own experience and knowledge, multiliteracies pedagogy works to
‘promote learning that recognizes students’ own knowledge resources, which
in turn affirms students’ identities as learners and thinkers’ (p. 145). The use of
manga in the language classroom can not only motivate students, it can also
introduce them to a variety of literacies, such as cultural literacy, visual literacy
and critical literacy. Williams (2008) further states that the use of comics in
the classroom provides students with the opportunity to deconstruct texts on
different levels, to examine the stories, characters, contexts and relationship
between the images and text.
Cultural and Critical Literacies

Kubota (2002, as cited in Fukunaga, 2006) questions how culture should be
taught in language classrooms, claiming that cultural knowledge taught in
language classrooms is often static. Zeising (2001) argues that the foundation of
any meaningful understanding ‘requires understanding of the cultural context’
(p. 1). Developing students’ cultural literacy has become an integral part of
foreign-language learning. It is important for students to have knowledge about
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MANGA VISION
their own culture before learning about the culture of their target language.
Naqeeb (2012) states that cultural literacy is about ‘understanding the meaning
of the words based on a common knowledge that enables one to make sense
of what is read’ (p. 41). Thanasoulas (as cited in Naqeeb, 2012) further argues
that learning English as a foreign language (EFL) includes grammatical and
communicative competencies, and language proficiency together with cultural
competence. That is, knowing the beliefs, conventions and customs along with
systems of meaning of another country.
Through the use of different mediums, students are able to reflect, analyse
and understand their own culture before moving on to different cultures. In
addition, students are able to become more motivated to critically question
different aspects of their own culture and actively share their opinions.
Fukunaga (2006) suggests that students can become active learners rather than
passive learners through critical awareness. This often occurs when students are
given a number of different tasks and discussion activities in which they need
to question specific cultural and linguistic elements.
Study Design
‘Popular culture through television, manga, anime and horror’ was a fifteen-
week elective course that consisted of two ninety-minute classes per week at a
private university in urban Japan. There were thirty students (twenty-six females
and four males) in the class, who were third and fourth-year students major
ing in EFL. The course was comprised of five units: ‘Introduction to popular
culture’, ‘Television’, ‘Horror’, ‘Manga’ and ‘Anime’. The objectives of the course
were for students to identify cultural aspects in their own (sub)cultures and
to compare and contrast Japanese and ‘Western’ cultural elements through
different mediums. Students enrolled in the course for different reasons, but
twenty-three students reported that they primarily enrolled because they were
interested in anime and manga, even though the course covered other topics.
Of those twenty-three students, five described themselves as otaku and reported
that they often dressed as their favourite characters when they visited Tokyo and
attended cosplay conventions and cosplay parties. Six students enrolled because
their peers had taken the course previously and recommended it to them, while
one student admitted to taking the course largely because it fit in her schedule.
196
Methodology
The findings for this study were obtained through a number of different
methods. As all activities presented to the students were communicative in
nature, it was possible for the teacher to observe discussions among students
as they worked through the activities. Students were given worksheets to
complete during their discussions, as well as copies of manga for translation
(see online content for a printable introductory manga worksheet), both of
which the teacher collected for analysis. In addition to the worksheets, students
were also required to present a manga character and story to the class and were
observed by the teacher from the planning and preparation stage through to the
presentation. Finally, students were asked to complete a questionnaire about the
course. It is important to note that all activities undertaken in this unit of the
course encouraged students to both develop multiliteracy skills in order to build
their English-language proficiency and further their understanding of cultural
differences through the medium of manga.
Findings and Analysis
Pictures are Worth a Thousand Words

As manga is a highly visual medium, studying the medium allows students to
develop visual literacy skills. Versaci maintains that graphic novels, a description
that also applies to manga and comics, enable teachers to ‘pose questions that help
students do two things: understand how images produce meaning, and become
engaged in the search for this meaning’ (as cited in Connors, 2011, p. 75). Jacobs
argues that, as texts, comics or manga can provide a ‘complex environment for the
negotiation of meaning’ and that the page layout itself can facilitate meaning mak
ing by the readers (2007, p. 21). Allen and Ingulsrud argue that the ‘multimodal
nature of manga is not simply text with illustration, but text in the speech bubbles
representing the illocutionary force of the manga character, which is central to the
illustrations’ and that simply knowing the words is ‘not sufficient to understand the
content’ (2005, p. 267). They further state that in manga, meaning is communic
ated at different levels, which includes the layout of the frames, the illustrations
and the words, and that a successful reader must ‘process and interpret the
meanings of these layers in order to build an understanding of the text’ (p. 267).
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MANGA VISION
In the course discussed in the present chapter, the students were first
introduced to the visual elements of well-known Japanese manga. For this
exercise One Piece, Death Note and Sazae-san were chosen, as students were likely
to be familiar with the titles and could easily access copies in the university’s
library on campus. Students were given copies of the manga in which the text
was omitted and in small groups they were asked to identify any aspects of
the page layouts that they felt were important. Students were able to identify
images (people, creatures) settings (buildings, places, scenery), the shapes, sizes
and position of word balloons, the number of frames and their positioning,
and sound effects (onomatopoeia). It was here that meaning making came into
play, as the students were then asked to imagine what was happening in the
story simply by observing the visual cues. The students were next given copies
of English-language comics. Spiderman, The Avengers and The Simpsons were
chosen, as many of the students had watched at least one of these in either
cartoon or movie format. Students were asked to repeat the same activity as
above. Following this, students were next given copies of the manga with the
text included and asked to compare the Japanese manga and English-language
comics and list any differences they found.
The first obvious difference that students identified in the visual style
of the manga and comics was that manga are usually monochrome and are
often printed on low-grade paper, while English-language comics are more
often printed in colour. One student stated that at first glance the English-
language comics looked more ‘sophisticated because they are so colourful’.
Many students also felt that storylines and easy reading appeared to hold more
importance in manga than a sophisticated (i.e., colourful) appearance and they
noted that the images and detail in the images often expressed more than the
text. Schodt describes manga as ‘visual narratives with a few words tossed
in for effect’ (1996, p. 26) and this was a judgement reiterated in student
discussions. Many students stated that text is sometimes unnecessary, as the
images already contain enough information. On the other hand, students felt
that comics seemed to place more emphasis on appearance (based on their use
of colour), and on text rather than illustration.
Students further noticed that manga portrayed more emotions than their
English comic counterparts. In manga, an illustrator’s shorthand can portray
emotions, such as anger, happiness or embarrassment (Wolk, 2001). A simple
198
line or shading can alter a character’s emotion or even suggest the mood
surrounding a character. Shading drawn under the eyes or sweat drops can
indicate blushing and embarrassment and lines on the forehead can represent
anger. Sometimes pupils of the eyes may be deleted and the eyes left blank, which
indicates an uneven emotional state (Natsume, 2000). Parts of the body may
be exaggerated or distorted in order to portray different situations and feelings.
Female characters are usually drawn with large eyes that are surrounded by long
eyelashes and may even glisten with stars to show beauty or radiance. Natsume
(2000) describes these visual characteristics, albeit unrealistic, as ‘figurative
idioms’. Students stated that it was easier to understand emotions in manga
than in English-language comics; in comics, the faces were often too small to
see. For example, when looking at sample pages from The Simpsons, one student
stated that ‘I can’t understand if Professor Frink is angry or thinking because
he is wearing big glasses and his face is too small because the talking bubbles
are big with many [sic] text’.
Furthermore, students noted that figures and objects can be drawn in a
realistic style or an exaggerated style depending on the artist. Japanese manga
often place emphasis on onomatopoeia rather than detailed dialogue. Balloons are
usually kept short and the framing varies from the very simple to very detailed,
depending on the illustrator and the story at hand. Toku (2001, p.13) divides
manga into four important visual elements:
1. Picture (which depicts figures and objects)

2. Word (including onomatopoeia)
3. Balloon (indicating words)
4. Frame (the surrounding pictures)
She further states that manga consist of more complexity and more emotional
and psychological depth and readers’ attention is usually focused on minute
details. For example, scenes of a flower coming into bloom may last for three
pages. Students in the class identified all of these elements without any
scaffolding from the teacher, and noted that, in manga, one movement could
last for several frames, as if in slow motion, whereas the English-language
comics that they had been given to read did not use this form of illustration,
and actions finished more quickly.
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MANGA VISION
It is all in the Words

Students appeared to have no trouble as they investigated the visual aspects
of manga and comics; however, when they were faced with the task of
investigating the text, they had more difficulty. To introduce the concept of
text in class, students were given copies of the famous manga Sazae-san. The
original Japanese text was written in the margins, but the English translation
had been omitted from the speech balloons by the teacher. In small groups, the
students were asked to translate the Japanese and write what they felt was the
best English translation in the speech balloons. This task produced a variety
of different outcomes and resulted in the students thinking about how difficult
translating manga into English can be, as meanings and humour can easily
be lost in translation. See Table 11.1 for examples of some of the translations
students wrote, followed by the published translation as given in the English
edition released by Kodansha International.
Japanese Students translation
1. Sazae-san asks Masuo-san why he is already in bed:

アラもうおやすみ？ Oh, are you already in bed?
[ara mou oyasumi?] (female student, 21 yo., 4th year)
Masuo-san replies:
ガスちゅうどく I have a gas addiction.
[gasu chūdoku] (male student, 20 yo, 3rd year)
I’m gas toxic

(female student, 21 yo, 3rd year)
I’m gasaholic
(Published translation: Gas poisoning!)

2. Katsuo-san is talking to himself while trying to make a sweet potato stamp:
だめだこれもしっぱい Oh damn it! It seems crap, either.
[dameda kore mo shippai] (female student, 22 yo, 3rd year)
Nooo! Failed again!

(Published translation: This one’s no good

either.)
Table 11.1. English translations by students.
200
Students were asked to discuss the difficulties they had in translating and
all students stated that translating humour was the most difficult, as it can be
culturally specific. They felt that humour in manga was lost when it was trans
lated into English. Additionally, they found humour difficult to understand
when reading English-language comics and manga translated into English.
When reading English-language comics such as The Simpsons, which contains
a great deal of humour, students said it was extremely difficult to understand the
jokes and cultural interaction with the humour as there was a lot of sarcasm.
One student stated that ‘I didn’t know sarcasm before and it was very difficult
to understand in the comics. I didn’t know if they were serious or joking’.
A further difference they found was that sometimes phrases are simpler in
Japanese, as they can be as short as one or two words, whereas in English, the
translation can be much longer. Students also felt that when there was more
text, it distracted the reader from the visuals, which they viewed as equally
important as textual content. For example, one group of students were dis
cussing One Piece and Spiderman and argued that some frames of One Piece
had very little text, yet it was ‘easy to know what was happening in the story
and Luffy’s emotions just looking at the pictures’, whereas in Spiderman it was
difficult to know how Spiderman was feeling as ‘we can’t see his face and there
is too much difficult text we don’t understand’.
Students, upon investigation of the text and wording in both manga and
comics, came to the conclusion that English-language comics were off-putting
and not motivating as they had far too much text for them. They admitted that
when they opened the comics and saw the first page, they wanted to close them
again, as they felt the amount of text was overwhelming. The students claimed
that having large chunks of text in addition to a larger number of smaller
frames made the page seem too ‘busy’. One student stated that when they saw
the amount of text in The Simpsons it made them feel as if they were reading a
novel. They questioned why comic writers could not use more illustrations to
tell the narrative rather than relying on a lot of text.
It is all the Same yet Different

Upon reading both the translated manga and English-language comics,
students were asked to critically compare and contrast them. Initially, students
were asked to write about their ideas individually, and then form groups of
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three or four to share their findings and ideas. The end of the exercise involved
a classroom discussion of what they had found and their opinions. All students
found significantly more differences than similarities (see Table 11.2).
Similarities Differences
Price Reading direction

Easy to buy Amount of text
Always has a ‘hero’ of some form Number of frames
Speech balloons Number of characters
Variety of genres Monochrome vs. colour
‘Otaku’/‘nerd’ fan base Size
Good vs. evil Advertising
Continuity
Language
Table 11.2. Similarities and Differences between Manga and Comics.
The first difference students noticed was that they had to read English-language
comics ‘backwards’, they open in the opposite direction to manga and their
frames are ordered from left to right and top to bottom. Students also noticed
that many comics are in colour, which they found appealing, and that comics
often contained more frames per page than manga, with significantly more text
in each frame. While one page in a manga may have five frames and the only
text may be onomatopoeia, in a comic there may be ten frames with each frame
containing speech in addition to onomatopoeia. They found that some comics
had many characters, especially superhero comics, and this was often confusing.
Students were also surprised that characters often die in comics, only to come
back in future editions, which does not occur in Japanese manga. In addition,
they found it easier to feel empathy for characters in Japanese manga compared
to English-language comics, although they admitted that this was possibly due
to the fact they shared similar cultural ties and knowledge.
Many students noticed the size difference between manga and comics, with
some preferring comics as they are thinner and are therefore lighter to carry. On
the other hand, some felt that the size of comics was ‘stingy’ as they are quite
short in the terms of the number of pages, and felt that it was not good value
for money, especially as some pages were ‘wasted’ with advertising. Students
felt that manga contain more continuity, as volumes are often connected in
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some way, whereas comics had one storyline that finishes, with the next volume
containing a completely different storyline. Lastly, students noticed differences
in the language. They thought that manga contained more narration and at
times more slang than English-language comics. They reported that these
additions made the story easier to understand and more fun to read. Students
also found the language in English-language comics to be more difficult,
and needed to refer to their dictionaries more frequently than when reading
manga translated into English. Therefore, perhaps when introducing manga
and comics into the language classroom, it would beneficial to use translated
manga initially as it generally contains less text.
Despite finding many differences, students did notice some similarities.
Students thought that the pricing and ease of purchase for both manga and
comics was quite similar, although translated manga cost three times more
than the original Japanese versions and are more difficult to buy. Both manga
and comics have a variety of genres and students noticed that both seemed
to have a ‘hero’ of some form, whether it was a superhero, a character with
special powers or an ‘everyday hero’ that readers could respect. Many genres
contained storylines that were about good versus evil in different forms with
good winning in most instances. They noticed that both contain balloons and
that the shapes change depending on whether they depict speech or thought.
Ultimately, both have an ‘otaku’/’nerd’ fan base, although, interestingly, the
students felt that manga characters were more popular for cosplay and comic
characters were more popular for Halloween costumes. This could possibly be
a cultural interpretation as cosplay is originally a Japanese phenomenon and
students view Halloween as predominantly an American concept.
Collaboration and Writing

Following critical analysis of the visual and textual elements of manga and
comics, students were given a collaborative project to complete. Students were
divided into groups of three or four and each group was given a blank A4
sheet of paper. Each group was asked to design a single manga character and
draw it on the paper. They were then asked to write information about the
character. While this was a free activity, groups had to include information
on the character’s name, age and place of birth. Additional information was
completely up to the group members. Students submitted their illustrations
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at the end of the class and in the following class each group was given copies
of all the characters from the previous class (a total of eight characters) and
notepaper. They were informed that each group was to design a story for a
manga and they were required to incorporate every character and decide which
genre it belonged to. They were given approximately one hour to do this and
then they were told that they would present their ‘manga’ to the class and
upon completion of all presentations, the class would vote on which ‘manga’
they thought would be best published. Students chose different ways to present
their story to the class. Some told simple narratives, some held the pictures of
characters as they told the story to make it more visual and two groups used
the paper to actually draw panels and produce a one-page layout of a manga.
A number of similar themes and elements were described. Most characters
had large eyes, female characters were kawaii (cute), male characters were
often muscular and all characters had some form of special ability, whether
it was flying, teleportation, super strength or shooting ramen soup from their
antennae. All groups decided on stories belonging to the shōnen genre and they
contained adventure, humour, friendship, fighting and a love story. Through
this activity, students were able to negotiate meaning and utilise their acquired
knowledge of agency and structural and grammatical conventions. These
were also utilised in students’ formal writing. In the course, they were given a
reading about mangaka [manga artists] (see Gravett, 2004, pp. 14–17) and had
to write a one-page summary of the reading, followed by an essay at the end
of the course. Students were able to include and discuss many of the elements
of manga that they had covered in the unit and many said that they would not
have been able to do that had they not critically thought about manga.
Why are Manga so Popular?

When students were asked the reasons for manga’s popularity, they provided
a number of explanations. They felt that manga are good value for money,
easy to read, easily recyclable, easy to buy, can invoke emotion and that the
vast number of genres means there is something for all ages and tastes. Most
importantly, many manga stories are about normal people doing normal things
and readers relate to this. Manga often provide an idealised view of the world
in terms of morality (respect, honour and traditional values) and also justice
(good overcomes evil). It is interesting to see that most series end on a note of
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everything being right in the world. On the other hand, manga can be a form of
escape, whereby readers are taken into a world that is more interesting, exciting
and fundamentally ‘right’. Japanese children are able to live their dreams and be
anyone or anything they want in a virtual context, while adults can learn about
the world from a ‘visual textbook’ (Toku, 2001).
One of the most popular manga among students in the class was One Piece,
a shōnen manga serial about pirates, written by Oda Eiichiro. When asked why
they thought it was such a popular manga, they replied that is easy to read, fun
and exciting, and that it had a number of themes, such as adventure, friendship,
loyalty, hardship, family, ‘magic’ and the idea of fighting for what one believes
in. In addition, readers can feel empathy towards a number of the characters
in the manga as they struggle through hardship, experience sadness and forge
friendship.
The plots and themes in manga vary greatly and include youth and its trials
and tribulations, coming of age, finding a place in a world that is constantly
changing, gender identities, the importance of friendship and family, love
stories, comedy, action, sex and fantasy. Many of these themes involve issues
that many people encounter and can therefore relate to. For example, school-
related issues interest teenagers, coming of age themes interest teenagers and
upper elementary-aged children, and friendship themes target all ages and
genders, as do comedy and fantasy.
Censorship of Japanese manga appears to be more relaxed than that of its
Western counterparts and nudity and sexual themes can appear in genres pop
ular for very young teenagers. When students were faced with the concept of
censorship, they were surprised and felt that ‘the West’ was too strict. When they
were shown stills of the anime version of One Piece, they commented on how
noticeable censorship was. For example, Sanji’s infamous cigarette was changed
to a lollipop, Nami and Robin’s revealing clothing had extra lines drawn to
make the collars higher, and bloody scenes suddenly contained very little blood.
The use of multimodal texts in the language classroom has numerous
benefits, including increases motivation, the promotion of a community of
practice and enhanced multiliteracies. Eckert (2006) defines a community of
practice as ‘a collection of people who engage on an ongoing basis in some
common endeavor’ and who are ‘engaged in mutual sense-making’ (p. 683).
As students had a common interest in manga and all shared the endeavor of
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understanding their own culture and a more ‘foreign’ culture, all students were
equals in the classroom.
Conclusion
Incorporating manga and comics into this language class promoted students’
objectivity through analysis. Students were interested in learning more
vocabulary in order to effectively describe the different elements of manga,
such as the imagery, storyline and characters. Through the manga development
activity, students were able to experiment with creative language use in ways
not traditionally possible using the academic English they were expected to
use in other courses. Students’ feedback showed that this type of activity was
viewed in a very positive way, as it was fun, creative, collaborative and ‘outside
the norm’ of a typical English class.
The incorporation of manga and comics into the classroom positively
contributed to student motivation and critical and cultural awareness. Their
shared knowledge of manga saw reluctant students contribute more confidently
in discussions and activities. It is important to note that all activities in the class
were conducted in English, with the exception of the translation activities. This
provided students with an opportunity to develop their English vocabulary
and grammar. Although students read manga regularly outside of class, they
had never given much thought to all of the elements involved in what they
were reading. Through reading and analysing manga in the classroom, students
were able to interpret not only textual conventions, but also those of format
and illustration, something they would not be doing if they were reading in
Japanese and for pleasure.

A printable EFL worksheet designed for use in teaching English through manga is available
online at http://mangastudies.com/mangavision/EFL.php or scan the above QR code.
206
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CHAP TER T WELVE
IMP OL I T E L A NGUAGE IN M A NG A
LIDIA TANAKA
Introduction
In the last ten to fifteen years, the general view towards manga has changed
dramatically from contempt for it as cheap entertainment (Natsume & Takeuchi,
2009) to appreciation for its educational, cultural, aesthetic and narrative
value. It is thanks to publications such as Manga! Manga! The World of Japanese
Comics, the pioneering book by Schodt (1983), that manga was introduced to
the West as a topic of research (for more details, see Brenner, 2007; Minami,
2008; Natsume & Takeuchi, 2009). An increasing number of scholars from
different disciplines, such as gender studies and anthropology (see chapter six,
see also Allison, 1996, 2000; Chinami, 2003, 2007; Gagné, 2008; Ito, 1994;
2005; Kinsella, 2000; Lee, 2000; Napier, 1998; Ogi, 2003; Takahashi, 2009;
Ueno, 2006); literature (Hirota, 1997; L. Miyake, 2008); language and lan
guage education (see chapters eight and eleven, see also Ingulsrud & Allen,
2009); and translation studies (see chapter thirteen, see also Jüngst, 2004) have
written on social issues through the analysis of manga.
Manga attract academic interest not only because of their popularity but
also due to the breadth of topics that they depict, and the social problems in
contemporary Japanese society they reflect. Moreover, they also contain rich
and wide-ranging communicative situations that provide a valuable source of
linguistic data. Manga is a unique multimodal medium that includes visual
and textual information, so characters’ psychological and emotional changes
are easily visible (see chapters two, nine and fourteen). Moreover, due to the
sequential arrangement of panels, it is easy for the researcher to understand
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the impact words have on their characters. These characteristics make manga
an ideal source of linguistic data, in particular for the present research.
Although concerns in relation to whether manga truly reflect how the Japanese
communicate in different situations might exist, the fact that they are used
to teach Japanese to foreign students is evidence that they are viewed as vivid
reflections of everyday communication (see Mangajin, 1993; Lammers, 2004).
Many researchers have advocated the use of manga as a legitimate source for
discourse analysis (Maynard, 2004, 2008) and they prove to be particularly
important for communicative situations where recording is not possible due to
ethics or other difficulties (Matsuoka & Poole, 2010).
Studies on communication in the last twenty years, such as those in
sociolinguistics and other linguistic areas, have emphasised the importance of
using authentic data. While conversations in interviews or between friends or
acquaintances can be easily obtained, there are situations where data recording is
extremely difficult because of privacy and/or lack of timely opportunities. Due
to strict privacy laws in Japan, taping or recording interactions in confidential
settings such as hospitals or counselling sessions is generally not allowed.
In scenarios of conflict, taping or recording instances of confrontation or
quarrelling is very challenging, not only due to the complexity of obtaining
the interlocutors’ permission but also due to the unplanned and unpredictable
nature of such encounters. In contrast, such exchanges in manga are abundant,
providing an excellent resource for linguistic data.
Research on Japanese spoken communication has been extremely product
ive; however, the focus of such studies has been mainly on exchanges with
friends or amicable encounters. Despite the enormous interest in linguistic
politeness in Japanese, there has been little critical exploration of how intentional
impoliteness is conveyed, with some notable exceptions (K. Miyake, 2009;
Nishimura, 2010). It has been claimed that Japanese is a ‘swear-less’ language
(K. Miyake, 2009), but situations of conflict and confrontation exist in Japan,
as they do in any society. What is said in those situations to indicate anger,
criticism, disagreement, or offence is not really known because of the lack of
empirical study.
In linguistics research, particularly research based on communicative inter
actions, the importance of using authentic examples is stressed. Given the
difficulty of obtaining data on real-life communicative interactions involving
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Impolite Language in Manga
conflict, the use of manga as data seems to be an ideal solution. It provides a

very rich selection of linguistic impoliteness through scenes of confrontation,
arguments and fights (verbal and physical). Manga dialogues are depicted with
particular visual strategies that convey phonological features such as loudness,
stress, low voice, silence, pauses, etc., that help convey pragmatic meanings.
Moreover, because they occur within a narrative, they are in a context and it
is possible to observe not only the impolite linguistic utterances, but also what
triggered them, the responses they receive, the characters’ relationships and the
situation. It is difficult to confirm the authenticity of these impolite encounters,
and whether similar encounters might occur in ‘real’ life, but some indication
of their ‘naturalness’ might be taken from the fact that such interactions in
manga are accepted by readers and used to teach spoken Japanese. However,
we might expect slice-of-life manga works to contain more ‘natural’ exchanges,
and science fiction (SF) manga to contain less such exchanges.
This chapter looks at examples of impolite language in manga to understand
more about linguistic impoliteness in Japanese. It aims to find what type
of linguistic strategies are used to show rudeness and in which situations
impoliteness occurs. It also shows that manga adds another dimension to the
study of interactional linguistics that will contribute to our understanding of
Japanese communication.
Japanese Politeness and Impoliteness

Japanese society has been described as harmonious and conflict avoidant
(Lebra, 1984) and its language is associated with politeness. Although linguistic
politeness exists in all the world’s languages, Japanese and its complex honorific
system is the example of ‘polite language’ par excellence in linguistic politeness
research (see Brown & Levinson, 1987; Watts, 2003).
The concept of linguistic politeness being an essential element in human
communication was postulated by Brown and Levinson (1987). They write that
politeness is universal and that this phenomenon revolves around the concept
of face. They posit that linguistic politeness is necessary to maintain good re
lationships and avoid ‘face-loss’. Brown and Levinson refer to two different
types of strategies are used in polite encounters, which they name as ‘positive’
and ‘negative’ politeness. Positive politeness refers to those actions that highlight
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friendliness, such as using in-group markers, or showing solidarity. Negative

politeness, on the other hand, includes actions that seek to maintain distance
and thus minimise any imposition placed on the listener. This theory of
politeness generated an enormous research output. The concept of negative
politeness as not applicable to many East Asian languages was debated (see
Fukada & Asato, 2004; Ide, 2005; Ide & Lakkoff, 2005; Matsumoto, 1988;
Pizziconi, 2003; Spencer-Oatey, 2002; Usami, 2002).
What Is Impoliteness?
As mentioned earlier, in contrast to politeness, impoliteness has received little
attention with some notable exceptions (Bousfield, 2008; Culpeper, 1996,
2005, 2011; Kienpointner, 1997). Although impoliteness has been considered
to be the absence of politeness, defining it has been challenging. Kienpointner
(1997) uses the term rudeness instead of politeness and describes it as non
cooperative and competitive behaviour. For Bousfield (2008), impoliteness is
the intentional delivery of face-threatening acts. Culpeper’s (2011) definition
is that of an intentional face-attack, which causes offence and is perceived by
the listener.
Although the concept of intention seems to be common in Bousfield’s
and Culpeper’s definitions, one important aspect of this phenomenon is that
not all actions that are intentional and face-threatening are impolite. For
example, insults can be used to strengthen in-group relationships (Bernal,
2008; Culpeper, 2005). Kienpointner (1997) defines ritualised insults or mock
insults as cooperative impoliteness strategies, as opposed to noncooperative
impoliteness actions (p. 261). Negative impoliteness includes actions that are
observed in institutional interactions where the power relationship is uneven.
Impoliteness, in the same way as politeness, has been classified into positive
and negative and bald-on-record strategies (direct and clear actions that are not
minimised). Bousfield (2008) identified fourteen categorises of impoliteness:
(1) snubbing, (2) disassociating from the other, (3) being uninterested, unsym
pathetic, (4) using inappropriate identity markers, (5) seeking disagreement, (6)
using taboo words, swearing or using profane language, (7) being threatening,
frightening, (8) being condescending, scorning, (9) explicitly associating the
other with a negative aspect, (10) withholding politeness, (10) criticising, (12)
interrupting, (13) enforcing a role shift, and (14) challenging. Culpeper (2005;
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2011) identifies actions one through six as positive and actions seven through
fourteen as negative strategies. Culpeper (1996) considers actions that show the
addressee to be disliked or not accepted to demonstrate positive impoliteness,
whereas actions that impede the addressee’s freedom of action demonstrate
negative impoliteness.
Regardless of whether impoliteness is negative or positive, impolite actions
are usually carried out in ‘a sequence’ and rarely occur in isolation. This is a
phenomenon observed in the present study.
Literature Review
Although many scholars have studied manga, most have focused on social
issues associated with manga; there are not included in this literature review.
The published work that looks at the language used in manga tends to focus on
gender (Chinami, 2003, 2007; Takahashi, 2009; Ueno, 2006) and healthcare
(Matsuoka & Poole, 2010; Matsuoka, Smith & Uchimura, 2009).
Chinami (2003, 2007) explores female characters’ speech and finds that
women’s language in manga is portrayed differently depending on the intended
audience. While works aimed at children and at men display traditional female
linguistic elements associated with youth and positive features, those aimed at
a female audience use male, neutral and feminine language depending on the
situation. In a different work, Chinami (2007) examines manga created in the
1960s, 1980s and 1990s. Predictably, works from the 1960s and 1980s portray
women’s speech in the traditional way. This is not always the case in manga
created in the 1990s. In scenes where female characters show embarrassment or
there is heightened tension, Chinami finds that female characters shift to male
language and, most interestingly, females use male language to express anger
and release frustration.
Takahashi’s (2009) work looks at the language of the ‘wicked woman’ in
the manga series Raifu. The character uses traditional women’s language to
construct an image of someone who needs to be protected, thus receiving sym
pathy from other characters. However, when she plays against the heroine,
and curses her, she shifts to ‘male’ language. Takahashi shows that language
in manga is used to construct and deconstruct characteristics associated with
particular social and cultural images.
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Ueno (2006) looks at women’s language in shōjo and josei manga. Comparing
the dialogues of young and older characters in nine magazines, she finds that
younger characters use more masculine language and older characters speak
in the traditional women’s language. She suggests that the use of feminine
language comes with maturity. However, what is of relevance for this study is
that even the older characters switch to masculine language when expressing
anger. Equally, teachers talking to their male students use male style in order
to project authority. As can be seen in the works of Ueno (2006), Chinami
(2003, 2007) and Takahashi (2009), male language is associated with linguistic
rudeness and is used to release feelings of frustration. This association of
gendered language to linguistic impoliteness is perhaps more prominent in
Japanese where ‘genderlects’ are quite distinct; this is also observed in the
present study.
The works by Matsuoka and Poole (2010) and Matsuoka, Smith and Uchi
mura (2009) examine language in health care in a number of manga. Their
goals are to observe which politeness strategies are successful when healthcare
professionals talk to their patients and how these examples can be applied
in the training of professionals, such as nurses and doctors in the area of
communicating with patients. Matsuoka, Smith and Uchimura (2009) look
at the expression ganbare (sometimes translated as ‘try hard’) and its different
inflections. Analysing situations where patients need encouragement, they
found that situations in which ganbare is used do not lead to successful politeness
strategies and they suggest that other expressions be used instead. Matsuoka
and Poole (2010) examine the interactions of a nurse and a ‘difficult’ patient
and suggest the use of alternative strategies for each unsuccessful scene. So,
for example, instead of showing one’s authority using imperatives, healthcare
professionals could use alternative ways of communicating facts and risks to
the patient. What is of interest in these two works is that the manga authors of
the series had worked in the healthcare environment and therefore their works
are based on cases that they had experienced, thus supporting the validity and
authenticity of the language.
There appears to be only one paper published on Japanese impoliteness so far
(Nishimura, 2010), and this is based on Internet postings. No similar studies
using manga as data seem to exist. As Nishimura’s work is not directly rele
vant to the present study, it will not be discussed in detail here, beyond citing
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Nishimura’s observation that impoliteness is a way of negotiating power that

has to be understood within the norms of the community (Nishimura, 2010).
The Data
Selecting manga works for this study was a challenge due to the sheer number
of titles available. As the focus of this chapter is on impolite language in
contemporary Japanese, historical manga and manga featuring non-human
characters or samurai were excluded. The action and yakuza genres, common in
shōnen and seinen manga, tend to have more scenes of confrontation than shōjo
and josei manga, so in order to avoid a skewed sample, 14 works were selected
(Hazuki, 2008; Shinohara, 2007; Hōjo, 2001; Kawai, 1989; Kōda, 2010;
Makimura, 1999; Miyagi, 2006; Morimoto, 1999; Motomiya, 1994; Sekiya,
2005; Togashi, 1995; Tsuda, 1996; Yamamoto, 2001; Yoshikawa, 2006).
Although produced over a number of years, the oldest from 1989–95, these
works were chosen because they belong to diverse categories and contain
confrontation scenes where impolite language is used. Obviously, scenes of
conflict are more common in manga featuring yakuza characters, delinquents
and scenes of bullying, so there is an imbalance in the occurrence of impolite
language that might not be a reflection of ordinary life in Japan. In other words,
the cases of confrontation in everyday life where impolite language is used may
(fortunately) be limited to rare occurrences; thus, the difficulty in collecting
such instances in real life.
Rude Language in Manga

Impolite exchanges in manga are highlighted through particular manga icon
ography. The words are printed in bold with a much bigger font, and in many
cases are written in katakana to differentiate them from normal speech. They
are often followed by exclamation marks and explosion speech balloons that
express anger or a louder tone of voice, and/or the use of onomatopoeia. The
characters’ eyes, mouths and foreheads are drawn with features indicating
extreme emotions such as the exaggerated opened mouth and serrated
teeth, or popping veins above the eyes, and so on (for more details on these
features, see Robertson, Sell and Pasfield-Neofitou, and Moreno Acosta,
this volume).
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As stated earlier, rude language is not isolated. Invariably, linguistic im

politeness is expressed across a number of panels and pages. Therefore, one of
the characteristics of impoliteness in manga is that the rude language consists
of more than one utterance. Characters invariably start an altercation with
exclamations and the use of personal pronouns later accompanied with verbs in
the imperative form and other vulgar words as in Table 12.1.
Linguistic items Examples
Personal ‘I’ ‘You’ ‘That person’

Pronouns
ore/ora omae koitsu/koitsura
anta soitsu
kisama aitsu
temee/temeera sonnano
Insults ‘brat’ others ‘asshole’
obocchan (sarcastic) kuzu [garbage] yarō
kozō senkō [teacher sarariiman yarō
gaki (derog.)] hanpa yarō [half]
ossan [old man] mezawari [eyesore] hage bōzu [bald]
onna [cow] baka [stupid] baka yarō [stupid]
amaa [bitch] kiseichū [parasite] bengoshi yarō [lawyer]
bonkura [idiot] onna no kusatta yarō
hebo [clumsy] [rotten woman]
Exclamations ‘hey’ ‘shut up’ ‘what’
kora urusē/ussē nandato
ora/oraa nandaa
oi
Swear words kusso/kusō/chikushō [shit, damn]
Verbs damaryagare [shut up] ~tsuttarō (tte itta) kenka uttennoka
Imperative hikkonderō [stay out] [I said] [do you want to fight?]
forms fuzakeruna [don’t mess ~shyagatta yacchimae [let’s do
~rō and ~na around] [(you) did] (attack)]
Table 12.1. Examples of impolite language in manga
As we can see from Table 12.1, most impoliteness is delivered through the
use of the listed personal pronouns, but also through some of the insults and
verbs listed. Personal pronouns, for example, may be used together with a verb
or an exclamation such as in the following excerpt from Gokusen (Morimoto,
1999). Gokusen is the story of Yankumi, a schoolteacher who is also the daughter
216
of a yakuza boss. The scene we will examine concerns Yankumi confronting

some delinquent students (who are bullying some of their schoolmates).
Yankumi: Yō, monoshiridana, omē

[You’re a bit of a know-it-all, are you?]
Student: O o o temē nani shiyagaru!

[Oh! What the hell, you?]
The teacher and student use omē and temē, respectively, accompanied by a noun
phrase and a verbal phrase. As these personal pronouns are used in almost every
confrontation scene, it seems that they have a different pragmatic function than
an ordinary personal pronoun and cannot be fully rendered in translations as
they carry different nuances according to the situation.
Insults found in manga, such as gaki, amaa or onna, often reference the
target’s personal characteristics. Others, such as senkō, reference their jobs.
Insults that refer to low intelligence (used by both male and female characters),
especially the word baka [stupid], are the most commonly used insults. Yarō,
which is variously translated as ‘asshole’ or ‘bastard’, is also common. It should
be stressed that there are no insults of a sexual nature in manga and compar
atively few insults in general (as Japanese is regarded as a ‘swear-less’ language,
this is not surprising).
Exclamations seem to signal the start of a confrontation. In Bambino,
(Sekiya, 2005), the story of aspiring chef Han, there is a scene in which a chef
hits one of his assistants for not helping Han, who is in training at the restaur
ant. He shouts Oi kora [hey] and punches the assistant. Temē, nani miteminufuri
shiyagatta? [You, why did you pretend not to see?], he demands, Mendō miteyare
ttsutaro? [(I) told you to look after him]. The scene is extremely short, but it
gives us an example of a physical attack that is preceded by the expression
kora. This pattern of an exclamation followed by a physical confrontation is
seen in other manga. Swearwords are used most commonly when characters
are frustrated or angry and are generally used in thought balloons. They are
sometimes used before a fight.
All verbs used in an impolite exchange are in the imperative form; affirm
ative forms end in ~rō and negative forms in ~una. These forms are associated
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with male language, an aspect further emphasised by the use of sentence final
particles (SFP) zo and ze.
In the manga examined, impolite exchanges were found in the following
context: (a) before the escalation of violence, (b) during physical confrontations,
(c) in-group uses, to instigate action, to challenge positively, (e) when self-
directed or as thoughts/emotions. They were also uses in instances of sarcasm,
but due to space limitations this aspect will not be discussed.
Exchanges Before Escalation of Violence

Perhaps the most common types of conflict situations in manga involve yakuza
or bullying. Characters use personal pronouns, insults, male final particles,
exclamations and verbal threats. For example, in the first scene of Obi o Gyutto
ne (Kawai, 1989)1, the main character, Takumi, has an accident involving his
bike and a yakuza car. The first panel shows a mangled bicycle and a speech
bubble from Takumi. Underlined words indicate impolite language.
Takumi: A korya hide! Moo norenēyo, kore.

[This is wrecked! I won’t be able to ride this again]
Yakuza: Nani ittennno. Anta!? Ora. Shingoo mushi de tsukkonde kite sa.
[What are you talking about? You’re the one who hurtled
through a red light!]
Yakuza: Isoidetandatte? Sonna rikutsu tōru wake? Shinsha ni kizu

tsuketoite saa!! Oya ni benshō saserukara ne, dokono gaki?
[In a hurry, were you? That’s your excuse, is it? Look here,
you’ve scratched my new car! Your folks’ll have to cough
up/pay for it. Whose son are you?]
Takumi: Ossan, chūgakusei dato omotte nametenno? Kocchini kega ga

nakattadeke kansha shite moraitaindakedo na.
[Hey, gramps, you making fun of me thinking I’m a school
kid? You should be happy I wasn’t injured. I’ll get you to
cough up for that!]
Yakuza: Naniyo konō
1 Obi o Gyutto ne is about seven friends that enter high school and try to set up a judo club.
218
[What’re you on about?]
Takumi: Ore bakka warui mitēni itteyo. Socchidatte seigen sokudo

mamottetano?
[Trying to sound like I’m the only one in the wrong! I
suppose you were sticking to the speed limit?]
Yakuza: Anta innen tsukeru ki?

[Spoiling for a fight, are you?]
At this point, a police inspector intervenes and the conflict does not escalate.
Both characters use male language (see the endings of verbs and SFPs) and
refer to each other using pejorative nouns: gaki and ossan. Note the yakuza’s last
line ‘innen tsukeru ki’, which can be translated as wanting to start a fight and
indicates open physical conflict.
Exchanges During Physical Fights

Naturally, physical fights, as the most open expression of aggression, are some
of the clearest examples of impolite exchanges. As mentioned before, most
examples of physical fights in the manga examined occur in encounters with
yakuza or delinquents. As Sarariiman Kintarō (Motomiya, 1994) and Gokusen
(Morimoto, 1999) are two works based on the theme of yakuza, there are many
depictions of physical fights. In the opening of Sarariiman Kintarō, a drunk
office worker demands an apology from the man who bumped into him, not
knowing that he is a yakuza. Instead of receiving an apology, he is punched.
The yakuza grabs the terrified man and says that he hates people like him: Ossan
yō oraa dēkkirē nanda temēra mitēna sarariimanyarō ga yo [Hey, you. I hate your
type, you little salaried man]. In the next panel, we see the yakuza preparing
to punch him again and saying Nioi kaitadakede hedo ga deruze [Your smell
makes me puke]. We also see pejorative terms – ossan and sarariiman yarō – and
personal pronouns – oraa and temēra – which are accompanied by particular
phonological characteristics such as dēkirē, instead of dai kirai. Notice the SPFs
– yo and ze – which add pragmatic force to his lines and amplify the aggressive
stance of the speaker.
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In-Group Marking (Encouraging In-Group Members)

As stated earlier, there is one side of impoliteness that is used as a form of in-
group bonding, an example of which is the ritualised insult (Bousfield, 2008;
Culpeper, 2005, 2011). In manga, we also find rude language used by characters
who are trying to encourage each other or be persuasive. One example of such
an encounter is seen in Sket Dance (Shinohara, 2007), when Bossun tries to
persuade his friend Usui Kazuyoshi (who has become a hikikomori) to join him
on an outing. When Usui refuses, Bossun shouts Ore wa omae ni aini kitanda!
dakara derō! Monku aruka kono yarō [I came to meet you so come and meet me.
Do you have anything to say, asshole]. Although not as aggressive as an openly
confrontational encounter, we can see semantic choices in the dialogue starting
with the choice of personal pronouns (ore and omae), the verbs in imperative
form (derō), the pejorative expression (kono yarō) and monku aruka [do you have
a problem?]. Bossun’s friend Himeko tries to calm him down and intervenes:
Nani o kōfun shitonnen [What are you excited about?]. In this instance, the
offensive language is used to indicate the strong concern of the speaker and his
desire to persuade his friend. Similar instances are seen when characters try to
cheer up their friends after a failure in Obi o Gyutto ne, Sket Dance and Heroine
Shikkaku. The use of impolite expressions in these instances seems to be very
common in manga.
Self-directed Speech and Thought Bubbles

In manga, as opposed to real life situations, it is possible to know what
characters are thinking: the use of the thought bubble in manga can reveal
a character’s inner feelings and ruminations. However, it is quite difficult to
consider them as examples of linguistic rudeness as these thoughts and feelings
are not necessarily expressed to others. Significantly, when female characters’
thoughts are represented in thought bubbles, the characters often use very
strong or male language. In the shōjo manga Kareshi kanojo no Jijō (Tsuda,
1996)2 , the academic reputation of the main character, Miyazawa Yukino, is
threatened by the arrival of true all-rounder Arima Sōichiro. The excerpt below
depicts the thoughts of very upset and jealous Yukino:
2 Kareshi Kanojo no Jijō is known as Karekano in other languages.
220
Yukino: Kussō aitsu sae inakya hottoitemo watashi ga chūmoku

saretanoni
[Shit. If only that bitch was not there I could have all the
attention]
Kussō mezawaridaze Arima! Mitenasai! Anta o jigoku ni
tsukiotosuno wa watashi yo!
[Shit, you Arima. You are an eyesore. You will see. I am the
one who will send you to hell!]
There is a strong contrast between the way Yukino normally talks and the
use of very strong masculine language in the thoughts presented above. This
example’s mixture of masculine language with feminine speech features (such
as mitenasai) is also noteworthy. The words kussō, aitsu, mezawaridaze are
rude expressions; however, the personal pronoun she uses to refer to herself is
watashi, which is in line with the way she talks to her classmates.
Linguistic Impoliteness and Male Language

One of the most interesting aspects of impolite Japanese is its direct association
with male language, as seen above. Many of the linguistic elements used in
scenes of confrontation and open aggression belong to the repertoire of what
is considered ‘male language’, in particular the use of personal pronouns, SFPs
and imperatives deliver the forcefulness of the threat, challenge or verbal
attack. Sarcasm is delivered usually with very feminine linguistic items. This
phenomenon reinforces the traditional gender associations: male language is
strong and rough while female language is soft and elegant. Although there
are scenes where girls use rough verbal endings and other male speech items,
they are only used when female characters confront someone or in verbally
unexpressed thoughts; as Takahashi (2009) observes, the use of masculine
speech styles in such instances are strategic.
Discussion
Despite Japanese being generally regarded as a polite language, it is obvious that
impolite language is used and this can be observed in manga, usually in scenes
involving aggressive encounters. Such examples defy the concept that Japanese
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is a ‘swear-less’ language (K. Miyake, 2009). However, the fact that most taboo
words or insults (Bernal, 2008; Kienpointner, 1997) refer disparagingly to
intelligence, appearance or profession and not to sexual matters might in part
account for the perception of Japanese as a particularly polite language. It can
also be said that some aspects of linguistic impoliteness are specific to Japanese
and not directly applicable to languages such as English or Spanish.
Japanese linguistic impoliteness can be delivered in a variety of ways and
there are three particular cases of impolite phenomena that are difficult to
group following the categories of impoliteness described by Bousfield (2008)
and Culpeper (2005): the use of incorrect speech style, personal pronouns and
male language.
The need to speak using the appropriate speech level in Japanese has been
emphasised thoroughly (see Usami, 2002). Speakers must be aware of status
differences, context and other variables in order to choose the right speech
style (see Fukada & Asato, 2004; Ide, 2005). In principle, the polite, formal
style is used in interactions with higher-status people and the informal style in
interactions with lower-status people or in interactions between people who
share a familiar relationship. Shifts in style sometimes occur in conversations
if there is a change in rapport or topic, and for a variety of reasons that are not
exclusively restricted to status differences (Tanaka, 2008a, 2008b). However,
the informal style used deliberately by a lower-status person to a higher-status
listener can indicate that he or she is withholding politeness. It can show scorn
and lack of respect and it may be used as a challenge; it is considered a direct
face attack. Note that all of the impolite language is expressed in informal style
and violates all protocol (this is seen when the students insult the teacher in
Gokusen).
Japanese personal pronouns are very different in nature to those in other
languages, such as English. This is not only because of the number of their
variants, but also because of their pragmatic function. The choice of personal
pronouns depends on both the relationship between the interlocutors and the
context. In particular, what is extremely remarkable is the use of personal
pronouns considered ‘rude’, such as the second-person pronouns temē or kisama,
which are used to challenge, threaten and show scorn.
What is considered ‘male language’ can also function as ‘rude’ language
and does not serve only to index the gender of speakers. This style contains
222
particular SFP, verb endings and phonological changes that can be interpreted
as something akin to taboo words challenging the listener. These are used in
conflicts that may escalate into physical fights. It is unclear whether all instances
of male language project the same pragmatic meaning; however, as with most
linguistic elements, they are polysemous. Some can be used to threaten, others
to insult and others emphasise negative aspects and withhold politeness.
As we can see, the way in which impoliteness is conveyed in Japanese seems
to work at different levels and the division between positive and negative
strategies cannot be drawn clearly. Some personal pronouns are translated into
English as swearwords and are used to threaten and challenge; swearwords are
considered positive impolite strategies, while threats betoken negative actions.
Male language may be used to criticise and show scorn, but also shows the
characteristics of taboo words. Again, the actions belong to both positive and
negative impoliteness categories.
Another type of situation not mentioned by Bousfield (2008), Culpeper
(2005, 2011) or Kienpointner (1997) is the use of impolite language to persuade
friends. This is a use of impolite language often seen in most manga. While
the degree of impolite language varies, the use of particular forceful personal
pronouns, vocabulary and imperatives nevertheless convey a character’s strong
feelings of care towards the addressee. This phenomenon is similar to the use
of ritualised insults for in-group marking (Bernal, 2008); however, in this case
the objective is different. Although further studies are needed to determine
whether this phenomenon can be considered impolite, the use of rude language
could be added to a similar category as ritualised impoliteness, because its
purpose is not to insult, but to strengthen group membership.
While the use of manga for analyses of impolite language is proving extremely
useful, a number of problems still need to be solved, the most important being
related to their authenticity and whether the selected examples are considered
offensive to everyone. While the latter can be addressed with further research,
the problem of authenticity is more problematic. In further studies of impolite
language in manga, other types of impoliteness, such as sarcasm, also need to
be looked into.
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Conclusion
This chapter has analysed impolite Japanese in situations of confrontation
and conflict using manga. The study found a number of interesting aspects of
Japanese impoliteness and the use of particular linguistic elements to convey
rudeness in the manga examined. Personal pronouns, informal speech style
and male language are used to threaten, challenge, seek disagreement, express
scorn or withhold politeness. The use of impolite language is never isolated
and is often exchanged before confrontations and during physical fights,
contained in characters’ thoughts and feelings and expressed when attempt
ing to persuade or encourage in-group members. This study shows that
manga provide a rich source of linguistic data because they depict characters’
relationships and contexts, often via their visual nature, while also providing a
variety of communicative interactions, including those not normally accessible
to researchers.
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CHAPTER THIRTEEN
KEN- HONYAKU- RYŪ

Issues in the Translation of Controversial Texts Focusing on the
Manga Comics Hate Korean Wave and Hate Japanese Wave
ADAM ANTONI ZULAWNIK
Introduction
The Korean Wave began in Japan in 2002, triggered by the soap opera Winter
Sonata (“Kanryū”, 2012). The 2002 Japan-Korea FIFA World Cup, which Japan
and Korea co-hosted, furthered Japan’s interest in Korea, as did the introduction
of K-pop (South Korean popular music). However, the Korean Wave also entailed
negative reaction from some groups in Japan, manifested most predominantly
through the ‘Hate Korea’ and ‘Hate Korean Wave’ sentiments, the latter said
to have come into use as a standard term in 2005 (J. Y. Lee, 2011). There is a
distinction between these two sentiments in that ‘Hate Korea’ (嫌韓: Jp. kenkan,
Kr. hyeomhan) indicates a general feeling of hatred towards Korea, and ‘Hate
Korean Wave’ (嫌韓流: Jp. kenkanryū, Kr. hyeomillyu) stresses a more specific
feeling of hatred towards the ‘Korean Wave’. In 2011, public protests in front
of the Fuji Television building in Tokyo occurred in response to the ‘excessive
airing’ of Korean programs. Protestors regarded the Korean Wave as a Korean
government-run movement aimed at promoting the ‘South Korean brand’, or
South Korean soft power (Baek, 2005; Groves, 1997; Ryoo, 2008).
Project Significance and Translation Brief

Japan–Korea relations are an important area in Asian studies, yet scholars
without knowledge of the source languages find it difficult to contribute to
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the discussion. There is a need for impartial translations of sources into third
languages. The importance of this is particularly clear when one considers the
increased likelihood of bias when Korean articles are translated into Japanese,
and vice-versa, not to mention when translations involve biased researchers.
The comics Manga Kenkanryū (Hate Korean Wave – HKW from here
onwards) and Hyeomillyu (Hate Japanese Wave – HJW from here onwards)
express the opinions of certain groups (e.g. Internet communities or the right-
wing) on both sides of this divide and have attracted significant interest both
in Japan and South Korea. Surprisingly, neither of the texts has been fully
translated into English, although there are some excerpts of HKW available
(see C. Lee, 2006; Liscutin, 2009; Sakamoto & Allen, 2009). It should be
noted that the researchers translated these excerpts themselves.1 Furthermore,
information available about the two comics in English is largely unreferenced,
and in many cases somewhat slanted.2
Manga Kenkanryū (HKW )
HKW was written and illustrated by the Japanese manga artist Yamano Sharin
(pen name), a self-proclaimed ‘Korean Peninsula watcher’, who has ‘daringly
travelled all over South Korea in order to find authentic materials’ (Yamano,
n.d.), and claims to have initiated the ‘Hate Korean Wave’ movement through
his comic in order to counter the Korean Wave, which he claims is created by
the mass media (Yamano, n.d.).
Reception of HKW in Japan has varied. According to the publisher,
the series sold in excess of 1 million volumes (Yamano, 2015). That said,
Yamano initially struggled to find a publisher (Yamano, 2005), and even
after the publishing house Shinyusha Mook accepted the manuscripts, all
mainstream Japanese newspapers refused to advertise the publication. Still, the
comic managed to stay atop the book rankings on Amazon Japan for several
weeks (Liscutin, 2009). In contrast to this mixed reception in Japan, South
1 Liscutin (2009) and Sakamoto and Allen (2007) differ, for example, in their translations of
the term panchoppari as ‘neither Korean nor Japanese, not even half ’ (Liscutin 2009, p. 188)
and ‘half-Japanese’ (Sakamoto & Allen, 2007), missing a highly derogatory connotation
along the lines of ‘half-Jap’.
2 A SBS Eight O’Clock News report on the manga states: ‘[HKW] portrays martyr Jung-geun
Ahn as a stupid terrorist [who] caused the death of Hirobumi Itō, the only person who
understood Korea’ (Seoul Broadcasting System, 2005). However, the source text does not
explicitly label Ahn a ‘stupid terrorist’ – the adjective ‘stupid’ is used to illustrate the ‘terrorist
action’ by which Itō perished (Yamano, 2005, p. 211).
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Korean media universally condemned the publication.3 Thus far, there has been
no official Korean translation of HKW.4
Hyeomillyu (HJW )
Written and illustrated by South Korean comic artist Byeong-seol Yang (pen
name), HJW is a reply to Yamano’s HKW. Yang, whose real name is Gyeong-su
Bang, has previously written for prominent South Korean comic book authors
such as Hyun-se Lee and was the second president of the Korean Manhwa Story
Authors Association (manhwa is the Korean equivalent to Japanese manga).
HJW has been translated into Japanese and was published in Japan by
Yūgaku Shorin. Stocks were exhausted and the comic was reprinted. However,
the reception has not been positive in either South Korea or Japan and the
author has been tormented by Korean netizens who have criticised his work
as ‘rubbish’ and ‘low quality’ (Kim, 2006). Yang said he felt ‘betrayed’ by this
reaction and added that he had raised the matter in court (Kim, 2006). The
president of Yūgaku Shorin, Ōnota Tetsurō, has also been targeted and has
reportedly received numerous threats from Japanese right-wing activists (Kim,
2006).
Methodology
Hans Vermeer’s skopostheorie, or skopos theory, is part of the functionalist
paradigm in translation studies (TS). First developed in the German Federal
Republic in the 1970s and 1980s, the theory places paramount importance on
the pragmatic elements of the source text (ST), signifying that the translatum,
or target text (TT), is established through the careful analysis of the TT’s
function, as opposed to simply the ST’s properties (Delisle, Lee-Jahnke &
Cormier, 1999). This chapter utilises a combination of skopostheorie and pur
poseful translation to analyse the approach to translating HKW and HJW
undertaken in the current project.
3 Nishimura (2006) writes that many South Korean media made negative comments based
solely on the manga’s provocative title, well before publication.
4 According to Yamano (2005), a number of South Korean publishers approached him after
the publication of the manga asking if he would be interested in a Korean translation for the
South Korean market; however, he refused upon advice from a South Korean lawyer that
such a publication would be at risk of court action as per South Korea’s ‘Punishment of Pro-
Japanese action law’ (p. 265).
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Skopostheorie
Skopostheorie has been widely discussed since its first detailed introduction in
1984 (cf. Vermeer, 1989/2004; Reiß, 2000). It grants the translator considerably
more freedom than a strict formal equivalence approach. Such freedom is
attained in the style of finis coronat opus, where practically any method deemed
adequate by the commissioner for the purpose of meeting the translation skopos
can be applied during the translation (skopos meaning aim, purpose or end).
According to Hatim (2001), there are a number of important skopos rules, with
two basic concepts: (1) interaction is determined by skopos, (2) skopos differs
according to the TT’s receiver (p. 74).
One problematic aspect of skopostheorie is the lack of translation approaches
and guidelines. In other words, the theory does not prescribe guidance as to
how to achieve the skopoi. The first step taken towards achieving the skopos
in the current project was through supplementation of the skopostheorie, using
Nord’s (2001) ‘Purposeful Translation’ approach.
Purposeful Translation
The purposeful translation approach offers a considerably more detailed funct
ionalist model than skopostheorie. Nord’s approach begins with the definition
of two basic modes of text transfer, namely ‘documentary’ and ‘instrumental’
translation (2001, pp. 80–84). Documentary translation serves as a method
of ‘documentation’ of information pertaining to the ST (Nord, 1988/2005, p.
72), whereby the ST is ‘simply reproduced, with no special allowances made
for the target context’ (Hatim, 2001, p. 89). A TT achieved following the doc
umentary method allows the reader full access to concepts in the ST through
techniques such as literal translation and ‘exoticisation’ (Hatim, 2001, p. 89),
albeit never posing as a ‘fluent’ or ‘idiomatic’ translation (Larson, 1998, pp.
18–20).5 Instrumental translation is aimed at the production of an instrument
for a new interaction between the source-culture and a target-culture audience
(Nord, 2001, p. 47), with the TT read as a work originally written in the target
language. Although the documentary translation mode provides a general
approach to complement the purpose, what it does not provide is an explicit
5 Exoticisation is defined as a method which preserves local flavour of the ST (Nord

1988/2005, p. 81).
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methodology. In order to adopt an appropriate translation methodology, the

ST medium must first be analysed.
Manga/Manhwa Translation
Manga (Jp.) / manhwa (Kr.) are Asian versions of the ‘comic’. The manga in
dustry is now fifty times larger than that of comics industry in the US (Pilcher
& Brooks, 2005), and accounts for 40 per cent of all printed material in Japan.
Translation of manga into English has been limited in spite of their broad read
ership (Zanettin, 2008a, p. 19). Nevertheless, there is now a steadily growing
range of literature on comic and manga translation (see Baccolini & Zanettin,
2008). Of particular interest in this area is what could be generally summar
ised as ‘foreignisation’ versus ‘domestication’, terms coined by Venuti based on a
distinction made by Schleiermacher in the early nineteenth century (Rota, 2008).
Venuti (2008) defines foreignisation as ‘a process that allows the original
work to resist integration and to maintain its features’, and domestication as
‘an ethnocentric reduction of the foreign text to target language cultural values’
(p. 20). Foreignisation allows the receiving culture to be aware of the foreign
origins of the translation and the reader is not led to believe that the text they
are reading is an original. Hatim (2001) emphasises the risks of a domesticating
approach having an exclusionary impact on the source culture values, as it can
result in the formation of stereotypes.
In the current project, allowing the receivers of the source culture to
recognise the translated texts as translations through a fair representation
of the ST is crucial, while fully domesticated translations may lead readers
to believe the translator is biased. In accordance with the project skopos and
documentary approach, a translation should be fairly literal so as to preserve
important elements of the ST.
In the book Comics in Translation, the consensus amongst the contributing
scholars regarding foreignisation is that it has become a predominant translation
norm, although this has not always been the case (Jüngst, 2008a, 2008b; Rota,
2008; Zanettin 2008b; Zitawi, 2008). In this project, a foreignising approach
was justified by the skopos; when considering that foreignisation is a norm in
manga translation, the approach gains increased importance. The reasons for a
foreignising approach are plentiful, even in respect to standard manga transla
tion. Readers of manga often harbor expectations for a certain ‘Japaneseness’.
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Although the readership defined by the main project skopos is certainly not a
manga fan-base, manga is the medium of the ST and therefore must be preserved.
Examples of foreignisation in manga translation include retaining the reading
direction of the ST and keeping onomatopoeia in the SL form. However, not
all foreignising methods need be applied – as Hatim emphasises, foreignisation
and domestication are not a binary (2001). In this project, although the ST
reading order has been preserved, a domesticating approach has been applied
in the case of onomatopoeia. This decision was based on the fact that the
overriding project skopos is a TT aimed at academics, commanding a clear and
full understanding of the ST.
The consideration of the manga medium in relation to the project skopos
and documentary mode of translation allow for a more concrete translation
approach, which could perhaps be termed ‘supplemented foreignisation’. The
importance of such an approach is accentuated when considering the issue of
risk in translation.
Risk in Translation
Both Akbari (2009) and Pym (2010) have made contributions to ‘Risk
Management in Translation’, mainly addressing ‘metaphorical risk’, particul
arly that of the ‘economic’ kind. However, translation risk can also be of a
physically dangerous nature (or ‘mortal risk’, as I term it), affecting not only the
translator, but the client and readership.
Examples of such risk in translation are numerous, ranging from the
mistranslation of political texts in the Middle East and Europe (cf. ElShiekh,
2012; Schäffner, 2004; Sharifian, 2009), to the infamous case of Salman
Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses, which resulted in a fatwa, the death of the book’s
Japanese translator (Weisman, 1991) and death threats followed by assassinat
ion attempts on three others (Fazzo, 1991; Petrou, 2010; Yalman, 1994), one
of which resulted in the death of thirty-seven bystanders, in an event known as
the ‘Sivas Massacre’ (Yalman, 1994).
Akbari (2009) thoroughly analyses different kinds of risk, dividing them
into five translation activities: ‘market’, ‘financial’, ‘project’, ‘production process’,
and ‘product’ (pp.1–2). In the case of this project, only production process and
product risks were of relevance, as the skopos is not subject to commercial issues.
Production process and product risks are significant as they relate to the act of
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translation (possible mistranslations) and acceptability (readership reception)

respectively (Akbari, 2009, pp. 2–5). Pym (2010) asserts that translators
must carefully judge which risks pose the most danger, and places risk into a
spectrum ranging from ‘very low’ to ‘very high’ (pp. 1–4), briefly alluding to
‘real’ or ‘dangerous’ risk. It must also be noted that ‘metaphorical’ risk, too,
can bring ‘real’, ‘physical’ outcomes upon the translator and other parties, as
illustrated above.
Ethical Risk Management in Translation

What Akbari (2009) terms ‘risk treatment’ is categorised as ‘risk avoidance’,
‘risk reduction’/‘mitigation’, ‘risk transfer’ and ‘risk retention’ (p. 5). Examples
include: choosing not to engage in a translation after consideration of the risks
(risk avoidance); inclusion of a forward or notes so as to disambiguate precar
ious terms and explain the translator’s approach, word-for-word translation,
or transliteration so as to retain important lexical features in the ST (risk
reduction/mitigation); conducting a group translation (risk transfer); and,
finally, the decision to accept risk (retention) (Akbari, 2009, pp. 1–5).
The gravest risk in the project at hand is ‘misleading of the readership’
through inaccurate translations. Initially, following an ethical model (risk re
tention and reduction) combined with a foreignising approach seemed to be the
safest path.
Ethical Choices
Decisions during the translation of HKW and HJW ranged from stylistic to
philological choices. It is important to examine some examples of the ethics-
based risk management approaches defined earlier, which are not necessarily
obvious in the TTs. This section shall briefly address style and onomatopoeia,
followed by an analysis of the translator’s notes, translation of nationalistic
discourse, and the issue of translating ‘mistakes’ in the STs.
Translation of Style
All mediums susceptible to translation require the analysis of relevant ethical
aspects. Comics naturally contain a large number of visual elements such as
text direction, varying font and onomatopoeia/mimesis (for an account of
the issues in translating onomatopoeia and mimesis see chapter fourteen).
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Translating comics involves both the translation of text and visual elements.
Respecting the ST style is crucial in an ethics-based, modified literal trans
lation approach, as the main project skopos is to bring target readers as close to
the ST as possible.
The ST of HKW is in a standard Japanese layout, read from right to left,
with text running vertically. Modern Korean texts, on the other hand, are read
in the same way as those in English. The translation of HKW follows the trend
of ST reading order retention, as aforementioned, as part of foreignisation in
manga translation. The downside to this technique is that the Japanese layout
may be unfamiliar to some readers, resulting in reading difficulty. Thus, a manga
reading guide, shown in Figure 13.1, was supplied with the TT, a widespread
method for overcoming such problems. Care was also taken to preserve layout
and font as much as possible, as can be seen in the onomatopoeia and cover art.
A foreignising approach was applied to preserve both comics’ covers (Figure
13.2). The Japanese title of HKW was maintained in katakana and kanji scripts,
whilst the Korean title of HJW was left in hangeul. The text on the far left of
the HKW ST cover was translated from romanised Japanese (kenkanryu) into
English as ‘Hate Korean Wave’, the word hate written in outlined characters to
reflect the different font utilised for the first character, ken (嫌) in the original.
This is a means of retaining ST emphasis, ensuring understanding of the concept
behind the comic as being that of ‘hating the Korean Wave’, as opposed to a
general ‘hate wave’ aimed at the country or its people, an important distinction
in terms of risk and ethics.
Both comics utilise various fonts to distinguish dialogue and emotions,
another aspect that required preservation, as shown in Figure 13.3.
A standard font was maintained for narration (‘Kouichi Matsumoto …’), a
more cursive font for standard speech (‘Hey, Kaname …’), italics and bold script
for emphasis (‘Let’s support …’), and a smaller darker font for thought (‘Though
I’m only …’). On the other hand, HJW only employs two fonts: for speech
(‘Milady …’) and narration (‘Even up until the Meiji …’) (see Figure 13.4).
It must be stressed that this adherence to minute visual details is a conscious
ethical choice made after the consideration of project-related risk. Although
the rendering of all text into one font would perhaps not hinder comprehension
per se, it would not allow for as much insight into the authors’ treatments of
different types of information.
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Bam! Translation of Onomatopoeia
Onomatopoeia, used to express sounds such as boom and squeak, are a staple
feature in comics. However, Japanese and Korean utilise onomatopoeia to a
much greater extent than English (Fukuda, 1993; Inose, 2008).
Translation of onomatopoeia in HKW and HJW required special care, not
only in terms of finding equivalent sounds, but also rendering text in a font
similar to that found in the STs. As per Figure 13.5, HKW, for example, utilises
a wide range of onomatopoeia and mimesis to express sound and emotion, for
example, swiish and humpf.
One method of dealing with onomatopoeia when translating comics is
to leave the field in the source language. However, doing so could be seen as
extreme foreignisation, thus not suitable for the project skopos, as it would not
promote complete understanding of the STs. A second method is that of rom
anisation, wherein ‘swoosh’ would become zuzazazaza, and ‘splashhh’, hudeu
deudeuk. Such a method would gravely hinder comprehension, especially in the
case of ‘humph’, where the ST term ‘gakkuri’ provides no semantic clues for
non-Japanese speakers. A final method is meaning-based, the method applied
in this project. Meaning-based translation of onomatopoeia is by no means a
simple task, as some Japanese and Korean examples have no known equivalents
in the English language. The existence of no known equivalents does not warrant
pronouncing a term ‘untranslatable’, however. There should always be room for
the introduction of new terms, as this can be beneficial to the target language
and culture. In the case of the HJW, there is only limited use of onomatopoeia,
perhaps because most of the comic content is centred on dialogue. Apart from
‘splashhh’ (cf. Figure 13.5), there are only three other pages with onomatopoeia.
Translator’s Notes
One of the most significant elements introduced into the TTs are the translator’s
notes. A common feature of scholarly and manga translations (Jüngst, 2008a,
2008b), notes are usually utilised to explain information in the ST that may
otherwise be ambiguous, elements that are exclusive to the ST culture, or contain
a nuance that is difficult, or even ‘impossible’, to translate. Notes can therefore be
seen as a means of bringing the TT reader closer to the ST, through the bridging
of knowledge gaps. In other words, notes aid readers in reading a translation by
providing them with an understanding closer to that of a ST reader.
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MANGA VISION
Figure 13.1 (above and opposite). Guide to Reading Hate Korean Wave.
Hate Korean Wave, p.8 (left), p.38 (right) © 2005 Yamano Sharin (Zulawnik, Trans.).
Courtesy of Shinyusha Mook.
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Ken-Honyaku-ryū
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MANGA VISION
Figure 13.2. Cover art.

Left: Hate Korean Wave, Front Cover © 2005 Yamano Sharin (Zulawnik, Trans.). Courtesy of
Shinyusha Mook.
Right: Hate Japanese Wave, Front Cover © 2006 Byeong-seol Yang (Zulawnik, Trans.). Courtesy of
Nara Publishing.
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Ken-Honyaku-ryū
Figure 13.3.
Hate Korean Wave, p. 10 © 2005 Yamano Sharin (Zulawnik, Trans.). Courtesy of Shinyusha Mook.
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MANGA VISION
Figure 13.4.
Hate Japanese Wave, p. 15 © 2006 Byeongseol Yang (Zulawnik, Trans.). Courtesy of Nara Publishing.
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Ken-Honyaku-ryū
Figure 13.5. Onomatopoeia in Hate Korean

Wave and Hate Japanese Wave.
Above: Hate Korean Wave, p. 9 © 2005 Yamano
Sharin (Zulawnik, Trans.). Courtesy of Shinyusha
Mook.
Left: Hate Japanese Wave, panel from p. 14 © 2006
Byeong-seol Yang (Zulawnik, Trans.). Courtesy of
Nara Publishing.
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MANGA VISION
In the translations of KHW and HJW completed for the current project, notes
were utilised in the case of culturally specific factors such as facts (e.g. the names
of historical figures), specialised terminology and linguistic factors. The choice to
apply notes in this way was made upon consideration of ethical issues. Considering
that HKW and HJW largely address similar topics, the two TTs could be rendered
in a consistent and therefore more ethical, manner. Both, for instance, address the
issue of the Takeshima/Dokdo Island dispute. Academics who conduct research
on Japan–Korea relations are sure to know about the issue, but that does not mean
that the same can be said of scholars who specialise in, for example, Chinese or
Malaysian studies. Subsequently, the choice was made to include notes 12 and 15
for HKW and HJW, respectively. Both entries, although indexed with the term
used in the STs (‘Takeshima’ and ‘Dokdo’, respectively), contain identical inform
ation. Both notes only provide basic geographic and political facts.
The use of notes to clarify specialised terminology also minimised potentially
high-risk comprehension issues. Such ‘specialised’ terms included note 5, probably
the most significant in HKW. Translator’s note 5 (Figure 13.6, at the end of the
sentence in the right-hand side speech bubble) was included to provide original ST
renditions of terms used to describe some aspects of Japan’s historical occupation
of the Korean Peninsula. The decision to include notes for the terms ‘oppression
of the independence movement’, ‘Imperialisation of the People Policy’, ‘Name-
Change Policy’, ‘forced deportation’ and ‘comfort women’ was made on the basis
that the target audience may wish to further investigate the issues. Moreover,
there exists more than one way of defining most of these terms in English, which
could potentially result in confusion, which is a high-risk factor.
‘Imperialisation of the People Policy’, for example, is a calque translation
(cf. Delisle, Lee-Jahnke & Cormier, 1999; Vinay & Darbelnet, 1958/1995) of
the ST term kōminka seisaku [皇民化政策]. Although the ST term (‘kōminka
seisaku’) is seemingly often translated into English as either Japanisation or
Tennōisation, Japanisation can be seen as considerably Eurocentric, whilst
Tennōisation is a term derived from tennō, Japanese for emperor and not kōmin
(emperor’s people).6 Both are hardly terms that Japanese characters in HKW
would use. For a Japanese person coming in contact with the term ‘kōminka
6 Compared to Nazification, Tennōisation is inaccurate in terms of lexical composition. Whereas
Nazi + fication means making something or someone Nazi, Tennō + isation literally means turning
something/someone into the Emperor of Japan. When back-translated into Japanese (tennōka, 天
皇化), the term makes as much sense.
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Ken-Honyaku-ryū
Figure 13.6. Use of Translator’s Notes in Hate Korean Wave.

Hate Korean Wave, panel from p. 28 © 2005 Yamano Sharin
(Zulawnik, Trans.). Courtesy of Shinyusha Mook.
seisaku’, it is likely that the first image to come to mind would be people
becoming part of Japan’s ‘Empire’, or ‘the Emperor’s people’.7 Thus, it is hard
to imagine a Japanese reader envisioning kōminka seisaku as a policy that simply
‘Japanises’ or ‘Tennōises’ a people. Nevertheless, Japanisation and Tennōisation
have both been mentioned in the notes for reference as commonly used terms
when referring to the concept of kōminka seisaku.
7 ‘A Japanese occupational policy from World War II used within Korea [Chōsen] as part of
wartime mobilisation. Under the name of “cultural assimilation”, it was aimed at making
Koreans loyal people of the [Japanese] Emperor, whilst obliterating national identity. The
policy included name change [sōshi kaimei] and educational regulations [kyōikurei]’ (The Great
Japanese Dictionary, 1995, p. 741) [my translation].
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MANGA VISION
Figure 13.7. Use of Translator’s Notes in Hate Japanese Wave.

Hate Japanese Wave, panels from p. 23 © 2006 Byeong-seol Yang (Zulawnik, Trans.). Courtesy of
Nara Publishing.
A similar high-risk issue was faced with note 2. Kaname’s grandfather, por
trayed as having lived on the Korean Peninsula before Korea became divided into
North and South Korea, refers to the country as Chōsen (朝鮮). Using the word
‘Korea’ here to translate Chōsen is the easiest option, except it is already used in
the text to refer to ‘South Korea’. Rendering both with the one term would be
detrimental to cohesion. Another option is to romanise Chōsen from the word’s
Korean pronunciation (Joseon). However, as with the issue discussed in note 5, one
could hardly imagine Kaname’s grandfather pronouncing this particular term in
Korean. Subsequently, the decision was made to apply foreignisation, romanising
the term directly from Japanese as ‘Chōsen’ and providing an explanatory note.
A similar problem was encountered in HJW in relation to the term ‘mujumul
seonjeom’, explained in note 27. Mujumul seonjeom [무주물선점, 無主物先
占], although an important term in the Dokdo/Takeshima Island dispute,
carries no definite English equivalent as of yet. As a high-risk term, ‘meaning-
based’ or ‘idiomatic’ translation (cf. Larson, 1998) was applied. The term was
supplemented with a note containing the original ST word in hangeul, hanja,
and romanisation for reference. It should be noted that as mujumul on its own
can refer to any kind of ‘ownerless object’, it would be risky to simply translate
the term as terra nullius. Nevertheless, as shown in Figure 13.7, terra nullius
is a ‘mot juste’ (cf. Delisle, Lee-Jahnke & Cormier, 1999), as mujumul
when combined with seonjeom clearly refers to the preoccupancy of previously
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Ken-Honyaku-ryū
unoccupied land. The following sentence (‘You mean Dokdo was an ownerless
land?’) provides further contextual justification.
Translation of Nationalistic Discourse

Throughout the project, the translation of nationalistic discourse was consid
ered to be high-risk. Maintaining fidelity to nationalistic terms used in STs is
an issue requiring special consideration, especially if the TTs are to serve the
role of an academic resource, as is the skopos of the project.
HJW, in particular, contains a very high frequency of uri [우리], mean
ing our. The use of uri in reference to the ‘Korean people’ and ‘Korea’ clearly
denotes the term’s rhetorical significance, and should be preserved wherever
possible.
Figure 13.8. Use of uri.

Hate Japanese Wave, panels from p. 31 © 2006 Byeong-seol
Yang (Zulawnik, Trans.). Courtesy of Nara Publishing.
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MANGA VISION
Uri (Figure 13.8) is commonly used throughout as a pronoun (we, us) and
attributive adjective (our); both in dialogue between characters, and between
the author and intended ST readers (cf. HJW introduction). Translating uri
as our and not Korean or Korea’s, was an important ethical choice. Korean
or Korea’s would constitute under-translation and under-toning of the ST’s
strong nationalistic rhetoric. One may argue that urinara only refers to ‘Korea’
(whatever this may mean) when the uri and nara are written as one word;
however, space or no space the two bear no difference in pronunciation.
Translation of ST Mistakes (?)

The STs both contain a number of factual errors retained as per figures 13.9
and 13.10. Hanja/kanji that are pronounced as Seokdo in Korean are in HKW
rendered into Japanese by the author as Tokto, thus sounding more similar to
Dokdo.8 As per Figure 13.10, HKW presents the opinion that Japanese does
not have a polite grammatical speech form, in spite of equivalent honorific
forms existing between Korean (i.e.: jondaetmal) and Japanese (i.e.: keigo/
sonkeigo).
The translation of Article 2a from Chapter 2 of the San Francisco Peace
Treaty presented by the author of HJW (Figure 13.11) is inaccurate. The ST
of the treaty ‘quoted’ does not include the words ‘and a number of contained
islands’ (Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, 2012).9
In case of translations with a different project skopos, the translator may
check mistakes encountered within the ST with the authors. However, in
the case of this project, the skopos is to provide TTs that maintain as many
ST features as possible, including any mistakes, whether they be explicit or
implicit. Considering the project skopos, the intention of the STs must be
conveyed as is.
8 The correct Korean pronunciation ‘Seokdo’ [석도] should therefore be written as Sokto [ソクト]
in Japanese.
9 The original Article 2a of the San Francisco Peace Treaty reads: ‘Japan, recognizing the
independence of Korea, renounces all right, title and claim to Korea, including the islands
of Quelpart, Port Hamilton and Dagelet’ (Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, 2012).
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Figure 13.9 (Right). Factual Error

in Hate Korean Wave.
Hate Korean Wave, panel from p. 247
© 2005 Yamano Sharin (Zulawnik,
Trans.). Courtesy of Shinyusha Mook.
Figure 13.10 (Above). Factual Error

in Hate Japanese Wave.
Hate Japanese Wave, panel from p. 14
© 2006 Byeong-seol Yang (Zulawnik,
Trans.). Courtesy of Nara Publishing.
Figure 13.11 (Right). Factual Error

in Hate Japanese Wave.
Hate Japanese Wave, panel from p. 25
© 2006 Byeong-seol Yang (Zulawnik,
Trans.). Courtesy of Nara Publishing.
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Conclusion
The HKW and HJW translation project resulted in a reliable resource for
examining the portrayal of Japan–Korea issues through the popular medium
of comics. The project has addressed a variety of under-researched issues in
translation studies. However, what makes the project particularly significant
is that it not only discusses project-relevant theories, it also demonstrates and
critically analyses their application. Research of this type can aid scholars in
better defining the strong points and/or shortcomings of translation theory. The
practical application of the theories presented has demonstrated and justified a
methodology that strives to achieve these ideals.
References
Akbari, M. (2009). Risk management in translation. In H. Che Omar, H. Haroon & A.
Abd. Ghani (Eds.). The sustainability of the translation field: The 12th international
conference of translation (pp. 209–218). Kuala Lumpur: Malaysian Translators
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CHAPTER FOURTEEN
T HE S OUND OF S IL E NCE
Translating Onomatopoeia and Mimesis in Japanese Manga
CATHY SELL AND SARAH PASFIELD-NEOFITOU
Introduction
In manga and comics, the use of sound effects is extremely common. While
English-language comic books are well known for effects like ‘POW!’ or ‘BAM!’,
often associated with conflict and action, Japanese-language manga include a
more extensive repertoire of sound representations. For example, one manga
surveyed in the present study included effects such as baku to represent biting into
an apple and guoooooo to simulate the sound of a large airship (Hoshino, 2011,
pp. 261–263). Sound effects may be the largest element on a page, appearing even
larger in some cases than the characters. At times, they are the main or even only
textual elements in a panel or page. One of the defining features of sound effects
in manga (one that makes them very challenging for translators) is their hybrid
textual-visual nature. The translation of onomatopoeia and mimesis from Japanese
to English in manga poses two main challenges. Firstly, on the linguistic level, it
is generally acknowledged that there are many more onomatopoeic and mimetic
terms in Japanese than English, posing translation language resource difficulties.
Secondly, on the artistic level, sound effects are often hand-drawn and integrated
into the surrounding artwork, posing aesthetic difficulties (and cost increases) in
the production of translated texts.
Particularly unique and challenging mimeses in Japanese manga are those
that represent silence. In fact, the Gitaigo giongo jisho (Onomatopoeia and
Mimesis Dictionary) (Makita, 2004), which defines almost 1,000 terms with
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illustrations and photographs, devotes an entire spread to only three words that
signify silence or lack; shiin, representing a lack of sound; jii!, a lack of motion;
and jiin, a lack of feeling (Makita, 2004, pp. 112–113). Rather appropriately,
the four pages following this spread are left almost entirely blank, except for
a pale blue and green wash, demonstrating the visual impact of lack (pp. 114–
117). Such ‘sound effects’ that signify a lack of sound or change are especially
difficult to translate into English.
Onomatopoeia and mimesis are difficult to translate at the best of times.
As the forward to Scheiner’s translation of Nihon keizai nyuumon (published in
English as Japan Inc) states, ‘Like any respectable comic book, this one was filled
with the Japanese equivalents for words like BAM! CRASH! and BOING! –
words that seem obvious in context but are often difficult to translate. What,
for example, is the English for koro koro, the sound a pencil makes rolling across
a table?’ (Ishinomori, 1988, p. vii).
In answer to these difficulties, Scheiner states: ‘In general, such words have
been left untranslated. Since their function is partially decorative, they can be
considered part of the artwork, or enterprising readers can devise their own
translations’ (1988, p. vii).1 Indeed, 83 per cent of the onomatopoeia and mimesis
identified in the English-language edition of Ishinomori’s Japan, Inc. is untrans
lated, and many publishers elect not to provide any translation of such effects at
all. Yet, in other translations, all or most onomatopoeia and mimesis are consid
ered essential and translated. How, then, are these ‘often difficult to translate’
terms rendered into English? Are onomatopoeia and mimesis textual, and is it
the duty of a translator to translate them along with the dialogue? Or are they
mainly decorative, to be considered as artwork beyond the translator’s domain?
And how does one attempt to describe the ‘sound’ of silence? This chapter will
explore the translation of onomatopoeia and mimesis in manga in general, and
with a particular focus on those words that represent silence as a case study.
Onomatopoeia and Mimesis

Ono’s (1984) Practical Guide to Onomatopoeia and Mimesis provides useful sub-
categorisation of this terminology group: firstly, according to whether they
1 Jüngst (2008) suggests that leaving onomatopoeia untranslated and untouched in Japanese
script also heightens the reader-perceived ‘authenticity’ of the text (p. 22), a trait which is
particularly valued by readers of manga (p. 59).
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The Sound of Silence
represent sounds or other states or conditions, and, secondly, according to

whether they relate to an animate being or an inanimate object, as Table 14.1
below shows.
Sound State/Condition
(onomatopoeia) (mimesis)
擬音語 [giongo] 擬態語 [gitaigo]
擬声語 [giseigo] 擬情語 [gijyogo]
Table 14.1. Onomatopoeia and Mimesis.
Onomatopoeia are words that imitate sounds, with examples including

laughter, barking, or the sound of breaking glass. They are known in Japanese
as giongo [sound words] (Ono, 1984). A subset of onomatopoeia that specifically
imitate the voices of animate beings, either human or animal, are known as
giseigo [voice words].
While onomatopoeia represent sounds, mimesis or gitaigo [mimicry
words] represent states or conditions. Ono (1984) defines gitaigo as words
that describe the appearance or nature of phenomena, movement, growth or
other change. Gitaigo also have a subcategory known as gijōgo [feeling words],
which represent human emotions or feelings (Ono, 1984). Inose argues that
mimeses are a ‘much more distinctive feature of the Japanese language’ (2008,
p. 98) than onomatopoeia: while other languages have a comparable volume
of onomatopoeia, there are few with as many mimetic words as Japanese. In
manga, giongo, giseigo, gitaigo and gijōgo are commonly drawn outside of speech
bubbles, and are integrated into the artwork to various extents.
Silent Language
Sound is an integral element of manga, but so is silence. Somewhere between
60 per cent and 90 per cent of human communication, it is thought, is expressed
non-verbally (cf. Hall, 1973; Goleman, 1995). Thorne (2005) argues that
many aspects of non-verbal communication transcend national and linguistic
boundaries, yet some areas remain culturally specific.
Scholarly interest in non-verbal communication has increased in recent
years, apparently due to three main drivers: a growing recognition of the
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importance of emotional intelligence, the spread of globalisation necessit

ating cross-cultural communication, and the increasing use of images in daily
communications and media (Thorne, 2005). As described above, manga has
a long tradition of combining visual and linguistic elements and is hence an
important area for study.
As Kalman and Rafaeli argue argue, silence is, in fact, part of the message,
even though it is often treated as an ‘insignificant background, a meaningless
default, a useless emptiness’ (2011, p. 54). They cite Bruneau’s demonstration
of the importance of silence: ‘silence is to speech as the white of this paper is to
print’ (1973, p.18) – an especially poignant observation when considering the
representation of silence in black-and-white printed manga.
Translation Strategies
In his aim to compile a framework for the study of comics, Kaindl (1999)
breaks down the structure of comics into three areas: linguistic, typographical
and pictorial. However, the inter-relatedness of image and text in comics and
manga blurs the boundaries between these categories. As Zanettin (2009)
notes, comics and manga are primarily visual texts and in translation they are
often manipulated at both textual and pictorial levels. Pictorial manipulation
is often necessary due to differences between the source text (ST) and target
text (TT) in terms of amount of the space needed, the reading direction and
the orientation of text. Indeed, Kaindl describes typography as ‘the interface
between language and pictures’ (1999, p. 274). This blurring is particularly
evident in the case of onomatopoeia and mimesis.
While Kaindl defines onomatopoeia as a linguistic element, it is important
to point out that in manga and comics, they are more often than not physically
and aesthetically a part of the artwork, especially as they are usually hand-
drawn. Unlike speech dialogue and narration, set apart by the use of balloons
and boxes, onomatopoeia are often fully integrated into the aesthetic layout of
the depicted scene. Additionally, whether hand-drawn or digitally rendered,
the typography used for onomatopoeia can be extremely expressive. Thus,
while Kaindl categorises onomatopoeia as linguistic, there also exist important
pictorial and typographical aspects, in which sense they may be described as
both image and text, as Scheiner (1988) indicates.
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Typographic Strategies
Kaindl (1999) suggests comics translators use an adaptation of the categories
used for film translation analysis by Delabastita (1989): repetitio [repetition],
deletio [deletion], detractio [detraction], adiectio [addition], substitutio [sub
stitution] and transmutatio [transmutation]. While it is important to acknow
ledge the differences between audio-visual and image-text works, they do
share many similarities that make the adaptation of these concepts useful in
examining typographic strategies in manga.
• Repetition refers to the use of elements from the ST as they are, without
change. This is common for elements deemed semantically unimportant,
or too difficult to translate. In the case of onomatopoeia, repetition
is employed where translation is seen as interfering with the original
aesthetics.
• Deletion is another translation strategy that is in essence a strategy of
non-translation, in which the ST onomatopoeia is erased.
• Detraction is an omission or reduction of partial content without deletion
of the entire element and is more commonly seen in the abridgment
of volumes, for example, rather than short textual units such as
onomatopoeia and mimesis.
Where onomatopoeia and mimesis are translated in comics and manga, the
common strategies employed are addition and substitution. Rare cases of
transmutation can also be found.
• Addition is the addition of material, which was not in the ST, to the
TT. This often takes the form of translators’ notes and cultural or
linguistic explanations such as in-text explication, footnotes, endnotes
or prefaces. Onomatopoeia and mimesis in manga may be translated
through addition by using in-panel subtitles, gutter or footnote
notation, or through the use of endnote glossaries.
• Substitution refers to the substitution of TT elements for corresponding
elements in the ST. This covers not only the standard practice of replacing
the ST dialogue and other text with translated equivalents, but it also
relates to the treatment of pictorial elements when adapting (or censoring)
a text. Naturally, this also covers instances when onomatopoeia are
deleted and replaced by target language (TL) equivalents.
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• Transmutation is a change in order of the source material. The classic

example of this in manga translation is ‘flipping’ (also known as
‘flopping’), where Japanese right to left pages are mirror-imaged so that
they read in the English left to right direction. Transmutation can also
occur on a micro-text level in manga where the information that is
presented across speech bubbles or panels can end up rearranged in the
translated text. In this case, it is often a necessity caused by differences in
syntax. In onomatopoeia and mimesis translation, transmutation can in
effect be an additional strategy employed when using either substitution
or addition.
Kaindl’s adaption of Delabastita’s strategies are helpful in identifying the

way that translation has been achieved in manga. However, it is important
to recognise that these are not linguistic strategies for translation, but rather
strategies that deal with the structure of the text. On the level of onomatopoeia
and mimesis, they are typographic strategies that enable the physical process of
producing the target text. Specifically, repetition, deletion and detraction allow
omission of content in translation; while addition and substitution integrate the
translation within the image-text environment of the manga manuscript; and
transmutation allows micro-level management of the content.
Linguistic Strategies
Kearns (2009) defines translation ‘strategies’ as courses of action undertaken to
achieve a goal in an optimal way. Four linguistic strategies were identified in
the translation of onomatopoeia and mimesis in the present study: equivalence,
coinage, descriptive, and omission.
• Equivalence may be defined as the use of any TL form that is deemed

equal to the SL form (Catford, 1965, p. 27). In the present study, we use
equivalence to refer to TL terms that are neither a neologism (as would
be the case for a coinage), nor a description of the ST term. Although
common, as Baker (2011) points out, the use of equivalent forms is not
always possible, as not all concepts are shared across languages. Thus, a
number of alternatives, as outlined below, have been developed.
• Coinage refers to a type of communication strategy identified by Tarone
(1977), which involves the creation of a new term in the TL, often on
the basis of existing rules. This strategy is particularly useful where an
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appropriate equivalent cannot be found in the TL and the modification

of existing TL terminology would be contextually incomprehensible to
the audience.
• Descriptive strategies are instances where the translator uses generic as
opposed to culture-bound terms in order to convey meaning, similar to
a gloss (Harvey, 2000). Where no equivalent exists and a coinage would
be inappropriate or not readily understood, particularly in relation to
culturally-specific terms, description of the term may be utilised.
• Finally, omission or non-translation may also be used as a strategy. Baker
(2011) points out that in situations where the meaning of a term is not
vital enough to justify the distraction of a lengthy explanation, it can be,
and often is, left out of translation. In comics and manga translation,
aesthetic concerns and spatial restrictions are also reasons for choosing
to omit onomatopoeia and mimesis. Omission also reduces costs and
resources associated with relettering, and artwork alterations.
The decision to translate, reproduce, or omit onomatopoeia and mimesis is

most often made by the publisher, and this decision often comes down to the
philosophy of the publisher and their target audience, and, ultimately, the under
lying purpose of the translation. One of the most prominent strategies for ono
matopoeia and mimesis employed on a publishing company level is omission
through the typographic strategy of repetition. In particular, this strategy is
made use of by publishers who assert their motive as respect to the source
material and the preservation of ‘authentic’ manga elements (Sell, 2011, p. 100).
Methodology
The present study makes use of a corpus of 738 translated manga tankōbon
(books of collected manga) drawn from Monash University’s JSC Manga Library
collection. This sample was analysed to establish trends in reading direction
(‘flipped’ versus ‘preserved’) and the dominant typographic strategy employed in
translation of onomatopoeia. Many of these manga are part of a series and, in
total, 206 separate series are represented in the sample. Few instances of strategy
variation between volumes of the same series were observed2 and, consequently,
the overview statistics were compiled using data trends based on the 206 grouped
series, rather than the 738 individual volumes so as to avoid skewed results. The
2 With some exceptions, cf. Chobits, Love for Venus, and Maison Ikkoku.
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findings from this large-scale quantitative analysis will be used to provide a

backdrop for the in-depth discussion of the translation of silence in manga.
At the time of analysis, the JSC Manga Library collection held over 2,000
books. The 738 volume subset of this collection used for quantitative analysis
in the present study represented the English translated manga collection.
Publication dates ranged from 1988 to 2011, as detailed in Table 14.2.
Decade No. Series No. Volumes
1980s 3 6
1990s 16 44
2000s 181 658
2010s 6 30
TOTAL 206 738
Table 14.2. Corpus used for Quantitative Analysis by Publication Decade.
While the composition of this corpus is largely based on availability of donat

ions to the library, it is also roughly indicative of the increase in the popularity
of manga outside of Japan over time. Patten has argued that while some in the
US became aware of manga in the late 1970s and early 1980s, manga were
more ‘legendary’ than accessible until the end of the 1980s (2004, p. 259).
Wong (2007) identifies a concerted marketing effort on the part of Japanese
publishers in the mid- to late 1990s, resulting in an increase in the popularity
and accessibility of manga from 2000 onwards, the decade from which the
majority of our sample is drawn.
Ten manga were selected for in-depth analysis, as listed in Table 14.3. These
ten manga represent three different demographic genres: three shōnen (targeted
at boys) – Azumanga Daioh, The Power of Negative Thinking, and Yotsuba&! –
three shōjo (targeted at girls) – Boys Over Flowers, Neon Genesis Evangelion:
Angelic Days and Antique Bakery) – and four seinen (targeted at adults, mostly
male) – Phoenix: Dawn, Maison Ikkoku, Professor Munakata’s British Museum
Adventure and Japan, Inc. Pinning down the genre and target audience of
manga is notoriously difficult and sometimes slippage occurs between Japanese
and English markets in addition to the blurred distinctions in the Japanese
market itself. However, shōnen and shōjo manga have been described as the two
258
main marketing genres (Toku, 2005) and, fittingly, 60 per cent of our in-depth
sample consists of volumes that may be categorised as targeted towards these
target readerships.
Genre Title & Author & Translator Publisher & Year

Translated Title
Azumangadaiou AZUMA Kiyohiko Tokyo: Mediaworks, 2000
[Azumanga Daioh] (Bertrand, Kay; Wiedrick, (Houston: ADV Manga,
Jack; Lopez, Javier; 2003)
Forsyth, Amy; Rodriguez,
Ai)
Shōnen
Sayonara Zetsubo sensei KUMETA, Koji Tokyo: Kōdansha, 2005

[The Power of Negative (Aurino, Joyce) (New York: Del Ray, 2009)
Thinking]
Yotsuba to AZUMA, Kiyohiko Tokyo: Media Works, 2003
[Yotsuba &!] (Lopez, Javier) (Houston, ADV Manga,
2005)
Hana yori dango KAMIO Yoko Tokyo: Suiheisha, 2003
[Boys Over Flowers] (Jones, Gerard) (San Francisco: Viz
Media, 2003)
Shin seiki evangelion HAYASHI, Fumino Tokyo: Kadokawa Shoten,
Kōtetsu no gaarufurendo (Wiedrick, Jack; Bertrand, 2004
Shōjo
2nd Kaoru) (Houston, ADV Manga,

[Neon Genesis 2006)
Evangelion: Angelic Days]
Seiyou kottō yōgashiten YOSHINAGA, Fumi Tokyo: Shinshokan, 2008
[Antique Bakery] (Sato, Sachiko) (Gardena: Digital Manga,
2005)
Hi to tori: Reimeihen TEZUKA, Osamu Tokyo: Kadokawa Shoten,
[Phoenix: Dawn] (Dadakai - Cook, Jared; 1986
Sakamoto, Shinji; Schodt, (San Francisco: Viz
Frederik L.) Media, 2003)
Maison Ikkoku TAKAHASHI, Rumiko Tokyo: Shōgakukan, 2003
(translated under the (Jones, Gerard; Thorn, (San Francisco: Viz
same title) Matt.) Media, 2003)
Munakata kyojyu Ikōroku- HOSHINO, Yukinobu Tokyo: Shōgakukan, 2010
Seinen
Daiei Hakubutsukan no (Rousmaniere, Nicole (London: British Museum,

Daibōken Coolidge; Uchida, Hiromi; 2011)
[Professor Munakata’s Clarke, Timothy)
British Museum
Adventure]
Nihon keizai nyuumon ISHINOMORI, Shotaro Tokyo:
[Japan, Inc.: An (Scheiner, Betsey) Nihonkeizaishimbun, 1986
Introduction to Japanese (Berkeley: U. California,
Economics] 1988)
Table 14.3. In-Depth Sample by Demographic Genre.
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MANGA VISION
The onomatopoeia and mimesis in these ten volumes were analysed accord
ing to script in the ST (hiragana, katakana, kanji or roman alphabet) and the
translation and typographic strategies used in the TT (based on the theoretical
framework outlined above). In total, over 1,400 unique pairs of Japanese
onomatopoeia/mimesis (transcribed using the ‘wapuro’ method of romanisation
to facilitate digital management processes and retrieval) and their English
translations were collected and entered into a database for analysis, and for use
as a glossary, available at: http://www.mangastudies.com/sfx/.
Findings
In order to examine how onomatopoeia and mimesis are translated between
Japanese and English in manga, patterns and strategies employed in the corpus
were first examined, before undertaking a case study of the translation strategies
used to translate sound effects that express the ‘sound’ of silence, a particularly
‘difficult to translate’ set of terms.
Patterns of Translation According to Publisher

As previously mentioned, it is often the case that decisions of whether or not to
translate onomatopoeia and mimesis are made by the publisher rather than the
translator; thus, determining patterns of translation in relation to publishing
house is of importance. The top publishers represented in the corpus of translated
manga were Tokyo Pop, Viz Media, Chaung Yi, ADV Manga, CMX Manga,
Dark Horse, CPM Manga, Del Rey and Go! Comi. Overall, publishers made
their translations available primarily in unflipped right to left format (ranging
from 67 per cent to 100 per cent of the publications of individual companies in
the sample).
In terms of the dominant translation strategy used for onomatopoeia
and mimesis, in the 206 series sampled from these publishers, substitution
appeared most frequently (39 per cent), followed by repetition (29 per cent).
Addition was slightly less frequently used (23 per cent) and a dominantly
mixed approach appeared in a smaller number still (9 per cent). Of the nineteen
series that employed a mixed approach, addition was used in all nineteen, while
substitution featured in seventeen and repetition in just eight. Thus, it appears
that, on the whole, the use of substitution, repetition and addition strategies
260
were the most popular. This demonstrates that even though onomatopoeia
and mimesis are considered difficult to translate, and despite their integration
with visual elements, they are generally translated. Deletion and transmutation
were not dominant translation strategies for any of the publishers in the sample
and less than a third predominantly utilised repetition. While the majority of
publishers (71 per cent) opted to translate most onomatopoeia and mimesis,
it should be noted that the 29 per cent that mainly used repetition do not
represent an insignificant number. As repetition could not generally be used
as a translation strategy for other communicative linguistic elements such as
dialogue, this highlights the disputed nature of sound effects as text/image.
Patterns of Reading Direction over Time

Changes in the consumption and marketing of manga in the West were also
hypothesised to affect patterns of translation over time. Figure 14.1 displays
the direction of reading utilised in the manga series surveyed in the sample,
according to time of publication (grouped into two-year clusters).
Figure 14.1. Reading Direction over Time.
Over time, it appears that right to left formats have become more common;
in the 1980s and 1990s, left to right publications dominated the sample, while
in the early to mid-2000s, this number declined sharply, perhaps driven by
recent trends for ‘authenticity’ (Rampant, 2010). In the late 2000s and early
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2010s, no series utilising a left to right format in the translated text was found
in the sample. Zanettin notes that the ‘prevailing norm for Japanese comics
published in translation now seems to be to retain the original right to left
reading direction, a strategy favoured by fans’ (2009, p. 40).
Reading direction and the treatment of onomatopoeia and mimesis are
intimately related. As previously mentioned, the transmutation strategy of
‘flipping’ creates a mirror image of the artwork in order to accommodate a
different reading direction. This may influence whether or not a term is sub
stituted, to replace the now mirrored Japanese, or simply left in its transmuted
format and considered a part of the artwork. These considerations are explored
in more detail below.
Script–Artwork Integration
Script–artwork integration entails a number of challenges and opportunities for
translators. A note on the copyright information page in Professor Munakata’s
British Museum Adventure, for example, explicitly states that ‘Japanese sound
notations that form an integral part of the original drawings have been
retained’ (2011, p. 4) and directs readers to a glossary in the appendix. Here,
we see recognition of the integrated nature of drawings and sound notations in
manga, a decision that appears fitting for a museum publishing house, where
preservation of culture and artistic expression may be viewed as an important
aim. The English translation of Japan, Inc. does not translate most of the ST
sound effects and a prefatory note describes the function of sound effects in
manga as ‘partially decorative’ and ‘part of the artwork’ (Ishinomori, 1988,
p. vii). Of course, the purpose of translation varies across manga and both of
these volumes have a somewhat academic focus (one is a story published by and
about the British Museum, the other is a scholarly introduction to the Japanese
economy published by the University of California). In manga where action and
emotion are of crucial importance to the storyline, the option not to translate
sound effects may not be well-received by readers. Indeed, there appears to be
a substantial demand for translations of sound effects. Dozens of fan-produced
guides to sound effects in manga exist online such as, for example, The JADED
Network (Lee, n.d.) and fan comments indicate a sense of frustration with un
translated sound effects in the English manga they read, as well as a strong desire
to understand the nuances of the Japanese terms used.
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Layout and textual considerations are highly influential in the translation

of manga. Although, as demonstrated above, there appears to be a preference
to preserve right to left reading direction in contemporary translations, issues
did exist in the past with the ‘flipping’ of manga, where not only would the
page order be reversed, but the content mirrored. As the text in speech bubbles
and thought bubbles is almost always replaced with translations in the TT, this
practice rarely presents a problem outside of the mirroring of onomatopoeia
and mimesis (with the exception of elements such as signage and logos being
mirrored, and a larger than usual proportion of the population appearing to be
left-handed). When manga are flipped, sound effects appear backwards also,
meaning that they need to be re-mirrored, replaced with TL translations, or
risk bilingual readers noticing their strange appearance.
Space restrictions, where a translation takes up more or less room on the
page than the ST, are also cause for concern when translating elements such
as signs and sound effects. While the appearance of speech bubbles in English
manga translations has long been noted (where the thin speech bubbles
designed to accommodate vertical Japanese characters are not well shaped to
fit horizontally written English), sound effects in some respects present even
more challenges. As they are often written directly over a background or even
integrated into the illustration of a character in the story, it can be necessary
to either add to the illustration (if the TT is smaller) or remove more of the
illustration (if the TT is larger). In one of the examined translations, the two-
character expression shin (Jp. しん) for silence is translated as the two-word
and four-letter vocalisation ‘hm hm’ in English (Kumeta, 2009, p. 54).
In Japanese to English translation, either the TT term must be rendered
much smaller, losing some of its readability, or more space must be taken up
with lettering in order to keep the text the same size. In the case of silent
mimesis, the more space that is taken up by the text, the ‘louder’ or more
dramatic the state may appear. Conversely, when translating loud sounds such
as explosions or collisions, making the text smaller in order to accommodate a
longer translation may detract from the visual impact of the panel.
Having described the typographic considerations and publishers’ typical
stances, the following section will examine the strategies used to deal with the
linguistic challenges involved in the translation of manga, in conjunction with
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these typographic considerations and constraints, with a particular focus on

words that express the sound of silence.
Strategies for Translating the Sound of Silence

In the glossary created as part of our in-depth analysis of ten selected manga
volumes, all entries from TTs which were the same as or derived from the three
terms collected in the Gitaigo giongo jisho (Makita, 2004) to signify silence
or lack were collected for analysis and their referent verified in the ST. That is,
only terms that were considered references to a lack of sound, action or emotion
were included. Table 14.4 groups these terms according to the translation
strategy utilised. The three terms collected in the Gitaigo Giongo Jisho are:
shiin, representing a lack of sound; jii!, representing a lack of motion; and jiin,
representing a lack of feeling.
Translation strategy Examples
Equivalent/Coinage Onomatopoeia
jii! じーっ gullllllp (Takahashi, p.128)
shi! シッ shhh (Tezuka, p. 239)
shin しん hm hm (Kumeta, p. 54)
shiin しーん sh-hh (Takahashi, p. 59), shhhhhhh (Kamio, p. 9)
shiisshi! しーっしーっ shh shh (Takahashi, p.120)
Verbalisation
jii じー hmph (Takahashi, p. 58), hnnh? (Takahashi, p. 99), huh?
(Takahashi, p.103), uhh (Takahashi, p. 65)
jii! じーっ hmmmm (Takahashi, p.197)
jiin じーん ahhh (Takahashi, p.107)
shiin シーン what!? (Tezuka, p. 262)
Description ji! ジッ staaare (Hayashi, p.105)
ji! じっ stare (Hayashi, p.169)
jii じー glare (Takahashi, p.158), stare (Azuma, p.73)
jii! じーっ stare (Takahashi, p.128)
Omission jin gamigamigamigami じーんガミガミガミガミ squrnch squrnch
(Takahashi, p. 212)
Table 14.4. Strategies for translating onomatopoeia and mimesis, which represent silent
actions and states.
NOTE: Page numbers above refer to TT references.
It should be noted that in analysis coinage is extremely difficult to discern from

equivalence, because accurate identification would require detailed knowledge
264
of the translator’s process, including their reference sources and their familiarity
with the existing corpus of translated manga and original comics and manga in
the target language. Therefore, for the purposes of this project, these strategies
are acknowledged to be different in creative endeavour, but are treated as
similar in analysis, due to their shared use of target language onomatopoeia
and mimesis, even though the source of the terms differ by creation versus
reference.
As can be seen above, two types of equivalent strategies were identified:
onomatopoeia and verbalisations. Several onomatopoeic expressions for silence
were translated as a kind of giseigo [voice word] – for example, a person making
a shushing or gulping sound. While the Japanese refers to an uncomfortable
silence, an absence of any sound, the English signifies a lack of talking. Shi!,
shiin and variants were often translated with the phonetically similar ‘shhh’
or ‘sh-hh’ in English, and many of the translations may also be considered
coinages, making use of the repetition of letters and sounds in non-traditional
spellings. In another example, ‘gullllllp’ (Takahashi, 2003, p. 128), an innovative
spelling of ‘gulp’ (a word that describes a sound in English) is used to represent
an uncomfortable quiet. It is important to note here that the original Japanese
jii! represents silence itself; however, lacking a suitable equivalent in English,
the translator has used a sound that may be associated with uncomfortableness.
Equivalent strategies that transformed sound effects in Japanese into
verbalisations in English were frequently used, particularly in Maison Ikkoku.
This strategy substitutes an utterance in place of a term used to signify either the
character’s condition or the atmosphere they are in. The clearest example of this
is perhaps in Tezuka (1986, p. 263) where a large crowd reacts to the news that
an army is approaching. In the ST, shiin is used to indicate a stunned silence; in
the TT, the crowd’s reaction is rendered as ‘what!?’ Although typographically
shiin is clearly a sound effect, it seems obvious that the translation ‘what!?’ is
intended as a verbalisation of shock, rather than a silence. It is interesting to
note that although this interrogative is not normally used as a sound effect
in English, the translated text is presented outside of any speech or thought
bubble, in the same way as the ST sound effect.
It is noteworthy that, due to the differences between Japanese and English,
particularly in relation to the number and variety of mimetic expressions
available, none of the equivalent terms utilised above are semantically or
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mimetically equivalent. While all of the ST terms examined here are mimetic,
expressing a state or condition (of silence, of lack), all of the TT terms involve
sound, either onomatopoeic or verbal, and express presence (of someone
hushing, of a lump in one’s throat or words of shock or surprise). However,
they are contextually equivalent within the manga.
Descriptive strategies were generally used where a silent action (such as
moving stealthily or staring) was given an English description (such as ‘sneak
sneak’ or ‘stare’) to replace a Japanese mimesis. In one example (Hayashi,
2006, p. 106), the translator opted to modify this description by elongating the
vowel, possibly in order to make it appear more like a sound effect (‘staaare’), and
thus, it may also qualify as a coinage (similar to ‘gullllllp’).
Only one example of the omission of a mimesis pertaining to silence was
uncovered, and it was found to occur in a very specific environment. In
Takahashi’s Maison Ikkoku, two sound effects – jiin and gamigami (repeated
twice) – are both given in the one panel, both produced on the character
Godai’s head (Takahashi, 2003, p. 212). In this scene, Godai is walking along
the river dejectedly and stops to clean his ear. The use of jiin here may relate
to Godai’s mental condition – he has just seen the object of his affection with
his rival and has decided to take a long walk to clear his head. The gamigami
on the other hand is more likely related to the sound of Godai cleaning his
ear. The two are written in different scripts – jiin in hiragana, and gamigami
in katakana. However, in the TT only one sound effect is given, also repeated
twice via substitution: ‘squrnch squrnch’. Once again, the sound effect in the
TT is based on its phonetic similarity to an English word (‘squelch’) and we
may assume the repetition is intended as a translation of gamigami, rather than
jiin. Here, it appears that a translation for jiin was omitted with the original
Japanese retained instead. It may be that the translator felt that the use of
‘squrnch squrnch’ adequately depicted the action Godai was undertaking,
which in turn revealed something about his underlying mental state, or perhaps
space constraints were a factor – fitting all of these sound effects into the small
space of Godai’s head printed on the page appears challenging enough in
Japanese, let alone in the English. This demonstrates the tensions present when
deciding how to translate particularly problematic terms such as onomatopoeia
and mimesis, and in particular those that express the sound of silence.
266
Concluding Discussion
The translation of onomatopoeia and mimesis from Japanese to English is a
double-layered challenge. Firstly, it is difficult linguistically because Japanese
contains a greater and more varied range of sound effects than does English.
The existence in Japanese of numerous mimeses, including those used for
expressing silence and soundless actions and states, is evidence of this.
Secondly, translation is difficult typographically because such effects are often
handwritten, artistically rendered and, aesthetically speaking, a component
of the artwork. While the translation of dialogue often requires a strategic
placement of text or even the expansion of speech bubbles, onomatopoeia and
mimesis are often fully integrated into the artwork and the translator (and the
reader) may therefore prefer that the original Japanese be retained. In cases
where substitution is desired, the question of whether it is the translator’s or the
artist’s job to render the sound effects into the TT may arise.
Via the analysis of a corpus of manga and selected case studies, this chapter
has examined some of the most frequently used strategies of response to these
challenges, namely substitution, repetition and addition, in terms of typo
graphic strategies used overall, and equivalent/coinage and description, in terms
of linguistic strategies used. These choices of strategy highlight the hybrid nature
of onomatopoeia as image/text (as seen in the frequent use of repetition) and
the ways in which neologisms in particular can help overcome the linguistic
challenges inherent in translating manga from Japanese to English.

You can access the manga sound effects glossary online via the Manga Studies website at
http://mangastudies.com/sfx/ or scan the above QR code.
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Acknowledgements
Data entry for this project was greatly assisted by Katherine Pickhaver, Rebecca
Irving, Erica Koh and James Rampant of the Monash University Japanese
Studies Centre Manga Library.
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269
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
M A NG A S P E C TACL E S
Manga as a Multimodal Research Tool
CATHY SELL
The Multimodality of Manga

On the whole, manga demonstrate great interrelatedness of image and text,
perhaps more than many other mediums. As Tanaka states, the multimodal
nature of manga allows the audience easy access to characters’ psychological
and emotional changes (see chapter twelve). This multimodality makes manga
an object of great interest not only to researchers, but also to translators, for
whom this multimodality presents additional challenges (see chapters thirteen
and fourteen), and to educators, who increasingly recognise the importance of
multiliteracies (see chapter eleven).
Although ‘silent’ comics with no dialogue do exist in the minority, they
often employ the use of symbols or text as part of the scenery. Examples
of experimental manga with minimal use of pictures also exist, but such
experiments tend to be highly specific. They include meta-textual explorations
of the medium and its conventions, such as the episode of Akatsuka Fujio’s
gag manga Tensai Bakabon, which leaves the majority of images out to make
it ‘easy to read’, pushing the boundaries of manga expression (Akatsuka 2009,
pp. 118–122). Consequently, the multimodal nature of the image-text can be
seen as a defining communicative aspect of what continues to be a medium that
is both extremely diverse and difficult to describe and define, perhaps making
multimodalism equal to the sequential nature of manga/comics, as they and
single-panel cartoons can be viewed as different branches of the same base
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medium and also share many of the same cultural and communicative tools
of expression.
As to the precise nature of their multimodality, comics and manga fall under
Snell-Hornby’s (2006) definition of multisemiotic texts; they are a combin
ation of verbal signs and graphic signs, in which the images are more than
simply illustrative – rather, the images and text are interconnected in carrying
out their communicative function. As Kaindl points out, the images in comics
and manga ‘play an integral role in the constitution of the meaning, whether
through interaction with the linguistic elements or as an independent semiotic
system’ (2004, p. 176). Therefore, both linguistic and pictorial elements can
work together, as well as play against each other, in the multisemiotic medium
of manga.
Snell-Hornby asserts that certain types of multisemiotic texts in translation,
such as subtitling and dubbing, can result in ‘constrained translation’ (2006,
p. 86), because the close relationship between the visual element and the source
language linguistic element can then restrict the translated text from being
comfortably integrated. This is especially relevant in the case of translated
manga, where text and artwork integration presents certain challenges – for
example, translated text may create additional white space, typically at the top
and bottom of speech bubbles, that may require artwork manipulation.
Kaindl’s (1999) framework for the analysis of comics (as drawn upon in
chapter fourteen) breaks the medium up into pictorial, typographic and lin
guistic elements, and further breaks down linguistic elements into titles, dia
logue, inscriptions and onomatopoeia. This framework offers a model through
which textual analysis can be implemented by analysing comics and manga,
and Kaindl uses it to analyse translation strategies by applying Delabastita’s
(1989) film translation strategies. Similarly, communicative analysis of the
source text can be carried out using the theories of multimodal transcription
text analysis.
Baldry and Thibault (2006) apply multimodal transcription text analysis
to single-panel cartoons as a way of enabling in-depth analysis of the visuals
and narrative event structure (pp. 7–15). However, in the case of sequential
artwork, such as comic strips and story manga, the advanced complexity of
temporal sequencing also increases the complexity of pictorial and linguistic
communication. This requires wider analysis and the inclusion of linguistic
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elements. Therefore, while the multisemiotic nature of the medium seems to

be one of the most defining communicative aspects of manga, it is clear that
sequential artwork also has an enormous effect on how that communication
is achieved. The complexity of manga linguistic elements can be included
through the use of the multimodal transcription method devised by Baldry
and Thibault for audiovisual texts.
Scenes from an audiovisual work can be broken down into the multiple modes
of visual image, movement and soundtrack in order to analyse visual, kinesic
and aural communication (Baldry & Thibault, 2006). In the same way, manga
communication can be analysed by examining these communication modes
in relation to an adaptation of Kaindl’s framework of pictorial, typographic
and linguistic elements. This allows us to examine the preciseness of manga’s
communicative capabilities.
Visual communication may be analysed by examining the pictorial elements
on a page or panel level, including Kaindl’s linguistic subcategory of inscriptions
(see chapter one, see also chapters four, ten and thirteen).
In manga, kinesic communication is achieved through the use of action lines
within the artwork and situational differences between panels. For sequential
works, the use of temporal features such as white space, repetition of imagery
and scene transitions between and across panels and pages (particularly across
page turns and in cliff hangers between serials) also offer rich methods of
kinesic communication and subsequent analysis. Moreno Acosta and Lee and
Armour both explore flow, reading direction and other elements of kinesic
communication in chapter two and chapter ten, respectively.
The aural environment of manga – the atmospheric tone and background
soundtrack – is communicated very explicitly through a combination of typo
graphic elements, onomatopoeia, mimesis and the linguistic elements of dia
logue (these features are explored further in chapters nine, twelve and fourteen).
These pictorial and linguistic techniques that are observable in manga allow
researchers the opportunity to examine not only how content is situated within
cultural contexts in manga, but also how the sensory world can be semiotically
conveyed in manga with such expressiveness. Examinations of this kind lead
to a deeper understanding of the capabilities of manga and the capabilities of
multisemiotic communication.
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Manga Studies Perspectives

The image–text relationship that is so central to manga allows researchers
to contextually examine manga’s language elements, such as onomatopoeia
and mimesis, its depiction of different language varieties, including regional
dialects and second-language speakers, and its language registers, including
politeness levels (for further discussion, see chapter fourteen, chapters nine
and eight and chapter twelve, respectively). These elements, and their use, differ
substantially across languages and cultures.
Japanese has more onomatopoeia and mimesis than many other languages.
Combined with the situational context provided by pictorial aspects, the
concentration of these terms to convey a manga’s aural and aesthetic environ
ment provides a rich resource for analysis. The level of integration between
image and text in manga is particularly evident upon examination of onom
atopoeia and mimesis and the difficulties in translating these (see chapter
fourteen).
The contextual nature of the pictorial and linguistic elements in manga also
makes it a good resource for discourse analysis, particularly the analysis of non-
standard discourse such as depictions of second language and impoliteness.
Manga’s multimodal capabilities of expressing a variety of linguistic realities
are highlighted by Robertson’s examination of the subversion of orthographic
norms to depict non-native speakers (see chapter nine). An analysis of how
this is achieved gives us a greater understanding of how speakers from these
linguistic groups are portrayed and also how they are perceived within different
cultural contexts. While it is well understood that manga conveys created,
rather than authentic dialogue, it stands as an illustrative medium for the
depiction of language use and an expressed notation of linguistic information.
As a tool for analysis, this allows us to grasp how language can be used, as well
as what could affect or potentially aid that use.
Aoyama and Kennett’s exploration of depictions of language learning
within manga illustrates that manga has applications as both a teaching and
learning tool (see chapter eight). Their identification of separate language
learning approaches depicted in the manga Nodame Cantabile highlights the
relationship between manga and real-world situations, which allows manga to
act as a point of reference in examining social and linguistic relationships.
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Manga Spectacles
Similarly, Tanaka’s study of impolite language in manga illustrates its use

as a primary resource material for types of dialogue and linguistic practice that
are difficult to access and observe in real-life scenarios (see chapter twelve).
While researchers must be careful in their selection and use of texts, and wary
of their limitations, they nonetheless provide a valuable resource.
The study of manga’s surrounding culture further demonstrates the multi
disciplinary strength of manga studies. Manga’s multiple modes of expression
and existence across different forms of media have been met with as many
forms of commercial and fan engagement, which include various adaptations
(anime, games, light novels, illustrations, character goods and so forth) and
cosplay, fan fiction and dōjinshi, which often exhibit hybrid artistic styles and
intercultural content. These all add to the corpus of manga culture. For these
creative practices, manga acts as a source text.
As Langsford discusses in chapter one, manga is the primary resource used
by cosplayers, who acquire a ‘way of reading’ manga that enables them to re-
create it as three-dimensional costumes and live performances. Fan groups such
as cosplayers form distinct networks tied together by shared interests and values.
These networks are useful subjects of cultural and communicative analysis,
whether the networks exist to share information and techniques regarding
effective cosplay (see chapter one) or to discuss the cultural qualities of a
specific sub-genre of manga (see Turner’s study of online yaoi fan communities
in chapter five).
The influence of manga can also be seen in the growth and development
of original OEL manga (and indeed other original non-Japanese manga) and
the stylistic choices of OEL artists. This is an area that brings into question
the issue of Japaneseness, as discussed by Moreno Acosta in chapter two.
Moreno Acosta argues that OEL artists must reinterpret the manga form with
creativity and originality and move beyond initial attempts to re-create the
‘Japaneseness’ of manga. Moreno Acosta finds that the desire to achieve this
can be identified in some OEL works, in which it is expressed stylistically as
well as metatextually.
Examinations of these partly reactive creative practices lead us to better
understand how manga is consumed, interpreted and then reintegrated into
manga culture at large. Many OEL manga artists and producers of manga or
anime-orientated magazines start out as fans before evolving into professional
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producers of manga or manga-related media. The initially peripheral nature

of many of these publications illustrates how the growth and evolution of
the manga industry is fed by the participation of fans and fan communities.
However, as Rivera Rusca’s research shows, such publications must continue to
evolve in order to remain relevant in a technologically changing society, while
working within the restrictions ironically placed upon them by having become
part of the established industry (see chapter three).
Another area of cultural expansion that is noteworthy is the adaptation
or translation of manga into different media. Smith’s musical response to a
dōjinshi manga is an excellent example of this (see chapter seven). While the
line between adaptation and translation is often debated, Smith’s translation
of the multimodal manga text into musical syntax involves relational concepts
common to working across sign systems. Adaptations into film, books, anime,
games, character goods and so forth equally add to manga culture, but trans
lation of a multimodal text with linguistic and visual properties into a non-
linguistic and non-visual sign system facilitate new possibilities for cross-media
collaboration.
The expressiveness of manga as a medium, and the wide variety of topics
and genres that it covers, also make it excellent research material for examining
the treatment of social and cultural situations. Bell’s study of the depictions of
the Japanese justice system in Death Note illustrates manga’s potential for social
commentary. It shows us what can be learnt on a social, psychological and
philosophical level by examining this media (see chapter four).
Similarly, Baudinette’s examination of bara manga published in Bádi
magazine reveals both its construction and criticism of stereotypes of gay
subjectivity through both linguistic and pictorial means. This brings to the fore
manga’s role in constructing, disseminating and critically engaging with social
norms and subversions, as well as issues of social identity and literary genre (see
chapter six).
This is true not only within the Japanese context, but also on an international,
cross-cultural scale. Zulawnik’s analysis and translation of politically charged
anti-Korean manga and anti-Japanese manhwa highlights the potential for
manga to be used as a media of propaganda, and the need for impartial academic
translations of controversial material to aid informed discourse and debate (see
chapter thirteen).
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Manga are also used as objects of research and as pedagogical tools in the
field of education. Such manga may have a historical focus1, a scientific or
mathematical focus,2 or it may serve as a resource for second-language learning
(see chapters eight and ten for further discussion). Commercial manga not
originally created for educational purposes is also being used in classrooms
as a pedagogical resource. As Promnitz-Hayashi discusses in chapter eleven,
manga allows language students to encounter and use language that would
otherwise be inaccessible in the course of regular academic activities, thus
improving students’ motivation and cultural and communicative opportunities.
However, further investigation into the importance of manga literacy is
required to ensure the effectiveness of manga as a classroom resource. Lee and
Armour’s research in chapter ten shows that students need instruction, at least
in the initial stages, in order to correctly sequence manga panels and decode
manga content, particularly in the case of short or single page manga, which
may be used in class. Manga literacy, which encompasses an understanding of
cover sequencing, pictorial grammar and stylistic tropes, may need to be taught
in classrooms if manga is to be optimised as a pedagogical tool.
Future Visions of Manga Research

As a medium through which to express and develop personal identities and
group cultures, manga remains a fresh resource for academic attention on many
fronts.
Further exploration of fan group and individual engagement with Japanese
manga is needed and, in turn, the cultural ownership and expansion of
manga culture internationally. The issues of ‘Japaneseness’ and ‘authenticity’
often encountered in manga research in relation to the texts, fan identity,
and consumer/creator identity is a complex issue worthy of further academic
attention and, ideally, a wide-scale study. In particular, the identities of OEL
manga artists and cosplayers (and the identities of hobbyists and professionals
within these categories) appear to be particularly fertile areas for exploration.
1 See, for example: Shūeisha’s textbook manga series about Japanese history (Kasahara, 1982);
Kimura’s manga series addressing world history (1986–1987); and Tezuka Production’s
Edumanga biography series, detailing the lives of historical figures such as Helen Keller
(Yanagawa & Yagi, 2005) and Albert Einstein (Himuro & Iwasaki, 2006).
2 See, for example: The Manga Guide to … series, which covers topics such as calculus (Kojima
et al., 2009) and biochemistry (Takemura et al., 2011).
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While important groundwork on these subjects has been undertaken in this

book, more exploration is required. A comparative study of creators working in
different fields would be a much needed, but larger-scale project.
The place manga inhabits amongst related forms of popular culture – anime,
magazines, movies, online media – is a key theme of many of the chapters
in the first section of this book. Questions as to the definition, framing and
ownership of particular manga genres (such as yaoi) are addressed, as are
questions regarding the scope of manga culture. While manga culture is at
times relatively pigeonholed by industry marketing assertions of ‘genre’,
Baudinette rightly points out that manga studies has the potential to question
such assumptions and representations (see chapter six). The moral and social
attitudes depicted in manga and evident in manga culture, and how these
reflect on and influence society, are an area worthy of continued study.
Cross-media adaptations, collaborations and developments of new tech
nologies within the partner industries of manga, anime and games continue
to expand the cultural scope of manga. Iconic examples of these ‘media mixes’
include the utilisation of manga intellectual properties to boost regional tourism
(Kawahara and Kameani, 2014), and the rise of Vocaloid persona Hatsune
Miku, who now headlines live concerts by use of holographic technology (Ito,
2012). These kind of developments both highlight and question styles of manga
expression, as does Smith’s applied research on manga-inspired music discussed
in chapter seven. Further cross-media and group collaborations offer exciting
opportunities for artists and academics alike.
As manga itself changes, one of the key areas for academic attention will be
how new technologies affect the creation and consumption of manga, and the
industry and culture that surrounds and supports the medium. Both resistance
and enthusiasm for digital publication methods can be seen in the manga and
manga journalism industries, and the response of manga culture to these new
technologies is naturally an ongoing area of research.
Other areas of research will include the depiction mechanics of the aural
environment within the multi-semiotic system, through the use of expressive
typography, onomatopoeia and mimesis. The bilingual terminology database
that has resulted from Sell and Pasfield-Neofitou’s research (see chapter
fourteen) is a project with plans for expansion, and as more terms are added it
will be interesting to see further applications, such as longitudinal studies.
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Manga Spectacles
Robertson’s study of the creative use of orthography for representing non-

native speech (see chapter nine) opens up opportunities for further research into
the depiction of non-standard speech, including dialects and other language
varieties. How language varieties are translated is also an area that could
be examined further, and manga remains a strong resource for multimodal
translation analysis. Zulawnik’s applied translation (see chapter thirteen) is
part of a growing project that can enable a wider understanding of sensitive
texts and make them more accessible as academic resources. This has important
implications.
The use of manga in language education, both as a medium of instruction
and as a tool for motivation, invites academic discourse. Areas of focus might
include the effectiveness of its implementation and the way students engage
with the material. Questions might be raised as to whether the introduction
of contextual information regarding manga culture might further student
learning and cultural engagement, and whether different forms of media from
manga culture might be usefully incorporated in an educational setting as well.
We look forward to seeing further development of the themes explored in
this volume and the emergence of other new perspectives in Manga Studies.
We anticipate that the multimodality of manga will continue to raise its value
as a research tool in a wide variety of academic disciplines.
References
Akatsuka, F. (2008). Akatsuka Fujio ten: Gyagu de kakenuketa 72-nen. Tokyo: Akatsuka Fujio
Ten Seisaku Iinkai.
Baldry, A., & Thibault, P. J. (2006). Multimodal transcription and text analysis. London and
Oakville, CT: Equinox.
Delabastita, D. (1989). Translation and mass-communication: Film and T.V. translation as
evidence of cultural dynamics. Babel, 35(4), 193–218.
Ito, H. (2012) CGM no genzai to mirai: Hatsune Miku nikoniko dōga, Piapuro no
kirihirakita sekai: 3. Hatsune Miku as an interface [The Present and Future of CGM:
The World Opened up by Hatsune Miku, Nico Nico Douga and PIAPRO: 3.
Hatsune Miku as an interface]. Jōhōshori, 53(5), 477-482.
Kaindl, K. (1999). Thump, whizz, poom: A framework for the study of comics under
translation. Target, 11(2), 263–288.
Kaindl, K. (2004). Multimodality in the translation of humour in comics. In E. Ventola,
C. Charles & M. Katenbacher (Eds.), Perspectives on multimodality (pp. 173–192).
Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Kawahara, K., & Kametani, Y. (2014) Kyrakutaa o katsuyō shita machinami ni kansuru
kenkyū: Mizuki Shigeru rōdo to Ishinomaki manga rōdo to no hikaku [A study on
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townscapes utilizing manga characters: Comparison of Mizuki Shigeru road and

Ishinomaki manga road]. Nihon kenchiku gakkai taikai gakushū kōen kōgai-shū
(Kinki), 941-942.
Snell-Hornby, M. (2006). The turns of translation studies: New paradigms or shifting
viewpoints? Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Manga
Himuro, I., & Iwasaki, K. (2006). Edu-manga: Einstein. (S. Sato, Trans.). Gardena, CA:
Digital Manga Publishing. (Original work published 2002.)
Kasahara, K. (Ed.). (1982). Gakushū manga: Nihon no rekishi (Vols. 1–18). Tokyo: Shūeisha.
Kimura, S. (Ed.). (1986–1987). Gakushū manga: Sekai no rekishi (Vols. 1–16). Tokyo:
Shūeisha.
Kojima, H., Togami, S. & Becom Co. (2009). The manga guide to calculus. San Francisco: No
Starch Press. (Original work published 2005.)
Takemura, M., Kikuyarō & Office Sawa. (2011). The manga guide to biochemistry. (Rusoff,
A. Trans.) San Francisco: No Starch Press. (Original work published 2009.)
Yanagawa, S., & Yagi, R. (2005). Edu-manga: Helen Adams Keller. (S. Sato, Trans.) Gardena,
CA: Digital Manga Publishing. (Original work published 2000.)
280
A BOU T T HE C ON T R IBU T OR S
Tomoko AOYAMA
University of Queensland
Tomoko Aoyama is an associate professor of Japanese language and literature at
the University of Queensland. Her research focuses on parody, intertexutality,
gender and humour in modern and contemporary Japanese literature. She is
the author of Reading Food in Modern Japanese Literature (University of Hawaii
Press, 2008) and is the co-editor of Girl Reading Girl in Japan (Routledge, 2010)
and Configurations of Family in Contemporary Japan (Routledge, 2015). She has
also edited special issues of Japanese Studies (2003), Asian Studies Review (2006,
2008) and US-Japan Women’s Journal (2010) and has co-translated Kanai
Mieko’s novels, Indian Summer and Oh, Tama!.
William S. ARMOUR
University of New South Wales
William S. Armour is an honorary senior lecturer in the School of Humanities
and Languages at the University of New South Wales, where he taught Japanese
as an additional language for over two decades. His research interests include the
history of Japanese popular culture in Australia and the relationship bet ween the
practises of Japanese language pedagogy and curriculum construction. From 2005
until 2013, he used manga as the medium for teaching the Japanese language.
Thomas BAUDINETTE
Monash University
Thomas Baudinette received his PhD in Japanese Studies from the School of
Social Sciences, Monash University. His research focuses on how engagement
with media and space influences young Japanese gay men’s understandings of
their gay desires and identities. Thomas has a strong interest in queer studies,
critical race and gender theory, and the study of Japanese popular culture. He is
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currently preparing a monograph, based on his thesis, on the contemporary

Japanese gay media landscape.
Corey BELL
University of Melbourne
Corey Bell is a sessional teacher at the University of Melbourne’s Asia Institute.
His primary research interests include the proselytic and pastoral uses of secular
literary/popular culture genres in Zen Buddhism, and moral discourse in con
temporary East Asian popular culture, particularly in Hong Kong and Japan.
Queenie CHAN
Professional manga artist
Queenie Chan was born in 1980, and is an artist who specialises in OEL
manga. In 2004, she began drawing a three-volume mystery-horror series
called The Dreaming for LA-based manga publisher Tokyopop. Since then, she
has collaborated on several single-volume manga with best-selling author
Dean Koontz, with their books reaching the New York Times Best Sellers list.
Small Shen, her prequel to Kylie Chan’s best-selling White Tiger fantasy series,
was published in late 2012. Queenie’s website is http://www.queeniechan.com/.
Belinda KENNETT
University of Queensland
Belinda Kennett is a lecturer in Japanese at the University of Queensland. Her
research interests focus on language education and language teacher education,
particularly in relation to Japanese as a foreign language (JFL) education and
English language education in Japan. She is currently analysing various forms
of language edutainment on Japanese television and mobile devices, and invest
igating the topic of swearing and bad language by second-language learners.
Claire LANGSFORD
University of Adelaide
Claire Langsford is a Visiting Fellow at the University of Adelaide’s Department
of Anthropology and Development Studies. Drawing on a material culture
282
About the Contributors
approach, her PhD thesis explored the concept of transformation within the
Australian cosplay community of practice, examining the transformations be
tween textual and material, digital and physical, local and global.
James F. LEE
University of New South Wales
James F. Lee is deputy head of the School of Humanities and Languages. His
main interest is in cognitive factors in instructed second-language acquisition.
His research interests include input processing, reading comprehension and
the relationship between the two. He has published extensively on processing
strategy training.
Angela MORENO ACOSTA

Kyoto Seika University
Angela Moreno Acosta is a Venezuelan manga and anime-influenced illus
trator, who has a specialisation in story manga and has conducted research on
OEL manga. She holds a BFA in illustration from Ringling School of Art and
Design (2003), an MA in story manga from Kyoto Seika University (2011) and
a PhD in art from Kyoto Seika University (2014).
Sarah PASFIELD-NEOFITOU
Monash University
Sarah Pasfield-Neofitou is a lecturer in Japanese studies at Monash University
and she holds a PhD in Japanese applied linguistics. She is the author of a
number of articles in this area and a book, Online Communication in a Second
Language (Multilingual Matters, 2012). She has previously worked with Cathy
Sell on the translation of an art exhibition catalogue, and contributed a title on
manga for the MWorld application.
Lara PROMNITZ-HAYASHI
Juntendo University
Lara Promnitz-Hayashi is a lecturer at Juntendo University in Tokyo, Japan.
She has completed an MA in applied linguistics and an MEd in TESOL. She
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is currently completing a doctorate of education at the University of Southern

Queensland. Her research interests include language teaching pedagogy and
methodology, bilingualism, Australian English, CALL, code-switching and
popular culture.
Renato RIVERA RUSCA

Meiji University
Renato Rivera Rusca is a graduate of Japanese studies at Stirling University
in Scotland and conducted his masters and doctoral research in Sociology
on Japanese popular culture at Osaka University and Kyoto University. He
is Assistant Professor in the Organization for International Collaboration at
Meiji University, where he teaches Manga Culture and Animation Culture in
the School of Global Japanese Studies and coordinates the Cool Japan Summer
Program.
Wes ROBERTSON
Monash University
Wes Robertson is currently a PhD candidate in Monash University’s School
of Languages, Literatures, Cultures and Linguistics, where he also tutors
Japanese. His research is focused on the use of script to create meaning,
specifically within Japanese writing. He received his bachelor’s degree from
Macalester College, USA, in 2008, and completed an MA in applied Japanese
linguistics at Monash in 2013.
Cathy SELL
Monash University
Cathy Sell holds a PhD from Monash University where she currently teaches
translation and Japanese. She is a NAATI accredited professional translator
specialising in fine arts and popular culture. Her primary research interests
relate to multimodal communication, including translation and semiotics in
Japanese art museums, manga as an intercultural medium, and sign language
teaching and learning.
284
About the Contributors
Paul SMITH
University of Western Sydney
Paul holds an honours degree in composition from the University of Western
Sydney and is currently completing a Doctorate of Creative Arts exploring
Japanese visual culture and music. He works as a casual lecturer and tutor at
the University of Western Sydney and the University of New England and as
a freelance singer in the greater Sydney area. Kawaii Suite, a recent work, was
featured on an album of contemporary piano music by Antonietta Lofreddo.
Lidia TANAKA
La Trobe University
Lidia Tanaka has taught in the Japanese Program of La Trobe University for
more than 20 years and is currently an Honorary Associate in the Languages
and Linguistics Department at the same institution. She is the author of Gender,
Language and Culture (John Benjamins, 2004), which looks at the factors of
age and gender in Japanese television interviews. Her research interests are
in Japanese communicative interaction, gender and language, ‘institutional’
language, and ‘impoliteness’ in the media.
Simon TURNER
Chulalongkorn University
Simon Turner is an associate professor of cultural studies at Chulalongkorn
University, Bangkok. His principle research interests lie in the fields of queer
studies, affect theory, Japanese cultural studies and new media studies. He is
currently researching cross-cultural reception of Japanese yaoi manga amongst
users of yaoi fan websites using a multidisciplinary approach as well as the
queer and affective practices of fandom.
Adam Antoni ZULAWNIK

Monash University
Adam Antoni Zulawnik graduated from the University of Auckland, New
Zealand, where he completed a BA in Japanese and Korean studies. In 2012,
Adam completed combined honours (first-class) in Japanese and Korean studies
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at Monash University, Australia. Adam is currently a PhD (translation) cand

idate at Monash University where he is continuing research focusing on risk
and ethics in the translation of ‘controversial’ texts.
286
INDE X
AarinFantasy 88–103 awards 3, 147
accuracy Azumanga Daioh 258–259
cosplay portrayal 15, 19–20, 23–27, background, cultural/social 41, 138, 149,
30–32 161, 276
understanding Japan 94, 98, 100–101, Bádi 107–122
103–104 balloons see bubbles
action/adventure 2, 205, 215, 251, 262 Bambino 217
adaptation 21–22, 27, 30, 32, 56, 61, 66, 72, bara (rose) manga 107–122, 276
100–101, 125, 137, 139, 255, 275–276, 278 Birth 58
addition (adiectio) 255–256, 260, 267 Blade of the Immortal 93
adults see seinen and josei Bleach 21, 27
ADV Manga 259–260 Boys Over Flowers 258–259
aesthetics 1, 9, 15, 21, 35, 39, 46–47, 50, boys’ love (BL) see yaoi
109, 125–133, 141, 209, 251, 254–255, 257, bubbles 38, 46, 180, 183, 198–203,
267, 274 215, 217–218, 220, 242, 253– 256, 263,
age see genre 265–267, 272
America see United States of America Buddhism see religion
(USA/US) bullying 71, 78, 215, 217–218
androgyny 91, 108, 111–112, 116, see also canon
gender manga 20, 31
anime (animation) 2, 6, 36, 53, 140 Western 134
boom 52, 57, 60–61, 65 caricature 1, 77
magazines 52–68, 278 case study method 163
anthropology 15, 209 cats/catgirl 4, 130
Antique Bakery 258–259 character
Arabesque 4 design 14–17, 20, 23–24, 27, 32, 48
Armageddon 19 goods 2, 275–276 see also products
art Chaung Yi 260
fan 6, 17–19, 36, 42–43, 59, 61 see also chibi (mini) 46, 48
dōjinshi children 1, 3, 5, 6, 44, 54, 57, 59, 62,
manga 1–8, 27–53, 89–93, 107–117, 179–181, 194, 205, 213
126–137, 140–142, 152, 162, 173, 234, CLAMP 21, 27, 30
251–257, 262–267 CMX Manga 260
artist see mangaka coinage 256–257, 264–267
Asia 6, 17, 20, 36, 212, 227, 231 colour(ed) illustrations 7, 21–27, 36–37, 63,
Astro Boy (Tetsuwan Atomu) 2, 53 195, 198, 202
audiolingual method 156, 158 comedy 2, 205 see also humour
Australia 4, 6–7, 9, 14–32, 108 comic strip 4, 5, 117, 189, 272
authentic/authenticity comics
manga/anime 20, 30, 37–40, 94, French (bande desinée) 7
100–103, 138, 141, 154–155, 159, 257, Japanese see manga
261, 274, 277 Korean see manhwa
materials/data 181, 210–211, 214, 223, Western 6, 50, 251–252
228 communication 8, 148–150, 153, 156–157,
AVCon 20, 24–26 159, 167, 210–211, 272–273
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cross-cultural 254 Dramacon 35–50

non-verbal 253, 273 The Drops of God 6
online see social networks dubbing 20, 37, 140, 156–158, 272
communicative language method 195 Edo Period 1, 155
community 58–59, 63–64, 215, see also education 4–5, 57, 95–98, 146–150, 155–
cosplay, online fan communities 158, 194, 209, 277–279, see also Japanese
community of practice (CoP) 16, 18, 25, language study, English as a foreign
31, 205 language (EFL)
conflict 8, 79, 210–211, 215, 218–219, ekphrasis 126, 133–137, 140, 142
223–224, 251 emoji 2
conventions 6, 15–16, 19–20, 24–26, 28, emotion/mood 39–48, 128, 132, 154, 165,
32, 40–41, 196, see also cosplay 198–201, 204, 209, 215–218, 234–235,
Cool Japan 2, 5 253–254, 262, 271
copyright 53, 60, 62, see also intellectual English as a foreign language (EFL) 8,
property, sharing, licensing 194–206
corpus 116–117, 164, 257–258, 260, 265, environmentalism 84
267, 275 equivalence 256, 264
cosplay (costume play) 6, 14–32, 40–41, ero (erotic) 115–116, 118–122
196, 203, 275 ethnographic methodology 15–16
competitions 15–16, 19–20, 24, 30–31 exhibitions 5–7, 110, see also museums
skits 28, 30–32 expressions, facial 30, 48
CPM Manga 260 eyes 39, 48, 117–118, 129–130, 132, 199,
creators 37, 42, 52–53, 57–61, 67, 99, 108, 204, 215
277–278, see also mangaka Fairy Tail 6
crime 70, 72–78, 80, 82, 85 family 76, 89–91, 103, 205
critical literacies 195 fan
critique 53, 58, 63–65, 67–68 art see art
crosshatching 131, see also tone fiction 6, 90, 275
cultural knowledge 138, 154, 158, 195 practices 7, 104, (see also art, dōjinshi,
cultural studies 72 community)
Daarin wa Gaikokujin 162, 168–173 fandom 42–43, 52–53, 58, 61, 64, 89–91,
Dark Horse 260 100, 155, 157
Death Note 70–85 fangirl 41, 100
defamiliarisation see foreignisation femininity/female gaze see gender
Del Rey 260 fighting 204–205
democratic capitalism 52 figures see character goods, products
descriptive 175, 256–257, 266 film 2, 17, 19–22, 53, 55, 57–58, 61, 66, 70,
Detective Conan 6 80–82, 84, 114, 125, 138, 147, 198, 255,
DeviantArt 36 272, 276, 278
discourse 64, 67, 71–72, 75, 79, 83, 85, 126, flipping/flopping (mirroring) 36–38, 46,
133, 135, 138, 141, 148, 157 93, 256–257, 260, 262–263
analysis 210, 274 flow see reading direction, sequencing
nationalistic 233, 245 foreignization 140, 152, 231–232, 234–235,
sexuality and gender 107–109, 111–114, 244
118–120 freedom of speech 75
dōjinshi (amateur manga) 6, 17–20, 43, French 7, 147–158
52–53, 56, 59, 63–68, 110, 121, 126–127, friendship 16, 204
135–141, 194 games 2, 19–21, 66, 147, 275–276, 278
Dragon Ball 6 gatekeepers 20, 89, 100
drama 147, 159
288
INDEX
gay identity
media 107–108, 110–114, 116–118, 122 gender and sexuality 87, 112, 205, see
subjectivity 107–108, 110–122 also gender
gender 6–7, 16, 44, 49, 87, 91, 129, 146, individual 9, 18, 44–45, 195, 276–277
148, 158–159, 205, 209, 213 Japanese 88, see also background
audience see genre manga 36, 47
construction of 109, 113–114, see also victim 76–77, 80
Japanese language Ikeda, Riyoko 4
genre illustrations 14–32, 56–57, 67, 108, 110,
demographic 3, 258–259, see also 152, 179, 195, 197–190, 201, 203, 206, 252,
shōnen, shōjo, seinen, josei 263, 275
thematic 2–3 image/image-text 7, 14–32, 40, 103–113,
German 140, 147, 149–153, 158 119, 127, 195–198, 206, 254–256, 261, 267,
gijyogo/giongo/giseigo/gitaigo see 271–274
onomatopoeia and mimesis gravure 62, 115, 120–121
globalisation 8, 35, 17, 157, 165, 254 Inoue, Takehiko 5
GloBL Manga 92 intellectual property (IP) 53, 62, 66
Go! Comi 260 intercultural contact 112
Gokusen 216, 219, 222 internet see online
grammar of manga 39 intertextuality 9, 138, 141 (see also image-
grammar-translation method 150, 156, text)
158, 195 interview methods 15, 20, 88, 94, 210
gross national cool 7, see also Cool Japan, Japan
soft power in fans’ imaginations 90–94
group culture 9, 277, see also community post war 2, 54, 84
Gundam 58, 60–61, 66 Japan Foundation 7, 8
Hagio, Moto 4 Japan Inc 252, 258–259, 262
hair 21, 25, 27, 111–112, 116, 117–118, Japanese culture 36, 39, 85, 87–91, 93–98,
129 100–104
hangeul 234, 244 Japanese language/linguistics 8–9, 37,
hanja 244, 246, see also kanji 154–156, 162, 173, 184–187, 196, 210–211,
Hasegawa, Machiko 2–3 242, 251–256, 261– 267, 272–276
Hatsune Miku 278 gendered speech 108, 113–116, 118,
Heidi 55 214, 221–222
hentai (perverse) 96, 110 politeness/impoliteness 102, 119, 178,
hero/heroine 48, 60, 74, 82, 202–203, 213 209–224, 274–275
Heroine Shikkaku 220 see also onomatopoeia and mimesis,
highlighting 25 personal pronouns, sentence final
hiragana 96, 164–166, 168–174, 260, 266 particles, semantic attributes/choices,
history semiotic attributes/resources
of anime (industry, magazines) 53, 61, Japanese language study/JSL/JFL 7–8,
64–65, 67–68 95–96, 146–147, 162, 168–174, 178–191,
of Japan 242 210–211
in manga 2, 146 Japanese society 76, 85, 91, 113, 209, 211
of manga 1, 108–109 ‘Japaneseness’ and ‘real Japanese’ 35–50, 87,
Hokusai, Katsushika 2 91–92, 102–103, 231, see also non-Japanese
horror 2, 196 Japan-Korea relations 227–229, 242, 246,
humour/humorous manga 31, 115, 117, 248
119–121, 200–201, 204 josei (women’s) manga 3, 214–215
hybridisation 23, 32 justice 71–79, 81–83, 85, 204, 276
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kanji 163–167, 169–174, 178, 234, 246, 260 teaching see audiolingual, case study,
Kareshi Kanojo no Jijō 220 communicative language, grammar-
katakana 154–155, 164–174, 215, 234, 260, translation
266 MikuMikuDance 67
Kaze to Ki no Uta 4 mimesis see onomatopoeia and mimesis
kodomo see children mirroring see flipping/flopping
kōhai see senpai Miyazaki, Hayao 57
koma see panel models see products
Korean Wave (Kanryū) 227–228, 234 Monash University JSC Manga Library 4,
Kuragehime 23, 30 7, 257–258, 268
Kuroshitsuji 21 morality 82, 84, 204
Kyoto International Manga Museum 5, 8, 52 mortality 70–72, 79–80, 82–84, 93, 232
Kyoto Seika University 7, 52 The Motion Comic 58, 66
language/linguistics see English as a movies see film
foreign language (EFL), French, German, multidisciplinarity 85, 275
Japanese language multiliteracies 195–197
LGBT 17, see also gay multimodality 195, 197, 205, 209, 271–279
library 4–5, 7, 198, see also Monash (see also image-text)
University JSC Manga Library museum 5, 7–8, 258, 262, (see also Kyoto
licensing 21, 23, 101 International Manga Museum)
literacy 8, 179, 277, see also multiliteracies music 2, 17, 30, 89, 125–142, 147, 149–155,
love 41, 44, 78, 110, 134, 147, 149, 153, 158–159, 227, 276, 278
157, 194, 204–205 composition 127–133
Macross 58–59, 66 My Sweet Little Cat 126–127, 129–131,
Madman 6, 23, 30 133, 135, 137, 142
magic 44, 98, 205 narrative 15–17, 21–32, 38, 40, 70–74, 92,
Maison Ikkoku 62, 257–259, 265–266 115–118, 130–136, 147–158, 173, 179–181,
manga 190, 198–201, 204, 209–211, 272
boom 35 Naruto 6, 8, 21, 24, 31
eiga (manga film) 53, see also anime, native speakers (NS) 8, 147, 172
film Neon Genesis Evangelion 2, 258–259
kissa (manga café) 4 newspaper 1, 163, 167, 195, 228
Manga Studies 7, 14, 18, 52, 68, 122, Nihonjin no Shiranai Nihongo 147, 162,
274–279 168–173
Mangajin 8, 146, 178, 210 Nodame Cantabile 146–159
mangaka (manga artists) 4, 7, 37, 39, 43, 92, non-Japanese 228
95, 162, 204 artists 92
manhua (Chinese manga) 7 manga see original English language
manhwa (Korean manga) 7, 229, 231 see (OEL)/global manga
also manga kissa for manhwabang readers 178–192, 235
Manifest 20 non-native speakers (NNS) 161–175,
masculinity/male gaze see gender 178–192
Mechademia 52 noob 46
media, mass/mainstream 4, 17–22, 40, Obi o Gyutto ne 218, 220
44, 50, 55–57, 63–76, 81– 85, 90–91, 122, omission 77, 255–257, 264, 266
125–126, 133–142, 162, 228, 254, 275–279 One Piece 6, 198, 201, 205
method/methodology online
research see ethnographic, interview, publication/comics 19, 40, 65–66, 110
participant observation, survey, fan communities and resources 4, 16–26,
translation 36, 67–72, 87–104, 121, 195, 214, 228,
290
INDEX
262, 278, see also social networks 203–205, 211, 231–236, 259–263, see also
onomatopoeia and mimesis 18, 35–37, non-Japanese readers, fan
47–48, 169–172, 198–202, 215, 232–235, reading direction 35, 37–38, 46, 93, 202,
241, 251–274, 278 232, 254, 256–257, 261–263, 273, see also
orientalism 91 sequencing
original English language (OEL)/global reference pictures 23, 26
manga 6, 9, 35–50, 92–93, 275, 277 religion 1, 71, 72, 79, 82–85, 109
original video anime (OVA) 21, 58, 61– 63, re-mediation 126, 133, 135, 137, 141–142
66 re-presentation 134, 136
orthography 161–175, 263, see also research
hiragana, katakana, kanji, rōmaji fans’ 15, 23–24, 28, 53, 65
Oshima, Yumiko 4 manga as a tool for 5, 8–9, 210, 228,
otaku (nerd) 21, 57, 156–158, 196, 202–203 242, 248, 271–279
OzComic Con 19 Revolutionary Girl Utena 20, 44
page design 38 role-language 162
panel (koma) 30, 35–38, 45–46, 128–129, rōmaji (roman alphabet) 164–166, 172, 174,
173, 178–192, 204, 209, 216, 256, 273, 277 260
four- (yonkoma) 4, 117 romance 2, 40, 92, 111, 116, 118
see also sequencing romanisation method 260, see also rōmaji
participant observation methodology 15, 89 The Rose of Versailles 4, 155
participation/participatory culture 16–18, Rurōni Kenshin 21
25, 59, 63–64, 88, 112 Sailor Moon 22, 44
performance Sarariiman Kintarō 219
cosplay 15, 19, 27–28, 30–32 sarcasm 201, 218, 221, 223
musical 134, 140–141, 147, 150, 151 Sazae-san 2, 3, 178, 198, 200
performativity 87, 113 scanlation 18, 101
personal pronouns 113–114, 216–224 science fiction (SF) 2, 55–56, 59, 60, 62, 211
Phoenix: Dawn 258–259 second language (L2), see Japanese language,
phonological features 167, 211, 219, 223 English as a foreign language (EFL)
photography 15–16, 20, 28, 30, 32, 56, 60, seinen (men’s) manga 3, 215, 258
108– 110, 114, 152, 195, 252 self 73–77, 80, 81–84
plagiarism/‘fake’ manga 92 self-publishing 39, 65, 110, 121
plot 42, 70, 85, 103, 115–118, 130, 138, semantic attributes/choices 141, 163,
154, 205 166–167, 179, 220, 235, 255, 265
The Poe Family 4 seme and uke 129–131, 141
poststructuralism 126–127, 135 semiotic attributes/resources 108, 112, 114,
The Power of Negative Thinking 258–259 163, 170, 272–273, 278
price of manga 37, 202 senpai and kōhai 99–100
products 36, 60, 62–63, 65 (see also sentence final particles (SFP) 113–114,
character goods) 116, 118, 218–219, 221, 223
professional practice 10, 14, 25, 35, 37–40, sequencing 178–192, 272, see also reading
43–44, 53, 60, 64, 67, 73, 96, 115, 277 direction
psychology 70, 76, 80 sharing 6, 16, 52, 63, 102
publishers 21, 35–38, 53, 57, 61–62, shinigami (death god) 70–72, 76, 78–81, 83
64, 66–67, 93, 100–101, 110, 228, 252, shintoism see religion
257–263 shōjo (girls’) manga 3, 6–7, 39, 41, 43–46,
Raifu 213 110, 116, 147, 158, 190, 194, 214–215, 220,
Ranma ½ 6 258
readers 8, 14–18, 35–41, 48–49, 54–55, shōnen (boys’) manga 3, 6, 55, 57, 66, 92,
57–63, 67, 87–88, 98, 110, 147, 175, 194–199, 190, 194, 204–205, 215, 258
291
MANGA VISION
silence 211, 251, 253–254, 263–267, see also target audience 36, 41, 48, 242, 257–258
communication (see also genre)
The Simpsons 125, 198, 199, 201 target text (TT) 229–230, 232–235, 242,
Sket Dance 220 245–246, 254–256, 260, 263–267
skopos theory (skopostheorie) 229–232, teachers 95–96, 98, 147–148, 152, 158–159,
234–235, 245–246 169–172, 178–179, 197, 199–200, 214,
Slam Dunk 113–114 216–217, 222
slash 17, 90–91 technology 54, 84, 278
slice-of-life manga (nichijō seikatsu) 61–62, television 2, 6, 54, 57, 59, 60–62, 73–74,
98, 115–118, 120–121, 190, 211 78, 125, 147, 156, 169, 196
social change 53–54 Tensai Bakabon 271
social commentary/debate 71–73, 80–85, terebi manga (TV manga) 53–54, 67, see also
138, 175, 276, 278 television, anime
social groups and activities/interactions text, in manga/manga as 15–21, 27–32,
15–18, 90, 148, 274, see also group culture 36–38, 41, 46, 53, 70– 75, 88– 96,
social issues 209, 213 100–104, 126, 133–141, 146–147, 159, 175,
social networks/media 16, 67, 74, 88–89, 179–191, 195, 197–206, 209, 230–235,
214, see also online 251–256, 263
soft power textbooks 146, 150–152, 178, 195
Japan 5, 7 (see also Cool Japan, Gross manga as ‘visual’ textbook 205
National Cool) Tezuka, Osamu 2, 5, 52, 259, 264–265
South Korea 227 (see also Korean Wave) theory
sound effects (SFX) see onomatopoeia and fan 17, 57
mimesis research 9, 18, 52, 76–77, 80–81, 87,
source material 36, 127, 136–137, 256–257, 109, 113, 126–127, 152, 157, 181, 212,
275 229, 230, 260, 272
source text (ST) 14, 229 Tokyopop 35–37, 40, 93, 282
Space Cruiser Yamato 54–57, 59, 66 tone
Spiderman 198, 201 colour 39, 48, 199
The Star of Cottonland 4 sound 128, 134, 169–171, 175, 215, 273
stereotypes 35, 39, 44, 48, 91, 108, Toward the Terra 55
112–113, 116–117, 119, 155, 157, 231, toys see products
276 transcription method 273
Studio Ghibli 57, 141 translation 6–10, 37–38, 100–101, 108,
subbing (subtitling) 20, 37, 138, 255, 272 126–127, 137–142, 154–156, 197, 200–201,
subculture(s) 206, 209, 217, 227–248, 251–267, 272–279
anime 53, 56, 62–63, 67–68 documentary 230–232
gay 111, 117 exoticisation 230
substitution (substitutio) 255–256, 260, instrumental 230
266–267 methodology 231–235
Supanova 19 see also dubbing, grammar-translation
super deformation (SD) 39, 117 method, scanlation, subbing
supernatural 71, 98 transmutation (transmutatio) 255–256,
survey methods 5, 16, 73, 88 261–262
symbolic function 150–151, 155 Trinity Blood 23
symbolism 18, 71, 75–76, 78–79, 82, 84, tropes 22, 41, 50, 94, 115–117, 119, 122,
93, 131, 133–134, 136, 149–150, 166, 271 126–127, 277
Tagame, Gengoroh 108–109, 111, 118 tutorials 16, 20, 24, 30
Takemiya, Keiko 4, 7, 55 typography 254–257, 260, 264–265, 267,
tankōbon (manga volumes) 4, 23–25, 27, 37 272–273, 278, see also orthography
292
INDEX
uke see seme and uke

ukiyo-e (pictures of the floating world), 1–2
United States of America (USA/US) 1, 4,
6–7, 16–17, 35, 41, 90, 112, 178, 231, 258
Vampire Knight 21
vision, skilled/cosplay 15, 18–19, 25–26
Viz Media 6, 260
vocabulary 164, 178, 206, 223
webcomics see online
weeabo 100
world manga 35–36, see also original
English language (OEL)/global manga
world-building 58
yakuza 95, 215, 217–219
Yamagishi, Ryoko 4
yaoi 4, 7, 9, 87–104, 107–108, 110–112,
116, 125–141, 194, 278
Year 24 Group 4, 110
yonkoma manga see panel
Yotsuba&! 258–259
293
MANGA VISION
CULTURAL AND COMMUNICATIVE PERSPECTIVES
EDI T ED B Y SA R A H PA S F I E L D - N EOF IT OU AND CAT HY S ELL
WI T H W O RK S B Y M AN GA AR T I ST Q U E E NI E CH A N
‘Manga Vision is a diverse collection of fascinating insights into the cultural impact and use of
manga both within Japan and overseas. A wide range of accessible, and carefully researched
contributions cover key aspects of the broader uses of manga by various communities, as
well as an in-depth examination of the distinctive language and communication properties of
manga and implications for pedagogy, multimodal research, and translation. An ambitious
collection, the result is a highly readable and thought-provoking book.’
Craig Norris
Manga Vision examines cultural and communicative aspects of Japanese comics,

drawing together scholars from Japan, Australia and Europe working in areas
as diverse as cultural studies, linguistics, education, music, art, anthropology,
and translation, to explore the influence of manga in Japan and worldwide via
translation, OEL manga and fan engagement. This volume includes a mix of
theoretical, methodological, empirical and professional practice-based chapters,
examining manga from both academic and artistic perspectives.
Manga Vision also provides the reader with a multimedia experience, featuring
original artwork by Australian manga artist Queenie Chan, cosplay photographs,
and an online supplement offering musical compositions inspired by manga, and
downloadable manga-related teaching resources.
www.publishing.monash.edu

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VISION

CULTURAL AND COMMUNICATIVE PERSPECTIVES

EDI T E D BY SA R A H P A S F IE L D - N EO FI TO U AN D CATH Y SELL

WITH M ANG A A R TIS T

Monash University Publishing

Series: Cultural Studies

Design: Les Thomas

Cover image: Queenie Chan

National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry:

Manga by Queenie Chan

About the Contributors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281

Glancing at Manga’s Past

Katsushika Hokusai, a famous ukiyo-e artist, is credited with coining the

Viewing Manga in Japan

Manga Genres and Audiences

Manga in the Japanese Media Landscape

A number of other cultural and scholarly institutions in Japan pay hom­

Spotting Manga on a Global Scale

(Iwashita, 2011). Japanese manga’s focus on a female audience is often viewed

Manga under the Scholarly Microscope

of the Japanese Studies Association of Australia, The Japan Foundation and

The Many Lenses of Manga Vision

(Baudinette; Langsford; Turner), as well as professional and practice-based (Lee

Online Multimedia Component

Visit http://mangastudies.com/mangavision/ or scan the below QR code. Relevant chapters with

Character Design and Cosplay

‘Cosplay’ as a Community of Practice

analysis of cosplay-related texts, including photographs, videos, magazines and

skill set (Okabe, 2012). Recent sociological and anthropological expansions

The Global Consumption and Remixing of Manga

other textual sources, cosplayers certainly engage in a very participatory form

Manga as a Source of Inspiration for Cosplay

Characters and Costumes in Manga, Anime and Other Sources

Figure 1.1. Titan Eren.

Creative approaches to addressing this problem are regularly used by cos­

‘Breaking Down’ the Image

The importance of a cosplayer being able to recognise details and distinguish

The Learning of ‘Cosplay Vision’

In Goodwin’s exploration of the ways that specialised forms of vision are

Never underestimate anything as being able to be used in a costume.

Reading Manga Illustrations

used and explored by cosplayers in two forms of cosplay performance: cosplay

Figure 1.2. L with Strawberry.

Figure 1.3. Juri Arisugawa.

Cosplay photography panels and tutorials advise cosplayers to re-create

relationship to its ‘original’ by projecting images of the manga illustrations on

Online Multimedia Component

(company website). Retrieved from https://www.madman.com.au/ (specific link now

ANGELA MORENO ACOSTA

manga. For a genre to be regarded as pseudo anything is not very helpful in

‘Japaneseness’ as OEL Manga’s Identity

Characteristics of ‘Japaneseness’ in OEL Manga

Dramacon: Possibilities beyond ‘Japaneseness’

emotional reality of the reader through familiar expressions, words, images,

Localising Narrative and Genre

than representing their manga. Overwhelmed by the convention and frustrated

Figure 2.1. Example of Matt and Christie kissing.

Re-imagining Femininity in Shōjo

Culture-Specific References in Pictograms and Gags

A number of other cultural and scholarly institutions in Japan pay hom

Creative approaches to addressing this problem are regularly used by cos