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sebbyisland · 9 days ago

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Akahika can actually be something so special.

Below the cut is part 1, which goes into the literary background informing the sapphic subtext between Akane Osaki and Hikaru Koragi (3.7K words)

part 2

part 3

Akane-banashi and The Inherent Homoeroticism of a Shojo Theatre Rivalry

People have talked about Akane-banashi‘s “(homoerotic) shonen rivalry with women” but I really want to emphasize how cool it is that Akahika hits the typical shonen narrative beats AND plays into established yuri and shojo dynamics. While Akane-banashi is known to make direct references to shonen tropes(see: rakugo-quest gag), it would be short-sighted to assume the story is not informed by the history of shojo and/or yuri. We are in an era where shonen and seinen stories are sometimes indistinguishable from a "typical" modern shojo manga (why this is the case is a whole other discussion)! To examine the depth of the Akahika character dynamic, it is ESSENTIAL that we fall back to the legacy of shojo and yuri.

I will briefly give historic context on the queerness of a shojo manga rivalry, them dive into how Takarazuka theatre has influenced the queer themes explored in mainly (but not exclusively) shojo, and finally illustrate how Akane-banashi embodies both legacies through the rivalry between Akane and Hikaru.

Historians Would Call Them Shojo Rivals

There’s a long history of shojo that features rivalries between two young girls, similar to shonen manga and rivalries between two young boys. The intensity and intimacy of shojo rivalries can and often are read as homoerotic by the audience, such as the main girls from Glass Mask. Furthermore, explicitly homoerotic yuri center rivalry dynamics like Shiro to Kuro: Black and White, I’m in Love with the Villainess (inspired by historic fantasy shojo), and one series literally called Shojo Manga Protagonist x Rival-san (you can't really get more on the nose than that).

As you can imagine, yuri and shojo have a lot of overlap. This makes sense, given they also share similar origins. Anime/manga about intimate/emotionally complex relationships between two girls can be traced back to the Class S genre of the early 1900s. Class S literature (not comics. novels) usually consisted of a tragic sapphic high school romance between an underclassman and upperclassman at an all-girl's school. Girls could fall in love within, but only for that brief period of time of their youthful school years. These relationships were considered "test runs" that would be dissolved once the girls "grew up" and became real women with real husbands. While Class S eventually fell out of fashion, it went on to strongly influence future works. Influential yuri series Maria Watches Over Us has been considered the spiritual follow up to Class S, even though it began serialization in the 90s, decades after the peak of Class S. Now, nearly a century later, we still feel the influence of Class S in how queer intimacy between women is written in light novels/manga/anime.

The way that Class S and yuri make space for intimacy between women is an exercise in visualizing a more free reality for all women. Put in other words, simply allowing girls to connect with each other outside patriarchal expectations can be read as queer. This is much of the appeal of the Class S all-girls school’s setting: a contained social environment with your peers where women are not faced with the expectation to become wives and mothers just yet. We can feel this legacy of exploring womanhood and queer gender/sexuality, hand in hand, through the viral "old woman yuri" manga series Hanamonogatari (2022). Hanamonogatari shares a title with one of the most influential Class S works to be published, which was written by openly feminist and lesbian author Nobuko Yoshiya. Hanamonogatari discusses womanhood in the context of a sapphic romance, but also the importance of intergenerational solidarity between women, women forming relationships outside of the institution of marriage, and other forms of intimacy between women. Furthermore, the original Class S Hanamonogatari collection is the apparatus guiding the protagonist’s self realization of these feminist themes. The intersectional nature of Hanamongatari's depiction of feminism and lesbianism highlights how a supposedly niche sapphic genre is not any different from other stories that center women’s perspectives.

With this in mind, perhaps it is only expected that shojo, known to be written "by women, for women," would be littered with sapphic subtext. Echoing the kouhai/senpai peer dynamic of Class S, classic shojo rivalries (starting from around the 70s onwards but don’t quote me on the timeline) typically feature two young girls in the same field where the protagonist is the new, odd, up-start girl who admires her rival, a girl who usually is upper-class, considered more refined, and has an established reputation among their peers. Reined senpai might take on a mentor/older sister role with kouhai protagonist while simultaneously thwarting her progress. The protagonist is viewed as a threat to the popular girl's status/reputation, but is resolved by both girls acknowledging each other as worthy opponents. Kouhai matures in the process, senpai learns to let go a little.

The homoerotic intimacy of the shojo rivalry comes from two girls who are the only ones who seem to truly understand each other among their peers. The refined girl seems perfect on the outside, but has her own problems that are unexpectedly soothed by connecting with the new girl. The new girl is insecure about her inexperience and considered naive, but she is able to find inner strength when she is challenged by her rival, and begins to acknowledge her own worth because she is someone who can challenge their rival right back. They envy their rival, but strangely enough, feel like they can show their rival their more vulnerable moments, and perhaps even most shockingly, want to always make sure their rival brings their best selves to the competition. If the girls are rivals in both love and their careers, their respect for each other as colleagues usually trumps all else--they literally care about their relationship more than the relationship with their potential love interest. Add this in with being hyper-aware of each other's beauty, some classic "do i want to be her or stand next to her" emotional gray zone, and yeah. You get the sapphic-coded shojo rivalry.

Whether the battlefield is in love or their next career opportunity, this specific character dynamic is consistent across different story genres and time periods in shojo history: retro dramas like Candy Candy (Candy and Flanny), modern high school romance like From Me to You (Sawako and Kurumi), magical girl like Sailor Moon (Usagi and Rei) or Little Witch Academia (Akko and Diana), sports like Aim for Ace (Hiromi and Reika), or theatre like Glass Mask (Maya and Ayumi). Obviously, this isn't the case for all shojo, especially since the “love rival who exists to tear down the protagonist” character role is also very popular. The key point to grasp is that this specific rivalry dynamic continues to bring queer subtext to the forefront of shojo to this day.

There is obviously overlap with shonen rivlaries and how I'm trying to define a "classic" shojo rivalry, but there are also important distinctions ie gender roles, historic connection to exploring themes about gender/sexuality leaning into exploring queer themes, trajectory of character arcs, art language, etc that are distinct between the two demographics. Even if you don't agree with my claim that Akahika's dynamic builds off of this legacy of shojo rivalries, I want more people to start considering how simple story concepts change in execution depending on if a story is catered to male or female audience, and why those differences might exist.

Enter Stage Right, Takarazuka Revue

Shojo/yuri fanatics reading this might have noticed I side-stepped a pretty big factor that ties together Class S, yuri, and shojo, and that's the Takarazuka Revue.

Takarazuka Revue is a prestigious all-female Japanese theatre troupe known for extravagant dancing and singing performances where women are casted into strictly male or female roles. The troupe originated in the early 20th century and was founded as Japan began to adopt the cultural influence of Western theatre. Traditional kabuki theatre was already well established, but women were banned from participating (which is so crazy because kabuki was originally popularized by all-women's troupes but that's a whole other topic). Similar to how actors in kabuki troupes played both male and female roles, so too would the all-women troupe. Do not mistake this for feminist origins, however: Takarazuka Revue was established by a rich man and continues to be run by primarily men who put young women under work conditions comparable to the idol industry. It is meant to be palatable and profitable, and the strong adherence to male/female dichotomy reflects this.

Perhaps not-quite-so coincidentally, both Class S literature and Takarazuka Revue rose to fame at similar time points. Their popularity was so loud among young girls that they helped establish young girls as a viable target audience for marketing in popular media. In a similar vein the revue productions, Class S literature balanced depicting queerness in a way that was palatable to society (definitely less palatable than the theatre though. Class S was temporarily banned from being published for approx a decade). Furthermore, the training school established for Takarazuka girls relies on a kouhai-senpai mentorship dynamic, which naturally bleeds into the same romanticization of the underclassman/upperclassman dynamic seen among Class S school girls, modern yuri, and shojo (this isn’t to say any kouhai-senpai dynamic is gay lol but that in certain contexts, it has sapphic subtext. I also don’t want to imply causation between Class S and Takarazuka Revue because that is simply not the case. I only mean to highlight how they both impacted the cultural consciousness).

Despite attempts to emphasize the Takarazuka Revue as totally not queer, by nature of the gender-crossing acting roles, it has undeniable queer subtext. The most popular figures from Takarazuka Revue performances are specifically the actresses placed in exclusively male lead roles. Feeding into the genderqueer identity, they are expected to perform masculinity on and off the stage. The fantasy of a celebrity actress who is able to perfectly embody the "ideal" feminine and "ideal" masculine became iconic in Japanese pop-culture, especially with young female audiences (aka target shojo demographic).

The “girl prince” and/or bishonen character trope in shojo is inspired by the Takarazuka male leads. The first shojo manga, Princess Knight, features a literal girl-prince protagonist, and the author, Osamu Tezuka, cited inspiration from the revue performances he would watch with his grandmother. The legendary Rose of Versailles is another acclaimed shojo manga that based its own girl-prince character, Lady Oscar, on the Takarazuka Revue. In a whirl of serendipity, the Revue’s adaptation of Rose of Versailles would rise to be their most successful work to date, even prompting sequel productions. The adaptation would not only elevate Rose of Versailles into a franchise, but cement the Takarazuka Revue’s reputation as a prestigious entertainment company. More recently, Takarazuka Revue released a stage musical adaption of the highly acclaimed shojo manga Boys Over Flowers in 2019. Through the last ~50 years or so, the popularity and profits of shojo manga and Takarazuka Revue continue to build off of each other.

We see the influence of the Revue show up again in famous yuri relationships like Sailor Uranus (girl-prince type)and Sailor Neptune (princess type) in Sailor Moon, whose creator has also expressed inspiration from Takarazuka Revue. Another influential yuri shojo work that features inspiration from the Revue is Revolutionary Girl Utena (RGU), with again the girl prince/girl princess sapphic romance coupled with the story’s theatrics resembling a stage production. “Girl-prince” characters are also common in shojo romcoms like Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-kun and Kiss Him Not Me!, albeit as gag characters. Basically, any iteration of the pretty-boy-girl type you see in anime and manga is a downstream product of Takarazuka Revue.

The influence of Takarazuka Revue can be broadly felt across shojo covering theatre settings. On top of RGU’s girl prince/girl princess couple, there's an all-women’s theatre club that performs an interlude in nearly every episode. More recent stories like Revue Starlight (not published as shojo but had obvious shojo influences) and Kageki Shojo essentially recreate a fantasy Takarazuka Revue training school environment that’s set up as a modern take on Class S dynamics and homoerotic shojo rivalries (Revue Starlight leans more to the rivalry, Kageki Shojo leans more to the plausible deniability of Class S). Expanding the scope of theatre shojo, we can also observe classic rivalry dynamic from ballet shojo like Princess Tutu or Swan. Ballet shojo manga is actually it's own distinct shojo sub-genre that blew up starting in the 70s. Even a modern seinen (targeted to young adult men) series like Oshi no Ko develops a classic shojo theatre rivalry dynamic by having two actresses face off in a live stage theatre production, even though both of them usually act for recorded productions like movies or TV shows! That is all to say, we likely would not have the theatre rivalries between fictional women we know today without the Takarazuka Revue popularizing the idea of the stage as an ideal setting for women to explore complex relationships with each other.

Shojo-banashi

We’ve established that there is a strong precedent for sapphic-coded theatre rivalries between young women in primarily (but not exclusively) shojo manga. Where does Akane-banashi fit into all this?

To make this easy to digest, let's break down how Akane and Hikaru's dynamic compares to elements of a shojo rivalry mentioned in the first section of this post:

Senpai-Kouhai Dynamics: What's so fun about Akahika is that they are both the senpai/kouhai for different elements of rakugo. Akane is obviously more experienced in the art of rakugo, but Hikaru is more experienced as someone who is older and has an established acting career. Hikaru knew how to cater to her audience from the get-go. She came into the field already hyper-aware of how she presents herself to others. Knowing this, I think it's especially interesting how Hikaru selectively tells Akane not to use honorifics with her, but demands the opposite from Karashi. It shows that she is making an effort to be more open with Akane than her other rivals (you could argue that she does this to mess with Karashi, but again, this would show she has more of a teasing relationship with Karashi, which is distinct from her dynamic with Akane). If we are talking surface level, however, yes, Akane and Hikaru match the typical spunky young kouhai and fancy mature senpai in shojo manga, which I go into in item 2 below.

Naive Protagonist vs Refined Senior: Akane is our protagonist, and also characterized as someone who is reckless, shameless, rowdy, impulsive, etc....but notably NOT naive, which makes her distinct from the "normal girl" shojo protagonists meant to represent young femininity. Regardless, she has more youthful energy in contrast to Hikaru, who is not only older, but maintains an elegant fashion style and a professional, princess-like persona. Of course, except when she doesn't. A fun layer to Hikaru's character is that she's petty, ambitious, and competitive! Despite her appearances, she's not the type to walk off and pick the high road. Isn't it heartwarming how Akane brings out that side of her? Furthermore, despite all appearances, Akane has a sensitive side to her, as seen when she starts crying alone while grieving her loss to Hikaru/inability to win with her father's rakugo. In fact, it is because Akane inspired Hikaru to be commit to rakugo (therefore becoming Akane's senpai), and Hikaru prompts Akane to be more vulnerable, that their dynamic fits in with other Naive Protag vs Refined Senior shojo pairs, the caveat being there are many facets of their personality that exist outside of their dynamic.

The New Girl Shakes Your Worldview: Similar to point 1, this kinda goes both ways, because they are both kinda the "new girl." Hikaru immediately scopes out Akane as her competitor by accurately perceiving her strong rakugo background before even seeing her perform. But Akane doesn't truly become a rival until Hikaru has realized that Akane was on a higher rakugo level than her. It triggers her deep dissatisfaction with the trajectory of her career, but in a deeper level, reminds her of times she felt dissatisfied in her youth when people would underestimate or exclude her for being a girl. Emboldened by a fundamental desire to prove herself, she decides to commit to becoming a rakugoka. Akane, on the other hand, doesn't really perceive Hikaru as a threat until Hikaru declares her own intent to beat Akane, followed by Akane experiencing her first major loss because of Hikaru. Losing to Hikaru helps cement in Akane's mind the lesson she gained during her performance, which is that it's not enough to chase her father's shadow. Both girls are able to change how they view themselves and their core goals because of their interactions with each other. While Karashi also decided to pursue rakugo because of Akane, Akane has not had her view of herself shaken by Karashi. Only Akane and Hikaru have this degree of reciprocity.

Value Rivalry Over the Guy/Love Interest: Granted, I don't think Karashi was ever going to be a love interest for either of them. That said, it's interesting how the the story goes out of their way to highlight how Hikaru and Karashi COULD be seen as a couple, but they definitely most certainly are NOT because Hikaru said, and I quote, "I only have eyes for you, Akane!" Hikaru prioritizes her rivalry with Akane over the perception she could be attracted to Karashi. If you haven't noticed yet, all these "classic shojo rivalry story elements" I've listed so far tend to neatly fit Hikaru more than they fit Akane (i love akane. but she definitely doesn't' act like a typical cutesy energetic kohai who needs help from her mature gorgeous senpai and cries a lot), so I also find it interesting Hikaru is so vocal about this in particular.

Next, we can examine Akahika in the context of Takarazuka Revue’s influence on yuri and shojo:

Girl prince/girl princess: I'll be frank: the bishonen character of Akane-banashi is Kaisei, and he doesn't even have anything close to the noble personality traits of a girl-prince LOL. Neither Akane nor Hikaru fit the girl-prince or girl-princess archetypes very well. However, when it comes to rakugo, the story does present them with contrasting gender presentation. Akane, inspired by her dad, proudly wears a men's kimono to every performance. When tasked with being in touch with her more "seductive feminine" side for the Fetching Tea arc, she realizes that doesn't suit her at all and adjusts her interpretation to both fit the story and her nature. This isn't to say that Akane isn't feminine, but the story repeatedly goes through lengths to show she, personally, doesn’t adhere to traditional femininity, and she doesn't have to. Hikaru, on the other hand, show a preference for more traditionally feminine things, but also seems to struggle with the pressure to always seem dignified. She's a bit of a clumsy princess. This is most apparent when Akane and Hikaru first meet, where Hikaru as a lop-sided obi knot in her women's kimono that Akane fixes for her. Akahika may not fit the glamorous Takarazuka male lead/female lead dichotomy, but their failure to do so adds to their dynamic and personal relationship with gender, so I still wanted to bring it up.

Empowered by the Character You're Cast As: This one is unique to theatre shojo and more indirectly tied to the revue. An example of how this works would be two ballerinas training to perform "Swan Lake" where one is the Black Swan, Odile and the other the White Swan, Odette. The Black Swan role pushes the dancer to be more bold, while the White Swan role pushes the dancer to be more gentle (this is also basically what happened in Yuri on Ice, a story that, wait, incorporates theatre....is gay...has bishonen men...it's almost as if-). What is important is that these roles not only prompt character growth, but present the shojo rivals as two sides of the same coin. Rakugo is obviously different since actors don't play as just one character. Still, Akane-banashi uses the stories Akahika select to build up their rivalry and character arcs during the Changing Time arc. Basically every rakugo story in Akane-banashi does something to prompt character growth in the performer, so that's already covered. What makes Akahika mirror each other in Changing Time is subtle, but no less effective at tying them together. Hikaru picks the story "Hanami Revenge," which includes the setting of watching cherry blossoms bloom. It's almost like she's stealing the "blooming cherry blossoms" in Akane's family name, Osaki, in order to pursue her revenge for the Karaku Cup (this is directly pointed out in the narration). Furthermore, Hikaru picks a story that allows her to push her voice actor training to the next level--it's a story that suits her specialties as a rakugoka. It's a story that fits her nin, which is a rakugo principle we're introduced to during this arc. Akane, on the other hand, actively chose a story suited to her father's nin, which works against her own. However, her story of choice still empowers her because it helps her connect with both her and her father's rakugo essence on a deeper level. Akane loses to Hikaru not just because she couldn't maintain audience engagement, but because as Kaisei says, "the stage isn't the place to find yourself." The Changing Time arc might not connect Hikaru and Akane as cleanly as a Black Swan/White Swan dichotomy, but I would say it accomplishes something as similar as possible for a rakugo story.

I mentioned this briefly, but it’s also important to acknowledge that Akane and Hikaru’s rivalry is written to be very distinct from Akane and Karashi OR Hikaru and Karashi. Hikaru bemoans about her chance to face Akane “in the heat of battle.” Meanwhile, Karashi begrudgingly finds himself casually hosting training events with BOTH of them, separately. Karashi spends more time outside of rakugo with Hikaru than Akane, but Hikaru shows blatant favoritism by only letting Akane refer to her without honorifics. Karashi and Akane/Hikaru are rivals who give each other advice and challenge each other to grow, yes, but they don’t create dread in each other the way Akane and Hikaru do. They don’t addrress each other’s life perspectives like Akane and Hikaru do. They don’t have the same senpai-kouhai like dynamics that Akane and Hikaru do. And, ironically enough, they don't have male lead/female lead dynamics with each other the way Akane and Hikaru do. Karashi, frankly, has way more (one sided) tension with a random side character who showed up for one chapter than he does with Akane or Hikaru. It’s very likely that side character exists just to show that he will never to have that kind of relationship with either of these girls.

Karashi fills a needed role in the girl's lives that an intimate rivalry isn’t going to give them. As someone closer in age to both Hikaru and Akane than the rest of the cast, he forms a casual intimacy with the girls that they can't get from their mentors or fellow zenza. Akane is listed as “Jugemu girl” on Karashi's phone the way an older sibling affectionately teases their annoying younger sibling. When he meets up with Hikaru, he teases her about her professional photoshoot for work. He can rile up Hikaru to the point her Fukouka accent slips out in front of him. The camaraderie Karashi has with the girls resembles what I’d expect from a secondary rival character, but lacks the theatrics (haha. theatrics) of a PRIMARY rivalry in a story. Make no mistake, Karashi is absolutely third wheeling whatever Akane and Hikaru have going on. There are in-text jokes about this.

Be honest with yourselves. When was the last time you saw all these story elements in a shonen manga rivalry with the main protagonist*? Full-stop, when was the last time you even saw a shonen manga about theatre**? You haven't, because theatre is not typically associated with shonen manga, and emotionally complex rivalries between women are also not typically associated with shonen manga. Meanwhile, theatre has appealed to shojo audiences since before shojo manga was even a thing. Intimate rivalries between women in theatre are well established in shojo manga. Shonen manga is not the only inspriation for the Akane-Hikaru dynamic! It's historically, distinctly shojo! Isn't that exciting? I think it's exciting.

That said, I have barely even BEGUN to address just how gay Akahika is in comparison to stories that ACTUALLY have sapphic romance. This is covered in part 2.

* The closer answer I would say is in Marimashita Iruma-kun. A story that also has...you'd never guess...shojo and yuri story elements…wow what a suprise...

**We don't need to mention what happened to Act-Age....And I know there's Dance Dance Danseur. But guess what. THE AUTHOR HAS WRITTEN MOSTLY SHOJO MANGA. In addition, both of these are fairly new stories from the last 10 years, which reflects how uncommon it is to talk about any form of theatre in shonen. Also that popular series about rakugo? From a josei magazine. So my point still stands.

#HAPPY THIRD YEAR ANNIVERSARY #tossing confetti in my clown makeup rn #akane osaki #hikaru koragi #akane banashi #akahika #ወሬ #shojo manga #yuri #Class S #bishonen #takarazuka revue #akahika thesis

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