#Manga Subgenres

[gear-project]

Annon-Guy: Sorry if I already asked this, but what are your thoughts on Tsundere's, including the ones who comically attack their love interest? They tend to get a lot of hate for being "abusive". Example: Kagome from Inuyasha.

GP Mini-rant on Manga ahead: Readers HAVE BEEN WARNED!

I'm actually not very fond of Romcoms (Romantic Comedies) in terms of my personal tastes.

There have been stories like Seto no Hanayome (My Bride is a Mermaid) which takes abuse of the male protagonist to the extreme… and sometimes I have to wonder if there is some disconnect between people who understand men versus people who are fans of the female gender in Japanese Culture.

You have this "idea" where women are the dominant force in all relationships in the manga writing, be it Tsundere, Kuudere, Yandere, Yuri etc…

And counter to all this you have all these reincarnation stories where the male protagonist dies and gets reincarnated with god-like powers to dominate his own harem as an act of "revenge" against the women (mostly) who wronged him.

While I do like some elements in Fantasy stories (and even Harem stories on occasion)… like I said, there is a huge disconnect between Japanese culture and more realistic relationships out there, which suggests to me that Men or Male culture in Japan is highly diminished and separated from real interactions with women.

I'd also argue it's not all that different here in America, and let's not even dive in to the sub-categories of gender preference that people have enforced these days.

Rather, the traditional concepts of romance or even marriage and family has been tossed in the gutter, if not forgotten altogether by modern culture and beliefs if you ask me.

Maybe there are a "few" stories and manga/anime out there that claim to embody the genre "slice of life"… But which slice of WHOSE life? What's "normal" anymore?

I'm not saying that it's all bad or inconsistent writing, or even that the manga out there isn't worth reading… some stories are REALLY GOOD… But I am saying that a lot of it is unrealistic and not very wholesome to readers without understanding the underlying culture as context.

There's different ideas of what is "funny" or "humor" and minor differences in culture without any explanation can really transform a joke between friends in to a controversial offensive debate.

Inuyasha (and its spinoffs) have been around for many MANY years… so that brand of gag humor is consistent with the author themselves, but a lot of that humor is better expressed in the manga, rather than how it is interpreted in the Anime adaptations… especially considering the idea that Kagome's relationship with Inuyasha is much more seriously expressed in the Anime itself… (you can actually see this expressed more in the sequel to Inuyasha: Hanyo no Yashahime, particularly when the girls encounter their parents who legitimately love their children despite being half-demon).

It's somewhat like trying to explain Tsukkomi and Boke/Manzai comedy to people who don't get why it's funny (and even then, you can't guarantee that that brand of humor would be considered "funny" to some people).

Well… at the end of the day, there's manga you like and manga you DON'T like… and that applies to everyone.

I've got my share of reading lists, and not everyone likes what I read (in fact I often see a lot of people dropping the manga I read sometimes).

What this all boils down to is that if you want to find a type of character (male or female) that you "like", sometimes you won't find it in some cultures.

For example… if I were to describe my "ideal romance"…:

The woman is aggressive and passionate but also respectable and honest with herself… and the relationship is healthy and still reasonable (meaning they do consider marriage as a prospect in the future and don't take things too far unless their intentions are to stay together).

The man is adaptive, also reasonable, understanding, but also has his own standards but isn't particularly portrayed as perverse or obsessed with the female gender, rather he'd be "obsessed" with the person he falls in love with and have wholesome and healthy reasons for that.

The relationship wouldn't lean entirely on the man for support OR the woman… and you'd actually GET to see what a healthy relationship is like for a potentially-married couple. The responibilities and burdens both sides have… and how they support and help one another in a realistic setting.

If the manga story I've just described rings any bells to you, GOOD, that means there's still people out there who understand what realistic romance is like!

Well anyway… that's enough discussion on THAT topic… But well.. I do like my weird subgenres… reincarnation god mangas, super harems, monster girls, and other ODD stories… but well, even if they ARE unrealistic, at least a few stories have the sense of self-awareness to point that out to readers (I've seen a few good harem stories actually DO that with the struggles each female character HAS inside the Harem).

Part of the reason I read Harem genre is "because" it's complex, like a juggling act, and history has shown poligamy to be this mystical concept few people comprehend in romance because of our basic selfish nature to want to be FIRST in our significant others' thoughts.

Well that's it for now… If you ask me though, there's not enough Mecha and Science-fiction genre manga out there, emphasis on the SCIENCE.

[galaxy-of-me]

holy trinity of crossdressing yuri

[zoobus]

Getting a lot of joy out of your Dungeon Meshi salt posting.

Another annoying dungeon meshi opinion I have is that if there's one good thing Trigger did, it's making the food actually look appetizing and putting you in that Ghibli cooking mood, as opposed to the original's preferred method of a vague 4 ingredient recipe you can't even try to replicate. Average DM recipe is like:

3 Coin bug

A bunch of medicinal herbs

Special sauce (tablespoon)

seasonings (to taste)

Step 1: Senshi gathers ingredients Step 2: Senshi draws the rest of the fucking owl

[gojosbf]

Just see this in twitter by someone :

"Why do people read shonen for subtextual doomed yaoi click bait when X exists and you don’t have to pretend?"

"I'm starting to think maybe people should read actual BL manga. perhaps considering manga written with actual gay characters in it in addition to shipping m x m from whatever battle shounen you're into."

Like because of those subtext, there can be fanfics and fanarts, right? And then I decided to come to your blog. This has become one of my favorite...

this might be a controversial opinion but romance suits best as a subplot. We get to see more about the characters, their developments, physical and mental growth instead of wasting time on cliché plots like love triangles and misunderstandings (don't get me wrong these plot points can be executed well and I enjoy them too but c'mon it does get boring after a while). The shounen fans who look for yaoi subtext are most of the times yaoi fans as well and again this might be a hot take but it's very difficult to find a good BL, the most popular ones are toxic af (so much of it being noncon and torture based) so it's hard for people to find actual nice ones and this is where the doomed yaoi shounen subtext comes in, they get to see humane characters, with emotions and goals and root for them and at the same time find cute romantic moments too. So all in all if it's easy enough to find such package why won't they prefer shounen ships? You've also got to understand most of us are sadist and we love putting ourselves through the pain of these doomed ships it's literally that simple.

[alteredphoenix]

With My Hero Academia ending on Sunday and JJK soon on the way out, I hope that the next, long-running manga isn't another story based around youkai.

[theophagie-remade]

You've heard of the Rose of Versailles now get ready for

[katefathers]

And attached to this is also the struggle to connect to new novels and films and TV shows as you get older, because often protagonists skew young. And while it felt so easy to connect with characters who were your age, and aspire to be characters who are older, it feels different trying to connect with a character who is 15 years younger than you.

Now, this isn't true across the board. There are protagonists who are written and acted so well, it's easy to connect with them no matter their age. And there are plenty of older protagonists (a lot of romantic k-dramas have protagonists in their 30s, and I love that). But some genres and even some mediums just skew so young. Anime and manga protagonists are rarely in their 20s, let alone their 30s and 40s or older. Fantasy adventures are usually aimed at kids and teens. Doctor Who companions are rarely over 30. There's tragedy in outgrowing characters, but there's also something heartbreaking about outgrowing--being forced out of--whole genres.

the fact that i'm no longer the same age as the protagonists of novels and films i once connected to is so heartbreaking. there was a time when I looked forward to turning their age. i did. and i also outgrew them. i continue to age, but they don't; never will. the immortality of fiction is beautiful, but cruel.

[strawberryseeded]

the panel that got me into promise cinderella was the one of issei emptying an alcohol(?) bottle on a girls head (i saw it on pinterest n was so obsessed i was searching everywhere for more pages (at that time no one was translating it yet)), but i think that scene was p much the last messed up thing that happened in the manga?????? or at least one of the last. after that its like everything suddenly ....became a standar romcom??? which is so weird cos the premise was VERY messed up, with a really weird and unbalanced power dynamic going on, economic and age-wise, and both the mc hayame & the romantic interest issei having very strong personalities n values.. idk im not rly following the manga lately but i think ive read (AT LEAST) 60 chs n as i kept going i was more n more surprised at how....tame ...everything had become. and i think................. its gonna happen the same thing with hotaru no yomeiri, if its not already happening, tbh u___u

[what-do-you-mean-theyre-evil]

Oh, so we do acknowledge that those exist in this world but we're still going to ignore the relationship between A nad B?

[intomybubble]

Me, reading any drama manhwa : can you please jail these assholes already

[makiswirl]

in reference to my last reblog. what do you call this subgenre of 70s-80s manga protag

[justmeinabigolworld]

and I didn't even include magical boy anime (which isn't as rare as some people think)

look. a subgenre going in a direction you don't like for a while doesn't make it "dead". reboots, sequels, prequels, and stuff like that are the trend in all sorts of media, not just magical girl anime.

also, there are all sorts of cool magical girl works that aren't anime, and i don't just mean manga and light novels. there's live-action stuff, VNs, webcomics, written works, cartoons from countries other than japan...

and guess what? i'm not against dark magical girl stuff by any means. madoka magica was what got me into magical girl stuff in the first place! i love all sorts of magical girl media, both light and dark, though i don't claim to be an expert by any means. there's still so much stuff i haven't watched/read/played...

anyway, the anime listed here include Artiswitch, Kuromajo-san ga Tooru, Little Witch Academia, Fantasista Doll, Magia Wars, SHY, Hina Logi: From Luck and Logic, Matoi the Sacred Slayer, I've Had Enough of Being a Magical Girl, Urahara, Flip Flappers, Six Hearts Princess, Magical Girl Kurumi, The Demon Girl Next Door, and Mewkledreamy. The upcoming ones are Magical Girl Aiko, Princess Session Orchestra, Acro Trip, Magilumiere, The Magical Girl and the Evil Lieutenant Used to be Enemies, and an unnamed magical girl anime from Studio Pierrot

[thepurplewombat]

The only bookstore chain in my country that stocks any danmei at all has them under Manga. Tbh I prefer that to the time I found erha under YA, although I did suggest to them that they might want to put danmei under queer lit or even romance or something.

Was walking around Barnes and Noble today and noticed they had Heartstopper stocked in the YA section which is ok cool but then I went to the other side of the store and saw they had scum villain in MANGA???? I know we've bitched about "manga" becoming a catch all term for any east asian book in categorizing but like. ONE OF THESE IS ACTUALLY A COMIC AND ITS DEFINITELY NOT SCUM VILLAIN

[nieves-de-sugui]

A Quick History of BL

As someone who wrote a thesis on this very subject a few years ago, here is the short version of how BL has evolved throughout the years. For the new comers ❤ 

a minute of silence for the original form of this post that tumblr decied to not save right after I saved it

I am going to go with a chronological approach. Unfortunately, I cannot put everything in one post so if there’s any questions about this or that aspect of the history of BL that you want to know and it’s not talked about here, you are welcome to ask me directly :)

Context and influences - Japan in the 60′s

Before the US forced Japan to open its borders to the outside world in the 1800s, homosexual practices were common place between budist monks, samurais and kabuki actors. During the Edo period (1600s to 1800s) there was a very rich amount of poetry, art, books (such as Nanshoku Okagami (The Great Mirror of Male Love) by Ihara Saikaku) and codes of conduct about how to have a good master/aprentice relationship, kinda like the greeks if you know what I mean. However, with the arrival of western influences, in order to become a more “civilized” country, it was all put in the closet. 

Yet, in the 60′s Japan started to pick it up again through literature about young androginous beautiful boys (aka bishounen). On one hand, in 1961, the novel Koibitotachi no Mori (A Lover’s Forest) by Mari Mori was published. It tells the story of a young and beautiful 19 year old worker and a half french half japanese aristocrat, and their tragic romance. On the other hand, Taruho Inagaki wrote Shounen ai no Bigaku (The esthetics of boy-love), an essay on aesthetic eroticism (of which he wrote a lot of). All this was know as Tanbi (lit. aesthetic) literature. It generally refered to literature with implied homosexuality and homoeroticism such as works by Oscar Wilde, Jean Cocteau, etc. And of course, Mori and Inagaki. 

In chinese tanbi is read as danmei (term used to refer to BL novels in china today, ie: The Untamed it’s all connected friends).

From the birth of Shonen Ai  to Yaoi - 70′s to the late 80′s

Around the beginning of the 70′s, shoujo was being revolutionized by the Year 24 Group, a generation of women manga authors (mangaka) who started to explore new themes. Among them, their interest in tanbi gave birth to a new subgenre: Shounen ai. 

Their most known manga were:

Kaze to Ki no Uta (The Ballad of the Wind and Trees) by Keiko Takemiya, and Toma no Shinzo (The Heart of Thomas) by Moto Hagio

Their stories are characterized by having suffering eurpoean bishounen in boarding schools, living an idealized perfect love (meaning passionate) that, despite the tragic end of one of them, lives forever in the other. 

As this genre starts getting popular, more and more fans of these stories start making their own self published manga, aka doujinshi, of the genre. It is around this time that the term Yaoi is coined. Meaning “YAma nashi, Ochi nashi, Imi nashi” (no climax, no fall, no meaning). Basically PWP fanfiction, for the most part. Doujinshis could be considered an equivalent of fanfiction in manga form.  It is also here that the term Fujoshi (aka Rotten Girl, for liking rotten things) starts being used to refer to women readers of yaoi. 

With this rise in popularity come the start of the commercialization of the genre. Which meant the publication of magazines dedicated solely to yaoi/shonen ai/BL. The most popular yaoi manga magazine at the time was June. The common trait of their stories being the therapeutic power of the love between the mains. The traumatized character would heal throught this newfound love.

Most of the stories at this time happened in the West (Europe or the States) as the exploration of these dark themes intertwined with homosexual romance and homoeroticism still feel safer to explore as a foreign concept. One example would be Banana Fish (1985).

Commercialization and Yaoi Ronso -  90′s 

As more publishing houses pick the genre up, the term Boys Love is used to include every type of manga about homosexuality made for women. 

The increasing amount of BL series sees a changes in its themes: 

the start of the “gay for you” trope where one mantains their heterosexuality despite being in a homsexual relationship, 

the uke/seme dynamic (mirroring hetero realtionships) also relating to physical appearence (one being more feminine, the other being more masculine), 

the use of rape as an act love (sexual violence has always been present but here it becomes a staple),

anal sex as the only type of sex, 

older and more masculine men start to appear 

they now happen in Japan

Good examples of the presence of these themes in manga are Gravitation (1996) or Yatteranneeze (1995).

However in 1992, Masaki Sato (a gay activist/drag queen) wrote a letter in a small scale feminist magazine attacking yaoi and pointing out how it “represented a kind of misappropriation or distortion of gay life that impacted negatively upon Japanese gay men”. The female readers of yaoi responded, defending the genre as a means to escape gender roles and explore sexual themes that was never meant to represent the realities of gay men. This is know as the Yaoi Ronso (Yaoi Debates).

The debate ended with both sides understanding more of each other, with mangakas starting to include queer views in their works. It also started the academic reasearch of BL. 

Yet, it is a debate that has been restarted more than once, as it is still relevant despite the evolution of the genre.

more on this on another post

Globalization and coining of BL - 2000′s 

By the beginning of the 2000s BL is being sold all over the world (like all manga), and has become a stable industry. We could say it has finally become it’s own genre. 

Some of the most well known manga series, to us (in the west), of the time are:

Junjou Romantica 2002 Koi Suru Boukun 2004 Love Pistols 2004 Haru wo Daiteita 1999

all of these have anime adaptations for the curious ones

We also start seeing short anime adaptations or special episodes of the most popular series, with questionable themes, such as: adoptive father x adoptive son  (Papa to Kiss in the Dark 2005), father x son’s friend (Kirepapa 2008), etc... 

However the themes remain more or less the same. Junjou Romantica’s love story starts with a non-con sex scene by the older one (masc, seme) to the younger one (more feminine, uke) addressed years later in the manga btw. Koi Suru Boukun’s love story is triggered by aphrodisiacs and rape. They’re still very present in the stories but slowly going away. A mangaka that represents this era could be Natsume Isaku (Candy Color Paradox 2010).

Change is slow in Japan. Even though the voices of LGBT+ people started to be taken into account in the genre it is not until later that we see it reflect in the mangas themselves. However, we can already see the start of this in Doukyusei (Classmates) (2006) by Asumiko Nakamura. Also Kinou Nani Tabeta? (2007) which is actually part of a more mature genre: Seinen.

It is my personal (subjective) theory that the BL of this era was the one that got popular outside of Japan, which is why we see lots of references to the themes, tropes and dynamics of this time in today’s BL series. 

The LGBTzation of BL and the rise of webtoons - 2010′s to 2020′s

Slowly but surely LGBT characters and themes enter the scene of BL. Existing simultaneously with the previous tropes and themes, we start seeing a shift in these stories. We now see:

characters that identify as gay or some type of queer

discussions about homophobia

more mature themes about life and romance

At the same time as we get the usual love stories with the usual themes, a new trend starts to take over. And we get simultaneously, cute, sometimes questionable but light love stories:

Love Stage 2010 Ashita wa Docchi da! 2011 Kieta Hatsukoi 2019

More profound stories and darker or more complex themes:

Blue Sky Complex 2013  Saezuru Tori wa Habatakanai 2011 (mafias) Given 2013 (suicide) Hidamari ga Kikoeru 2013 (deafness)

And others that adress the queer experience in a more mature way (which might actually fall into the Seinen genre)

Itoshi no Nekokke 2010 (slice of life, queer characters) Smells like Green Spirit 2011 (two ways to deal with a homphobic society) Strange 2014 (relationships between men) Shimanami Tasogare 2015 (an LGBT group helps a closeted gay) Old Fashioned Cupcake 2019 (you know this one 😉) Bokura no Micro na Shuumatsu 2020 (the end of the world)

As queer stories are explored, BL mangakas and mangakas from other genres start to consider more stories about queer people such as the Josei Genderless Danshi ni Aisaretemasu (My Androgynous Boyfriend) (2018) by Tamekou, or the Shoujo Goukon ni Itarra Onna ga Inakatta Hanashi (The story of when I went to a mixer and there were no women) (2021) by Nana Aokawa. 

Still, we can see two realities live side by side. Doukyuusei gets adapted into an impactful animated movie in 2016, meanwhile Banana Fish gets an anime adaptation that keeps the homoeroticism but not the homosexuality.  

For those who might be interested. Here are some of the authors that represent the first half of this era, where they start to include newer points of view:

Scarlet Beriko, HAYAKAWA Nojiko, KURAHASHI Tomo, OGERETSU Tanaka, Harada, KII Kanna (Stranger by the Sea), etc...

And authors that while keeping classical themes break the stereotypes in a subtle manner:

CTK, ZAKK, Jyanome, Cocomi, Hidebu Takahashi, SUZUMARU Minta, etc...

Mangakas also no longer stick to one genre only. They explore whichever of them they want, from BL to Seinen to others. 

ie: Tamekou, 

or Asumiko Nakamura

The curious case of Webtoons

With the digitalization of mangas, throught Renta and Lehzin, it has become easier (and more expensive) to access these stories. Korea makes and appearence with their webtoons. Through the lack of piracy protections and the majority of them being digital, manhwa (korean webtoons) sees a rise in popularity. Through the digital medium the influencee can be the influencer.

However, like many other East Asian countries they have consumed BL, without hearing about the conversations about BL. So they end up mantaining the older themes and stereotypes that newer BL is trying to leave behind. Therefore, we end up with a mix of old and new, ie:

Killing Stalking 2016 Cherry Blossoms After Winter 2017 Painter of The Night 2019

Additionally, it is also thanks to the easy access to internet that Omegaverse, with its higher dramatic stakes (that parallel hetero dynamics), enters the mangasphere in 2016. It has grown in popularity ever since.

With the Thai BL Boom of 2020, Japan rediscovers its own BL market and starts investing in it more. Which is why we get live action adaptations of BL manga that was popular years ago (Candy Color Paradox was a manga from 2010), the more recent ones (The End of the World With You) or new anime adaptations (Saezuru Tori wa Habatakanai in 2020). 

more on this in my japanese live action BL post

What has it become now? is it BL? ML? or Seinen? Or is it all just gay manga?

It is clear that Shoujo manga (with BL, Josei and Seinen) is exploring queer themes such as gender and sexuality more and more. Japan is interested in this conversation, not only in manga (Genderless fashion). Which brings up the current question in BL studies: Does it make sense to keep these categories?

As a response to BL, ML (Male Love), which is made by gay men for gay men, started happening (around the 70s too). And Bara (gay manga porn) in response to Yaoi. However both gay men and women read BL and ML. We also see other themes being explored through BL, such as friendship (in BL Metamorphose), food (in Kinou Nani Tabeta), male relationships of all kinds (in Strange), and different queer views on life and its challenges (in Shimanami Tasogare). More and more what is LGBT and what is BL is merging, the line is blurred. 

Conclusion

BL has been in my life for longer than it hasn't. It is through shoujo and BL that I have come to understand people and romance.

It is flawed, like everything else this life, but it's flourishing in many ways.

The genre feels old and new at the same time. 

We can still find shounen ai/tanbi elements in more modern manga (All About J). Or the gay for you in a new light (Itoshi no Nekkoke). Or more educational manga on queer issues (My Brother’s Husband by Gengoroh Tagame). BL has around 50 years of existence but it is also being born anew in Thailand and Korea. 

BL manga will continue to evolve in acordance to Japanese tastes, as it is still a local market. Hopefully the korean webtoons that get popular will be the more daring ones in their themes. Who knows where it will go from here? The only thing we know for sure is that it will continue to change. Isn't it exciting?

A post on the evolution of live action BL in Japan is coming, to complement this post.  As well as a more detailed explanation of the Yaoi Debates and gay manga.

[centrally-unplanned]

Saw this really cool post of a 1982 "SF" (Science fiction but in Japan that included things like anime, manga, tokusatsu, etc at the time) magazine that did a survey of active fan groups/circles at the time - ~woo, precious data! Lets see what we got:

Love to see a good gender breakdown - as is often the case in these things, while it is of course majority men the number of women participating is very strong. You do notice the age imbalance there - many women in their teens and college-aged, but it drops off quickly. I suspect that this is primarily because this survey is right in the middle of the first wave of the "pop SF boom", where more approachable works like Gundam and new manga subgenres were rapidly growing the community. So the older cadre was more heavily men, while the new group is more balanced. However, this is the early 1980's - it might just be that when a woman graduates college she was expected to marry and "settle down" still, inhibiting participation in these kinds of groups. I think it is primarily the former, Japan had pretty rapidly changed in the 1970's and female creative types were commonplace by then, but I won't pretend the latter players no role.

The writing on this page just contextualizes the piece, not much to report, though it does note that "3 people replied 'other' for gender...as a joke!" Sure, jan!

Anyway, on to page 2, what is our poll question of the day...

ロリコンについてどう思いますか? What do you think about lolicon?

....*siiiiiighs* guys I didn't, I didn't look at the second page before typing this up! I just wanted to report the gender data! This just happens to me, I swear -_-

But I can't back out now I guess:

It actually splits the question by gender - men are asked "are you a lolicon" while women are asked "what do you think of guys who are lolicon" - sexists, way to erase the female lolicon. Not actually joking there, it is a quite a thing due to its overlap with rape and dubcon fetishes - but I won't pretend I have expertise on the prevalence of that in 1982 Japan's SF community, even if it you see it today. Anyway, most men are not lolicons (the tallest line), though others fall on a spectrum from interested to "graduated", certainly a choice of words one could make.

Funnily a good dozen say they are called that by others, but not themselves - I believe that is related to the vague line between loli & shoujo aesthetics at the time. Which is important to emphasize, as I always do on this topic - sometimes the word lolicon just means "youthful" or "cute", sometimes it means like high schoolers, and sometimes it means real-deal underage stuff, and you won't know without context.

Meanwhile two women label lolicon men as "cute!", good for those two living their truth, while others are broadly tolerant but have Opinions. Which is fun, because the rest of the page is people sharing said opinions, sorted into "good" or "bad"! Some choice ones:

★ It's a symptom of modern civilization’s sick parts, but also an inevitable phenomenon. It’s better than having a rabbit or cat complex. Don’t lay hands on young girls. Lolicon must remain platonic. (♂/19/)

You see this theme a bit, "symptom of modernity", the new sexual fetishes are a product of a changing world. Certainly up for debate, but also very "in vogue" for the 80's & 90's to worry about that sort of declinist narrative. Then again, guy is a catgirl and bunnygirl hater, not sure we should listen to their shit taste.

On the flip side you get the "natural way of things" types, of which this is my favourite:

★ There’s nothing abnormal about having a dream involving an uncontrollable urge towards pre-teens. Even Romeo and Juliet would have made Romeo a lolicon given Juliet’s age (14), but people don’t think of it that way. Only at that age can girls love and respect men without ulterior motives. (♂/19/)

That last line, you are telling me so much about you with that one!! You can see how this is discourse, right? Like if one side says you are a "symptom of modernity" you ofc respond with "this is how all guys are" and with callbacks to traditional culture.

The "bad" side has a lot of ruthless condemnation, with more than one call for the lolicons to simply die or labelling them worthless scum. The magazine's writers do try to keep the tone breezy but I do think this topic being actually contentious in the community pokes through here. Though this serious one really did undercut herself a bit at the end:

★ I can understand why one person of the same gender might feel admiration or affection for a child or young girl, but for a man to only be able to love much younger women? That’s a mental illness! If they aren’t willing to fix themselves, they might as well die. They’re enemies of women. It's not going to turn out like Nabokov's Lolita. (♀/20s/)

I mean they did also kill jesus Humbert Humbert in Lolita. that was a pretty significant thing that happened. like i understand where you’re coming from here but they very much did kill the Lolita guy.

There is an editorial at the end, and it echoes something one of the comments also states; that the lolicon boom was seen as coming from "hard" SF fans, the people who did the really nerdy stuff. There is a word they use actually which is neat: 根暗/Nekura, meaning someone with a "gloomy root". It began seeing use as a slang for hyper-serious, boorish people in the late 1970's and became a fad to use in precisely 1982 - here is a live record of that! They associate "hard SF" fans with these sort of gloomy types who can't take a joke or appreciate hanging out with the buds at a bar, that kind of thing. From there, and here I am reading between the lines, these fans like a sort of "idealistically sterile" world, and lolicon as a preference (in comparison to Real Adult Women) flows naturally.

I mention this because astute readers might be going "oh, like otaku?" and that word was only just buzzing around at this time - it is typically dated to 1983. The editorial writers note that these nekura-types are nowadays proud of that fact, wearing it like an identity:

A: I’m not really sure why, I don’t fully understand the inner workings of the SF world, but it’s like, out there, hardcore SF fans are considered gloomy. Maybe that’s why there’s this connection to lolicon? B: But surprisingly, everyone’s actually pretty cheerful. In today’s world, the 'dark and gloomy tribe' is trendy. It’s like they’re enjoying calling themselves gloomy, almost as a fashion statement.

So yeah, I can totally see proto-otaku discourse going on at the edges here.

There is a third page but it continues in a similar vein. A bunch of mentions of Hideo Azuma, who I am growing increasingly convinced was more of a lodestone for the lolicon boom than is currently appreciated - he is the ur-reference everyone makes. More discussion of girls in sailor uniforms as a gateway drug, yeah yeah, "is fine as long as its fiction", of course of course, one of the magazine editors remarking he wants "a wife for practical uses but a daughter as a pet" yeah okay we can call it we're done here, no more survey data anyway.

Not the topic I expected to find, but still this is really valuable "primary source data" - you can't trust the literary class fully on these things, having first hand quotes from community members on otaku culture in the era is always valuable.

Sorry if you got tricked into reading this - in my defense I did too!

[p-paradoxa]

i’m still early into Dungeon Meshi but I enjoy how much it concerns itself with ecology. no part of the dungeon exists in a vacuum. adventurers are not just an outside force that loots and kills, although adventuring does in some way end up sustaining cycles of oppression (read: orcs). rather, adventuring itself is integrated into the ecosystem—each kill they deal, every death a party incurs, any waste they leave behind is taken into account as being something a component of the environment is adapted to, from the individual to population level.

we even see adaptations that have evolved over short periods of time, as with senshi’s golems adapting to the nutrients used to farm on them

another detail I enjoyed from off the top of my head was when senshi warned marcille not to use a spell that would damage a wide area of the lake, because the fish would die and the merfolk, krakens etc. would suffer in turn, despite a general interest in keeping the monsters at bay. this is narratively smart because it leads to more creative solutions, and also communicates a value of animal life without reverting to “isn’t it just fucked up to hunt things.” the focus of cooking and eating in the manga feels very intentional as a way for the characters to interact with this premise. unlike accumulating treasure, trying to earn fame and fortune, or hunting specific monsters (besides the one that swallowed a party member), eating is a necessity to life, which life itself factors in as part of its cycle. the party members became a part of the ecosystem the very first time they entered the dungeon, but by choosing to sustain themselves from it, come to a better understanding of it—this isn’t a value judgment or an appeal to nature, at least to me, it’s just an observation about how these systems work that the series is making, and something the author wants people to be mindful of

a last point that really hammered it in is an explicit visual representation of the dungeon as an ecosystem—the flashback to the sprite project (analogous to real life insect cultures). the sprites thrive when the cultures mimic dungeon conditions. because that’s all a dungeon is: a self-sustaining ecosystem (as long as it has the resource of magic, as well as other life-giving resources), which is resilient and yet sensitive to change

so far I think it does subvert most of the sensibilities of the dungeon fantasy subgenre in a meaningful way, which is to say it draws the emphasis somewhat away from battling and racking up kills in favor of environmentally conscious problem-solving and acknowledging the lives therein as being in interaction with each other

this is all surface-level praise as I’m only on like chapter 20 but I’m saying. I think you should read it. don’t just take my word for it though. check this out:

oops that’s just a picture of marcille being a big big lesbian whoooops post cancwlled