#Shōnen-ai

[kaalavg]

Kimera (1996)

Film // Película

[fionabrennanartisttours]

“The Citi exhibition: Manga”exhibition at the British Museum book - 

Shōnen-ai , or "boy's love" manga is an extremely popular genre and is discussed throughout this book. On p.182 there is an essay documenting the history of this genre which also explains "nanshoku"; the acceptable form of male homosexual relationships in Japanese history. This socially-acceptable homoeroticism is portrayed throughout Japanese art, and in particular in the woodblock prints of the Edo period.

[year24groupedits]

Eric Fruheling from the manga "Thomas no Shinzou" or "The Heart of Thomas" (1974) by Moto Hagio

[year24groupedits]

Manga: "Thomas no Shinzou" or "The Heart of Thomas" (1974) by Moto Hagio

if not subtextually a lesbian why named yuri?

[selleryattack]

Hi! I just found your After Christmas comic and I LOVE it! I would love to read your earlier stuff, do you have a link please? Thanks! 😍

Hi! Sure. Here is a list with all of my comics. There are some only available in German.

Good Omens Comics:

Night walk

The betting profit (sequel to the bet)

The bet

After Christmas special (sequel to christmas story)

Christmas story

Some Cocoa

Solving Problems

My own Storys (german)

Cactus & Sunflower

Komplementär

Vom Feuer geküsst

[canmom]

dànachd canmom aig worldcon - pàirt 1: diardaoin

I'm at the World Science Fiction Convention! Better known as Worldcon.

Unlike previous adventures, this one didn't take me to any picturesque French towns. In fact it's like 15 minutes bike ride from my house! I managed to move to Glasgow right before Worldcon dropped in my lap.

Due to Events, the last few weeks before the con ha been some of the most hectic of my goddamn life, but I've been able to secure some time off. Things actually started on Wednesday night, when my friend and I wandered into the hotel at the convention centre on our way home and ended up fast friends with a group of people including a few big authors and editors in the scene, which was kind of wild. That's the con experience though! But things kicked off for real today on Thursday.

Due to a combo of minor medical emergency and then staying up late to finish off work after I finally got home, I got very little sleep that night, and sadly did not arrive at the con in time to catch Dune: The Musical. So most of the day ended up panels, though with an opera and a ceilidh at the end to spice things up, not to mention meeting like 90% of my old friends from uni, which is kinda sick. (Hello to the ones who follow me on here :p)

Here are some artstation-ass cars they had in the uh... the hall where all the little societies have stands.

Nearly every timeslot had multiple things I might want to attend, so I kind of played it by ear... and ended up weebing it up a little bit, attending two panels on anime and a presentation by the Japanese Scifi Writers Association.

The anime panels (on the subjects of food and music in anime respectively) were sadly quite disappointing. The panellists seem to have been chosen kind of arbitrarily - my friend dakkar knows his shit but there were a lot of banal 'what's your favourite x' type questions and a couple of panelists who either just wanted to bang on about basic shōnen shit as if it's all anime is, or were constantly mispronouncing Japanese words in a kinda painful way ("ai-sekai" being the worst). I was really hoping the food in anime panel might go into, for example, the historical context for why anime has such lavish depictions of food, or the technicalities of how food is portrayed. The discussion ended up going on to subjects like cooking recipes from anime and manga but honestly didn't really have a lot to say about it!

The way the panels seem to have been organised is, so far as I can infer... someone would pitch a description, and then the organisers would assign some people to be on that panel from a big pool? Which... idk, doesn't seem like it necessarily leads to selecting people with a lot to say on that subject!

I think I would have been wiser, in retrospect, to have gone to talks about sff lit, since in the end it's just not an anime con - something I'll bear in mind tomorrow. On that front, I did go to the presentation on Japanese scifi, which included the presentation of the Seiun ('nebula') awards to a couple of people whose works in translation were popular in Japan. In a bizarre quirk of programming, this one was run right next door to a panel on Chinese scifi, which is a real move lol.

Sadly this panel was marred by some pretty severe tech issues. Two of the panelists couldn't come to the UK due to visa bullshit, but the video call wasn't working, so Takayuki Tatsumi had to deliver a talk without being able to see his slides, and the slides were slightly in a different order than his talk. Still, I collected a nice list of JP SF authors whose works are available in translation, so looking forward to getting into that. Worse, there were other tech issues, like audio bleeding from another panel; a couple of the panelists struggled with English and the moderator ended up interpreting, which really isn't his job. Compared to the anime talks at Annecy, which had some very talented and fast interpreters, it was a bit of a disaster.

Due to all these issues, I didn't really get to figure out much of what Mari Kotani had to say about the links between shōjo manga and science fiction, a topic which sounds really interesting. Perhaps I can find her books.

The Seiun awards were given to John Scalzi, who showed up and got his prize for The Kaiju Preservation Society and was very polite about it...

...and Alastair Reynolds, who didn't show up to receive his giant fan.

I haven't read any of Scalzi's books, tbh they probably aren't my thing, but he seems like a really sweet guy from my encounters with him and his daughter yesterday and today. And I respect that he insisted on sharing credit with his JP translator.

The other panel I went to was a talk on magnets. This one was properly prepared - I learned a little about the geopolitics of rare earth production, and some of the cool new uses of magnets, though sadly at a fairly surface level. The presenter - who turned out to be a former aerospace industry guy who worked on the fucking Eurofighter Typhoon, now at some society that uhh promotes magnetism or something - mentioned that this is a talk he often gives at schools, and it did kinda feel like being back at uni. There wasn't a lot of good picks for this slot, but maybe the rocketry anecdotes panel would have been better. It was fun to play with the neodynium magnets and similar demos after the talk at least! I probably should have realised that having a physics degree meant I wouldn't learn very much from this talk.

I do hear there were some real good panels in other rooms, so I kind of have only myself to blame here. Tomorrow I'll try and learn from it!

Much better than all the panels was the debut performance of the new opera Morrow's Island, about a scientist conducting Cold War experiments to create psychic links with animals. I knew I was in for something great when one of the first lines was a scientist declaring 'There is no contradiction between dialectical materialism and extra-sensory perception' and it did indeed deliver.

I don't listen to a lot of opera, so I don't have a lot of context to analyse it musically, but it sounded great, full of cool polyphony and interesting melodic lines and the texture of repeating phrases, supported by the flowing motions of a group of contemporary dancers. The ending left me a little cold, but honestly it hit so many of the right notes for shit I'm a real nerd about - Soviet stuff, occult stuff, etc. - that I couldn't not love it. My favourite sequence saw the psychics make contact with the overwhelming complexity of ecosystems, summed up by the repeating phrase "there's so much life, there's so much death". The repeating phrases and gradual transitions called to mind Philip Glass to my admittedly very uncultured ear. Absolutely cool shit, definitely my favourite thing I saw today. I think they're putting a recording online.

The ceilidh, run by Science Ceilidh, was pretty intensely crowded at first so I ducked out. Later in the evening it got a bit more manageable so I returned to dance a bit more, and got to witness an astonishingly nerdy and complicated dance based on the life cycle of Dune sandworms. Surprisingly it went pretty smoothly - credit to the caller for making that work somehow.

I also wandered around the stalls a bit. I got some cool booklets about spaceflight, met a guy from the SCA, saw a 3D scanner scanning a vase, and didn't buy any books because I need to come back with a bag lol.

The best part about Worldcon is just meeting people from all over really. The con ribbons tradition is a great trick for encouraging nerds to talk to each other (though i need to get more...), and people have been very approachable for a crowd whose autism quotient must be near saturation lol. I met people from Finland, Australia, South Korea... mostly anglophone or european countries but still it's good shit. I'm starting to recognise more and more people in the crowd as the con goes on.

It really is so goddamn nerdy, like you look at this crowd and you're like damn, but in the best way, honestly. I am definitely no exception. Hopefully I make some better calls on panels tomorrow loll.

If you're in town, give me a shout, would love to meet more internetfriends!

[mariposahxh]

Togashi's "interview" with Jump Ryu magazine & DVD 2016

i found this information and translation from the hxh fandom site - https://hunterxhunter.fandom.com/wiki/User_blog:MrGenial11/Jump_Ryu_Vol.21:_Yoshihiro_Togashi

it’s long so i’m rephrasing and only sharing the Hunter x Hunter stuff & some Togashi facts i found interesting (and y’all too probably) so :

When Togashi was in junior high school, he was fully attracted to Shōjo manga (girls manga) such as Mineo Maya's manga. (Mineo Maya is known for creating LGBT ((shōnen-ai/gay)) manga)

Togashi read manga like "Urusei Yatsura" and learned how to attract female audience.

Although Togashi’s favorite manga genre is Shōnen, he thinks he's suitable for Shōjo manga.

Togashi's first manga serialization was a romantic comedy, Ten de Shōwaru Cupid. Afterwards, he began Yu Yu Hakusho. After YYH, Togashi wanted to create manga that WOULDN'T be popular to show various aspects of his personality as mangaka to his audience. He then created Level E.

After Level E, Togashi began Hunter x Hunter. He changes his style in each arc so his audience can be surprised. Togashi loves surprising his audience.

Togashi thinks characters are sometimes more important than the story itself.

The Chimera Ant arc ended differently than Togashi first expected.

He creates simulations of the characters and how they will talk with each other and take an action in situations. This allows his audience to feel as if his characters really exist.

Togashi drew his characters acting unexpectedly in desperate situations when they encountered someone accidentally. For example, the encounter between Morel and Shaiapouf, or Killua and Meleoron.

Togashi has been attracted to the dirty side of manga rather than beautiful side ever since he was a junior high school student. (whatever that means..)

Togashi drew Yu Yu Hakusho's art style impressively and Level E realistically. In Hunter x Hunter, he avoids using screentones as much as possible.

Togashi considers the manuscripts of Hisoka and Kastro's fight as "bad quality" . He said that the internet fandom was angry and embarrassed with the chapter at that time. (so he DOES look at fanforums. that's no good)

"Togashi-sensei is very gentle. He remembers what editors said in the past" (a quote from one of his editors)

"Togashi resembles Gon/Ging Freecss in terms of personality" (another quote from his editor) (the hunterpedia page said “Gin” so idk if the translator misspelled “Gon” or forgot the last “g” in “Ging” 😺 i see both tbh)

Togashi scolded an editor only once when they slightly changed a few words in the manga without permission.

Togashi is very confident in his words being interesting. He chooses his words and sticks with them, not letting anyone change them. He is very selective and peculiar about the words he uses. (hm this makes me think of the lines “ja nakya dame nan da”/“shika inai” , “dajina”/“kichō” , “shinjū” , ect.)(dw i’m making a post explaining those lines later)

Togashi's message to mangaka beginners: "Keep in mind the audience. Make every effort to go beyond their expectations.”

[lurkingteapot]

I've been going through my collection of old (pre-2016 for the most part) academic papers on BL and thought, hey, why not re-read some of them and sum them up so folks can see whether they want to check them out in full?

Today's offering:

Beautiful, Borrowed, and Bent: “Boys’ Love” as Girls’ Love in Shōjo Manga by James Welker, originally presented at the Third International Convention of Asia Scholars, August 19–22, 2003, Singapore, and published in Signs, Vol. 31, No. 3, New Feminist Theories of Visual Culture (Spring 2006), pp. 841-870, UChicago Press. [Jstor]

Welker starts off with a brief explanation of what the BL genre is, what terminology he uses ("BL" as an umbrella term that includes the earlier names of tanbi, shōnen ai, yaoi, and the long-form 'boys' love'):

“Boys’ love” manga emerged as a subgenre of shōjo manga (girls’ comics) around 1970 just as women artists were taking over the shōjo market.(*) It quickly became among the most popular shōjo manga genres, and its creators became some of the best-loved artists in the industry. (* First published in the monthly Bessatsu shōjo komikku in December 1970, Keiko Takemiya’s “In the Sunroom” (Sanrūmu nite [1970] 1976) was probably the first boys’ love narrative. See Aoyama 1988, 188.) - Welker 2006:841

He goes on to challenge the common perception of BL as a genre "by straight women for straight women":

[T]he genre is widely considered to offer a liberatory sphere within which presumably heteronormative readers can experiment with romance and sexuality through identification with the beautiful boy characters. […] Members of the Japanese lesbian community have, however, pointed to boys’ love and other gender-bending manga as strong influences on them in their formative years […] Clearly boys’ love manga can be viewed through a different lens from that which most critics and scholars have been using, and hence the full potential of boys’ love is largely overlooked: that of liberating readers not just from patriarchy but from gender dualism and heteronormativity. - Welker 2006:842-843

He introduces the texts he will analyse (Takemiya Keiko's Song of Wind and Trees 風と木の詩 kaze to ki no uta, 1976-1984 and Hagio Motō's Heart of Thomas トーマの心臓 tōma no shinzō, 1974), and concludes the essay's intro section as follows:

This reading will employ lesbian critical theory, visual theory, and reader responses to these and similar texts to show how 1970s boys’ love manga is not merely queer on its surface but how it opened up space for some readers to experiment with marginalized gender and sexual practices and played a role in identity formation. - Welker 2006:843

Welker goes into the questions of applicability of theories that weren't originally developed for this specific context – visual theories were largely developed through film analysis; European and North American models of gender and feminist theory, while also having informed academic discourse in Japan, in their origin operate on culturally specific assumptions and need to be applied with care.

He talks about the tradition of androgynous and cross-dressing heroines of early shōjo manga and their connection to the earliest BL manga, the dilemma of the "beautiful boy" characters' gender and sex and how to read these – are they boys? idealised self-images of girls drawn onto boys' bodies? neither male nor female? sexless altogether?, and the way Japanese readers in the 1970s, already culturally familiar with gender performance through kabuki or the all-female Takarazuka Revue and similar troupes, received the gender-bending nature of BL stories. He also comments on the role fan interaction via magazines, and the way readers were learning about queer life in Japan:

By the early to mid-1980s, the magazines’ readers were learning in real terms about the world of Shinjuku ni-chōme, Tokyo’s well-known gay district, described as a world full of “beautiful boys like those in the world of shōjo manga” (Aran 1983, 15), as well as various aspects of lesbian life in Japan (Gekkō 1985). In spite of the connections drawn on the pages of these magazines, the possibility that these narratives might be seen to actually depict homosexuality remains broadly denied. To allow that the narratives might truly be about homosexuality—between these girls-cum-beautiful boys—would be an apparently unthinkable invitation to read the narratives as lesbian. - Welker 2006:857

Welker briefly explores how the example texts of Song of Wind and Trees and Heart of Thomas "serve many of the functions lesbian critics and theorists have outlined as roles of lesbian texts" (Welker 2006:858), then goes on to analyse the flower imagery of roses and lilies that is very prevalent in both titles, the intertextuality of these stories with European and French literature (and how the readers were expected to catch on to this intertextuality). On the transgressive and queering nature of writing and reading BL, he says:

[T]hrough acculturation to gender performance in Takarazuka and kabuki and by such cross-dressing manga icons as Sapphire and Oscar, as well as the deliberate ambiguity of the beautiful boy, the reader is encouraged to see not just a girl but herself within the world of boys’ love and, ultimately, is encouraged to explore homoerotic desire, either as a beautiful boy or as herself, either alone or with others, either as her fantasy or as her reality. […] Regardless of whether boys’ love manga were created merely to offer heterosexual readers a temporary respite from patriarchal restrictions on their desire, some readers found in identifying with the beautiful boy a way through the looking glass to a world outside the patriarchy. And regardless of whether he is read as a boy or a girl, the beautiful boy can be read as a lesbian. […] For readers whose experience of sexuality and gender contravenes heteronormativity, works like Song and Thomas offer narrative safe havens where they can experiment with identity, find affirmation, and develop the strength necessary to find others like themselves and a sense of belonging. - Welker 2006:865-866

I've been out of academia so long that I've lost any sense of what a good proportion of direct quotes to original text is, or whether it's even appropriate to quote as much as I did here. This is emphatically NOT an academic article in and of itself -- I'm posting on bloody tumblr. If anyone wants to add to this, I'll be thrilled.

One of the most commonly voiced criticisms of BL is that it's about, but not (or did not in significant part used to be) by or for gay men. This article does not address this point further—Welker does go into this in his more recent articles, iirc; if you've got beef with this aspect, @ him not me. I do however think it's worth noting that this 17-year-old article already recognises that the genre is queer, and has been since its inception.

[cruyffista]

Claudio Caniggia was awarded June Magazine's (a Japanese magazine focused on shōnen-ai) Most Beautiful Player title in 1994 (x).

[daenystheedreamer]

i thoght the yaoi thing was joke? :(

its /hj. tbc i haaaate most yaoi the majority of it is tasteless voyeuristic erotica which isnt like an evil thing to make but still extremely bad. i think its funny and i mostly read it cos its hilarious. more thoughts under the cut

it's misrepresented and #misunderstood especially by western gay people. its not representation, it's not 'led by queer people', and the difference between 'yaoi' and 'boy's love' is marginal. it's predominantly heterosexual women who enjoy writing drawing reading two (or more..) guys fuck which is fine. yaoi vs bl is often used as both a categorical distinction (yaoi is erotica, bl isn't) and a moral one (yaoi is cringe/homophobic/bad and bl is pure/wholesome/untainted) which is like fundamentally so wrong if you know anything about the genre.

the history is really interesting. It's roots are firmly in shojou manga, as in, explicitly for young women. early works are often taboo-breaking and deal with sexual abuse, incest, etc. an early muse for the genre was bjorn andressen as tadzio in the film 'death in venice' and if you know anything about that film and andressen says A Lot. shonen ai (literally boy love) was originally a term which was pederastic in nature but became the name for the genre. to crib from the wikipedia article cos it summarises it well:

While the term shōnen-ai historically connoted ephebophilia or pederasty, beginning in the 1970s it was used to describe a new genre of shōjo manga (girls' manga) featuring romance between bishōnen (lit. "beautiful boys"), a term for androgynous or effeminate male characters. Early shōnen-ai works were inspired by European literature, the writings of Taruho Inagaki, and the Bildungsroman genre Shōnen-ai often features references to literature, history, science, and philosophy; Suzuki describes the genre as being "pedantic" and "difficult to understand", with "philosophical and abstract musings" that challenged young readers who were often only able to understand the references and deeper themes as they grew older.

Yaoi, on the other hand:

Coined in the late 1970s by manga artists Yasuko Sakata and Akiko Hatsu, yaoi is a portmanteau of yama nashi, ochi nashi, imi nashi (山[場]なし、落ちなし、意味なし), which translates to "no climax, no point, no meaning".[f] Initially used by artists as a self-deprecating and ironic euphemism, the portmanteau refers to how early yaoi works typically focused on sex to the exclusion of plot and character development; it is also a subversive reference to the classical Japanese narrative structure of introduction, development, twist, and conclusion

by the way, that [f] note is: "The acronym yamete, oshiri ga itai (やめて お尻が 痛い, "stop, my ass hurts!") is also less commonly used."

Like the term fujoshi, meaning 'rotten girl', is the same it's very silly and self-deprecating. That's so fun! I think the yaoi genre in general is a really interesting phenomena that's rooted so deeply in Japan as a culture. I think it's great that women are able to sincerely enjoy something fun, I think it's great that women were able and continue to have successful careers in writing, and I also think it's mostly bad.

A lot of modern stuff, especially the works getting pumped out of korea by genuinely evil webtoon companies, suffer from the fundamental problems with serialisation. It putters from chapter to chapter and every single one is the same as the other. A lot of Japanese bl/yaoi is in the form of short fiction, about 5-10 chapters, and again there are fundamental problems with this. they often suffer from too much crammed in AND from so little stretched thin.

I also think yes morally or 'representationally' or whatever they are like Pretty cringe. like sorry uke/seme is BAD. sexual assault is not even handled so much as it is kicked around. Women are non-existent at best and horrifically sexist at worst. Also the writing, though ofc i read (often fan-) translated works, just sucks.

You guys don't know how bad it gets. like ok example.... it's hard giving examples cos most of its just boring or bad in a lame way. okay there's this korean rom-com drama webtoon about a boss and his employee and the boss is actually an immortal snake-deity who fell in love with this guy and his employee is the reincarnation of that guy. sounds fine right? well the snake boss has two dicks. So.

[khepiari]

Been reading a lot about Manga Companies, including Shōnen Jump, which has decided to use AI to translate. Here are my thoughts, as someone who actively works in the web content space and publishing industry.

This is a quick reminder, multiple Chinese, Korean, and many Singapore-based companies have been using MLT for years, especially for webcomics/web novels/light novels. It is bad news, especially for the manga industry, if AI enters their production. Traditional translation which already suffers in quality due to numerous factors will easily be replaced.

You know, what you can do as a consumer?

Stop consuming “officially translated” content if AI/MLT is used. Again, MLT and AI are not interchangeable terms, but they function on similar training modules.

As a former academic editor who worked with various translations and still works as a translator; people should know this, translating is a tedious time-consuming job. If you are tired of poorly translated subs in your Kdrama? Know this; the time allotted and payment provided for this labour is the reason Netflix subs suck!

Time is what makes the final version of a translation job better from a good one. Sadly, in a weekly publication like Shōnen Jump or Web Novels; MLT/AI looks lucrative when you have multiple stories on board and an international consumer base.

But this issue can be solved by hiring more people!

Instead, people are using AI/MLT and other such tech to cross-cut by not paying fair wages to human labour.

Using MLT/AI to translate is not a big deal; the issue is with the unchecked greed of the publishing/content industry and the people sitting on top of these institutions/industries. Thanks to the “as long as it's functional” attitude that sustains the churning of content/production in a late-stage capitalistic society; craftsmanship, skill-based jobs and attention to detail that they provided are dying.

AI is not bad, it’s the people creating them who are using unethical tactics to train their systems. Many people don’t realize, AI is being fed unchecked collection of data. Technology has its own order of things, just like the process of biological evolution. We cannot speed run to the next stage by force and shady tactics.

Time is the key.

Time is money, so at this moment in technology evolution; AI is the new gold rush, and people are going to use every opportunity to exploit it. So replacing human translators with AI seems profitable, but it will collapse when nuance is replaced with uniformity!

Language is dynamic.

Art is dynamic.

Imagination is revolutionary.

Is there a solution to AI invading publishing practices?

The most radical way— stop purchasing books/manga/gated content/OTT created without human intervention or supervision. Or you just have to wait a few years if you can't stop consuming; because human greed will exploit AI tech until nothing can be distinguished from one another. And when Authenticity becomes the new selling point, for content in a few years, we will see a surge in demand for difference and details.

Sadly, by the time the AI boom dies like the crypto boom; many living, breathing people will be hurt. That’s why be worried, don’t give your hard-earned money to people/institutions who wish to extract maximum profits at the cost of human skills.

Your money supports the system, so control it.

Cut the supply of money, be a better consumer, and ask for better products. If you ask for ethically sourced art, stories, music, comics, and books, you end up supporting the right to liveable wages for people in the creative industry.

[feotakahari]

Reading Wikipedia

In the 1990s, western fans began to use the term shōjo-ai (少女愛, lit. "girl love") to describe yuri works that do not depict explicit sex. Its usage was modeled after the western appropriation of the term shōnen-ai(少年愛, lit. "boy love") to describe yaoi works that do not feature sexually explicit content. In Japan, the term shōjo-ai is not used with this meaning, and instead denotes pedophilic relationships between adult men and girls.

[fionabrennanartisttours]

Pride pop-up section in Chester Beatty giftshop

I was very happy to work on a small Pride section, which highlights merchandise in the giftshop reflecting a queer reading of the museum collection.

Here is some info on the selected items in the shop, and their relevance to queer art and culture.

"Poetry of Oscar Wilde", "Best Loved Oscar Wilde" & "Stories for Children" books - Oscar Wilde is probably the most famous queer person in Irish history! Because of his fame and popularity, he changed the way that people of the late 19th century thought about LGBTQ people.

Aleistor Crowley tarot deck - Crowley was a notorious individualist social critic, bisexual, counterculture icon of the 1960s and Western esoteric. Several biographers connect Crowley's queerness with his expertise in magick, stating that his first mystical experience was the result of his first romantic same-sex experience, which enabled him to recognize his bisexuality. Like other artists in the Pride section, Crowley's queerness gave him a rebel spirit, and the strict society of the time gave him the title of "The Wickedest Man Alive". Also, his tarot cards are rainbow-coloured!

“The Citi exhibition: Manga” book -  Shōnen-ai , or "boy's love" manga is an extremely popular genre and is discussed throughout this book. On p.182 there is an essay documenting the history of this genre which also explains "nanshoku"; the acceptable form of male homosexual relationships in Japanese history.

Unprotected Texts is an academic text discussing what the bible actually says about monogamy, homosexuality and sex. E.G. the same-sex marriage debate is discussed on p. 48; homosexuality being incorrectly linked to the story of Sodom & Gommorah is on p.163 - 167. 

George Barbier fashion plates pack - Barbier is referred to by modern art historians as a Queer artist. The figures in his illustrations are often depicted as gender nonconforming or nonbinary. His fashion plates also emphasise female figures, with male figures relegated to the background if they are shown at all. This reversal of gender dynamics was unusual in early 20th century France.

hand-fans - folding fans have become popular within the LGBTQ community recently, most notably among drag performers. Fans made their way to North America, from Europe via Japan, where they served the same purpose whether they were being held by an affluent straight woman or a gay man: to convey opulence and elegance. They also keep you cool in a nightclub!

p.177 of The City as Anthology, under the sub-heading “illustrating Female Friendships”- discusses a historical journal which depicts an intimate relationship between the writer and another woman. We held a talk about this subject during the "Meeting in Isfahan" exhibition.

p.115 Edo in Colour catalogue (“Two Youths Playing Flutes”) - a depiction of the Japanese practice of "nanshoku", whereby an older man of higher social status would have an intimate relationship with a younger man or adolescent of lower status. This was an acceptable form of same-sex relationships amongst classes such as samurai and in monastic settings.

More info on Barbier, and “Two Youths Playing Flutes” can be found on the chester Beatty website > learning > videos to enjoy > search "queering the chester beatty"

Queering the Chester Beatty - Chester Beatty

Happy Pride y'all!

[batri-jopa]

Sorry, we turned your boyfriend into anime character. Yeah, we know he was typical georgian boy but now he's one hell of a bishōnen. And he's a bit tsundere too... Yeah, really sorry about that. All we managed to do was to turn back his old nose shape. But other than that he's all lost into shōnen-ai and yaoi now.

[automatismascrive]

Un consiglietto corto per dei fumettini a tempo: ShortBox Comics Fair 2023

Ciao cari. Un blog meno discontinuo e raffazzonato dedicherebbe diversi paragrafi a scusarsi per l’assenza prolungata, spiegherebbe nel dettaglio ciascuno dei motivi che hanno portato ad un completo stop di pubblicazione e perché no, darebbe succosi aggiornamenti sulla vita privata del suo curatore, ma come è chiaro ed evidente questo è proprio un blog discontinuo e raffazzonato: un post ogni tanto, quando a) mi capita sotto il naso qualcosa di interessante (frequenza: alta) e b) la vita mi permette di trovare le energie per scrivere della suddetta cosa interessante (frequenza: beh, lo vedete da voi). Dunque senza perdere ulteriori energie a spiegare i motivi dei miei dilatati tempi di postaggio, passiamo all’argomento del microconsiglio di oggi: la ShortBox Comic Fair, edizione 2023.

Come specificato nelle succinte ma esaustive FAQ del sito, l’evento funziona come una classica fiera del fumetto, semplicemente in formato virtuale: gli artisti selezionati hanno diversi mesi per sceneggiare, disegnare ed eventualmente colorare un fumetto completo, che sarà poi ospitato nella bacheca virtuale del sito e venduto esclusivamente in PDF per cifre piuttosto modiche (si va dalle 2 £ alle 10 £ per i fumetti più lunghi); l’artista può eventualmente decidere di rendere disponibile il suo fumetto anche al di fuori delle tempistiche della fiera, che dura fino all’ultimo giorno di Ottobre, ma le regole stabilite dal sito prevedono che i diritti di pubblicazione della ShortBox cessino con la fine del mese – si tratta dunque in buona parte di fumetti a tempo, disponibili per poche settimane ad un costo modico. Ho scelto dunque di comprarne tre per farmi un’idea del genere di materiale ospitato, degli artisti coinvolti e certo, anche perché sospettavo che ci sarebbe potuto scappare un consiglietto (guarda un po’, sempre a pensare al lavoro) – e non ho avuto torto, perlomeno nel caso di due dei tre fumetti acquistati.

Iron (Alissa Sallah)

Sfortunatamente la fiera non offre tavole dei fumetti da usare per recensioni e segnalazioni, quindi mi limiterò a postare altri lavori degli artisti citati. Notare che Sallah ha uno stile molto variegato.

Or, leader di Ferrum Magalo e attualmente impegnato in una guerra che sembra destinato a perdere, ha una speranza: convincere uno dei principi dell’Argntum, nazione notoriamente (anzi, “violentemente”, come ci viene segnalato nel testo) neutrale, ad entrare in battaglia e ad uscirne vincitore per compiere la profezia che viene annunciata ormai da anni dai profeti – che godono di ben poca fiducia presso la popolazione, considerando quanto poco azzeccano previsioni semplici come quelle del tempo. Tuttavia la situazione è talmente disperata che Or decide di partire alla volta della montagna sulla vetta della quale dovrebbe risiedere il principe Vrgl; vetta piena di pericoli nonché pattugliata da mistici uomini-angelo dalle straordinarie abilità, che testeranno il coraggio e la risolutezza del nostro protagonista, anche perché ad attenderlo non ci sarà certo una persona particolarmente collaborativa...

Sarò onesta: la storia è davvero tutta qui. Complice il numero di pagine davvero esiguo (27, includendo titolo e bio dell’autrice) la vicenda raccontata è estremamente essenziale, priva di ribaltamenti, sviluppi nelle relazioni tra i due personaggi rilevanti che non vadano oltre l’ovvio e in generale poco incisiva nei momenti cardine che dovrebbero avere un certo impatto emotivo – come quello del rituale che lega Or a Vrgl. Quello che davvero spicca di questo fumetto è lo stile di disegno: fin dalla copertina è davvero semplice riconoscere in quei corpi slanciati, nei visi delicati e nelle proporzioni una chiara ispirazione agli shōnen-ai/yaoi di qualche decennio fa, o, per andare a pescare manga un filo più recenti, alla produzione delle CLAMP; l’intero fumetto combina questa cifra stilistica con una certa originalità nel design dell’armatura del protagonista e nelle armi utilizzate, nonché nella fauna incontrata nel corso del viaggio – con design che non sfigurerebbero troppo di fronte al bestiario di uno Shin Megami Tensei qualsiasi.

Tuttavia, qualsiasi carica sensuale ed erotica promessa dalla copertina piuttosto suggestiva nonché dal content warning viene del tutto abbandonata con il passare delle pagine, privando quindi il fumetto del nocciolo essenziale alla base dello stile a cui si ispira senza però rimpiazzarlo con delle ritualità o dei gesti altrettanto forti; la storia fatica a compensare il suo formato estremamente ridotto con immagini dalla potenza tale da coinvolgerci in una vicenda così breve, mancando oltretutto di arguzie particolari nello storytelling e anzi spesso e volentieri ricorrendo a dialoghi piatti e occasionalmente in un inglese un po’ stentato. Insomma, se vi interessa per studiare uno stile così particolare non è una brutta idea acquistarlo, ma il mio consiglio è che a fronte di un budget limitato conviene tuffarsi su altro.

Ocean (Lucie Bryon)

I character design con gli orecchioni sono una mia debolezza.

Toots & Boots sono due agenti segreti della continuità spazio-temporale (smaccatamente inseribili in quel filone di film che ha come capostipite Men in Black) a cui è stata affidata l’ennesima missione di routine: tornare negli anni duemila, trovare il bersaglio colpevole degli smottamenti sulla linea temporale e riportarlo alla base; l’unica peculiarità della missione sembra essere nella natura del suddetto bersaglio – un adorabile gattino – almeno fino a quando il trasmettitore dal design appropriatamente didascalico smette di funzionare, bloccandoli nel ventunesimo secolo senza un soldo e senza la maggior parte delle competenze che permetterebbero loro di trovarsi un lavoro, una casa in affitto o anche solo un pasto caldo… Inizia così la lunga vacanza di Toots & Boots, che vedremo ritagliarsi il loro spazio nella ridente cittadina marittima di Châtelaillon grazie ad un inaspettato colpo di fortuna che permette loro di diventare parrucchieri improvvisati nonostante la loro inesistente competenza in materia di tagli di capelli (come evincerete facilmente dalle loro assurde pettinature).

Per quanto la vicenda sia facilmente prevedibile nei suoi sviluppi, i siparietti che vedono i nostri protagonisti alle prese con la vita quotidiana della cittadina sono divertenti e strappano più di un sorriso; ciascun personaggio ha una fisionomia riconoscibile ed espressiva che permette di affezionarsi facilmente al ristretto cast e di seguirne le vicende con trasporto. Oltretutto, il tratto semplice e netto delle prime vignette, assieme alla palette essenziale nera, bianca e blu, fa spazio man mano che passano i giorni – scanditi dal diario di Toots – a delle linee più morbide e soffici, e a colori pastello che accompagnano il rilassarsi dei due protagonisti, che piano piano iniziano a dimenticare la loro missione originaria per scoprire che una vita tranquilla fatta di appuntamenti, gelati e giri in motocicletta potrebbe essere migliore di quella che hanno vissuto fino a quel momento. È anche questo accorgimento che ci avvicina emotivamente ai due agenti e ci tiene almeno un po’ con il fiato sospeso fino alla fine, curiosi di sapere se entrambi decideranno di tornare alla loro vita precedente o se invece almeno uno dei due farà una scelta differente… Sempre che la loro organizzazione lo permetta.

Insomma, un fumetto assai simpatico che utilizza bene lo spazio a disposizione per raccontare una storia prevedibile ma ben narrata nei suoi elementi essenziali, nonché disegnata in maniera adorabile. Approvato!

When Death Comes, I Will Follow (Val Wise)

Full disclosure: ucciderei un numero significativo di persone per imparare a disegnare come Wise.

In ordine di gradimento crescente, ecco il mio fumetto preferito tra i tre che ho avuto l’opportunità di leggere. Lady Elaine, nobildonna e cavaliere, siede alla tavola della sorella Charlotte, unica suora che rimane ad abitare un monastero ormai deserto; sono entrambe sopravvissute alla morte per mano di quelle che Charlotte chiama le Donne Piangenti (Lamenting Ladies) – misteriose entità attratte dalla morte che uccidono chiunque si trovi vicino ad una persona che esala l’ultimo respiro – per tenacia o per puro caso, ma si trovano in quel momento ad un bivio: rimanere assieme rischiando che la morte accidentale dell’una condanni anche l’altra, o Lady Elaine dovrebbe ripartire immediatamente, continuando ad errare in totale solitudine? Come se non bastasse, Charlotte non ha detto tutta la verità circa la strage avvenuta nel monastero…

La prima cosa che salta all’occhio di When Death Comes è indubbiamente la struttura delle tavole: lo sfondo delle vignette, inchiostrate in bianco e nero, è infatti decorato in maniera coerente rispetto ai dialoghi o agli avvenimenti, talvolta rappresentando un nesso logico fondamentale – ad esempio, quando Charlotte offre della carne ad Elaine che ricorda il cavallo morto, accasciato sullo sfondo, di cui si è probabilmente cibata; assieme alla gestualità e alla forte componente non-verbale presente in tutte le tavole, che anziché venire soffocate da enormi balloon pieni di spiegazioni sono caratterizzate da dialoghi brevi, secchi ma perfettamente comprensibili, questi espedienti aiutano ad immergere il lettore nella cupa atmosfera di queste sessantaquattro pagine. La scelta assai felice di non mostrare mai le cosiddette Donne Piangenti fino alla fine, e anzi di alludervi solo in termini vaghi e criptici, risulta particolarmente azzeccata per aumentare il senso di tensione che trasuda da ogni interazione tra i personaggi, tragicamente consci della fragilità del loro corpo (e soprattutto di quello altrui) che potrebbe in qualsiasi momento portare a conseguenze disastrose.

Altro punto di forza che mi preme sottolineare sono i dialoghi: se la prosa di Iron era a tratti un po’ rigida e sgradevole, ciascuna delle interazioni tra Elaine, Charlotte e un terzo personaggio di cui non dirò nulla di più sono curate, realistiche e decisamente abili nel restituire le dinamiche che si possono creare tra persone che vivono una situazione di costante attesa per qualcosa che potrebbe come non potrebbe avvenire. Tensione che esplode nel finale, in maniera del tutto coerente con gli avvenimenti precedenti e lasciando un senso di smarrimento non solo nei personaggi sopravvissuti, ma anche nello stesso lettore. Insomma, fatico a trovare qualche pecca in questa storia che raggiunge esattamente l’obbiettivo che si prefigge in così poche pagine; spero solo che un’ambientazione così promettente possa essere riutilizzata dall’autore anche per un fumetto più lungo, visto che spulciando il resto della sua produzione mi pare di capire che questi temi siano particolarmente nelle sue corde.

… And more!

Le mie risorse mi hanno permesso di acquistare solo tre dei fumetti esposti, ma spulciando il catalogo è molto facile trovare altre opere accattivanti: c’è Pearl Hunter, della bravissima Hana Chatani di cui ho avuto l’occasione di leggere Love Condemns Me (se lo trovate in giro, lettura super consigliata a chiunque interessi La sirenetta in tutte le sue varianti), c’è Pinball Wizard, che accompagna una descrizione da shōnen manga con uno stile di disegno incasinato ma buffissimo, e c’è History Grows Like a Tumor, dalla palette essenziale e dalla premessa assai intrigante… E molti altri titoli che vuoi per il prezzo irrisorio, vuoi per lo stile peculiare o per l’idea alla base sembrano meritare una lettura. Di certo dal cestone della ShortBox Comic Fair è possibile pescare anche roba noiosa o deludente (come nel caso di Iron), ma se volete fare una prova e destinare una parte del vostro budget mensile all’acquisto di qualche fumetto di artisti contemporanei non posso che consigliare questa fiera.

[canmom]

Animation Night 164: Yaoi, Yuri

The fashion on Tumblr lately has been to divide everything in the world into yaoi and yuri, hasn't it? Well, tonight we don't need to make any abstract stretches of the imagination: it's time for anime where boys kiss boys and girls kiss girls.

So. Five minutes ago, before Tumblr deleted it, this post was off to a pretty good start! I was happily explaining about the differences of nuance between 少年愛 shōnen-ai, 耽美 tanbi, ジュネ june, やおい yaoi and ボーイズラブ bōizu rabu on the one hand, and on the other, why 薔薇 bara (rose) isn't a genre title but nevertheless the editor of 薔薇族 Barazoku ('rose tribe') magazine coined 百合 yuri as a distaff counterpart, the 'lily tribe', and that really caught on.

I was starting in on a brief sketch of some history, how Tokugawa Japan was super gay and had a defined set of social rules for gay relationships in the form of 男色 nanshoku, but this was squashed by the Meiji restoration, and thus gay manga became a subgenre cultivating its own specific otaku audience.

So then I was gonna tell you about how the early shōjo manga focusing on gay relationships, taking the old term shōnen-ai [which originally referred to pederasty], were quite nerdy and literary, but the subgenre rapidly grew in the 70s and 80s, cultivating an otaku audience of its own - primarily women termed, somewhat disparagingly, 婦女子 fujoshi but this demographic breakdown is certainly not absolute and there is a term for male fans, which is 普段し fudanshi. We coulda gone into the whole world of doujinshi, of the massive convention comiket; I coulda cracked open Kimi Rito's History of Hentai Manga for some interesting tidbits about how certain images become encoded as symbols and then reused routinely in manga.

And you know, I might have talked about how this is distinct from manga aimed at gay readers in gay magazines (like the above mentioned 薔薇族 Barazoku) which might be termed ゲイ漫画 gei manga. Perhaps we might mention here the upcoming adaptation of gay manga meme sensation kuso miso technique:

I was maybe gonna talk a little about some of the older genre conventions of BL; the masc top or 攻め seme and the effeminate bottom or 浮け uke; maybe a little about how yaoi fandom got exported into anime fan culture in the West and the strange phenomenon of the 'yaoi paddle'.

...well, it looks like I managed to skim over all that anyway. Spite works wonders for typing speed, it turns out. But believe me, that's really just surface level stuff. We're working on a followup to the legend of Animation Night 69, so we'll be able to get in a lot deeper in a few weeks~

Anyway, even today, BL and yuri works rarely get adapted into anime in a particularly high profile way. But 'rarely' is not never! In Animation Nights past, well: on Animation Night 69 we watched the delightful 風と木の詩 Kaze to Ki no Uta (The Song of Wind and Trees), an OVA adapting the seminal (ha ha) shōjo manga about a French twink at boarding school. That was the direction of Yoshikazu Yasuhiko, known also for Venus Wars and definitely the subject of a future Animation Night, it was as moving and melodramatic as you could hope from 70s shōjo. Sayo Yamamoto (AN36) brought us the incredibly charming figure gay skating series Yuri on Ice; and then of course Kunihiko Ikuhara (AN155), bless his heart, made his always bold statements on yuri with Yurikuma Arashi ('Lesbian Bear Storm') and BL with Sarazanmai, which I will surely cover if we ever reach the point where we're like 'let's marathon a TV anime' again ;p

Tonight though? We'll be looking at a couple of relatively recent films on both sides of the fence.

For the BL wing, we have the film 海辺のエトランゼ Umibe no Étranger, aka L'étranger de la Plage or Stranger by the Shore. Kanna Kii, the mangaka, had previously worked as an animator at Studio Hibari, a small anime studio that dates back to the late 70s and broadly seems to specialise in shōjo. Kii returned there to design characters and supervise the film, and evidently Hibari were very excited to adapt the work of their alumnus, because they absolutely spared no effort.

The story centres on orphaned highschooler Mio and his neighbour Shun, an aspiring gay novelist on a remote island in Okinawa. The pair grew close three years before the start of the story, but Mio had to leave Okinawa; we join him now as he returns to that same shore, still holding feelings for Shun.

I'll admit, I don't know a ton about this movie - but it comes highly recommended by kvin who described it as one of an 'oasis' of strong BL works released around 2020. And the clips I've seen - well, they're the gifs used in this post, really nicely drawn scenes of affection. So I'm pretty excited!

Our yuri wing... well, there's a few good choices for yuri TV shows I could show you, but tonight it's late and we need something short and sweet, and that really narrows the field! What I have is あさがおと加瀬さん。Asagao to Kase-san [Kase-san and the Morning Glories], a one hour OVA adapting the manga 加瀬さん Kase-san by Hiromi Takashima. The OVA starts partway into the manga, when plant nerd Yui Yamada has already started dating her crush, the athletic Tomoka Kase. It follows the trials of the girls' relationship as they are coming towards the end of their time at school - relatively low-key, slice of life first relationship typea thing.

The animae was adapted by studio Zexcs under the direction of Takuya Satō, who you might remember as director of the first part of Armitage III [AN153]. Zexcs spun out of JC Staff at the end of the 90s, and they've been pretty busy since then - for me their most notable creation is Aku no Hana (The Flowers of Evil), a truly unique rotoscope anime with an incredibly engaging, tense story about teenagers and the imp of the perverse... which sadly never got the love it deserved! yes I'm still beating this drum!

Anyway, while I have not been able to find a ton of production information, I am told at least that Kase-san was a passion project for Satō - evidently a yuri fan given he also took on the adaptation of Otherside Picnic. It began first with five-minute web adaptation Kase-san and the Morning Glories in 2018 that's more of a musical montage of moments from the series, which was then able to be expanded the next year into an hour-long OVA...

A lot of romance stories focus on the characters getting together, so it's interesting that this one skips right over those chapters of the manga and gets going once the characters are already together, focusing more on the trials of an ongoing relationship between two goofy hormonal kids trying to figure out if this is just a class S thing or something that they want to last. A great deal of effort is put towards character animation, intimacy, the little flinches and reactions. You can read a little discussion about it here on ANN.

So! With apologies for the late start once more (T_T), it's time to begin! Animation Night will shortly be live at twitch.tv/canmom, and I hope you'll join me for a gay old time~