This blog is dedicated to my interest in Japanese media. The year 24 group, vintage BL in particular, and eroguro are only a few of my fixations as an autistic person and I hope to share the obscure beauty of these works as I want to become an archivist focused on vintage BL - YouseiNoMori on MyAnimeList
I love the way Keiko Takemiya drew this fox, please respond if anyone is aware of any other of her artworks featuring foxes! Yes, highly specific, I know.
my autism decided to fixate on old school BL and obscure yaoi/otome games again so expect more manga/anime/game posts soon! i'm gonna do a visual rework of my blog but uhm anyways i've seen some keiko takemiya and hagio moto fans active on the web and i'm looking for moots/friends sharing my special interest so any kind of interaction would be super kind; seeya!
During a Takemiya discussion in a homo thread, an anon made an excellent post, after which I had to read Takemiya's Hensoukyoku (変奏曲, Variation).
"Don't read if you don't want spoilers!" is what I want to say, but I'm making this post for noting things down for myself and giving spoilers anyway, so go ahead or leave.
I'd like to thank anon once again for exactly knowing how to get me interested in a title. I hope we cross paths again.
I'm a basic newcomer old shoujo fan and I have only read part of Kazeki from the original, so I was pretty optimistic going into Hensoukyoku. Well, it was harder to read than I thought it would be. In particular, I wanted to kill myself every time Bob (aka "this guy") opened his mouth. Maybe that's because I was trying to translate things in my mind while reading it, which I shouldn't have done. Assuming that my linguistic skills would be enough to translate Takemiya is ridiculous.
I like volume 1's cover so much that I eventually want to buy this edition. By the way, a strange thing I noticed about Takemiya's works: Not all of them are available on regular e-book sites. I wanted to buy the digital editon because it'll be some time before I can import something from Japan, but it was on sale only on EBJ, and EBJ doesn't even let baka gaijins like me to register to their site. So your only chance is to ask someone who already has an account there, or go physical. We are being forced into piracy here, Japan.
But what's it about? You have this Austrian child prodigy, Wolfgang Richter, and this Spanish rebellious violinist boy, Eduardo Soltie. Their love for music brings them together, and we accompany them on their journey for about 20 years in 3 (in the bunkoban version, 2) volumes. While the two has the BL attraction towards each other, but to me, it felt like theirs bordered on bromance as Eduardo is very much in love with Anette, Wolfie's sister, and constantly busy being gay with Bob, and Wolfie marries his childhood friend before anything goes anywhere between those two and dies (of course, he has his own obligatory Bob phase). I expected to see a tragic love story between Wolf and Ed just looking at the random images from the manga, but was denied. But forget them, and just remember this: Every boy in this story wants Bob.
If you are a male under the age of 20 and you can resist the charms of this man, congratulations. You probably have some sort of disease, because this man is a walking bishounen magnet.
"Please, don't say anything to my mother." - Yes Nino, if I was your mother, I wouldn't want to know that the guy who boned my dead brother and my cheating, failure-of-a-father husband also boned my precious son. Poor Anette.
The story is not a conventionally constructed one. We know right from the beginning Wolf died young, and with each chapter, we are presented with a different part of his life. Especially the first chapters can be overwhelming because of this narrative choice, because most relations are established from the get-go, we get no classic character introductions. Personally, I had a hard time processing how the Spanish Revolutionary movement fit in this story and why we suddenly got a cholera epidemic. But as you read on, all the pieces get together and you see the whole picture. Some of the same events are told through different characters' POV throughout the story, a technique I like a lot. If I had to choose, I'd say "Andalusian Love Song" is the most important part of the story. It had the most amount of Wolf, and feels like a "main story" the most while the others (especially the ones in vol. 2) have this "side story" feeling. They are so much fun to read though. I liked Rimbaud to Verlaine no you ni in particular which was about Bob being salty about the newlywed Ed hitting on every girl in Paris.
godiwishthatboywasme.jpg
Speaking of parts, based on the digital edition, they are:
Volume 1
1974: Virentz Monogatari (ヴィレンツ物語-Virentz Story) - This chapter is scanlated by Golden Roze Scans, and is the only part available in English to readers.
1976: Hensoukyoku (変奏曲-Variation)
1976: Andalusia Koiuta (アンダルシア恋歌-Andalusian Love Song)
1975: Tsubakiyakata no San Akunin (椿館の三悪人-Three Enfants Terribles of the Camellia Mansion)
1977: Rimbaud to Verlaine no you ni (ランボーとヴェルレーヌのように-Like Rimbaud and Verlaine)
At times, it felt like Takemiya crammed a 10-volume long story into 3, and the timeskip kind of feels out of place, now that I think about it. But hey, don't think I'm complaining, we've got lots of bishounen and 70s melodrama thanks to this manga being what it is. Although I would have liked more tears and angst in my drama, I still very much enjoyed reading Hensoukyoku. Here are the examples of the content I want to see in my manga:
-"I will never forgive you if you die." - I wish all kabedons were sad like this one. Also yanderEduardo is precious. Wolf is preciousness itself <3
-"If you are going to die anyway, die in my arms!" - Okay ngl, this really pulled at my heartstrings. I'm a sucker for this kind of drama. Also I must mention that Takemiya didn't give Wolf the "mysterious shoujo heart disease", commonly known as "SHINZOUBYOU", but an actual heart disease that fit his situation. He had tetralogy of Fallot. I asked a doctor friend what this condition was, and she said the exact same things the doctor in the manga said. It made everything extra sad.
Takemiya did a nice job in writing her characters into the existing world, and I can't believe I'm not reading a fictitious story. This is Wikipedia-level knowledge, but seeing how Takemiya drew this manga based on Masuyama Norie's (who later wrote Kazeki's spin-off novel, Kami no Kohitsuji) experiences as a music student, this makes sense. My only gripe is that, although the story is taking place in the 1960s and 1970s, things almost felt a little bit 19th century to me at times. But that's 70s shoujo for you, Europe was the fairytale land at the time and no one wants to see the modern world in there.
"Can I stay over tonight?" - It was almost unsettling how much Ed reminded me of Gilbert (and sometimes Marion). But then again, mon pauvre Gilbert didn't get to live until his age ;_;
Once my brain recovers from reading this, I hope to read another Takemiya BL I have my eyes on.
earlier today i was looking at some of Kazuko Makino’s other works (since i was reading High Teen Boogie) and stumbled across Marriage Is A La-La-La (結婚なんてラ・ラ・ラ) where, to my greatest pleasure, the lead male protag was black!
there’s a lot i have to say about this design in general & how she handles the topic of racism here but. hey
there’s definitely no shortage of bipoc characters in shoujo (esp. in foreign settings) but i’m definitely more curious about those who are protagonists rather than just side characters or just simply being in the background. if you happen to know any, wuld love to know :-)
Rotten Girls and Catholic Guilt: Women’s Sexual Repression and The Heart of Thomas
While reading Heart of Thomas, I’ve found myself reflecting on “fujoshi culture,” especially that of the early 2000s, particularly in regards to the question surrounding the appeal of an “exotic”, all-boys environment for a girl. Fujoshis have long been a sort of “internet punching bag” - women who proclaim themselves as fujoshis being labelled as “degenerate”, and accused of fetishizing gay men and their experiences. The newly released SAWTOWNE song (featuring vocaloid Hatsune Miku) entitled “Confessions of a Rotten Girl” speaks to an attitude typically associated with internet caricatures of women who enjoy BL - Miku refers to male/male pairings as “sinful,’ and describes herself as sinful for engaging with the content at all. She references her possession of a “yaoi paddle” (I don’t want to get too far into the weeds with this, but a yaoi paddle is essentially a wooden paddle with the word “yaoi” inscribed on it that was banned from most cons due to owners of these paddles harassing other con-goers with them), and even references the desire that lingers within her to be a “normal” girl (a girl who doesn’t engage with “abnormal” media such as BL).
However, within this music video there are also themes of heavy religiosity, and guilt over disappointing God. At the beginning of the music video, Miku is portrayed kneeling on the floor, asking God to “wash her clean” - she later wonders aloud “what would god think?” in reference to herself once again giving into “temptation.” Miku’s words are reflective of the anxieties of many young girls in fandom spaces, particularly in the West - the evangelical Christian puritanism within Western culture that invokes “sin” in regards to anything involving sex. Many people I have met who currently or used to identify with the “fujoshi” label are all individuals who were born as women, all of whom felt some form of guilt surrounding sex or the idea of being “impure.” In this regard, I think that Heart of Thomas speaks to these anxieties regarding sexuality - distant enough to be a safe fantasy, and “Catholic” enough to be pure.
Heart of Thomas radiates “purity” - or, at least, the idea of purity as something aspirational. The environment the boys are in is quite insular, with all the characters being connected to some degree, affections for one another and drama permeating the school at every turn. This isolation is part of the “fantasy” - the boys do not exist in the confines of “normal” society. Their distance from the rest of society amplifies their distance from the reader, who is able to explore personal desires in a way that feels completely isolated from a real life context. The boys are really “boys” only in name - not only are the majority of them drawn to look androgynous, but they are isolated from the power structures that privilege men entirely. There is no (obvious) misogyny or objectification of women and girls in Heart of Thomas, because there are no women or girls who exist in the same environment as the boys do. The boys are emotional, freely proclaiming their love for each other, a love that is devoid of sexuality or sexual expectation - a love that is almost Christlike. Main character Juli in particular is representative of this idea, literally being “saved” through love, and going on to enter a seminary. For readers, this story can be one free of guilt associated with sexual or romantic desire.
If you're, like me, someone whose passion is old shoujo manga, you may have noticed that at least one or more of your favorite mangaka has written manga adaptations of famous American and European novels. But why ?
According to this essay by Kawabata Ariko and Murakami Riko, in the early 20th century, because there was no Internet, people had no choice but to rely on big bookstores to learn more about and to purchase foreign novels. It was therefore not common to read them. The Iena bookstore, located in Ginza, was a rare indie bookstore that sold art-related foreign books and, while unfortunately, the store has closed today, many shoujo mangaka remember going there often to look for reference material amongst foreign works.
Alice in Wonderland, Daddy Long Legs and Heidi translated in Japanese with covers by Setsuko Tamura in the 80s.
This other essay by Oogushi Hisayo states that foreign novels were only broadly introduced in Japan for young girls in the 30s. Famous girls' magazines (which are to be differentiated with shoujo magazines) such as Shoujokai (created in 1902), Shoujo no Sekai (created in 1906) and Shoujo no Tomo (created in 1908) started introducing Western literature in their issues from the 1930s to the 1940s. Works such as "The Little Princess", "Heidi", "Little Women", "Daddy Long Legs" and more were published in these girls' magazines, making them more known to the Japanese audience and resulting in shoujo manga adaptations in the following years.
Little Women illustrated by Nakahara Junichi in the Girls' magazine Shoujo no Sekai.
Three works in particular seem to have gained a lot of popularity in the 40s: "Little Women" by Louisa May Alcott, "Heidi" by Johanna Spyri and "Anne of Green Gables" by Lucy Maud Montgomery. All three are coming of age stories of young girls, and all three have one theme that seems to stand out: family. In the aftermath of WW2, many Japanese lost their families and many young children became orphans. In such times, novels that showcased happy families comforted Japanese readers. The popularity of these three works did not end in the 40s though, since in the 70s and 80s, all three got their 50 episodes anime adaptation in the Calpis Gekijou series (also known as World Masterpiece Theater), which, by the way, I highly recommend watching.
It is to be noted that these three works also became popular because they showcased independent and developed female leads, which has since then become a staple of shoujo manga itself, regardless of genre.
Heidi by Macoto Takahashi, Anne of Green Gables by Sakamoto Midori (1977) and Heidi by Watanabe Masako (1966).
In the 70s, a few mangaka published works that reminded critics of the "Bildungsroman". The Bildungsroman is a literary genre born in the 1800s in Germany, and it is a sub-category of the coming-of-age story. The Bildungsroman stands out from regular coming-of-age stories by focusing on the psychological and moral growth of its protagonist. Examples of that would be Moto Hagio with The Heart of Thomas in 1974 and Takemiya Keiko with Kaze to Ki no Uta in 1976 (though she never intended to write a Bildungsroman). The West was still shown in a more traditional version in these works, as both stories take place in old catholic boarding schools.
Similarly to how Audrey Hepburn, a Hollywood actress, was seen as a fashion leader in Japan (more about that on my other post about her influence on shoujo), Japanese people at the time had an idealized view of the West and anything from the Western world seemed fashionable and trendy. A great example of that is Sanrio. If you look at early Sanrio characters, a lot of them are from the West: Hello Kitty is British, the Little Twin Stars were inspired by Christmas, My Melody by the little red riding hood, Jimmy & Patty are American etc.
This view of the West began to shift in the 80s and the western literature that inspired shoujo mangaka started to change as well. Instead of comforting, idyllic stories about family life in a traditional American or European country side or stories taking place in traditional European catholic schools, manga inspired by more realistic and contemporary works started publishing. For example, Banana Fish by Akimi Yoshida (1985) draws inspiration from "A Perfect Day for Bananafish" by J.D. Salinger and two of Hemingway's works: "The Snows of Kilimanjaro" and "Islands in the Streams". All three of these focus on either modern issues like overconsumption or darker themes like death and loneliness. The change can also be seen in the gender and age of the protagonists. Instead of being about young teen girls that shoujo readers could identify with, Banana Fish is about adult men. The inspiration is also a lot more loose, and instead of an adaptation, there are only references to J.D. Salinger and Hemingway's works throughout the manga.
The Heart of Thomas by Moto Hagio (1974), Banana Fish by Akimi Yoshida (1985) and Alice in Wonderland by Mutsu A-ko (1983).
To conclude my post, I really wanted to include this line from the essay by Oogushi Hisayo: If America (can apply to the West as a whole) was once the backdrop of stories for those who yearned to read about "somewhere that is not here", it has, from the 80s onward, become the backdrop of stories for those who yearned to read about "the now and here".
Japanese media findings #1 - Tadaima. by Akiko Yano (album)
I found this album while browsing subgenres of shibuya-kei and somehow stumbled upon the genre of techno kayou. I've never heard of it before until listening to this album and it seems to be thanks to the fact that it's practically a dead genre.
Techno kayou is a subgenre of kayoukyoku (showa era pop music) as well as idol kayou, which is basically the predecessor to J-pop.
Giving this album a listen filled me with inspiration as well as a feeling of melancholy. A reminder that this already small genre pretty much doesn't exist anymore and this, if not preserved, would go under eventually.
So I just wanted to spread the word of my finding and recommend/introduce this wonderfully surreal and upbeat album to at least a few of you people on here.
My theme is "each girl is a princess." That's my opinion. Girls have a point of view that boys do not have. It's an unknown world for boys. They don't know what girls do in their day-to-day lives. I might be romanticizing it, of course, and I thought of drawing what young boys may yearn about girls. I think it's linked with girls' cuteness. So I'm drawing cute girls because each one of them is a princess. (Via)
The early 1970’s marked the first serialization of classic literary comic The Heart of Thomas by Japanese artist Moto Hagio. An affecting story set in a German boys’ boarding school about some of its troubled students, Hagio was inspired by her friend and fellow artist Keiko Takemiya’s interests in intimate relationships between males, and after seeing the French 1964 movie les Amitiés particulières (This Special Friendship).
Weiterlesen
Yousei's Vintage Corner @yousei-no-mori - Tumblr Blog | Tumgag
theartofmadeline
pixelskylines
kianamaiart
ellievsbear
amandla
