The Society for Japanese Studies

Japanese Subculture in the 1990s: Otaku and the Amateur Manga Movement
Author(s): Sharon Kinsella
Source: Journal of Japanese Studies, Vol. 24, No. 2 (Summer, 1998), pp. 289-316
Published by: The Society for Japanese Studies
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SHARON KINSELLA

JapaneseSubculturein the 1990s:

Otakuandthe AmateurManga Movement

Abstract:The majorityof amateurmanga artists are women in their teens and

twenties and most of what they drawis homoeroticabased on parodiesof leading commercial manga series for men. From 1988, the amateurmanga movement expanded so rapidly that by 1992 amateurmanga conventions in Tokyo
were being attendedby over a quarterof a million young people. This paper
traces the origins and genres of amateurmanga and asks why its fans and producersbecame the source of nationwidecontroversyand social discourseabout
otakuin the firsthalf of the 1990s.

A limitless secret world of smolderingundergroundclubs where baby girls

in bikinis wield Uzi submachineguns and Russian Eskimos D.J. in Elizabethan court dress. Grey catacombs of deserted rain-swept streets where
beautifulwomen in impeccable Nazi uniforms sport unexpectederections.
Nameless back streets scattered with the limpid green lights of opiumsoaked noodle shacks where Oxford dons chop up giant squid for hungry
pairs of lusty French school boys. Such is the stuff that amateurmanga is
made of.
Withinthe fluid expanse of the amateurmanga movementhave crystallized fascinatingand rareexpressions of the more spontaneousand untempered fantasiesof a broadsection of contemporaryJapaneseyouth. It is the
largest subculturein contemporaryJapan-as invisible as it is immense. In
1992 the movement peaked in size as over a quarterof a million young
people gatheredat amateurmanga conventions in Tokyo. The majorityof
activists in amateurmanga subcultureare working-class girls, and what
turnsthem on more than anythingelse is violent homosexual romancebetween male hermaphrodites.What turnsthe lads on is baby girls with laser
guns. Theirtastes, however,are not fashionable.Whateverhappensto girls'
manga in Paris-where little girls' manga series such as CandyCandyand
Sailor Moon recentlybecame the toast of Montmarte- amateurmanga and
Journalof JapaneseStudies, 24:2
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its masses of girl artists are not artsy fartsy in Tokyo. The amateurmanga
movementis remarkablein thatit has been organizedalmostentirelyby and
for teenagersand 20-somethings.Amateurmanga is not sent to publishers
to be editedanddistributed.It is, instead,printedat the expense of the young
artists themselves and distributedwithin manga clubs, at manga conventions, and through small ads placed in specialist informationmagazines
serving the amateurmanga world. Throughthe 1980s it grew to gigantic
proportionswithout apparentlyattractingthe notice of academia,the mass
media, the police, the PTA, or government agencies such as the Youth
Policy Unit (SeishonenTaisakuHonbu)-which were establishedprecisely
to monitor the recurringtendency of youth to take fantasticaldepartures
from the ideals of Japaneseculture.
In 1989, however, amateurmanga subcultureand amateurmanga artists and fans were suddenly discovered, as if throughinfraredbinoculars,
and dragged from their teeming obscurity to face television cameras and
journalists,police interrogationand public horror.Amateurmanga artists
became powerfully characterizedas antisocial manga otaku or "manga
nerds"in a suddenpanic aboutthe dangersof amateurmanga,which spread
throughthe mass media.Amateurmangaartists,referredto as mangaotaku,
were rapidlymade into symbols of Japaneseyouth in generalandtook center stage in the domestic social debateaboutthe stateof Japanesesociey that
continuedthroughthe early 1990s.
TheDebate about Youthin Japan
During the 1960s large sections of Japaneseyouth, both universitystudents and lower-classmigrantworkersin urbanareas,beganto rebelagainst
existing political, social, and culturalarrangements.Youthexpressedtheir
aspirationsthroughradicalpolitical movements and a broadrange of new
popularculturalactivities,in particular,the mangamediumwhich expanded
enormously in the latterhalf of this decade. The political and culturalactivities of this generationcontributedto the enterpriseof large cultureindustriesin the 1970s, which made a marketof the new intellectualinterests
and aesthetictastes of postwarJapaneseyouth.' Althoughthe politicalpoint
of youthradicalismbecame completelyobscureby the early 1970s, younger
generations,youth culture,and young women became the focus of nervous
discourseaboutthe apparentdecay of a traditionalJapanesesociety.
Youthhave come to constitute a controversialand often entirely symbolic categoryin postwarJapan.(White) youthculturesin the UnitedKingdom and the United States have, increasingly,been humorouslyindulged
and wishfully interpretedas contemporaryexpressions of the irrepressible
1. Marilyn Ivy, "Formationsof Mass Culture,"in Andrew Gordon,ed., PostwarJapan
as History (Berkeley:Universityof CaliforniaPress, 1993).

Kinsella:AmateurManga Movement

291

creativegenius and spirit of individualismthat made Britain a great industrial nationandAmerica a greatdemocracy.2But individualism(kojinshugi)
has, as we know, been rejected as a formal political ideal in Japan.Institutional democracy not withstanding, individualismhas continued to be
widely perceivedas a kind of a social problemor moderndisease throughout
the postwarperiod.3Youthculture(wakamonobunka),which has flourished
in Japansince the 1960s, has been identified as the magic cooking pot of
postwarJapaneseindividualismand viewed in a particularlysour light by
many leading intellectuals. Youth culture, symbolizing the threatof individualism, has provokedapproximatelythe same degree of condescension
and loathing among sections of the Japaneseintelligentsiaas far-leftpolitical parties and factions, symbolizing the threatof communism,have provoked in the United States and the United Kingdom.
Individualismgenerally and youth culturein particularhave been interpreted,first and foremost, as a form of willful immaturityor childishness.4
In 1971 Doi Takeo made his influentialcritique of contemporaryJapanese
society in the workAmae no koz6.5Doi, an eminentpsychoanalyst,argued,
among other things,6that postwargenerationsof Japaneseyouth expressed
a desire to be indulged like children.In both the universitycampusriots of
1968-70 and individualistichippie culture,Doi saw the childish petulance
of a dysfunctionalgeneration,spoiled by the absence of a strong political
fatherfigure in Japan'snew postwardemocracy.Postwaryouth were, at the
same time, sufferingfrom the overindulgenceof theirown modernparents.
Doi finally concludedthata whole rangeof democraticadvances,including
the political challenge to racial,gender,andnationalinequality,were a form
of childishness: "In practice, the tendency to shelve all distinctions-of
adultand child, male and female, culturedanduncultured,East andWest
in favor of a universalform of childish amae [dependentbehavior]can only
be called a regressionfor mankind."7
In 1977 Okonogi Keigo, also a psychoanalystby profession, published
anotherinfluentialJapanese critique of modern society on the age of the
"moratoriumpeople." Okonogi linked the childishness of Doi's youth to
the widespreadrejection of civil society and of social obligations to fulfill
certain designated adult roles in society. Okonogi observed that "Present2. For example, Julie Burchill, Sex and Sensibility(London:Grafton,1992).
3. See BrianMoeran, "Keywordsand the Japanese'Spirit,"' in Brian Moeran,ed., Language and Popular Culture(Manchester:ManchesterUniversityPress, 1993).
4. See SharonKinsella, "Cutiesin Japan,"in Lisa Skov and BrianMoeran,eds., Women,
Media and Consumptionin Japan (London:CurzonPress, 1995).
5. Doi Takeo, Amae no kozo5(Tokyo: Kobundo, 1971); The Anatomy of Dependence
(London:KodanshaEuropeLtd., 1973).
6. See an analysis of the culturalnationalismin Doi's work in PeterDale, "OmniaVincit
Amae," in The Mythof Japanese Uniqueness(London:Routledge, 1986).
7. Doi, Amae no kdz5,p. 165.

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day society embracesan increasingnumberof people who have no sense of

belonging to any partyor organizationbut insteadare orientedtowardnonaffiliation,escape from controlledsociety, and youth culture.I have called
them the 'moratoriumpeople.' "8
Criticism of the immaturityand escapism of contemporaryyouth has
been closely boundwith criticismof the contemporarymangamedium.The
principalreason for the enormousexpansion of manga from a minor children'smediumto a majormass mediumduringthe 1960s was preciselythat
universitystudentsbegan to read children'smanga instead of the classics.
By spendinghours with their noses buriedin children'smanga books, obtuse studentsdemonstratedtheir hatredof the universitysystem, of adults,
and of society as a whole. Readingchildren'smanga came to be considered
somewhatrisque and underground.Since this period the qualities of introspection, immaturity,escapism, and resistanceto enteringJapanesesociety
have been stronglyequatedwith youth, youth culture,and manga.
During the following decade, the mass media and culture industries
were criticized for encouragingthe expansionof youth cultureand its individualistic values across society. In 1981 youth were briefly referredto as
the "crystal people," passionless culturalconnoisseurs somewhat akin to
the charactersof Bret Easton Ellis's classic novel, AmericanPsycho.9The
crystal people were named after the title of the best-selling novel, Nan to
nakukurisutaruby TanakaYasuo,which zoomed in on the sophisticatedbut
empty and neuroticlives of fashionablestudents.'0
In 1985 a new term was coined in the media to describe, once again, a
generationof youth born into relativeaffluence,with no experience of the
poverty and hardshipsof the early postwarperiod. Young people became
known as the shinjinrui-a term thatimplied thatyoung people's behavior
was so entirely differentfrom that of previous generationsthat they could
in effect be describedas a "new breed" of human.Despite the widespread
use of the concept in media and academic analysis over the following deIn 1987 they
cade, the new breedremainsa semimythologicalgeneration.11
were estimatedto be in their "20s andearly 30s" 12; five yearslater,in 1992,
they were believed to be the "under30s" 13; and in 1993 they were believed
8. Okonogi Keigo, "The Age of the MoratoriumPeople," Japan Echo, Vol. 5, No. 1
(1978). See also "Moratoriamuningen no jidai," Chfi5 kdron, October 1977, and Moratoriamuningen nojidai (Tokyo:ChM6Kdronsha,1981).
9. New York:Vintage Books, 1991.
10. TanakaYasuo,Nan to naku kurisutaru(Tokyo: KawadeShob6 Shinsha, 1981). For
commentary,see WakabayashiShin, "Understandingthe 'Crystal' People," Japan Echo,
Vol. 8, No. 3 (1981).
11. See AlessandroGomarasca,"Youth,Crisis and Display: The Rhetoricof Shinjinrui
in ContemporaryJapan,"Versus,Quadernidi StudiSemiotica,Vol. 10 (1998).
12. BradleyMartin,"The ShinjinruiBlues," Newsweek,June 8, 1987, p. 32.
13. LaurelAnderson and MarshaWadkins, "The New Breed in Japan:ConsumerCulture,"CanadianJournalof AdministrativeSciences, Vol. 9, No. 2 (1992), p. 146.

Kinsella:AmateurManga Movement

293

to be in their late teens and early 20s.'4 Economist SashidaAkio estimated

in 1986 that by 1996 the new breed would consist of precisely 52 per cent
of the populationand 49 per cent of the work force.15 While the shinjinrui
were favored by the media and a minority of social commentatorssuch
as Hayashi Chikio, who felt they would "be far less constricted in their
thoughtsandfeelings thanearliergenerations,"16 they were morefrequently
describedby social scientists as the irresponsible,passive consumersof leisure and cultural goods. Nakano Osamu, a leading expert in the field of
youth, describedthe new breed in the following terms, which appearto directly creditthem with causing the majorcharacteristics-and problems
of a late industrialeconomy: "Because of the new breed's preoccupation
with pleasure and comfort, it chooses pleasure over pain, recreationover
work, consumptionover production,appreciationover creation."17
Different sections of the media and in particularthe visual media were
suspectedof exerting a perniciousinfluenceover youth,causing them to get
lost in a realm of aesthetic, intuitive, irrational,and ultimately immature
thought.Magazines devoted to help-wantedlistings were accused of more
directly encouraging young people to evade full-time company careers."8
Social scientists suggested that the spreadof youth cultureand individualism throughthe media had produceda generationcharacterizedby increasingly particularisticand narrowinterests.Not only were youth resistantto
entering society as matureadults, to becoming shakaijin (social citizens),
but, it was observed, they had begun to lose all consciousness of affairs
beyond their privatehobbies.19At the same time, youth were criticized for
their disturbingpassivity and unwillingness to venturefrom their soft and
comfortable private lives-variably referredto as "cabins," "capsules,"
and "cocoons."20 Japanesemass society, it seemed, was being transformed
into "micromasses"by hordesof passive and introvertedyouth:
Whatwill becomeof Japan. .. if societycontinuesto fragmentintothese
self-satisfied,
complacent
micromasses?
The[y]livein tinycabinson a huge
ship.Theydo not careif the sea is roughor calm,nordo theycarewhat
14. MerryWhite, TheMaterial Child (New York:The Free Press, 1993), p. 123.
15. Japan Times Weekly,April 5, 1986. These particularfiguressound more like the percentage of women in the Japanese population, reflecting, perhaps, the close association of
shinjinruiwith independentyoung women in the media.
16. HayashiChikio, "AtarashiiNihonjin wa donna ningen?"Next, August 1985, p. 101.
17. NakanoOsamu, "A Sociological Analysis of the 'New Breed,' JapanEcho, Vol. 15,
special issue (1988), p. 15.
18. Ijiri Kazuo, "The Breakdownof the JapaneseWork Ethic," Japan Echo, Vol. 17,
No. 4 (1990).
19. FujiokaWakao, "The Rise of the Micromasses,"Japan Echo, Vol. 13, No. 1 (1986).
20. See KuriharaAkira, Yasashisa no yukue: gendai shonen ron (Tokyo: Chikuma
Shob6, 1981); Rokuro Hidaka, "On Youth," The Price of Affluence(New York:Kodansha
International,1984); and Nakano Osamu,Narcissus no genzai (Tokyo:Jijitsushinsha,1984).

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directionthe shipis taking.Theironlydesireis forlife to remainpleasant

in theircabins.21

In the characterizationof amateurmanga artistsas otaku and the ensuing social debate aboutthe behaviorand psychology of Japaneseyouth involved with manga, key themes of previousdebatesaboutyouthresurfaced
in new forms. Otakuwere portrayedas a section of youth embodying the
logical extremes of individualistic,particularistic,and infantile social behavior.22In their often macabredescriptionsof otaku lifestyle and subculture, social scientists conveyed, perhaps,their deeper anxieties about the
generalcharacteristicsof Japanesesociety in the 1990s.
Mini Communicationsand AmateurMangaPrinting
At the beginning of the 1970s, cheap and portableoffset printingand
photocopyingequipmentrapidlybecame availableto the public.23Amateur
manga and literatureof any kind could now be reproducedand distributed
cheaply and easily, creatingthe possibility of mass participationin unregistered and unpublishedforms of culturalproduction.Duringthe early 1970s
the new possibilities opened up by this technology also meant that it was
relativelyeasy for individualsto set up small publishingand printingcompanies. Many formerradicalstudentswho had ruinedtheirchances of joining a good company throughtheir political activities, or who were turning
their energies to youth culture for other reasons, set up one-person publishing companiesproducingsmall, erotic, or specialist culturemagazines,
many of which also containedsections of more unusualmanga. Othersestablishedsmall offset printingcompaniesthatgraduallybegan to specialize
in printingsmall runs of amateurmanga to professionalstandardsfor individual customers.
Using the services of the new mini printingcompanies, individualsin
all walks of life could now print and reproducetheir own work without
approachingpublishingcompanies.This twilight sphereof culturalproduction, existing beneath the superstructureof mass communications(masukomi), became known as mini communications(minikomi).With regardto
its amateur,uncentralized,andopen structure,the printedminikomimedium
can be usefully comparedto the computerInternetduringthe 1990s. One of
the most extensive forms of mini communicationsin Japanwas to become
printedamateurmanga.
21. Fujioka, "Rise of the Micromasses,"p. 38.
22. Sengoku Tamotsu,presidentof the government-fundedJapanYouthResearchCenter
(Seishonen Kenkytijo),gives uncreditedexplanationsof the otakuphenomenonin Japanese,in
the documentaryfilm Otaku,directedby Jean-JacquesBienex (1993), at 41 minutes.
23. YonezawaYoshihiro,"Komikkumdketto,"in Otakuno hon (Tokyo:Takarajimasha,
1989), p. 77.

Kinsella:AmateurManga Movement

295

Contemporaryprinted amateurmanga are known as dojinshi, a term

previously used to refer to pamphletsor magazines distributedwithin specific associations or societies. Alongside the growth of the commercial
manga industry,and following the developmentof cheap offset printingand
photocopyingfacilities, the numberof manga artists and fans printingand
distributingeditions of theirown amateurmangadcjinshi beganto increase,
firstslowly in the 1970s, and then rapidlyduringthe 1980s.
Large publishing companies ceased to systematically produce radical
and stylistically innovative manga series around 1972 because these no
longer matched sufficientlyclosely the changed interestsof their mass audiences.24New manga artists and fans interestedin developing new forms
of expression in manga were forced to turn to amateurproductionas an
alternativeoutlet for unpublishablematerial.After this point of technological and commercial transition,the amateurmanga medium rapidly developed an internalmomentum,partiallyindependentof developmentsin commercialmanga publishing.
In 1975 a group of young manga critics-Aniwa Jun, HaradaTeruo,
and YonezawaYoshihiro-founded a new institutionto encouragethe developmentof unpublishedamateurmanga. The institutionwas Comic Market, a public convention held several times a year where amateurmanga
could be sought and sold. YonezawaYoshihiro,presidentof Comic Market,
explained how it was establishedas a response to the official, commercial
manga industry:
All the independentcomics and meeting places of the 1960s were disappearingby 1973 to 1974, and then COMmagazine folded. It was a regression, from being able to publish all kinds of stuff in mainstreammagazines
to only being able to publish unusualstuff in dijinshi undergroundmagazines. Whatelse can you do but startagain from the underground?25

The first Comic Market,held in December 1975, was attendedby 32

amateurmanga circles and 600 individuals.26
These figuresgrew slowly between 1975 and 1986, and then rapidlybetween 1986 and 1992. In its first
ten years, Comic Marketwas held three days a year; attendancegrew so
large thatit was rescheduledto two weekend conventionsheld in the Tokyo
Harumi Trade Center in August and December. Attendance figures for
Comic Market(see Figure 1) providea useful illustrationof the proportions
24. SharonKinsella, "Change in the Status, Form and Contentof Adult Manga, 19861995," Japan Forum,Vol. 8, No. 1 (March 1996), pp. 103-12; andAdultManga: Cultureand
Power in Japanese Society (London:CurzonPress, 1998).
25. Interview with YonezawaYoshihiro,presidentand founder of Comic Market,July
1994, in Tokyo.
26. "Komikkumaketto46 sankamdshikomushosetto" (Tokyo:KomikettoJunbikai,December 1993), p. 15.

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Figure 1. Attendanceat DecemberComic Market,1975-95

250000

200000

150000

100000

50000

I4
75

76

77

78

79

80

81

82

83

84

1
85

86

87

88

89

90

91

92

93

94

95

Source: "Komikku maketto 46 sanka moshikomusho setto" (Tokyo: Komiketto Junbikai,

December 1993), pp. 14-15.

and growthof the amateurmanga medium,which is otherwisea remarkably

invisible subculturein Japanesesociety.
Comic Marketbecame the central organizationof the amateurmanga
medium, the existence of which encouragedthe formation of new amateur manga circles in high schools, in colleges, and among amateurmanga
artists with similar interests across the country.Since 1993, 16,000 separate manga circles, distributingone or more amateurworks producedby
their members,have participatedin each Comic Marketconvention.Up to
30,000 manga circles have appliedto attendeach conventionthroughoutthe
1990s, but no more than 16,000 stalls can be accommodatedin the Harumi
Trade Center.27A portion of this excess demandis absorbedby the organized staggeringof conventionsover two days and also by a recentlyestablished rival convention, known as Super Comic City, held in the Harumi
TradeCentereach April. The amountof amateurmanga producedand distributedhas increasedgreatly since around 1988 and in the mid-1990s totaled anywherefrom 25,000 separateworkseach yearupward28; the number
of amateurmanga circles acrossthe countrywas estimatedbetween 30,000
and 50,000 duringthe early 1990s.29
27. Interviewwith YonezawaYoshihiro,July 1994, in Tokyo.
28. I have calculatedthis figureof 25,000 on the basis of two Comic Marketconventions
per annum,each attendedby 16,000 circles, of which 74.1 per cent, or 11,856 circles, produce
manga (ratherthan music, costumes, or CD-ROMs).Each of those 11,856 circles distributes
at least one new worktwice a year.Thus at Comic Marketalone approximately23,712 amateur
works are distributedeach year.
29. Imidasu1993 (Tokyo:Shueisha, 1992), p. 1094.

Kinsella:AmateurManga Movement

297

AmateurMangaBusiness
Comic Marketis ostensibly a voluntary,nonprofitorganization,but a
range of other commercialenterpriseshave begun to grow on the margins
of the amateurmanga pool. In 1986 specialist amateurmanga printerAkabubuTsfishinlaunchedthe Wings amateurmanga conventions,andin 1991
Tokyo Ryik5 Centerset up SuperComic City conventions.Both companies
hold small to medium-sizedconventionsin towns across the countryevery
few weeks. It is possible for amateurmanga artists and fans to visit a convention to find contacts and friends or to search out new amateurmanga
every other weekend, though in fact many smaller conventions are limited
to specific genres of amateurmanga of interestto just one particulargroup
of amateurmanga artists.
Timetables of convention dates and locations are advertisedin several
monthlymagazinesdevoted to the amateurmanga world. In the second half
of the 1970s low-circulationmagazines such as June (San Shuppan),Peke
(Minori Shob6), Again, Tanbi,and Manga kissatengai were established.30
The first of these magazines, entitled Manpa (Manga wave) was launched
in 1976 and its scions continue to occupy the organizationalcenter of the
amateurmanga medium. In 1982 Manpa magazine split into Puff, which
specializes in amateurgirls' manga, and Comic Box, which covers all amateurmanga from a distinctiveleftist political position. These magazinesalso
carry ads for small dijinshi publishers, dojinshi books and anthologies,
meeting places for amateurartists, and small specialist manga book shops
thatmay also sell some dojinshi.ComicBox magazinealso publishesmanga
criticism, interviewswith manga artists,and otherwiseunrecordedindexes
of all publishedmanga matter.
An increasing numberof small companies have also begun to publish
amateurmanga itself. Fusion Productions,which makes ComicBox magazine, also publishes ComicBox Jr., a 300-page monthlymagazinein which
collections of alreadyprintedand distributedamateurmanga organizedby
specific genre or subgenrearepublished,andcollected anthologiesof dojinshi, which so far include a now infamous, erotic, three-volumeseries entitled Bishojo shokogun(The Lolita syndrome)publishedin 1985. In addition to small publishers, the growth of the amateurmanga medium has
providedcustom for a large numberof small printingshops such as P-Mate
Insatsuand HikariInsatsu;many of these shops specialize solely in the production of dejinshi.
Other commercial enterprises linked to the amateurmanga medium
are large manga shops that cater to the specialist requirementsof amateur
manga artists and fans. In 1984 a chain of manga shops named Manga no
30. Interviewwith YonezawaYoshihiro,July 1994, in Tokyo.

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Mori (Manga forest) sprangup in the Shibuya, Shinjuku,Takadanobaba,

Kichijoji,and Higashi Ikebukurosubcentersof Tokyo. In 1992 Mandarake,
a multistoryamateurand secondhandmanga superstore,opened in another
center of Tokyo, Shibuya;its staff wear costumes fashioned afterthose of
better-knownmanga characters.
AmateurMangaArtists
In the second half of the 1970s when Comic Marketwas still a relatively
small culturalgathering,a high proportionof ddjinshiartistsgraduatedfrom
amateurto professional status. Ishii Hisaichi, Saimon Fumi, Sabe Anoma,
Kono Moji, TakahashiHakkai,and TakahashiRumiko all printedddjinshi
and distributedthem at Comic Market, subsequentto becoming famous,
professionalartists.3'As the size of the amateurmediumgrew in the 1980s,
this flow of artistsinto commercialproductiondecreasedsharply.
It is evident from Figure 1 that the amateurmanga movementreached
its peak in 1990-92, when a staggeringquarterof a million amateurartists
and fans attendedeach Comic Market.Amateurmanga conventionsarethe
largest mass public gatheringsin contemporaryJapan.It is not only in this
regardthat manga conventions bear a sociological significance similarin
some senses to thatof footballin Europe.Most of these contemporaryartists
and fans are aged between their mid-teensand late 20s. Althoughno statistics have been recorded,YonezawaYoshihirohas also observedthatyoung
Japanesefrom low-income backgrounds,who were typicallyraisedin large
suburbanhousing complexes and attendedlower-rankingcolleges or have
no higher education,are in the majorityat Comic Market.The significance
of this observationis not straightforward.Despite the academicand media
attentiongiven to highereducationand the emergenceof a universalmiddle
class in contemporaryJapan,the majorityof young Japanesedo not go on
to higher education, and of those who do, a large proportionattendlowrankingcolleges. At the same time, the majorityof Japanesepeople now
live in suburbanhousing complexes and apartmentblocks. While this could
be taken to suggest that the sociological composition of Comic Marketis
therefore "standard"and "representative,"the significance of this observation is, perhaps,thatthis is one of the very few culturaland social forums
in Japan(or any other industrializedcountry)not dominatedby privileged
and highly educatedsections of society.
This observationis particularlyinterestingin light of the high levels of
interestin self-educationand the accumulationof culturalinformationthat
can be observedwithin the amateurmanga world.By applyingPierreBourdieu'stheoryof the "culturaleconomy" to Anglo-Americanfanzinesubcul31. Yonezawa,"Komikkumaketto,"p. 78.

Kinsella:AmateurManga Movement

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tures, John Fiske has developed the theory that these subculturescan operate as "shadowculturaleconomies," providingindividualswho feel lacking
in official culturalcapital-namely, education-and the social status with
which it is rewardedwith an alternativesocial world in which they have
access to a differentkind of culturalcapital and social prestige.32It is possible that the intense emphasis in Japan since the 1960s on educational
achievementand acquiringa sophisticatedculturaltaste has also stimulated
the involvementof young people excluded from these officially recognized
modes of achievementwith amateurmanga subculture.
Nevertheless, a fractionof the rapidgrowth of the amateurmanga medium at the end of the 1980s was accounted for by the arrivalof teenage
artists from privilegedbackgroundsat amateurmanga conventions. These
new participants,some of them the studentsof elite universities,are attributed to parentswho were active in the countercultureand political movements of the late 1960s and who passed on both theirsocial backgroundand
some of theirpositive attitudetowardmanga to theirchildren.
The huge proliferationof dcjinshi productionin the wake of the mini
communicationsboom, which allowed many ordinaryJapaneseyouth to
begin producingamateurmanga, meantthatby the 1980s virtuallyall amateurmanga was being made, not by highly skilled professionalartistsseeking alternativeoutlets for their personal work, but by young artists who
had no relationshipwith the manga publishingindustryat all. Of the tens
of thousands of dijinshi writers active in the medium during the 1980s,
only a handfulwent on to become professionalartists.The originally tight
relationshipbetween amateurand professional manga productionbecame
looser. In an attemptto directsome of these amateurartiststowardcommercial production,the Comic MarketPreparationCommitteebeganpublishing
an annualjournal designed to promote amateurmanga artists.In this journal, Komikettoorigin, publishedevery summer, 15 to 20 amateurartistsof
the best-selling dojinshiof the previousyear arereviewedand introducedto
the public.33
Early in the development of Comic Market it became evident that
printed amateur manga provided an unexpected new gateway into the
manga medium for Japanese women. Though Disney animation and the
cute children'smanga characterscreatedby Tezuka Osamu had long been
popularwith young women, very few of them became manga artistsbefore
1970. Commercialmanga was dominatedby boys' and adult magazines,
and these publishingcategories continueto representthe mainstreamof the
medium and the publishing industrytoday. In 1993, adult manga for men
32. JohnFiske, "The CulturalEconomy of Fandom,"in Lisa A. Lewis, ed., TheAdoring
Audience:Fan Cultureand PopularMedia (London:Routledge, 1992), p. 30.
33. Interviewwith YonezawaYoshihiro,July 1994, in Tokyo.

300

Journalof JapaneseStudies

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represented38.5 per cent, boys' manga represented39 per cent, while girls'
manga representedonly 8.8 per cent of all publishedmanga.34The number of women makingdijinshi increasedquickly afterthe establishmentof
Comic Market,so that the firstresult of the sudden increasein the general
accessibility of the manga medium was a new amateurmanga movement
engenderedby women. In the mid-1970s a group of female artistsproducing "small quantitiesof extremelyhigh-qualitymanga" emerged35andbecame known as the "1949 Group" (nijayon-nengumi), after the year in
which a numberof them were born.36These artists,includingHagio Moto,
OshimaYumiko, YamagishaRyoko, andTakemiyaKeiko,joined otherearlier dijinshi artistswho had become professionalmanga artistswhen they
filteredinto commercialgirl's manga magazines.37
Until 1989, approximately80 per cent of dtjinshi artists attending
Comic Marketwere female and only 20 per cent were male. Since 1990,
however,male participationin Comic Markethas increasedto 35 per cent.
The girls' manga genre continuesto dominateamateurproductionbut, and
this is a point of great interest,it has now been adoptedby male ddjinshi
artists. The increase in male attendanceat Comic Marketafter 1988 was
anotherfactorcontributingto the rapidproliferationof the amateurmedium
at this time. New genres of girls'manga writtenby and for boys sprouted
from the fertile bed of the amateurmangamedium.Some universitiesbegan
to boast not only manga clubs but also girls' manga clubs for men. This
manga and those men became the unluckyfocus of the otakupanic.
GenreEvolutionwithinAmateurManga
The realistic, adult-orientedgekiga style, which arose out of antiestablishmentmanga subculturein the late 1950s andhad a stronginfluence
on the genres utilized within commericalboys' and adult manga, has not
been a big influenceon contemporaryamateurmanga.Amateurmangaproductionhas been far more influencedby girls' manga, which in turnhas far
greaterstylistic continuitywith the less politically controversialtraditionof
the child-oriented,cute, sometimes fantastical,manga style pioneeredby
TezukaOsamu.Not only do amateurandcommercialmangadivergein their
stylistic origins but the social networksof amateurand professionalartists
have become so differentthat they representtwo virtuallyseparatecultural
media. From the amateurmanga subculturehave emergednew genres that
are distinctlyrecognizableas amateurin origin.
34. Shuppannenp5 1994, p. 188.
35. Interview with Saitani Ry6, chief editor of Comic Box and amateurmanga expert,
April 1994, in Tokyo.
36. MidoriMatsui, "LittleGirls WereLittle Boys," in Anna Yeatman,ed., Feminismand
the Politics of Difference(St. Leonards:Allen and Unwin, 1993).
37. Interviewwith SaitaniRyO,April 1994, in Tokyo.

Kinsella:AmateurManga Movement

301

In the early 1980s, dijinshi artistsbegan to producenot only new, original works, but a new genre, parody manga, based on revised versions of
published commercialmanga stories and characters.The first commercial
manga series to attracta whole wave of amateurparodiesin the firsthalf of
the 1980s was UchusenkanYamato(Spaceship Yamato).38As the amateur
manga medium expanded, the proportion of dojinshi artists producing
parody instead of original works increasedtoo. By 1989, 45.9 per cent of
materialsold at Comic Marketwas parodymanga, while only 12.1 per cent
was originalmanga.39
Most parodymanga has been based on leading boys' manga stories serializedin commercialmagazines.Storiesin the top-sellingmagazineJump,
such as "DragonBall," "Yiiyfihakusho,""SlamDunk,"and "CaptainTsubasa," have been particularlyfrequentsources of parody.Parodybased on
animationratherthan manga series, and referredto as aniparo (an abbreviation of animation-parody),became more popular from the mid-1980s
onward. In the same period kosupurei (an abbreviationof costume-play),
where manga fans dress up in the costumes of well-known manga characters and performa form of live parodyat amateurmanga conventions, also
became widespread.
Dijinshi artists categorizedtheir style of manga, which is dominantin
both parodyand originalwork, as yaoi. This wordis an anagram,composed
of the first syllable of three phrases, yama nashi, ochi nashi, imi nashi.
These phrases mean "no build-up, no foreclosure, and no meaning," and
they are frequentlycited to describe the almost total absence of narrative
structuretypical of amateurmanga since the mid-1980s.40 In yaoi manga
the symbolic appearanceof characters,and emotions attachedto characters'
situations,has become far more importantthanthe traditionalplot. The narrativeor story line, which in many ways is the only remaininglink between
manga and works generally understoodas high literature,has been very
much abandonedto commercialmanga publishers,for whom it continues
to be of varied but generally substantialimportance.Yaoiis also characterized by its main subject matter,that is, homoerotica and homosexual romance between lead male characters.Typical homosexual charactersare
pubescentEuropeanpublic school-boys, or muscularyoung men with long
hairandfeminine faces whose partnersareessentiallybeautifulwomenwith
male genitals. (See Figure 2.) Girls' manga featuringgay love is sometimes
identifiedas june mono (afterthe girls' manga magazineJune), while love
stories aboutbeautifulyoung men are also known as bisholnen-ai.Although
the charactersof these stories arebiologically male, in essence they areideal
38. Yonezawa,"Komikkumaketto,"p. 79.
39. "Komikkumaketto 15 nenshi," in ComicBox, November 1989.
40. The meaningof yaoi, common knowledge among manga fans, is definedon paperin
Imidasu1993 (Tokyo:Shogakukan),p. 1094.

Journalof Japanese Studies

302

24:2 (1998)

Figure2. Homoeroticafor YoungWomen

......
.1...

c.E
....................
*;
.......................
o-.

Gay lovers on the frontispiece of a populardojinshi Nairu o sakanoboue (1989). By kind

permissionof the artist,YahagiTakako.

types, combining favored masculinequalities with favoredfeminine qualities.4' Readersare likely to directly identify with gay male" lead characters-and often the slightly more effeminatemale of a couple. In the context of the obvious range of restrictionson behaviorand developmentthat
women experience in contemporarysociety, young female fans feel more
able to imagine and depict idealized strong and free charactersif they are
male.2
41. Sagawa Toshihiko,chief editor of the girls' manga magazineJune, confirmsthis interpretationin an interview with FrederickSchodt. See FrederickSchodt, DreamlandJapan
(Berkeley:Stone Bridge Press, 1996), pp. 122-23.
42. This is not an approachunique to Japanesegirls' manga: fanzine subculturein the
United States and Britainalso featuresa strongvein of male homosexualromancefor women.
Fans use materialfeaturinghomosexuallove affairsas devices for stagingthe type of independent and free charactersin which they are most interested.Henry Jenkins, TextualPoachers
(London:Routledge, 1992).

Kinsella: Amateur Manga Movement

303

Interpreting the Themes of Amateur Manga

Comic Market President Yonezawa Yoshihiro sees the expansion of

parodyin manga as an attemptto struggle with and subvertdominantculture on the partof a generationof youth for whom mass culture,which has
surroundedthem from early childhood, has become their dominantreality.
In this context Yonezawainterpretsparodymanga as a highly criticalgenre
that attemptsto remodel and take controlof "culturalreality."Manga critic
KureTomofusa,on the otherhand,believes thatthe highly personal(jiheiteki) themes of parodymanga representnot a critical sensibility so much as
a returnto the previoussafe themes of Japaneseliterature:
In 1980 people once again began to forget aboutdramaticsocial themesand
manga began to move towardpetty, repetitive,personal affairs,ratherlike
the I-novels [shishosetsu]of the pre-1960 period. In the 1980s new kinds of
love-comedies, often within parody,began in and dominatedthe amateur
printedmanga world.43

Yonezawa,representingthe more open-mindedapproachof many independentmedia-basedspecialists, attemptsto perceivea progressivepolitical

spirit, which is equivalentwith that born by his own generationof the late
1960s, in the cultural activities of amateur manga subculture. Kure, however, insists on a critical appraisal of the themes of amateur manga and finds

them seriously wantingin tangible social and political content.This view is

shared by many editors and artists involved with the commercial manga
medium. The implication of this criticism of parody manga is that the defi-

nition of "originality"applied to manga is something linked to the degree

to which it embraces current social and political events. "News," in manga,

has more than a merely linguistic association with "originality."Amateur

manga, whether parody or original work, is widely judged to be low-quality

culturebecause it lacks directreferencesto social and political life.

In a survey that I distributed at random to 40 amateur manga artists at

Comic Marketin August 1994, the respondentswere divided in their opinions about parody manga.44 Of the 29 respondents who returned the survey,
19 said they preferred parody to original manga. Of those 19, 10 respon-

dents gave "more interesting"as their reason for either producingor buying parody manga. Another 9 of the 19 respondents who claimed to prefer
parody to original manga felt either that it was "easier to understand" or
they were "not capable of making original manga." The remaining 10 respondents claimed not to like parody manga at all because it was "not
43. Interviewwith KureTomofusa,June 1994, in Tokyo.
44. This was a single-sheet, self-completion,postal-reply,questionnairesurveypresented
in the informal,cute style popularamong amateurmanga artists.

304

Journalof JapaneseStudies

24:2 (1998)

interesting."45 Thus, approximatelyone thirdof respondents,who were all

Comic Marketparticipants,did not like parodymanga at all, anotherthird
saidtheylikedparodymangabecauseit was moreinteresting,anda finalthird
saidthey liked parodymangabecauseit was easierto writeandto understand
than original manga. These judgments, made by convention participants,
confirm that producing and appreciatingparody manga is, among other
things, an easier task for many amateurartiststhanproducingoriginalcharactersand stories.Creatingnew manga scenariosandcharactersthatworkis
a far morechallengingintellectualtaskthanmakingnew versionsof already
developed manga stories borrowedfrom popularboys' manga magazines.
The presenceof the amateurmangamedium,whichhas alloweda greatnumber of ordinary,proportionatelyless talentedindividualsaccess to producing
manga, may have hadthe effect of loweringthe standardsof amateurmanga
andencouragingthe expansionof the parodygenre.Despite this dependence
of amateurmanga on commercialmanga for its scenes and characters,it is
clear thatparodymanga has neverthelessdevelopedas a qualitativelyseparate master-genrein its own right, in which the traditionaland commercial
understandingof originalityhas come to have less meaning.
Parodymanga often contains an element of satiricalhumorthat makes
light fun of the seriousness of the masculine heroes in commercialboys'
and adultmanga series. While on the one hand,parodypositivelycelebrates
these favorite manga characters,on the other hand it also pierces their authorityand aloofness by insertingscatologicalhumoror embarrassingjokes
about their sexual desires. The overall effect of this type of naughtinessin
parody manga is to make the parodiedcharactersmore fallible, allowing
readers to feel more intimate toward them. This aspect of the amateur
manga sense of parodyis similar to aspects of the Anglo-Americansensibility of camp. Both of these culturalmodes are based on the subversionof
meanings carried in original, and frequentlyiconic, culturalitems. Moreover, in the case of both parodyandcamp,this playful subversionis focused
particularlyon culturalitems thatcontainstronglyidentifiedgendertypes.46
45. The questions included on this single-sheet, self-completion, questionnairesurvey
cited here were:
2a) Do you preferparodyor originaldojinshi?(Answer:parody/original/both/other)
2b) Why is that your favorite?
46. Susan Sontag has suggested that "Allied to the Camp taste for the androgynousis
somethingthatseems quite differentbut isn't:a relish for the exaggerationof sexual characteristics andpersonalitymannerisms.For obvious reasons,the best examplesthatcan be cited are
movie stars. The corny flamboyantfemaleness of Jayne Mansfield, Gina Lollobrigida,Jane
Russell, Virginia Mayo; the exaggeratedhe-mannessof Steve Reeves, Victor Mature."There
is a modestparallelhere between the Americancamp appropriationof movie sex symbols and
the Japaneseparody appropriationof well-known male charactersfrom boys' manga series.
From "Notes on Camp" (1964), republishedin A Susan Sontag Reader (London:Penguin
Books, 1983), pp. 108-9.

Kinsella:AmateurManga Movement

305

Throughparodymanga, a large vanguardof young women have developed

a culturalform thatexpresses an ambiguouspreoccupationwith, and a deep
uncertaintyabout, masculine gender stereotypes, such as those typical of
the charactersin weekly boys' and adultmanga magazines.
Many of the men involved in the amateurmanga mediumperceivegirls'
manga and the female milieu surroundingit to be a progressivecultural
scene within contemporarysociety. In 1992, an article appearedin the Nihon keizai shinbun about a salarymanwho wrote girls' manga, which was
strategicallytitled "Active Citizenship throughGirls' Manga." In the article the man explained how, in his opinion, writing amateurgirls' manga
was not an escapist activity,but something that actively engaged him with
society in a way in which working for a publishing company (producing
original manga dramas)could not.47Implicit in this man'scomments was
a criticism of the purposeof Japanesecorporationsand the masculine culturethroughwhich men workingfor them communicate.This is an attitude
sharedby many othermale fans of girls' manga includingthe editorialstaff
of the magazineComicBox.
Towardthe end of the 1980s, however, the numberof men attending
amateurmanga conventions increased and new genres of boys' amateur
manga began to rise in prominenceat Comic Market.A type of ultra-cute
(ch5 kawaii) girls' manga written by and for men was grafted from the
styles of manga pioneeredby female artistsand used in small girls' manga
story magazines, such as Ribbon and Margaret. The genre into which the
majorityof this male girls' manga falls is aptly referredto as rorikon-this
term being derived from the term Lolita complex,48complex, in this case,
being the operative word. Rorikon manga usually features a girl heroine
with large eyes and a body that is both voluptuousand child-like, scantily
clad in an outfit that approximatesa cross between a 1970s bikini and a
space-age suit of armor. She is liable to be cute, tough, and clever. The
attitudetowardgender expressed in amateurrorikonmanga is clearly different from that expressed by the male fans of girls' manga, including gay
love stories and parody.
Despite the differences of these particularmale attitudes, the themes
by which amateurmanga genres have become defined have in common a
similar preoccupationwith gender and sexuality. Amateur manga genres
express a range of the problematicfeelings young people harbortoward
established gender stereotypes and, by association, established forms of
sexuality. While young people engaged with amateurmanga do not fit the
social definitionof homosexuality,they sharesome of the uncertaintiesand
47. "Shojo manga de katsuyakuno shakaiin,"in Nihon keizai shinbun,regularcolumn
"Tokyowa shiawasedesu ka?" August 13, 1993.
48. This is a referenceto VladimirNabokov's novel, Lolita, and the theme of older male
obsession with prepubescentgirls.

306

Journalof JapaneseStudies

24:2 (1998)

modes of culturalexpression more commonly associated with contemporary gay culture. Yaoi,jine mono, parody,and rorikonexpress the frustration experienced by young people, who have found themselves unable to
relate to the opposite sex, as they have constitutedand located themselves
within the contemporarycultural and political environment.There is, in
short, a profounddisjuncturebetween the expectationsof men and the expectations of women in contemporaryJapan.Young women have became
increasingly unwilling to accept relationshipswith men who cannot treat
them as anything other than "women" and subordinates.Men who persist in macho sexist behavior-like that often depicted in boys' and adult
manga magazines are gently ridiculed and rejected by the teenage girls
involved in writing parodymanga or readinggay love stories. Youngmen
who find this type of masculinebehaviorand friendship,which is concentrated within corporateculture,49restrictingand uncomfortablehave also
been attractedto amateurgirls' manga.
The themes of Lolita complex manga written by and for men, on the
otherhand,express both the fixationwith andresentmentfelt towardyoung
women by anothergroup of young men. Despite the inappropriatenessof
their old-fashionedattitudes,many young men have not acceptedthe possibility of a new role for women in Japanese society. These men, confounded by their inability to relate to assertiveand insubordinatecontemporaryyoung women, fantasize about these unattainablegirls in their own
boys' girls' manga. The little girl heroines of rorikonmanga reflect simultaneously an awareness of the increasing power and centrality of young
women in society, and also a reactivedesire to see these young women disarmed,infantilized,and subordinated.
Froma broadperspective,both the obsession with girls relievedthrough
rorikonmanga and the increasinginterestamongyoung men in (girls' own)
girls' manga reflectthe growingtendencyamongyoung Japanesemen to be
fixated with the figure of the girl and to orient themselves aroundgirls'
culture.The increasinglyintense gaze with which young men examinegirls
and girls' manga is, to use the words of Anne Allison, "both passive and
aggressive."50 It is a gaze of both fear and desire, stimulatednot least by a
sense of lost privileges over women, which accumulatedduringthe 1980s.
AmateurManga in Britainand the UnitedStates
Points of striking and unexpected similaritybetween culturaltrendsin
contemporaryJapanand other late industrialsocieties often provide social
49. See Anne Allison, Nightwork:Sexuality,Pleasure, and CorporateMasculinityin a
TokyoHostess Club (Chicago:Universityof Chicago Press, 1994).
50. Anne Allison, Permittedand ProhibitedDesires: Mothers, Comics and Censorship
in Japan (Boulder:Westview Press, 1996), p. 33.

Kinsella:AmateurManga Movement

307

insights at least as profoundas those discoveredat points of culturaldifference, which are almost habituallyfocused upon in the academy.51Points of
similarity in the culturaldevelopments of different societies illustratethe
pervasivenessof internationalsocial andculturalprocesses.Amateurmanga
is a good example of this point. Genresthathave arisen out of the Japanese
amateurmanga subculturein the 1980s bear strikingsimilaritiesto a genre
that has been presentin the culturaloutputof television and comic fans in
the United States and the United Kingdom since the early 1970s. Fine art
drawings and paintings and literary parodies of populartelevision series,
such as Starskyand Hutch, M*A*S*H,Star Trek,and, most recently,Alien
Nation from the United States and Red Dwarf in the United Kingdom are a
central constituent of Anglo-American fanzine subculture.Moreover,the
additionof homoeroticaand homosexual romanceto these fanzines is also
prevalent.Anglo-Americanhomoerotic amateurfanzines are referredto as
"K/S," or more simply still "slash" (I), in referenceto the frequentlyportrayedrelationshipbetween Kirk and Spock in fanzine versions of the programStarTrek.52The yaoi style emergingfrom Japanesedcjinshi is clearly
the Japaneseequivalentof Anglo-American slash.53Other similaritiesbetween yaoi and slash are the absence of a strong narrativestructure54and
the particularfascination with space exploration adventures:for AngloAmericanfanzines aboutStar TrekandDr. Who,substituteJapanesemanga
parodiesof Uchtsenkan Yamatoand CaptainTsubasa.
There are in fact links between amateurmanga and fanzine production
in these different countries. The most rapidly growing sector of British
fan culture in the 1990s has been concerned with Japanesemanga or animation, while so called "Japanimation"has been a popular category of
Americanfan culture since the mid-1970s. Japaneseanimationcompanies
have stimulatedthe interest of foreign fan audiences since the late 1970s
as a market-openingdevice to introduce Japanese animation products to
wider Americanaudiences.55Most fan interestin Japaneseanimationin the
United Kingdom was stimulatedby the release of Otomo Katsuhiro'sanimated film Akira and the establishment of the magazine Anime UK in
51. See Phil Hammond,ed., CulturalDifference,Media Memories:Anglo-AmericanImages of Japan (London:Cassell, 1997).
52. Jenkins,TextualPoachers.
53. Accordingto Jenkins:"The colourfulterm, 'slash,' refersto the conventionof applying a stroke or 'slash' to signify a same-sex relationshipbetween two characters(Kirk/Spock
or K/S) and specifies a genre of fan stories positing homoerotic affairsbetween series protagonists." Ibid., p. 186.
54. Camille Bacon-Smith,EnterprisingWomen:TelevisionFandomand the Creationof
Popular Myth(Philadelphia:Universityof PennsylvaniaPress, 1992).
55. JonathonClements, "Tales from the Edge of the World:A Survey of Japan'sManga
and Anime Exports,with Special Reference to Economic, Legal and CulturalInfluencesupon
Sales" (mastersthesis, Leeds University,1994).

308

Journalof JapaneseStudies

24:2 (1998)

1990.56 Other British magazines for new fans of Japanese animationare

Manga Mania, launched in 1993, and Anime FX, launched in 1996. The
popularityof Japaneseanimationin Britainoccurredat the same time as the
explosion in growth of the amateurmanga medium in Japanfrom the end
of the 1980s into the early 1990s.
The genres of animationthat have become popularwithin the new fan
culturesin Britainand the United States and dominateanimationvideo importsarederivedfrom rorikonmangawhich aroseout of the amateurmanga
mediumin the late 1980s. Girls' manga writtenexclusively by andfor men,
and featuringcute little girls typically wielding heavy weaponryand fighting for survivalin science fiction worlds, has been the principalinfluence
on Japaneseanimationfavored in Britainin the 1990s. The preoccupation
with converting serialized dramasinto homoeroticparodies that emerged
spontaneouslyamong women in the United Kingdom,America, and Japan
suggests that all of these women have undergonesome essentially similar
social andculturalexperience.The sourceof fascinationhereis not so much
the often-citeddifferencesbetween the role of women in the United States
and Japanas the implied similarityof their expenences. At the same time,
the popularityof Japaneseanimationand manga influencedby the rorikon
style in the United Kingdom and the United States during the 1990s suggests thatmanyyoung men in the UnitedKingdom,UnitedStates,andJapan
are also experiencingsimilarcircumstances,leading to closely allied tastes
and interests. This type of internationalmanga and fanzine subculture,
emerging spontaneouslyfrom within amateurmedia outside the official organizationof the media and cultureindustries,suggests, moreover,thatthe
degree to which the media and cultureindustriesin each of these countries
activelyproducesa specificallynationalcultureis extensive.

TheAmateurMangaPanic
In 1989 amateurmanga artists and the amateurmanga subculturebecame the subjectof what might be loosely categorizedas a "moralpanic"
of the sort firstdefinedat the end of the 1950s by Britishsociolologist Stanley Cohen.57A sudden genesis of interest in amateurmanga artists and
Comic Market,among the media, began with the arrestof a serial infantgirl killer. Between August 1988 and July 1989, 26-year-oldprinter'sassistantMiyazakiTsutomuabducted,murdered,and mutilatedfour small girls,
before being caught, arrested,tried, and imprisoned.8 Cameracrews and
56. Discussion with Otomo Katsuhiro,the manga artistandproducerof the animatedfilm
Akira,January1994, in Tokyo. These details are confirmedin Clements, "Talesfromthe Edge
of the World."
57. StanleyCohen, Folk Devils and Moral Panics (London:Granada,1972), p. 9.
58. Charles Whipple, "The Silencing of Lambs," in Tokyo Journal, July 1993; John

WhittierTreat, "YoshimotoBananaWritesHome: ShMjoCultureand the Nostalgic Subject,"

Journalof Japanese Studies,Vol. 19, No. 2 (1993), pp. 353-56.

Kinsella:AmateurManga Movement

309

reporters arriving at Miyazaki's home discovered that his bedroom was

crammedwith a large collection of girls' manga, rorikonmanga, animation
videos, a variety of soft pornographicmanga, and a smaller collection of
Miyazakiwas
academicanalysesof contemporaryyouthandgirls' culture.59
a fan of girls' manga and in particularrorikonmanga and animation,and it
was revealed that he had written some animationreviews in dojinshi and
had been to Comic Market.60
A heavily symbolic debateensued Miyazaki'sarrest,in which his alienation and lack of substantialsocial relationshipsfeatured as the ultimate
cause of his antisocial behavior.The apparentlack of close parentingfrom
his mother and father, his subsequentimmersion into a fantasy world of
manga, and the recent death of his grandfather-with whom he had apparently had his only deep human relationship-were posited as the serial
causes of his serial murders.Emphasis on the death of Miyazaki'sgrandfather implied that the decline of Japanese-style social relations representedby older generationsof Japanesefulfilling traditionalsocial roles had
contributedto Miyazaki'sdysfunctionalbehavior.Emphasison Miyazaki's
apparentlycareless upbringingsuggested, at the same time, that freer contemporaryrelationshipswere no substitutefor fixed traditionalsocial relationships, and that there was no real communicationbetween modern,liberal parents of the 1960s generation and their children. Several journals
describedhow Miyazaki'smotherhad neglectedher son so that "by the time
he was two years old he would sit alone on a cushion and read manga
books."61
Where his family had failed to properlysocialize Miyazaki,the media,
it was suggested, had filled this gap, providinga source of virtualcompany
and grossly inappropriaterole models.62While one headlineexclaimedthat,
in the case of Miyazaki, "the little girls he killed were no more than characters from his comic book life," 63 psychoanalystOkonogi Keigo worried
that "the dangerof a whole generationof youthwho do not even experience
the most primarytwo- or three-way relationshipbetween themselves and
their motherand father,and who cannotmake the transitionfrom a fantasy
world of videos and manga to reality,is now extreme."64
59. A comprehensivephotographicsurvey of the rooms of Japaneseyouth living in and
aroundTokyo in the late 1980s and early 1990s confirmsthatMiyazaki'sroom, stuffedwith a
large collection of manga, books, and videos, was in fact fairly typical. K. Tsuzuki,ed., Tokyo
Style (Tokyo:Kyoto Shoin, 1993).
60. Otsuka Eiji, "M. Kun no naka no watashi, watashi no naka no M. Kun," in ChaiJ
kdron,October 1989, p. 438.
61. Shilkanbunshun,September9, 1989, p. 36.
62. One discussion centered aroundthe possible influence of two films, Akumano joisan and Ketsunikuno hana, on Miyazaki'sbehavior.See Treat, "YoshimotoBanana Writes
Home," p. 354.
63. Whipple, "Silencing of Lambs,"p. 37.
64. Okonogi Keigo quoted in Shtikanposuto, September25, 1989, p. 33.

310

Journalof JapaneseStudies

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Figure 3. A HumorousCaricatureof an Otaku

MAGICHAND

OTAKUBRAIN

(for pinching

IQ 10,000+

little girls'
bottoms)

(no one else

knows what they
are thinking)

GREASY HAIR
OTAKU EYES

GOOFYTEETH
OTAKUHEART
(very hardy)1,0mers

(can spot useless

informationat
,0mers

FAITHFULCARRIERBAG
(containsplastic models
of pop-idols,
and d~jinshi)

This specimen sportsa Chibi Maruko-chant-shirt,a copy of a manken(manga circle) manga

dojinshi,andkitsch plastic models of Godzilla and 1980s pop-idolNakayamaMiho. Used with
permission.FromIkasu! OtakuTengoku,?) 1992 TakuHachiro/OhtaShuppan,Tokyo.

Following the Miyazaki case, reporters and television documentary

crews visited amateur manga conventions and specialist manga shops.
Amateurmanga culture was repeatedlylinked to Miyazaki, creatingwhat
became a new public perceptionthat young people involved with amateur
manga are dangerous,psychologicallydisturbedperverts(see Figure3).
TheBirth of the OtakuGeneration
Otaku,which translatesto the English term "nerd,"was a slang term
used by amateurmanga artistsand fans themselves in the 1980s to describe
"weirdos"(henjin).The originalmeaningof otakuis "yourhome" and,by
association, "you," "yours," and "home." The slang term otaku is witty
referenceboth to someone who is not accustomedto close friendshipsand
thereforetries to communicatewith peers using this distantand overly formal form of address,and to someone who spends most of his or her time

Kinsella:AmateurManga Movement

311

alone at home. The term was ostensibly invented by dojinshi artistNakamori Akio in 1983. He used the word otaku in a series entitled "Otakuno
kenkyt" (Yourhome investigations)publishedin a low-circulationrorikon
manga magazine, Manga burikko (Manga cutie-pie).65

After the Miyazaki murdercase, the concept of an otaku changed its

meaning in the hands of the media. Otaku came to mean, in the first instance,Miyazaki;in the second instance,all amateurmanga artistsandfans;
and in the third instance, all Japaneseyouth in their entirety.Youth were
referredto as otakuyouth (otakuseishlnen), otakutribes (otaku-zoku),and
the otaku generation (otaku-sedai). The sense that this unsociable otaku
generationwas multiplyingand threateningto take over the whole of society was strong. While the Shdkanposuto put about the fear that "Today's
Elementary and Middle School Students: The Otaku Tribe Are Eclipsing Society,"66 social anthropologistOtsukaEiji confirmedthat "it might
sound terrible,but there are over 100,000 people with the same pastimesas
Mr. M-we have a whole standingarmyof murderers."67
Police ActionAgainstAmateurManga
The practicalresultsof the new and hostile attentiondirectedat amateur
manga were the partial attempts of Tokyo metropolitanpolice to censor
sexual images in unpublishedamateurmanga and preventtheir wider distribution at conventions and in specialist book shops. In 1993 guidance
aboutthe appropriatecontentsof dojinshiwere distributedat Comic Market
for the firsttime. The Comic MarketPreparationCommitteedeterminedto
attemptthe enforcementof public bylaws prohibitingthe sale of sexually
explicit published materialsto minors under 18 years old, despite the fact
that a large proportionof amateurmanga is producedand sold by minors.
In the Comic Marketparticipantapplicationbrochureof August 1994, organizers warned amateurartists that "Comic Marketis not an alternative
society, it is a vehicle orchestratedby you which thinksaboutits useful role
in society. It has become necessary for us to seek social acceptance."68
Eventuallymanga fan cultureand amateurunpublishedmanga also became the targetof extensive harassmentby the police. During 1991 police
arrestedthe managersof five specialist manga book shops where unpublished or amateurmanga was available for sale. This activity began when
six officers broke into the Manga no Mori book shop in Shinjukuand confiscatedcopies of unpublishedmanga works. Police collected the addresses
65.
66.
67.
68.

NakamuraAkio, "Part1," in Otakuno hon, p. 89.

Shfikanposuto, September25, 1989, pp. 32-33.
Otsuka, "M. Kun no nakano watashi,"p. 440.
"Komikkumaketto46 sankamoshikomushosetto," p. 12.

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of 15 amateurmanga circles and subsequentlytook their members into

police stations for questioning about the legal status of the printingshops
where their manga booklets had been printed.Amateurmanga artistswere
subjectedto repeatedinvestigationsand harassmentthroughoutthe rest of
the year. In total police took in 74 young people for questioningover their
activitiesmakingamateurmanga and removed 1,880 volumes of manga by
207 authorsfrom the KoyamaManga no Mori book shop and 2,160 volumes of manga by 303 differentauthorsfrom the ShinjukuMangano Mori
shop.69This scale of direct police activity representsa significantcurtailment of the distributionof unpublishedmanga. Other than in specialist
manga book shops in large cities, amateurmanga is rarely on sale and is
not usually available outside the social circles of young manga fans and
artists.The seizureof amateurmanga by local police forces suggests thatit
was not only the perceived problem of the harmful effects of manga on
young minds that concernedthe police, but also the independentand unregulatedmovementsof amateurmanga artistsand amateurmanga.
The OtakuPanic and the Reformof the MangaMedium
The divergenceof the publishingindustryfrom what became the contemporaryamateurmanga movementduringthe 1980s left the latterdisorganized. The centralorganizationof manga carriedout by publishingcompanies and manga editors disappearedfrom the amateurmedium and no
alternativesystem of valuation, artistic discipline, or quality control replaced it. Artists who could not get their work publishedin manga magazines took advantageof this unregulatedsphere to produce and distribute
their work in amateurform. New genres of manga, drivenby the strength
of their popularappeal alone, emerged from the amateurmanga medium.
The same popularengagementwith the mangamediumthatfueled the commercial expansion of weekly magazines during the 1960s encouragedthe
medium to divide into two separatemedia by the 1980s. The tremendous
expansionof the amateurmanga mediumdemonstratesagain thatthe most
salient characteristicsof manga in postwarsociety have been its popularity
and its accessibility.
Moreover,it is precisely the widespreadaccess youth have had to the
manga mediumthathas stimulatedconcernamongpoliticalandeducational
authorities.Anxieties aboutthe commercialpropagationof manga and gekiga social dramas expressed through manga censorship campaigns between 1965 and 1975 resurfacedbetween 1990 and 1992 and were redirected toward amateurmanga-currently the most uncontrolledand free
areaof the manga medium.Withinthe escalatingdebateaboutmangaotaku
that spreadacross society was expresseda sense of insecurityaboutuncon69. Yugaikomikkumondaio kangaeru(Tokyo:TsukuruShuppan,1991), pp. 18-21.

Kinsella:AmateurManga Movement

313

trolled and unregulatednew culturalactivities.Commentingupon the otaku

panic, YonezawaYoshihiroremarkedthat:
The city, the lost zone of Japanesesociety,exists hereat ComicMarket.
or hindrancefromoutside,this abandonedand
Withoutany interference
forgottensectionof societyhasstartedto produceitsownculture.Thesense
of beingone body,of excitement,of freedom,andof disorderexistsinside
thissingleunifiedspace.If anythingfrightfulhascomeintobeing,it is no
doubttheexistenceof thisspaceitself.70
The underlyingargumentexplicit in both the otakupanic andthe 199092 anti-mangacensorshipmovementaccompanyingit was that manga has
a negative influence on Japaneseyouth and, in particular,their sexuality.
While these types of views held by conservative citizens' organizations
and governmentagencies, involved in attemptsto censor publishedmanga
magazines, were not interesting,reasonable,or acceptable to a wide section of the contemporaryJapanese public, specific criticism of amateur
manga subcultureand otaku manga genres was more novel and engaging.
Young people themselves were persuadedthat amateurmanga subculture
was a serious social problemratherthan a "cool" youth activitythey might
like to enter.
Otakuas a Symbolof ContemporaryJapanese Society
The otaku panic also reflects many of the contemporaryconcerns of
social scientists aboutJapanesesociety. These are powerfulconcernsabout
social fragmentationand the contributionof the mass media and communications infrastructuresto this change. Since the 1970s, intellectuals have
linked their concerns about the decay of a close-knit civil society to the
growthof individualismamong youngergenerationsof Japanese.Individualistic youth culturehas been accuratelyassociatedwith eitherthe failureor
the stubbornrefusal of contemporaryJapaneseto adequatelycontributeto
society by carryingout theirfull obligations and duties to family,company,
and country.The absorptionof youth in amateurmanga subculturein the
late 1980s and 1990s was perceivedby many intellectualsas a new extreme
in the alienation of Japanese youth from the collective goals of society.
Otakucame to be used as anotherrejuvenatedand modernizedversion of
the aging and overgeneralizedconcept of "youth."
Otaku came to representa younger generation so intensely individualistic they had become dysfunctional, a generation of "isolated people
who no longer have any sense of isolation."71 The dysfunctionalityof otaku
provedthe unhealthynatureof individualisticlifestyles. Otakurepresented
70. Yonezawa,"Komikkumaketto,"p. 88.
71. Shakanposuto, October 1, 1989, p. 32.

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new Japanesewho lacked any remainingvestiges of social consciousness

and were instead entirelypreoccupiedby theirparticularisticand specialist
personalpastimes. Like generationsof youth before them, otakuwere also
diagnosed as sufferingfrom PeterPan syndrome,or the refusalto grow up
and take on adultsocial relations.Ueno Chizuko,the leading feministtheorist, pressedthis theorythatamateurmanga genresreflectthe infantilismof
young people, asking "Do the yaoi girls and rorikon boys really have a
future?"72 Withoutsocial roles, otakuhad no fixed identities,no fixed gender roles, and no fixed sexuality.Ultimately,otakurepresenteda youthwho
had become so literallyantisocialthey were unableto communicateor have
social relationshipswith other people at all. The independenceof amateur
manga subculturefromthe rest of society, andits growthon the backof new
media technologies availableto the public, made it an appropriatefocus for
this sense of chaos and declining control over the organizationand communicationof youngergenerations.
The Universalizationof Girls' Culture
At the same time, it seems the dominationof amateurmanga subculture
by young women ratherthanyoung men has provokedparticularunease.In
the mid-1970s early girls' manga was perceivedby some leftist critics as a
reactionaryculturalretreatfrom politics and social issues to petty personal
themes. Girls' manga and soft (yasashii) culturewere associatedwith the
decline of political and culturalresistance in the early 1970s, sometimes
referredto in Japaneseas the "doldrums"(shirake).But by the 1990s, individualisticpersonalthemes in girls' manga were being perceivedas stubbornly self-interested,decadent,and antisocial.
Over the last two decades, far more women than men have been involved with making, enjoying, and becoming the idols of youth culturein
Japan.By virtue of their exclusion from most of the labor market,young
women have occupied a relatively marginalposition in society. Insteadof
devotingthemselvesto work,most young women have focused on spending
their incomes from part-timeand temporaryemployment on culture and
leisure. Duringthe 1980s in particularyoung women becamethe mainconsumersof culture.The engagementof ojo-samawith cultureand leisure has
been criticized as a form of selfish resistanceto society. For many young
men, young women have increasinglycome to representan illicit free zone
outside the company where their individual interests and desires can be
pursued.Girls' manga too carries themes associated with escapism, selfindulgence,and willful feminine individualism.
Genresderivedfrom girls' manga represent,for betteror worse, one of
72. Ueno Chizuko, "KyUjiinendaino sekusureborytishon,"in Otakuno hon.

Kinsella:AmateurManga Movement

315

the most dynamic fronts of the manga medium as a whole in the recent
period.However,they have been humiliatedby the otakupanic andmarginalized by the recent anti-mangacensorshipmovement.73Amateurmangaderivedgenres are excluded from virtually all of the magazines of leading
publishers of manga.74 The snobbery indirectly expressed toward manga

genres is reminiscent of a broaderdistaste in polite Japanese society for

contemporaryculture produced for, and sometimes by, young women.
As Skov and Moeranhave highlighted,thereis "an almostapocalypticanxiety that the 'pure' and 'masculine' culture of Japanhas been vulgarized,
feminized, and infanticized to the point where it has become 'baby talk'
beyond the comprehension of well-educated critics."75Drawing notice
to this vein of criticism that perceives girls' culture as an unwelcome
alien influence within Japan,manga critic Kure Tomofusa described how
"when academicslooked at girls' manga they were amazed. They felt like
English missionaries discovering that there were different societies in
Africa."76
The crossoverof young men into girls' culturehas provokedparticularly
fierce opposition. The universalpopularityof manga genres pioneeredby
women implies that ratherthanbeing a discrete feminine section of manga
culture,girls' manga is in fact centralto the contemporarymedium, as indeed young women are to contemporaryJapaneseculturein general.It also
implies that the individualisticand self-interestedthemes of girls' manga
are themes with universalappeal.It is strikingthatalthoughthe majorityof
amateurmanga artists and fans are young women, the media panic about
otaku was focused almost entirely on the young men who have adopted
young women's cultureas their own (see Figure 3). The anxieties released
by the sight of young men flockingto a female-dominatedmangamovement
is reminiscentof the criticism targetedat "wiggers"-or white American
boys emulatingblack ghetto cultureor makingblack music-in the United
States.
Crowdsof teenage girls screamingat the sight of theirfavoritepop stars
takingtheirshirtsoff on stage, or spendinghoursstaringmorbidlyat posters
of James Dean, has been humoredand accommodatedin Japanas much as
it has in the United Kingdom. In Japan,the migrationof women into male
73. See Kinsella, "Change in the Status" and Adult Manga for more detail on the censorship.
74. One exception is Afternoon,a monthly manga magazine publishedby Kodanshain
which a selection of otaku-kei(amateurmanga style) stories, such as "Aaah My Goddess"
and "Discommunication,"have been serialized from the late 1980s. Significantly,these have
been adaptationsof rorikonmanga ratherthan any other genre, such as yaoi, that could be
interpretedas directlyridiculingmasculinity.
75. Skov and Moeran,eds., Women,Media and Consumptionin Japan, p. 70.
76. Interviewwith manga critic KureTomofusa,June 1994, in Tokyo.

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Figure4. Boys JustWannabeGirls

boy who just wants to be a girl. Captions,from top to bottom: "A boy!?" "Don'tbe stupid,"
C Riichi Ueshiba/
"It's true....,""Look." Used with permission. DISCOMMITNICATION
KodanshaLtd., Tokyo.

culture, into bars, trousers, and golf courses, is graduallybecoming more

acceptable.But the emergence duringthe late 1980s of hordes of teenage
Japaneseboys who screamand faint at the sight of theirfavoritefemale pop
idols, who adoregirls' manga, or who fetishize images of young girls from
afar in their own boys'-girls' manga, has been met with shock and incomprehension(see Figure4).
PEMBROKECOLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE