Hello, everyone! Two DramaQueen staffers were interviewed in a Japanese manga monthly while in Tokyo. We have extracted the interesting points for some fun reading.

Interviewers: FURUSATO Manabu-san, editor; Eiji OTSUKA-sensei, the prolific manga author and critic, and editor.
Interviewees: Tran B. Nguyen, DQs Managing Director; Angela Dooley, DQs Editor in Chief.
Interview Translator: Daniela Shiga-san.
Interview transcription translated from Japanese to English by Taisa Toluchanian, May 25, 2005.
Interview graciously arranged by Toshihiko SAGAWA-san, an editor at Magazine Magazine.
Interview Conducted on February 24, 2005, at the Diamond Hotel, Tokyo. Printed in Comic Shin Genjitsu, volume 4, through Kadokawa Shoten (ISBN 404853842X).

Japans Sweet, Sexy, Cute "Yaoi"

Manabu: "Yaoi" is this interview's feature topic, and we hear that even in modern America yaoi manga has a supportive fan following. But how extensive is it really? We'd like to ask you a little bit about the yaoi situation abroad.
Tran: The question is how many people know about "yaoi" or how popular it is, right?

Manabu: Yes.
Tran: I've been a member of the yaoi fan community for three or four years, but before that I was just a regular fan of shoujo manga. I didn't even know yaoi existed until, probably about three years ago.
So I asked Angela, who was part of the internet fan community, several questions. She knew a lot about Japanese manga. She told me that there was a "boys love" genre in Japan, and that I would probably like it. I was already a fan of manga, a huge fan of anime, and, well, I guess you can say I was a geek [laughs]. But it was at Angelas recommendation that I began reading boys love manga.

Manabu: Did you know what the word "yaoi" meant?
Tran: At the time, not really. Later I found out that "yaoi" is an acronym for "no climax, no resolution, no meaning."

Manabu: What attracted you to "yaoi"?
Tran: Well, the single word "yaoi" can refer to a lot of things. First, there's "boys love", which is for adult women and very sexual and sensual. Then there's "shounen-ai" which are boys love stories without the sex. And then there's "shota", which has underage boys. Until now, most manga dealing with sex were for men. There was nothing for women, so it feels like something has finally come along that we want to read.

Manabu: So then women reading manga drawn by women is an extremely new phenomenon.
Tran: Yes, it's a new thing. There's been this perception that comics aren't for adults. It's like it's okay to read "Superman" when you're 10 or 11, but not after you grow up. But yaoi manga has a passionate fan following. You know, "otaku". People who love manga don't just forget about it when they grow up. It's the same thing anywhere.
Women in America are just beginning to realize that comics aren't only for men and kids. Also, girls who like anime are making a natural transition into the world of manga. It's like there's this whole other type of media available.

Manabu: Do American readers sense feminist themes when they read shoujo manga and yaoi manga?
Tran: Yes. They sense a feminine touch.

Manabu: Do they notice a feminist ideology in the political sense?
Angela: No [laughs]. I don't think they sense political feminism.

Otsuka: In Japan, when manga authors like HAGIO Moto appeared on the shoujo manga scene in the 1970's, feminist thinkers across several generations emerged. So shoujo manga and feminism are thought by the Japanese to go hand in hand.
Manabu: It's said that a big change took place in the way women live their lives in Japan in the early 70's. For instance, before then, women didn't openly discuss sex.
For the first time, starting in the 70's, sex and issues of female sexuality became the subject of novels and conscious thought.
Angela: It's a little different for western women. Housewives have had sexuality in novels for a long time, like in harlequin romances. Since the ideology was there previously, manga has just changed the scene by more or less adding to it.
Manabu: Ah, I see.
Tran: I think Japan's manga authors are very brave and wonderful. The stories are really interesting and the art is very beautiful. I want to share their talent with readers around the world. And boys love isn't just for girls.

Manabu: Are there any religious taboos?
Tran: Europe is more open than America. America is more religious and conservative. Even though there's relatively little prejudice surrounding sexual preference in big cities in America, you'll find greater resistance if you go to smaller towns.

Manabu: These aren't perceived as pornography?
Tran: There are distinctions between pornography and artistic expression in America. When you talk about pornography, you think of like adult videos, where actual people are having sex, or movies or magazines. Artistic works fall under artistic expression because they are not based upon any person, but the author's imagination.

Manabu: Do yaoi comics, or Japanese comics in general, receive social criticism in America?
Angela: No matter what you do, there's going to be criticism, even for normal manga.
Tran: Yaoi isn't widely known enough yet to be receiving social criticism, but I think as more and more people find out about it, it will get criticized. Right now it's limited to its fanbase community, so there isn't much criticism. I think once it becomes more widely known, there'll be a lot of criticism from conservatives. But women can make their own judgments they're adults, after all.
Angela: They don't have to read it if it doesn't interest them.
Tran: If someone doesn't want their child buying it, they should of course exercise parental guidance. In America and Europe, a grown woman's personal decisions are respected.

Manabu: Do you think you're constructing a wall between a culture and a subculture?
Tran: We're not putting up a wall. Crossing cultures is a very cool and wonderful thing.
Angela: Historically, Britain had colonial rule for a long time and had many religious and foreign refugees, so there's been little cross-cultural resistance.
Tran: We want to introduce our work to a mature women audience, and hopefully bring more joy into their lives.

Otsuka: I think the word "otaku" has already been imported by the West, but how are "otaku" perceived there?
Tran: We use the same word, "otaku", but I think the meaning of otaku in the West is a little different from the meaning of otaku in Japan. I've heard that "otaku"t; has a negative connotation in Japan, but in America we call that kind of person a "geek" or "nerd".
Angela: Hahaha, a geek is stereotypically someone with messy hair and thick glasses...
Otsuka: Hahaha.
Angela: Geeks, generally, do nothing but read books, watch television or sit in front of a computer all day in their pajamas... Umm, that would be me! [laughs]
Otsuka: The word "otaku" actually originated in a magazine that I was chief editor for.
Tran Angela: Really!?
Otsuka: It was in 1980 for the magazine I edited, "Manga Burikko". A writer named NAKAMORI Akio coined the term, and it appeared in other publications after that.

Angela: Who invented the word yaoi?
Otsuka: I hear that it was coined in a Kanazawa doujinshi in the mid to late 1970's
If you want to know more about how "otaku" came into use, I've written all about it in a book called "Otaku no Seishinshi".
I guess it would be "The History of Otaku". When otaku went to Comike [Comic Market Convention], they used to call each other "otaku&" and talk about manga before they even knew their real names. The use of "otaku" in the second person is formal and becoming obsolete though, and you don't hear it used much any more. It's what's the word "jargon"?

[The Interview came to an end shortly after this discussion.]

DQ: We hope you had fun reading this interview. We sincerely thank Manabu-san, Otsuka-sensei, Sagawa-san, Shiga-san, and Ms. Toluchanian for their participation and help in this interview.