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Abstract
This article explores the rise of specific new modes of gender ambivalence from within male subculture and mass media in the 2000s and examines the emergence of the cute cross-dressing ‘otoko no ko’. The broader context of this emerging orientation towards girlishness and cuteness is the now widely-documented circumstances of the recessionary period, particularly in the decade from the steepening of the recession and labor market deregulation from around 2006–2008 forwards. Interestingly, this precise period also correlates with a moment of creative escalation and bifurcation in male subcultural positions and forms: witnessing the emergence of self-defined himote (‘don’t haves’ [partners/ sex]) as well as otoko no ko in manga, animation and bedroom and upload subculture. Hints about the relatively weak position of fans and readers of otoko no ko in the labor market, and aspects of the language and ideas underlying the process of transformation through josō fashion, will be explored. Suggestions will be posed about the: undetermined qualities of male cross-dressed parodies of shōjo idols; the increased importance of self-discipline and self-transformation, and the personal effort to be ‘cute’ and ‘appeal’ and in order to fulfil the proscriptions for success in the late capitalist economy; and finally, the fuller significance of finding an ‘orientation’ for both financial and psychological survival.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
Notes
Notes
1 As josō – literally translating to ‘female dress’ (女装) – is a key term in contemporary Japanese culture, it will largely be used in the original Japanese in this article. When translated it will be translated as ‘cross-dress’, since the gendered term ‘female dress’ does not exist in English, and ‘cross-dress’ is the closer though less literal translation.
2 Moe has become a core word to describe contemporary cute girl characters, especially in animation, computer games and manga, targeted at young male otaku audiences, from around 2005, replacing the previous term Lolikon, but also indicating a cute sexual animation aesthetic. (See, for example, Galbraith’s “Moe: Exploring Virtual Potential in Post-Millenial Japan”, Citation2009).
3 An overview of the earlier cross dress community can be found in Mitsuhashi and Hasegawa (Citation2006).
4 2.5 dimensional is a term linked to otaku culture referring to the performance or parody of 2-dimensional animation characters, by living 3-dimensional people.
5 See Canjani8 at: https://www.bilibili.com/video/av2642713/?p=2.
6 During three points in this period, August 2013, August 2015, and throughout 2019, the author met and exchanged by email with media professionals and entrepreneurs, such as editors and models of My Way publications, film directors, otoko no ko bar hostesses, and men identifying variably as josoko (young cross-dressers) and otoko no ko first encountered at Propaganda party July 2013 and 2015. A significant portion of these events and interviews carried out in 2013 and 2015 were filmed, and appear in edited format in a collaborative art/anthropology film, josō, by the author and filmmaker David Panos.
7 The earliest instance of cosmetics produced for men (by Shiseidō), possibly targeted at the emergent sexual minority communities, was in the 1960s (Iida Citation2005, 58).
8 Images of this can be found online, such as at: https://ameblo.jp/nekomama31/image-10961983098-11367004644.html
9 A district of central Tokyo associated with teenage girls’ fashions.
10 A final-year student of Waseda University, Media Studies, graduating in 2010.
11 Until removed a few examples can be seen at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVmXeOF2DqY (2010); https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rH7Yq-ZzeT4 (High School fresher’s culture festival, 2011); https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQm-vbS0bq4 (2017).
12 The potential similarities between the intense audience excitement involved in idol and moe culture and josō parody has similarities to the popular following of black and white minstrel shows in the nineteenth century, and is explored in depth in Kinsella (Citation2014).
13 Morinaga Takurō, the otaku economist and television talento, spells out the connection between the blocked employment and sexuality of young men and the adoration of girl idols. See his filmed ‘conversation’ with Suzuki Airi (2012), an idol singer in the band Cute, at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BVJpidyqfA.
14 For instance, one of the four panelists and models on stage in during a Yuridanshi book launch event on 4th August 2015, mentioned being challenged to enter into a university josō contest by their girlfriend (Newtype host, Kaju). Another Newtype host (Lena) commented that they liked a ‘brisk, sexy image’ as they had recently been the president of their college student council, a post carried out entirely in josō with a parasol.
15 Shotakon (Shotaro complex) is the gender opposite of the Lolikon (Lolita complex) genre and its focus on cute girls.
16 ‘S’ or esu, is a term to refer to homosocial girl relationships which may involve romance, spiritual love and homoerotic attraction. The term is rooted in and reminiscent of prewar schoolgirl culture of the 1910s onwards (Shamoon Citation2012, 35).
17 Theories of virtuality and love of 2-dimensional characters and not living women, within otaku discourse are explored by Patrick Galbraith in detail (see for example, Galbraith Citation2015, 214–215).
18 New half (nyū haafu) are men who are partially or wholly transitioned to women, and whom often work in the sex services industry in josō.
19 Mitsuhashi Junko notes in her authoritative work (Mitsuhashi and Hasegawa Citation2006, 206, 211–212) that the small host bars which have formed the organizational focus of the MtF cross-dress community (MTFCD) from the 1960s were by the year 2000 largely based in Shinjuku 2 and 3 chome, Golden gai and Kuyakusho Street in Kabukicho. Diffusion is based on Kuyakusho Street, straddling these gay and non-gay night-time entertainment zones.
20 Wotaku and wota, are subtle variants on otaku or the short form ota, arising as a creative reaction to negative mass-media reportage of ‘otakism’ in the 1990s. The terms carry broadly the same meaning, however.
21 See ‘About’ at: http://newtype.ms/
22 The Recruit Lifestyle report finding was taken from a survey on male make-up, carried out on 6600 adult men between 15 and 69 years old, by the Hot Pepper Beauty Academy.
23 This popular Shiseidō television commercial had more than 11 million viewings on Youtube by 2019, and is accompanied by: ‘Making of joshi kōsei no himitsu’ video, including interviews with the producers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5n3Db6pMQ-8&list=PLAeW7D2lL7xLm0PGqdS31AuR0zw57cn9J&index=13
24 See a recording of Sekai ni ki ni naru (2013) variety show: Cosmo boy special at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dnqVHaCP3Q.
25 This respondent was also the grandson of Tsuburaya Eiji, the creator of Ultraman: the mid-1960s masculine cyborg superhero. Ultra camp Ultraman videos appeared as a screened background displays in the room design of the Propaganda event in July 2015.
26 Pardis Mahdavi (Citation2018) writes about the positive experience of young Asian and Japanese migrants in marginal social positions who find both employment and unexpected inclusion in a tolerant community, within small host clubs.
27 In The End of Net Business, Yamamoto (Citation2009, 112–113) argues that: ‘The reason for the difficulties faced by the animation production companies is a combination of two exceedingly simple factors. The first is that the strata of people who like animation are fundamentally poor'.
28 An interesting report – ‘Nippon no Sekkusu nenpō’ published annually by Sagami Rubber (Citation2013) reports that in 2012, 40.6% of men in their twenties had no sexual experience. According to a Sōmuchō (Citation2017) report on ‘Contemporary State of Unmarried Adults Living with Parents’ (Oya to dōi suru mikonsha no saikin no jōtai), the percentage of men and women aged 20 to 34 who continued to live with parents was 45.8% in 2016, with a significantly higher percentage of men in this position.
29 Keshō Danshi: Otoko to onna jinsei wo nibai tanoshimu hōhō (2012, Ohta Shuppan, Tokyo).
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Sharon Kinsella
Sharon Kinsella is currently a lecturer in Japanese visual culture at the University of Manchester. During the 1990s and the 2000s she has been involved in interdisciplinary and cross-cultural research looking at emergent social trends linking youth, the media, subculture, men’s culture, and new modes of governance, based on Japanese case studies with global application. Areas of special application include cuteness, schoolgirl and gyaru culture, Japanese transracialism, otaku subculture, the manga industry, men's comics and weekly magazines, and male cultural imagination and journalism. Sharon is currently working on a film (josō) with collaborator David Panos and a book on male cross-dressing and gender politics in the 2010s. Sharon got her Ph.D from Oxford University in 1996 and has worked in the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge, MIT, and Yale previously.