TY - JOUR
T1 - Cuteness, josō, and the need to appeal
T2 - otoko no ko in male subculture in 2010s Japan
AU - Kinsella, Sharon
N1 - Funding Information:
The research to support this article was generously supported by a small grant from the Japan Foundation to provide funding to film and carry out ethnographic work in Tokyo over 3 weeks in August 2015.
Publisher Copyright:
© Copyright © 2019 BAJS.
Copyright:
Copyright 2020 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2020/9
Y1 - 2020/9
N2 - The new millennium in Japan has seen the bifurcation of male subcultural imagination rooted within the otaku hub into diverse directions. Towards a rejection of the age of commercialised love and neo-liberal capitalist life and riaju (reality), and, on the other hand, a growing focus on beautiful boy cross-dressed characters in the media-mix of animation-manga-computer games, and from 2010, cross-dressing embodied in otoko no ko - ‘boys’ presenting themselves as beyond gender-boundaries and discourse, in the form of cute girls. This article examines the 15 year evolution of fashion transgenderism and considers the several dynamics behind the drive to appeal.
AB - The new millennium in Japan has seen the bifurcation of male subcultural imagination rooted within the otaku hub into diverse directions. Towards a rejection of the age of commercialised love and neo-liberal capitalist life and riaju (reality), and, on the other hand, a growing focus on beautiful boy cross-dressed characters in the media-mix of animation-manga-computer games, and from 2010, cross-dressing embodied in otoko no ko - ‘boys’ presenting themselves as beyond gender-boundaries and discourse, in the form of cute girls. This article examines the 15 year evolution of fashion transgenderism and considers the several dynamics behind the drive to appeal.
KW - cross-dressing, joso, Japan, trasngender, male, subculture
U2 - 10.1080/09555803.2019.1676289
DO - 10.1080/09555803.2019.1676289
M3 - Article
VL - 32
SP - 432
EP - 458
JO - Japan Forum
JF - Japan Forum
SN - 0955-5803
IS - 3
ER -