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Call me by my first name: Intimate transgressions in Kokoro Button

2021-09-07 by ケイ Leave a Comment

Kasuga Nīna is the protagonist of Usami Maki-sensei’s shōjo manga Kokoro Button. She’s dating Kōga Eito. In chapter 25, in tankōbon volume 6 from 2011, Kasuga-san has helped Kōga-kun’s friend Hayami Manabu to find his lost cat. The chapter ends with Hayami-kun thanking Kasuga-san with the words:

Thanks, Nīna
ありがとな　ニーナ
Kokoro Button, vol. 6, p. 78

The impact of this phrase shakes the protagonist and her date to the extent that it will dominate the whole next chapter.

Crash course in Japanese name suffixes

To understand why, we must dive into the subtle art of how names are used in Japan to signal distance or intimacy:

The suffix -san is the neutral form that anyone can use, as in Kasuga-san.
The suffix -kun is used for boys and younger men, but also for male subordinates. It implies a somewhat affectionate relation.
The suffix -chan is used for girls and younger women in an affectionate way.
If the suffix is added to the first name, it’s more intimate than when it’s added to the family name.
The most intimate thing of all is first name and no suffix at all!

This is just a rough overview, the complexities of how suffixes are used, and by whom, is a subject in itself that you will have to read up on elsewhere. Suffice it to say that when Hayami-kun both drops the suffix and calls Kasuga-san by her first name it signals an intimacy that threatens the relationship between Kasuga-san and Kōga-kun, as if Hayami-kun had “had” Kasuga-san!

It’s telling that Kasuga-san’s and Kōga-kun’s stunned reaction is the very last frame of the chapter, Kōga-kun looking at his girlfriend, maybe both questioning her and accusing her. This is a cliffhanger supreme for a series that was originally published in the monthly magazine Betsucomi.

My own experiences

I once experienced how a person allowed me to drop the -kun after we had slept together. Continuing calling someone -kun after you’ve had sex would be as ridiculous as referring to them as “Mr”. (So I was politely scolded for doing so.)

I also once experienced with a group of Japanese friends at a bar how one man referred to a woman, sitting next to him, with her first name, no suffix. My closest Japanese friend leaned over to me and explained: “When he calls her by her first name like that, the rest of us know that they are an item.”

The same friend also told me that as a grown-up he didn’t expect to meet another man ever, for the rest of his life, with whom he would drop the suffix; that honour is reserved for the friends you grew up and went to school with.

First name drama

Back to Kokoro Button: In the next chapter, Kasuga-san receives the news that her female classmate has started to be on a first name basis with her boyfriend. Kasuga-san is clearly envious, and when she meets Kōga-kun, she tries to call him by his first name, Eito, but fails. Only “e-” and “ei…” come out. The smart boyfriend gets what she’s trying to do though, and teases her: “And then?”

As for Hayami-kun, it turns out – again, at the climactic end of the chapter – that he had mixed up Kasuga Nīna-san’s names – he thought Nīna was her family name! Despite being a bad boy who tells people off the whole time, the fact that he had called his best friend’s girlfriend by her first name torments him endlessly – so grave was the offence!

Although this particular interaction is not followed up upon, I see the fact that Hayami-kun falls in love with Kasuga-san later on in the manga partly as a result of this early trespassing into her intimate sphere. Once there, he was stuck, sort of thing!

The next level of intimacy

Inspired by Kasuga-san’s failed attempts to call him by his first name, Kōga-kun suggests that he, as her boyfriend, starts calling her by her first name. Kasuga-san is in shock. She blushes. But she wants this. We have been primed with the news of her classmate taking this step with her boyfriend, a step almost as serious as a proposal, it seems. And then he says it:

Nīna
新奈
Kokoro Button, vol. 6, p. 112

The power of calling your lover by their first name! As a reader I’m as excited as Kasuga-san, who is thinking to herself:

(Gasp!) Why this sudden feeling … This person only spoke my name … And yet my heart is starting to beat … It’s beating faster and faster …
Kokoro Button, vol. 6, p. 113–114

Kōga-kun laughs as he speaks her name, comments that it’s embarrassing for both of them. And then he implies that it’s her turn. Can she call her boyfriend by his first name, Eito?

As it turns out, no. Again, Kasuga-san is like:

E… Ei… Ei…
Kokoro Button, vol. 6, p. 115

And again, Kōga-kun encourages her: “And then?” But to no avail – she can’t say his first name! “I guess it will take some time”, Kōga-kun comments, and the chapter ends.

Forcing her to speak his name

The next chapter begins with Kasuga-san boasting to her female friends (who all call her Nīna), that Kōga-kun has called her by her first name. They congratulate her and Kasuga-san plays coy. “Oh, it’s nothing really.” But we know that it isn’t nothing!

When Kōga-kun appears, she greets him with an excited “Kōga-kun”. When he replies, he addresses her with “Kasuga-san” again. She is surprised. Wasn’t she “Nīna” with Kōga-kun now?

“Ka… ‘Kasuga-san’?”
“That’s right. You’re not calling me by my name, right? So I thought I’ll just return to how it was before.”
Kokoro Button, vol. 6, p. 120

Oh nooo! Kasuga-san is devastated. Kōga-kun seems amused and in the end teases her by calling her “Nīna”-chan. (He’s an “S”, meaning a “sadist” who likes playing with Kasuga-san’s feelings.)

The tension continues throughout the chapter until Kasuga-san is about to visit Kōga-kun, who is home sick. As she calls him from the intercom at the entrance of the house, he replies:

What’s the secret password? I’ll give you a hint: It’s my name. I won’t open until you say it.
Kokoro Button, vol. 6, p. 133

Damn, is this guy cruel or what!

Come on, fast or the fever is gonna make me pass out!

And so Kasuga-san finally says it, in the security of the intercom (not having to face him eye to eye): “Eito” – but she quickly adds a -kun. Well, that’s good enough for now.

The power of transgressions

As the story proceeds, they both go back to calling each other Kōga-kun and Kasuga-san, but the transgression of calling their date by their first name has been made, and it’s an important act of intimacy that will bind them together for the rest of the series.

As an outsider, I’m fascinated by the importance of what you call your partner, and how this dynamic can power story arcs over several chapters, including cliffhangers and resolutions.

Kokoro Button (ココロ・ボタン) by Usami Maki (宇佐美真紀) was published in Betsucomi between 2009 and 2013, and concurrently in 12 beautiful tankōbon volumes. The series is translated to German and French.

Gon Freecss in Hunter x Hunter shirtless

Homoerotic symbolism in Hunter × Hunter

2021-09-05 by ケイ Leave a Comment

The sexual references are bouncing off the pages as Japan’s favourite manga character Gon has his shōkō popped by a man.

Hunter × Hunter is the ultimate adventure comic. It was created by Togashi Yoshihiro in 1998, and made into an anime twice: In 1999 and 2011. The series is one of Japan’s most popular mainstream manga and anime. With 148 episodes of the 2011 anime so far, the adventure is still ongoing in the manga. Here we will take a closer look at episodes 39 – 44 of the anime from 1999.

The ultimate boy

The protagonist of Hunter × Hunter is Gon Freecss, a good-hearted and high-spirited 12 year old, who in many ways is the ultimate boy – not only because twelve is the perfect age for a shota boy. Gon is on a quest to find his father, who abandoned his family to become a “hunter”, a title and status given only to those who pass certain tests. So Gon sets out to become a hunter himself, figuring an occupation that leads a father to abandon his family must be truly awesome, or else his father wouldn’t have left them.

That’s the backdrop to what eventually leads up to a classic – in the word’s most literal sense – coming-of-age story. This arc plays out in the Celestial Tower, a huge phallic building with hundreds of floors – each one a battleground to conquer in order to reach the top. People spend months and years in the tower, which can be seen not only as a symbol of puberty – the transition from boy to man – but for life in general; each floor, each year is a struggle – a fun struggle.

Gon approaches the tower together with his friend Killua. (The friendship between the two boys is beautiful and full of symbolic hints; much has been written on Gon and Killua being “more than friends”.) They befriend a younger boy, Zushi, and his coach Wing. In order to win matches, the fighters must master nen, a kind of energy which resides inside every human being, but which must be awoken before it can be put to use. If a fighter enters the ring without knowledge of this technique, they are quickly “initiated” by their nen-using opponent, but since it’s a fight, there is malicious intent in this kind of sudden initiation, and it can result in damage or death. Wing is therefore teaching nen to Zushi, so that his protegé can learn to master it in a controlled way before entering the ring.

Wing immediately senses Gon’s and Killua’s natural proclivity for nen, and takes it upon himself to teach the boys how to master it. He has a hard time hiding his excitement about his new pupils to Zushi, whose progress with nen is slow – maybe because he is still too small, whereas Gon and Killua are at the exact right age where this initiation can and should occur in boys.

Sexual innuendo

Technically, nen (念 ≈ “mind force”) is a way for its users to control their own aura. Every person has an energy flow emancipating from their body, and mastering this energy field is key to winning the matches in Heaven’s Arena – the top floor of the Celestial Tower – and to mastering life as a hunter in general.

Symbolically, however, nen is akin to another three letter word with “e” in the middle: Sex. To understand this, we need to take a brief historical look at male coming-of-age rites:

When a boy of the Dorian people of ancient Greece was coming of age, he was given over to the care of a male friend of the family, who over a period of three months would teach the boy everything he needed to know in order to become a man. Learning to hunt was one of the most important parts of this initiation; the theme (and title) of Hunter × Hunter thereby focuses on a fundamental aspect of a boy becoming a man. But another important part of the initiation was the symbolical and literal insertion of manhood into the boy through anal sex; the man had to “inject” the boy with his semen, where the source of manhood was believed to reside, as described by Michel Foucault in the second volume of The History of Sexuality (1985). This practice is echoed almost to the letter by the contemporary tribes described by the anthropologist Gilbert Herdt in Ritualized Homosexuality in Melanesia (1984). It seems that sex between men and boys has been an intuitive feature of male coming-of-age rites in cultures otherwise diverse, and maybe it still lurks in our subconscious?

Popping the tight shōkō

Wing’s initiation of Gon and Killua begins in episode 39 in the 1999 anime. Nen is usually taught for a longer period of time, but since Gon and Killua are rushing to their next match, where they will need nen, Wing decides to transfer his nen, or ki (気 ≈ “energy”), to the boys in a more direct way – by opening their shōkō (精孔). We need not dwell on the exact meaning of this concept, as it is pretty abstract; shōkō basically function as the “nodes” for a person’s “aura”.

“Take off your coats and turn your back towards me”, he instructs the boys, and advises them to focus on their “tightly closed shōkō”.

“Take off your clothes and turn your back towards me!” *Hunter x Hunter* (1999) episode 39.

He goes on in a way that would make the late Kenneth Dover (author of Greek Homosexuality, 1978) blush:

“I will now pass on my ki into your body in one shot, and open your shōkō.”

Wing explaining how he will “shoot” his “ki” into the boys’ “shōkō”.

Cut to the boys’ nervous and excited faces, as Wing says from behind their backs: “I’m going to begin.”

How does a boy feel when the man transfers his manhood to him? What did a boy in ancient Greece think? Were they afraid? Proud? Excited? Gon is thinking this:

“I feel very hot, and I have a feeling of being pushed by a force.”

Gon in Hunter x Hunter is feeling hot. — Gon feeling hot as Wing pushes from behind.

Gon in Hunter x Hunter is being pushed by a force. — Gon feeling hot as Wing pushes from behind.

Then suddenly, the boys’ eyes wide open, their mouths gasping in shock and amazement.

The moment Wing pops the boys’ *shōkōs*.

It has happened – the man has transfered his energy – a part of himself – into the boys.

“Now your shōkō have been opened”, Wing concludes.

In the next episode, he reflects: “I may have awoken uncontrollable beasts.”

Comparing loads

Nen consists of many sub-concepts such as gyō, hatsu, ren, so for the next month the boys are busy learning all of them from their sensei. In episode 41, it has become time for the boys to get to know their newly awoken nen more intimately. There are different types of nen (or more specifically hatsu, 発), but you can’t choose for yourself which type you are – your type is as static as your DNA throughout life, a bit like how we think about sexual orientations, or blood types. A test with water and a leaf in a glass reveals which type you are.

Wing shows the boys how it is done:

“Hold your hands close to the cup and release your ren.”

In Wing’s case, the water starts overflowing the cup, which means he belongs to the “reinforcement” type of hatsu. Then it’s the boys’ turn. Gon’s aura too causes the water to overflow the cup – he too is a reinforcer. For little Zushi, the leaf starts moving – it means he’s a “manipulator”. But for Killua, nothing happens, and he is disappointed at first. But Wing instructs him to taste the content of the cup into which he has released his ren. Gon and Killua stick their fingers into the liquid and moves them to their mouths, taking a lick:

“It’s a little sweet.”

The water changing taste means Killua belongs to the “transformation” group.

The whole scene brings to mind the cup-bearers of ancient cultures, the sweet or overflowing liquid of course being a symbol of the boys’ own unique liquid DNA: Sperm. One of the personality types revealed by the water test is even called “emitter” (hōshutsu, 放出). The excellent Fandom page on Nen explains:

An affinity for Emission (放出系, Hōshutsu-kei; abbrev. as 放) means that a user has an easier time separating their aura from their body.

A person’s aura is a person’s soul, an abstract concept that in our scientific times can be said to reside in a person’s DNA, which is literally emitted through ejaculation.

Gay Hisoka

The main reason why Gon wants to master nen is because he wants to fight Hisoka, a flamboyant Pierrot and fellow hunter candidate. Hisoka’s interest in Gon has been expressed very explicitly throughout the series. He talks about wanting the fruit to ripe before he picks it. He is obviously the “gay” character of the series, but not in a negative way – Hisoka is portrayed as the most powerful (and dangerous) of the hunter candidates. Since Gon too is a wunderkind of sorts, this binds them together. Hisoka is very smart and relies on advanced magic in his fights. Gon, on the other hand, is a bit dumb but has an extremely good smelling sense; his intelligence works on a more intuitive level. Hisoka, who belongs to the transformation group, concludes: “Opposites attract.”

After the water test, Gon seeks out Wing again to show him “his results so far”. The water overflows again and Wing expresses his admiration for the boy’s development. Yet he knows, or fears, why the boy really came to him, and the ensuing dialogue has a subtle intensity that we are used to from heterosexual love dramas:

“You want to fight Hisoka”, Wing says with his back turned towards Gon. “Am I right?”

Gon confirms, and Wing turns around to face him:

“I’m only a person who teaches you nen. I don’t have the right to decide how you should live. I agree to your fight with Hisoka.”

And so, the boy is free to leave the man who introduced him to nen, and go out in the world to practice it in his own life, with the people he choose.

Overt man/boy eroticism

Let the game begin: Gon vs Hisoka.

“Both participants have looked forward to this match. Does that mean there is a special connection between them?” the female commentator says in the microphone as the match is about to start.

Hisoka is thinking: “Don’t look at me like that. The eyes you use to look at me are full of passion.” As he is thinking this, his arm straightens out on its own. “This makes me excited”, Hisoka says to himself as his straight arm starts pointing upwards despite he tries to keep it down with his other hand. “Even more excited!” he exclaims as the arm reaches full erection – the allusion to an erect penis is obvious and humorous.

Gon’s intense look gives Hisoka an arm erection.

Killua in the audience thinks to himself as they start fighting, with the vastly superior Hisoka scoring the first point without even moving: “Hisoka looks like he’s in ecstasy. But Gon looks like he’s having fun too, even though he has been punched hard.”

“I finally hit Hisoka”, Gon happily remarks as he scores his first point; Hisoka turns his bruised face towards the boy and smiles.

Gon gets a facial

As the real fight between the two begins, Hisoka squirts out his magic “pansy gum”, a whiteish, semi-transparent lash of energy, into Gon’s face, where it gets stuck on his chin and lets Hisoka control him:

“You will never be able to escape me again. … You will never be able to escape from my flexible pansy gum.”

But the fight suddenly turns around and Gon manages to repeatedly hit and kick Hisoka hard. Hisoka is thinking between the blows:

“Gon … Great … this is great! Your eyes, your expression, and your spirit … Right now, I want to … destroy you. But not yet. I’ll wait … until the fruit is ripe. It’ll be such a pity if I destroy you now. I’ll wait till the wait piles up higher and higher. I have to endure … endure … endure!”

The obvious references to sex and love almost takes the fun out of the analysis. Let’s just conclude that the Hunter × Hunter watchers get a hefty dose of man/boy intimacy every time Hisoka and Gon appear on stage together. If anyone still doubts this, the next cut lets us watch Hisoka in the nude as he’s taking a shower after the match.

“It’s good that I’ve found new toys to play with”, he comments as we get to see a shot of Gon and Killua. “It’s time to find the prey …”

Hunters know nen, men know sex

Episode 43 opens with the water test, this time the final exam. Gon’s hands around the cup, with the phallic Celestial Tower in the background. The water overflows. Killua’s turn, we know what will happen by now. He lets Gon and Zushi taste the content of the cup:

“It almost tastes like honey”, Gon says. Yummy!

After some more matches, the arc closes with Wing telling Gon and Killua that they have now mastered nen, and that they thereby have passed the secret hunter exam:

“Knowledge of nen is the basic requirement for a hunter.”

The initiation from candidate to hunter, from boy to man, is over, and the message between the lines is clear:

“Knowledge of sex is the basic requirement for a man.”

Wing goes on to explain that the secret exam of mastering nen doesn’t have a predetermined path:

“It doesn’t matter if you’re willing, as long as you’ve passed the exam, you will one day feel the existence of nen. It’s coincidence, or fate, that you two came to Celestial Tower and met me.”

After spending four months together – very close to the three months of the Dorians – the boys and the man part. They do so in the sunset, against the backdrop of the phallic tower and a thick rug of romantic violins.

The boys have become men and part from their teacher, phallic tower in the background. (Little Zushi on the right is not ready yet, he’s still a child.)

The boys’ new status as nen users is confirmed in some comical interactions with women at the end of the episode. Killua makes fun of the elevator girl. Gon is shocked by Killua’s teasing and tells him to stop, but Killua replies:

“It’s okay. Don’t forget, we’re nen users now. We shouldn’t be afraid of her no matter how strong this woman is.”

So mastering nen changed the boys’ attitude toward women; instead of being boys in relation to women, they are now men. But it turns out the woman is a nen user too, and as Gon and Killua leave the elevator, they have bruises all over their faces – apparently a fight had broken out between the three nen users. It’s not without sorrow that we conclude that the boys just got their first bite of adulthood.

Eroticism at work

This is my reading of Hunter x Hunter. The erotic undertones happen (mostly) on the subconscious level on both the producing side (creator, editor, publisher) and among the consumers (readers and viewers). Of course there are also intended sexual references: Producers use “fan service” to give the fans “what they want” in terms of sexual desire for the characters, and consumers use “shipping” to pair up their favourite characters in romantic and sexual unions. But these are just droplets of desire compared to the male eroticism that is the very fundament of boys’ manga, a kind of inexhaustible source that keeps guaranteeing their success as new generations of boys want to become men.

Hunter × Hunter (2011) is available subtitled at services like Netflix, Hulu, and Crunchyroll.

Liked this? Read my other takes on eroticism in mainstream manga:

My own shota

2021-08-15 by ケイ Leave a Comment

Eric was hot. He had a rough edge, because he was a city boy and his parents were divorced. He had a moped. He had longish hair and lips that pouted just slightly and gave him a simple look. He probably wore braces, I don’t remember. But despite his rough aura, Eric was also kind. He didn’t hang out with the “cool” boys from the city, but he was respected by them. He was friends with the farmers, and since I was closer to the farmers (the only ones who would accept me), Eric was in my vicinity every now and then.

Eric was my classmate for three years in middle school. I don’t know anything about him either before or after, but for those three years I watched him every week in the changing room at gym class. He changed in the part of the changing room where I and the farmers changed.

My middle school changing room, or junior high school locker room for you Americans, but it didn’t have lockers.

I remember clearly when I watched him undress the first time. His muscles! Despite we were the same age – 12 or 13 years old – the muscles on Eric’s arms were bulging like smooth, toppy hills that disappeared in deep rivers that led into his dark armpit. I was mesmerised by that image, forever imprinted in my mind. I remember the intricacies of that dark pit of raw desire – it was like a mystery to me!

My sketch of Eric in the middle school changing room, as I carry the image with me.

Of course I also remember his penis. It was pointy; stood out a bit from the body, as if it was always slightly erect. A small patch of pubic hair just above it. Over those three years I watched his penis grow: In 9th grade it had the same form – pointy – but was now several sizes bigger. More hair grew on top of it. His muscles had also grown, an intoxicating mess of smooth hills and dark, dangerous rivers. And he had grown underarm hair.

On one of the last days of seventh or eight grade, our teacher asked us what we would do over summer break – would we have a summer job maybe? Eric said he would work at the local saw. “So it’s a muscular Eric who will come back after summer break”, the teacher replied, and I read some desire into her words, like, did she have to mention his body? I still remember this occasion because I thought about Eric and his muscles.

I think I was in love with Eric, but I didn’t realise it, and I’ve never really thought about it after either. At one time the two of us were to go together to a field or forest for an exercise day a bit away from the school. I don’t know how we ended up together, we might have been assigned something, so the others had gone before us. I came to school with the school bus, but Eric had a moped, so he offered me a ride. I did have a moped too, but maybe only later on. I had in any case never sat behind a boy, a sexy boy, on a moped before. I was excited. Where should I hold my hands? There was some kind of metal structure for packages behind the long seat, so I grabbed it behind my back. Eric said: “You can hold on to me.” I didn’t. I thought it would be gay. How I regret that I didn’t, to this day! But I remember the heat from his body under his flannel shirt, flapping in the wind as we rode through the city to the others. I was so much in love!

I don’t have many more memories of Eric. I’ve googled him over the years, but fortunately never seen a picture. He remains in my mind as the perfect 13-year-old boy who I watched naked in the changing room every week for three years. Eric and his muscles. Eric and his penis. Eric and his warm body next to mine on the moped. Eric is my own shota.

Listen up, you reader! You probably carry your own shota with you from when you grew up. Tell me about him! Draw him! And be part of the collective research project into shota and shotacon that will contribute important insights about desire and sexuality to academia. Get in touch, let’s chat, let’s share our imaginations! Fill in the shota survey and let’s take it from there. I want to talk to you!

The Ontology of the Boy, or: What are little boys made of?

2021-07-27 by ケイ 1 Comment

In the introduction to the book Kono shota ga sugoi (このショタがすごい！) from 1997, Shindōji Gun (真道寺軍) opens with this provocative question:

What are little boys made of?
Kono shota ga sugoi, p. 4

Introduction, page 4–5 in *Kono shota ga sugoi* (このショタがすごい！) by Shindōji Gun (真道寺軍), 1997.

The question evokes so many thoughts. At first, I think about the boy’s body. Like the rest of us, boys are made up of flesh and blood, bones and organs. But just by spelling this out, I realise what a bad answer it is. Of course boys are made of the stuff that makes all of us. Disgusting stuff that I don’t want to see. So why is the boy so great (or “sugoi”) when he’s made of the same things as the rest of us? Is it the composition of these things – the proportions in which the bones are held together? Is it the youthful lustre of the thin layer of skin that so perfectly wraps around the stuff we don’t want to see? Being so concrete about the answer makes me realise that what the question really asks is this:

What is the magic of boys?

That question has been asked before in shota research. In 1996, Manda Ringo phrased it like this in the shota survey published in her book The Syotaroh:

Where does the magic of the boy reside?”
The Syotaroh, p. 15

Popular answers included “smooth legs”, “thin limbs”, “beautiful face”, and “youthful skin”, but the number one answer, as entered independently by 13 respondents, was junsuisa (純粋さ), which can be translated as “purity” or “innocence”. This is something far more abstract than the physical attributes. It is something that is hard or maybe even impossible to grasp, and thus it is denoted as “magic”. But maybe one can try by way of examples. The introduction in Kono shota ga sugoi follows an illustration where the same question is posed – twice for impact:

Boys, what are they made of?
Boys, what are they made of?
Ray guns and spacecrafts,
what’s more, robot monsters,
What a wonderful anything goes!
Kono shota ga sugoi, p. 3

What are little boys made of? Page 3 in *Kono shota ga sugoi* (このショタがすごい！) by Shindōji Gun (真道寺軍), 1997.

The text reads like a poem, and maybe poetry is the only way one can close in on questions about magic.

The continuous outpour of books and dōjinshi discussing shota reflects a will among shota fans to understand themselves. Like few other genres, shota seems to create a curious reflexivity among its readers, who are more diverse than readers of other comics. Women and men, young and old, straight, gay and bi, ask themselves: What is the magic of the boy?

In academic terminology, one might talk about the ontology of the boy, as a way to try to capture his very being. The passionate production of shota dōjinshi provides a unique chance to close in on this transient ontology called Boy: How old is he? (Twelve!) What does he look like? What hobbies does he have? Of course there are many answers depending on personal taste, but taken together, the expressions in these dōjinshi make up an important databank devoted to an ideal that never lets itself be captured, and which therefore keeps engaging us.

So I ask you: What is the magic of the boy? Reply in the comments or in the shota forum – and don’t forget to take the shota survey!

Honour culture and fictional fiction in “Help, I can’t resist the super sexy boys I’m forced to live with!”

2021-05-16 by ケイ Leave a Comment

Springtime is for going to a park with a shōjo manga, but I’m almost having enough of Ruki, the protagonist of Kurumatani Haruko-sensei’s Gokujō danshi to kurashitemasu 2 (Shōgakukan 2007) – this time very freely translated by myself as Help, I can’t resist the super sexy boys I’m forced to live with! She’s such a crybaby, Ruki, always insecure about whether Senri-kun loves her or not. I mean, we can all relate, but the shōjo genre indulges in this theme like a sugary cake. It’s lovely. At times. And after a while you’ve had enough.

Even so, reading the second part of this two-tankōbon series is so enjoyable and interesting. A couple of observations:

Honour galore

Whenever people criticise “cultures of honour” for protecting the purity of their women, the assumption is that their own enlightened culture has done away with such misogynistic traits. But honour is a facet of all cultures. It always bubbles underneath, but is only noted when it comes out in a particularly brutal way. A functionalist would probably say that the function of honour is to make relationships work in a way that is productive for society.

Shōjo manga revels in honour, and shows how girls and boys alike use it to manifest their love. Gokujō danshi to kurashitemasu 2 provides a beautiful example of this. The whole setup is a “reverse harem” in which 16-year-old Ruki is constantly courted by super sexy boys, to the despair of her boyfriend Senri-kun, whose sole task it seems to be to protect Ruki from the horny boys lest she succumbs to their moe-ness. Since they are all living together, this means Senri-kun must keep an eye on Ruki at all times. But as soon as he’s out of the room – he has to go to the bathroom after all – the boys are at it, and Senri-kun comes back only to see his Ruki violated. And this is what he expresses in rage at such an occasion:

I’ll make sure that you won’t get the slightest opportunity to touch Ruki. … I won’t hand over Ruki to you or anyone else. I won’t let anyone touch her. She’s only my thing and I will protect it!
Gokujō danshi to kurashitemasu 2, p. 38-39.

Gokujō danshi to kurashitemasu 2, p. 38-39.

Okay, I took some liberties when translating the last line. It should of course be “She’s only mine and I will protect her”. The Japanese mon is used as an intensifier, but it is derived from mono, meaning thing, and the objectification of Ruki adds to the honour concept: She is owned by him, and a man’s honour is slighted if another man encroaches on his property. While this kind of objectification of women is sometimes criticised, it is also the driving force of shōjo manga, and Senri-kun’s passionate speech about protecting his property results in Ruki expressing “Oh Senri-kun, I love you!” on the next page. Owning someone feels good, but so does being owned! Shōjo manga sums up the dynamics of heterosexual love so blatantly that it can’t be ignored.

But the owning goes two ways. A couple of chapters later it’s time for the culture festival at the school. Ruki and Senri-kun are in the same class, and the class decides that their contribution to the festival will be a cosplay host club, where the class’s sexy boys dress up as waitors and serve female customers. This seems to be a real facet of Japanese school life, as maid cafés often feature at school festivals in animes – talk about being schooled into roles in society! And talk about having an established framework for the appreciation of young boy beauty. In any case, Ruki is devastated that other women will touch Senri-kun. She protests against the host club idea until she realises that the cosplay aspect means she will be able to see Senri-kun in some kind of sexy outfit. But of course, as soon as she sees him serving (and courting) female customers, she turns again and becomes the crybaby that I’m starting to get sick of.

A manga in a manga

The next chapter begins with Ruki coming crying to Senri-kun in their house. He asks what’s bothering her, and she explains:

In this month’s issue of Sho-comi, Shun-sama and Ai-chan separated!
Gokujō danshi to kurashitemasu 2, p. 127.

Shun-sama is the fictional boy that Ruki was in love with and mixed up with Senri-kun when they first met. A footnote explains that Ai-chan is Shun-sama’s partner (aite-yaku), so I guess it’s a Boys Love manga. This is but another example of how fictional and actual realities interact – within the same work of fiction! It’s like a Russian matryoshka doll: The reader of this manga is reading about a reader of another manga. It seems to me that there is much thinking about fictional and actual realities in Japanese popular culture, and that young people are fostered into this discussion through its steady emergence on the pages of shōjo and probably other manga.

What do you think? Share your thoughts and experiences in the comments or in our shota forum!

Boys with swords: Wataru, Toraoh, Yoh-kun

Young boys with big swords – phallic symbolism in Wataru and Shaman King

2021-03-15 by ケイ Leave a Comment

A boy’s greatest desire is to become a man. This theme therefore permeates virtually all boys’ manga and anime – only the execution varies. Especially robot anime feeds on this desire, where the robot represents the man that the boy admires, wants to learn from, fight alongside with, and eventually become. The robot is an externalisation not only of the boy’s desire, but of his potential: Eventually, all boys will become men, but this is a complicated process, a process that engages not only the boy himself but all of society. Hence the focus on male coming-of-age rituals in virtually all cultures and eras: The boy must be guided to manhood, and watching a semi-disguised version of that process in anime is what keeps us glued to the screen year after year. Probably it provides us with solace to see new generations of boys being fostered into men, thus implicitly convincing us that the world will continue to exist.

This process is beautifully captured in the transformation sequence of robot anime. That’s where the magic happens, and isn’t the boy’s transformation into a man a kind of magic? The boy’s greatest desire logically receives the greatest care in the form of an advanced animation sequence, a real treat for the eye, accompanied by powerful music. The sequence often includes the boy summoning the robot by throwing a magical token, ejecting or ejaculating a piece of himself if you will, like a seed that gives birth to something greater, outside of himself – the man he will become. The boy is then shown (as in Wataru below) ascending into the inner core of the robot, from where they will control its huge limbs. Boy and robot – boy and man – have become one: Only so can they fight the enemy and save the world.

This process includes overt symbolism. Most obviously, the boy always sports a long and powerful sword (in Granzort we even see it grow), the swinging of which to eliminate the enemy marks the “orgasm” of each episode. If you haven’t got it yet, the sword of course symbolises the boy’s penis, or phallos with a fancier word.

Once you’ve understood that, the story makes more sense, since all boys and men are obsessed with their penises. So whether they “get it” or not on a conscious level, seeing a boy swinging a long object fills male viewers (maybe female too, in a different way) with satisfaction. We’re not only seeing the slaying of a villain – we’re watching the supreme victory of our own sex! And it’s big. Very big. And so it taps into the fascination and desire of every single boy out there: The fascination with the growing capability of their own body part, and the desire that it will one day grow bigger than the little miniscule appendix they are stuck with as boys. Or in short: That they will one day become men.

The desire fueling the imagery of boys with swords is evident in anime 30 years apart: Wataru (1988), Granzort (1989) and Boku no Hero Academia (2019). I’m not much of an anime buff, so you can probably find many more examples.

Shaman King (1998–2004, by Takei Hiroyuki/武井宏之) is not a robot manga, but is fueled by the same manly desire: 13-year-old Yoh-kun merges with various men in the form of ghosts, who enter his body. Instead of controlling the robot, the boy’s body is here controlled by the man whose spirit has entered it. This frame with the boxer was cut out of the anime but well captures the man/boy dynamic of this idea:

The fact that several men can take advantage of Yoh-kun (or “have some fun with his body” as one of them put it) seems to be at odds with the idea that a boy should only have one man who guides him, but after a while the samurai Amidamaru accepts this role. Beyond the obvious symbolism of man-on-boy action (or man inside boy even), the manga also sports several phallic objects, most evidently the sword which Yoh-kun holds in the same iconic way as Wataru above:

13-year-old boy Yoh-kun grabs his big … sword. In the background Amidamaru.

There are lots of other phallic objects that are held and pointing in various suggestive ways throughout Shaman King, but whereas metal pipes and wooden planks are symbolic, the ihai (位牌), or “spirit tablet”, almost perfectly represents the size of a boy penis and is held in a way that reminds of masturbation:

Boy grabbing his hard … *ihai*. Note that something is going on in Yoh-kun’s pocket in the right frame.

Some frames are suggestive in a way that makes you wonder if you’re a pervert who sees “signs” everywhere. But seriously. The wooden stick in the bucket in this frame is simply a bit too perfectly positioned, don’t you think? Just squint your eyes …

Quite early on, Yoh-kun gets a rival in the form of Ren. Ren is equipped with a long halberd. You may want to squint your eyes again …

Yoh-kun’s rival Ren grabs his long … halberd.

It’s amazing to see when Ren gets going. He swings his halberd in such a confident and powerful way that my thoughts go to Murakami Takashi’s legendary sculpture My Lonesome Cowboy. This piece of art is brilliant in that it captures exactly what I have been trying to describe in this post, namely the underlying phallic desire in mainstream boy culture. The boy’s self-image of being an omnipotent, sperm-shooting demigod on his way to manhood is epitomised in Murakami’s sculpture. But look closely and you will be able to see the sperm of the lonesome cowboy running as a common white-greyish thread through so many manga works.

It should be mentioned that this is most probably not a conscious thought process in the creators of manga and anime. Although there are cases where shota and loli artists also create mainstream, non-sexual works, in most cases the desire that results in all these symbols probably works as a motor deep down, under the hood so to speak. It’s a societal desire, and creators are part of the society.

When I studied literary analysis at the university, someone (maybe it was me) asked: “But why do we have to interpret so much? Can’t we just ask the author what they meant, if they’re still alive?” The teacher replied: “No, because it doesn’t matter what the author intended. Our job is to analyse the work and find things in it that not even the author is aware of.” So that’s what I’ve done here. Tell me what you think and please contribute with your own observations!