Tuesday, October 29, 2013

Week 7 When West Meets East: Glocalization and the contemporary Japanese game industry

When West Meets East
 
Mia Consalvo’s “Console Videogames and global corporations: creating a hybrid culture” investigates the commodification of cultures to interrogate how the industry of games and game consoles complicate conventional understandings of national culture and geographic borders (123) through the lens of globalisation theory. At the heart of her argument about the glocalisation of games and the cultural flow of capital, Consalvo complicates the “West-rest” hierarchy by suggesting that in contemporary game industry, the power dynamics between East and West has been inverted to “Japan-West”—positioning Japan as being equal to the West—while simultaneously fostering discourses of the “yellow peril” or as Consalvo puts the “Japan panic”. Drawing on the work of Tomlinson’s notion of culture as a fluid entity, Consalvo suggests that “If the nation is no longer the boundary of culture, another unit of measurement must be created” (131). Consalvo espouses the idea of technoregionalism, a term which she borrows from Luke that describes how “regions are not place based, but correspond to specific industries, trades, arts and sciences” (131). Ultimately, then, both the glocalisation and the globalisation of game consoles are heavily influenced by and invested within a capitalist industry. Countries that possess or have access to capital are the ones that benefit from the glocal and global phenomenon, but what about those countries that get left behind? Consalvo contends that “culture flows to survive, and as it flows, it shifts, warps, changes and modifies, to become hybridized, strange and new” and indeed this is applicable only to cultures that are equipped with the proper resources and finances.
Consalvo’s main argument that Japan represents the nexus of capital flow and power is contradicted by Inafune Keiji who sees the decline of Japanese games within the global market. He states that “I believe that in Western or other parts of the world, they all liked Japanese games from the past and benefitted from them. They had a significant amount of influence in game development around the world, but that's all from the past. Because Japan is not in a healthy state right now, not everybody is being influenced by us now.” Here, Inafune conveys sentiments of a nostalgic past when Japanese game systems/games once held economic and global sway. The implicit claim that Japan’s well-being relies on the nation’s participation on a global scale reveals Inafune’s anxiety of a deterioration of Japanese identity.
In relation to Aoyama and Izushi’s “Hardware gimmick or cultural innovation? technological, cultural, and social foundations of the Japanese video game industry”, I was particularly drawn to their discussion near the end of their article that explores the significance of the manga and anime industry to the development of the game industry. Although much is said on the topic of how video games have borrowed and adapted conventions of anime and manga as well as its aesthetic styles, the opposite is also manifest in contemporary works of anime and manga that borrow elements of games/ game culture.
 Meganebu: This anime employs conventions of visual novels, and also plays with panels transitions that are distinct to manga. There is something 3D-ish about the visual aesthetics that reminds me of videogames too.
 
 
 
 
 
 
Sword Art Online

Sunday, October 20, 2013

Week 6: More on Otaku and Moe


            I am beginning to find Otaku Studies really really interesting! My prejudice of the otaku phenomenon, which has been informed and influenced mostly by popular media depictions of otaku as being “socially awkward”, “manias”, and slightly “hentai-ish” (such as in the anime/ manga series Gintama),  has gradually changed since reading some of the critical works on otaku culture.
 
 
P.S. If you haven't seen the Otaku Arc from Gintama you must! It's one of my favorite animes!! and yes, Hijikata is my favorite character~

http://animeget.net/category/%e9%8a%80%e9%ad%82anime
 

Otaku Japan’s Animal Database (In response to Chapter 2)

            The second chapter provides the theoretical framework of “data base animal”. Azuma makes an intervention in critical debates and discussion on “post-modern characteristics of otaku culture” (25) to ultimately interrogate their patterns of consumption in relation to broader ideas of grand narratives (or lack thereof).

            One of the things that caught me off guard about Azuma’s use of the phrase “derivative works” is that he avoids contextualizing it in relation to theories of adaptation and fidelity criticism. This is because “quotations” “influences” and “parodies” all “presuppose a unit such as an author or work,” (49) whereas Azuma’s notion of “derivative works” resists ideas of a single author. Instead, he demonstrates how the database of Di Gi Charat, for example, “was driven by the power of fragments” (41). However, I do not find Azuma’s definition of “derivative works” so different from Linda Hutcheon’s definition of adaptation. Hutcheon writes that an adaptation is “ a derivation that is not derivative—a work that is second without being secondary. It is its own palimpsistic thing” (9). The difference may be  that while Hutcheon seems to be writing against fidelity criticism, destabilizing a hierarchy of original works vs. derivative works, Azuma draws attention to the importance of fidelity in both the commercial and non-commercial success of derivative works. Azuma talks about fidelity without ever using the term. He writes, " It is not enough to “extrac[t] and imitate[e] only the simulacra as designs (literally at the surface level) without understanding the database of moe-element” (65). In other words, one must demonstrate a deep understanding of the conventions of the genre (database), but also be able to identify the difference between simulacra and database to produce “good” quality works. Azuma emphasises how issues of fidelity are integral to understanding the trends in otaku culture .
            The cultural production of character/character goods ties in nicely with Ian Condry’s Anime Creativity: Characters and Premises in the Quest for Cool Japan. His ethnographic study of “anime in the works” is quite interesting, and his essay reminded me of the manga Bakuman. Condry offers an insider perspective of the production of anime to suggest alternative ways of analysing the cultural and aesthetic significance of the medium. In doing so, he renegotiates definitions of “cool Japan” by demonstrating the how this idea fosters a “brand label” that encourages orientalist discourses about Japanese culture. Much of the scholarly work on anime, according to Condry, focuses on narrative rather than characters. This is an interesting point in relation to Azuma’s argument about the emergence of Di Gi Charats because it indicates the pervasiveness of kyara (characters) and how these kyara don’t necessarily have to belong to a (grand) narrative, but are invested with cultural meanings on their own

Feminist Interventions
 
 
 

Throughout this chapter, Azuma focuses primarily on the cultural production of Di Gi Charat to demonstrate the ways in which that these characters/characteristics are not “a simple fetish object, but a sign that emerged through market principles” (42). Azuma further contends that “Di Gi Charat is not so much a project that naively relies on the desire of chara-moe but a complex project that, by pushing that desire to the limit, has become a satire for the present market dominated by moe-related designs” (47). Azuma’s justification is an attempt to de-fetashise the enterprise of Di Gi Charat by suggesting that moe-elements are in fact “satire” and therefore should not be taken seriously or at least interpreted in a comedic light. What are moe-elements satirical of exactly? In his assessment of the representations of chara-moe, Azuma does not seem to take into consideration how moe-related signs uphold patriarchal ideologies of a certain kind of femininity. The image on page 43 illustrates a bricolage of signs that constitute the chara-moe (See Fig 6).The lavish costume design and excessive use of accessories for an otaku consumer may signal excess and therefore the character is rendered in a parodic light, but how would this character be interpreted for a non-otaku consumer? The fact that a woman’s body (or that of a child’s) is used as an instrument to rewrite and redefine constructs of “femininity” and “cuteness” etc is troubling because it  validates, to some extent, the objectification of the female body as something to either  laugh at or something to desire. OR as Sharon Kinsella contends in her essay, "the increasingly intense gaze with which young men examine girls and girls' manga is, to use the words of Anne Allison "both passive and aggressive" (qtd in Kinsella 306). 

This concern emerges from the idea that if the database is an archive of signs generated from numerous sources and functions as a representation of the collective imagination, then, to what extent the database specifically one that is exclusive to otaku? and one that is specifically Japanese?


Sharon Kinsella’s “Japanese Subculture in the 1990s: Otaku and the Amateur Manga Movement”

            I was particularly drawn to Kinsella’s introduction of her essay, but especially her attention to place and setting:

A limitless secret world of smoldering underground clubs where baby girls in bikinis wield Uzi submachine guns and Russian Eskimos D.J. in Elizabethan court dress. Grey catacombs of deserted rain-swept streets where beautiful women in impeccable Nazi uniforms sport unexpected erections. Nameless back streets scattered with the limpid green lights of opium- soaked noodle shacks where Oxford dons chop up giant squid for hungry pairs of lusty French school boys. Such is the stuff that amateur manga is made of. (289)

Kinsella’s description makes references to Russia, Germany, England, and France suggesting that amateur mangakas prefer to set their stories in the West. I find this a peculiar gesture, and it is an aspect within my own research that I continue to explore. Why do Japanese mangaka turn to the West to tell their stories? To articulate anxieties of gender and sexuality?

I think one of Kinsella’s main arguments is that the otaku culture emerged in relation to and also in response to the dojinshi phenomenon. She argues that otaku’s “adoption” of girl culture had (and continues to) evoke social and cultural anxieties (moral panic) of effeminate men.

There is one last point that I would like to contend. In her essay, Kinsella argues “The yaoi style emerging from Japanese dojinshi is clearly the Japanese equivalent of Anglo-American slash” (307). Here she equates slash and yaoi as similar genres, however, critics such as Mark John Isola “Yaoi and Slash Fiction: Women Writing, Reading, and Getting Off?” and Marni Stanley “101 Uses for Boys: Communing with the Reader in Yaoi and Slash” provide counter arguments. [Both articles can be found in Boys’ Love Manga: Essays on the Sexual Ambiguity and Cross-Cultural Fandom of the Genre.]


Hemman's blog provides a useful and informative analysis of dojinshi culture. I was really intrigued by how Ghibli films have been parodied and appropriated and quite impressed by the aesthetic quality of some of the illustrations.

 
http://japaneseliterature.wordpress.com/2010/02/22/286/

 

Thursday, October 17, 2013

MOBILE GAMING: SHALL WE LOVE? NINJA LOVE

              SHALL WE LOVE? NINJA LOVE
 
Shall we Date Ninja Love Game for GREE belongs to a series of games created by NTT (Nippon Telegraph and Telephone West Corporation) Solmare, which is according to their home page “the No.1 Mobile Comic site in Japan”, and also a major global distributor of mobile comics.  The Shall We Date Series consists of multiple spinoffs:
 
 
 

Shall We Date: Ninja Love Mobile Game, is an app that you can download on your  iphone through itunes. It is also accessible on Android and the PC version from the NTTSolmare website.  Ninja Love is a visual novel mobile game, and belongs to the genre of Himekoi that generally falls under the umbrella category of Otome Games. Himekoi games, which translates to Princess love, in my definition refers to games where the player experiences the feeling of being like a princess. The protagonists of these games are young women and as the player you face a very fortunate dilemma of having to choose one of four bishonen to date.
Ninja Love alludes to famous historical figures of the Sengoku Period (Japan's feudal era) and through a parodic rendering of historical facts (as well as fiction), the player is invited to relive and rewrite, to some extent, a Japanese history. In other words, the Sengoku Period is not only used as a backdrop, but allows the player to relish in Japan’s nostalgic past. In doing so, one of the cultural implications of the game—despite its emphasis on romance—is that it has a didactic purpose, but it also engages in discourses of patriotism and in defining a national identity. In response to the question posed earlier in the semester “What makes a Japanese Game?”, I argue, that it contains an element of Japanese history, in its broadest sense. But of course, this element is one of the many characteristics of Japanese games.
 
 
Meet the Characters
4  MAIN CHARACTERS
   
 
 UNLOCK THE OTHER 4 CHARCATERS!



     
 
 You can unlock these characters by achieving super happy endings with two of the main characters OR pay!
 

GAME PLAY
 


 
 
 
 
So What are Some of the Features of  Mobile Dating Games?
-Less active participation required of the player
-No voice over. Still images with occasional facial expressions and gestures
-You are reading dialogues (and lots of it)
-Music (each ninja has his own distinct background melody, which is reflective of his personality)
 

MAIN FEATURES OF NINJA LOVE
RECEPTION
            Ninja Love seems to be a very popular game as the NTTSolmare Facebookpage indicates that they now have up to “300K users”. I predict that the number of spinoffs available suggests the immense popularity of himekoi games across the globe.  The application is available in 32 other countries  not including Japan (See NTTSolmare).
 Upon reading several blogs and reviews of the game, here are what some players have to say:
 
  •    I actually quite enjoyed this game! The characters were hilarious, the dialogues range from cute to crazy (despite the countless grammatical errors lol), and the CGs were surprisingly satisfying in the cute and [the] hot department (´`). Don’t expect too much from it, but the game exceeded my expectations (kiokunoaria)
  •      Overall, I give a 8/10 stars–mainly because I’m biased with all of the shirtless/half-naked men running around half the time in the game. (Jacqueline Cottrell)
  • This is the only game that Solmare NTT [sic] with background music playing with a very aesthetically pleasing game to look at~ sparkles (Corlee 1289)
 
 
In relation to the emphasis on the aesthetic pleasure that the player experiences as she ventures on a journey with her selected suitor as indicated in these three comments, it is evident that himekoi games render young men as objects of female gaze, inverting the conventional role of woman and woman’s bodies as carnal objects and spectacle for the male gaze. [1]

 
 
This inversion of conventional gender roles I think on the one hand seems to celebrate the liberty of female sexuality by providing woman with an outlet to explore her sexual or romantic desires—although within a virtual Japanese world—while on the other hand, it also reinforces fixed and patriarchal notions of femininity and masculinity in ultimately validating discourses of heterosexual romance. Many otome games, I think, employ a fairy-tale narrative and doing so sets up a happily-ever-after ending, which becomes the ultimate goal of the game. The player is, in most cases, rendered as the damsel-in-distress, emphasising her powerlessness and helplessness without the protection of her male suitor. The idea of knight-in-shining-armor, though, reinforces a power dynamic that polarizes gender difference. In other words, woman is weak/man is strong; woman is passive/man is active. While to some extent Ninja Love conforms to these generic conventions of otome games, it also complicates these dichotomies by allowing the player to contribute and participate in the assassination of Oda Nobunaga and to restore peace. So in Kotaro’s route, for example, he thanks you for your help in overcoming a foe, which I think demonstrates a mutuality or partnership between the (female) player and the male character, encouraging, to some degree, ideas of equality.
            Moreover, Ninja Love caters to an audience that wants to feel like a “princess” and to be pampered. So while hegemonic discourses of gender propriety are articulated in the game, the player is most likely consciously aware of their role as the female subject and is not necessarily internalising the gender ideology exhibited in the game. However, critics such  as Fusami Ogi who writes extensively on shojo manga writes “we cannot say that the texts [so in this case himekoi games] do not reinscribe the man/woman power relationship because they are written for female readers alone and thus do not affect male readers in any way” (78). Moreover Ogi argues that one of the limitations of the shojo manga genre is that it presents marriage as a natural goal for women. This is also the case for Ninja Love. “In this game, there are three alternative endings consisting of the Happy Ending, Normal Ending, or the Unhappy Ending[. . .] only the Happy Ending rewards you with the last event picture possible for the character of your choice whereas the other ending does not merit anything” (Corlee). This reinforces that the player’s successful completion of the game relies on her ability to make the right choices throughout the game in order to either get married or end in copulation with you ninja: there is no option to live an independent life.
To what extent do games like Ninja Love provide women with a sensation of experiencing or exercising agency within a virtual reality and space? Do women play otome games as a means to escape their mundane and ordinary lives only to ultimately conform to them in games?
 



[1] BUT does it really?! The idea of a virtual gazing had been suggested in class. That is, since the male character is staring at the player in her eyes throughout most of the game, there may not be an inversion of the male-gaze after all. This idea is particularly interesting in comparison to the ways in which female characters are portrayed as avoiding eye contact with the male player in Ero games, where her coyness invites the male gaze.

Tuesday, October 15, 2013

Week 5: Otaku Culture continued.


In response to Otaku Japan’s Database Animals Hiroki Azuma. 
 
          What I find most striking about Azuma’s historicisation of Otaku culture is how he brings together Japan’s past and present in demonstrating how the otaku phenomenon is not necessarily a modern one, but can be traced to the Edo period. In other words, Azuma argues that the practices of otaku culture are closely related to the aesthetics of Edo culture (See 8-9). Another interesting and insightful aspect of Azuma’s theory in relation to the emergence of otaku culture is that its origin was influenced by the rise of American popular art/culture. By showing how the otaku phenomenon is not unique to Japanese culture, Azuma accomplishes to de-fetishise and demystify popular definitions of otaku and otaku-ness. In drawing attention to the ways in which otaku culture appropriated and adapted American comics and animation, a post-colonial reading would suggest that Japan made use of its “master’s tools”, but in order to redefine and re-articulate a cultural discourse (See 18-20). Azuma suggests, though, the double standard of otaku culture in Japan:

One the one hand, as connected to the experience of defeat, the presence of otaku culture is a grotesque reflection of the fragility of a Japanese identity. [. . .] On the other hand, the presence of this culture is connected to the narcissism of the 1980s and is also a fetish that can feed the illusion of Japan being at the cutting edge of the world”. (20)
This contradiction, to reiterate, can be understood in terms of Japanese orientalist point of view: Japan’s ambiguous position as having been once the Empire of Asia while simultaneously being viewed as an occupied or semi-colonised nation from Western lenses. I find it interesting that this tension is still manifest in contemporary manga, anime, and literatures, revealing how Japan constantly redefines and renews ideas of nation and identity in opposition to the West (America). That one’s existence relies on the “Other”. But in this light, I wonder to what extent Japan contributes to its own submissiveness to the West by validating and paying homage to Western aesthetics, tropes and conventions. After reading the first chapter I am left to wonder what is so Japanese about otaku culture?  

Sunday, October 13, 2013

♪Rock Your Body♪: An Exploration of Game Conventions in K-pop Music Videos


I am a huge fan of K-pop and I came across a music video by VIXX entitled “Rock Your Body”, which playfully integrates conventions of gaming. The music video also makes allusions to classic games such as Space Invaders.  This post is just for fun, but it would be interesting to examine how different cultures appropriate and adapt aspects of game culture in producing something culturally unique.

Week 5: Exploring Issues of Masculinity in Everything from Otaku to Moe


In relation to this week’s topic of otaku, I thought of the anime WATAMOTE (abbreviation for  the very long title: Watashi ga Motenai no wa dō Kangaetemo Omaera ga Warui) [No Matter How I Look at It, It's You Guys' Fault I'm Not Popular!]. The story is about a high school girl named Tomoko, who is s-l-i-g-h-t-l-y disillusioned about her own self-image and popularity at school. She is a hikikomori and the anime explores her mundane life of playing otome games and going to seiyuu events, but all in a comedic light. It is such a funny anime! If you haven’t seen it, then, I recommend it.
Link to Wiki site: Watamote
Link to Anime: Watch

In relation to the readings, I was so fascinated with the critical work on otaku culture and its intersections with Gender, Masculinity, Feminist Studies.

Alisa Freedman’s “Train man and gender politics of Japanese Otaku Culture” explores the emergence of the Otaku movement and the ways in which they have shaped Japanese popular media. She also discusses how the rise and popularity of otaku culture has been contextualized in relation to national concerns of low birth rates. Moreover, Freedman discussion of otaku reveals different cultural perceptions of otaku for the American and Japanese cultural audience. While the former equates otaku to geek culture, loosely defining the term as anyone who has a hobby, in Japan, there seems to be hostility toward the otaku phenomenon. This is due to, as Freedman notes, the media hype surrounding the multiple crimes committed by men who have an "obsession" with anime and manga. Freedman, though, sheds light on otaku culture by showing how they are not “backwards”, “maniacal” or “perverse”, but rather investigates the productivity of otaku especially in redefining masculine identities.

I think Freedman’s interrogation of otaku masculinity can be better contextualized theoretically by referencing scholars such as Raewyn Connell. Connell proposes the concept of the "patriarchal divdend" which he argues is man's ultimate goal/objective in his pursuit for a masculine identity. But he points out that this masculinity is of a particular sort—one that accentuates a hegemonic masculinity. The ones who have access to the patriarchal dividend are ultimately those with capital power.  In relation to Densha Otoko, the TV series, (since I have seen this one), it is because Yamada is financially able that he gets Saori (or Hermes). Happiness in Densha Otoko is intertwined with capital. (Honda’s idea of “love capitalism” is further explored in Patrick W. Glalbraith’s article on Moe). I wonder, too, if the ideological principle[1] that the TV series is premised on, in fact, rejects the figure of the otaku rather than celebrating his emerging role into mainstream society because in order to be with Saori, Yamada must conceal his otaku-ness and to some extent compromise his otaku identity?

In Galbraith’s essay on Moe, his discussion on balancing gender identities through consumption is really interesting.  Galbraith writes, “boys are becoming ‘shoujo’ (little girl) consumers” (n. page), but this phenomenon is not seen as an emasculating gesture. Instead it empowers the otaku consumer to ultimately redefine his masculine identity to resist “love capitalism”. I am, however, a little concerned about the ideal representation of Moe as virtuous and pure because these unrealistic values attributed to Moe (young girls) validates a discourse that a woman’s role is to comfort man—that she exists for the sake of pleasing man. Moe, is a misogynistic construct and the femininity she exhibits harkens to conventional and traditional values tha contributed to the marginalisation of Japanese women. In response to Syu-chan’s justification for his obsession of Moe, I find it problematic that young girls' bodies are ultimately being employed to reason and satisfy his social incompetence and loneliness. The potential risk of Syu-chan’s reasoning is that while it may seem innocent, it gestures toward, to some degree, a validation of child pornography (so as long as it is an anime character and not a “real” human girl it is okay)? I ask this, in response to the argument that “moe characters express desires that are not of tis world, and it is thus a logical conclusion that they would appear non-human”. Here, the implicit claim is that since Moe characters are not really human, it is okay to use them for one’s own pleasure and purposes. In the interview[2] “Otaku Talk” Toshio Okada says “sexual fantasies are becoming more and more virtual and ‘virtual sexuality’ proliferates in Akihabara”. Although one’s admiration or obsession of Moe character(s) can be seen being harmless since it is contained within a virtual reality, what would happen when one is unable to distinguish fiction from reality?
 

Similar to Freedman’s discussion on the representation of otaku masculinity, Slater and Galbraith also interrogate the social constraints and limitations and the impact it has had on men in Japanese society. The essay focuses on the Akihabara Incident, and particular attention is paid to Kato Tomohiro as a victim of the societal pressures to conform to a hegemonic masculinity. Both Freedman’s and Slater and Galbraith’s essay makes visible the stratification of masculine identities. The idea of stratification alludes to Demetrakis Z.Demetriou’s theory of how men are also prisoners of a patriarchal system that privileges certain forms of masculinities.  While I understand the theoretical framework in contextualizing Kato’s failed masculinity, I do not understand Kato’s reasoning for committing the crime. According to Slater Galbraith “feelings of estrangement prior to the attack were read back into fragile relationships with his family, especially his mother” (n. page). Here, Kato’s justifies his actions by blaming his mother rather than blaming a patriarchal system that sets up impossible or unattainable standards of masculinity. The fact that this is not a point of contestation in the article show how discourses against mothers/women  have become naturalised.

           





[1] The idea that one must conform to hegemonic standards of masculinity to be a functional and productive member of society.
[2] The interview also provides 3 points of contrast between Mania and Otaku (scroll mid-page). [interesting!!]

Tuesday, October 8, 2013

Week 4: Mobile Games and Participatory Culture


 

In brief, both readings for this week explore topics of agency and space and how these concepts have been redefined by (mobile) games. Ito and Cohen debunk myths about the passivity of gamer players, though in different ways: Ito examines “participatory forms of children’s media culture” in Hamtaro and Yugioh and Cohen demonstrates how mobile games complicate or blur notions of “play” and “reality”. Ito’s essay is particularly interesting in relation to Barthes-ian notions of the relationship between author, text, and reader (game and player) because she illustrates how participatory culture reshapes and changes reading practices (or in this case gaming practices and game culture). While both articles are engaged in a critical discussion of the ways in which individuals participate in a game culture, I wonder what some of the implications or limitations of games like the ones that Cohen examines may be. In other words, what would happen if players are no longer able to distinguish the difference between “play” and “reality”? Are there real social consequences that emerge from games/ game culture?

Tuesday, October 1, 2013

∻BOYS' LOVE GAMES∻


BOYS' LOVE GAMES


Genres of Japanese Games and Gender

                  

 
 
 
What are Boys’ Love Games?

Definitions and Mechanics of BL Games

Boys’ Love Games are “a genre of Japanese romance games that are aimed at a female audience and revolve around relationships between male characters. [. . .] The style of play is usually adventure games, which is a visual-novel style of game where you pick choices that lead to different outcomes, but some will also have different play styles, such as RPG, life simulation, or board games” (Boys' Love Games Headquarters 2003). To clarify, a visual novel is “an interactive fiction game, featuring mostly static graphics, most often using anime-style art or occasionally live-action stills (and sometimes video footage)” (Wiki “Visual Novels” 2013). I would add to this list, sound, music, and especially the role of the seiyuu (voice actors) are important to the success and popularity of BL games. According to other popular definitions of the genre, “Boys' Love (BL) games (also known as yaoi games) usually refers to otome games[1] or H games[2] oriented around male homosexual couples for the female market” (Wiki 2013). The genre of BL games, as both definitions point out, are produced and consumed mainly by women, which is further explored (See Section on “Controversial Representations of Gender”). When examining the mechanics of BL games, it is far less complicated than, say, Ninokuni[3] since very little strategic planning and play is required of the player. The level of engagement is also minimal when compared to actions games since the player watches a narrative unfold rather than being an active participant of the game. (BL) is by no means exclusive to games, and it is a quite popular genre in manga and anime. In fact, some games such as Gakuen Heaven (2002) begin as a game, then, are adapted into novels, manga, and anime.


Boys’ Love Game Examples

BL games contain homosexual or homoerotic themes that are expressed to varying degrees from subtle hints of gay attraction, to innocent crushes and touching, to explicit representations of man-on-man sex, which borderlines (or is) pornography ).  Sex scenes are part of the BL genre in both BL manga and games, but as Pagliasotti mentions “not all BL manga include sex, and when they do, the character’s emotional reactions are important” (75). The extent to which BL games, though, focus on characters’ feelings is questionable since the narrative quality of the games that I have examined seems less complicated than the manga that I have read (Of course, this depends on the type of manga one reads). In other words, some BL games are a means to an end. The ultimate goal is the climax scene between the player and his/her partner, but in manga we see how relationships blossom over the course of the narrative.

While the objective of BL games is similar, which is to ultimately achieve a happy ending (over a bad ending) with the character you choose, there are differences in style, genre, and themes.  Some games are set in the historical period such as Enzai (post-revolutionary France). The Sengoku period (feudal Japan) is also a popular setting. Futuristic and post-apocalyptic worlds such as in Dramatical Murder, and high school settings are common in games such as Gakuen Heaven. Click to see the titles of BL games sold bydifferent distributors/companies. Although some BL games are not translated into English and therefore unavailable for the Western market, fansubbed walkthroughs of Japanese Boys Love games are accessible on YouTube and the internet.
 
 



Emergence of Boys Love


            BL, as critic Paul M. Malone suggests, is a subgenre that emerged out of shojo manga conventions (paraphrase 25). Drawing on the works of Midori Matsui, Malone  describes how “this subgenre had risen in Japan  in the 1970s  when a newly emerging generation of female manga artists (including Hagio Moto, Ikeda Riyoko, Takemiya Keiko) turned to such depictions in order to permit female authors and readers alike to project themselves into the roles of the stories’ male protagonists, thus sharing a fantasy of “perfect romance,” supposedly unclouded by the power differential between men and women in real Japanese society” (25). The emergence of BL is also accredited to dojinshi of the 70s and according to Antonia Levi, the term “yaoi” was coined with “the development of fan-created and published works” (2) and it is “a sardonic acronym for yamanashi, ochi-nashi, iminashi (no climax, no point, no meaning)” (2). However, over the four decades since the emergence of yaoi and BL manga, many mangakas now offer compelling and moving stories about the trials, tribulations, and struggles of coming to terms with a gay identity such as Takanaga Hinako’s  Koisuru Bokun manga series (The Tyrant Falls in Love 2004).

From Takanaga Hinako's Koisuru Bokun (2004)The Tyrant Falls in Love OVA 2010 WATCH!!


In the West, BL has caught the attention of scholars and fans. The BL phenomenon in the West, according to Levi, has “began to boom [. . .] in 2005, after the success of popular manga series like Kizuna, FAKE, and Eerie Queerie” (4). Yaoi cons or Yaoi Ronso are held annually and a subculture has emerged in response to the BL phenomenon.
 
 
Controversial Representation of Gender?
 
There is little scholarly literature that interrogates specifically the genre of BL (video) games in the West. Manga, anime, and videogames are all visual mediums, but I think, BL games should be examined specifically in relation to its own unique aesthetic style, conventions, and practices. For the time being, I draw on the critical debates and discussions of BL from Manga Studies to explore the potentialities and limitations of how BL games represent ideas of gender. Much of the scholarly work on BL manga underscores anxieties about the genre as reinforcing gender stereotypes or as being marketed as  “women’s pornography” (Dru Pagliasotti 75).  As aforementioned, the reception of BL games is largely made up of women, which raises the question: why do women in particular have an interest in BL games? What do idealised representations of men and their bodies reveal about cultural and social constructs of gender, particularly for women in Japan? In what ways have BL games been interpreted, appropriated, or even rejected in other cultural contexts? Are BL games unique to Japan and if so how does the genre relate to a cultural audience that is non-Japanese? In what ways do BL games challenge or renegotiate the West’s view about sexuality in Japan? 
 
 To answer some of these questions, I examine a game called Hadaka Shitsuji (Naked Butler 2011) to investigate how the uke/seme dichotomy in particular harkens to feminist discourses of empowerment and authority. The main character of this game is Maeba Tomoaki and the story concerns his new job as the master of an estate where he is pampered by beautiful butlers that cater to his every command. In the game, Maeba (player) is the seme (agressor) and the butlers are the uke (receivers), which is untypical of BL games, enabling the player to fulfill his or her sadistic desires. I focus on the route that Maeba takes with Sakuma Kyouichi and in this scene he is coerced to give oral sex.   

 
Sakuma is represented as passive and obedient—characteristics that are traditionally associated to women— in comparison to Maeba who is the assertive, aggressive, and controlling. In Naked Butler, the player who is most likely a girl is the seme and therefore has “control” over her male partner. This reversal of stereotypical gender roles, for some feminist critics, is an empowering gesture because it positions women in roles traditionally associated to men or as “masculine”. According to Isola Japanese critics such as Takamatsu Hisako argue “yaoi was liberating for women because unlike heterosexual stories, where women are routinely the object of the male gaze, yaoi constructs an egalitarian model for gazing” (qtd in Isola 89). Other critics share Takamatsu’s view: Fujimoto Yukari [. . .] contends yaoi allows the female viewer to move from the perspective of the violated to the perspective of the voyeur and violater, and Takemiya Keiko claims yaoi is a “a first step towards true feminism” (qtd in Isola 89). Within Western scholarship, Isola posits that  “yaoi functions as an act of agency over sex/gender hegemony by constructing liberatory spaces within which females can negotiate the male gaze” (89). While I do not disagree with this critical discourse on BL, the kind of feminism that is conveyed by these critics is premised on the idea of female dominance over men and expresses an anxiety about a female lack (See Stanley 100).
 
From Naked Butler (Takuma strangling Arisato Kazuma)

 Moreover, notions of female agency are complicated when examining the uke/seme dichotomy in relation to themes of rape also known as “non-con (nonconsensual sex scenes)” (Pagliasotti 67). With reference to Dahlquist &Vigilant, Pagliasotti writes “it [rape scenes] may offer readers an excuse to enjoy rape fantasies without guilt, since text and drawings permit more emotional distance than photos or video of real people” (68). Pagliasotti further contends that “women write rape scenes into BL manga as a form of resisting the social stigmatization of a rape victim [. . .]” (68).  The implicit claim that women are empowered through the marginalisation of homosexuals and homosexuality ultimately undermines feminism’s agenda to destabilise hierarchal formations of power and privilege. In other words, feminism should not be about who becomes the “voyeur and violater”, the battle of who is rendered objects of gaze, or who is the seme and uke or both? BL games, while it allows some women to renegotiate their subjectivity and, to some extent, write against a dominant fiction, it is achieved at the expense of perpetuating myths about gay culture.

Rather than resisting normative standards of sexuality or renegotiating gender binaries, some BL manga, as Mark John Isola contends “contains a taint of homophobia” (87) and perhaps so do some of the games. Isola cites Sato Masaki, a gay activist and drag queen, to explore the potential consequences and limitations of BL games for the gay community. According to Sato “yaoi lacks the authority and authenticity of lived experience; therefore, it risks a socio-political nihilism for the sake of aesthetic expression” (qtd in Isola 87). For Masaki, then, BL manga blurs reality and fiction, (mis)informing the public of the social realities of gay individuals in Japan.

Does gender even matter?

Marni Stanley proposes the idea that BL offer other venues of exploration other than gender. She contends:

certainly for many women writers, to talk about the erotics of power in heterosexual relationships raises complex questions about the politics of gender difference and so, by making both members of the couple male, those problems can be erased. Having thus dispensed with gender difference, yaoi authors can, as McLelland suggests, play with the erotics of power by other means, or they may choose to explore other ideas of erotic altogether.  (104)

This idea of play that Stanley refers to is reminiscent of a famous quote “art for art’s sake”. In other words, yaoi or BL games should be purely enjoyed as BL. Must BL have some kind of didactic function? Or moral and ethical purposes? Can there ever be a true representation of homosexual romance? What are the implications of interpreting BL games merely as a form of entertainment and aesthetic pleasure? 

         Some of the ideas expressed require further inquiry, which I hope to explore in my final paper. Some of the questions that were raised in class have been addressed here, but further criticism and comments are always appreciated. In conclusion, there are three aspects of BL that I would like my readers to remember:

1. BL is a popular genre mainly written by women for women. (A kind of resistance to dominant

modes of fiction? )
 
2. Visual novel style.
3. BL games reflect and respond to cultural and social constructs of gender, destabilizing normative values of what constitutes ideas of “masculinity” and “femininity”                  
From Dramatical Murder
 
 
 




[1] Otome games are dating games for women. The objective of the game is for the female player to select a partner from a cast of eligible bachelors and to achieve a happy ending.


[2] H in Japanese sounds like ecchi (the Japanese word for sex). H games, then, translates to sex games


[3] I refer to this game in homage to the first presentation on games this semester.