Girl Reading Girl in Japan Edited by Tomoko Aoyama and Barbara Hartley R festecee,ee ae Spare, Mtn it, Anon, Orn O14 Pale a ng of he al & Fn Gn, fra a Sipser sucetem oma oem saiterr oad tet otters Solon cinee een ee sy og ee 2 am ttn obtain tras ose rari, san sr oaiss7a-0.08) SSaN grease (0) Contents. ist offewes ist ofconribtors Ackoledgmente + Intedaction “The Great March Forward of All Gils Whe Support the teral Gi Genealogy of the reading git 1 The genealogy of Araki: Kmialty and he gin 2, The genealogy of the “pia” ex reading gi 3. The cate ofthe gi in Yoshimoto Banana: ¥7¥i¥!? [Reading against socal constraint 4 Volatility and avery: Shirai Shiow and the reading ge, 1s 6 o12. Girls reading Harry Potter, girls writing desire Amateur manga and shdjo reading practices Sharalyn Orbaugh Introduction Inconemporary Japa, hundreds of thousands of is and women participate ‘2 a spirl process of readingowrting reading though the pracce Of dOnoht ‘manga an tion: reading stories, ering thas tries, and in tar having their re-writen works read by others! In this chapter I will rine ts so femporary practice to the intetexity found in ete shijo ents vans ‘metia.” Here I examine texts in the category known at “jan ant-par,” which ‘bears some resemblance to Engishlanguage sla, Specify {wl exes fan ction based on the Harry Potter maginod unvee, purchase at be too laege Comic Markets in Tokyo in 2008, The texts ‘Tie 2004 Comic Marks in Tolyo (numbers 66, Aagust 1-15; and 67, Dcem ‘be: 29-20 ach Featured the prteipation of more than 3,000 amatee ones ‘irl and each was attended by between 400,00 end SO,000 people Sagat and yoo! an:paro versions ofthe Hary Potter txts consid nly toy faction ofthe total range of materials soldat tse rarely ovstacecg oe ‘numbers were impressive. At the Summer Comie Matkeeappronimate, 300 ciel sold items dealing with some aspect ofthe Hary Potter iaaned nt © texts that inpited peo! an pero versions included the Lord of the Rings (LOTR) series, the numbers of wack ceded thowe of HP. There were alo circles devoted to other eam hin ‘alesse such as Pirates ofthe Carbean: Curse ofthe Black Pear! end Star ars tack ofthe Clones, and much ler television shows such nthe origi ‘Slar Trek and The Man fram UN.C.LE. The great majority ofthe seaghs od Yeo! anzparo materials were tased Gn Japanese popular Clty prosues = ‘elatively recent anime/manga sees suchas Fall Medal dlohemst es nel ay ‘older favorites such as Rupan Sane (Lupin It), Cyborg O09, and Candam 1am fan ofthe Harry Potter imagined univere as crested inthe seven ‘novels and six ms produced so far I donot participate in aay products oe Amateur manga and shojo reading practices 178 inert form of fis ach aending conventions or onan to fan webs) lho ve ofr ks crn em of tore who ‘ne reson 1 bought so mach HP fan Seton and manga a he 2008 Comic Mast therfre was a dese to nd ot what ce face do wah tes tarratve nies, HE was pats for uy purposes eras {now the HP texbso wel at canny done the doe ofan? to or een from the sours tea Moreoe Ive fong bee interest inthe potential “queering” that occurs when readers rewrite texts uta in oe Dhenom coolopial poss fran, or more cone nthe proses of dang SSircwn toes enon tose nan yet pu wh tex are expt "quent" trough te intodution of male-tae sexta ‘lanes ovo arch res rch stay soul sate at from what Isa the Corie Marit nd ater tom the os averted in the extaogs oo! entre is fr more common thar eign andpee therefore it nor only more polesly incerta bu alo toe pe Senate) A ther reason for fy ein to eae HP tat a ar Seu tered in bw fee engrave til he Inking, 8a Te cs ith the HE novel 004, and el the a th Shirin eros ArT wil ass Bow seme ein bbe tnt ee that asin engang an or seing. sfnsbl native ar re eto {tose ta character the provi of fa ona est enamel ies Intkng HP in oneal sore text orcent acing ing teading pic Production and consumption mong, I noted that the ro- tn a previous ance on cenorhip fiji! mang, 1 noted th dhton ofthe oot and sgh anparo mata inveved ab active scl tlement, as pple mee a dc how io reve the source saat ia he wm veo an Tan ted thf tha mt fhe prtispnt in inh Sctveemere girl and women. Bat in 2005, when he ate ws publi, tent at aad apy hang he neo en {Bsns parcipants Now it spears to be common fo people wo have revel ma a pen to wok lope o prods eoecdon of fm en Sie ste on arenes rare og HP Characters oF pangs within these tts (eg Lupin s Snape, of Hay rac), reven scons uo hve pajed fvorechracte. nother wot he at! “Sai ec at ted my er roo oy eet nes This allows for everncresing pareipaton by people sac in rol lapan ngs tat ar nseangy dened by ice itereta Or ine one can fod west ceed and maintained by a goup of people he Sheet ah pee been ‘On the other han, te vious come market held al ovr the country se callin an nv one een ody ns Consumption in apn. Tas se opportuni for peopl oom togetir ‘ey ped vero of fan Seon and manga sl yt: produ In thet176, Sharam Orbaugh ‘words ch okfshioned book i stil being soldat these vemues by fesb-and- blood people, and being bought by Pesh-and-blood people who may exiay alting with the producers about thei works For no atleast, both vr fan real-world social connetons are valued in the word of djs production 1 would arg, however thatthe new ‘ype of interaction made posible by interne technology have aocleated some longstanding tendencies in shajo itera aetvity im Japa, including the buring of boundaries between production vz consumption, snd profesional vs amu From at lest as early as Tamakzzurain The Tal of Gen (cca 1000 c#), Searching desperately through the old romanos for « model and solution for her situation, or the female characters i the twelth-contury Men sh ‘who endlestly praise and extique monogaari, dissecting tet favor chat- fclers and scenes, Japanese women authors have depicted female characters 48 pasionate readers and ertin® At we see in the later casein particle, ‘women Writers have created female character who function as beta readers (in contemporacy English fan fistion parlance) eng of in a sense, even ewsting the old romances through their ets comments In the moder period, we find that in Yoshiya Nobuko early ition — ‘denied by some asthe beginnings of moder shtjo narrative ~ gis are nce through the various comic markets tends to blur the distivesiontetwexs smateur aad profesional "These phenomens ate probaly ot eatusive to wom, but ~ for whatever reason ~ moat ofthe dizassons Ihave seen op the permeability of reader! ‘vier boundaries in Japanese popular eultur have focused oa women 1 do ‘ot now whether this efits genuine statistical diferece in the mumbers ‘of women and ten who participate fo the Kinds of activities that br these ‘Doundarsy or whether obesrvere fous on women to emphasize the beneis sich grey areas buve brought to them, coniderng that women have typically had fewer mainsieam pats for breaking into the pubishing world. Several scholes have noted, nowever, that parcipaton in Tokyo's Comic Maske ag since ie inception, been predominantly female, and it may be that this represents a geniely gendered phenomenon (Kinsella 199: 29; Orbavgh Dan: 113) tern and computer graphics technology have only intense the bres: down of bares Setween amateur vs profesional and producer vs. consume elkson and Busse have humorously but accurately depicted the proces ‘by which women shave dee writings (rrewrings) and have others comment ‘or expand on thom with great speed and eas though the imtemet in an Engi language context. [estat like this Somewhere in eyberspace, someone complains “I had a lousy day! Need some cheering up” Soon after, fiend posta a story lediating the pine: "This for You, bon . Hope il cheer you up A {Grd person chimes icc Whats great fet mean, who would hase thought of gx penguin sx. Hloveit” "Gay penguin sex” someone ese ‘ud inding it around i response, she poss a poem she Knocked