In Japan, manga and anime have in the postwar period become vibrant cultural forms with mass appeal. In the 1960s, Tezuka Osamu’s Astro Boy was the star of a manga and anime series, had been recorded as a TV and radio drama and could be purchased in the form of toys and merchandise. Each episode of the weekly TV anime was viewed by 30 percent of households (Condry 2013: 104) and the sponsor received 3.7 million requests for Astro Boy stickers between July and September 1963 (Steinberg 2009: 119). The success of Astro Boy has been explained in terms of media synergy, with the character moving across platforms and gathering interest. One consequence of this cross-media movement is that characters ‘develop an internal coherence despite being fictional’ (Condry 2013: 190). They are unique and real existences that can be known. Further, because characters can be encountered anytime and anywhere, they become an intimate presence in everyday life (Steinberg 2009: 122—24). This is even truer when they are embedded in personal routines and life histories.
Both fictional and real, characters can become objects of desire. Erotic material has not been as compartmentalised in Japan as it has in some other countries, and sexual situations and depictions are common in manga (Shiokawa 1999: 114; Kinsella 2000: 136). Young people grow attracted and attached to certain character forms, which they reproduce in fan art (Kinsella 2000: 136; Saito 2011: 87—89, 116). Artists who produce manga and anime for children sometimes mature into producing more adult fare for audiences who have also matured. There is demand for pornographic manga, anime and games which are stylistically similar to mainstream varieties and target both men and women of diverse ages (Shamoon 2004: 78, 82—83). Manga and anime fans who produce pornographic fanzines dedicated to favorite characters sometimes also transition into roles as professional artists. All of these factors contribute to the production of sexually alluring character designs in manga and anime (Shiokawa 1999: 116).
The discussion of otaku sexuality begins with the evolution of a specific character form: bishojo. Though this is often translated as ‘beautiful girl,’ it is more accurate to say ‘cute girl.’ The distinction is not arbitrary. In Japanese comics, bold lines, sharp angles and dark cross-hatching are associated with ‘realism,’ most famously gekiga, or ‘dramatic pictures.’ As Shiokawa Kanako notes, ‘This style is a direct antithesis of the manga (whimsical picture) style, from which many ‘cute’ icons of today have emerged’ (Shiokawa 1999: 97). ‘Cute’ is about soft lines, round shapes and light shading, a style often seen in works for children and girls, but popular with a much broader demographic in contemporary Japan. The bishojo form is the result of men consuming across gender/genre boundaries and appropriating shojo (for girls) manga and anime.
In the 1970s, at a time when critics felt mainstream manga for boys had stagnated and the gekiga movement had lost its edge, shojo manga was undergoing a revolution. Shojo manga had been produced primarily by male artists, but as chances to publish boys’ manga increased along with new manga magazines, male artists abandoned shojo manga and female artists took over its production. These female artists developed various techniques to explore the emotions and psychological states of their female characters and experimented with representations of sex. For shojo manga, sex in any form was shocking, but artists of the 1970s introduced ‘beautiful boy’ (bishonen) lead characters, which allowed for expanded expressive potential. Female readers responded favourably and male manga readers also took notice (Ito 2010). Though there already existed erotic gekiga for a male audience, the representation of sex using the cute, round characters of shojo manga was new and exciting. Contributors to the legendary fanzine MeikyU, who founded the Comic Market (a convention to sell fanzines) in 1975, were male fans of shojo manga (Yoshimoto 2009: 73-77; Shimotsuki 2008: 11-12, 21-22, 45-46, 64-68, 76-83, 96-99). The inclinations of the organisers are clear in the fact that they placed advertisements for the Comic Market in shojo manga magazines, but did not start advertising in boys’ manga magazines until several years later.
While the organisers were men, girls and women dominated convention attendance in the 1970s (Yoshimoto 2009: 78—79). Girls and women formed fan clubs dedicated to male characters from anime early on (Sasakibara 2004: 21). As manga and anime fandom reached new heights in the late 1970s, specialty magazines took over the function of providing information about and critiques of manga and anime, and fanzines shifted to ‘parody’ of favorite characters and stories. Again, women were at the leading edge, producing imaginary sexual encounters between male characters poached from manga and anime. (This trend of boy-boy romance was perhaps inspired by ‘boys’ love’ stories in commercial shojo manga, which were popular at the time.) Exposed to the outpouring of creative energy around the beautiful boy or bishonen character, male fans began to develop the bishojo character form and experiment with ‘cute eroticism’ (kawaii ero) (Morikawa 2011: 182; Takatsuki 2010: 105-11; Yoshimoto 2009: 81-83). This expression of eroticism in the manga style was distinct from the gekiga style and its ‘realism. ’
The man most associated with the early development of the bishojo character is Azuma Hideo, a professional manga artist working in niche magazines. Though nude photographs of young girls and erotic gekiga were circulating in the 1970s, Azuma was uninterested in them (Azuma and Yamada 2011: 32). While other male artists were consciously mimicking shojo manga (Schodt 1996: 55; Kinsella 2000: 112), Azuma simply added shojo manga-style faces to Tezuka Osamu-style character bodies and found the result to be thoroughly erotic (Azuma and Yamada 2011: 30-31). The resulting bishojo form is notable for its stylistic simplification and ‘roundness,’ which makes it cute more than beautiful. In addition to the manga aesthetic, Azuma’s work shares with shojo manga a lack of ‘reality’ (Azuma and Yamada 2011: 30). The popularity of Azuma’s work spoke to and for a growing demographic that preferred manga and its unreality to gekiga (Takatsuki 2010: 64-65).
Responding consciously to the overwhelming prevalence of fanzines for girls and women at conventions (Azuma and Yamada 2011: 32), in 1979, Azuma Hideo contributed to a fanzine titled Cybele, which resembles shojo manga stylistically, but places its cute girl characters in sexual situations. This sexual expression was unique. Where Azuma had long intentionally parodied the male position in his works, in his contribution to Cybele, male characters are replaced with animals. Azuma recalls that his decision stemmed from his desire to ‘erase himself (jibun o keshitai) (Azuma and Yamada 2011: 35-36), which was far removed from the ‘heroic’ male inserter seen in erotic gekiga. Reflecting on the decision to make Cybele, Oki Yukao, who acted as editor, recalls that seeing boys’ love manga and fanzines placing male characters in sexual situations made him feel that even sexualised girl characters might be allowed (Morikawa 2011: 181).
However, for many manga fans, the content of Cybele was scandalous (Takekuma 2003: 107). In a dialogue published in the March 1982 issue of Gekkan Out, Azuma recalls that it was something of a ‘taboo,’ even among manga and anime fans in Japan, to talk about the erotic appeal of ‘cute’ or ‘manga-like’ girl characters. The reaction to Cybele from many other artists, especially those producing gekiga, was negative. At first, only a minority was attracted to bishojo, but soon there was a visible and controversial fandom. Distinct from the erotic gekiga that came before, Cybele was an example of ‘pornographic’ manga that was stimulating despite being unrealistic or precisely for that reason. By Sasakibara Go-‘s estimation, this was a decisive ‘change in values’ (kachi tenkan) in Japanese manga fandom (Sasakibara 2004: 37).
The striking success of Cybele is a symbolic coming out of shojo manga and anime fans, whose numbers had been quietly growing in the 1970s. Though often ignored, the phenomenon of desire for fictional girl characters is as old as otaku culture itself. It is well known that complex anime narratives (which required regular viewing) such as Space Battleship Yamato (1974—75) inspired a surge in adult fandom, but what is less commented on is that many men were watching anime made for girls, as well as watching anime for its girl characters (Takatsuki 2010: 97). In fact, in 1974, many anime fans watched Heidi, Girl of the Alps (1974) instead of Yamato (Yoshimoto 2009: 106). Even when Yamato did become popular in reruns, fans rallied around the female characters. The June 1977 issue of Gekkan Out dedicated to Yamato is an important milestone in anime fandom, and it includes nude drawings of the female character Mori Yuki (Yoshimoto 2009: 117).
A favorite among anime fans in the 1970s was Miyazaki Hayao, who worked on Heidi and other classics. Lana, the heroine of Miyazaki’s TV anime Future Boy Conan (1978), and Clarisse, the heroine of his animated film The Castle of Cagliostro (1979), were extremely popular with older male fans. The increasing visibility of bishojo fans — demonstrated by fan clubs and fanzines — led to a series of articles on the ‘lolicon boom’ (rorikon bumu) in specialty magazines such as Gekkan Out, Animec and Animage (Takatsuki 2010: 97-98). Among manga and anime fans, lolicon, a contraction of ‘Lolita Complex,’ did not refer to the desire of an older man for a young girl, but rather the desire for fictional girl characters; the term is associated with male sho-jo manga fans, Azuma Hideo and fanzines about girl characters popular among men. Suffice it to say that Miyazaki was not happy to be included in these ranks. Though he admits to ‘falling in love’ with the heroine of an animated film that he saw as a young man (Saito 2011: 87-89; Condry 2013: 192), the June 1982 issue of Animage magazine includes with its ranking of favorite characters a comment by Miyazaki, who says that he hates fans who speak about lolicon. The ire of the great director did not, however, curb the enthusiasm of fans for bisho-jo characters, as evidenced by the publication of magazines such as Lemon People (from 1981) and erotic games and animation such as Lolita Syndrome (1983) and Lolita Anime (1984). Yoshimoto Taimatsu notes of this time the increasing sexuality of manga and anime characters, whose fictional bodies were ‘real’ objects for human desire (Yoshimoto 2009: 168-70).