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竹宮惠子作品集 サンルームにて
1976年5月20日発行
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First published May 20, 1976
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January 12, 2023
1970 the first shōnen-ai manga ever published and contains the earliest known male-male kiss in shōjo manga.
The emergence of shōnen’ai manga is most closely associated with Hagio Moto and Takemiya Keiko. In the December 1970 issue of Bessatsu shōjo komikku (Girls’ comic extra), Takemiya published the short narrative “Snow and Stars and Angels and . . .” (Yuki to hoshi to tenshi to), later reissued as “In the Sunroom” (Sanrūmu nite), a narrative that might be considered the very first example of the new manga genre.23 Hagio followed eleven months later in the same magazine with “November Gymnasium” (Jūichigatsu no gimunajiumu).24 Both works feature schoolboys in romantic relationships with other schoolboys in historical European settings. These were not their debut pieces, however. Takemiya had published her first work while still a high-school student in 1967 and Hagio in 1969. Their earlier manga had been good enough to catch the attention of editors, but the works them- selves were neither memorable nor groundbreaking. Neither initially had set out to create narratives about homosexuality, and both would go on to cre- ate many other kinds of narratives, including science fiction, mysteries, and heterosexual romance narratives—a diversity typical of shōjo manga artists of their generation. But those first two shōnen’ai narratives, as well as the pair’s wildly popular later shōnen’ai works, Hagio’s The Heart of Thomas (Tōma no shinzō, 1974) and Takemiya’s The Song of the Wind and the Trees (Kaze to ki no uta, 1976–1984) (figures 3.2 and 3.3), would help pave the way for a shōnen’ai manga boom in the 1970s and beyond, as well as the emergence of amateur works toward the end of the decade and the flourishing of the com- mercial boys love genre since the 1990s.25
The fact that Takemiya and Hagio both produced male–male romance narratives less than a year apart from each other and would go on to pen two of the most influential shōnen’ai works was no coincidence. The pair were roommates for several years, having moved in together right around the time Takemiya published “Snow and Stars and Angels and. . .,” when Hagio came to help Takemiya meet a deadline on another project. They lived in a small apartment “surrounded by a cabbage patch” in Ōizumi, in Tokyo’s Nerima Ward. Their neighbor was Masuyama Norie (1950–), who was soon thereaf- ter to become Takemiya’s producer, roommate, and muse—or, in Takemiya’s words, her “brain” (bureen).26 Under the guidance of Masuyama, Takemiya and Hagio’s apartment became the “Ōizumi Salon,” where up-and-coming shōjo manga artists, assistants (generally aspiring artists themselves), and oth- ers would gather and work, eat, or chat, sometimes staying over for extended periods.27
Masuyama introduced the pair to some of her favorite books and played a pivotal role in the development of the shōnen’ai genre. Although she was not a visual artist herself, Masuyama was an avid consumer from childhood of highbrow literature, classical music, and film. While she was a fan of manga as well, as she explains, her disappointment with shōjo manga instilled in her a desire to elevate shōjo manga from its lowly position as a frivolous distrac- tion for girls into a more serious, literary art form. Drawn to the talents of Takemiya and Hagio, Masuyama recommended to the pair various works of highbrow music, cinema, and literature in the hope of inspiring them to incorporate elements of these into their own art.28
Among the works Masuyama suggested to Takemiya and Hagio were German novelist Herman Hesse’s Beneath the Wheel (1906), Demian (1919), and Narcissus and Goldmund (1930). All three novels feature adolescent male protagonists in school environments in Germany. While none of the three depict overt homoeroticism—in fact, romantic or erotic relationships with female characters help drive their plots—their narratives all revolve around strong bonds between the protagonist and another youth or, in the case of Narcissus and Goldmund, a young teacher. Masuyama never directly suggested that Takemiya and Hagio make a manga version of one of these novels, yet the texts played a pivotal role in the development of shōnen’ai.29
Drawing on her own interviews with Masuyama and Takemiya, as well as existing essays and commentary by Takemiya and Hagio, Ishida shows that these novels proved vital source material for key early shōnen’ai works, helping to inspire the boarding school settings common in early works, the focus on the psyches of the protagonists, and the relative balance between the more masculine and the more feminine protagonists.30 Ishida further argues that Takemiya in particular draws on latent romance and eroticism between some male characters in Hesse’s writing, “emphasiz[ing] a tendency in Hesse’s works.”31
From the opening scene of two adolescent boys having sex, the overt erot- icism of Takemiya’s The Song of the Wind and the Trees goes far beyond any- thing possibly read into Hesse’s novels, however. This can in part be traced to the eroticized beautiful boys celebrated in the writing of Inagaki Taruho, which reached its climax in his Aesthetics of Boy Loving (Shōnen’ai no big- aku), the work which almost certainly inspired the name of the new genre.32 As Takemiya recalls, by the time she finished reading Taruho’s book, around 1969, she had developed a clear idea about what she wanted to depict in the manga that would eventually become The Song of the Wind and the Trees.33 British public schools are frequently referenced in Aesthetics of Boy Loving, “so the first thing I decided was to make a public school-like place the setting for The Song of the Wind and the Trees.”34 Yet, it merits noting, the manga’s setting is not a British public school, nor an early-twentieth-century Ger- man one, as depicted in Hesse’s novels, but a boarding school in nineteenth- century France.
Hagio, on the other hand, did set her two early shōnen’ai narratives in German boarding schools. And yet she credits the 1964 French film Les am- itiés particulières (These Special Friendships), first shown in Japan in 1970, as the inspiration for The Heart of Thomas, which she had begun working on before “November Gymnasium.”35 Based on a semi-autobiographical novel by Roger Peyrefitte, the film depicts two boys in a Catholic boarding school who fall in love and ends with the suicide of one of them.36 This suicide that would be echoed by the titular character in The Heart of Thomas, whose name is given a Japanese pronunciation—“Tōma”—based on the French, not German, version of the name Thomas. Takemiya was also inspired by cinema with homoerotic themes. She recalls being initially most influenced by the films of Italian director Luchino Visconti, including Death in Venice (1971), based on Thomas Mann’s early-twentieth-century novel. This film had many fans among shōnen’ai readers as well and was frequently mentioned in correspondence from young female readers printed in the shōnen’ai-related magazine Allan.37 In this Occidentalist blurring of all things European, Ha- gio, Takemiya, and other artists borrowed freely from settings, characters, and plot elements, transfiguring into the new genre of shōnen’ai the often nostalgic depictions of intimate friendships, as well as romantic and erotic relationships between beautiful European boys in translated literature and film, and in Taruho’s writing.
The emergence of shōnen’ai manga is most closely associated with Hagio Moto and Takemiya Keiko. In the December 1970 issue of Bessatsu shōjo komikku (Girls’ comic extra), Takemiya published the short narrative “Snow and Stars and Angels and . . .” (Yuki to hoshi to tenshi to), later reissued as “In the Sunroom” (Sanrūmu nite), a narrative that might be considered the very first example of the new manga genre.23 Hagio followed eleven months later in the same magazine with “November Gymnasium” (Jūichigatsu no gimunajiumu).24 Both works feature schoolboys in romantic relationships with other schoolboys in historical European settings. These were not their debut pieces, however. Takemiya had published her first work while still a high-school student in 1967 and Hagio in 1969. Their earlier manga had been good enough to catch the attention of editors, but the works them- selves were neither memorable nor groundbreaking. Neither initially had set out to create narratives about homosexuality, and both would go on to cre- ate many other kinds of narratives, including science fiction, mysteries, and heterosexual romance narratives—a diversity typical of shōjo manga artists of their generation. But those first two shōnen’ai narratives, as well as the pair’s wildly popular later shōnen’ai works, Hagio’s The Heart of Thomas (Tōma no shinzō, 1974) and Takemiya’s The Song of the Wind and the Trees (Kaze to ki no uta, 1976–1984) (figures 3.2 and 3.3), would help pave the way for a shōnen’ai manga boom in the 1970s and beyond, as well as the emergence of amateur works toward the end of the decade and the flourishing of the com- mercial boys love genre since the 1990s.25
The fact that Takemiya and Hagio both produced male–male romance narratives less than a year apart from each other and would go on to pen two of the most influential shōnen’ai works was no coincidence. The pair were roommates for several years, having moved in together right around the time Takemiya published “Snow and Stars and Angels and. . .,” when Hagio came to help Takemiya meet a deadline on another project. They lived in a small apartment “surrounded by a cabbage patch” in Ōizumi, in Tokyo’s Nerima Ward. Their neighbor was Masuyama Norie (1950–), who was soon thereaf- ter to become Takemiya’s producer, roommate, and muse—or, in Takemiya’s words, her “brain” (bureen).26 Under the guidance of Masuyama, Takemiya and Hagio’s apartment became the “Ōizumi Salon,” where up-and-coming shōjo manga artists, assistants (generally aspiring artists themselves), and oth- ers would gather and work, eat, or chat, sometimes staying over for extended periods.27
Masuyama introduced the pair to some of her favorite books and played a pivotal role in the development of the shōnen’ai genre. Although she was not a visual artist herself, Masuyama was an avid consumer from childhood of highbrow literature, classical music, and film. While she was a fan of manga as well, as she explains, her disappointment with shōjo manga instilled in her a desire to elevate shōjo manga from its lowly position as a frivolous distrac- tion for girls into a more serious, literary art form. Drawn to the talents of Takemiya and Hagio, Masuyama recommended to the pair various works of highbrow music, cinema, and literature in the hope of inspiring them to incorporate elements of these into their own art.28
Among the works Masuyama suggested to Takemiya and Hagio were German novelist Herman Hesse’s Beneath the Wheel (1906), Demian (1919), and Narcissus and Goldmund (1930). All three novels feature adolescent male protagonists in school environments in Germany. While none of the three depict overt homoeroticism—in fact, romantic or erotic relationships with female characters help drive their plots—their narratives all revolve around strong bonds between the protagonist and another youth or, in the case of Narcissus and Goldmund, a young teacher. Masuyama never directly suggested that Takemiya and Hagio make a manga version of one of these novels, yet the texts played a pivotal role in the development of shōnen’ai.29
Drawing on her own interviews with Masuyama and Takemiya, as well as existing essays and commentary by Takemiya and Hagio, Ishida shows that these novels proved vital source material for key early shōnen’ai works, helping to inspire the boarding school settings common in early works, the focus on the psyches of the protagonists, and the relative balance between the more masculine and the more feminine protagonists.30 Ishida further argues that Takemiya in particular draws on latent romance and eroticism between some male characters in Hesse’s writing, “emphasiz[ing] a tendency in Hesse’s works.”31
From the opening scene of two adolescent boys having sex, the overt erot- icism of Takemiya’s The Song of the Wind and the Trees goes far beyond any- thing possibly read into Hesse’s novels, however. This can in part be traced to the eroticized beautiful boys celebrated in the writing of Inagaki Taruho, which reached its climax in his Aesthetics of Boy Loving (Shōnen’ai no big- aku), the work which almost certainly inspired the name of the new genre.32 As Takemiya recalls, by the time she finished reading Taruho’s book, around 1969, she had developed a clear idea about what she wanted to depict in the manga that would eventually become The Song of the Wind and the Trees.33 British public schools are frequently referenced in Aesthetics of Boy Loving, “so the first thing I decided was to make a public school-like place the setting for The Song of the Wind and the Trees.”34 Yet, it merits noting, the manga’s setting is not a British public school, nor an early-twentieth-century Ger- man one, as depicted in Hesse’s novels, but a boarding school in nineteenth- century France.
Hagio, on the other hand, did set her two early shōnen’ai narratives in German boarding schools. And yet she credits the 1964 French film Les am- itiés particulières (These Special Friendships), first shown in Japan in 1970, as the inspiration for The Heart of Thomas, which she had begun working on before “November Gymnasium.”35 Based on a semi-autobiographical novel by Roger Peyrefitte, the film depicts two boys in a Catholic boarding school who fall in love and ends with the suicide of one of them.36 This suicide that would be echoed by the titular character in The Heart of Thomas, whose name is given a Japanese pronunciation—“Tōma”—based on the French, not German, version of the name Thomas. Takemiya was also inspired by cinema with homoerotic themes. She recalls being initially most influenced by the films of Italian director Luchino Visconti, including Death in Venice (1971), based on Thomas Mann’s early-twentieth-century novel. This film had many fans among shōnen’ai readers as well and was frequently mentioned in correspondence from young female readers printed in the shōnen’ai-related magazine Allan.37 In this Occidentalist blurring of all things European, Ha- gio, Takemiya, and other artists borrowed freely from settings, characters, and plot elements, transfiguring into the new genre of shōnen’ai the often nostalgic depictions of intimate friendships, as well as romantic and erotic relationships between beautiful European boys in translated literature and film, and in Taruho’s writing.
November 27, 2024
I don't have access to the whole thing but did manage to read "In the Sunroom" which apparently features the earliest M/M kiss in manga, with Takemiya being one of the names to popularise Shonen-Ai down the road. Pretty cool - this isn't a story which contains a lot of depth since it's quite short and wraps far too briefly and a little overdramatically (it's an early gay love story afterall! And this must have been fairly scandalous in Japan in its own way), but the basics are there and there's some heavy symbolism going on with the sunroom and mirrors and the knife. Mostly, though, there's something deeply refreshing seeing beautiful boy manga drawn in that feminine Shoujo style, with flowers denoting beauty and male bodies undressed and graceful. Manga is great.
April 10, 2025
parental advisory:
suggestive themes,suicide and age gap relationships.
full review soon*
suggestive themes,suicide and age gap relationships.
full review soon*
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews