tatterpunk’s Reviews > Passionate Friendship: The Aesthetics of Girl’s Culture in Japan > Status Update

You literally give NO INSIGHT into "girlhood in Japan." Magazine statistics and art styles are all you have. No ethnographic study whatsoever.

... aaaand that's it! That's the end. The rest is just bibliography, endnotes, and even the author bio is included to beef up the page count to 181. And that's after so. Many. Pages given over to reproducing art and manga.

Overpadded thesis INDEED.

The not-like-other-girls attitude is... CLAMP is cool, Naoko Takeuchi is only popular because she ripped of a "male" superhero model. Also sneers at Banana Yoshimoto, who is "shoujo-themed" SO MANY OF HER HEROINES ARE QUEER, SHAMOON.

Shamoon if I ever met you in the street I would yell at you for like, half an hour.

Argues shoujo is not inherently feminist, which, yeah. Doesn't mean it is NEVER feminist, or CAN'T be feminist... and we haven't defined feminism via the Japanese tradition. SHAMOON JUST DID THE THING SHE HATES, where she accuses people of "projecting" Western identity politics out of cultural context!

'What is it about shoujo manga that speaks so powerfully to girls?' Literally never addressed in the entire book.

Shamoon quotes actual reader letters which explain that "pure" love can also contain sexual activity.

THIS FUCKING BOOK.

The ultimate expression of Oscar and Andre's love is the comparison to the twins Castor and Pollux. Except when it's GIRLS, the "sister" thing can't possibly be romantic.

... see? It's exhausting.

Shamoon backs up the "still homogender" argument because Ikeda draws them "alike" as the romance progresses. What this really means is Andre initially wears his hair pulled back and was drawn "younger," later they are both given "mature" features and wear their hair down. Wow. What penetrating analysis.

To my infinite amusement Shamoon insists Oscar and Andre have a "homogender" relationship as a masculine woman and a "feminine" man. (Really? A disabled war hero?) So their cis identities don't matter and a romance of uncompromised individuals is the true, adult expression of love, YOU CIRCLE BACK AROUND TO BEING GAY AGAIN, AND THE GAYS STILL WIN.

Yes, I'm being silly. It's a silly book with circular logic.

Notes Oscar has both masculine and feminine identities, canonically... draws no further conclusions. :/ Oscar is cis, therefore a woman, end of.

Shamoon's blindness = "loss of masculinity" deserves a lot more unpacking and/or citation. As-is it reads as incredibly ableist.

Interesting note how Andre became a fan favorite by taking on the stereotypical "female" role of pining, while Oscar remained uninterested. Shamoon cites someone else in noting how reader alliance didn't fall along "gender lines" for ROV and it deserves more scrutiny than it gets here.

Riyoko Ikeda was a member of the Communist Party? HELL yeah.

Also, if S relationships were so preferred as to be projected onto BL manga, the audience pushback Shamoon quotes against Rosalie doesn't make any sense. Like, yes the pushback existed, but I doubt for the reasons she provides as context.