Otomen

Kanno, A. (2009). Otomen (Vol. 1). San Francisco: VIZ Media. ISBN-13: 978-1-4215-2486-2. (Originally published in Japan in 2006.)

Why read this book

Find out what teenage girls in Japan are reading. Check out Otomen, a story about a high school boy who is a super-cool and handsome martial arts expert on the outside but who secretly loves all things girlish.

Plot summary

Since he was a young boy Asuka has liked girlish things, things that are fluffy and sparkling, cute and sweet, things like cooking, sewing, and love stories. This is a problem for his mother, given that his transgender father abandoned the family long ago. She makes Asuka study martial arts (kendo, judo, and karate), where he finds great success, and by the time he’s in high school he’s the coolest guy around – tall, handsome, and quiet. But it’s very painful for him to have to hide his feminine interests, especially when he develops a crush on Ryo, a new girl in school. Her father is a martial arts expert himself, and Ryo is totally into masculine guys. Asuka can’t get close to her without her finding out about his mastery of girlish things, and when she finds out will still want to be his girlfriend?

Critical evaluation

This is the kind of book that reminds us why it is important to step out of our cultural comfort zones as often as possible. There are a lot of gender issues going on here, and they don’t make much sense in the conventional American discourse. What does it mean when a young man loves girlish things, is also a martial arts expert, and tells us he is in love with a girl? How does that package fit together? What does it say about Japanese culture? And what does it say about American culture that it has such a different take on gender?

The gender issues are complicated by the role of a third character, Juta, another high school boy who on the side writes manga for girls. He figures out Asuka’s double nature and befriends Asuka in order to use Asuka as a model in a manga series he is writing (without telling Asuka). Juta is a player, and he laments that he can’t find any girls who are as feminine as Asuka. None of the girls he meets can cook or sew nearly as well as Asuka, for example. “I guess no one like that exists,” he says. “Someone who embodies true femininity the way Asuka-chan does” (p. 124). What’s up with that? An American like myself anticipates that with plot developments like these that Juta is going to fall in love with Asuka’s feminine half and Asuka is going to be happy to find someone who appreciates him that way. Does that prospect even occur to the typical Japanese reader?

About the author

Aya Kanno was born in Tokyo in 1980 and currently works there as a manga writer and artist (Aya Kanno, 2009). She has been publishing manga since 2000. Four volumes in the Otomen series have been published in English, with two more scheduled for early 2010. A live-action television presentation of Otomen began in Japan in August 2009 (Brienza, 2009).

Genre: Graphic fiction, International, Romance

Curriculum ties

Otomen would be great in a gender studies course. Here’s how an Anime News Network review explains the word “Otomen”:

… “otomen” is a Japlish pun that combines the Japanese word “otome” (maiden), with the English word, “men.” A more efficient translation of the title of this romantic comedy … would be something like “She-Man.” (Brienza, 2009)

Book-talking ideas

• Projecting, reading, and discussing the first five pages of the manga would provide a great intro to the story, since it includes an explanation of Asuka’s feminine interests and displays his martial arts expertise when he rescues Ryo from a gang of thugs.

• The section in Chapter 2 where Asuka meets Ryo’s father, a martial arts expert, who pegs Asuka as a sissy and then gets his butt kicked when he challenges Asuka to a judo match, might also pique the interest of potential readers.

Reading level/interest age

The text and graphics make Otomen accessible to both middle school and high school students, but it’s most likely to appeal to young readers already comfortable with manga and, among those, girls more than boys. I’m very curious about how American readers interpret to the gender issues that drive the narrative.

Challenge issues

Given that Otomen is a manga, a format that many adults can't penetrate, I don't think the gender issues would attract the attention of many adults. There’s no violence beyond the occasional comic book martial arts confrontations. There’s a little innocent romance but no sex.

Responses

• Remind the challenger of the policy (in the case of the San Francisco Public Library) to present “all points of view on current and historical issues. Materials should not be proscribed or removed because of partisan or doctrinal disapproval.”

Why I chose to read this book

The group in our class that reported on manga said something about Otomen that made me think it might be a good place to begin checking out Japanese manga.

References

Aya Kanno. (2009, July 13). Wikipedia. Retrieved November 28, 2009, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aya_Kanno

Brienza, C. (2009, February 13). Review: Otomen. Anime News Network. Retrieved November 28, 2009, from http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/review/otomen/gn-1