Content material warning: dialogue of historic homophobia, bullying, disordered consuming
Spoilers for River’s Edge
On a cold winter night time, Wakakusa Haruna is led to a subject of goldenrod close to her highschool by her classmate, Yamada Ichiro. As a present of thanks and friendship after she rescued him from bullying, he guarantees to indicate her his “treasure.” The 2 teenagers trek by means of the tall grass till they attain this treasure: a lifeless physique.
This scene serves because the symbolic heart to Okazaki Kyoko’s River’s Edge (1993-1994), the place, regardless of its morbid and nihilistic undertones, the physique is a supply of connection and potential group between three younger folks all disenfranchised for their very own causes: “regular” and seemingly in style woman Haruna, closeted homosexual teenager Yamada, and their underclassmen, younger mannequin Yoshikawa Kozue. The physique and the key of its existence may be interpreted as a logo of their outsiderness, and extra particularly their queerness. Although this sequence is just not primarily mentioned as a queer manga, it does discover and mirror Japan’s “homosexual increase” within the early Nineties, each skewing and addressing modern media tropes. River’s Edge incorporates a vary of queer representations inside its central solid, from frank depictions of closeted life and homophobia to extra ambiguous depictions of attraction, making it a layered piece of LGBTQIA+ media and a strong time capsule of the state of queer illustration and queer life in Japan throughout this era.
Illustration versus Product: Queer Media in Nineties Japan
As outlined by Mark J. McLelland, the homosexual increase in Japan was an increase in public accessibility of queer characters and tales throughout totally different media, from tv, movie, and, specifically, comics. Regardless of the rise in queer characters or tv specials, many have been exaggerated portrayals disconnected from the precise realities of queer life and group. The homosexual increase arrange bigger entry to information, but it surely additionally led to an “elevated variety of discourses” and never “(an) elevated visibility” past media consumption (33).
The homosexual increase additionally coincides with what Mari Nishihara argues is a shift between male-male romance in shoujo manga within the Seventies to the appearance of “boys’ love” within the early Nineties as a industrial style itself. This line of male/male romance manga for ladies additionally aligned with younger girls’s modern consumption of media (73-74). River’s Edge ran in {a magazine} beneath the writer Takarajimasha, which had a number of vogue and leisure magazines that probably coincided with the BL market readership. Although there have been many manga sequence that started or have been ongoing by means of the Nineties that centered round queer relationships, particularly in BL it was widespread to situate plots at a distance in genres like fantasy, sci-fi, or the supernatural like CLAMP’s Tokyo Babylon or Kouga Yun’s Earthian, each printed in Wings; or set them exterior of Japan, akin to Matoh Sanami’s FAKE in Journal Be x Boy or Ragawa Marimo’s New York, New York in Hana to Yume.
The Nineties introduced stand out works nonetheless mentioned to this present day like Takeuchi Naoko’s Sailor Moon and Be-Papas’ Revolutionary Woman Utena (with its manga by Be-Papas member Saito Chiho) that portrayed queer, romantic relationships between ladies, however magazines centered round yuri or “woman’s love” specifically have been restricted till the late Nineties and early 2000s. These works nonetheless provided complexity inside their depictions of same-sex relationships, however they didn’t at all times acknowledge the realities of being queer throughout that point interval.
River’s Edge aligns with a few of the expectations of shoujo publications of its day. It focuses on the teenager ladies’ viewpoint and emphasizes what can be thought-about interesting: characters put on stylish vogue kinds, reference in style beauty manufacturers and tv reveals, and the story follows teen lives with little or no “grownup” presence or affect. Nonetheless, its frank depictions of intercourse, bullying, and the way teenagers felt disconnected to one another represents a much less romantic, extra grounded reflection of recent life that continues to resonate. Particularly, how queer characters are represented past their romantic or sexual relationships, and the way the manga commits to depicting the struggles they could face of their day-to-day lives.
“Once I take a look at it, it offers me braveness.”
River’s Edge performs with commonplace queer media tropes of the time and turns them on their head. Moderately than instantly becoming an exaggerated archetype of a homosexual man, Yamada, in some methods, matches the picture of an idealized teenage boy. He’s good-looking and desired by many women at his faculty and bullied for it by jealous classmates. Haruna initially bonds with him over taking good care of a litter of kittens. The fact of Yamada’s scenario, nevertheless, is then offered: he’s rumored to have been seen holding palms with a boy popping out of Ni-chome (Tokyo’s predominantly LGBTQ district) and is implied to do intercourse work, and he dates classmate Tajima Kanna as a option to conceal his sexuality with out telling her his true emotions, rising extra embittered and merciless to her because the story progresses. Whereas this depiction of the closet and the affiliation of a homosexual character with intercourse scandal could appear to be cliches right now, in context these components are noteworthy for his or her nuance. Yamada is just not an exaggerated tv caricature of a homosexual man, neither is he a romanticized love curiosity—he’s written as a sophisticated coming-of-age protagonist.
The manga additionally acknowledges the media context surrounding these characters and the way that may inform folks’s assumptions about queerness, taking the prospect to rebut some widespread refrains alongside the way in which. Haruna asks private questions on Yamada’s sexual preferences, together with if he makes use of lube “just like the books say,” probably referring to BL or different erotic male/male work she’d learn. This prompts Yamada to counter with equally invasive sexual questions. Yamada calls out her remedy of him, retorting that “It’s impolite of you to go straight into intercourse stuff simply because I’m homosexual. You wouldn’t need somebody springing these questions on you, proper?”. It may be implied such an alternate would even be directed to readers, inviting them to query the potential objectification they commit when speaking to queer folks.
This hidden aspect mirrors the underclassman Yoshikawa: she can be seemingly good and idealized, but regardless of being a well-known mannequin and little one actor increase her profession, she has an consuming dysfunction and—in a queer parallel with Yamada—develops emotions for Haruna as soon as the latter comes into her orbit. Much like Yamada, Yoshikawa holds no attraction to the other intercourse. She’s unimpressed and irritated when she sees a boy and woman have intercourse whereas in her hiding place at college. The comradery she has with Yamada, a boy, is strictly by means of the lifeless physique, the joint object of projection and their shared “treasure.” Not like Yamada, who solely watches the boy he likes from afar, Yoshikawa makes use of the physique as a method of getting nearer to Haruna each emotionally and bodily. There’s a clear affection in how she interacts with the opposite woman, with Yoshikawa placing on a cute demeanor in entrance of Haruna that straight contrasts the feelings of the scene.
Nonetheless, in contrast to the shy admiration or harmless sensuality portrayed in in style yuri manga of the time interval, Yoshikawa is extra complicated. She retains Haruna’s lighter for herself when it results in her possession, invitations Haruna to her home and orders meals in a method much like how Haruna’s boyfriend Kannozaki piles her with presents; however she additionally crosses bodily obstacles and licks the tears off Haruna’s face when she’s making an attempt to console the opposite woman. Yoshikawa is much extra sophisticated than the “predatory lesbian” trope, nor does she match the archetype of a naive and bubbly highschool woman with a crush on her feminine upperclassman, each almost definitely to seem in single-gender faculties as a substitute of River’s Edge’s public faculty setting. In contrast with Yamada’s passive statement of his crush, Yoshikawa takes cost and pursues Haruna romantically, offering a spread of depictions of queer attraction and romance.
“One thing Mysterious. ”
Haruna herself is attention-grabbing in her ambiguous queerness: she befriends and bonds on a deeper stage with Yamada and Yoshikawa than her common faculty pals, and holds ambivalence and disdain for her boyfriend, Kannonzaki (who in flip bullies Yamada extra as a result of he’s threatened by Haruna’s relationship with him). Regardless of the makes an attempt Kannonzaki makes to get her affection, by the manga’s current, Haruna has little to no romantic emotions for him. There’s a related lack of need of their sexual relationship as properly: after they’ve intercourse, Haruna rushes to go watch a TV present she was wanting ahead to, solely to then be confronted with an commercial starring Yoshikawa.
River’s Edge has a number of moments of subtext relating to Haruna’s need in direction of Yoshikawa. One is Haruna’s first encounter with Yoshikawa, the place she overhears the latter having a dialog with the varsity nurse. There’s a close to full web page of panels portraying Yoshikawa and her totally different physique components/options: her legs, her neck, her eyelashes, and so on. There isn’t any direct textual content expressing her attraction, but when readers are supposed to take these snapshots as Haruna’s perspective, there’s an underlying cost in her gaze, even earlier than they’ve spoken to one another.
The second is when Haruna and Yoshikawa share a mattress within the nurse’s workplace. Whereas Yoshikawa is sleeping peacefully beside her, Haruna is left sweating and searching up on the ceiling. She describes the feeling as being “mildly aroused (in a infantile, whimsical, sleeping with-a-kitten type of method)” earlier than instantly saying they’ll “by no means have a sexual connection” as a result of they’re “two straight traces (that) don’t intersect.” The scene takes place earlier than Yoshikawa confesses to Haruna, making it unclear if Haruna is commenting on her personal emotions, or the assumptions she makes about Yoshikawa’s personal needs. Is Haruna as a lot of a “straight line” as she claims, or is it that she has no level of reference as to what queer need may very well be for her in her social and historic context?
Okazaki leaves Haruna’s sexuality as much as interpretation—the climax of River’s Edge cuts her off earlier than she will determine whether or not or not she reciprocates Yoshikawa’s emotions—however in doing so opens the thought for extra fluid interpretations of queerness than manga of the time typically thought-about. River’s Edge makes room for each direct, textual depictions of queer identification and extra subtextual, nuanced ones that don’t present clear solutions however do mirror the messiness of the adolescent expertise. You’ll be able to nonetheless be a teen and never make certain what you need, in spite of everything.
“I imagined these idiots at college by no means would have had the center to dig as deep as we did.”
Haruna is ready to join with Yamada and Yoshikawa on a stage she will’t together with her common pals by means of the key of the physique, the taboo horror of demise permitting them an sudden house exterior of mainstream, well mannered society. Maybe the physique itself turns into a logo of their shared expertise as outsiders: regardless of how they seem to the remainder of the world, they can not deny their distinction. Yoshikawa is seemingly good, however casually brings up with Haruna that she’ll have to go away faculty to do work full-time, regardless that she needed to go to school (and primarily based on her look in Okazaki’s Helter Skelter, she probably by no means will get the prospect to). Her interior anger on the lack of management in her life is finest proven with what she thinks when she seems on the physique: “Serves you proper.” Yoshikawa is ready to vent all of her frustrations with the world into the physique, the truth that it’s lifeless in a world that tries so arduous to maintain up false appearances, and in some methods may mirror her personal hatred of herself for doing the identical factor.
The draw that Yamada and Yoshikawa need to the physique is constructed on the dearth of management each of them have of their on a regular basis lives and their incapacity to overtly categorical their needs, save for after they’re with one another and, later, with Haruna. Shih-Shan Chen and Sho Ogawa argue their obsession with the physique creates an anti-consumerist message towards then-present day Japan. “As a bunch of outcasts, they handle to withstand compliance with the patron tradition of the Nineties that tells them what to need, what to devour, and what to discard” (198). That pushes one other level: if Yamada as a homosexual boy and Yoshikawa as a younger mannequin develop into the product, then what can they eat?
“How We Survive within the Flat Area.”
Okazaki units up a solid of a number of youngsters with intersecting paths that join with or disregard one another, generally with deadly penalties. Regardless of, or maybe as a result of there isn’t any romantic or sexual need between Yamada and Haruna, the pair develop a real bond. The 2 ramble all through the town at night time, speaking and imagining the scent of the close by ocean, even when neither of them can see it. They deal with kittens collectively, play video video games and simply speak. Within the oddness of their relationship, a closeted boy and a “regular” woman are capable of construct group. The rationale why the 2 survive, be it bodily by means of Haruna getting Yamada out of a locker he was trapped in, or emotionally with their closing stroll collectively earlier than Haruna strikes away, is by realizing one another. Of their closing dialog, in contrast with Yamada’s obsession with demise, he tells Haruna that he “likes her alive.” Haruna by no means discloses her undefined needs for Yoshikawa, however their friendship may very well be constructed on recognizing and accepting one another’s queerness, implicitly and explicitly.
However Okazaki can not think about this solidarity and group as lasting, with the ever current strain of society hanging over the pair. Regardless of the prolonged absence of adults on this story, as youngsters they’re nonetheless pressured to observe their whims. There is no such thing as a argument or confrontation, Haruna merely accepts her mom’s resolution to maneuver and helps her pack. There’s additionally no sense that Haruna and Yamada will stay in contact after Haruna strikes. Although it is not uncommon that queer teenagers can solely reside “authentically” as soon as they’re adults, Okazaki appears to be pessimistic concerning the future primarily based on the tone of this ending. The appropriative and exoticizing gaze on queer folks in Nineties Japan displays how the 2 can solely bond when they’re hidden from statement. Such bonds can solely be short-term on this story, on this place, within the flat subject by the river’s edge.
Right this moment, manga has pushed past tales of fantasy and/or melancholy for queer characters, particularly teenagers. Kamatani Yuhki’s Our Goals at Nightfall is ready to broaden on and focus on queer group constructing and intergenerational friendships that River’s Edge doesn’t. Tasuku and Misora speak overtly with one another about their questions relating to sexuality and gender in contrast with the one dialog Yamada and Haruna have. Nakatani Nio’s Bloom into You is a manga that facilities across the complicated and growing emotions between highschool ladies, centered round a lady who’s not sure about exploring her needs (or potential lack thereof). There are various extra obtainable manga which might be capable of think about brighter futures for his or her queer characters alongside the realities of fighting societal expectations and your identification as an adolescent. Nonetheless, River’s Edge continues to be a piece that shined a light-weight on the complexities of queer expertise that almost all manga of its time couldn’t present, and stays an necessary a part of the historical past of queer manga.
