Fujoshi kanojo 腐女子 (“Fujoshi girlfriend”) is a new movie based on a blog by “Pentabu” that rode the original post-moe fujoshi boom to bestselling book status a few years ago. (Pentabu is currently blogging part 2.) I don’t have anything in particular to say about the movie itself, but the way it is being marketed is an excellent example of how the media misunderstands — or at least misrepresents — fujoshi.

Media treatment of the fujoshi concept has always been problematic. The root of the problem is, as usual, otaku culture. When the Akiban hordes first spread across the steppes of the mass media, triumphant cat emoticons unfurled, they brought their own women with them: maids, underground idols, voice actresses, cosplayers, and underage cartoon characters. That virtually all of these women were either personae played for cash or entirely imaginary did not prevent these ideals of womanhood establishing themselves in the public mind as a badly-needed feminine yin to Akibacentric otaku culture’s hypertrophied yanginess.

As a result, when media attention eventually turned to actual fujoshi, the elevator pitch — “They’re otaku, except girls!” — was more or less accurate (granting a broad reading of “otaku”), but the implications were misunderstood. If fujoshi were girl otaku, they must be the girls usually appearing alongside otaku in those TV specials and magazine articles, right? You know — the maids.

But no. As you might expect, although fujoshi and otaku often turn to the same texts for raw cultural material, they have very little to do with each other as cultural actors. There are fujoshi stores in Akihabara, but the main fujoshi center is in Ikebukuro — and it developed around a core of bookstores, not transistor hustlers.

“fujoshi syndicate”, a group of self-described “fujoshi OLs” from Tokyo (the only named member is one Ōta Maki 大田真樹) address this exact point in their recent book Naze, fujoshi wa danson-johi na no ka?『なぜ、腐女子は男尊女卑なのか？』 (“Why are fujoshi male chauvinists?”), discussing the cover of another book from 2007: Bokutachi no ki ni naru fujoshi 『僕たちの気になる腐女子』 (“Those fascinating fujoshi”), which also featured maid imagery on the cover.

Let’s start with the “face” of the book, its cover. The cover of Bokutachi no ki ni naru fujoshi is a girl in a maid outfit. — So at this point, it’s already failed. It’s true that there are a few fujoshi among the girls working in Akihabara’s maid cafes, but most of the staff there are not fujoshi but “Akiba girls” (アキバ系女子).

What are “Akiba girls”? By this we mean girls who love the anime and manga subcultures, but who also go to Akihabara to be made a fuss of. [...] They are otaku, but they don’t do the earthy “Let’s party, just us girls!” thing; they’re on good terms with male otaku too. One representative example would be Nakagawa Shōko (Shokotan).

In other words, otaku girls who wear maid outfits are not part of fujoshi culture, but rather Akiba culture. [...]

The syndicate then relate an apparently true story about how they once asked a maid cafe employee where they could find Messe Sanoh, a specialist retailer of woman’s video games, and that maid didn’t know: incontrovertible proof that she, at least, was no fujoshi.

The fujoshi syndicate actually spend more of Naze, fujoshi wa on this and other misconceptions of fujoshi by non-fujoshi (especially men) than they do on the title question. One argument they keep returning to is that the cosplaying, go-shujin-sama-ing media fujoshi addresses a deep psychological need within post-Bubble men. High salary, highly respected alma mater, and physical height: two of these three Bubble-traditional status markers are much harder to obtain than they used to be, and the idea of a secret caste of women — maybe there are some right there in your office! — who prefer the company of low-status, sensitive, intellectual types, and will even play along with their fantasies — this is bound to have appeal.

(Ironically, argue fujoshi syndicate, real fujoshi are just as status-conscious as ever, and have no interest in otaku as a rule. The syndicate traces this state of affairs to fujoshi reading material and its emphasis on status and power differentials as a source of eroticism.)

The argument here is not that there aren’t any otaku women who genuinely enjoy cosplay and Akiba culture, or that this is somehow inauthentic. Arguments about terminology and authenticity are a dead end. The question is to what extent the prominence given to these individuals impedes understanding of broader “fujoshi culture.” There is also arguably a political element involved: you can see this as the co-option of the idea of the fujoshi to reinforce sociosexual norms, the replacement of a uniquely female culture identity with one defined only in relation to male interests.

Unfortunately, though, it’s not a fair fight. As long as keen interests in fancifully-depicted gay romance and other distinguishing features of non-Akiba fujoshi don’t show up in photos, the media will always prefer the women dressed as frilly maids.

After winning the grand prize at the Montreal World Film Festival and the bid to become Japan’s submission to the best foreign film category in the Oscars, Okuribito (『おくりびと』, English title: Departures) is fulfilling the promises of its ad copy to become the best film of the year. A sweeping fish-out-of-water tale depicting the esoteric practices of the Japanese nōkanshi (納棺士) — an undertaker who places bodies into coffins at funeral ceremonies — the film’s warmhearted depiction of death may have appealed strongly to older audiences, who no doubt helped the film’s box-office figures surge past ¥2.7 in sales (as of Nov. 2). But while director Takita Yojiro’s Okuribito may be Shochiku’s nod to the popularity of the nostalgic weepie — previously revived by the Always: Sunset On Third Street franchise — the former can be argued to be an escapist, fantasy picture geared towards disenchanted, young Japanese urbanites. As the effects of the country’s aging population and declining birthrate manifest more sharply in Japan’s rural areas, Okuribito makes a pretty convincing case that young aspirants may want to head for the countryside in search of love, comfort, and even dignity.

Okuribito’s hero, Kobayashi Daigo (Motoki Masahiro), begins as a professional cellist, the kind of passion-over-practicality man-child that epitomizes the post-Bubble generation. His dream is shuttered when his orchestra disintegrates due to financial problems. With no way to continue living in the city, let alone pay off the substantial loan he has foolishly racked up for a cello he cannot afford, Daigo sells his beloved instrument and packs up his post in Tokyo with his wife Mika (Hirosue Ryoko). Yet what awaits them in Daigo’s home city of Sakata, Yamagata Prefecture is far from disillusionment and resentment. Daigo and Mika fall into the loving embrace of the lush Shonai plains, and neighbors welcome the arrival of the young couple, doling out comical idiosyncrasies and words of wisdom like delicate morsels of food. Although Daigo is oblivious to the real destination of the “departures” when he answers a want-ad for a “travel” agency, he ends up finding himself a life-affirming career ushering people to the afterlife.

In the film Daigo and Mika fit the mien of modern-day married couples in their late twenties to early thirties. Mika, introduced as a web designer can work from anywhere, keeps up her job in Yamagata, now punctuated by breaks in her front yard where she breathes in the fresh air wafting from the snow-capped mountains. Daigo, though seemingly bothered by a dream cut short, is emblematic of his generation in that he knows how to temper his ambition so as not to let it distract from his wish to go with the flow of life. The peculiarity of Okuribito is found in the couple’s smooth transition to the countryside — not one complaint about a lack of city-like convenience or stalled Wi-Fi installation. Plenty of films in the past have espoused the regenerative effects of small-town warmth and humility. Western films in the vein of Lonesome Jim, Elizabethtown, or Garden State often include young men defeated by big cities, whose resistance to their hometowns is slowly chiseled away until the day they are rejuvenated enough to head back. Yet Daigo and Mika are unique in their willingness to surrender and to settle. In a scene where Daigo parts with his cello in a store in Tokyo, he admits in a voice-over: “As soon as I sold off my cello, I felt as if a weight had been lifted.”

Okay, Okuribito may be a fantasy, further evidenced by the kind of environment, people, and careers the film showcases as the bounties of rural life. The home that Daigo and Mika inhabit is not an old-fashioned nagaya row house but a jazz café-turned-izakaya owned by his late mother, where choice LP records and exposed wood beams create a stylish atmosphere. During the location scout, director Takita and his crew scavenged the Yamagata prefecture for “things that will eventually pass on,” and the result is a film with strategically placed anachronisms like old bathhouses. When Daigo finds his worn, kids-size cello in the house and starts playing it against the sprawling mountainscape of Yamagata, one becomes convinced that the Joe Hisaishi’s scoring has never sounded better.
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Wakamatsu Kōji’s latest film 『実録・連合赤軍：浅間山荘への道程』 (The True Story of the United Red Army: the Road to Asama-Sansō) is probably the final and definitive cinematic retelling of the United Red Army (URA) story. In early 1972, the URA terrorist cell achieved infamy for killing off twelve of its own members during ideological training and then battling police from the inside of a mountain lodge near Nagano’s Mt. Asama. Over the course of three hours, Wakamatsu covers the group’s entire history from their formation and eventual arrest, moving the viewer through a brief history of the student movement, the internecine fighting accompanying the foundation of the Red Army Faction (赤軍派), the brutal lynching of fellow members in its secret mountain training lodge, and the final standoff at Asama-Sansō.

Telling the “full” story of such a fractured and complex set of events forces Wakamatsu to use a no-frills “docudrama” approach, including plenty of on-screen text and voice-over narration. The story could not fit neatly into the conventional three-act film. Almost none of the Red Army members survive or stay free of police custody long enough to act as an emotional anchor or arch-villain for the entire three hours. Some characters are little more than historical bookmarks; for example, future Japanese Red Army leader Shigenobu Fusako shows up in the forward to bond with future URA victim Tōyama Mieko, but soon leaves for Lebanon to found the “international wing” of the Red Army. Likewise, Red Army founder and philosopher Shiomi Takaya is arrested in the first hour and taken completely out of the central story. But so goes the actual history.

Wakamatsu and fellow soft-porn filmmaker Adachi Masao were both Red Army sympathizers and chronicled the early proto-Japanese Red Army / Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine Lebanon training camps in their 1971 documentary 『赤軍PFLP世界戦争宣言』Red Army-PFLP Declaration of War. In the last few years, both have apparently felt the need to create new films reflecting on the ’70s Japanese leftist terrorism. Adachi’s lackluster 『幽閉者テロリスト』Prisoner / Terrorist told the story of Lod Airport Massacre attacker Okamoto Kozo losing his mind in Israeli jail. With multiple Japanese fictional films about the United Red Army’s self-destruction already in circulation, however, it may seem odd that Wakamatsu went to such lengths to make yet another film on the topic. He has specifically stated a need to correct falsehoods in the 2002 film 『突入せよ！浅間山荘事件』(Choice of Hercules), which tells the story of the Asama-Sansō hostage crisis from the perspective of law enforcement. Wakamatsu protege Takahashi Banmei’s 2001 film 『光の雨』(Rain of Light) , on the other hand, very skillfully visualizes the horrific URA training deaths, but somewhat tempers it with a distancing meta-approach where the actors are shown “adapting” the novel that lends the film’s name. Although there are slight discrepancies between Takahashi and Wakamatsu’s versions, both generally work from the same historical chronicles and hit the same notes. Wakamatsu’s only real addition is combining the lynchings with the Asama-Sansō tale in a single epic-length film.

The other notable film to pick up the United Red Army narrative is 『鬼畜大宴会』 (Banquet of the Beasts) — Kumakiri Kazuyoshi’s ultra-gory mondo-horror retelling of the early ’70s student movement disintegration — where post-gunshot head-wounds spew blood, men are castrated with knives, and limbs are frequently severed. Beyond twisting this important historical event into purely prurient content, Kumakiri does the URA story great disservice by recasting the event’s true horror — the legitimatization of comrade purging through Marxist utopian ideology — into the result of the evil female leader’s growing “insanity.” When the stand-in for female URA leader Nagata Hiroko is killed late in the movie (by brutal means which I never want to think about again), Kumakiri gives viewers the karmic revenge they ultimately desire. (The historical URA denouement is not so rewarding: sadistic leaders Nagata and Mori were unceremoniously arrested before the Asama-Sansō siege even starts. Mori’s later suicide is always reduced to an afterword.)
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A mini-documentary about sexual assault on the Tokyo subway.

(If you have trouble viewing video in our lightbox player, please go directly to the video here.)

Directed by Ian Lynam
Research by Ariki Rie
Featuring Ito Aki
Music by Copy (courtesy of Audio Dregs)

My friend pulled some truly punk rock ingenuity, learned from years of bunking down with crusties and sketchy West Coast kids. In MacGuyver-like fashion, he injected a nearly-parched inkjet cartridge with rubbing alcohol in order to coax out enough ink to print both of our invites to the Nike SB Nothing But the Truth video premiere. Even though I didn’t witness my friend’s feat of Yankee can-do spirit, his simple retelling ended up being the most interesting event of the evening.

Located amongst love hotels and gauche rock clubs, the theater used for the video premiere is a stark futurist slab with concrete façade — a venue more inclined towards reprints of Chomsky’s Manufacturing Consent than commercial skateboard hype. Apart from the extravagance of Nike’s promotional crew renting out a theater in Shibuya, there wasn’t as much flash and pop as I expected. Nothing like the Shanghai premiere with ramps, several of the SB team, and a bouquet of scantily-attired girl-hires. Maybe the budget had already been blown on the video itself, and the remaining green would get further cashed out in RMB rather than yen. That’s casino capitalism doubled down: marketing and venture commerce + faddish extreme sports = bloody consequences for bad judgment.

The subdued crowd of style-fiends in expensive denim and fitted T’s with requisite 59 caps and unscratched boards seemed nonplussed by the chic theater, and this indifference hung thick in the auditorium air. Two kids sat quietly beside me, rocking a pair of expensively-swooshed windbreakers cut and patterned from a 1980’s steroid-muscle beach aesthetic. They murmured “hot” or “amazing” or “scary” as key moments of physical jeopardy and triumph blazed across the screen.

Skaters in the video rocked-and-rolled and proved street credentials with tricky flips done switch over (requisite) gaps or big flips over handrails to waiting embankments. The filming relied on pre-lit environments and careful choreography while the edits were fast and clean. It left the skaters sanitized and ironically unremarkable in their consummate displays of rare skill. Nike SB has labored to infuse their brand insurgency with legitimacy, but their image-crafting gets in the way of actually revealing how skaters perform split-second miracles through careful calculation and control. Besides Chet Childress’ scenes and a few sequences shot on scarred and barely-ridable concrete highway barriers, the skating itself was mostly a series of predictable set-pieces which belie the risks and intensity of finding spots and dialing them in.
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