The book's title: From Impressionism to Anime: Japan as Fantasy and Fan Cult in the Mind of the West.
1st half - narrates 1880s european fascination with Japan (Impressionists, etc) 2nd half - talks about fan culture & anime
Your big part comes up in a chapter called "The 1990s and Beyond: Japanese Fantasy Takes Wing" sub heading "Female Fandom: Yaoi"
although your name comes up in later chapters to reinforce certain things, all of the ideas are introduced here and I've typed out the first part of the section and the whole section on you so you can have instant gratification:
"The sex brings you in but the stories and the art are what keep you." - Tran Nguyen, founder of Drama Queen
Beside shojo manga, another kind of manga (and anime) has helped to capture female fans in the West (and other parts of the world too). This is the so-called yaoi genre, which in recent years has become increasingly popular … [she differentiates it from slash, talks about how it even has it’s own con, and it’s particularly interactive - this goes on for four paragraphs that I’m too lazy to type. Your portion starts with the fifth paragraph.]
I spoke to two fans involved in the translation business, both of whom struck me as remarkable young people with a strong work ethic, creative intelligence, and impressive streak of entrepreneurial enthusiasm. I met “Gabriel” in person. An attractive blond wearing a dark suit, Gabriel sees himself as transgender, but was originally female. He had been working at IBM but found it “boring” and had the good fortune to find employment with a Houston-based translation company known as Drama Queen, which specializes in yaoi. Gabriel became interested in Japan in elementary school when he found a book on the country and later became a fan of anime and manga and watched all the “staples,” such as Neon Genesis Evangelion or Cowboy Bebop. His first major yaoi discover was a series called Yami no matsue, which had not been fully translated. Desiring “instant gratification,” Gabriel started learning Japanese and halfway through his first year of his Japanese language course began translating.
Anyone who has ever struggled with the Japanese language, especially its complex grammar and system of ideograms, will know what an impressive challenge he had taken on. Rather than giving up, as most students might, Gabriel continued, scanning the Japanese manga, whiting out the original language and putting in English.
Eventually, things got easer as he developed more fluency and knowledge, and he ended up translating a five-volume series that helped him land the job at Drama Queen.
When asked what appealed to him about yaoi, Gabriel was very frank, relpying that he liked “the novelty of not having to read about relationships that don’t interest me [i.e., heterosexual ones].” He also mentioned the “aesthetic level,” the pleasure of looking at beautiful boys, “analogous to why guys like lesbian porn.”
Clearly on some level, reading yaoi was a liberating experience and one that was not offered by American culture. Gabriel has also taken a course on Japanese literature and spent two weeks in Japan. While he does not idealize the country (the actual Japanese attitudes toward homosexuality are, in their own way, quite repressive), he did see Japan as much more open to homosexuality, at least on a moral level. His impression of Japan is of a “high energy materialistic society where religion doesn’t have much of a place,” adding, “you don’t see people there getting up in arms about moral issues.”
I also spoke by telephone to Tran Nguyen, Gabriel’s employer and founder of Drama Queen. …
Major thanks for typing all that, katekat! I've done that before, I know what a pain it is. I'd recommend just scanning the excerpts next time if you own a scanner, can borrow a friend's scanner, if you or a friend has a UT login to use the scanners in the 2nd floor of the FAC, etc.
1st half - narrates 1880s european fascination with Japan (Impressionists, etc)
2nd half - talks about fan culture & anime
Your big part comes up in a chapter called "The 1990s and Beyond: Japanese Fantasy Takes Wing" sub heading "Female Fandom: Yaoi"
although your name comes up in later chapters to reinforce certain things, all of the ideas are introduced here and I've typed out the first part of the section and the whole section on you so you can have instant gratification:
"The sex brings you in but the stories and the art are what keep you."
- Tran Nguyen, founder of Drama Queen
Beside shojo manga, another kind of manga (and anime) has helped to capture female fans in the West (and other parts of the world too). This is the so-called yaoi genre, which in recent years has become increasingly popular … [she differentiates it from slash, talks about how it even has it’s own con, and it’s particularly interactive - this goes on for four paragraphs that I’m too lazy to type. Your portion starts with the fifth paragraph.]
I spoke to two fans involved in the translation business, both of whom struck me as remarkable young people with a strong work ethic, creative intelligence, and impressive streak of entrepreneurial enthusiasm. I met “Gabriel” in person. An attractive blond wearing a dark suit, Gabriel sees himself as transgender, but was originally female. He had been working at IBM but found it “boring” and had the good fortune to find employment with a Houston-based translation company known as Drama Queen, which specializes in yaoi. Gabriel became interested in Japan in elementary school when he found a book on the country and later became a fan of anime and manga and watched all the “staples,” such as Neon Genesis Evangelion or Cowboy Bebop. His first major yaoi discover was a series called Yami no matsue, which had not been fully translated. Desiring “instant gratification,” Gabriel started learning Japanese and halfway through his first year of his Japanese language course began translating.
Anyone who has ever struggled with the Japanese language, especially its complex grammar and system of ideograms, will know what an impressive challenge he had taken on. Rather than giving up, as most students might, Gabriel continued, scanning the Japanese manga, whiting out the original language and putting in English.
Eventually, things got easer as he developed more fluency and knowledge, and he ended up translating a five-volume series that helped him land the job at Drama Queen.
When asked what appealed to him about yaoi, Gabriel was very frank, relpying that he liked “the novelty of not having to read about relationships that don’t interest me [i.e., heterosexual ones].” He also mentioned the “aesthetic level,” the pleasure of looking at beautiful boys, “analogous to why guys like lesbian porn.”
Clearly on some level, reading yaoi was a liberating experience and one that was not offered by American culture. Gabriel has also taken a course on Japanese literature and spent two weeks in Japan. While he does not idealize the country (the actual Japanese attitudes toward homosexuality are, in their own way, quite repressive), he did see Japan as much more open to homosexuality, at least on a moral level. His impression of Japan is of a “high energy materialistic society where religion doesn’t have much of a place,” adding, “you don’t see people there getting up in arms about moral issues.”
I also spoke by telephone to Tran Nguyen, Gabriel’s employer and founder of Drama Queen. …
[ok, my fingers hurt]
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I want to read that book now, too.
Major thanks for typing all that, katekat! I've done that before, I know what a pain it is. I'd recommend just scanning the excerpts next time if you own a scanner, can borrow a friend's scanner, if you or a friend has a UT login to use the scanners in the 2nd floor of the FAC, etc.
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