Culture clash: superhero fandom in Japan

[leahandillyana]

To say that the Big Two are unpopular in Japan is an understatement – it is probably easier to find fans of Year 24 Group than of superheroes. Nonetheless, they exist, and while most of fancomics are shorts published on pixvid and people who do publish printed superhero doujinshi do it on a once a time basis, there’s one artist specializing in DCU doujinshi – Izumi Yakumo. Before reading further, please keep in mind that I’ll discuss very triggering material regarding sexual abuse, so please enter only if you feel comfortable about it.

Les Enfants de Minuit is a tankobon (140 pages long) sized doujinshi chronicling Griotte’s (Yakumo’s fandom nickname)take on Dick’s journey from leaving Bruce to becoming Batman himself. In her version, Dick is in love with Bruce, so the book is full of angst first for his love not being returned and then for Bruce being dead. It also perfectly showcases the culture clash between Japanese and Western fandoms.
For Japanese audiences, Dick in the story is a feisty neko (queer Japanese slang combining Western notions of a bottom, sub and femme). For Western audiences, he is a serial rapist: his break up with Bruce being a result of a night of passion implied to not have been consensual on Bruce’s part, and later he has sex with canonically aged Damian. The author’s Clark/Bruce and Roy/Dick doujinshi are written in similar spirit, with feisty nekos and sadistic tachis (dom/top/masc). She also writes hentai doujinshi featuring female DCU characters, but I’m unfamiliar with those.
Below I present the epilogue of Les Enfants de Minuit, showcasing the gorgeous art and ensemble cast. Translated by Divine Squids and the Tales of the Sea.

Comments

[deh_tommy]

Ugh, no offence meant to anyone or the clear talent of Ms. Yakumo here, but Batman x Batfam pairings always give me the heebie jeebies.

I think the idea of what a superhero is largely depends on one’s cultural upbringing. If you were to ask someone from, say, the U.K. or the U.S. what a superhero is they’d probably say someone like Batman or Spider-Man, but if you asked someone in Japan they’d probably point you to characters like Goku or the Super Sentai.

[reveen]

I dunno, in Japanese the fact that Goku is kind of an asshole who only cares about fighting regardless of the consequences to the world around him is highlighted way more than in English.

And as evidenced by stuff like MHA Japanese pop culture gets American style superheroes. It's just that Big Two comics are kind of a mess to get into even when you read English as a first language.

[locuatico]

I remember someone making some weird claim that the difference between japanese heroes and american heroes is that Japanese heroes are the kind who are all about politiness and would be helping grandmas cross the street while americans heroes are not.

It did not take me long to point out that description sounded more like Superman than Goku...

[reveen]

Yeah, that just sounds completely ass-backwards. If anything a manga is more likely to have a protagonists who's some variety of asshole or have some kind of weird morally amoral values system than an equivalent American comic by a wide margin.

[deh_tommy]

Case in point, Goku.

[locuatico]

from what I understand, Spider-man is not that far from japan's idea of a superhero. I mean, given it had multiple (preeeeetty bad) manga adaptations, I would think the character has appeal to japanese audiences.

Goku, I don't even know if they consider a "Superhero" the same way they would Kamen Rider or Super Sentai. I mean... do people call He-Man a Superhero? (not the best example, I know)

[bravest_spinja]

Especially as Dragonball started off as a kind of Into the West pastiche with kid kid heroes--I think giving Goku a vaguely "superhero" origin and making the characters able to fly under their own power made it more comparable to American superheroes, but it was all a pretty gradual process.

[tcampbell1000]

My Hero Academia seems pretty relevant here.

And I shut down reading this as soon as I got to "Dick is in love with Bruce." I know slash writers often have to work with crumbs, but can we agree that father-son romance (even if the son is fully grown) are pretty much always a bad idea?

[zachbeacon]

MHA basically just took the costumes from Western superheroes. Everything else seems more like Sailor Moon* or s-CRY-ed than the Justice League or X-Men. Heck, it's more like Harry Potter with the occasional tournament arc than the Avengers.

*More the high school stuff than the magic space goddess stuff ... though I guess One For All kinda fits there.

[tcampbell1000]

Not quite sure I follow. The vibe is very different, yes, and the whole conceit of heroes going to a mainstream school and being widely integrated with the community is like nothing the West has done since the Gardner Fox days. But does that mean the series doesn't "count" as superhero fiction? At what point exactly does a series lose that classification? (The characters use the word "hero" self-descriptively like 800 times, that has to count for something...)

[zachbeacon]

I think I may have made some incorrect assumptions here. I thought we were talking about the "vibe".

I thought you were using MHA as a counter to the argument that Japan doesn't care for western superheroes.

I was saying that MHA really doesn't owe that much to Marvel or DC once you get past All Might superficially being the love child of Superman and Captain America. MHA is absolutely superhero fiction but it doesn't have much in common with western superhero fiction. Its sensibilities are very Japanese and that's WHY it's home country embraces it more than Batman or whatever.

Granted Japan seems to have a weird relationship with western superheroes in general. Sure Dragon Ball started as a modern day Journey to the West but its hard not to see the Superman influence once the DBZ "Goku is an alien" retcon comes along. Then you have the "Great Saiyaman" (who love even though the show clearly treats Gohan as a big doofus for thinking this was a good idea).

[ozaline]

Now I've never lived in Japan and haven't studied this specially... so these are just some outsider observations, to be taken with a grain of salt.

I've certainly seen multiple anime make some references to American superheroes, even before the MCU. and I know Supergirl (84) did quite a bit better at the Japanese box office than the American ones.

Taking a cursory look at this website https://www.the-numbers.com/movies/franchise/Marvel-Cinematic-Universe#tab=summary There's plenty of MCU movies where Japan is in the top 10 for box office, and plenty where they're pretty far down the list. But it also looks like at it's best it gets about a third the love Star Wars gets ( with the caveat that the numbers are all provided in US dollars)

There's been multiple attempts to make anime for the Japanese market based on Marvel properties (My favourite is Marvel Disk Wars: the Avengers for going for some pretty deep cuts on the Marvel side, but still adhering to the collectibility and paper-rock-scissors format of shows like Pokemon (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5r1SvVqADvY)

There's also stuff like the Marvel/Attack on Titan crossover. While I have no doubt superhero fandom is pretty niche, I don't think the concept itself doesn't work.

On MHA I think like Disk Wars in it's a synthesis of American and Japanese ideas. It very much falls in line with the shounen battle anime, and magical academy themes, but it also isn't just using the super heroes for set dressing. It talks about stuff like superhero registration, and entire notion of "what a hero is." It's certainly "American style Supeheroes through a Japanese lens," but the "American Style Superheroes," is a part of it's identity.

Though yeah I can see Spider-man doing "well," in an anime... the scene of him being trapped under a bunch of rubble and thinking of all the people he'll let down if he doesn't get out? that's pretty much something that shows up in every shounen battle anime ever.

That might be why he was one of the few heroes to maintain total free agency in Disk Wars.

[ozaline]

Oh... since I mentioned Star Wars. MHA is also full of Star Wars references https://www.reddit.com/r/StarWars/comments/6njgwo/my_hero_academia_manga_is_filled_with_star_wars/

[tcampbell1000]

Ozaline's spoken for me in a lot of ways. MHA is definitely not replicating the Marvel formula with just a bit of Japanese sensibility spread finely on top... but it does seem more to me like an East-West fusion than DBZ or other Japanese series, by a considerable margin. As you say, though, it's sometimes hard to trace the chain of influence.

[arilou_skiff]

the "Superhero school" is a well western comics has been doing many, many times (especially Marvel) though. From the original X-men, via the New Mutants, to the next batches of New Mutants, etc.

[zachbeacon]

I never felt the silver age of Xavier's was a "real" school so much as cover but I agree generally that superhero school comics like Generation X, New Mutants, and New X-Men are an established trope.

I still think MHA takes more from other "kids go to offbeat school" series like Naruto, Soul Eater*, and Harry Potter (which is apparently very big in Japan) than it does Marvel and DC.

*I assume Aizawa is also a big David Lynch fan. ;)

[leahandillyana]

Vigilatism is pretty much always a bad idea, yet here we are, dedicating our lives to fictional vigilatism.

[t209]

Same with accountability here.
Comics, especially Marvel, tend to demonize any forms of accountability if you remember Marvel Civil War portrayal of it as "evil thing" (not to mention Iron Man getting away with killing an unarmed black man/Goliath before burying him in chains and tarp and it wasn't portrayed as heinous at all. Granted he got punished in World War Hulk, but it did show the hypocrisy in comics or "why fitting social issues in Superheroes is a bad idea").
Contrast The Boys (where lack of accountability on Super Heroes being portrayed as its major issue with the titular Boys keeping them in line) and My Hero Academia (portraying accountability as a good thing)
Even Outlawed (portraying Gen Z vs. Boomer by demonizing anti-vigilantism and portray that side as cartoonishly evil) even had "accountability is bad" message...by Eve Elwing (a black female sociologist) nonetheless. I even tweeted her about that tone, but no answer yet.

[bravest_spinja]

Nobody's trusted the government since the 70's, and it's kind of a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation. Deputize the heroes or even make them official and they're Military/Law Enforcement propaganda. Have them act without sanctions and they're power fantasies for libertarian reactionaries. Explore the dark side of vigilantism or special ops and you're grimdark and trying to overthink a medium that's supposed to be for kids.

[t209]

Or the issue of trying to use an established franchise like Marvel Universe.
Watchmen, the originator of superhero deconstruction, is its own universe that allowed its message to be done without restraints of continuity (they did deputize the heroes and also happened to include an awful person like the Comedian).