Arigatotte Ietanara: Yukari Takenami

I found a new bookstore! That in and of itself is perhaps not the biggest deal. As I mentioned only last week, this is Tokyo and there is a bookstore on nearly every corner. But not every bookstore is equal. Some are too small to carry much beyond the latest issue of One Piece and the most recent Akutagawa Prize winners. Some are overly niche-y in a niche I have no interest in, like the Shosen Grandé in Akihabara and its “train lovers’ holy land.” Naturally, I will still happily wander through the aisles of such bookstores—just being surrounded by all those pages with their many messages is so comforting—but my favourite bookstores are, of course, the ones that cater to my own weird nerdiness. Sometimes, all a bookstore needs to be is really big. But every so often, I will stumble across a cosy little place that offers maximum discovery potential in the minimum of space, which is the case of the bookstore I found last week in Koenji.

Half the small shop was taken up by manga, most of it pretty standard, but the random stuff was so deeply random! I was greeted by so many titles I’d never even heard of. And they had sample readers for more than half of those manga, so you can check out all these random treats and see if any of them suit your refined palette. The other half of the place was mostly bunkobon, with a smattering of art, philosophy, and other bits and bobs (I got a book about Japanese women’s prison! Yes, we’ll be talking about it at some point in the future!). And the shop itself was warm and inviting with wood shelves everywhere in islands instead of aisles and a raised section that allowed you to look out over the rest of the shop like a queen surveying her queendom of books. I was very happy there, and it is now where I want my ashes scattered when I die.

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Momo no Kikikajiri: Machiko Kyo

As always, my favourite thing about being back in Tokyo is being able to pop into a bookstore whenever and wherever I want, unlike in Toronto, where I have to make a specific trip to find books. But Tokyo is just littered with the things. Books everywhere! My second favourite thing, though, might be getting to go to tiny art shows in tiny event spaces. I always like to stop in at the Sanyodo on the corner when I’m in Omotesando; they usually have an exhibit by an artist I’ve never heard of on the second floor. Plus books on the first floor! Vanilla Gallery in Ginza is always good for strange erotic art and half the time (it seems) they’re having an Usamaru Furuya show. But mostly, I end up popping in on random shows that get tweeted into my timeline from some part of the Japanese twittersphere. Sometimes, I have no idea what part that might be, but other times, it’s an artist I follow. Which is obviously the most exciting kind of random show.

The recent Machiko Kyo show at Title was one such exhibit. It closed a couple days after I arrived, but I managed to fight back my jetlag for long enough to make the trek to Ogikubo and look at some of her original pages for her Sennen Gaho + 10 Years. It was perhaps the tiniest of tiny art shows I’ve ever been to; there were maybe twelve pieces on display. The larger part of the small space was taken up with merchandise, which is the way of all Japanese shows. And like a good consumer, I did my part, picking up yet another clear file (what am I going to do with all these clear files??) among other things, but they also had a solid selection of Kyo’s back catalogue set out. We all know that my brain is a fan, so there wasn’t much there we hadn’t already battled. But then my eyes caught sight of Momo, a full-colour treat that was serialized at Hanatsubaki and wrapped up earlier this year. A treat my brain had not battled yet. So naturally, I grabbed the two slim volumes and headed to a café to dig in.

Mukui wa Mukui, Batsu wa Batsu: Takehito Moriizumi

In preparation for my imminent return to the land of sweaty summer (by the time you read this, I will already be sweating through all my clothes and trying to get my Japan summer legs back), I’ve been trying to read through the stack of books that comprise the unscalable Mount Bookstoberead. It’s hard to enjoy wandering through my favourite bookstores and buying new books when the spectre of the books I’ve already bought looms so large. Mostly, this has meant digging into the latest volumes of ongoing series that I’m already reading (Never stop being incredible, Tongari Boshi no Atelier!), but as my good luck would have it, the second and final volume of Moriizumi’s Mukui wa Mukui, Batsu wa Batsu arrived in the most recent package of books, which meant that I could finally read the first volume and devour the story all in one go.

This story was planned as complete in two volumes right from the start, and knowing that, I figured I’d rather read it as one because I am incredibly prone to forgetting the smaller details of plots over time. I also wait to read slower moving longer series, too (I’m looking at you, Dead Dead Demons) because after six months, I can’t remember why anyone is really doing any of the little things they’re doing to further the larger broad strokes of the plot that I actually remember. This is why I keep spreadsheets of the longer running series that I translate. With something like the glacial release schedule of Blue Morning, I can barely remember the characters’ names by the time I get a new volume to translate.

Otokonoko Doshi Renaichu: Kaoru Oshima/Fumiko Fumi

For the past few years, there’s been this bubbling undercurrent of fascination with the “otokonoko” in Japan. I think it’s always been hanging around the edges of BL, lurking in the background, but has been getting a little more mainstream currency thanks to artists like Hideyoshico and Fumiko Fumi. It also helps that the art magazine Eureka did a special otokonoko issue a couple years back, bringing the boys who dress as girls more into the public eye. These days, you can go to specialized otokonoko bars and cafés or even transform into one yourself with the help of specialized shops. Naturally, most of this action is where the action usually is, in Tokyo, but you can still see otokonoko on TV across the country, and even outside the capital, you can find places that welcome joso along with the larger LGBTQ community.

The TV appearances and things are easy to dismiss in a way because it’s sort of a specialty of Japan (and so many other places) to take the “novel” and hold it up to the spotlight while ignoring the actual reality of that lived experience in Japanese society (think Matsuko Deluxe vs the general trans experience or Naomi Watanabe vs an average fat girl or Hard Gay vs actual gay life). So of course, with the increasing awareness of otokonoko, a spot opened up at the talent table for wide show appearances, and stepping up to fill that seat was Kaoru Oshima. Originally an actor in gay porn, Oshima started living the otokonoko life, dressing and presenting as a woman full-time, and became the first otokonoko actress in the world of Japanese porn. Eventually, he left the world of porn to become a full-time writer and TV personality.

Reiraku: Inio Asano

It’s that time of year, friends. Maybe you’ve grown tired of my nattering on about TCAF, but like it or not, that nattering is here to stay as long as the festival keeps happening and I keep torturing myself with interpreting for it. Last year was actually the first time I didn’t have a Japanese artist to take care of full time, and it was such a strange feeling to be able to attend and be a part of the panels. I even went around and talked to exhibitors, bought books, hung out like I had nowhere else to be. So naturally, after a very laidback year, I was in for the exact opposite this year with guest Inio Asano. Which is not to say he was a demanding petulant diva! He was not! He’s actually a lovely person, and I had a great time hanging out with him for the five days he was in town for the festival. But Japanese guests have varying levels of English ability, which means I am more or less needed for interpreting. And Asano’s English is essentially non-existent, so it was the more needed part of that equation this year.

As is my custom when preparing to welcome Japanese artists to the festival, I’ve spent the last couple months reading everything Asano ever wrote and hunting down every last interview he’s done, essentially becoming his best and most dedicated stalker. (Don’t tell him that, though.) I even turned up a conversation between him and (another former TCAF guest) Usamaru Furuya in an old issue of Erotics f I have tucked away in the back of my bookcase. All this preparation proved very useful, especially the video of the live drawing event in Italy (which I watched enough to start to learn Italian from the interpreter), and Asano’s sessions at the festival all went really well. Or so I assume from the feedback I got from the audiences and fans who came to the signing sessions. And now Asano is back in Japan, I am not dead, and we have a book to talk about.

Akachan Honbucho: Sachiko Takeuchi

It’s spring! And I think it’s for real, my good chums! I stepped out yesterday with bare legs. No tights! Although I did wear shorts under my dress because spring might have finally sprung, but it’s still not that warm out and all you people sitting out on patios in tank tops have some kind of internal thermal regulation issues that you should have checked out by your doctor. But the sun feels so good after what felt like an endless winter of grey skies even when I spent at least half the winter enjoying the blue skies and mild temperatures of Tokyo. I might have been born in Canada, but I am not a winter person, something that never fails to shock the Japanese people I encounter. It appears the common mythology there is that Canadians are all padded with an insulating layer of fat to protect us from our harsh winters.

Coinciding with the arrival of the spring breeze was, of course, a big old box of books from Japan. For work, I swear! I needed a couple Inio Asano books to complete my preparations for his upcoming visit to TCAF (you’re coming, too, right?), so I figured I might as well piggyback some new releases from favourite authors in that shipment and save myself the trouble/expense of bringing them back on my next trip to Tokyo. And one of my most anticipated of those new releases was Akachan Honbucho, or “General Manager of Baby”, as the English subtitle would have it. I wouldn’t actually mind reading a story about a general manager of babies—the concept seems wacky as hell and very open-ended (like, would the general manager have a staff of babies? Would all babies in the world report to this general manager? Or would it be more like wrangling babies? Organizing the babies for some purpose? Someone write this story for me.)—but Akachan is actually about a general manager who is a baby.

Boy Meets “Crazy” Girl: Natsuko Kawa

I’m not going to lie here. When I saw the title of this volume on Feel Young’s Twitter feed, I rolled my eyes so hard, I’m pretty sure I sprained something. Oh, the girls, they are so crazy! They have all these feelings! They are lunatics who need to be reined in lest they—gasp—enjoy their lives however they wish without sternly judging eyes following them wherever they go! And I know it’s a Japanese person using an English word in a Japanese context, but the word “crazy” itself has just got to go. It trivializes and stigmatizes mental illness, and there’s just no reason for using it. There’s always a more appropriate word for what you’re trying to say. In the case of this title, that word would probably be “wacky”. Or maybe “over-the-top”. Both of these are a lot more descriptive of the girl(s) in question and don’t inadvertently point a finger at mental illness. Seriously, friends, let’s all think about the words we use (says the woman whose job is to literally think about the words she uses).

Despite my exasperation with the title, though, the cover was strangely compelling (those eyes! the freckles!! the thread glued to the painting like space hair!) when I saw it at the bookstore, and I tend to enjoy the stuff in Feel Young, so I figured I’d give it a try. Friends, I’m pleased to report I have no regrets. The scare quotes around “crazy” make the title more of a nudge-nudge-wink-wink nod to all the stereotypes about women hiding in that well-worn trope than the scare-quote free version I saw on Twitter, and this selection of twelve rather short stories is far from the heartbreak and manic pixie dream girl style that I was expecting.