Shōjo Murasaki, Seinen Genji: Sexual Violence and Textual Violence in Yamato Waki’s Fleeting Dreams and Egawa Tatsuya’s Tale of Genji Manga

Authors

  • Otilia Milutin Middlebury College

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5195/jll.2021.159

Abstract

This paper examines how two manga versions of the Heian classic Tale of Genji, belonging to two different genres and targeting different readership, engage with and interpret the tale’s episodes depicting sexual encounters, which may be read as problematic in the original text.

 

The shojo version, Yamato Waki’s Asaki yumemishi, published between 1980 and 1993, and targeting predominantly female audiences, how two distinct approaches in its treatment of certain potentially uncomfortable episodes: some episodes which verge too close to a reading of sexual violence, are outright erased from the manga versions. Others, whose presence is invaluable to the narrative, are remarkably faithful to the original text, while at the same time contextualizing and domesticating all threats of sexual violence that might have marred the original text.

 

By contrast, Egawa Tatsuya’s seinen version of Genji monogatari, marketed towards a young male adult readership, takes the extreme approach of depicting all sexual encounters in the tale as consensual, pleasurable and highly explicit. The ambiguity of the original text is simply done away with by juxtaposing said text and its fairly accurate rendition into modern Japanese with quasi-pornographic, shunga-evoking scenes of sex.

Author Biography

Otilia Milutin, Middlebury College

Otilia Milutin is an Assistant Professor of Japanese Studies at Middlebury College. She received her Ph.D from the University of British Columbia in 2015 and her M.A. from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She taught at the University of British Columbia (Vancouver, Canada) and Knox College (Galesburg, Illinois). She specializes in premodern Japanese literature, language and culture, with a focus on issues related to sex, gender and sexuality in Japanese court tales. She is currently finalizing her research on representations of sexual violence in Heian and Kamakura monogatari and conducting new research on contemporary adaptations of Japanese classics in manga, anime and film. Her other research and teaching interests include femmes fatales in Japanese literature, monsters in Japnese culture, and sex and censorship in Japanese cinema.

References

Egawa, Tatsuya. Genji monogatari. Shueisha, 2000-2005.

Emmerich, Michael. The Tale of Genji: Translation, Canonization, and World Literature. New York: Columbia University Press, 2013.

Genji monogatari sennenki. Dir. by Dezaki Osamu. Tezuka Productions, Jan 15 2009 – March 26, 2009.

Genji monogatari: sennen no koi. Dir. by Horikawa Tonko. Asahi Hoso, 2001.

Genji monogatari sennen no nazo. Dir. by Tsuruhashi Yasuo. Tōho, 2011.

Genji monogatari. Shinpen koten bungaku zenshū .Shōgakukan, 1994- 1998.

Harper, Thomas and Haruo Shirane, eds. Reading the Tale of Genji Sources from the First Millennium. New York: Columbia University Press, 2015.

James, E. L. Fifty Shades of Grey. New York: Vintage Books, 2012.

Kitamura, Yuika. “Sexuality, Gender, and The Tale of Genji in Modern Japanese Translations and Manga.” In Envisioning the Tale of Genji: Media, Gender and Cultural Production, edited by Haruo Shirane, 329-259. New York: Columbia University Press, 2008.

Komashaku, Kimi. Murasaki Shikibu no messēji. Asahi Shinbunsha, 1991.

Meyer, Stephanie. Twilight. New York: Little, Brown and Co., 2005.

Milutin, Otilia. “Sweat, Tears and Nightmares: Textual Representations of Sexual Violence in Heian and Kamakura Monogatari.” PhD. diss., University of British Columbia, 2015.

Setouchi, Jakuchō. Genji ni aisareta onnatachi. Kodansha, 1993.

Setouchi, Jakuchō., trans. Genji monogatari. Kodansha, 1996-1998.

Setouchi, Jakuchō., ed. Genji monogatari no ai. Kodansha, 2000.

Setouchi, Jakuchō. Genji monogatari no onnagimitachi. Nipponhōsōshuppankyōkai, 2008.

Tyler, Royall. “"I Am I": Genji and Murasaki.” Monumenta Nipponica, 54, no. 4. (1999): 435-480.

Tyler, Royall, trans. The Tale of Genji. New York: Penguin Books, 2001.

Tyler, Royall. “Marriage, Rank and Rape in The Tale of Genji”. Intersections: Gender, History and Culture in the Asian Context, no 7, March 2002. Available from http://wwwsshe.murdoch.edu.au/intersections/issue7/tyler.html. Internet; accessed 20 March 2006.

Seidensticker, Edward, trans. The Tale of Genji. 1976; New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1993.

Shirane, Haruo, ed. Envisioning the Tale of Genji: Media, Gender and Cultural Production. New York: Columbia University Press, 2008.

Suzuki, Tomi and Haruo Shirane, eds. Inventing the Classics: Modernity, National Identity, and Japanese Literature. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000.

Washburn, Dennis C., trans. The Tale of Genji. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2016.

Yamato, Waki. Asaki yumemishi: Genji monogatari. Kodansha, 1980-1991.

Downloads

Published

2021-04-21

Issue

Vol. 55 No. 1 (2021): Japanese Language and Literature

Section

SPECIAL SECTION LITERATURE

License

Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:

  1. The Author retains copyright in the Work, where the term “Work” shall include all digital objects that may result in subsequent electronic publication or distribution.
  2. Upon acceptance of the Work, the author shall grant to the Publisher the right of first publication of the Work.
  3. The Author shall grant to the Publisher and its agents the nonexclusive perpetual right and license to publish, archive, and make accessible the Work in whole or in part in all forms of media now or hereafter known under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Licenseor its equivalent, which, for the avoidance of doubt, allows others to copy, distribute, and transmit the Work under the following conditions:
    1. Attribution—other users must attribute the Work in the manner specified by the author as indicated on the journal Web site;
    with the understanding that the above condition can be waived with permission from the Author and that where the Work or any of its elements is in the public domain under applicable law, that status is in no way affected by the license.
  4. The Author is able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the nonexclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the Work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), as long as there is provided in the document an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
  5. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post online a pre-publication manuscript (but not the Publisher’s final formatted PDF version of the Work) in institutional repositories or on their Websites prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work. Any such posting made before acceptance and publication of the Work shall be updated upon publication to include a reference to the Publisher-assigned DOI (Digital Object Identifier) and a link to the online abstract for the final published Work in the Journal.
  6. Upon Publisher’s request, the Author agrees to furnish promptly to Publisher, at the Author’s own expense, written evidence of the permissions, licenses, and consents for use of third-party material included within the Work, except as determined by Publisher to be covered by the principles of Fair Use.
  7. The Author represents and warrants that:
    1. the Work is the Author’s original work;
    2. the Author has not transferred, and will not transfer, exclusive rights in the Work to any third party;
    3. the Work is not pending review or under consideration by another publisher;
    4. the Work has not previously been published;
    5. the Work contains no misrepresentation or infringement of the Work or property of other authors or third parties; and
    6. the Work contains no libel, invasion of privacy, or other unlawful matter.
  8. The Author agrees to indemnify and hold Publisher harmless from Author’s breach of the representations and warranties contained in Paragraph 6 above, as well as any claim or proceeding relating to Publisher’s use and publication of any content contained in the Work, including third-party content.
  9. The Author agrees to digitally sign the Publisher’s final formatted PDF version of the Work.