Culture Essays– category –

There is a Japanese word, ibasho (居場所), that does not translate cleanly into English. Literally, it means "the place where one is." Practically, it means something closer to: the place where you are allowed to exist as you actually are, without performing, without earning it, without being told to leave. Across very different shoujo and BL manga, a strikingly similar structure keeps appearing. A group of people — a band, a pair of strangers, a whole circle of friends — ...

This article contains light spoilers for Given, Chihayafuru, and A Sign of Affection. In a lot of Western romance, the emotional climax is the confession. Someone says the words. The audience exhales. But watch enough Japanese shoujo and BL manga, and you'll notice something strange: the moment characters are supposed to say how they feel is often the moment they say the least. Mafuyu goes quiet. Taichi changes the subject. Yuki doesn't need to speak at all. The silence is...

A completed, unlicensed shoujo manga about a girl who hears animals, and the dog-turned-boy who breaks her heart open. Spoiler warning: this piece discusses key story beats, including the ending. Japanese has a handful of words that resist translation. Komorebi, the dappled light filtering through leaves. Mottainai, the ache of wasted potential. And ibasho — a word that looks simple on paper and turns out to be almost impossible to pin down in Engl...

Just finished volume 1 of Chihayafuru, and it's such a beautiful read! When you're reading the manga, it's easy to forget. This isn't a fictional sport. What Chihayafuru depicts is a real competition. And at the heart of that competition is a collection of 100 poems, written 800 years ago. First, Here's How It Actually Works Competitive karuta uses a set of 100 cards from the Ogura Hyakunin Isshu. Matches are one-on-one. Each player draws 25 cards at random from the full s...

Amazon Here! Yoi Takiguchi is called a prince. But she is not the first. Japan has a long history of this — women who perform the prince, women who are drawn to the prince, women who stand at the center of a story as the prince. Yoi is the latest in a line that stretches back further than most readers realize. This essay traces that line — and asks why this kind of character has been so deeply loved in Japan, and why she continues to resonate with readers who know nothing ...