It’s… Complicated

In its previews of seasonal anime series, the Anime Feminist website assigns shows to various categories: “Feminist Potential,” “Yellow Flags,” and so on.¹ One of these is “It’s… Complicated.” An anime in this category “seem[s] to be addressing progressive ideas or themes,” but also “may be biting off more than it can chew,” or even “[be] in danger of fumbling its chosen themes.”

It’s undoubtedly true that, as I’ve noted in previous chapters, Sweet Blue Flowers features a wider variety of characters and plot elements than one might expect in a simple “schoolgirl yuri” story. It’s also true that some of these characters and plot elements aren’t well-integrated into the story and sometimes arguably detract from it (for example, the subplot involving Akira and her brother).

But in summing up Sweet Blue Flowers, there are also two other ways in which some might put it into the “It’s… Complicated” category, having to do with the author and the fate of her characters.

In recent years, many people have promoted works in which “the protagonist and the author share a marginalized identity,” conceived as a way to “center the voices that matter most.”² Although this “own voices” movement and similar initiatives arose in the United States in the context of young adult (YA) literature, others have applied its principles in other countries and contexts. Thus, for example, Erica Friedman has promoted yuri manga and related works created by Japanese artists who are publicly-visible lesbians.³

These and similar efforts focus on positively highlighting marginalized creators. However, human nature being what it is, they have also become controversial, especially as it concerns works that feature marginalized characters but are created by authors who are not themselves perceived as marginalized.

This issue of “who can write about whom” interacts with broader political questions around who can speak for, represent, and advocate for particular marginalized groups. In Japan, in particular, activists for sexual minority groups have emphasized the importance of the “tōjisha” (“the person [directly] concerned”), a term that originated in the context of legal and administrative proceedings but came to be applied to groups of people who were discriminated against in various ways.⁴

In contrast, hi-tōjisha are those who are not directly concerned, i.e., who are not the subject of discrimination. In this context, tōjisha are perceived to be the best, if not the only, people to speak about problems affecting their groups, with the opinions of hi-tōjisha seen as less relevant or even invalid.

The distinction between tōjisha and hi-tōjisha has caused controversy in other areas beyond the political, including in the world of manga. One example is the “boy’s love” or “BL” genre, a genre whose creators and fanbase are perceived as being composed almost exclusively of heterosexual women. “Some gay tōjisha have criticized the genre’s producers and fans for trading in ‘irresponsible’ representations of gay men and of being blind to the genre’s potential negative effects upon ‘real gays.’”⁵

Takako Shimura herself was apparently subjected to similar criticism regarding Wandering Son, a manga featuring transgender children. Shimura was not only seen as embarking on the manga not knowing much about transgender people (“she was really basically winging this for more than half the series”). Some questioned her even writing about transgender characters in the first place: “amongst trans people in Japan, there was this feeling: ‘Oh, great. We’re finally being represented. But … we’re being represented by someone who is not one of us.’”⁶

It’s worth noting that, for the most part, similar criticisms don’t seem to have been levied against artists working in the yuri genre, perhaps because the genre has always had creators of different genders and a more diverse fanbase. The emphasis seems to be more on promoting positive examples of LGBTQ people writing yuri works (as Erica Friedman has done) than on “gatekeeping” who should not be writing them.

Putting aside any controversy about Shimura’s authorship of Sweet Blue Flowers, what about issues of “representation” within the manga itself? Sweet Blue Flowers differs from many yuri works in having a main character (Fumi) who is clearly and unequivocally a lesbian, in the sense that she is attracted only to women and is aware that she’s always been that way: “I fall for girls so easily. It’s the only way I’ve ever liked a girl” (SBF, 3:244). The same could be said of Hinako and Orie, not to mention Maeda, a character who explicitly refers to herself as a lesbian (3:357).

This distinguishes them from characters in other yuri works whose attraction to each other appears to be contingent and situational: they begin their relationships through a contrived plot device, they question their attraction to each other (“but we’re girls!”), and the attraction they do feel seems to be limited to one person, as opposed to being a generalized sexual orientation.

As it happens, there are also characters in Sweet Blue Flowers whose motivations and orientations can be questioned in similar ways, including Kyoko, Yasuko, and even Akira. And unlike characters in typical yuri works, they do not end the manga wholeheartedly committed to a relationship with another woman: Kyoko marries Ko, and Yasuko’s orientation is (I think) deliberately left ambiguous. And although Akira does confess and enter into a renewed relationship with Fumi, it’s implied that many of Akira’s issues around romance and (especially) sex remain unresolved.

Many manga and anime have been accused of “yuri-baiting,” hinting at an attraction between girls and leading the audience to expect that they’ll become a couple, only to undercut that expectation in one way or another. Although Sweet Blue Flowers is unquestionably a yuri work, the fate of characters like Kyoko and Yasuko might lead some to conclude that Takako Shimura is doing something similar: if Shimura is not misleading the reader, she is at least limiting the amount of lesbian representation featured in the book and thereby disappointing readers who would like to see more of it.

Is this a fair criticism? In a review of another of Shimura’s works, blogger Jaime offers a counter-argument: “what others view as flaws, I actually see as important qualities in her work. … that her stories are messy, her characters are messy, that these series don’t fit into neat narratives about what the LGBTQ+ community wants as representation.”⁷

From this point of view Sweet Blue Flowers is just as much about Akira as it is about Fumi, if not more so. Jaime compares Fumi to “the ‘straight men’ in a comedy movie, they are who the funny people need to make the jokes land.” Fumi is “the straight-forward LGBTQ+ representation that the love interests and side characters play off against to show just how messy real people in the real world are.”⁸

In the introduction to this book, I wrote that “[Kyoko, Akira, and Fumi] together can be thought of as representing three different ‘eras’ of yuri”: Kyoko the past, Akira the present, and Fumi the future. But they can also be seen as representing three different paths real-life women might take if they find themselves attracted to other women.

Some, like Kyoko, might leave behind such desires and enter into heterosexual relationships and eventual marriage to men. Others, like Fumi, might commit to living as women who love women, secure in their identity as lesbians, and willing to acknowledge that identity to friends, family, and (for some) the general public. Others, like Akira, may have relationships with women but may not be willing or able to self-identify as lesbians, perhaps because of fear of what others might think (like Akira, at times) or because (also like Akira, at times) they remain in a state of questioning who they are and what they desire.

If Sweet Blue Flowers had continued beyond its last chapter, it would have been interesting to see how Akira and Fumi’s relationship evolved during their adult life: whether it would have held together, fallen apart, or cycled between periods of closeness and commitment and periods of frustration and miscommunication. But Takako Shimura did not give us that manga, and I think rightly so: although they end their journey as adults, Sweet Blue Flowers is at its heart a tale of teenagers navigating their way through the “forest of thorns” of schoolgirl relationships. As noted in the next chapter, Shimura’s attempt at a genuinely adult yuri manga would have to wait a few years, as the yuri genre evolved after Sweet Blue Flowers.