On being a fujoshi in an international student dorm in Japan
First is first - here's a quick question to pose. Where should I go sometime soon? Shibuya or Ikebukuro? Shibuya's Mandarake has a sweet selection of non-BL goods like artbooks and a not bad selection of doujinshis. Ikebukuro is BL heaven, and if I'm there I can get as many Doujinshis I want.
Or I could just hit all spots.
So onto the rant.
It happened when the guys broke open the drawer under my bed and I knew everything was going to hell.
"A person normally puts clothes down there dont they? Guess what she puts there?"
For some reason that line seems to have stuck to me, and its like a bad running gag. Usually if you told this story online to a bunch of people, like I am, you should feel like a kind of pride about it. The fujoshi who came, who saw, and scared the fuck out of people. Hear me roar.
However as a semi-fujoshi who is still struggling with this identity crisis, I thoroughly admit that the tag scares people very effectively. I am who I am, and when I met people I am always the girl who screams for nomihoudais and tabehoudais. I refused to admit the insanity of my obsessions. I wanted to play it cool. I didnt even think twice as I put up the calendar I had bought at comiket, and sorted the comics that I had received in the package leftover from my home stay last year.
However the first confrontation came as I had gotten raging drunk. Everyone likes to talk about that story, where I downed shots of whiskey followed by rum and then followed by more beer. I lost all sense of reality and puked my guts out in a corner, before collapsing and calling it a night. It sucks I'm not the kind of drunk who forgets, the details are still very vivid in my mind. Which was why I remembered the time they dragged me all the way to my room (conveniently all the way down the hall) and then exclaiming that I needed to pee. C had told me that time she wanted to punch me.
However its relation to me as a Fujoshi - maybe the drunk Fujoshi who hugged people and exclaimed their undying love to people - was the fact that they had to clear the piles of BL on my bed. Which was why later on some girls would smile at me with "Those were bad books weren't they?"
One of the Korean guys, another otaku in an identity crisis. He pleads not to tell any Korean or Japanese person that he's an otaku. It's all about the image, he says, they know the bad parts of it. I can't help but somewhat agree. In the western world, its a pop-culture symbol. I know in Australia, anime as a cultural commodity is always introduced through Evangelion or Ghost in the Shell. If younger, you can say Naruto and Bleach. However the motto is still the same; everyone's doing it - why not you?
The fujoshi word still lacks a standalone symbol in Australia. You see those girls who scream at how cute love between two men are. A fujoshi in the western world may be mostly recognised by the growing appetite for parody cosplay or fanfics. Additionally there are fancomics and fanart. However the savyness may still not match, the strength is still getting there.
To me, a fujoshi is a dirty little secret, never openly told, but never openly hid. When they ask you what comics you read, you say you read shoujo. When you say you like Ikebukuro, it's for the clothes shopping and nothing else. In Japan, its becomes so apparent that as an individual who expresses a little interest in anime culture as a foreigner, there is already a certain otaku-ness coming from you.
I guess, I feel as a Fujoshi there is nothing intrinsically so different about me from other people that I must broadcast. When I see the rest watching anime, I don't think there is a sudden urge to pair characters up. And to answer the question, I don't ship anyone in my dorm either. I just read books for fun, maybe my tastes are racier but my favourite BLs are the ones that make me cry.
However in the end, being a Fujoshi is still a dirty little secret. I can't fangirl 24/7. I can't afford everything I want. I think in a way I will just take the jokes as a kind of praise.
One of the guys once asked "Why do you even put it in a place like there? Even a suitcase would be safer."
I paused a little to think about it, "Well its inconvenient."
Their expressions were of horror, not quite understanding why a dirty secret like that would ever be placed so carelessly around.
I guess as a Fujoshi I lose grip of reality sometimes.
Or I could just hit all spots.
So onto the rant.
It happened when the guys broke open the drawer under my bed and I knew everything was going to hell.
"A person normally puts clothes down there dont they? Guess what she puts there?"
For some reason that line seems to have stuck to me, and its like a bad running gag. Usually if you told this story online to a bunch of people, like I am, you should feel like a kind of pride about it. The fujoshi who came, who saw, and scared the fuck out of people. Hear me roar.
However as a semi-fujoshi who is still struggling with this identity crisis, I thoroughly admit that the tag scares people very effectively. I am who I am, and when I met people I am always the girl who screams for nomihoudais and tabehoudais. I refused to admit the insanity of my obsessions. I wanted to play it cool. I didnt even think twice as I put up the calendar I had bought at comiket, and sorted the comics that I had received in the package leftover from my home stay last year.
However the first confrontation came as I had gotten raging drunk. Everyone likes to talk about that story, where I downed shots of whiskey followed by rum and then followed by more beer. I lost all sense of reality and puked my guts out in a corner, before collapsing and calling it a night. It sucks I'm not the kind of drunk who forgets, the details are still very vivid in my mind. Which was why I remembered the time they dragged me all the way to my room (conveniently all the way down the hall) and then exclaiming that I needed to pee. C had told me that time she wanted to punch me.
However its relation to me as a Fujoshi - maybe the drunk Fujoshi who hugged people and exclaimed their undying love to people - was the fact that they had to clear the piles of BL on my bed. Which was why later on some girls would smile at me with "Those were bad books weren't they?"
One of the Korean guys, another otaku in an identity crisis. He pleads not to tell any Korean or Japanese person that he's an otaku. It's all about the image, he says, they know the bad parts of it. I can't help but somewhat agree. In the western world, its a pop-culture symbol. I know in Australia, anime as a cultural commodity is always introduced through Evangelion or Ghost in the Shell. If younger, you can say Naruto and Bleach. However the motto is still the same; everyone's doing it - why not you?
The fujoshi word still lacks a standalone symbol in Australia. You see those girls who scream at how cute love between two men are. A fujoshi in the western world may be mostly recognised by the growing appetite for parody cosplay or fanfics. Additionally there are fancomics and fanart. However the savyness may still not match, the strength is still getting there.
To me, a fujoshi is a dirty little secret, never openly told, but never openly hid. When they ask you what comics you read, you say you read shoujo. When you say you like Ikebukuro, it's for the clothes shopping and nothing else. In Japan, its becomes so apparent that as an individual who expresses a little interest in anime culture as a foreigner, there is already a certain otaku-ness coming from you.
I guess, I feel as a Fujoshi there is nothing intrinsically so different about me from other people that I must broadcast. When I see the rest watching anime, I don't think there is a sudden urge to pair characters up. And to answer the question, I don't ship anyone in my dorm either. I just read books for fun, maybe my tastes are racier but my favourite BLs are the ones that make me cry.
However in the end, being a Fujoshi is still a dirty little secret. I can't fangirl 24/7. I can't afford everything I want. I think in a way I will just take the jokes as a kind of praise.
One of the guys once asked "Why do you even put it in a place like there? Even a suitcase would be safer."
I paused a little to think about it, "Well its inconvenient."
Their expressions were of horror, not quite understanding why a dirty secret like that would ever be placed so carelessly around.
I guess as a Fujoshi I lose grip of reality sometimes.