Hi there. I'm going to get started,
so hello and welcome. my name is Andrew Campana, assistant professor of Japanese Literature
and Media here at Cornell University. Uh first, a land acknowledgement,
Cornell university is located on the traditional homelands of the Guyohkohnyo, the Cayuga Nation.
The Guyohkohnyo are members of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, an alliance of six sovereign nations
with a historic and contemporary presence on this land. The confederacy precedes
the establishment of Cornell University, New York State, and the United States of America.
We acknowledge the painful history of Guyohkohnyo dispossession and honor
the ongoing connection of Guyohkohnyo people, past and present, to these lands and waters.
So thank you very much for coming to today's event, "Reframing Disability: Manga's Portrayals
of Deaf Characters", it's wonderful to see people here from all over. I'm thrilled to welcome
Professor Yoshiko Okuyama, professor of Japanese Studies at the university of Hawaii at Hilo,
a scholar of Japanese language, mythology, disability studies, and deaf studies, among
many other fields. Professor Okuyama is really one of the most exciting scholars of Japanese
studies today with truly groundbreaking work that stretches across multiple disciplinary frameworks.
She's published two books, uh "Japanese Mythology in Film" from 2015 and last year "Reframing
Disability in Manga," which is a truly wonderful book based on 15 different case studies related
to depictions of disability and deafness in manga, Japanese comics, and the chapter of which
will be the basis of today's talk. And she also has a new book manuscript focused on manga memoirs
related to disability and mental health, which I'm extremely excited for. I'm so grateful that
she took the time to be with us here today and to share some of her fantastic work with us.
I would also like to thank the East Asia Program for hosting this event,
including its director professor Andrea Bachner, the program manager Joshua Young,
and the program initiatives and media coordinator Amala Lane. Thank you also to the interpreters
from SignNexus, Stephanie Feyne and Kami Malavey. This event is co-sponsored by the
new East Asia Plus Initiative at Cornell dedicated to interdisciplinary approaches, linking together
innovative digital publishing and East Asian media studies. I also want to mention the new
Central New York Humanities Corridor Working Group on Global Disability Studies, which will
mean that there will hopefully be many more events to come related to disability and East Asia here
at Cornell. So please, continue to check out the East Asia Program's website and its programming,
most of which continues to be online. Amala will be posting a link in the chat. Finally, a bit on
how we're doing the Q&A today, people should feel free to ask their question in the chat at
any time during the talk and we'll hopefully get to your question during the Q&A period afterwards.
Also, feel free to use the raise hand function during the Q&A period so we can call on you.
And also, a reminder to please turn off your video now, before the Q&A for
better bandwidth transmission, and if there are any technical issues or accessibility issues,
please direct message Amala Lane directly. And without further ado,
thank you so much and please give a warm welcome to professor Yoshiko Okuyama.
Hello my name is Yoshiko Okuyama. As Andrew introduced me, I'm a professor of Japanese
studies at the University of Hawaii at Hilo. So let me share my presentation slides first.
Okay, here we go. Hi, so today I will share my research related to reframing disability in manga,
which is my book published by the University of Hawaii Press last year. And last year, 2020,
is the 30th anniversary of the passing of the Americans with Disabilities Act
and this month, October, is National Disability Employment Awareness Month. So to me,
it is very symbolic to have this opportunity to talk about disability
and thank you very much for inviting me to your lecture series.
I conducted the research in Japan as a Japan Foundation Fellow in 2017. I
interviewed manga artists, conducted archival research, and visited events and organizations
serving disability communities, mainly in Tokyo, Kyoto, and Osaka. Yeah, I visited other places,
but those three places were main places and today I will focus on one of the books chapter, which is
titled "Portrayals of Deaf Characters". It is a chapter that introduces representative manga, or
Japanese comics or graphic novels, that portrayed the deaf communities in Japan. So next slide.
Before delving into the chapter's content, allow me to present the current disability
data to contextualize my talk. According to the united nations most recent data,
published in may of 2020, one billion people have disabilities in the world, which is about 15%
of the world population. And within that group, 80% of them live in developing countries
and women and children are particularly more vulnerable. One out of five women are either
currently experiencing or likely to experience some form of disability in life.
One in ten children has one or more disabilities in the world. The United Nations identifies people
with disabilities as one of the most excluded groups and they say that in in terms of the
number of COVID-19 related deaths, they are among the hardest hit in the global crisis. Next slide.
Now, zooming into Japan. In Japan, the government data on disability are presented in three
different categories: people with physical disabilities, people with
intellectual disabilities, and people with mental disabilities. Japan's Cabinet Office,
Naimusho, has been publishing a disability white paper, Shôgai-sha Hakusho,
annually since 1994. According to their 2021 disability whitepaper,
around 8% of the whole population of japan have some form of disability. By groups,
3.45% of people with physical disability,
0.87% are people with intellectual disabilities, and 3.32% are those with mental disabilities.
It appears that the percentages of people with physical and mental disabilities are almost
the same, however, when I looked at the increase from the data of two years ago, which is 2019, I
noticed an interesting difference among the three uh three groups. The increase in the number of
people with mental disability is close to 1%, the increase of the other two perceptual groups are
only about 0.1% respectively, so I must say the almost 1% increase with mental health cases it's
something we should pay close attention to. These data were actually collected pre-pandemic, so now,
in the second year of COVID-19 restrictions, I suspect the increase is even bigger and right
now I'm writing a book about mental disabilities in Japan, so this is a very intriguing outcome.
Next slide.
An important note on language use. The Japanese word for people with
disability is "shogaisha." It has such connotation negative connotations. So,
for example, shogai means obstacle, so shogaisha literally means obstacle person.
So I would like to propose that we use a different term, a term "Tojisha".
Tojisha is a term referring to a person directly affected by that con
the condition, whatever the condition is and people with disabilities themselves don't
call don't call themselves shogaisha, they call themselves tojisha. So it's a more positive,
progressive way to refer to them and by themselves.
The word tojisha was originally a legal term. It began to be used in reference to the membership
of a minority group, especially during their minority rights movement in the 1980s. But it is
um, actually, an all-inclusive term. It's kind of vague and it does not just mean people with
disability per se, but in this particular context, in today's lecture talk um I think
tojisha works. And most importantly Tojisha is a reference used by people with lived experience
of disability, so I would like to stick to the use of the term in this lecture. Next slide.
Now, book overview. My book, "Reframing Disability in Manga," features recent manga
titles that portray tojisha with authenticity and cast them as the main characters,
not the side character or villain or "super crypt". A "super crypt" is a term used in
disability studies in reference to a disabled superhero or heroine.
I present the selected manga titles in each of five representative conditions and these
manga casts everyday tojisha individuals in title roles without being forcing a super crypt model
or other stereotypes. These manga offer insight into a variety of issues affecting the tojisha
population of Japan. So these mangas are quite different from the older generation of manga,
particularly once published before the 1990s in Japan. Next slide.
Media and disability has representational issues.
From ancient folklore to contemporary media, tojisha characters have been typically presented
as "the other." This stroke of otherness contains negative characteristics, such as
strange, bizarre, or exotic and they are often represented as non-human entities,
such as monsters. And they are associated with some kinds of danger to society.
But it's not just Japan, of course. US comics, for example,
in the 1970s, Marvel and DC comics portrayed tojisha characters with stereotypes,
such as a disfigured individual that deserves our sympathy or a psychotic villain. And the real life
representation of disability related issues was was non-existent, according to some US
comic analysts. Now, back in manga. In manga, that trend continued up until the 1990s.
It was only during the early 1990s when tojisha characters in manga began to be depicted more
accurately and also cast as the main characters of the stories, without disparaging language,
without super crypt or villains typecast or even obscure sub-character roles.
Unfortunately, though some manga continue to misrepresent the tojisha protagonists with ableist
views and stereotypes. So today, I will compare two manga titles "Gangsta" and "A Silent Voice"
using several sample images that feature deaf main characters very differently next slide.
"Gangsta". "Gangsta" is an eight volume series published in a seinen magazine for adult
male readers. In this story, two male assassins live in an imagined US city,
which is probably Los Angeles. Worick is hearing and wears a patch over his left eye.
He's quite he is quite skillful at shooting with his gun and then Nicolas, or Nick,
is a deaf character with black hair who fights with the sword. Next slide.
In this manga, Nick is portrayed in the typical super crypt model, like the iconic Zatoichi,
if you know, the blind sword master very popular in Japanese uh popular culture.
As image one shows, Nick is drawn to display his
speed and agility, he is also depicted to be using amazing swordsmanship swordsmanship
in many battle scenes. And image 2 is one example in which Nick is portrayed as a man of few words.
And in this first panel, Worick, Nick's partner, Worick is not good at cooking and he said
"Nick always looked puzzled when eating the meal I fixed." Well what's that supposed to be,
you know, it's as if Nick doesn't question and accept whatever is given to him, right, well as
such, in this manga the tojisha character lacks agency, except when he is fighting. Next slide.
Image 3 shows Nick signing with Worick.
In the panel I circle, mixed fluency of signing is implied with the ompu,
or Japanese or manga effecting, sound effecting manga, so ompu pu pop pop!
Is drawn above his moving hands. The translation of Nick's sign message is presented in
white text on a black background to distinguish from hearing character speech. But there is no
sign to word correspondence. And although created, it's not the realistic
way of representing sign language and perhaps uh the author chose to do so because Nick uses
unidentified sign language, we don't know if it's ASL or JSL or whatever, and but the fact is that
in this manga, neither the deaf character, nor his signing is given a fair representation.
And in image four, two police officers are whispering behind Nick and one agent is saying
to the other "Nick as uh he he had sharp eyes to compensate for his ears," then he goes on to say
"Be careful, this guy can read lips. When you tell us tell me a secret, cover your mouth."
So the implication to me is like, Nick can pose a danger to to hearing individuals through
his impeccable lip readings and to me it is an ableist representation of deaf characters.
So with all these misgivings, "Gangsta" not only fails to help the reader
to understand the real life deaf but also adds stereotypes about being deaf. Next slide.
By contrast, "A Silent Voice", a recent mega hit manga, portrays the main deaf character not as a
super crypt, but as a real human being. Originally serialized in a seinen magazine for young
male readers, this manga depicts communication in JSL, Japanese Sign Language, very authentically.
"A Silent Voice," or "Koe no Katachi" in the original Japanese title, which means voiced shape,
this came out as an anime for English language viewers, so some of them some of you already know,
but for those who are not familiar with this story, here is a plot. The story revolves around
two young protagonists. One is a hearing boy, the other a deaf girl. Shoko is a deaf sixth grader
transferred to Shoya's class. And trying to get classmates attention,
Shoya, a hearing boy begins to bully Shoko. Well, he's not the only one doing so in this manga, but
he's a ring-leader nonetheless. Then Shoya's classmate ostracizes him,
as a bully. So, thereafter, Shoya takes on a personal journey of redemption, learns to sign
in JSL, and six years later, as a as a high school senior, Shoya reunites with Shoko. Next slide.
Image one shows the young protagonist, Shoya, as a sixth grader as a sixth grade boy who would resort
to violence and domination solving problems and also to avoid boredom, according to the
character's own words. He is immature and out of control, that's when he meets Shoko, a deaf girl.
In image 2, you see Shoko's writing "I can't hear." Watch how Shoya catches the word "hear."
To him that signifies a difference between this girl and himself, then he conceptualizes Shoko as
the other. Now image three, a double page spread that provides a panoramic view to the reader,
this emphasizes the moment in which Shoya visualizes Shoko as someone from outer space.
Shoko becomes something that does not belong to his species, he's mankind.
And then actually on the page right after this scene, Shoya blacks out a weirdo in the classroom.
So, volume 1 basically presents the prejudice and
discrimination that hearing people like Shoya tend to hold against the tojisha.
Next slide. By contrast, volume 2 and the rest of the manga feature Shoko and Shoya as
high school seniors, and they are signing. A former bully, Shoya is now maturing
and desires to reconnect with Shoko. And as I said before, he has learned to sign in JSL.
Image 4 shows Shoya signing "forget," telling Shoko the notebook he's holding is what she left
at school in sixth grade. In manga it's hard to see a dimension of uh your hands,
it's supposed to go behind your ear to sign to forget, but you get the gist of it, right,
and then image 5 illustrates "Shoko" signing "necessary"
and "happy," which is translated in Shoya's thought bubble "you are happy when you are needed,
huh?" And sometimes, the signed message is presented with a single single sign to highlight
what's important, like image 6. And in that image, image 6, Shoya's hands are shaped for the JSL sign
"friends" and he's vocalizing his message, "Can we become friends?", as shown in his speech bubble.
Next slide.
I have several examples to show how creatively sign language communication is represented
in this manga. Image 7 presents Shoko's message through Shoya's thought bubble.
And so, it's like as if the reader can see what's he thinking or processing.
And like image 8, the sign message is sometimes it presented directly in the field.
So from Shoya's perspective, right, and then this in this message,
Shoko is signing how did you learn to how did you, I'm sorry, "How did you learn the sign language?"
and only sign is drawn in the in the image. In image 9, both characters are in the same frame,
and now the manga assumes the the reader's perspective. Then the signed message, "see
you again," is shown in a circle, as if the reader had full access to their conversation. Next slide.
As as you can see in the middle the regular speech balloon in comics has a tail indicating
from whom the message is coming. Now watch image 10, in which Shoko is signing to Shoya.
On each panel, a single sign, or one time a sing a sign sequence, is translated in a
bubble without a tail. So it seems like the reader has direct access to the assigned messages
Shoko says I I "I was thinking thinking of the same thing" um and "together let's do our best,"
right, and then Shoya agrees, yeah. So neither one is vocalizing their messages,
they communicate simply through handshakes, as the title suggests, you know, Koe no Katachi, right.
So I thought it's a very neat way of showing their conversation visually.
By contrast, images 11 and 12 frame showcase signs messages using quotation marks.
The balloon in image 11 shows her signed "happy" in quotation and image 12 shows
her long signed messages in quotation and this indicates that there is a third party
interpreting Shoko and Shoya's JSL conversation through a hearing person.
In fact, in this scene, that third person is so-called sister, Yuzuru. And Yuzuru
is interpreting for Shoya's friend, who is watching the couple from the window.
So like this, the author, Ōima Yoshitoki,
used a variety of manga strategies to represent the signed messages in her manga.
And incidentally, her mother is a real life sign language interpreter.
So if you teach a course related to disability studies, I believe this is
a great material to use. By the way, I have a file called manga glossary, so if you like to
use some manga related terminology, that file has almost all like ompu and mampu
and so forth, so I'll be happy to share the file with you. Okay next slide.
So deaf-community-friendly manga like this did not just happen. In the 1990s, the pi
the pioneer of comics featuring deaf characters were written by Yamamoto Osamu and Karube Junko,
who paved the path for the millennium manga like Silent Voice. Yamamoto's manga stories are
serialized in the seinen manga magazine, seinen refers to the comics for adult male readers,
and and his uh works depicted deaf people and their families and teachers as central figures.
In his works the character's signed communication is visually and properly represented. And Karube
Junko's comics is that it's just the same. And these were serialized in a Shoujo manga magazine,
meaning for teenage teenagers and older female readers. And both authors comics became quite
popular and were made into other forms of popular popular culture, such as tv drama.
Both authors learned Shuwa, which means sign language in Japanese, at their local
Shuwa circles. They receive awards from the manga industry for their contributions.
Next slide.
Well by now, you may wonder why these pioneer works were published and became popular,
particularly in the 1990s, right, well here is a quick social background prior to that time.
First in the 1960s to 70s, the general public did not understand how deaf people lived,
how they communicated, or what their needs were in Japan.
That absence of knowledge and awareness was, naturally, reflected in manga and according
to Nagai, a manga critic who is also deaf, deaf characters in those old manga were more likely to
end up being physically abused and committing suicide and meeting another tragic test.
Um but but, in the early 1990s, that trend in the manga industry changed tremendously.
Well, what happened? 1981 was proclaimed by the UN as the international year of disabled people.
In Japan, people became more aware of the basic human right,
which is the right to live a good life, regardless of one's gender, race, or any other differences.
Also, in 1992, the governments of the Asia and Pacific Region, including Japan,
proposed to designate the next 10 years as the Asian and Pacific decade of disabled persons.
Um in 1993, Japan's disability law, which was established in 1970,
was finally revised and renamed as the basic law for persons with dis disabilities. By the way,
that law finally included the category of mental disability. And around that time,
the manga industry was still very hits them to approve any projects that focus on disability.
In uh but in 1988, that taboo was broken by Yamamoto's "Far-Off Koshien Stadium"
manga, which was published as a comic book in 1992.
In the same year, 1992, Karube Junko's
"Your Hands are Whispering" that her manga came out as a comic book.
So, thanks to these pioneer of deaf manga, deaf tojisha characters are now represented
with authenticity. Unfortunately though, as I demonstrated today, we still have manga that
struggle with the stereotypical representation of deaf tojisha. Uh just a quick note, you see
that the image on this screen right, yeah that's taken from Yamamoto's manga about oh Yamamoto's
manga titled "My Finger Orchestra," and that manga is about Osaka City School for the Deaf.
For those who are particularly interested in the history of deaf communities in Japan, right,
after the Milan Conference in Italy in 1880, many schools for the deaf,
including the school for the deaf in Japan, switched to the oral method.
And in Japan, particularly, early in the 1900s, they switched to the oral method.
But, there is there was one school that refused to do so. That was Osaka City School for the Deaf,
and its principle, Takahashi Kiyoshi, the the the man you see in the image,
um is the was the leading force and actually, and there will be a new film coming out
next year about Mr. Takashi, so that will be interesting to watch. Okay next slide.
So now we are in the middle of the almost two-year-long pandemic.
This situation has affected us all of us, including tojisha, in various ways.
So to end my talk from a global perspective, I would like to show a short video from the
W.H.O. website and its title is "Leave Us Not Behind," and perhaps it's a resonance to one
of the disability activists activism models: "nothing about us without us." Well, maybe not,
but anyways, the video tells us how the world tojisha world's tojisha population has been hit
hard by the pandemic. And especially if you are your academic interests in disability go beyond
beyond deaf communities, this is a good video to use in your class, I thought. And one more thing,
I would like to remind you that December 3rd is the International Day of Persons with Disability,
so I thought it would be good resource to share with you. And I have one more URL in chat,
so you will see both uh both videos URL in chat and that the second one is the UNESCO's message
about the International Day of Persons with Disabilities, so I hope you can make use of this.
Um so after watching the W.H.O. video, I will we will proceed to the Q&A session I believe, so...
Thank you very much for listening to my lecture today and I will show you the short video video,
which is less than four minutes, and around that time it's probably a good time for me to catch
my breath and also for you to kind of, you know, form your questions yeah for the the Q&A session.
So, if you like to share your comment uh comments or questions directly with me,
here is my email and that will be also in the in chat I believe. So, here is the video.
Thank you so much Professor Okuyama for your wonderful talk.
I'd like to now open things up for the Q&A, uh please feel free to either
put your question in the chat, and I will ask the question on your behalf, or to use
the raise hand function, and then we could call on you and you could ask your question directly.
For the first question I'm going to read out Brenda Schertz's question, which is really
maybe the question when thinking "A Silent Voice," which is, "were deaf people asked
about their perspectives on the deaf characters in the film and manga "A Silent Voice"?" Okay,
thank you very much for that question well, were the deaf people asked to share their perspective
on the manga as well as uh anime the adaptation, right, okay um.
As far as I know, well as I mentioned that you know the author manga author's mother
is a professional sign interpreter, so definitely she helps her uh gain the
deaf community's perspective, but I don't know if she uh if the author directly discuss the content
with any particular deaf uh organization or represent representatives. However, okay,
this is what I found out by interviewing uh you know manga manga artist in japan um. Those
publishers, manga publishers, uh have occasional, you know, seminars and the presentation workshops
for manga authors to raise their awareness about social issues including disabilities
and their work was really scrutinized. Before they were uh you know okay to be published,
the company the manga publishing companies it really examined the content
so that's we don't uh they don't have to offend related minority groups,
right, so definitely uh there must have been some kind of negotiation where, you know,
uh the the study, research done before uh Oima Yoshitoki's work was put in in the public.
Thanks very much, um I'm going to first read out a comment in the chat and then a question.
The comment is from Yuru Chen, who says "it was such a meaningful presentation thank you Yoshiko
and all the ASL interpreters. I also noticed that in the Chinese deaf community, some have concerns
about the personality/behaviors portrayed in "A Silent Voice" and think of them as inauthentic,
regardless of the use of JSL. I think this will definitely lead to further conversations."
And I'm going to ask a question that Kirk van Gilder posted in the chat. "Wondering if the
presence of deaf and disabled people in manga and anime is changing perceptions of people in Japan
toward deaf and disabled lives, or is it a unique market thing that has become a trend in plots,
i.e. our decisions to play up the blind sister in "Miss Hokusai" when going from manga to anime,
an inclusion move, or something done to capitalize on popular trends that viewers come to see?"
I think- that's a very interesting question, I think that's probably both way, you know, um of
course manga what I'm I'm not saying that manga was the only force to change people's awareness
about disability communities, including deaf communities, right so there were already
presidents, you know, the minority activism in the 90s, 80s, and so forth, so all the in sequence,
since uh manga artists um started to pay more attention to those uh groups and they incorporated
those characters into their story telling, right right, and then publishers probably saw
um marketability as well, yeah. So now, the general public is more interested in,
let's say, a mental disabilities, so they're manga artists are actually
encouraged to write about mental disability like this, right, so I think you know it comes both way
if there will be a good collaboration between, you know, the activism, increased awareness, and then,
you know, marketability that publishers see, according to that. So did I answer
the question? Well if there is any part um I missed to comment on, please let me know.
Thank you very much, I think you covered what was in the question.
Um continuing on in the chat, I want to point to a comment by Marcella Davies, in which-
Davis- in which they say uh "JSL still practice in NYC, but they are hidden like hidden gems,
pointing to the fact that JSL is truly a global community of speakers of Japanese Sign Language
and and it's not just a phenomenon in Japan alone, I think." Jihao Lin asks "Hi Professor Okuyama,
many thanks for this informative talk. I wonder if you have followed the deaf or disabled people
who have entered the manga industry and played a part in it as authors, producers,
or any other creative roles." Oh that's a great question, thank you. As far as I noticed,
there is only one deaf manga artist and he published his uh, you know, his stories
in the uh in the digital manga format, I believe. And it didn't gather, his works
didn't get so much attention, but at least as I am aware of one deaf manga artist. And then in terms
of other forms involvement in the production of deaf-related manga or disability manga, yeah, well
I just in terms of deaf individuals, I don't know any one person to name in particular,
but when we go outside of the deaf community and deaf manga, well, for example,
manga about the blind characters, right, I know one scholar who is involved in uh who was involved
in the production of uh manga about deaf people and he uh he was hired as a consultant, of course.
Thanks very much and uh it definitely points- oh, go ahead. Oh I mean one thing I just I just
realized that, right, uh probably uh you know it's not just manga, but the anime version of "A Silent
Voice", right, I remember hearing that uh the deaf deaf community I mean deaf organizations
uh originally were upset about the infrequency of uh captions captioned uh film of "A Silent
Voice" shown in Japan. And so, they negotiated the presentation time and so forth because it's about,
you know, it show it feature the deaf character main character and why, you know,
excluded deaf audiences, right, it didn't make any sense, so they correct the anime production
producer corrected that mistake. Thank you very much and these questions and your answers really
do point to the important reality of the continued discrimination against deaf and disabled people
in Japanese pop culture industries, but also the opportunities that are opening up
and there's definitely a lot of activity in the Japanese deaf communities,
especially within filmmaking, dance, and theater. I'm going to put a link in the chat
to a really interesting film from 2016 called "Listen" or "Rissun" by two deaf filmmakers
who about sign language music, their names are Eri Makihara and Dakei. Um
type that out uh and so there's definitely a rich universe of
deaf created Japanese cultural products, but "A Silent Voice" had such prominence.
I'm going to continue on with questions in the chat, Monique Hold asked a similar question "Are
there any deaf or other disabled manga artists out there?", which I think you've covered in your
last answer, um next is Eileen Vo, who asks "Thank you for your wonderful presentation,
I was wondering if you can provide us with more information about the history of JSL." Oh great,
great question. Uh well, honestly, to understand the history of deaf communities in Japan,
the best book to read is Karen Nakamura's "Deaf in Japan" and it has you know the sections and
the chapters of deaf history, but just for the synopsis, as far as I I understand, um there's
the first school for the deaf was founded in Kyoto in 18 um late 18...1875 or something,
right, and then after that uh that the school also included the blind. So that the first uh
school for the deaf and blind was founded in Kyoto and then after that there are many more
the schools for the deaf and the deaf or on the blind as well all over Japan. But um,
as I said before, you know, they were originally encouraging students to communicate and they they
were forming their sign language communication and their refined sign styles and so forth,
but after the Milan Conference in 1880s, right, uh because of that western influence and also
pressure from the Japanese government, those folks who felt needed to change to oral, you know,
education and uh they only accept only one school in Osaka, yeah they change that that's the,
you know, the educational styles there, but it's not much different. And then, you know,
up until recently uh still majority of the school teachers were signing not their real JSL,
but, you know, the signed Japanese uh I mean uh uh like a pigeon version of
the Japanese Sign Language and so forth. And only quite recently that trend changed. So in uh,
we have one uh private school, which is totally bilingual, you know, just the natural
the Japanese Sign Language and the English, written English, uh communication, right,
so that's one in a Meisei Gakuen in Tokyo and then other public schools for the deaf uh were strongly
encouraging teachers to use real sign Japanese Sign Language in regular instructions, yeah,
so I hope I answered. Thank you so much for that really concise and great history of JSL.
Moving on in the chat to a two-part question from Yuanshui Jing, she asks "Hi Professor Okuyama,
thank you so much for the amazing lecture. I noticed that "Gangsta" is a seinen manga,
in other words, a manga meant largely for adult men, and "Silent Voice" is a shonen manga for
boys and young men. Do you think that, to some extent, specific genres of manga are consuming
deaf people?" And the second part is "Besides, can we say that in some manga deafness is reduced to
an element, according to Azuma Hiroki's database theory. To clarify, Azuma Hiroki's database theory
is this idea that in Japanese pop culture, many characters aren't consumed as full-on characters,
but just based on their elements, you know, the color of their hair,
the that they wear glasses or not", so in in she's asking, I think, is deafness sometimes
reduced to just another trait of characters that may make them attractive or interesting, rather
than become an actual accurate depiction of them, so that's a two-parter there. Okay great, so let
me respond to the first question, right, uh the first one is a genre, any particular genre is more
deaf manga friendly or disability manga, right, the "Silent Voice" is just, well, as I understand,
the difference, one of the elements that makes the difference in genre is content of violence
and sexual, you know, material, so "Gangsta" definitely has to be for older male readers,
because of all the action, you know, scenes and so forth, brutal killings and stuff,
right, so uh yeah. It doesn't doesn't mean that the author also neglected the disability focus,
just because of that particular genre and then by contrast, you know, uh
the the author of "A Silent Voice" um is is also um well-immersed in shoujo manga, you know,
the manga made for women, for girls and older women, I mean so teenage girls and uh those little
older women and so, coming from that background, you know, she has that element of romance, but not
without any sexual connotation. So, that is that's why the target readers were uh uh, you know,
seinen manga. Then, why not shoujo manga for women, why why shounen, why young why young boys,
right, well nowadays that genre specification it's really more uh, you know, blurry and
especially topics with social importance, such as disability or discrimination, and in this manga
in particular, bullying, right right, so those are the other stories with such social significance uh
are more likely to be marketed to the the gen the readers with the, you know, um
with the the the male uh audiences, because traditionally, male readers tend to focus on
what they like, very narrow interests, compared to female readers. Female readers are said to have
a little bit more diverse interests, but male readers tend to need you know their uh
sports magazine sports um genre or, you know, like gambling or
you know yakuza type manga, but, you know, in order to create awareness in society,
right, that important message has to be shared with as many, all the different audiences,
as possible. So I think it's there is a publisher's intention behind, you know, to market
to the I mean market to the the younger boys there. Well uh I mean with the the "Silent Voice",
but with "Gangsta", I don't think the publisher had that type of intention,
I don't think that publisher wanted to use that manga to increase the awareness of deaf character,
right, so that I think that that's, you know, origin of the story is it has a big role to play.
And then, for the second question, uh yeah I understand that, you know, uh
sometimes characters with disabilities are reduced to that disability, symbolism of disability,
what's possible, right, or element, um and this manga to some extent has that,
yeah, so uh that implication. So I didn't say this in my lecture, but the reason I didn't choose that
that manga "A Silent Voice", well, there are a few reasons one of the reason is you
know the main topic, the theme of this manga is bullying, not particularly a disability community,
and I also think you know Shoko, the deaf girls um agency, is kind of reduced and
the manga does not really introduce how Shoko interacts with other deaf people, right,
so that's in in these regards that manga, "A Silent Voice", has more like an element,
the type of, you know, approach, compared to those pioneer manga uh manga titles I analyzed my book,
so that was the reason why why I didn't those are the reason why I didn't choose to analyze
"A Silent Voice", but for this lecture I chose it because I assumed that more people are familiar
with that anime version of it, right, and that was that is quite popular in the United States.
And several of my students were talking about that too, so I thought it's more approachable.
So I hope I answered the questions, but if there is any element I left out, please let me know.
Thanks very much uh, and on that note, I want to uh read out some comments that are
follow-up to earlier points related to what you just said, uh Brenda Schertz has followed
up saying "Thank you for mentioning about accurate portrayal of deaf people and manga,
most people might think it's a it is a positive thing to portray deaf characters in manga,
yet in the film "A Silent Voice", the deaf character is portrayed as a lonely and isolated
girl, which is an old stereotype of deaf people. There were no other deaf characters. Usually deaf
people socialize with other deaf people, but that was not shown at all in the Silent Voice.
For that reason, I was curious if culturally deaf people in Japan was consulted on the film"
and uh Leanne responds to Brenda directly saying that that "Remember that deaf people aren't a
monolith, there's a variety of experiences, some deaf people, especially mainstreamed ones
like Shoko, where she's the only deaf student at school, don't have the opportunity
to make their friends. Many deaf people have that experience as children and later grow
up as adults to make deaf friends, that was my experience as well." So that was an interesting
exchange in the comments, I'm going to go back up to the questions and uh the next question in
in the queue is uh Yan Liu who asks "Thank you for your terrific presentation, Professor Okuyama.
I am curious about the category of intellectual disability in Japan,
can you say a bit more about that category and its portrayal in manga?"
Uh intellectual disability, all right, category of intellectual disability um okay. Andrew,
can you specify that well so the question I I haven't pinpointed the question in chat- So yeah
uh a bit more about the portrayal, oh sorry, uh a bit more about the portrayal of intellectual
disability in Japan in particular and how that category is constructed. Okay, all right.
So, as far as I can recall just off the bat, um two there are two big big manga
that features the protagonists with intellectual disability. One is "With the Light",
the "Hikari to Tomoni," and the other one is "Daisuki Yuzuru no Kosodate Nikki".
It hasn't been translated into English yet, but if I would, then that would be that I love it
and this is Yuzuru's uh Yu- Yuzuru's um Yuzuki ka na,
and uh uh parenting parenting the diary. So these two have attracted a lot of attention,
a lot of attention from Japanese readers and how they are constructed in terms of disability,
intellectual disability. The first one I cited, "With the Light", that focuses uh the autism,
that's a child with autism, and uh the mother . . . Well actually the protagonist is not only
the child, but also mother and mother struggles to uh gain understanding from her relatives,
especially her mother, Izuko, and who is critical of her giving birth to a child with a disability
and then she also struggles to find support from schools and so forth. So it is really,
uh I believe, a very accurate rendition of how mothers uh with
with children with intellectual disability go through within the school system in Japan,
and also community, as well as in interaction with their relatives. In Japan, we still have some
archaic um biases or the even the superstitions about disabilities, you know, if you your child is
born with a disability maybe it's a curse from the previous life and so forth and there are relatives
who say that, words that type of superstition. So those kind of things are also portrayed portrayed
in that manga "With the Light". And then second one um, "Daisuki Yuzuru no Kosodate Nikki",
I just I haven't read the the whole series myself, so I don't know, but uh it was it
became so popular, the NHK made a drama series I believe. So, so far, I haven't come up come across
any you know repercussion from the the the groups of groups representing intellectual disability,
so I think that it was well received. Thanks very much, for the next question in the chat,
Luis asks "Hello Professor Okuyama, thank you for the presentation regarding disability and manga.
What does the Japanese government- does the Japanese government have any mangaka manga artist
programs to support disabled communities in Japan that are interested in the arts and storytelling?"
Ah, that's an interesting question, uh you mean governmental support for manga artists with
disabilities, right, um that, I as far as I know there is no particular program that with that.
However, the the government uh the the, the Japanese government, has
I think MEXT Monbusho has an outlet where which recognizes uh impactful,
inspiration and impactful manga for with awards. So government is involved in recognizing
progressive manga stories that cast like disability, but it's not just on
disability it's just, you know, any any manga with groundbreaking uh insights and the influential,
you know, messages, right, so and but uh any partic uh program uh
particularly to support uh manga artists to produce manga about disability or, you know,
among the artists with disabilities I don't know any any, but it would be, yeah, it would be
excellent because there are much fewer number of artists you know like like the disability model,
right, nothing about us without us, so we need to really encourage uh people with disabilities,
you know, to produce their own perspectives in the art form, in the manga art form.
Thanks very much, um so the next question in the chat is from Michael Rambus who asks
"Thank you for your wonderful presentation and book, so important. Very much looking
forward to your future work. I am curious, do deaf people identify as disabled in japan?
Is there anything analogous to the capital d deaf culture in Japan?" Ah, good question, right,
and once again I have to I have to cite Karen Nakamura's book "Deaf in Japan", right, so because
that features all the transitions Japanese deaf individual went through, from the just regular d,
to capital d movement, and so forth. So you can read in detail, in much detail, about that the,
you know, activism and transitions and so forth in the book, Karen Nakamura's book, yeah, but just to
answer your question, well, you know, of whether they recognize being deaf as disability is a
kind of double edged sword, well not, but it's as kind of multiple implications I should say. Right,
so for one thing they do that people with uh I mean deaf people do receive uh what we call
the "disability passport," Shōgai-sha techō, and with that passport, they can, you know, ride the
public transportation with discount and there are lots of benefits, right, so they applied, right,
and in order to apply they have to identify themselves with with that disability category.
But in terms of, you know, their awareness, their self-identities,
there are deaf leaders who really just like, you know, deaf leaders in the United States,
who identify themselves with just a different culture, different group, different language
speakers, not as a disability group, right, so uh it depends on the person of course right and then
uh Japan uh in Japan, there is a big uh deaf community uh deaf organization Japan uh Japan uh
Federation of Deaf. They have a different they have, their members have different ideas
from those who have progressive ideas and identify themselves as their own
culture group, right, so we can I cannot just speak for one group uh per se, but uh what,
as I said before, if you would like to know those different groups and different ideas and different
identities of deaf individuals, definitely check out Karen Nakamura's Deaf in Japan.
Thanks so much for your answer um and we have one more question in the chat,
that's from Shan Shan Oyan, who asks "Thank you for your presentation Professor Okuyama,
I'm interested in queer culture. Do you know any manga about LGBT people with disabilities?"
So, I don't recognize LGBTQ, of course, as that category, right, so you you are asking L D-
L G D Q class group which uh um, you know, medically recognized disability
like a mental disability or physical disability and so forth, so do I know any uh any group
um in Japan? Or any uh manga about people who are both queer and disabled, for example.
There are a lot of manga about you know queer backgrounds, of course, in Japan but uh just
from the top of my head, I can't think of any manga titles that that look at both LGBTQ and a
recognized disability, uh typically recognized disability, like a physical disability per se
so. Ah okay wait wait, I take it back, there is one, one manga I recently came across, but I can't
remember uh the title, but in in that manga the the protagonist is is uh gay and also has a speech
impediment, so he has a stuttering I think, um right, speech impediment, but it's there is no
one genre that's there I don't think there is not critical critical mass to create a genre for that.
Thank you and uh I could think of one more example in the chat, it's called a manga called "I Hear
the Sunspot", which is a about two gay male characters, one of whom is hard of hearing
and uh that's an interesting example but,- Ah that's right that's right yeah yeah I I know
that one too. Right, but, it's definitely not a huge trend like you say um I think uh in the
chat that's almost it. Um, I have one question myself just to take the advantage of this time.
Many of my deaf friends in Japan told me that there's some relationship between manga and JSL,
for example JSL slang, slang where you can sign sound effects across
your body sort of in a manga style. So I was interested to hear your thoughts on sort of
uh this relationship between the manga medium and JSL more generally and not just in its
portrayal in these two works. I see, so the manga medias and JSL. Uh well,
you know, um as I mentioned in the lecture
uh those two manga uh I mean those two manga artists, Yamamoto and Karube,
their works really portray the specific sign signing right, sign representations and uh
uh so it's this uh
"The Silent Voice", but any specific collaboration, um I'm not really sure
how to approach that question, yeah, so it's it's any development between the two yeah, I haven't,
right now I can't think of anything, I'm sorry but maybe, you know, if we exchange email addresses,
I could be able to come up with some ideas or I mean that I may remember something and then I
can respond later, but right now I don't really uh have anything to share. That's totally fine,
but I also want to use this as an opportunity to direct people to some of your excellent past
work on uh on deaf teens in Japan and their use of text messaging, uh you've written some really done
really some really interesting research on that so using new media, new technologies uh in innovative
ways, so thank you so much for, not just this book, but for your vast amounts of past work.
We have time for one more question perhaps, if anyone wants that in the chat or raise their hand.
Um, but if there is no more questions, I think uh Professor Okuyama has uh had a very intense couple
of hours, so I just wanted to wish her a very warm thank you for a really wonderful talk uh.
Thank you so much for your really fascinating uh lecture and your answers to the very extensive Q&A
and thank you to the audience for your attention and your great questions and thank you to
the two interpreters for your wonderful work, uh thank you so much. Thank you very much!