Abstract
Geographically and culturally positioned between Asia and the Anglo-American world, Australia performs a peculiar role in the shōjo romanticization of the foreign, displacing conventional views of women’s manga exoticism. Focusing on two women’s manga, Igarashi’s Jōji! (Georgie! 1982) and Kazui Kazumi’s Sekai no chūshin de ai o sakebu (Crying out love at the centre of the world, 2001), this chapter traces the development of the representation of Australia in women’s manga and more broadly its role within the shōjo’s imagination of the foreign.
In this chapter, Japanese names are in the Japanese order, with the family name preceding the first name.
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Notes
- 1.
Katayama Koichi’s novel Sekai no chūshin de ai o sakebu was first published by Shōgakukan in 2001, and became an instant best seller. Besides the manga version, it was adapted into a live action film, directed by Yukisada Isao and released in 2004, and into a television drama, aired on the TBS network also in 2004.
- 2.
This last element is obviously Igarashi’s poetic license in the midst of her otherwise naturalistic portrayal of Australian fauna, since cockatoos, albeit belonging to the parrot family, are not talking birds.
- 3.
Interestingly, while the story spans several months, enough time at least for Georgie to elope with Lowell, leave him, be reunited with Abel, get pregnant, and give birth, London is constantly represented in winter and Australia constantly in summer, enhancing the positive, happy atmosphere associated with the Pacific region and the contrast with the gloom of Europe.
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Suter, R. (2019). Re-centring Australia in the Shōjo Imagination. In: Ogi, F., Suter, R., Nagaike, K., Lent, J.A. (eds) Women’s Manga in Asia and Beyond. Palgrave Studies in Comics and Graphic Novels. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-97229-9_10
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