Michiko Yamada

Double Consciousness As a Fantasy Theme: Japanese "Ladies' Comics" and Sexual Fantasy Michiko Yamada

"Ladies' comics," a genre of sexually explicit Japanese manga magazines produced for women and by women, were thought to revolutionary because they portray women having free sexuality outside of marriage. Other types of sexual expression outside marriage have traditionally been seen as socially unacceptable. However, semiotic analyses of this genre of manga demonstrates that what they depict is women's double consciousness; believing something against their own interests. In these popular manga women characters are typically portrayed as enjoying being raped, adultery, and even being the targets of incest. Ladies' comics also show women's cognitive dissonance, by which they have a contradictory idea of wanting to be and at the same time not wanting to be involved in these sexual activities. Thus, ladies' comics stories actually send messages that reinforce a conservative male-base set of fantasy themes where the women involved do not initiate or control sexual interaction but instead are passive targets of sexual advances.