Interview with Mr. Sagawa
(a founder of “June,
Sun Publication)
June 6, 2002.
The
background of Mr. Sagawa and “June”
Mr.
Sagawa was born in 1954. He was crazy about manga since he was little. Although
he was a boy’s manga fan, he started to read girl‘s manga depicted
by for example Takemiya, Hagio, Yamagishi, Ohshima nicknamed “24 year
group (Shojo mangaka who were born around Showa 24 – equibarent
1949)” since their quality of manga reached the level of boy’s
manga and they were very interesting in those days. (Those female mangaka are
actually from Osamu Tezuka’s experimental manga magazine,
“Com.” This was well known as a high-grade manga magazine with not
only manga, but also critic and the research of manga historically.) When Tokyo
comic Market was founded, he was one of the staff members as well as Mr.
Yonezawa. He also participated in Tokyo comic market as a seller of an Oosaka
region-based dojinshi group of “Channel Garo koubou (studio).” (The
main mangaka of the group is a well-known 4 frame mangaka, Hisaichi Isii and a
manga critic, Tomohiko Murakami). Mr. Sagawas was a college student of Waseda
University. At the same time, he started to work in Sun Syuppan (publication
company) – pornographic male manga/magazine general publication company -
as a part timer. He quit University after 6 year’s study and he continued
to work in Sun publication as a full timer.
As
soon as he started to work in the company as a permanent worker, he planned to
publish a new magazin for female and founded “Jun (later changed to
“June”)” in 1978. The goal of “June (pronounced
“Ju-nei” ) was for soft pornographic manga magazine for female. The
reason was that he felt the needs since there was the arrival of boy’s
love story in commercial manga by Keiko Takemiya, Moto Hagio, Yumiko Ohshima,
and others and started be popular even in the major commercial publishing
companies. This June was successful in responding to latent female needs which
eager to create and read fantastic, romantic, and superior love. June became popular with the special
issue of animation of Kaze to Ki no Uta (literally means “Poem of Wind
and Tree,” originally published as serial weekly manga in Shojyo Comic in
1976). Also, June was founded against from an animation magazine of “Out,”
which was published by Minori Shoboh (publication). (Minori Shoboh is a kind of
rival company for Sun Syuppan. Out was a sub-cultural animation magazine which
targeted youth. Out became popular with the special issue of
“Yamato” of space opera.)
Mr.
Sagawa said that June represented female’s ideal in which everything
should be good-looking and beautiful. (In case of Japanese aesthetic, I believe
that good-looking and beautiful mean “slender,”
“fragile,” “sensitive,” and “delicate.”
Japanese female never admit “macho” as beauty.) So, the bottom line
of this manga magazine is that all characters should be nice-looking men.
For
the question of how “June” has been changed last 25 years since
1978, he responded that the content of story changed from soft love to hard
love like pornography. This was reflected the appearance of “Lady’s
Comic” magazine after girl’s manga. (Lady’s Comic was
developed in 1980s which targeted female around late 20s to 30s after
graduating from Shojho manga readers of teen ages. The content of story of this
was generally love story between man and woman with a taste of soft
pornography. But later on, the story went to extreme like a hardcore porno and
the main part of story was sex scenes. But even so, characters and sexual
scenes are always depicted indirectly and beautifully. It’s never shown
directly unlike American pornography.
The
majority of “June” readers was originally teenage of high school.
But, the age group of readers has been stretched out from junior high (early
teenage) to 40th last 25 years, which means that the initial readers
did not stop reading and/or come back after their marriage and/or rising their
children. “June” was not a temporal phenomenon only for teenage
girls.
Another
significant phenomenon related to “June” magazine was that
“Shousetsu (novel) June” was founded in October, 1982 to respond to
writer’s request that they could create M/M love story although they
could not draw in manga, but they would like to create such story. Regardless
of different ways either manga or novel, their purpose was the same which was
to create superior love between beautiful and idealistic M/M.
The
publication number of the first issue was about 120,000 in 380 Japanese yen
(about 3 US dollars) in 1978, which was a little more expensive than any other
magazines in those days. The half number was returned. Although they reduced
the number of publication, June was temporarily closed after publishing 8
issues. (The story is a little complicated that it was published bimonthly, but
later changed to monthly. So 8 issues might be one and a half years later.) But
soon after, “June” was back in responding to serious readers’
request and also publishers found that June was consistently sold in 20,000 to
30,000 issues as maniac magazine to core readers. Mr. Sagawa said that
“June” was republished as a high-grade literary art magazine based
on M/M love story. “June” was doubled in cost around 700 Japanese
yen.
At
this time, June emphasized the contribution for magazine. They created column
in it called “Syousetsu-doujyou (literally means “novel excise
hall”)” with an editor, Azusa Nakajima who is a well-known yaoi
writer. Unlike the major publications, it is not the competition with awards,
but it gave a grade (of black belt) depending on the quality of novel with
comments and suggestions. Majority of yaoi writers who participate actively in
commercial is originally from this excise hall. Mr. Sagawa said that he invited
many talented writers from Comic markets.
*“Oekaki
Kyoshitsu (literally means “drawing school”)” for amateur
mangaka was created with the support of professional mangaka, Keiko Takemiya.
Those two schools are still continued through June. (I need to ask Keiko the
process of creating this school and the reason.)
Prior
to present, 99% of June readers are female.
The
reason for popurality of June might have a couple of reasons.
First
of all, when June was founded, publishers including Mr. Sagawa predicted to
contravasial issues for the content of June, which was the love story of M/M.
To be ready for the ideological/theoretical dispute, June was founded as a
pornographic magazine for literature. June is the female magazine for female
who are not good at communicating with others and in society. June is a place
of shelter for those women. June is a place of therapistic rehabilitation for
those women who had experiences of mental and physical abuses as a female. Mr.
Sagawa said that he cannot ignore that there are not a few readers who had such
experiences during their childhood. Some of they have experiences which they
never been loved by people (e.g. parents, friends, opposite sex, and others).
Finally, June became popular since the story of June encouraged those female to
visualize a supreme love of M/M and it heal their wound and struggle as women
who are not existed in this society equally to men.
The
arrival of Yaoi and the meaning of Yaoi based on Mr’ Sagawa’s point
of view
The
category of Yaoi in Comic Markets became popular with the big hit of an
animation of “Captain Tsubasa (around 1980s?). Before the yaoi, there
were groups of “June” and “Tanbi (literally means
“aesthetic” which are fondness fro an obsession with works of
beautiful things).”
The
origin of term of Yaoi was from the manifesto of Kanazawa region-based group
(e.g. Rinko Hatsu and Yasuko Sakata) that they ironically called the content of
their dojinshi were “Yamanashi, Ochinashi, and Iminashi. (I omit the
explanation since we already discussed it a lot.) Actually, the meaning is totally
opposite according to Mr. Sagawa, there are only “Ochi, Yama, and Imi
“ which only has highlight scene of sexual relationship for M/M without
any transitional connections among them. Anyways, the term which was initially
manifested by them started to look out for oneself and changed to be used as a
parody which has low quality with only sexual scenes of M/M. Especially, the
parody was produced by dojinshi groups and spread through comic markets with
the movement of “Captain Tsubasa.” Now the term is meant to be any
kinds of love story of M/M which is not necessary of parody. Under the category of Yaoi, there are
“June,” “Tanbi,” and “Boy’s Love.”
(By the way, M/M is indicated MXM in Japan. And the first “M” means
“Seme” and the second “M” is “Uke,” according
to Mr. Sagawa.)
The
characteristics of Yaoi parody is, for example, to exchange
“friendship” to “love” between boy and boy in the
soccer team in the story of “Captain Tsubasa.” And the love needs
to have sex. The words of “I can die for you” as a symbol of
extreme friendship of fellow love can be replaceble as a symbol of superior
love. Yaoi parody is a story of combination good points from both of female and
male, which are the combination between sensitivity, gentle and strength.
If
so, Why do those of characters have to be M/M instead of M/W or W/W? If it is
the love between M/W, the story does not exist as a superior love due to the
reality after love is accomplished. Also, the Yaoi story is developed based on
fellow-love of friendship between M/M, the love story of W/W never be a extreme
love since there are no friendship between W and W. (Seemingly, Yaoi
mangaka/writiers believe that even the slushy situation with gelous never be
obstacle for the relationship of M/M love. This is also an example that they
are not guy since they don’t know the reality of guy couples
relationship. It will be the same as the relationship of M/W.)