Considering how well the new title announcements have been covered on other blogs like A Geek by Any Other Name and Boys Next Door, I’m not going to devote most of this Yaoi-Con report to new title announcements. Instead I’m going to talk about the effectiveness of the panels themselves, and my reaction as a gay male to the Yaoi-Con experience.
In terms of the panels, the Go! Comi panel with Wendy Pini and the Deux Press were definitely the most interesting. Go! Comi announced at their panel the yaoi-friendly 07-Ghost which comes from Zero-Sum, the magazine which published the infamously teasing shonen-ai manga Loveless. They also announced two new Ryo Takagi titles Get the Moon and Bran Doll. Go! Comi’s manga trailers are getting better and better too. Definitely check out their Afterschool Nightmare trailer at the Go! Comi site. I think that these are a really effective way to advertise their series. What really rocked this panel though was Wendy Pini’s presentation of her upcoming Masque of Red Death. This comic is the second western publication be Go! Comi, and is also Go! Comi’s first foray into yaoi. She and Go! Comi put together a terrific trailer, and the art she showcased for the comic was gorgeous. Wendy Pini herself was incredibly personable and funny, and had the crowd guffawing and cheering throughout the panel. I got a chance to chat with her later where she explained that she is quite ready to be defined by something other than her magnum opus ElfQuest, and that she is immensely proud of her work in Masque.
The lovely ladies of Go! Comi (center and right) and the lovely Wendy Pini (left), author of the upcoming Masque of Red Death.
Also immensely entertaining was the Deux panel. The presenter had a knack for making all of their series seem like the greatest gift to manga since Tezuka, and was humorous all the while. One thing that shocked me was Deux Press’ decision to license both a CJ Michalski title, Noodle Shop Affair and Nase Yamato’s Take Me to Heaven. I find this so fascinating because both of these titles are really pushing the age barrier between yaoi and shotacon (male x male romances including at least one underage character). It has been made explicitly clear by all companies in the yaoi publishing field that they are avoiding publishing manga with shotacon content that though technically legal since the Supreme Court ruling of Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition, is still a legally risky venture. When I asked the presenter if he was worried about a negative reaction to these titles because of how obviously young the characters look, he was quick to assure me that the characters were of age, there would be no cover edits made, and that they weren’t worried in the slightest. This struck me as odd considering 801 Media’s nervousness about Love is Like a Hurricane and Boysenberry’s ultimate decision to tone down the blush on CJ Michalski’s protagonist in the cover art of Delivery Cupid. Even in the panel where Nase Yamato showed off her gorgeous artwork and answered questions, she personally stated that she was intentionally moving beyond the younger looking characters and was putting that style behind her. Though her tastes have undoubtedly changed, the American publishers demand for manga with older characters is probably has affected her choices, even for purely business reasons. Personally I believe that censorship of artwork is unacceptable no matter if it suits your tastes or not, so I hope the best for Deux. And honestly, though the characters definitely look like they’re under 18, the manga look adorable and endearing. I’m expecting those, as well as the also announced Love Round!! by Hinako Takanaga (one of my favorite yaoi mangaka), to be high points in Deux’s developing library.
Left: The Deux Press Industry panel. Lots of exciting upcoming titles from them! Right: Nase Yamato signing copies of Pet on Duty, as well as some of her gorgeous prints.
One thing I would like to discuss is my largely negative personal experience at Yaoi-Con as a homosexual male. There were definitely some nice aspects of the Con: I wasn’t assumed to be heterosexual (as I am everywhere else) and I was definitely welcomed by all the panelists and industry staff with great warmth. Furthermore, it was just relaxing to be in a place where male x male romance was desirable as opposed to being stigmatized. Generally though, that’s where my warm fuzzies ended. Many of the cons main events–Bishonen Bingo, the Continental Bishie Brunch, the Bishonen Auction and the Bishonen Spanking Inferno–were horribly objectifying and dehumanizing. The vast majority of the con attendees were female, and sitting in the audience as a lone male as they paid money to take men back to their rooms in the Auction or get up in the Inferno to spank them felt unnerving to say the least. At worst, the events felt like a tame but still incredibly disturbing slave auction (the Bishonen Auction) to at best a cathartic reversal of power dynamics for the almost entirely female audience. Regardless, the whole experience left me feeling terribly dehumanized and objectified. Every single one of the above Main Events emphasized the power differential between the paying benefactors and the nominally gay boys they were objectifying. There were people “buying” boys in the Bishonen Auction, people buying bingo sheets in Bishonen Bingo in order to make the men publicly strip, people buying tickets in the Spanking Inferno in order to spank an adult “gay” male, or paying to be served food by subservient “gay” men in the Continental Bishie Brunch. I use quotes because part of the appeal is that all of these boys at the Con are nominally gay, though most aren’t in real life. Though I understand that it’s crucial to combat our society’s normal sexist power dynamics that objectify women so awfully, this is not, I repeat NOT, an acceptable way to do so. As a real living and breathing gay male, I felt so objectified and devalued at a convention supposedly dedicated to appreciating depictions of gay men that I doubt I will return. Being able to pick up DMP titles for $5 a pop from the June table doesn’t make up for feeling grossed out, devalued and dehumanized by the entire affair.
The two June/801 panelists (left and right), and a soon-to-be-licensed visiting mangaka (center). She’s the one who does the extras on the 801 Media dust jackets!
It’s with reservations that I recommend skipping out on Yaoi-Con. Despite the fun, the great panels, and the delightful smorgasbord of terrific and cheap yaoi manga, the event itself has many inherent problems. Even the fan-run panels (with the lovely exception of the wonderful “Misogyny & Yaoi” panel), which used to be about community issues, are now devoid of any social awareness.
In summary, the good news is that the Con shines when you enjoy the experience of a lively and excited convention dealing with a niche manga genre. It’s amazing to think that yaoi alone has its own very popular convention considering what a new phenomenon popular manga are in the United States. The panels and dealer stalls are for the most part fun, as is the fans’ enthusiasm for the genre of yaoi. Yaoi itself does not necessarily objectify gay men, and I had a lot of fun when the Con focused on the actual yaoi. What the Con can’t be forgiven for is not having any kind of discourse on issues facing the real-life gay community in its panels or events. Yaoi-Con, despite being about homosexuality, is completely devoid of social consciousness. Worse, I cannot overlook its wholesale endorsement of the objectification of gay men. Yaoi-Con, which claims to support fictional gay men (the Con’s tagline is “A celebration of Male Beauty & Passion in Anime & Manga”), is ultimately counterproductive. Rather than embrace and support real world male homosexuality as it could, Yaoi-Con fetishizes, dehumanizes and ultimately alienates gay men in the yaoi-loving community.
Recent Comments