Climbing the Spiral Staircase: Queer Censorship, Comiket & Reactionary Western Optics

(An exceedingly rare, never before documented text from Comiket 5, volume 2 of Spiral Staircase contains the works of both well known and obscure Year 24 group shoujo and shonen-ai / BL / yaoi illustrators and mangaka. Acquired from the estate of a deceased mangaka who's family asked me to archive a few of their texts. Cover illustration by Tomoko Nakamine (中峰智子), Personal collection.)

I've been digging my heels into a lot of different topics lately, mainly at the behest of getting more information out that I find is seriously lacking, though in these moments of reflection, I've had a lot to shoulder and digest. Thankfully, doujinshi, even in its most obscure forms, is in no short supply. I've made a lot of acquaintances lately who have been in high spirits about sourcing and locating these sorts of works, though there has been quite a lot carrying on in the backdrop.

For one, Comiket 106 recently ended on a resoundingly positive note on the 17th - an onslaught of brand new works, from original pieces to manga research doujinshi, hit the market for all. In the sea of cosplayers and fans alike, Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX, for instance, received a massively fresh breadth of BL works and artbooks. It made me happy to see so many new Gundam works, though it was even more special considering that many were from friends, mutuals and illustrators that I've been paying very close attention to. I'm overjoyed that Gundam once again has a brand new following of BL artists and appreciators, especially in the midst of a series like GQuuuuuuX' reintroduction of 0079 characters and themes. 

(Views from Comiket 8, held April 8th of 1978. Cels sold by this circle, while not immediately identified, span from Space Battleship Yamato to Combattler V. A Yamato circle that appears to be "Rose Cross" exhibited.)

With that said, I wasn't able to attend Comiket this year due to a variety of circumstances, however, I was able to participate a bit more vicariously and through collecting once again as well as getting this bit of criticism in order. Shopping during this time on my main haunt, Yahoo Japan Auctions, proved to once again be a bit more chaotic, just as I figured it would be post another successful Comiket - sifting, slithering and gathering new works in a sea of brand new copy books, re-editions and more makes for more work than play, but if anyone knows anything about me, they know that work can be play. Where resellers tend to thrive on buying volumes from vendor stalls just for a quick buck, many are holding the line on a variety of new books that will more than likely retain their value for the next few months, if not years. 

In the midst of bringing on the new, the old tends to be dashed away for cut rate prices, and a variety of works that I'd been scouting for have finally been acquired. Many pieces are now operating in the banality of lax censorship at Comiket in this day and age, though in reality, this posited a brand new conversation to be had. I really do find it important to discuss the current climate in regards to censorship. In the past few months, the internet, already on the crux of marginalization and corporate codification, took yet another plunge into the abyss thanks to Western legislation that demands upon us netizens police-state like compliance. Be it via facial recognition, age censorship and the assiduousness of payment processors denigrating adult identities and enjoyment, the web has become a battleground once more for those who believe that power can only be gained through fascist talking points, innuendos and bullying. 

We also live in an era where certain political and gender sentiments become talking points against the presence of Bara, Geicomi, yaoi, etc. on social media, oftentimes policed by a very specific racial and gendered demographic. 

Prioritizing the voices of a paternalistic, infantilizing lot will never be my thing or in my stride, though ignoring these implications while actively researching and documenting queer works has opened my eyes to this brand new frontier of, to be utterly frank, backpedaling. 

These arguments feel old to me, almost recycled. I can still see myself in 2011, sitting at my little desk in my computer nook with the whir of a dusty desktop fan beside me, landline phone in hand, calling my congressman. My voice cracked a bit as I pleaded with his secretary to relay that he shouldn't support the Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA, thinking that I could possibly persuade a grown man to do such a thing. I was nervous but determined, some strange mix of dread and adolescent bravado pushing me to speak up. Weeks later, a reply arrived on crisp letterhead to my front door, whereas he dismissed my words outright, and with a politician’s elegant flourish promised to instead “protect the children.”

The internet already felt like it was under siege, though I didn’t quite have the language to describe what was going on even then. I was in high school, playing clunky Facebook app games made with stolen DeviantArt artwork, surrounding myself with troll-face hoodies and emoji pillows, anchored in a fast-moving culture that I was struggling to even understand in some ways. Looking back, it was silly and consumerist, but hidden among the memes and noise I found something electric: kids my age translating grainy VHS cuts of Ashita no Joe, or using MS Paint to stitch together scanlations of more obscure projects. The results were rough, almost jagged, but they were alive with the energy of people who were actively preserving documents that were under fire. Torrent sites were growing stronger than ever as were more obscure forums, though it all made me realize that preservation wasn’t something abstract or lofty - it was happening right there, on pirated DVDs and in the arms of friends alike.

I think often about Go Nagai. His early works were hounded by censors, pulled apart and condemned. It wasn’t new, and it wasn’t unique to him in particular, either, though it echoed through the time I was living in, when the internet felt like it was being boxed in by the same “protective” hand. I was a queer teenager, living in a just-built suburb on the edge of an industrial sprawl. My computer allowed me to live anywhere, as I often put it, wedged into a corner, lit by the faint blue glow of the monitor long past midnight. It was there where I downloaded scans of Ashen Victor (nee Haisha), a Yukito Kishiro manga that hasn’t seen a proper translation since VIZ briefly serialized it. I remember the thrill of saving those pages, like I was helping preserve something fragile and important, even if I didn’t know exactly why.

Those late nights led me somewhere. They taught me to look deeper, to keep records, to research not just out of curiosity but out of a sense of duty to self and to others. Now, when I see the same debates resurface on who gets to control culture, who decides what survives, I can’t help but feel I’ve been watching the same play for years, just with new scenery.

                                      

(Mineko Yamada (山田ミネコ)'s illustration published on the reverse side of vol. 2 of Spiral Staircase's imprint. An important Year 24 group mangaka, Mineko was invited by  illustrator and mangaka Yumi Tangiawa (谷川由美) to participate, showing the overlap of Comiket's spaces with the commercial manga world.)

(Yasuko Sakata (坂田靖子), another important Year 24 mangaka's contribution to vol.2 of Spiral Staircase. Invited by illustrator and mangaka Yumi Tangiawa (谷川由美) as well, Sakata was in charge of the Lovely Manga Study Group's imprint Lovely, one of the most pivotal works created and sold at Comiket and via mail order. Lovely is known widely as the progenitor of the term yaoi, then a term to discuss visual absurdity in ethos, used by mangaka Mikiko Maru (麻留美樹) in the same imprint.)

Comiket isn't only about fandom culture or the works produced under that veneer, but also the creative freedom it has long provided, especially for women and other marginalized voices. Founded in 1975 by a small group of mangaka, including Yoshihiro Yonezawa, Harada Teruo, and Aniwa Jun, the main frustration with the world of both commercial manga and censorship culminated from the experiences of artists who who were frustrated with the limited space for fan made works and industry attitudes towards them. At that time, professional manga publishing was dominated by a few large commercial magazines - corporate oversight, in such a case, was still an ever present force. 

In such a case, by Comiket's first row in 1975, Comiket’s rise overlapped with the Year 24 Group (often noted by mangakas Moto Hagio, Keiko Takemiya, Riyoko Ikeda, etc.), and thus bolstered specific aesthetics in the midst of high school anime research groups and SF clubs. With these visuals brought forth, explorations of gender, sexuality, and psychology could be easily recorded and shared among the like minded pre-internet — writing about MLM (men loving men) relationships, female desire, trauma, and experimental art styles suddenly didn't have to be regaled to specific outlets anymore, if given an outlet at all.

(From the collection of novelist Kenji Takemoto (竹本健治さ), who published a series of novelettes and possibly even illustrations in subsequent volumes of Spiral Staircase. Note the usage of Mimeographed graphics and the duct taped edges.)

I don't have access to vol.1 of Spiral Staircase, though given additional research and what has been offered to us visually upon vol.2's archival, we can see a collaborative effort between both professional and amateur mangaka, some of which were only junior high school freshmen. Age demographics aside, queer works ingested and created by these artists ranged from both yaoi to even early yuri / WLW (Women loving Women / lesbian) works.

First published and sold on the sales floor of Comiket 5 (April 10, 1977), Spiral Staircase was initially organized by the illustrator and mangaka Yumi Tangiawa (谷川由美). The group pertained primarily of women until about volume 4, whereas the novelist Kenji Takemoto (竹本健治さ) contributed short stories and novelettes. Spiral Staircase in name is drawn from Robert Siodmak's The Spiral Staircase, which I personally found indicative to the surrealist, floating images and manga within the work itself.  Several of the works are very much preoccupied with Europe and European fairytales aesthetics, though quite uniquely, themes of sex work dominate this particular volume.

As noted, Europe, ever present in the backdrop of many early yaoi works, rears its head once more. The Heart of Thomas, set in a German boys’ boarding school, was openly modeled after Thomas Mann’s novel Death in Venice and European Bildungsroman tradition, and quite raptly, unique locales shown in vol.2 of Spiral Staircase appear to be relatively Germanic and French. 

(Page (s) 30 - 32 of Spiral Staircase exhibit the short work Parfum by Shimono Ginga (霜野銀河) with assistance from Yumi Tanigawa (谷川由美). Tanigawa's assistance is not noted or explained, however, the textless work revolves around an effeminate male prostitute and an equally effeminate John. French text, elegant lines and views of what appears to be the Quartier Pigalle are shown.)

Why Europe? The exploration of both homoerotic love and forbidden desire Europe provided seem to have always been personally aligned with anti-censorship. The great, safe cultural removal of queerness from a Japanese landscape brings more to the forefront, but in a far-off “exotic” Europe, it seemingly and clearly felt more approachable and a hint more acceptable. Many of the works presented in vol. 2 of Spiral Staircase have no qualms about the implication, be it tasteful or otherwise, of queerness and its manifestations in beautiful aesthetics. Both the works Parfum by Shimono Ginga and Morning by Yumi Tanigawa, while tackling loss and sex work, are notably textless — the viewer must infer many visual basics through image instead. 

Gothic cathedrals, baroque gardens, stained glass and ivy-covered schools all created an atmosphere of grandeur and tragedy. Doomed romance, Catholic guilt (a trope usually championed via confessions in chapels) and tragic deaths by illness or suicide refined and bolstered visual narratives shown in many yaoi and shoujo works collectively, however, vol. 2 of Spiral Staircase gives far more credence to these narratives through grey area attachment. If anything, its beguiling to even consider the amount of painstaking manuscript work done on several pages.

(Editor and facilitator of Spiral Staircase's Yumi Tanigawa's Morning is one of the few examples of yuri works that made their way to Comiket. Textless, this work revolves around two lesbian lovers, notably 'European Lesbians', one being a sex worker and the latter being her client. This work ends with the death and implied suicide of one character, all in the backdrop of a European city.)

(A hyper modern illustration by the mangaka Nakamura Chisae (中村知佐江) of a 'European Lesbian' for the insert calendar in vol. 2 of Spiral Staircase. Chisae would illustrate several queer female figures within this text, some with nods towards schoolgirl culture in Japan at the time.)

Many of the offerings in vol. 2 of Spiral Staircase include the phenomenon of cuts as I've noted elsewhere, small, innocuous illustrations usually traded among friends via letters and submitted otherwise as doujin filler. Since Comiket in the 1970s was not only a hub for women creating yaoi works, it goes without saying that in equal measure that the space was evermore one where queer identities, lesbian, gay and otherwise, could surface outside of mainstream publishing. Many of the young women who brought their works to Comiket were queer themselves or questioning, and the event gave them a space to explore gender and sexuality outside of censorship-heavy levity. Riyoko Ikeda's The Rose of Versailles (1972–73) and Claudine (1978), for instance, maintained a heavy presence at Comiket and many of these doujin works are so highly obscure. Europe, once more, still remained a prolific backdrop. With two commercial works being beacons for both queer and lesbian focals, what could be said for the optics and presence of Spiral Staircase as a work? 

The emergence of Comiket in 1975 posed itself not merely as a fan gathering, but a radical intervention in the social politics of manga production. From its inception, Comiket was, much to some later contributors' chagrin, disproportionately populated by women, many of whom were primarily teenagers and university students. All the same, these same authors were actively marginalized within commercial publishing structures. Within the heavily policed confines of shoujo magazines, editorial oversight routinely censored content deemed inappropriate for the perceived innocence of the readership: depictions of sexuality, queer desire, and psychological trauma were curtailed or softened into allegory. Henceforth, the most banal of individuals never ceased in so-called 'protecting the children'. 

Comiket’s ethos of doujinshi sale and production, by contrast, afforded these young women the ability to self-publish works that directly challenged such prohibitions in cutting out the middle man. Frankness aside, the majority of female lead circles at Comiket’s earliest gatherings engaged in what might be described as a praxis of “counter-publication.” Rather than protesting censorship in formal political arenas, they circumvented it through creation and distribution. Erotic works, many of which in their earlier inceptions were quite softcore or implication heavy, were authored by women who not only asserted their own personal authorship over the representation of sexuality, but also disrupted the prevailing cultural logic that erotic comics were an untouchable domain at their hands. 

(Page (s) 54 - 58  of vol. 2 of Spiral Staircase display the short one shot manga Tarantella (Tarantula) by Shimono Ginga (霜野銀河) in which two young European queer men, borrowed in aesthetics from early Year 24 group motifs, have a lover's spat over infidelity.)

The stakes of any of this activity were heightened by the broader climate of censorship in 1970s Japan. As mentioned with Go Nagai earlier, the legacy of the PTA-driven backlash against erotic and grotesque (ero guro) manga in the late 1960s produced an atmosphere in which “protecting the children” functioned as a rhetorical cover for the suppression of sexual and non-normative narratives. Against this backdrop, the young women of Comiket’s early circles carved out a semi-clandestine cultural sphere where representations of queer intimacy and female-authored eroticism could circulate. Their publications, often produced with rudimentary printing technologies and sold in small batches, constituted not only personal acts of expression but also communal forms of resistance, producing what Yonezawa later described as a “parallel marketplace of desire.”

In this sense, works like Spiral Staircase and its 'research group' could exist as Comiket operated as a proto-queer and proto-feminist archive. Although the majority of the material culture was ephemeral, the very act of women convening to self-publish was a challenge to the gendered hierarchies of the mainstream manga industry. 

In that way, the circulation of works centered on gay romance, alongside occasional explicitly lesbian narratives, demonstrates that Comiket was from its earliest days a site where marginalized identities could be imagined, rehearsed, and shared. The “fight against censorship” was thus less a visible campaign than an ongoing practice of self-determined creation, grounded in the insistence that women’s desires and queer subjectivities were worthy of representation, even if only in the liminal space of a convention hall. History, as it seems, wishes to repeat itself again.