Succeeding in Hardcore Tokyo: Musical Space and Gender in Japanese Manga

Giacche, M; Hansen, GM

doi:10.1007/978-3-032-14000-5_12

Succeeding in Hardcore Tokyo: Musical Space and Gender in Japanese Manga

Lookup NU author(s): Matteo Giacchè, Dr Gitte Marianne Hansen ORCiD

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Abstract

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2026.This chapter explores the intersection of hardcore rock music, gender and genre conventions in Japanese manga through a comparative analysis of Yazawa Ai’s NANA (2000–2009) and Umezawa Haruto’s Bureemen (2000–2001). Both works depict young musicians pursuing their dreams within Tokyo’s underground hardcore rock scene, a subculture traditionally marginal to Japan’s mainstream music industry. By examining how musical ambition, friendship and gender presentation are negotiated within the distinct narrative frameworks of shōjo and shōnen manga, the essay highlights how these spaces offer both opportunities and limitations for alternative gender expressions. While in both works, feminine and female characters navigate masculinized subcultural environments challenging conventional gender norms, the consequences of musical success are highly gendered. In Yazawa’s manga masculinized femininity leads to fame but personal tragedy, reaffirming shōjo manga’s emphasis on romantic love for female happiness. In contrast, Bureemen’s gender-nonconforming character ultimately achieves both success and happiness, though only after proving masculine strength in line with shōnen genre expectations. Drawing on Jennifer Milioto Matsue’s study of Tokyo’s underground music scene, the essay argues that while these manga fictionally depict the subcultural space as a place of non-normative possibilities, they also remain tied to biological sex and normative conventions.