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(Non)Mature and Sabotage of Urban Masculinity-The Genealogy and Cultural Politics of Korean-Japanese Delinquent Teenager Manga in the 1980s-90s

  • Journal of Popular Narrative
  • 2023, 29(2), pp.79-115
  • DOI : 10.18856/jpn.2023.29.2.003
  • Publisher : The Association of Popular Narrative
  • Research Area : Interdisciplinary Studies > Interdisciplinary Research
  • Received : May 13, 2023
  • Accepted : June 2, 2023
  • Published : June 30, 2023

Yoon Jae Min 1

1원광대학교 동북아시아인문사회연구소

Accredited

ABSTRACT

This article traces the early cultural politics genealogy of the Delinquent Teenager Manga genre from Japan in the 1980s to the 1990s’ Jjang in Korea. In previous discussions, Jjang has been discussed in terms of only “Korean” Delinquent Teenager Manga. On the other hand, this article focuses on Jjang as a text that excellently localized the universal genre customs and cultural politics unique to the Delinquent Teenager manga. First of all, I examine cultural politics context of the male-oriented subculture unique to the Japanese Delinquent Teenager genre, which is believed to have directly or indirectly influenced Jjang. Then, as an example of excellent localization, I will discuss in more detail the locality of this manga and the characterization of its protagonist, Hyun Sangtae. In the conclusion, I will argue that transnational subcultures in East Asia can be a common communication form that provides meaningful cultural and political discourse in the civil society sphere in each place. South Korea and Japan have developed as capitalist states that are part of the U.S.-led East Asian Free region. In particular, the capitalist system in both countries is a thoroughly bureaucratic social reproduction system centered in the capital, which has consistently invisibilized and been alienated working-class political movements. In this way, the sociocultural context in which genre conventions based on non-elite urban masculinity cultures are grounded in meaningful subculture references in Korea can be thought of as an ‘Asian perspective’.

Citation status

* References for papers published after 2023 are currently being built.

This paper was written with support from the National Research Foundation of Korea.