Abstract

In this thesis, I examine the history of girls’ culture in Japan between 1937 and 1973. In particular, I address the lack of research in existing studies of women’s media on the intervening periods between early twentieth century and the post-1970s period Japan. To this end, I explore how agents of girls’ culture, such as illustrations artists, magazines editors, female students and female comic artists negotiated gender expressions of girlhood in relation to state expectations. I specifically focus on discourse of girlhood and womanhood in girls’ magazines of the Asia-Pacific War (1937-1945) and girls’ comics of the early 1970s. By analysing wartime girls’ magazines such as Girls’ Companion (jp. Shо̄jo no tomo, 1908-1955) and Girls’ Club (jp. Shо̄jo kurabu, 1923-1962), as well as postwar girls’ comics like Ikeda Riyoko’s The Rose of Versailles (jp. Berusaiyu no bara, 1972-1973), I argue that these two forms of mass media allowed girls and women to assert agencies over gender roles through imaginations of girlhood that offered alternatives to dominant gender ideologies without directly opposing it. Through my analysis, I propose a new historical approach to studying girls’ culture by highlighting its role as a discursive space where marginalized individuals like girls and women were free to create and consume alternative gender expressions from within the framework of dominant ideologies in modern Japan.