ABSTRACT
The young women in Japan known as the 24 Nen Gumi [Year 24 Group] behind the phenomenon of homoerotic manga started out much like contemporary manga artists in Germany: they were aspiring artists in a male-dominated industry but with enough creativity and audacity in terms of their approach to convention and content to cultivate and maintain an intercontinental force of female manga producers and consumers. While Germany was not the first country to take heed to and adopt manga as a potential means of self-expression, self-employment, or to an extent, self-empowerment, I would argue that one major thematic and stylistic aspect of manga narratives, mutually appreciated and appropriated by the two nations, is the Gothic mode. What was established with Toma no Shinzou [The Heart of Thomas] (1974–74) by Moto Hagio and Kaze to Ki no Uta [The Poem of Wind and Trees] (1976–84) by Keiko Takemiya, both shounen ai manga series depicting psychological and sexual accounts of repressed and angst-ridden young men in exotic, Gothic backdrops, has since become a national—and now global—cultural phenomenon.
