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Researching Culture: Qualitative Method and Cultural Studies Television and Women s Culture: The Politics of the Popular Research Practice for Cultural Studies Becoming Feminine: The Politics of Popular Culture Media, Culture and Society Becoming Feminine: The Politics of Popular Culture Inter-Asia Cultural Studies European Journal of Women s Studies Formations of Class and Gender: Becoming Respectable
The Bulletin of the Institute of Human Sciences, Toyo University, No. 8 Constructions of Gender Identity in Japanese Magic Girl TV Animation Programmes: The Secrets of Akko-chan and Japanese Culture in the 1970s Akiko Sugawa-Shimada By the early 1970s Japanese society had shifted to alarge degree to become a mass consumer society; western lifestyles had deeply penetrated the life of most ordinary Japanese, especially in urban areas. In this process of structural change, Japanese femininity/masculinity came to be reconceptualised. In The Secrets of Akko-chan (1969-70), a new type of western liberal femininity, represented by Atsuko Kagami, an ordinary 5 th grade girl, is discussed at length. Her role is in binary opposition to the traditional Japanese model of femininity, represented by her friend, Moko. However, they do not confront each other but rather negotiate to construct a new gender identity of uniquely-blended modern liberal western masculine femininity with the maternal. This paper explores the way in which in The Secrets of Akko-chan s heterogeneous femininity served to reconceptualise the notion of gender identity in relation to the 1970s girl culture in Japan. Magic Girl animation, gender identity, transformation, girl culture, heterogeneity, identity models A visiting research fellow of the Institute of Human Sciences at Toyo University