Zetsuai 1989
Encyclopedia
is a Japanese yaoi
manga
known for its melo-dramatic, almost operatic plot, its "semi-insane characters", and for the controversial style of its artwork. The word "Zetsu-ai" is a compound created by Minami Ozaki
which has been translated as "desperate love". Ozaki's preferred English translation is "Everlasting Love". Many western yaoi fans got their introduction to the genre through this series, which defined the genre for them.
One night after a string of bar-hopping, Kōji passes out in a heap of trash in the middle of a rainstorm. He is found and later cared for by Takuto Izumi, a soccer prodigy. Despite the fact that Izumi is a complete stranger, he moves Kōji deeply and Kōji soon develops an intense obsession with Izumi. It is later revealed that the reason Kōji sings is to find the person who he fell in love at first sight, which occurred six years before the current story. It was 'Izumi', and Kōji thought that the person he saw was a girl, the boys in attendance was talking about 'Serika Izumi' and Kōji was asking the 'Takuto Izumi', the one that looks through him. When Izumi Takuto looked at him with anger—he knew that Izumi is the person he was looking for. His body went into shock and his obsession to Izumi knows no bounds.
As Kōji forces himself more and more into Izumi's life, he exposes both Izumi and those closest to Izumi to his dangerous lifestyle and extremely dysfunctional family
. Takuto's little brother asked Kōji if he was gay and Kōji replies: 'No, I am not gay. I am only in love with Takuto, even you are twins I can only love Takuto.' There were times during their relationship, when the hurdles became too difficult to face. In the midst of it, Kōji lost his voice temporarily, forcing him to go back to his brother and family.
Due to the manga artist's illness at that time, the manga ended at volume 19 without a proper ending. When she recovered, she drew the dojinshi , to give readers a proper 'final meeting' scene.
It was started 1989 as a legitimate spin-off of the author's Captain Tsubasa
doujinshi Dokusen Yoku. The pairing between Tsubasa's Kōjirō Hyūga and Ken Wakashimu, the pairing featured in Dokusen Yoku, is immensely popular and has been compared to the classic slash fiction
pairing of Kirk/Spock
. The usual dynamic in Kōjirō-Ken doujinshi is that their relationship is "based on trust". Kōjirō is the man of the family due to his father's death. Ken, on the other hand, is heir to a martial arts school, and is constantly under pressure to quit soccer, and suffers an injury from trying to be the best in both fields. The boys support each other, and eventually their deep friendship becomes love. The series Zetsuai was abandoned after 5 volumes. The author, or manga artist
, Minami Ozaki picked the story back up after a few years with Bronze. So far, Bronze has outpaced Zetsuai and has 14 volumes. The story arc it is currently in is called Restart.
Two OVA's were made, one taking place in Zetsuai [Since] 1989, and the second during Bronze: Zetsuai since 1989 (also called Bronze Zetsuai or simply Bronze). Koyasu Takehito plays the part of Izumi Takuto, and Sho Hayami plays Koji Nanjo. Radio dramas and CDs (with some lyrics composed by Minami Ozaki) were produced. The actors themselves often provided vocal parts for music. Five original music videos were made and compiled into a video called Cathexis.
As of 2003, fan translation
s of the first eleven volumes of Zetsuai / Bronze were available.
Zetsuai 1989 was licensed in French (by Tonkam
), German (Carlsen Verlag
), Korean, Spanish (Glénat España) and Italian (Panini Comics
) languages.
Zetsuai 1989 was the first shōnen-ai manga to be officially translated into German.
s were published by Shueisha
. They were written by Akiyama Rin with illustrations by Minami Ozaki
. The plot of novels is mostly connected to Nanjo family (Kaen Danshō series in particular), for example Kouji's elder brother Nanjo Hirose.
. There is little explicit sex in the series. Instead, the series is "angst-ridden", and includes "a lot of blood" via themes of self-harm and accidents. Ozaki's works have been described as "prolonged erotic psychodrama
s", and Zetsuai 1989 is the "most famous" of these. The depiction of love in the series has been described as "nearly violent", which is regarded as a "true revelation" for female readers. The character of Izumi's mother has been criticised by Kazuko Suzuki as an example of yaoi
showing "extremely negative images of mothers". Anime News Network has criticised the melodramatic tone of the OVA Bronze: Zetsuai Since 1989. Aestheticism.com describes the art style of Zetsuai as being "like a fashion designer's workbook", but Anime News Network says that the character design is "horribly mutated" and "disgusting". Matt Thorn
describes the relationship between Koji Nanjo and Takuto Izumi as an "intense and often grim love story", saying that "if you like your shônen-ai (or "slash") intense, look no further." Jessica Bauwens-Sugimoto describes Zetsuai 1989 as being a controversial work, noting that it was one of the early yaoi works to "enjoy widespread popularity abroad". She labels it as being bad when read through a gender studies
perspective, and not representative of the yaoi genre. She characterises it as showing "violent, obsessive and abus[ive]" sex scenes. She notes that it was written during a period of yaoi history where most stories ended in tragedy. Bauwens-Sugimoto posits that because of the time gap of ten to twelve years between publication and when it was translated into German and French, audiences who read it in translation would have found it "out of touch with the times", and thus extrapolate to the yaoi genre as a whole being "backwards".
Yaoi
In careful Japanese enunciation, all three vowels are pronounced separately, for a three-mora word, . The English equivalent is . also known as Boys' Love, is a Japanese popular term for female-oriented fictional media that focus on homoerotic or homoromantic male relationships, usually created by...
manga
Manga
Manga is the Japanese word for "comics" and consists of comics and print cartoons . In the West, the term "manga" has been appropriated to refer specifically to comics created in Japan, or by Japanese authors, in the Japanese language and conforming to the style developed in Japan in the late 19th...
known for its melo-dramatic, almost operatic plot, its "semi-insane characters", and for the controversial style of its artwork. The word "Zetsu-ai" is a compound created by Minami Ozaki
Minami Ozaki
is a Japanese manga artist, cartoonist and illustrator of novels born on February 27, 1968 in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. She is famous for her best-selling manga series Zetsuai 1989, which is considered to have redefined the Shōnen-ai/Yaoi genres in the late 80s/early 90s. Her old penname is ,...
which has been translated as "desperate love". Ozaki's preferred English translation is "Everlasting Love". Many western yaoi fans got their introduction to the genre through this series, which defined the genre for them.
Synopsis
Kōji Nanjō is one of the most successful rock stars in Japan with his hauntingly beautiful voice and very attractive features. But beneath all the fame and glamour lies a damaged and hurt young man who has absolutely no happiness or interest in life.One night after a string of bar-hopping, Kōji passes out in a heap of trash in the middle of a rainstorm. He is found and later cared for by Takuto Izumi, a soccer prodigy. Despite the fact that Izumi is a complete stranger, he moves Kōji deeply and Kōji soon develops an intense obsession with Izumi. It is later revealed that the reason Kōji sings is to find the person who he fell in love at first sight, which occurred six years before the current story. It was 'Izumi', and Kōji thought that the person he saw was a girl, the boys in attendance was talking about 'Serika Izumi' and Kōji was asking the 'Takuto Izumi', the one that looks through him. When Izumi Takuto looked at him with anger—he knew that Izumi is the person he was looking for. His body went into shock and his obsession to Izumi knows no bounds.
As Kōji forces himself more and more into Izumi's life, he exposes both Izumi and those closest to Izumi to his dangerous lifestyle and extremely dysfunctional family
Dysfunctional family
A dysfunctional family is a family in which conflict, misbehavior, and often abuse on the part of individual members occur continually and regularly, leading other members to accommodate such actions. Children sometimes grow up in such families with the understanding that such an arrangement is...
. Takuto's little brother asked Kōji if he was gay and Kōji replies: 'No, I am not gay. I am only in love with Takuto, even you are twins I can only love Takuto.' There were times during their relationship, when the hurdles became too difficult to face. In the midst of it, Kōji lost his voice temporarily, forcing him to go back to his brother and family.
Due to the manga artist's illness at that time, the manga ended at volume 19 without a proper ending. When she recovered, she drew the dojinshi , to give readers a proper 'final meeting' scene.
Publications
While the series has been published in several languages, it has not been published in English.It was started 1989 as a legitimate spin-off of the author's Captain Tsubasa
Captain Tsubasa
, also known as Flash Kicker, is a popular long running Japanese manga, animation, and video game series, originally created by Yōichi Takahashi in 1981...
doujinshi Dokusen Yoku. The pairing between Tsubasa's Kōjirō Hyūga and Ken Wakashimu, the pairing featured in Dokusen Yoku, is immensely popular and has been compared to the classic slash fiction
Slash fiction
Slash fiction is a genre of fan fiction that focuses on the depiction of romantic or sexual relationships between fictional characters of the same sex...
pairing of Kirk/Spock
Kirk/Spock
Kirk/Spock, also commonly referred to as "K/S" and referring to James T. Kirk and Spock from Star Trek, is a pairing popular in slash fiction, possibly the first slash pairing according to Henry Jenkins. Early on, a few fan writers started speculating about the possibility of a sexual relationship...
. The usual dynamic in Kōjirō-Ken doujinshi is that their relationship is "based on trust". Kōjirō is the man of the family due to his father's death. Ken, on the other hand, is heir to a martial arts school, and is constantly under pressure to quit soccer, and suffers an injury from trying to be the best in both fields. The boys support each other, and eventually their deep friendship becomes love. The series Zetsuai was abandoned after 5 volumes. The author, or manga artist
Mangaka
is the Japanese word for a comic artist or cartoonist. Outside of Japan, manga usually refers to a Japanese comic book and mangaka refers to the author of the manga, who is usually Japanese...
, Minami Ozaki picked the story back up after a few years with Bronze. So far, Bronze has outpaced Zetsuai and has 14 volumes. The story arc it is currently in is called Restart.
Two OVA's were made, one taking place in Zetsuai [Since] 1989, and the second during Bronze: Zetsuai since 1989 (also called Bronze Zetsuai or simply Bronze). Koyasu Takehito plays the part of Izumi Takuto, and Sho Hayami plays Koji Nanjo. Radio dramas and CDs (with some lyrics composed by Minami Ozaki) were produced. The actors themselves often provided vocal parts for music. Five original music videos were made and compiled into a video called Cathexis.
As of 2003, fan translation
Fan translation
A fan translation, in video gaming, refers to an unofficial translation of a computer game or video game.The fan translation practice grew with the rise of video game console emulation in the late 1990s. A community of people developed that were interested in replaying and modifying the games they...
s of the first eleven volumes of Zetsuai / Bronze were available.
Zetsuai 1989 was licensed in French (by Tonkam
Tonkam
Tonkam is a prominent French publisher of manga and was one of the first publishers of manga in French, issuing its first titles in 1994. It was founded by Sylvie Chang and Dominique Véret with the financial assistance of a Parisian bookseller, Yu-Chi Chang...
), German (Carlsen Verlag
Carlsen Verlag
Carlsen Verlag is a subsidiary of the homonymous Danish publishing house which in turn belongs to the Swedish media company Bonnier. The branch was founded on 25 April 1953 in Hamburg. The publisher's program focuses on books for children Carlsen Verlag is a subsidiary of the homonymous Danish...
), Korean, Spanish (Glénat España) and Italian (Panini Comics
Panini Comics
Panini Comics is an Italian comic book publisher. A division of Panini Group, best known for their collectible stickers, it is headquartered in Modena, Italy...
) languages.
Zetsuai 1989 was the first shōnen-ai manga to be officially translated into German.
Zetsuai 1989
Bronze: Zetsuai Since 1989
Soundtrack
Several albums were released relating to the Dokusen Yoku doujinshi, Zetsuai 1989 and Bronze since Zetsuai between 1988 and 1996.Light novels
Several light novelLight novel
A is a style of Japanese novel primarily targeting junior high and high school students . The term "light novel" is a wasei-eigo, or a Japanese term formed from words in the English language. Light novels are often called or for short...
s were published by Shueisha
Shueisha
is a major publisher in Japan. The company was founded in 1925 as the entertainment-related publishing division of Japanese publisher Shogakukan. The following year, Shueisha became a separate, independent company. Magazines published by Shueisha include Weekly Shōnen Jump, Weekly Young Jump,...
. They were written by Akiyama Rin with illustrations by Minami Ozaki
Minami Ozaki
is a Japanese manga artist, cartoonist and illustrator of novels born on February 27, 1968 in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. She is famous for her best-selling manga series Zetsuai 1989, which is considered to have redefined the Shōnen-ai/Yaoi genres in the late 80s/early 90s. Her old penname is ,...
. The plot of novels is mostly connected to Nanjo family (Kaen Danshō series in particular), for example Kouji's elder brother Nanjo Hirose.
| # | | Title | Japanese title | |Released | ISBN |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kaen Danshō | 華冤断章 小説 | June 1997 | ISBN 4-08-702004-5 |
| 2 | Zetsuai Since 1989 | 絶愛 Since 1989 | December 1997 | ISBN 4-08-702008-8 |
| 3 | Kaen Danshō — Uragirimono no Matsuei | 華冤断章－裏切り者の末裔－小説 | January 1998 | ISBN 4-08-702010-X |
| 4 | Kaen Danshō — Yami no Sumu Ie, King no Umareru Machi | 華冤断章－悪魔の棲む地下 帝王の生誕れる街－小説 | August 1998 | ISBN 4-08-702012-6 |
Reception
At the time of its writing, the genre as a whole was not commonly recognised by those not creating it, but Zetsuai 1989 is considered one of yaoi's "major works" and "one of the greatest icons of shōnen-ai". Koji and Izumi have been described as shōnen-ais Romeo and JulietRomeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy written early in the career of playwright William Shakespeare about two young star-crossed lovers whose deaths ultimately unite their feuding families. It was among Shakespeare's most popular archetypal stories of young, teenage lovers.Romeo and Juliet belongs to a...
. There is little explicit sex in the series. Instead, the series is "angst-ridden", and includes "a lot of blood" via themes of self-harm and accidents. Ozaki's works have been described as "prolonged erotic psychodrama
Psychodrama
Psychodrama is a method of psychotherapy in which clients utilize spontaneous dramatization, role playing and dramatic self-presentation to investigate and gain insight into their lives. Developed by Jacob L. Moreno, M.D. psychodrama includes elements of theater, often conducted on a stage where...
s", and Zetsuai 1989 is the "most famous" of these. The depiction of love in the series has been described as "nearly violent", which is regarded as a "true revelation" for female readers. The character of Izumi's mother has been criticised by Kazuko Suzuki as an example of yaoi
Yaoi
In careful Japanese enunciation, all three vowels are pronounced separately, for a three-mora word, . The English equivalent is . also known as Boys' Love, is a Japanese popular term for female-oriented fictional media that focus on homoerotic or homoromantic male relationships, usually created by...
showing "extremely negative images of mothers". Anime News Network has criticised the melodramatic tone of the OVA Bronze: Zetsuai Since 1989. Aestheticism.com describes the art style of Zetsuai as being "like a fashion designer's workbook", but Anime News Network says that the character design is "horribly mutated" and "disgusting". Matt Thorn
Matt Thorn
Matt Thorn is a cultural anthropologist and an Associate Professor in the Department of Manga Production at Kyoto Seika University's Faculty of Manga in Japan. He is most well known in North America for his work dealing with shōjo manga. He has appeared at multiple anime conventions, including...
describes the relationship between Koji Nanjo and Takuto Izumi as an "intense and often grim love story", saying that "if you like your shônen-ai (or "slash") intense, look no further." Jessica Bauwens-Sugimoto describes Zetsuai 1989 as being a controversial work, noting that it was one of the early yaoi works to "enjoy widespread popularity abroad". She labels it as being bad when read through a gender studies
Gender studies
Gender studies is a field of interdisciplinary study which analyses race, ethnicity, sexuality and location.Gender study has many different forms. One view exposed by the philosopher Simone de Beauvoir said: "One is not born a woman, one becomes one"...
perspective, and not representative of the yaoi genre. She characterises it as showing "violent, obsessive and abus[ive]" sex scenes. She notes that it was written during a period of yaoi history where most stories ended in tragedy. Bauwens-Sugimoto posits that because of the time gap of ten to twelve years between publication and when it was translated into German and French, audiences who read it in translation would have found it "out of touch with the times", and thus extrapolate to the yaoi genre as a whole being "backwards".
Further reading
- McCarthy, Helen, Jonathan Clements The Erotic Anime Movie Guide pub Titan (London) 1998 ISBN 1 85286 946 1
- AnimericaAnimericaAnimerica is a quarterly digest published by Viz Media. It initially started as a monthly magazine featuring reviews of anime and manga titles, as well as related works. After a preview issue was released in November 1992, the magazine's first issue was released in February 1993 with a March 1993...
April 1993