is a

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

term for men who have a culturally feminine

gender expression Gender expression, or gender presentation, is a person's behavior, mannerisms, interests, and appearance that are associated with gender, specifically with the categories of femininity or masculinity. This also includes gender roles. These cat ...

. This includes amongst others males with feminine appearances, or those

cross-dressing Cross-dressing is the act of wearing clothes usually worn by a different gender. From as early as pre-modern history, cross-dressing has been practiced in order to disguise, comfort, entertain, and self-express oneself. Cross-dressing has play ...

. is a play on the word ("boy", from the characters for 'male' and 'child'), which is also pronounced ; in the slang term, the

kanji are the logographic Chinese characters taken from the Chinese family of scripts, Chinese script and used in the writing of Japanese language, Japanese. They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese ...

for "child" () is substituted with "daughter"/"girl" (). The term originated in Japanese

manga Manga (Japanese: 漫画 ) are comics or graphic novels originating from Japan. Most manga conform to a style developed in Japan in the late 19th century, and the form has a long prehistory in earlier Japanese art. The term ''manga'' is u ...

and

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...

culture in the 2000s, but the concept reflects a broad range of earlier traditions and examples of male cross dressing in Japan, such as in

kabuki is a classical form of Japanese dance-drama. Kabuki theatre is known for its heavily-stylised performances, the often-glamorous costumes worn by performers, and for the elaborate make-up worn by some of its performers. Kabuki is thought to ...

theater. Its popularity increased around 2009, with the rise of dedicated

maid café are a subcategory of cosplay restaurants found predominantly in Japan. In these cafés, waitresses, dressed in maid costumes, act as servants, and treat customers as masters (and mistresses) in a private home, rather than as café patrons. The f ...

s, fashion stores, cosmetic products, and a range of popular media in the culture. It is often combined with the

cosplay Cosplay, a portmanteau of "costume play", is an activity and performance art in which participants called cosplayers wear costumes and fashion accessories to represent a specific character. Cosplayers often interact to create a subculture, ...

of female fictional characters by men ( crossplay). By extension, is also a genre of media and fiction about feminine-looking or feminine-dressing men, and often contains erotic or romantic elements. It is mainly aimed at male audience but also appears in a lot of manga. characters have also begun to appear in mainstream Japanese popular entertainment such as manga,

anime is Traditional animation, hand-drawn and computer animation, computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside of Japan and in English, ''anime'' refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However, in Japan and in Japane ...

, and video games.

References

Anime and manga terminology Male stock characters in anime and manga Japanese words and phrases Femininity {{Gender-studies-stub

See also

References