1. Introduction: Destabilizing Gender -- 2. From dansō to Genderless: Mediating Queer Styles and Androgynous Bodies in Japan -- 3. “I’ll create my own precedents”: Female Rakugo Performers on Tokyo’s yose Stages -- 4. Not Quite There: Nike’s Diversity and Inclusion Agenda and Japan’s Readiness -- 5. Hybrid Masculinities?: Reflexive Accounts of Japanese Youth at University josō Contests -- 6. The Widening Road: Constructions of Gay Japanese Men on YouTube -- 7. Boys’ Love, Transmedia Storytelling, and LGBT Awareness in Contemporary Japan -- 8. Creating the the Body Beautiful Cosplay: Cross-Dressing, Cosplay, and Hyper Femininity and Hyper Masculinity -- 9. Engagements with Gender, Sexuality and Authenticity in Cosplay.

Open Access

This open-access essay collection brings together a range of viewpoints on gender from a diverse group of international scholars, proposing different ways to think about gender, sexuality, and masculinities/femininities. By using case studies from Japanese popular culture, the authors contribute to the ongoing transnational discussion on gender performativity, examining ways in which gender may be constructed and contested. The multidisciplinary work will be of interest to scholars working in gender studies, Asian studies, and popular culture. It will also act as a source text for higher education courses in Asia, Europe, and the United States. Sirpa Salenius is Senior Lecturer at the University of Eastern Finland, Finland. Her research focuses on issues related to race, gender, and sexuality, from the nineteenth century to the present. Her other edited works include Race and Transatlantic Identities (2017), TransAtlantic Conversations (2017) and Neglected American Women Writers of the Long Nineteenth Century (2021).