Trailblazing artists, activists, and everyday people from across the spectrum of gender and sexuality defy social norms and dare to live unconventional lives in this kaleidoscopic view of LGBTQ+ culture in contemporary Japan. From shiny pride parades to playfully perverse underground parties, Queer Japan pictures people living brazenly unconventional lives in the sunlight, the shadows, and everywhere in between. Dazzling, iconoclastic drag queen Vivienne Sato peels back the layers of language and identity. Maverick manga artist Gengoroh Tagame tours the world with his unapologetically erotic gay comics. Councilwoman Aya Kamikawa recounts her rocky path to becoming the first transgender elected official in Japan. At legendary kink-positive hentai party Department H, non-binary performance artist Saeborg uses rubber to create a second skin. Culled from 100+ interviews conducted over 3 years in locations across Japan, Queer Japan features dozens of individuals sharing their experiences in
Despite the annual Tokyo Rainbow Pride celebrations and the introduction of same-sex partnership certificates in Shibuya in 2015, discrimination against sexual minorities is still very much a reality for the LGBTQ community in Japan. Fast forward six years to the present day though, and the Japanese film industry offers a different narrative. From a young girl’s journey of compassion and acceptance through her uncle’s transgender partner in
Close Knit to a gay lawyer’s battle with love and self-resentment in
Three Stories of Love, these Japanese LGBTQ films strive to present a fuller and more human portrait of Japan’s LGBTQ community, reaching even wider audiences abroad, too.
In spirit and substance, the adventurous new documentary
Queer Japan (★★★☆☆) reflects the ethos of “live and let live.” Leaving seemingly no LGBTQ+ stone unturned, the movie maps out queer scenes and spaces from Tokyo to Kyoto, Osaka to Okinawa, covering the mainstream and the underground, the artistic, erotic, and unconventional.
The film could be accused in its first half of overindulging a taste for the offbeat, focusing exclusively on sex and gender mavericks like gay manga artist Gengoroh Tagame. One of the movie’s more endearing characters, Tagame is interviewed inside a well-appointed S&M dungeon. Drag artist Margarette, an elegant vision of