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Queering Heteronormative Desire through Vocality in <em>Goes!</em>

2020; University of Minnesota Press; Volume: 13; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.5749/mech.13.1.0057

2152-6648

Pang,

Japanese History and Culture

Queering Heteronormative Desire through Vocality in Goes! Aidan Pang (bio) Within the Japanese voice acting industry, there is an established system that categorizes voices not only according to the aural quality of the speaker's voice but their physical body as well. Natural voice, kawaii voice, shota voice, and ikemen voice are some such voice types that can be found in official as well as fan-made content about seiyū (voice actor) voice performances.1 Whether or not it is true of the corresponding body in physical reality, such terms strongly associate the voice with the specific bodies evoked by them. Ikemen voice, for example, refers to the voice of an ikemen, or "handsome man." However, the qualities constituting such a voice are vague and circular: an ikemen voice comes from an ikemen. One definition describes ikemen voice as that which misleads the listener into believing it belongs to a handsome man.2 What is notable about this particular description is the act of deception, or the performative aspect involved in being a handsome man. The underlying assumption here is that ikemen voices are not exclusively produced by the male bodies that such voices imply. As exemplified by notable female seiyū like Saiga Mitsuki, Paku Romi, and Ogata Megumi, women too can produce ikemen voices and, in some cases, even more successfully than some of their male peers. However, women performing as men and vice versa is not a novel concept. Gender play has a long history in Japan, and is a recurrent trope in anime, music, stage plays, dramas, and other contemporary media productions. Female seiyū are commonly cast as young boys as it is both easier for women to maintain a prepubescent voice than their male counterparts and because they would be able to continue voicing that character as they matured in the series. It is rare, on the other hand, for male seiyū to have the capacity to voice younger versions of their characters, and it is usually the case that female seiyū are employed for those parts. As such, due to the versatility of their voices, it is not surprising then that female seiyū are called upon to perform as bishōnen (beautiful young men), androgynous characters, and even older men. But despite the spotlight on those who produce these voices, little attention is paid to the affective experiences of those who consume them. [End Page 57] Due to the voice's flexible and ephemeral nature, transgressing the bodily boundaries of gender has become an aural reality in the voice acting industry today. However, gender play is surprisingly uncommon in Japanese drama CDs, where the listener is only privy to the voice itself. This lack of visual stimuli suggests that the voice, without imagery to contain it, may function as a powerful mode of transgression and transformation. On its own, the voice creates preconceptions of the speaker, consequently shaping their future interactions with listeners before they are even seen. As such, drama CDs offer a space where gender bending offers more than just play. In this aural space, the voice has the potential to further complicate current renderings of gender, sexuality, and the body in media and, in extension, real life. As of 2019, there are only two Japanese drama CD series that feature an all-female seiyū cast for their male characters: Goes! (2014, Gōzu) and Grand Stage (2015, Guran sutēji).3 For this analysis, I focus on the former series, as it is the first well-known occurrence of female-to-male gender play in this medium. This drama follows a reverse-harem format where the assumed female listener develops a relationship with seven possible male love interests. As an audio drama, the success of Goes! relies heavily on the ability of its male characters' seiyū to appeal to its target audience of young women. Unlike other reverse-harem drama CDs that employ male seiyū, Goes! uses women, or more specifically, women's voices to attract other women listeners. Whether intentional or not, Goes!'s heterosexual romance is not so heterosexual after all. In this article, I examine how voice aurally queers the gender and sexual positioning of bodies in the interactive...