Acknowledgments
The book has been a lifetime in the making and began in childhood as a big fan of the shōjo manga. I was attracted by the beautiful and delicate images of Hagio Moto’s manga, although her stories were often challenging for me to digest when I was young. Rereading Hagio’s manga in adulthood opened my eyes. I could not believe the depth and complicated narratives embedded in in her stories. That is how I became absorbed in her world. Importantly, I have been so intrigued by the ambiguity of gender depicted by Hagio through image and text. I now realized that many of Hagio’s stories are based on speculative and science fiction. I must say this is the starting point of my interest and my research.
This book started as a dissertation at Washington University in St. Louis, where I received tremendous guidance, mentorship, and support for my research. First and foremost, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to Rebecca Copeland as my mentor, colleague, friend, and, importantly, a model of the feminist activist. I would not have completed the book without her continuous encouragement and insightful critique. I would also like to offer heartfelt thanks to Nancy Berg, Ji-Eun Lee, Diane Lewis, Marvin Marcus, and Laura Miller for careful reading and valuable insights for the book project.
My generous preliminary grant from the Japan Foundation Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship allowed me to spend a year in Japan in 2012–2013 for my research at Keio University. I want to acknowledge the help provided by Tatsumi Takayuki for his valuable advice on science fiction studies and for introducing me to many science fiction writers, critics, and fans. He also introduced me to wonderful events such as the International Science Fiction Symposium II in July 2013. In addition, he introduced me to science fiction writers and critics outside of Japan, such as Pat Murphy, Paolo Bacigalupi, and Wu Yan. I would also like to express my gratitude to Kotani Mari for her passionate guidance on feminist and gender studies in science fiction and speculative fiction, as well as her continuous encouragement for writing this book. She also introduced me to amazing members of G-ken (The Japanese Association for Gender Fantasy and Science Fiction). Kotani and all the G-ken members (Fukushima Kazumi, Ishigami Minami, Kashiwazaki Reina, Madame, Namba Miwako, Ōgushi Hisayo, Onouchi Min, Oyama Noruma, Sango, Yamamori Mamoru and many others) have been supportive. As a result, I have felt welcomed and safe in the science fiction community. Particularly during the pandemic, staying connected to the community through virtual chatting and book club meetings has been tremendously helpful to me. I am also very grateful to Denise Taillandier and Yasuko Nakaegawa for their friendship and emotional support within the community and beyond. Thanks to these wonderful connections and community network, I was also able to serve as a juror for the Otherwise Award (previously, James Tiptree, Jr. Award) during 2017–2018. I am in debt to other jurors Alexis Lothian, Cheryl Morgan, Eugene Fischer, and Julia Starkey. The year-long collaboration with these colleagues provided a year of discussion and critique that exposed me to new ideas and insights in science fiction and speculative fiction.
My grateful thanks to Alisa Freedman, editor of U.S.-Japan Women’s Journal, and Rebecca Copeland, editor of Japanese Language and Literature for their valuable feedback and encouragement. Some materials in this volume have been published in the U.S. Japan Women’s Journal and the Japanese Language and Literature journal. Special thanks to Itō Shōko, Asai Chiaki, Shiota Hiroshi, and Matsunaga Kyōko for the helpful suggestions as editors of the book Crossing the Waves of Ecocriticism: Living During the Anthropocene, where the earliest version of some material found in this book has been published in Japanese. I am thankful to Hidaka Haruko for her valuable comments as an editor of Ecocriticism Review, where the earliest version of some material in this book can be found. Thanks to the participants who read the earliest version of some material found in this book and offered critical suggestions in the Midwest Japan Seminar. I am also grateful to anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments and suggestions that helped tremendously with revision. Many thanks to the Brill editor, Patricia Radder, and Japanese Studies Library series editor, Joshua Mostow, for their support of this book project. I owe many thanks to Kathryn Ragsdale for consistent, very thorough, and excellent copy-editing. Special thanks to Kelly Waldrop for her amazing copy-editing of the earlier versions of the manuscript. I am also grateful to Hagio Moto and Shirai Yumiko for generously allowing the use of images from There Were Eleven!, Marginal, and Wombs and the publisher Shogakukan for permission to use.
I must further extend my gratitude to my colleagues and mentors at Miami University. I am very grateful to have a wonderfully supportive colleague, mentor, and friend, Noriko T. Reider. She truly cares about my success in research, teaching, my well-being, and beyond. She read both primary sources and my chapters countless times while providing many survival skills important to a junior scholar. I am truly in debt to her. I also would like to thank Denise McCoskey as a supportive colleague, mentor, and friend. She pushed me to complete articles and chapters, read them carefully, and offered critical feedback. Her advice has reinforced the importance of publishing to research. Finally, I would like to offer my appreciation to my department chair, Gretchen Ziolkowski, and my colleagues in my department, German, Russian, Asian, and Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures (GRAMELAC). I am fortunate to have worked under the guidance of Gretchen and cannot imagine a more supportive department chair. My colleagues, Elizabeth Bergman, Mila Ganeva, John Jeep, Liang Shi, Ben Sutcliffe, Nicole Thesz, and Haosheng Yang, genuinely want me to succeed in research, teaching, and beyond. Japanese colleagues, Ayako Reiff and Tomoyuki Yabe, are also patient and supportive. I am also thankful to have supportive colleagues and friends, Lindsay Schakenbach Regele, Naaborole Sackeyfio, and Youn Ki. Not only their support for writing but also their friendship and love made completion of this book possible. Thanks to the College of Arts and Science Summer Research grants, The Humanities Center’s book proposal workshops, and the Howe Center for Writing Excellence’s continual Writing Retreats helped me research and write this book.
I am incredibly fortunate to have support from family and friends. To my parents: Harada Ryōzen and Ayako, I dedicate this book to them and offer my deep gratitude for all the support and encouragement they have given me all these years. They have taught me compassion, tenacity, freedom, and open-mindedness. My thanks to my siblings and my in-laws: Shunkei, Yukiko, Ryōkōh, Hidemi, my nieces: Ayaka, Mao, Momoka, and my nephew Yūsei for love and support. I am very grateful for friendship with David Holloway, Yunjing Xu, Fang-yu Li, Nie Ke, and Wai-Man Suen, which has brought emotional well-being for all these years. Finally, I would like to express special thanks to my partner, Derek Fischer, for (unofficially) reading the “weird” stories, parts of the manuscript, and for love and caring.