Japan's top gay scene zine bottoms out

By Ryann Connell
October 7, 2004

Barazoku, Japan's oldest and most prestigious gay magazine, has suddenly pulled the plug after 33 years in print, according to Weekly Playboy.

"Personally, I wanted to continue. But the difficulties we've been facing recently caused our debts to swell, but our editorial staff got sick of it and decided to quit," Bungaku Ito, Barazoku's Chief Editor, tells Weekly Playboy.

Barazoku's demise has sent shockwaves through Japan's gay world.

"It's going out of print? I first read Barazoku when I was 15. There were no places for homosexuals to go in those days, so I used to read it voraciously," Bobby, a cross-dresser working in the Tokyo gay quarter of Shinjuku 2-Chome, says.

Barazoku was a trailblazer for other gay publications when it first hit the stands in 1971. It picked up many luminary readers, including Akihiro Miwa, a drag queen rumored to have been a one-time lover of hara-kiri author Yukio Mishima. Barazoku was regarded as a leader of Japanese homosexual culture throughout its existence. Despite this prestigious positioning, the magazine still found itself struggling.

"Fresher, newer competitors swept in and took away readers and advertisers," deskman Ito says. "I'm 72 and most of our editors are in their 40s or 50s. We can't keep up with what's going on among young gays."

Barazoku was filled with short stories and articles, making it a publication dedicated largely to the printed word. Its more powerful competitors like G-men and Buddy, however, were packed with beefcake, as well as manga and movie information, trouncing the print-heavy Barazoku in the way graphic mainstream publications have triumphed over their text-filled competitors.

Even queerer were developments online that sounded Barazoku's death knell.

"Barazoku's main sales point was its classified ads where guys could write in looking for a partner," Sugiko Yumemi, a 2-Chome transvestite mama-san, says. "But now, everybody just uses online dating sites, which are chock-filled with really sexy guys."

Online gay dating sites are dominated by the urisen, the name given to homosexual male prostitutes. But times are tough for even these happy campers.

"There's been an incredible increase in the number of urisen who've popped up in recent years," Takumi, once Japan's leading urisen, says. "So many young guys have moved into the market thanks to the influence of mobile phone dating sites and new magazines."

The glut of rent boys has sent the urisen market plummeting, giving rise to new types of male prostitutes called mansion boys, who rent rooms where wait there for customers to come along and then they hire out their bodies.

"I'd say the most popular types are jocks and metrosexuals," Takumi tells Weekly Playboy. "And by far the most sought after mansion boys are the types who've got fat asses like a baseball player, especially if they still look a bit boyish."

Copyright 1999-2004, Mainchi Daily.  All rights reserved.  Ryann Connell is a Staff Writer and Senoir Desk Editor for the Mainchi Daily News. No content may be reproduced in whole or part without written permission.  Please contact us via the link below for re-print and syndication policies.