Written and Illustrated by Japanese horror mangaka Junji Ito, Tomie (Japanese Name: 富江) is a horror manga series that centers on the titular character Tomie. As the protagonist, Tomie is a beautiful Japanese girl with a bewitching charm that has the power to seduce men to their deaths. This essay will explore how Tomie was able to successfully deconstruct the patriarchal notion of women in Japanese society through challenging the idea of what women should be, as well as the idea of beauty through Tomie’s monster-like abilities and femme fatale characteristics (rude, selfish, and sexually forward). By analyzing these characteristics to Japan’s own portrayal of the femme fatale, the ‘modern girl’, it demonstrates the lack of strong complex women in Japan’s cultural industry and Tomie’s success in pushing the boundaries of the perception of women. 

Characterized by her lush black hair and a beauty mark below her left eye, Tomie entices men and makes them fall in love with her. Like the femme fatale archetype, a classic American archetype known for sexuality and destructiveness over men, Tomie’s psychological and emotional manipulation drives both men and women into insanity. Tomie is killed by her victims again and again, only to regenerate and even replicate herself throughout the series. Her character is a phenomenon as her real grotesque form is hidden through her façade of a beautiful woman. As a fictional character, Tomie demonstrates characteristics that are often rare in Japanese women as they are constrained by Japan’s misogynistic perception of women. 

Japan has made progress with its modern society, though there is still an underlying notion of sexism embedded within its culture. Ingrained through Confucianism, Japan’s patriarchal society creates a power hierarchy perceiving men as authority and women as primary caretakers.1 Noted by Kazuko Sato, Mitsuyo Suzuki, and Michi Kawamura in their journal The Changing Status of Women in Japan, gendered expectation is called “Behavior Stereotyping According to Sex” and is deeply rooted among Japan’s cultural perception of gender.(2)  Perceived as secondary citizens, Japanese women are often subjugated and disenfranchised while expected to fulfill impossible expectations.(3) Women’s dichotomous role as the housewife and sexualized being has been ingrained within Japan’s political and sociocultural discourse. Traditionally, a woman is dependent on her father, then her husband, and finally, her son as she serves them in their domesticated space.(4) With this in mind, societal norms of femininity and family are difficult to escape as the worth of women is based on the phallocentric economy of desire.(5) Determined by how men see them, either through their unrealistic expectations of beauty or femininity, a woman’s individuality is destroyed in the process.(6) This ideology is echoed throughout Japan’s cultural industry from their cinema, literature, and cultural products as seen from the lack of representation of independent women.  

 In Junji Ito’s Tomie, the myth of women and beauty is challenged throughout the series as the character Tomie establishes her own individual narrative. Despite being a beautiful woman, Tomie is actually a monstrous being that possesses supernatural qualities. Her true form only appears through photographs, which dispels her idealistic beauty as a myth. Her characteristics – selfish, crude, and self-centered – are contrasted by her beauty. Men enticed by her beauty become uncontrollable as they try to pursue her romantically. 

Perpetuated by the myth of beauty, the unrealistic social standard of physical beauty as eternal, women are pressured to conform to intrinsically unattainable standards. As women are only desirable by their worth to men, young beautiful women stand on top of the hierarchy designed by men and reap the rewards of their youth, beauty, and usefulness.(7) This reduces women’s entire being in society as their worth is labelled by a temporary component and nothing else. Within Japan’s phallocentric economy of desire, the ideal Japanese woman is described to be young, thin, light skinned with a small face, and high-bridged nose. Described as a mysterious beauty, Tomie embodies these characteristics as her presence captivates every man in the manga. However, Ito shatters this idea of the ideal Japanese women through man-made mechanical reproductions such as photographs in his manga. Revealing an unrecognizable Tomie, the photograph shows a grotesque monster-like figure, which signifies Tomie’s true form. By destroying Tomie’s facade as a beautiful woman, Ito confronts the male gaze by returning it. As a monster, she cannot be further objectified by the male gaze nor be presented as the ‘perfect woman’ anymore. In doing so, Tomie dismantles the notion of beauty by deglamorizing the phallocentric fantasies of the ideal Japanese woman.(8)

As a manga character, Tomie also challenges Japan’s embodiment of the kawaii (cute) character. With large breasts, big eyes, a small waist, and long legs, kawaii culture presented in manga and/or anime’s fictional worlds establishes another unrealistic presentation of women. Either expected to look or act kawaii, female innocence is sexualized, while female vulnerability becomes expected in the real adult world.(9) Compared to Japanese women, who are pressured by society to seem meek and docile and dependent on men, Tomie challenges this by not showing vulnerability nor presenting a fantasy of girlishness, instead she expresses her frustrations, anger, and other real emotions. This establishes Tomie’s own individuality, a characteristic discouraged in Japanese women due to society’s preference for the dependent powerless women. 

As society becomes more modernized with more women working and continuing higher education, their role in society is still ultimately defined by their ability to succeed in the patriarchal myth of women – docile, meek, and dependent.(10)  For example, a woman must achieve the same level of academic success as her male counterpart, but she is also expected to be attractive, approachable, and friendly, which are qualities not expected of men.(11) The systemic denial of equality with expectations of gender roles has taken away women’s individuality and ability to exist in a male-dominated world. In Tomie’s case, her character – selfish, evil, and sexual – as well as being inhuman, allows her to escape from the myth of women. Her monster-like form transcends Tomie from expectations of women, which enables her to deny societal norms. As the series follows Tomie and her exploits, Tomie begins to establish herself as an individual. It challenges male ideology by presenting the story through a female perspective, establishing a counternarrative to the mainstream male dominated discourse.(12)  Through Tomie’s stories, she does not establish herself as neither innocent nor vulnerable. The myth of women as pure and sweet is established to protect Japanese society’s ideals of women.(13) Her sexual nature and flirtatious attitude towards men gives Tomie power that is rarely seen in Japan. Furthermore, her femme fatale persona threatens men throughout the series. However, with Tomie’s true form and power, men often die from her psychological and emotional manipulation.

After the modernization of Japanese cinema, the femme fatale introduction to Japan’s movie screens failed to triumph over patriarchal ideals but was instead reduced to a ‘modern girl’.(14) The idea of the ‘modern girl’ is presented as a woman dressed in western clothing filled with Japanese sensibility; in a sense, she is a failed portrayal of femme fatale as her eroticism is no longer intense enough to trigger death or destruction. This is due to Japan’s sociocultural anxiety towards the femme fatale’s sexual threat to male masculinity and intense eroticism sparked by women.(15) The femme fatale controls the men, which contradicts Japan’s notion of the docile and meek woman seen through the portrayal of the ‘modern girl’. Tomie, in contrast, illustrates the femme fatale archetype perfectly as she succeeds in driving men to their demise by embodying the eroticism, death, and gender conflict seen in the classic femme fatale character.(16) Tomie seeks joy in toying with the people in her life and unlike the ‘modern girl’, she is not subtle about it. Her confidence and selfishness presents her as her own character as she refuses to be controlled by anyone. This characteristic, looked down upon in Japan, returns the male gaze by deconstructing Japanese notion of women. While there are flaws in the femme fatale character, Japan’s inability to seek gender equality presents Tomie’s femme fatale characteristics with the ability to push the boundaries of how women are represented in Japanese society. 

Despite her fictional existence, Tomie has successfully deconstructed the notion of women through her monster-like beauty, individualism, and femme fatale portrayal, uncommon attributes in the usual portrayal of Japanese women. Tomie exemplifies a character that pushes the boundaries of women, however, she is only able to do so due to her monster-like abilities and fictional nature. Here it shows an inability to display a real woman as defined by Japan’s phallocentric discourse of women. 

This portrayal of women in manga is a stepping stone to breaking down Japan’s patriarchal idea of women. Seen in the ‘modern girl’, representation of real women in Japan’s social discourse as Yoko Ima-Izumi noted in A Land Where Femmes Fatales Fear to Tread: Eroticism and Japanese Cinema. Films – Himiko (1974), Seven Seas (1930 – 31), The Maiden and the Bread (1931) and so forth – are few of many that has aborted the femme fatale portrayal due to the sociocultural anxiety of a woman’s intense eroticism. This inability to present the femme fatale successfully is not only present in cinema but also in other cultural industries like literature, manga, music, and art. Scholar Ayako Kano (1966 – present) demonstrated the patriarchal nature within art history in her journal Women? Japan? Art? Chino Kaori and the Feminist Art History Debate through the lack of feminist perspective within male dominated discourse of Japanese art history.(17) The lack of women within certain discourses, Kano explains, creates oppressive ideologies that dismisses a woman’s presence and abilities.(18)

While still a fictional character, Tomie successfully demonstrates characteristics that are often rare in Japanese society. Her deconstruction of the myth of women through challenging Japan’s idea of beauty and female ability is shown throughout the series. She is not what is typically seen in Japan’s cultural industry. She embodies everything that the kawaii character is not as she is not innocent or nice. Instead, her characteristics exemplify the femme fatale that is typically seen in western media. While Japanese cinema reproduced the western femme fatale through the ‘modern girl’, this was unsuccessful as it did not portray an independent sexual woman. The ‘modern girl’ character was just a typical Japanese girl that embodies the myth of women while wearing western clothing, proving Japan’s hesitancy to feature a female character that displays sexual confidence and independence in their cultural industry. This lack of strong complex women further proves how Tomie was able to push the boundaries of a typical Japanese woman through her characteristics and deceiving beauty. 

1 Kazuko Sato, et al. “The Changing Status of Women in Japan.” International Journal of Sociology of the Family 

vol. 17, no. 1 (Spring 1987): 87.

2  Ibid.

3 Kathryn Hemman, “Dangerous Women and Dangerous Stories: Gendered Narration in Kirino Natsuo’s Grotesque and Real World.” Rethinking Japanese Feminisms, eds. Julia C. Bullock, Ayako Kano, James Welker (University of Hawai’i Press, 2018): 173.

4 Ibid.

5 Ibid.

6 Ibid.

7 Yoko Ima-Izumi, “A Land Where Femmes Fatales Fear to Tread: Eroticism and Japanese Cinema.” Japan Review, no. 10 (1998):123 

8 Kazuko Sato, et al. “Changing Status of Women in Japan”: 91.

9 Hemman, “Dangerous Women and Dangerous Stories,” 174.

10 Kazuko Sato, et al. “Changing Status of Women in Japan”: 91.

11 Hemman, “Dangerous Women and Dangerous Stories,” 175.

12 Ibid.

13 Ibid.

14 Yoko Ima-Izumi, “A Land Where Femmes Fatales Fear to Tread”: 148.

15 Ibid.

16 Ibid.

17 Ayako Kano, “Women? Japan? Art?: Chino Kaori and the Feminist Art History Debates.” Review of Japanese Culture and Society, vol. 15 (December 2003): pp. 27.

18 Ibid.

Bibliography

Hemman, Kathryn. “Dangerous Women and Dangerous Stories: Gendered Narration in Kirino Natsuo’s Grotesque and Real World.” Rethinking Japanese Feminisms, edited by Julia C. Bullock et al., University of Hawai’i Press, Honolulu, 2018, pp. 170–184. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv3zp07j.17.

Sato, Kazuko, et al. “Changing Status of Women In Japan.” International Journal of Sociology of the Family, vol. 17, no. 1, 1987, pp. 87–108., www.jstor.org/stable/23028449.

Ima-Izumi, Yoko. “A Land Where Femmes Fatales Fear to Tread: Eroticism and Japanese Cinema.” Japan Review, no. 10, 1998, pp. 123–150. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/25791021.

Itō Junji. Tomie: the Junji Ito Horror Comic Collection. ComicsOne Corp., 2001.

Kano, Ayako. “Women? Japan? Art?: Chino Kaori and the Feminist Art History Debates.” Review of Japanese Culture and Society, vol. 15, 2003, pp. 25–38. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/42801158.