Love’s in Sight: Japan’s Graphic Narrative of Blindness
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Keywords
blindness, manga (Japanese comics), Voice Comics
Abstract
In this paper, a sighted disability comics scholar and a blind scholar of disability studies examined Love’s in Sight, a Japanese comic about a blind girl, by utilizing its accessible format, Voice Comics, and analyzed how this comic can help increase disability awareness and remove the label of “otherness” from people with disabilities.
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Yoshiko Okuyama, University of Hawaii at Hilo
Yoshiko Okuyama (Ph.D., University of Arizona) is a full professor of Japanese studies in the Department of Languages at the University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo. Her areas of specialization include Japanese comics, folklore, and disability studies. Her recent publications include Tōjisha Manga: Japan’s Graphic Memoirs of Brain and Mental Health (2022), Reframing Disability in Manga (2020), and Japanese Mythology in Film (2015). She has been a recipient of several research grants and fellowships including the Japan Foundation research fellowship in 2017, the National Endowment for Humanities Summer Institute on Disability in 2018, and the Association for Asian Studies/Northeast Asia Council in 2022. Besides her university duties, she serves as a visiting scholar at Cornell University, as well as an affiliated researcher at the Institute of Ars Vivendi, Ritsumeikan University. She gives book talks at universities and provides cultural consultation to media outlets such as PBS, NPR, National Geographic, and CNN.
Osamu Kurikawa, Ritsumeikan University
Osamu Kurikawa (Ph.D. Candidate/ABD, Ritsumeikan University) is an instructor of disability studies in the Department of Community Welfare at Rikkyo University, and a member of Niigata City Disabled Council, Niigata City Reading Barrier-Free Promotion Plan Formulation Committee. His areas of specialization include the history of social movement, disability studies, and inclusive education. His publications include “Uniqueness is Barrier-Free: A Blind Teacher Questions ‘Disability’” (Niigata Nippo Business Company, 1996), and “Living with a Visual Disability: Doing What Is Possible, Assisting Each Other in What Is Not” (Akashi Shoten, 2012). He was a Research Fellow of Japan Society for the Promotion of Science in 2020-2023.