Love’s in Sight: Japan’s Graphic Narrative of Blindness
Main Article Content
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.
References
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Murata, M. (2021). Shikakushōgaisha shien kara yunibasaru seihinkaihatsu he (Product development from simply supporting the visually impaired to universal design). Ningenkogaku, 57, supplement issue, 1-2.
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Nakamura, M. (2019). Nihon shōgai kyōikushi (Japan’s history of education for disabled children). Akashishobo.
Schwartz, A., Blue, E., McDonald, M., Giuliani, G., Weber, G., Seirup, H., Rose Sage, Elkis-Albuhoff, D., Rosenfeld, J., & Perkins, A. (2010). Dispelling stereotypes: Promoting disability equality through film. Disability & Society, 25(7), 841-848.
Shakespeare, T. (1999). Art and lies? Representations of disability on film. In Corker, M. & French, S. (Eds.), Disability discourse (pp. 164-172). Open University Press.
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Tateiwa, S. (2010). Tada susumerubeki koto/tamerainagara susumubekikoto (Special education and multi-knowledge convergence). http://www.arsvi.com/ts/20100119.htm#10
Zhang, L., & Haller, B., (2013). Consuming Image: How Mass Media Impact the Identity of People with Disabilities. Communication Quarterly, 61(3), 319–334.
Barasch, Moshe (2001). Blindness: The history of a mental image in western thought. Routledge.
Brylla, C. (2018). Bypassing the supercrip trope in documentary representations of blind visual artists. Disability Studies Quarterly, (38)3.
Corbella, M. B., & Acevedo, F. S. (2010). The representation of people with visual impairment in film. Journal of Medicine and Movie, 6(2), 69-77.
DI-AGENT. (2021). “Shōgaisha’ dakedenaku ikizurasa wo kakaeta subeteno kata e: ‘Yankii-kun to hakujō gāru” sakusha Uoyama sensei intabyū (An interview with Uoyama, author of Love’s in Sight, Not just for “people with disabilities” but for any minority group). https://di-agent.jp/tips/entry101.html.
Ellis, K., & Goggin, G. (2015). Disability & the media. Palgrave Macmillan.
Harada, T. (2021). A visually impaired teacher’s identity work in a school culture where being sighted is taken for granted: “Strategies for transforming disability into advantage” and “strategies against bias.” Kinjogakuin University Anthology, Social Science Series, 18(1), 65-85.
Hatano, M. (2018). The teaching profession is an important profession: Difficulty of the teaching profession and disability. In Hatano, M., Teruyama, J., & Matsunami, M. (Eds.), Teachers with disabilities: The intersections between disabilities and teaching professionals (pp. 85-105). Seikatsu-shoin.
Hopkins, P. D. (2009). The lure of the normal: Who wouldn’t want to be a mutant? In
Housel, R. & Wisnewski, J. J. (Eds.), X-Men and philosophy: Astonishing insight and uncanny argument in the Mutant X-Verse (pp. 5-17). John Wiley & Sons.
IIjima, S., & Hirose, K. (2022). Shikaku shōgai to shinkō no sekai – Shokujōsha no ikikata (Visual impairment and the world of beliefs: The way of the tactile person). Shūkyō Kenkyū, 92(2), 227-302.
Ilea, R. (2009). The mutant cure or social change: Debating disability. In Housel, R. &
Wisnewski, J. J. (Eds.), X-Men and philosophy: Astonishing insight and uncanny
argument in the Mutant X-Verse (pp. 170–182). John Wiley & Sons.
Ishimura, O. (2019). Ammashitōhō fusoku dai jūkyūjō ni okeru shikakushōgaisha e no yūgūsaku (Preferential measures for visually impaired individuals in the 19th Amendment to the law concerning Anma masseurs, or the Ahaki-hō). Senshūhōgakuronshū, 135, 349-366.
Japan Federation of Visually Impaired (Nihon Shikaku Shōgaisha Dantai Rengō). (2016). A research report on how to support people with low vision in their reading and writing endeavors (Yomikaki ga konnanna jakushisha no shien no arikata ni kansuru chōsakenkyū jigyō). http://nichimou.org/all/news/secretariat-news/170327-jimu/.
JASSO (Japan Student Services Organization). (2022). National survey of supports for students with disabilities in higher education settings in Japan. https://www.jasso.go.jp/en/statistics/shougai_gakusei/__icsFiles/afieldfile/2022/07/15/fy2018_survey.pdf
Kinsui, S. (2014). Yakuwarigo Shōjiten. Kenkyusha.
Kurikawa. O. (1996). Isai wa baria furii – Shikakushōgai kyōsi ga “shōgai” wo tou (Brilliance is accessibility: A blind teacher’s inquiry into ‘disability’). Niigata Nipojigyosha.
Kurikawa. O. (2012). Shikakushōgai wo motte ikiru – dekirukoto wa yaru, dekinaikoto wa tasukeau (Living with a visual disability: Independence and cooperation). Akashishoten.
Kurikawa. O. and Nakao, K. (2022). Shōgaikyōin no koyō jittai to sono teimei no seisakuteki yōin (The political failures of low employment for school teachers with disabilities). Sokō, 3, 2-22.
Okuyama, Y. (2020). Reframing disability in manga. University of Hawaiʻi Press.
Okuyama, Y. (2022). Tōjisha manga: Japan’s graphic memoirs of brain and mental health. Palgrave Macmillan.
Matsunami, M. (2018). Can we reduce the workplace difficulties experienced by teachers with disabilities? The possibility of and issues with the introduction of “reasonable accommodations” concepts to the workplace. In Hatano, M., Teruyama, J., & Matsunami, M. (Eds.), Teachers with disabilities: The intersections between disabilities and teaching professionals (pp. 109-138). Seikatsu-shoin.
Mitchell, D. T. and Snyder, L. S. (2000). Narrative prosthesis. The University of Michigan Press.
Moeller, R., & Irwin, M. (2012). Seeing the same: A follow-up study on the portrayals of
disability in graphic novels read by young adults. School Library Research 15, 1-16.
Mori, S. (2018). A practical study on writing to contribute to manga experience for the visually impaired. Journal of College of Image Arts and Sciences, 217-243. Ritsumeikan University.
Mithout, A. L. (2017). The transformations of special schools for the blind in times of inclusion: A French-Japanese perspective. Ars Vivendi Journal, 8/9, 34-55.
Murata, M. (2021). Shikakushōgaisha shien kara yunibasaru seihinkaihatsu he (Product development from simply supporting the visually impaired to universal design). Ningenkogaku, 57, supplement issue, 1-2.
MIC (The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, or Sōmushō). (2009). https://www.soumu.go.jp/soutsu/hokuriku/resarch/houkoku/houkokusho.html
Nagai, A. (1998). Manga no naka no shōgaishatachi: Hyōgen to jinken. (Disabled people in manga: Representations and human rights). Kaihō shuppansha.
Nakamura, M. (2019). Nihon shōgai kyōikushi (Japan’s history of education for disabled children). Akashishobo.
Schwartz, A., Blue, E., McDonald, M., Giuliani, G., Weber, G., Seirup, H., Rose Sage, Elkis-Albuhoff, D., Rosenfeld, J., & Perkins, A. (2010). Dispelling stereotypes: Promoting disability equality through film. Disability & Society, 25(7), 841-848.
Shakespeare, T. (1999). Art and lies? Representations of disability on film. In Corker, M. & French, S. (Eds.), Disability discourse (pp. 164-172). Open University Press.
Shōgaisha Hakusho (The White Paper on Persons with Disabilities). (2022). The Cabinet Office of Japan. https://www8.cao.go.jp/shougai/whitepaper/r04hakusho/zenbun/index-pdf.html.
Sobikoto. (2019). Shōgaisha no kazoku ni kitaisaretemo kazokkute sonnani bannō janai. (The family alone cannot do everything for a person with a disability.) https://sibkoto.org/articles/detail/36.
Tateiwa, S. (2010). Tada susumerubeki koto/tamerainagara susumubekikoto (Special education and multi-knowledge convergence). http://www.arsvi.com/ts/20100119.htm#10
Zhang, L., & Haller, B., (2013). Consuming Image: How Mass Media Impact the Identity of People with Disabilities. Communication Quarterly, 61(3), 319–334.