Haunted in the Night by the Squeals of Yaoi Fangirls

   While reading "Confessions of a Mask", I find a number of things that really don't seem all that new to me; at least with regards to what I find emerging from the samplings of Japanese culture youth in America are exposed to via the popular mangaka and anime subcultures.  (A rather skewed sampling I might add but a sampling none the less.)

   Take, for instance, the romantic interest the main character takes in the other student Omi early on in the novel.  If you threw what is described of Omi and K-chan's (as I refer to him) thoughts on him into the context of the anime genre, almost immediately fans would presume it part of a series of the 'boy love' or yaoi type.  They wouldn't hit too far off either, it does hold a number of cliche's associated with that genre.

   To offer an example, this particular one sided non mutual romance shares a number of similarities to the popular series, "Ookiku Furitubuki" (the obnoxiously renamed "Big Windup" in the US); a sort of dramatized play on the sport of baseball and the exaggerated shinanigans and towel whipping in the locker room.  In that story we follow the rather abrasive, short tempered, and domineering catcher, Abe, and the introvert pitcher who's dialogue is little more then mumbling and blushes at every glance from his teammate. 

    Sound familiar? 

   Yet the lead's sexuality isn't the only topic this applies to.  The constant theme of the novel as suggested by the title is the notion that K-chan is putting on a mask; a false identity he feels is "normal" for the world.  Again, this is a very common theme in anime plot lines.  For example, the popular Clamp (the name of the company that produces the series) series, "Code Geass", focuses on a notion that everyone wears a mask and utopia cannot be achieved until the masks are removed.  In the end the antagonists attempt to do this via an odd semi-supernatural machine to achieve a rather selfish end, and are stopped by the protagonists upon whose co-operation everything hinges (not the most reliable of schemes is it.)