Consuming acceptance: Media consumption as LGBT activism in contemporary Japan

The Japanese live-action TV adaptations of Kinō Nani Tabeta? (2019) and complement and develop widespread efforts to teach LGBT issues in contemporary Japan. As the series’ content often repudiates common LGBT and gender stereotypes in the same forms found in non-fiction media, public discourse surrounding the works lauds their depiction of ‘real’ same-sex relationships. This article analyses the series’ ‘real’ positioning through theories regarding the transmedia development of everyday participatory spaces. The series’ social instruction is echoed in their fixation on recipes made available through associated marketing materials. The combination of content lessons and participation-based marketing creates a visible spectacle of LGBT activism characterized by transmissible instructions shown as achievable in the home lives of participants. That home focus is, however, inseparable from the series’ respectability politics, which use the buzz of visibility to display invisible existences aligned with public normativity. The LGBT awareness promoted by these texts and their surrounding discourse can be read as an addition to contemporary advocacy that positions minorities as non-disruptive societal outsiders. By making invisible lifestyles replicable, these works deploy transmedia forms to construct transmission-based intimacy that is ultimately confined to personal consumption.