The (temporary?) queering of Japanese TV

One of the primary texts of the "out" queer cinema of Japan is the televisi on serial Dosokai first aired in 1993, Unlike Western television shows posi ting queer characters, Dosokai presents its gay characters without apology or excuses, and as leads rather than as colorful appendages, At the same ti me, however, the show filters gay eroticism through the (hetero)normative m ode of serial melodrama, at once pushing the boundaries of national permiss iveness while normalizing and homogenizing homosexuality by rendering it wi thin a conventional form.