Queer Resistance to Heteronormativity in Battan's Kakeochi Gāru

Abstract

This article examines how resistance to heteronormativity is represented in Battan's manga Kakeochi Gaaru. The study addresses how queer female characters negotiate social expectations that attach adulthood, happiness, and respectability to heterosexual marriage, reproduction, and family life. Using descriptive qualitative analysis, the research reads selected dialogue, narrative scenes, character interaction, and visual motifs through Judith Butler's concept of gender performativity and Lisa Duggan's concept of homonormativity. The findings show that resistance is not represented as a single heroic break from heteronormativity, but as a gradual and situational process. Midori first internalizes heteronormative adulthood by leaving her lesbian relationship and pursuing marriage with Tazune; later, through renewed intimacy with Maki, she rejects Tazune's masculine authority and reclaims queer desire. Maki represents quieter resistance through refusal and non-participation, while Komari illustrates selective resistance shaped by the need for safety in a heteronormative environment. The article argues that Kakeochi Gaaru criticizes heteronormativity by exposing the violence of normative masculinity and the limits of heterosexual respectability. However, the manga also resolves queer happiness through coupledom, wedding imagery, and family, indicating a homonormative strategy of making queer life socially legible. The study contributes to discussions of lesbian representation in contemporary Japanese popular culture and highlights the ambivalence of queer resistance in media produced during Japan's LGBT Boom.