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Paper short abstract

This study explores Miwa Akihiro’s career through queer, social and gender history, highlighting his anti-militarist revival of prewar erotic–grotesque cross-dressing. His performances reveal strategies of visibility and resistance that resonate with, but are not limited to, broader Drag traditions.

Paper long abstract

This paper examines Miwa Akihiro’s career within the context of queer, social and gender history, considering how his performances navigated postwar cultural shifts and the legacies of wartime repression. Miwa’s work engages with prewar traditions of cross-dressing and the erotic–grotesque (ero guro), which had been largely suppressed during militarization, and reflects a fierce critique of gender norms and militarist values. Rather than emphasizing direct points of contact or rigid comparisons between Western drag culture and Japanese josō bunka, the study highlights how Miwa’s performances can be read as a form of cultural revival and social commentary. His public persona — spanning chanson, theater, film, and television — combined theatrical exaggeration and fluidity, creating spaces in which gender and bodily expression could be explored and made visible. These strategies resonate with wider traditions of Drag performance in various contexts, though they remain rooted in Japanese historical and social frameworks, showing both convergences and particularities without suggesting a linear relationship.

A key aspect of Miwa’s approach was his interest in restoring practices interrupted by the war, using humor, excess, and grotesque aesthetics to reclaim forms of expression that had once been socially tolerated or celebrated. His work illustrates how performance can serve as a subtle form of resistance, offering both personal and collective negotiation of identity, sexuality, and social expectation. By focusing on Miwa Akihiro as a case study, the paper contributes to a broader understanding of Queer history in Japan, foregrounding the interplay of memory, aesthetics, and social critique. It suggests that cross-dressing and gender-variant performance can operate simultaneously as revival, artistic expression, and social commentary, revealing how Miwa navigated complex postwar cultural landscapes.