Female Masculinity and the Business of Emotions in Tokyo. By Marta Fanasca. Abingdon: Routledge, 2024. 268p. - Emergent Genders: Living Otherwise in Tokyo’s Pink Economies. By Michelle H. S. Ho. Durham: Duke University Press, 2025. 203p.

Abstract

Two ethnographies by Michelle H. S. Ho and Marta Fanasca offer fine-grained explorations of cross-dressing café-bars and escort services in Japan. Both studies illuminate how gender performance, emotion, and economic precarity intersect in Japan’s night-time economy, revealing the subtle forms of labor, desire, and identity that sustain its niche markets.