Gakushu-manga and Hyper-meritocracy:

This study clarifies how the influence of individual backgrounds and efforts are portrayed in gakushumanga(considered appropriate for use in school education) that depict efforts and success in fields outside of academia. Sports manga was in its heyday in the 1960s, and earnest efforts were highly valued, but by the 1980s, such efforts were ridiculed and declined. Generally, there is a tendency in manga since the 2000s, to value the protagonist's talents and rationalized efforts against the background of the sense of hopelessness that contemporary youth feel. We selected and analysed ‘Dance Dance Danseur’, a gakushumanga with sports as its theme, and ‘Blue Period’ which focuses on art. Both protagonists are depicted as having high communication skills and choosing to make efforts of their own volition. In gakushumanga of the 21st century, effortism(earnest efforts), which is said to have declined, continues to persist, but changes are observed in how efforts are made and how evaluated. Forced efforts are denied, and selfinitiated (preferably enjoyable) efforts are affirmed. Furthermore, while the protagonist is positioned at the top in the evaluation culture of schools that value communication skills (hyper-meritocracy), they are also required to deny conformity pressures when choosing the object of their efforts. By emphasizing the protagonist's subjective choices, the hopeless and choiceless situation is invisibly rendered. Therefore, it is easy to conclude that these gakushu-manga tend to fall into a self-responsibility theory that affirms the current situation as a result of their own efforts.