Focusing on queerqueen, the archetypical effeminate queer media figure, Claire Maree's book critically engages with the entextualization, mediatization, and commodification of queerqueen speech in a variety of Japanese media texts. Maree identifies the early 2000s as the time when the onē-kyara ‘queen-personality’ boomed in Japan, traces the individuals who were interpellated into the category of queen in this era, and follows their media presence, which extends before and beyond these years.

Maree proposes the notion of ‘language-labour’ (27) as central to understanding the entextualization of queerqueen speech in popular culture and its dissemination as an entertaining commodity to the business of mainstream media. Language labor refers to collaborative practices of commercial writing performed by teams of media production professionals (i.e. transcribers, ghost writers, graphic designers, editors, and/or producers) who adapt their writing conventions to visually and sonically construct authentic queerqueen personas (chapter 1). In particular, Maree examines the conversational dialogue books, penned by the popular okama (‘fag’) twins, Osugi and Peeco, and explicates how the editorial team mobilizes orthographic stylization and visual mimesis to (re)trace the authentic queerqueen speech in print (chapter 2). The author argues that transcription and illustration not only serve to (re)produce talk-as-text, but also mark the talk as a distinctively queer style of linguistic excess in terms of delivery and content. For example, editors employ redaction characters to replace vulgar terms, positioning the content as exceeding the normative expectation of decency. Maree suggests that the consumption of such excessive talk promises a voyeuristic pleasure, which is essential to the business of mainstream entertainment.

Focusing on a lifestyle variety show, Maree demonstrates that through use of font, animation, and colour, impact-captions inscribe the sonic qualities of the queen-personalities over the visual representation of queerqueen talking and argues that this juxtaposition facilitates the enregisterment of queerqueen speech (chapter 3). The author then illustrates how the enregistered style is co-opted into a fictional animated series (chapter 4). More importantly, in discussing the figure of Matsuko Deluxe, Maree suggests that the extensive use of visual and sonic self-censorship in his show is as much about promoting a discourse of excess as it is about containing that excess (chapter 5). However, despite the editorial interventions to regiment queer excess within the norms of (hetero)respectability, the media presence of queerqueen figures still possesses the potential to contest traditional gender and sexuality normativities. Turning to the queer icon Miwa Akihiro in the end-of-year song contest, Maree emphasizes an interesting paradox that accompanies the presence of queerqueen figures in the media: while mainstream media rely on and contain the excessive performance of queerqueens, they also pivot on the queerqueen figures to voice situated dissent (chapter 6).

Maree provides an empirically rich investigation of how queerqueen as an enregistered media persona is articulated in a diversity of gender identifications, sexual orientations, and discursive styles. The book highlights the material dimension of language and adds to our understanding of how configurations of gender, sexuality, and desire are essential to the business of mainstream media.