Until the late nineteenth century, Japan could boast of an elaborate cultural tradition surrounding the love and desire that men felt for other men. By the first years of the twentieth century, however, as heterosexuality became associated with an enlightened modernity, love between men was increasingly branded as feudal or immature. The resulting rupture in what has been called the male homosocial continuum constitutes one of the most significant markers of Japan s entrance into modernity. And yet, just as early Japanese modernity often seemed haunted by remnants of the premodern past,...