[2] Hired by the University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo in 2001 as an assistant professor in the Japanese Studies department, Okuyama started her research focused around Oral Proficiency Interview methods.
The work used an expanded definition of disability, including those that are blind, deaf, autistic, or having issues of gender dysphoria.
[4] After the publication of the book, she was invited by Cornell University’s East Asia Program to explain the topic.
She was also given a course at the University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo on the subject of gender and disability in manga that began in spring 2022.
[5] Her subsequent 2022 book, Tōjisha Manga: Japan’s Graphic Memoirs of Brain and Mental Health, discussed the history of Japan and its minority rights movements (tōjisha undō) and how graphic manga covered this history and the impacts of depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) from the events.