also known as or , is a term that refers to the target demographic of manga

Manga

Manga is the Japanese word for "comics" and consists of comics and print cartoons . In the West, the term "manga" has been appropriated to refer specifically to comics created in Japan, or by Japanese authors, in the Japanese language and conforming to the style developed in Japan in the late 19th...

 created mostly by women for late teenage and adult

Adult

An adult is a human being or living organism that is of relatively mature age, typically associated with sexual maturity and the attainment of reproductive age....

 female audiences. Readers range from 15-44. In Japanese, the word josei means simply "woman", "female", "feminine", "womanhood" and has no manga-related connotations at all.

The stories tend to be about everyday experiences of women living in Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

. Though there are some that cover high school

High school

High school is a term used in parts of the English speaking world to describe institutions which provide all or part of secondary education. The term is often incorporated into the name of such institutions....

, most cover the lives of adult women. The style also tends to be a more restrained, realistic version of shōjo manga, keeping some of the wispy features and getting rid of the very large sparkly eyes. There are exceptions in the style described above, but what defines josei is some degree of stylistic continuity of comics within this particular demographic (the same is true with different demographics that have different stylistic tendencies).

Josei comics can portray realistic romance, as opposed to the mostly idealized romance of shōjo manga, but it does not always have to be. A famous example of a josei is Honey and Clover

Honey and Clover

is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Chika Umino. It is also known as and H&C. It is published by Shueisha, initially serialized from June 2000 to July 2006 in the magazines CUTiEcomic, Young YOU, and Chorus, and collected in ten bound volumes...

, which was animated, which is unusual for josei comics. Josei tends to be both more sexually explicit and contain more mature storytelling, although that is not always true either. It is also not unusual for themes such as NTR

Cuckold

Cuckold is a historically derogatory term for a man who has an unfaithful wife. The word, which has been in recorded use since the 13th century, derives from the cuckoo bird, some varieties of which lay their eggs in other birds' nests...

 and rape to occur in josei manga target specifically towards more mature audiences. Some other famously popular josei series include Yun Kouga

Yun Kouga

, better known by the pen name is a female Japanese manga artist. She is married to fellow manga artist Tatsuneko. She is a graduate of Mita Senior High School, Tokyo...

's Loveless

Loveless (manga)

is an ongoing fantasy manga by Yun Kōga. It is currently serialized in the Japanese magazine Monthly Comic Zero Sum by Ichijinsha and collected in nine tankōbon as of November 2009...

, Ai Yazawa

Ai Yazawa

is a Japanese manga author. Her pen name comes from Japanese singer Eikichi Yazawa, of whom she is a fan.-Biography:Yazawa started her manga publishing life in 1985. She studied in a fashion school but later dropped out. Throughout her 15 years of publishing, she wrote over 10 series in Ribon...

's Paradise Kiss

Paradise Kiss

, abbreviated to "ParaKiss", is a manga series written and illustrated by Ai Yazawa. It appeared as a serial in the Japanese manga magazine Zipper. Shodensha collected the chapters into five volumes...

, and the award-winning works of Erica Sakurazawa

Erica Sakurazawa

is a Japanese manga author whose works are mostly published in josei magazines. She has some works published in the adult manga magazine Manga Burikko.-Works:*Ai shiau Koto shika dekinai*Angel Breath*Boku no Angel Dust*Cherry ni Omakase...

.

Circulations

The reported average circulations for some of the top-selling josei manga magazines in 2007 are as follows:

Magazine title	Reported circulation
You You (magazine) YOU is a Japanese josei manga magazine published by Shueisha.-Manga:*Deka Wanko*Gokusen* Aki no Hana, Mijo Monogatari by Riyoko Ikeda-External links:*...	194,791
Be-Love	194,333
Kiss Kiss (magazine) is a Japanese josei manga magazine published by Kodansha, with a circulation of over 140,000. It was first published in 1992 as a monthly magazine Monthly Kiss....	167,600
Chorus Chorus (magazine) is a Japanese josei manga magazine published by Shueisha.- Current :# Kyaria Kogitsune Kin no Machi # Samurai Kaasan # Higepiyo # Chikutaku Bonbon # Yottsu no Kisetsu...	162,916
Elegance Eve	150,000
For Mrs. For Mrs. is a Josei magazine aimed at housewives. The magazine is released on the 3rd of every month.-External links:*...	150,000
Romance White Paper Pastel	150,000
Dessert	149,333
The Dessert	141,664
Office You	117,916

For comparison, here are the circulations for the top-selling magazines in other categories for 2007.

Category	Magazine title	Reported circulation
Top-selling shōnen manga Shonen The term refers to manga marketed to a male audience aged roughly 10 and up. The Kanji characters literally mean "few" and "year", respectively, where the characters generally mean "comic"...  magazine	Weekly Shōnen Jump Weekly Shonen Jump is a weekly shōnen manga anthology published in Japan by Shueisha under the Jump line of magazines. The first issue was released with a cover date of July 2, 1968, and it is still circulating. One of the longest-running manga magazines in Japan, it has a circulation of 2.8 million copies...	2,778,750
Top-selling seinen manga Seinen is a subset of manga that is generally targeted at a 20–30 year old male audience, but the audience can be older with some manga aimed at businessmen well into their 40s. In Japanese, the word Seinen means "young man" or "young men" and is not suggestive of sexual matters...  magazine	Weekly Young Magazine	981,229
Top-selling shōjo manga magazine	Ciao Ciao (magazine) is a Japanese shōjo manga magazine published by Shogakukan for young girls . The first issue was launched in 1977. As of 2009, the circulation was 815,455. Formerly, the magazine attached paper crafts, but now attaches various goods that are different every month...	982,834
Top-selling non-manga magazine	Monthly The Television	1,018,919

(Source for all circulation figures: Japan Magazine Publishers Association)

History

Josei manga (then called Ladies Comics, or Redikomi) began to appear in the 1980s, during a boom period in manga, when the girls who had read shoujo manga in the 1950s and 60s wanted manga for adult women. The first ladies comic magazine, Be-Love, was printed in 1980. At the end of 1980 there were two ladies comics magazines, at the end of 1989 there were over fifty. Early ladies comics were sexually free, and the comics became more and more sexually extreme until the early 1990s. Manga branded as "Ladies' Comics" has acquired a reputation for being low-brow, and "dirty", and the term josei was created to move away from that image.

Examples

Angel Nest The Aromatic Bitters Be With You Between The Sheets Blue Blue (manga) is a manga by Kiriko Nananan that was serialized in the alternative manga magazine COMIC Are!; the tankōbon was released on April 24, 1997. The English version, published by Fanfare/Ponent Mon, was released on March 15, 2006... Happy Mania Happy Mania is an 11-volume manga series created by Moyoco Anno, who also happens to be the spouse of the famous Neon Genesis Evangelion creator Hideaki Anno. Translated by Shirley Kubo and Leah Ginsberg, the English version was published in paperback by TokyoPop in 2003 and 2004. It was one of Tokyopop's... Happy Marriage!? Honey and Clover Honey and Clover is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Chika Umino. It is also known as and H&C. It is published by Shueisha, initially serialized from June 2000 to July 2006 in the magazines CUTiEcomic, Young YOU, and Chorus, and collected in ten bound volumes... Kuragehime Kuragehime is a Japanese josei manga series written and illustrated by Akiko Higashimura. It began serialization in the Kodansha manga magazine Kiss on November 10, 2008. An 11-episode anime television series based on the manga was produced by Brain's Base and aired on Fuji TV's Noitamina programming block... Make Love and Peace Nodame Cantabile Nodame Cantabile is a manga by Tomoko Ninomiya. It was serialized in Japan by Kodansha in the magazine Kiss from July 2001 to October 2009 and collected in 23 tankōbon volumes. A two-volume sequel, called Nodame Cantabile: Opera Chapter, which began serialization in the 10 December 2009 issue of Kiss, was released... Object of Desire Paradise Kiss Paradise Kiss , abbreviated to "ParaKiss", is a manga series written and illustrated by Ai Yazawa. It appeared as a serial in the Japanese manga magazine Zipper. Shodensha collected the chapters into five volumes... Suppli Suppli is a manga series by Mari Okazaki. It is published by Shodensha, and has been running in the magazine Feel Young since 2004. It ended its serialisation in the December 2009 issue, and a sidestory to Suppli also ran in the magazine. It has been collected in seven volumes so far, and is published in... Sweet Cream and Red Strawberries Tramps Like Us Tramps Like Us is a Japanese josei manga series by Yayoi Ogawa. It is about Sumire, a young professional woman who takes in a younger man as a pet, and her attempts to keep her coworkers and conventionally-perfect boyfriend from finding out about her pet... Usagi Drop Usagi Drop is a Japanese josei manga series by Yumi Unita. The plot follows thirty-year old Daikichi as he becomes the guardian of Rin, the illegitimate six-year old daughter of his grandfather.... Walkin' Butterfly With the Light With the Light is a josei drama manga by Keiko Tobe. It began serialization in 2000 in For Mrs., and serial chapters were collected in 15 tankōbon volumes by Akita Shoten. The series depicts the struggles of a young mother, Sachiko Azuma, raising her autistic son Hikaru in modern Japan... Love in the mask

See also

• Children's (Kodomo): intended for younger children
• Shōnen manga: intended for boys
• Shōjo manga: intended for girls
• Seinen
  Seinen
  is a subset of manga that is generally targeted at a 20–30 year old male audience, but the audience can be older with some manga aimed at businessmen well into their 40s. In Japanese, the word Seinen means "young man" or "young men" and is not suggestive of sexual matters...
  
  : intended for adult males
• List of Josei manga magazines
• Yaoi
  Yaoi
  In careful Japanese enunciation, all three vowels are pronounced separately, for a three-mora word, . The English equivalent is . also known as Boys' Love, is a Japanese popular term for female-oriented fictional media that focus on homoerotic or homoromantic male relationships, usually created by...
  
  : homoerotic stories about men in love for female audiences

Further reading

• Fusami Ogi, 2003: Female Subjectivity and Shoujo (Girls) Manga (Japanese Comics): Shoujo in Ladies' Comics and Young Ladies' Comics, Volume 36, Issue 4, pages 780–803
• Gretchen Jones, 2003: "Ladies' Comics": Japan's Not-So-Underground Market in Pornography for Women, US-Japan Women's Journal English Supplement, Volume 22, pages 3-30
• Deborah Shamoon, Office Sluts and Rebel Flowers: The Pleasures of Japanese Pornographic Comics for Women, in: Porn Studies, ed. Linda Williams, 2004
• Gretchen Jones, Bad Girls Like to Watch: Writing and Reading Ladies' Comics, in: Bad girls of Japan, ed. Laura Miller and Jan Bardsley, 2005