Shojo
Encyclopedia
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...
marketed to a female audience roughly between the ages of 10-18. The name romanizes
Romanization of Japanese
The romanization of Japanese is the application of the Latin alphabet to write the Japanese language. This method of writing is known as , less strictly romaji, literally "Roman letters", sometimes incorrectly transliterated as romanji or rōmanji. There are several different romanization systems...
the Japanese
Japanese language
is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
少女 (shōjo), literally: "little female". Shōjo manga covers many subjects in a variety of narrative and graphic styles, from historical drama
Period piece
-Setting:In the performing arts, a period piece is a work set in a particular era. This informal term covers all countries, all periods and all genres...
to science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
— often with a strong focus on human and romantic relationships and emotions. Strictly speaking, shōjo manga does not comprise a style or a genre per se, but rather indicates a target demographic
Target audience
In marketing and advertising, a target audience, is a specific group of people within the target market at which the marketing message is aimed .....
.
Examples include Cardcaptor Sakura
Cardcaptor Sakura
, abbreviated as CCS and also known as Cardcaptors, is a Japanese shōjo manga series written and illustrated by the manga artist group Clamp. The manga was originally serialized monthly in Nakayoshi from the May 1996 until the June 2000 issue, and later published in 12 tankōbon volumes by Kodansha...
, Ouran High School Host Club
Ouran High School Host Club
is a manga series by Bisco Hatori, serialized in Hakusensha's LaLa magazine since August 5, 2003. The series follows Haruhi Fujioka, a scholarship student at Ouran High School, and the other members of the popular host club. The romantic comedy focuses on the relationships within and without the...
, Fruits Basket
Fruits Basket
, sometimes abbreviated , is a Japanese shōjo manga series written and illustrated by Natsuki Takaya. It was serialized in the semi-monthly Japanese magazine Hana to Yume, published by Hakusensha, from 1999 to 2006. The series was also adapted into a 26-episode anime series, directed by Akitaro...
, Fushigi Yuugi, Sailor Moon
Sailor Moon
Sailor Moon, known as , is a media franchise created by manga artist Naoko Takeuchi. Fred Patten credits Takeuchi with popularizing the concept of a team of magical girls, and Paul Gravett credits the series with "revitalizing" the magical-girl genre itself...
, Vampire Knight
Vampire Knight
is a shōjo manga and anime series written by Matsuri Hino. The series premiered in the January 2005 issue of LaLa magazine and is still on-going. Chapters are collected and published in collected volumes by Hakusensha, with eleven volumes currently released in Japan. The manga series is licensed in...
, Romeo x Juliet
Romeo x Juliet
is a TV anime series, loosely based on William Shakespeare's classical play, Romeo and Juliet, along with numerous references and characters from other Shakespearean plays. Though the anime borrows mostly from Shakespeare's story, the manga adaptation differs extensively from the original...
, Princess Ai
Princess Ai
is a manga co-created by Courtney Love, Ai Yazawa, Misaho Kujiradou, and DJ Milky , and is published in English by Tokyopop.The story deals with an amnesiac girl named Ai who was torn from her homeland, and awakens in present-day Tokyo...
, Pretty Cure
Pretty Cure
is a Japanese magical girl anime metaseries created by Izumi Todo and produced by ABC and Toei Animation. The first program Futari wa Pretty Cure debuted in 2004 and has continued with sequels and spinoffs into the current series Suite PreCure♪ airing in 2011 as part of Asahi Broadcasting...
, Skip Beat, Watashi Ni XX Shinasai,Shugo Chara!
Shugo Chara!
, also known as My Guardian Characters, is a Japanese shōjo manga series created by the manga author duo, Peach-Pit. The story centers on elementary school girl Amu Hinamori, whose popular exterior, referred to as "cool and spicy" by her classmates, contrasts with her introverted personality...
and Tokyo Mew Mew
Tokyo Mew Mew
, also known as Mew Mew Power, is a Japanese shōjo manga series written by Reiko Yoshida and illustrated by Mia Ikumi. It was originally serialized in Nakayoshi from September 2000 to February 2003, and later published in seven tankōbon volumes by Kodansha from February 2001 to April 2003...
.
History
Japanese magazines specifically for girls, known as shōjo magazines, first appeared in 1903 with the founding of , and continued with others such as (1906) and the long-running (1908).Simple, single-page manga had begun to appear in these magazines by 1910, and by the 1930s more sophisticated humor-strips had become an essential feature of most girls' magazines. The most popular manga, Katsuji Matsumoto
Katsuji Matsumoto
was a Japanese illustrator and shōjo manga artist. Matsumoto's 16-page The Mysterious Clover is recognized as a pioneering work in the field of manga, but he is best known for his shōjo manga Kurukuru Kurumi-chan, serialized from 1938 to 1940, and again from 1949 to 1954.His illustrations were...
's Kurukuru Kurumi-chan (くるくるクルミちゃん), debuted on the pages of Shōjo no tomo (少女の友) in 1938. As World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
progressed, however, "comics, perhaps regarded as frivolous, began to disappear".
Postwar shōjo manga, such as Shosuke Kurakane
Shosuke Kurakane
, pen name was a Japanese manga artist.He wrote many works that has been turned into anime, TV drama, and movie but is especially known for Anmitsuhime which was turned into all three. His second best known work, Tentenmusume , was made into a movie on 1956 with Mariko Miyagi as the heroine and...
's popular Anmitsu Hime
Anmitsu Hime
is a manga series by Shosuke Kurakane.The story was originally produced in 1949-1955.In 1986-1987, Izumi Takemoto retold the original manga series, releasing it under the same title.- Live-action television dramas :...
,
initially followed the pre-war pattern of simple humor-strips. But Osamu Tezuka
Osamu Tezuka
was a Japanese cartoonist, manga artist, animator, producer, activist and medical doctor, although he never practiced medicine. Born in Osaka Prefecture, he is best known as the creator of Astro Boy, Kimba the White Lion and Black Jack...
's postwar revolution, introducing intense drama and serious themes to children's manga, spread quickly to shōjo manga, particularly after the enormous success of his seminal Ribon no kishi (リボンの騎士 Princess Knight
Princess Knight
is a Japanese manga that ran through four serializations from 1954 to 1968, as well as a 1967 Japanese children's animated series. It was dubbed into English and brought over to Western audiences in 1970, where it was called Choppy and the Princess. In 1973, this series was dubbed in Portuguese and...
).
Until the mid-1960s males vastly outnumbered the handful of females (for example: Toshiko Ueda
Toshiko Ueda
was a Japanese manga artist who helped shape the face of modern shojo manga. She wrote under three pen names: for manga, when writing for newspapers, and later , all three of which are read as Toshiko Ueda in English....
, Hideko Mizuno
Hideko Mizuno
is one of the first successful female Japanese shōjo manga artists. She was an assistant of Osamu Tezuka staying in Tokiwa-sō. She made her professional debut in 1956 with Akakke Pony...
, Masako Watanabe
Masako Watanabe
born 16 May 1929, in Tokyo, Japan is a Japanese manga artist. She began her professional career as an illustrator of books in 1949. She switched to creating manga after reading Osamu Tezuka's works, debuting in 1952 with Namida no Sanbika...
, and Miyako Maki
Miyako Maki
is a Japanese manga artist. She made her professional debut in 1957 with . She received the 1989 Shogakukan Manga Award for General for Genji Monogatari, a Japanese manga version of Murasaki Shikibu's The Tale of Genji. She is the creator of Licca-chan, a popular Japanese doll. Her husband is...
) amongst the artists working on shōjo manga. Many, such as Tetsuya Chiba
Tetsuya Chiba
is a Japanese manga artist famous for his sports stories.He was born in Tokyo, Japan, but lived most of his early childhood in Manchuria when it was still a Japanese colony during the Second Sino-Japanese War. His father was working in a paper factory during that time they lived in China. One of...
, functioned as rookies, waiting for an opportunity to move over to shōnen (少年 "boys'") manga. Chiba asked his wife about girls' feeling
Emotion
Emotion is a complex psychophysiological experience of an individual's state of mind as interacting with biochemical and environmental influences. In humans, emotion fundamentally involves "physiological arousal, expressive behaviors, and conscious experience." Emotion is associated with mood,...
s for research for his manga. At this time, conventional job-opportunities for females did not include becoming a manga artist.
Adapting Tezuka's dynamic style to shōjo manga (which had always been domestic in nature) proved challenging. According to Thorn:
While some chose to simply create longer humor-strips, others turned to popular girls' novels of the day as a model for melodramatic shōjo manga. These manga featured sweet, innocent pre-teen heroines, torn from the safety of family and tossed from one perilous circumstance to another, until finally rescued (usually by a kind, handsome young man) and re-united with their families.
These early shōjo manga almost invariably had pre-adolescent girls as both heroines and readers. Unless they used a fantastic setting (as in Princess Knight) or a backdrop of a distant time or place, romantic love for the heroine remained essentially taboo. But the average age of the readership rose, and its interests changed. In the mid-1960s one of the few female artists in the field, Yoshiko Nishitani
Yoshiko Nishitani
Yoshiko Nishitani 西谷祥子 was a pioneering shōjo manga artist who released her works in Shōjo Club and Margaret. According to Matt Thorn, Nishitani "more or less single-handedly invented the school campus romance that remains the mainstay of shôjo manga today", and Robert Petersen regards her...
, began to draw stories featuring contemporary Japanese teenagers in love. This signaled a dramatic transformation of the genre.
Between 1950 and 1969, increasingly large audiences for manga emerged in Japan with the solidification of its two main marketing genres, shōnen
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"...
manga aimed at boys and shōjo manga aimed at girls.
Between roughly 1969 and 1971 a flood of young female manga artists transformed the genre again. Some, including Hagio Moto, Yumiko Oshima
Yumiko Oshima
is a female Japanese manga artist and a member of Year 24 group.She made her debut in 1968 with Paula's Tears in Weekly Margaret.She received the 1973 Japan Cartoonists Association Award for excellence for Mimoza Yashiki de Tsukamaete...
, and Keiko Takemiya
Keiko Takemiya
is a Japanese manga artist. She is included in the Year 24 Group. She resides in Kamukura, Kanagawa Prefecture. Takemiya was one of the female authors who in the early 1970s pioneered a genre of girls' comics about love between young men; in December 1970 she published a short story, "In the...
, became known as the hana no nijū yon nen gumi (花の24年組, Year 24 Group
Year 24 group
refers to one of two female manga artist groups which are considered to have revolutionized shōjo manga . Their works often examine "radical and philosophical issues", including sexuality and gender issues, and many of their works are now considered "classics" of shōjo manga...
, so named from the approximate year of birth many of them shared:Shōwa
Showa period
The , or Shōwa era, is the period of Japanese history corresponding to the reign of the Shōwa Emperor, Hirohito, from December 25, 1926 through January 7, 1989.The Shōwa period was longer than the reign of any previous Japanese emperor...
24, or 1949). This loosely-defined group experimented with content and form, inventing such new sub-genres as Shōnen-ai, and earning the long-maligned shōjo manga unprecedented critical praise. Other female artists of the same generation, such as Riyoko Ikeda
Riyoko Ikeda
is a Japanese manga artist and singer. She is included in the Year 24 Group. She was one of the most popular Japanese comic artists in the 1970s, being best known for The Rose of Versailles.- Biography :...
, Yukari Ichijo
Yukari Ichijo
is a Japanese shōjo and josei manga artist. She debuted in 1968 with Yuki no Serenade. In 1986 she received the Kodansha Manga Award for shōjo for Yūkan Club, and in 2007, she received an Excellence Prize in manga at the Japan Media Arts Festival for Pride...
, and Sumika Yamamoto
Sumika Yamamoto
is a Japanese manga artist known for her manga series Ace o Nerae!.-Biography:Sumika Yamamoto is a shōjo manga artist born on June 17, 1949. She debuted as a manga artist in 1971 with "Sono Hitokoto ga ienakute" in Shuukan Margaret before achieving success with "Ace o Nerae"...
, garnered unprecedented popular support with such hits (respectively) as Berusaiyu no bara (ベルサイユのばら, "The Rose of Versailles
The Rose of Versailles
, also known as Lady Oscar or La Rose de Versailles, is one of the best-known titles in shōjo manga and a media franchise created by Riyoko Ikeda. It has been adapted into several Takarazuka Revue musicals, as well an anime television series, produced by Tokyo Movie Shinsha and broadcast by the...
"), Dezainaa (デザイナー, "Designer"), and Eesu wo nerae! (エースをねらえ!, "Aim for the Ace!
Ace o Nerae!
is a sports shōjo manga by Sumika Yamamoto begun in 1972 and serialized in Margaret. Hugely successful, it was adapted into a TV anime series in 1973 by Tokyo Movie Shinsha with the Madhouse animation studio , and was originally aired on MBS.Another TV anime, a movie retelling of the first series,...
"). Since the mid-1970s, women have created the vast majority of shōjo manga - notable exceptions include Mineo Maya and Shinji Wada
Shinji Wada
was a Japanese manga artist in Kure, Hiroshima Prefecture, Japan, and best known for the creation of the Sukeban Deka franchise. He has been the cover artist for and had stories published in the bishōjo lolicon manga anthology series Petit Apple Pie....
).
From 1975 to shōjo manga continued to develop stylistically while simultaneously branching out into different but overlapping subgenres. Yukari Fujimoto feels that during the 1990s, shoujo manga became concerned with self-fulfillment. She feels the Gulf War
Gulf War
The Persian Gulf War , commonly referred to as simply the Gulf War, was a war waged by a U.N.-authorized coalition force from 34 nations led by the United States, against Iraq in response to Iraq's invasion and annexation of Kuwait.The war is also known under other names, such as the First Gulf...
influenced the development of "girls who fight to protect the destiny of a community", such as Red River
Red River (manga)
, also known as Anatolia Story, is a historical fantasy shōjo manga series by Chie Shinohara. It is published in Japan by Shogakukan in Sho-Comi and collected in 28 volumes. It is published in English in North America by VIZ Media, with 25 volumes released as of April 2009 and the remaining 3...
, Basara
Basara (manga)
is a shōjo manga written by Yumi Tamura. The manga, which consists of 27 tankōbon volumes, won the Shogakukan Manga Award for shōjo in 1992. It was adapted as an anime that follows only part of the manga story, cutting off after 13 episodes...
, Magic Knight Rayearth
Magic Knight Rayearth
is a Japanese manga series created by Clamp, a manga artist team made up by Satsuki Igarashi, Ageha Ohkawa, Tsubaki Nekoi and Mokona. Rayearth combines elements from the magical girl and mecha anime genres with parallel world fantasy....
, and Sailor Moon
Sailor Moon
Sailor Moon, known as , is a media franchise created by manga artist Naoko Takeuchi. Fred Patten credits Takeuchi with popularizing the concept of a team of magical girls, and Paul Gravett credits the series with "revitalizing" the magical-girl genre itself...
. She feels that the shoujo manga of the 1990s showed emotional bonds between women that were stronger than bonds between a man and a woman.
Major sub-genres include romance, science fiction, fantasy, magical girls, 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...
, and "Ladies Comics
Josei
also known as or , is a term that refers to the target demographic of manga created mostly by women for late teenage and adult 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...
" (in Japanese, redisu レディース, redikomi レディコミ, and josei 女性).
Meaning and spelling
As shōjoShojo
The term refers to manga marketed to a female audience roughly between the ages of 10-18. The name romanizes the Japanese 少女 , literally: "little female". Shōjo manga covers many subjects in a variety of narrative and graphic styles, from historical drama to science fiction — often with a strong...
literally means "girl" in Japanese
Japanese language
is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
, the equivalent of the western usage will generally include the medium: girls' manga (少女漫画 shōjo manga), or anime for girls (少女向けアニメ shōjo-muke anime). The parallel terms shōnen
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"...
, 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...
, and josei
Josei
also known as or , is a term that refers to the target demographic of manga created mostly by women for late teenage and adult 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...
also occur in the categorisation of manga and anime, with similar qualification. Though the terminology originates with the Japanese publishers, cultural differences with the West mean that labelling in English tends to vary wildly, with the types often confused and mis-applied.
Due to vagaries in the romanization of Japanese
Romanization of Japanese
The romanization of Japanese is the application of the Latin alphabet to write the Japanese language. This method of writing is known as , less strictly romaji, literally "Roman letters", sometimes incorrectly transliterated as romanji or rōmanji. There are several different romanization systems...
, publishers may transcribe 少女 (written しょうじょ in hiragana
Hiragana
is a Japanese syllabary, one basic component of the Japanese writing system, along with katakana, kanji, and the Latin alphabet . Hiragana and katakana are both kana systems, in which each character represents one mora...
) in a wide variety of ways. By far the most common form, shoujo, follows English phonology
English phonology
English phonology is the study of the sound system of the English language. Like many languages, English has wide variation in pronunciation, both historically and from dialect to dialect...
, preserves the spelling, and requires only ASCII
ASCII
The American Standard Code for Information Interchange is a character-encoding scheme based on the ordering of the English alphabet. ASCII codes represent text in computers, communications equipment, and other devices that use text...
input. The Hepburn romanization
Hepburn romanization
The is named after James Curtis Hepburn, who used it to transcribe the sounds of the Japanese language into the Latin alphabet in the third edition of his Japanese–English dictionary, published in 1887. The system was originally proposed by the in 1885...
shōjo uses a macron
Macron
A macron, from the Greek , meaning "long", is a diacritic placed above a vowel . It was originally used to mark a long or heavy syllable in Greco-Roman metrics, but now marks a long vowel...
for the long vowel, though the prevalence of Latin-1
ISO/IEC 8859-1
ISO/IEC 8859-1:1998, Information technology — 8-bit single-byte coded graphic character sets — Part 1: Latin alphabet No. 1, is part of the ISO/IEC 8859 series of ASCII-based standard character encodings, first edition published in 1987. It is informally referred to as Latin-1. It is generally...
fonts often results in a circumflex
Circumflex
The circumflex is a diacritic used in the written forms of many languages, and is also commonly used in various romanization and transcription schemes. It received its English name from Latin circumflexus —a translation of the Greek περισπωμένη...
instead, as in shôjo. Many English-language texts just ignore long vowels, using shojo, potentially leading to confusion with 処女 (shojo
Shojo
The term refers to manga marketed to a female audience roughly between the ages of 10-18. The name romanizes the Japanese 少女 , literally: "little female". Shōjo manga covers many subjects in a variety of narrative and graphic styles, from historical drama to science fiction — often with a strong...
, literally: "virgin") as well as other possible meanings. Finally, transliteraters may use Nihon-shiki
Nihon-shiki
Nihon-shiki or Nippon-shiki Rōmaji is a romanization system for transliterating the Japanese language into the Latin alphabet. In discussion about romaji, it is abbreviated as Nihon-shiki or Nippon-shiki. Among the major romanization systems for Japanese, Nippon-shiki is the most regular, and has...
-type mirroring of the kana
Kana
Kana are the syllabic Japanese scripts, as opposed to the logographic Chinese characters known in Japan as kanji and the Roman alphabet known as rōmaji...
spelling: syôjyo, or syoujyo.
Western adoption
Fans in the West have adopted a wide range of Japanese anime and manga terminologyAnime and manga terminology
Anime and manga fans outside of Japan have adopted many Japanese words and phrases. Some of these words have been misinterpreted, reinterpreted or undergone significant change in meaning...
, however the strong stylistic and thematic similarities between a sector of shōjo works has led to regarding them as a genre
Genre
Genre , Greek: genos, γένος) is the term for any category of literature or other forms of art or culture, e.g. music, and in general, any type of discourse, whether written or spoken, audial or visual, based on some set of stylistic criteria. Genres are formed by conventions that change over time...
or style, sometimes with an attempt to assign it by degrees. This has led to western fans classifying a wide variety of titles as shōjo, even though their Japanese creators would label them differently. Anything non-offensive and featuring female characters may class as shōjo, such as the light shōnen
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"...
comedy manga and anime Azumanga Daioh
Azumanga Daioh
is a Japanese comedy manga by Kiyohiko Azuma. It was serialized by MediaWorks in the shōnen manga magazine Dengeki Daioh from 1999 to 2002 and collected in four bound volumes...
. Similarly, as romance has become a common element of many shōjo works, any title with romance, such as the shōnen
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"...
Love Hina
Love Hina
is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Ken Akamatsu. It was originally serialized in Weekly Shōnen Magazine by Kodansha from October 21, 1998 to October 31, 2001 and was published in 14 tankōbon volumes by Kodansha. The series tells the story of Keitaro Urashima and his attempts to...
or the 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...
Oh My Goddess!
Oh My Goddess!
, also known as Ah! My Goddess!, is a Japanese seinen manga series written and illustrated by Kōsuke Fujishima. It premiered in the November 1988 issue of Afternoon where it is still being serialized. Every few months, the most recent chapters are published in tankōbon volumes by Kodansha...
tend to get mislabeled. In addition Westerners often declare that particularly violent, gory, or sexually explicit works "cannot possibly" be shōjo, or disbelieve that the producers of 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...
titles target a market of girls rather than homosexual men, although both of these claims are false, and the reason for them was most likely due to uneven translation of Japanese anime terminology. It has been proven true that Boys' Love (yaoi) and "shojo smut" manga, is indeed, targeted at teenage girls.
This confusion also extends beyond the fan community; articles aimed at the mainstream also widely misrepresent the terms. In an introduction to anime and manga, Jon Courtenay Grimwood
Jon Courtenay Grimwood
Jon Courtenay Grimwood is a British science fiction and fantasy author.He was born in Valletta, Malta, grew up in Britain, Southeast Asia and Norway in the 1960s and 1970s. He studied at Kingston College, then worked in publishing and as a freelance writer for magazines and newspapers including The...
writes:
Takahashi has become a famed shōnen manga artist
Mangaka
is the Japanese word for a comic artist or cartoonist. Outside of Japan, manga usually refers to a Japanese comic book and mangaka refers to the author of the manga, who is usually Japanese...
, but Maison Ikkoku, one of her few seinen titles and serialised in Big Comic Spirits
Big Comic Spirits
is a weekly Japanese seinen manga magazine published by Shogakukan and aimed at males 20–25 years old. It originally launched on October 14, 1980. The culture of food, sports, love relationships, and business provide the themes for its featured series, which often question conventional values...
, aimed at males in their 20s. Matt Thorn
Matt Thorn
Matt Thorn is a cultural anthropologist and an Associate Professor in the Department of Manga Production at Kyoto Seika University's Faculty of Manga in Japan. He is most well known in North America for his work dealing with shōjo manga. He has appeared at multiple anime conventions, including...
, who has made a career out of studying girls' comics, attempts to clarify the matter by explaining that "shôjo manga are manga published in shôjo magazines (as defined by their publishers)".
Publishers and stores have problems retailing shōjo: unsure of the "right" way to spell the word. Licensees such as Dark Horse Comics
Dark Horse Comics
Dark Horse Comics is the largest independent American comic book and manga publisher.Dark Horse Comics was founded in 1986 by Mike Richardson in Milwaukie, Oregon, with the concept of establishing an ideal atmosphere for creative professionals. Richardson started out by opening his first comic book...
have misidentified several of the seinen titles, and in particular manga and anime aimed at a younger audience in Japan is often considered "inappropriate" for minors
Minor (law)
In law, a minor is a person under a certain age — the age of majority — which legally demarcates childhood from adulthood; the age depends upon jurisdiction and application, but is typically 18...
in the US.
In this way licensees often either voluntarily censor
Censorship
thumb|[[Book burning]] following the [[1973 Chilean coup d'état|1973 coup]] that installed the [[Military government of Chile |Pinochet regime]] in Chile...
titles or re-market them towards an older audience. In the less conservative Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
an markets, content that might be heavily edited or cut in an English-language release is often present in French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
, German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
and other translated editions.
As one effect of these variations, US companies have moved to use the borrowed words that have gained name-value in fan communities, but separate them from the Japanese meaning. In their shōjo manga range, publisher VIZ Media
VIZ Media
VIZ Media, LLC, headquartered in San Francisco, is an anime, manga, and Japanese entertainment company. It was founded in 1986 as VIZ LLC. In 2005, VIZ LLC and ShoPro Entertainment merged to form the current VIZ Media LLC, which is jointly owned by Japanese publishers Shogakukan and Shueisha, and...
attempt a re-appropriation of the term, providing the definition:
The desire to disassociate the word from its meaning, "girl", seems largely driven by fear of putting off potential new readers, particularly male ones.
Manga and anime labeled as "shōjo" need not interest only young girls, and some titles gain a following outside the traditional audience. For instance, Frederik L. Schodt
Frederik L. Schodt
Frederik L. Schodt is an American translator, interpreter and writer.Schodt's father was in the US foreign service, and he grew up in Norway, Australia, and Japan. The family first went to Japan in 1965 when Schodt was fifteen. They left in 1967 but Schodt remained to graduate from Tokyo's American...
identifies
Banana Fish
Banana Fish
Banana Fish is a classic shōjo manga by Akimi Yoshida which ran from 1985 to 1994 and spawned several mini-spin-offs: Private Opinion, Angel Eyes, X Men, and The Garden with Holy Light. The series was very popular in Japan....
by Akimi Yoshida
Akimi Yoshida
is a Japanese manga artist.Yoshida is best known for the series Banana Fish. She twice won the Shogakukan Manga Awards for shōjo, for Kisshō Tennyo in 1984 and for Yasha in 2002...
as:
Such successful "crossover" titles remain the exception rather than the rule, however: the archetypal shōjo manga magazine Hana to Yume
Hana to Yume
is a semi-monthly Japanese shōjo manga magazine published by Hakusensha.The magazine is published on the 4th and 22nd of every month. It is often nicknamed as among the readers...
has a readership 95% female, with a majority aged 17 or under.
The popularity of romantic shōjo manga in America has encouraged Harlequin to release manga-styled romantic comics.
Circulation figures
The reported average circulations for some of the top-selling shōjo manga magazines in 2007 included:| Title | Reported Circulation | First Published |
|---|---|---|
| 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 | 1977 |
| Nakayoshi Nakayoshi is a shōjo manga magazine published by Kodansha in Japan. First published in December 1954, it is a long-running magazine with over 50 years worth of manga publication history. The target demographic for Nakayoshi is aimed at young girls between... |
400,000 | 1954 |
| Ribon Ribon is a monthly Japanese shōjo manga magazine published by Shueisha. First issued in August 1955, its rivals are Nakayoshi and Ciao. Its target audience is young girls roughly 9–13 years old. In 2009, the magazine's circulation was 274,167, down from the previous year's circulation numbers of 330,000... |
376,666 | 1955 |
| Bessatsu Margaret Bessatsu Margaret , or for short, is a shōjo manga magazine published monthly in Japan by Shueisha. It is targeted at girls aged roughly 12-17. It is a spinoff of the magazine Margaret.-Current:*360° Material - Touko Minami*Acanthus - Izumi Yamaguchi... |
320,000 | 1964 |
| Hana to Yume Hana to Yume is a semi-monthly Japanese shōjo manga magazine published by Hakusensha.The magazine is published on the 4th and 22nd of every month. It is often nicknamed as among the readers... |
226,826 | 1974 |
| Cookie | 200,000 | 1999 |
| Deluxe Margaret | 181,666 | 1967 |
| Margaret Margaret (magazine) is a biweekly Japanese shōjo manga magazine published by Shueisha, primarily for girls from 11 to 15 years old, although some stories are read by adult women. It was first released as a weekly magazine in 1963. In 2009, the circulation was 154,584... |
177,916 | 1963 |
| LaLa Lala Lala VC was an Indian recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth soldiers.-Details:... |
170,833 | 1976 |
| Cheese! Cheese! Cheese! is a monthly Japanese shōjo manga magazine under the publication of Shogakukan. In their official website they also refer to themselves as Monthly Cheese!... |
144,750 | 1996 |
For comparison, circulations for the top-selling magazines in other categories for 2007 included:
| Category | Magazine Title | Reported Circulation |
|---|---|---|
| Top-selling shōnen manga 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 magazine | Young Magazine Young Magazine is a Japanese manga magazine published weekly by Kodansha. The magazine was started on June 23, 1980 and is targeted at adult males . It is also known as Young or YM. It goes on sale Monday every week... |
981,229 |
| Top-selling josei manga magazine | YOU | 194,791 |
| Top-selling non-manga magazine | Monthly The Television | 1,018,919 |
(Source for all circulation figures: Japan Magazine Publishers Association)
Shōjo magazines in Japan
In a strict sense, shōjo manga refers to a story serialized in a shōjo manga magazine (a magazine marketed to girls and young women). The list below contains past and current Japanese shōjo manga magazines, grouped according to their publishers. Such magazines can appear on a variety of schedules, including bi-weekly (Margaret, Hana to Yume, Shōjo Comic), monthly (Ribon, Bessatsu Margaret, Bessatsu Friend, LaLa), bi-monthly (Deluxe Margaret, LaLa DX, The Dessert), and quarterly (Cookie BOX, Unpoko). Weekly shōjo magazines, common in the 1960s and 1970s, had disappeared by the early 1980s.ShueishaShueishais a major publisher in Japan. The company was founded in 1925 as the entertainment-related publishing division of Japanese publisher Shogakukan. The following year, Shueisha became a separate, independent company. Magazines published by Shueisha include Weekly Shōnen Jump, Weekly Young Jump,...
- RibonRibonis a monthly Japanese shōjo manga magazine published by Shueisha. First issued in August 1955, its rivals are Nakayoshi and Ciao. Its target audience is young girls roughly 9–13 years old. In 2009, the magazine's circulation was 274,167, down from the previous year's circulation numbers of 330,000...
(monthly, 1955- ) - Ribon OriginalRibon OriginalRibon Original was a shōjo manga magazine published by Shueisha. It was a sister magazine of Ribon, and was published from 1981 until 2006. New and up-and-coming Ribon manga artists often had their first short stories published in this magazine...
- CobaltCobalt (magazine)is a bi-monthly anthology of shōjo fiction, published in Japan by Shueisha, since May, 1976. Shueisha also publish light novels under the Cobalt imprint, many of which were originally serialised in the magazine.-Writers and series featured in Cobalt:...
- Cookie
- Cookie BOX (quarterly)
- MargaretMargaret (magazine)is a biweekly Japanese shōjo manga magazine published by Shueisha, primarily for girls from 11 to 15 years old, although some stories are read by adult women. It was first released as a weekly magazine in 1963. In 2009, the circulation was 154,584...
(bi-weekly, 1963- ) - Bessatsu MargaretBessatsu Margaret, or for short, is a shōjo manga magazine published monthly in Japan by Shueisha. It is targeted at girls aged roughly 12-17. It is a spinoff of the magazine Margaret.-Current:*360° Material - Touko Minami*Acanthus - Izumi Yamaguchi...
(monthly) - The Margaret
- Deluxe Margaret (bi-monthly)
KodanshaKodansha, the largest Japanese publisher, produces the manga magazines Nakayoshi, Afternoon, Evening, and Weekly Shonen Magazine, as well as more literary magazines such as Gunzō, Shūkan Gendai, and the Japanese dictionary Nihongo Daijiten. The company has its headquarters in Bunkyō, Tokyo...
- NakayoshiNakayoshiis a shōjo manga magazine published by Kodansha in Japan. First published in December 1954, it is a long-running magazine with over 50 years worth of manga publication history. The target demographic for Nakayoshi is aimed at young girls between...
- AriaAria (magazine)Aria is a Japanese monthly shōjo manga magazine published by Kodansha. In April 2010 an announcement was made about plans for a new magazine; its first issue was published on July 28, 2010. The magazine is released in size B5 paper...
- Shōjo FriendShojo Friendwas a shōjo manga magazine formerly published by Kodansha, beginning in 1962. Kodansha used the knowledge gained from publishing magazines aimed at young girls, including Nakayoshi and Shōjo Club, as well as the experience from publishing Weekly Shonen Magazine. Shōjo Friend is considered the...
- Bessatsu FriendBessatsu Friendis a Japanese shōjo manga magazine published by Kodansha, aimed at teenage girls. It was originally conceived as a bessatsu, or companion magazine, to Shōjo Friend, which is no longer published...
- Dessert
- The Dessert
ShogakukanShogakukanis a Japanese publisher of dictionaries, literature, manga, non-fiction, DVDs, and other media in Japan.Shogakukan founded Shueisha which founded Hakusensha. These are three separate companies, but are together called the Hitotsubashi Group, one of the largest publishing groups in Japan...
- CiaoCiao (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...
- Chu ChuChuchu (magazine)ChuChu is a Japanese shōjo manga magazine published by Shogakukan for early teen girls . ChuChu became a monthly published shōjo manga magazine as a separation from Ciao in December 2005...
- Shōjo ComicShojo Comicis a shōjo manga magazine published twice monthly in Japan by Shogakukan since 1968. It was originally published weekly and it continued to be published weekly until the 1980s. Many influential shōjo manga ran in Shōjo Comic during the 70s. Moto Hagio's works and Keiko Takemiya's works in...
- BetsucomiBetsucomi, formerly known as Bessatsu Shōjo Comic, is a monthly Japanese shōjo manga magazine published by Shogakukan, originally aimed at young girls, but increasingly marketed to older teens and young women. It is released on the 13th of each month...
- Petit Comic
- Cheese!Cheese!Cheese! is a monthly Japanese shōjo manga magazine under the publication of Shogakukan. In their official website they also refer to themselves as Monthly Cheese!...
- Pochette
HakusenshaHakusenshais a Japanese publishing company. It is headquartered in Chiyoda, Tokyo.The company mainly publishes manga magazines of various genres and is involved in certain series' productions in their games, original video animation, musical and their animated TV series....
- Hana to YumeHana to Yumeis a semi-monthly Japanese shōjo manga magazine published by Hakusensha.The magazine is published on the 4th and 22nd of every month. It is often nicknamed as among the readers...
- Bessatsu Hana to YumeBessatsu Hana to Yumeis a Japanese shōjo manga magazine published by Hakusensha.-Background:Bessatsu Hana to Yume is a sister magazine to Hana to Yume. It was launched in July 1977 as a quarterly priced at 300 yen...
- LaLaLalaLala VC was an Indian recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth soldiers.-Details:...
- LaLa DXLaLa DXLaLa DX is a Japanese shōjo manga magazine published by Hakusensha. It was first published on July 9, 1983 as a supplement magazine to LaLa in which it later became the sister magazine to LaLa, another of Hakusensha's shōjo manga magazines...
- MelodyMelody (magazine), stylized as MELODY is a Japanese shōjo manga magazine published on odd numbered months of the 28th by Hakusensha.-Current serializing titles:*Hana Yori mo Hana no Gotoku - Minako Narita*Himitsu – Top Secret - Reiko Shimizu*Kurotsubaki - Masumi Kawasō...
Akita ShotenAkita Shotenis a Japanese publishing company established on August 10, 1948 in Chiyoda, Tokyo. Its main editorial target has always been teenagers , and it currently publishes mostly manga...
- PrincessPrincess (magazine)is a shōjo manga magazine published monthly on the 6th in Japan by Akita Shoten. It is aimed at teenage girls, and its main competitors are Lala, Bessatsu Margaret, and Betsucomi. Its sister publication is , which branched out from the Princess magazine in 1979...
- Princess Gold
- Petit Princess
- Mystery Bonita
- Susperia Mystery
- Renai MAX
Viz Media
- Shojo BeatShojo BeatShojo Beat is a shōjo manga magazine formerly published in North America by Viz Media. Released in June 2005 as a sister magazine to Shonen Jump, it featured serialized chapters from six manga series, as well as articles on Japanese culture, manga, anime, fashion and beauty...
, a shōjo manga magazine published in North America from 2005 to 2009
See also
- BishōjoBishojois a Japanese term used to refer to young and pretty girls, usually below university age. Bishōjo is not listed as a word in the prominent Japanese dictionary Kōjien...
, literally "pretty young girl" - ShoujoconShoujoconShoujocon was an American fan convention for anime and manga which focused on the shōjo subgenre. Founded in 2000 by women identified as "Nora" and "Katchan", and initially financed through eBay sales of fan-donated merchandise, Shoujocon quickly grew from 456 attendees to a peak of 1,252...
, a former anime convention, held annually from 2000–2003 - Magical girlMagical girlbelong to a sub-genre of Japanese fantasy anime and manga. Magical girl stories feature young girls with superhuman abilities, forced to fight evil and to protect the Earth. They often possess a secret identity, although the name can just refer to young girls who follow a plotline involving magic...
: a subgenre of shōjo manga - Shōnen manga: manga intended for boys
- Seinen manga: manga intended for adult men
- Josei manga: manga intended for adult women
- List of Shōjo manga magazines
- MangaMangaManga 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...
- History of mangaHistory of mangaThe History of manga is said to originate from scrolls dating back to the 12th century, however whether these scrolls are actually manga is still disputed, though its believed they represent the basis for the right-to-left reading style. Other authors report origins closer to the 18th century...
- YaoiYaoiIn 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 - Sunjung ManhwaSunjung ManhwaSunjung Manhwa is a kind of Manhwa. This term was used since the 1950s. Similarly, Japan has Shōjo manga....
: Korean Shōjo manga
Further reading
- Ogi, Fusami (Autumn 2001) "Beyond Shoujo, Blending Gender: Subverting the Homogendered World in Shoujo Manga (Japanese Comics for Girls)." International Journal of Comic ArtInternational Journal of Comic ArtThe International Journal of Comic Art is a peer-reviewed journal about comic art, published twice a year. It was established in 1999 by John Lent , who is also the editor in chief. The journal is independently published and does not maintain an online edition, although tables of contents are...
3 (2): 151-161.