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My gateway into manga was fruitsbasket and it was the same for all the rest of my friends too. But there hasn't been any shojo that came out recently (definitely not Kai chou maid-sama) which I have really liked.

I do have a problem with a lot of shojo, because of stuff like girls making lunch and baking cakes for the guys they like all the time. Its just annoying when girls act like that. Most of its highschool slice of life too, which is a bit dull. I also hate pin up boys with no charisma or back story (besides, my parents were mean to me), I can't root for a couple like that. I like it when shojo is mostly about the relationships but is centered around something else; such as the curses in Fruitsbasket. It may barely be important at all but I think it leaves the series feeling less empty. Even with something like Inuyasha, (I know its not shojo) the action breaks it up and allows the relationship to at least mean a little more than: 'We met at school, fancied each other, misunderstandings, got together, more misunderstandings.'

Also, was anyone weirded out by a little bit in Hana yori dango when spoiler[the guy who sent rapists after her, told people to treat her like shit (when he let her get dragged along by a car because he thought she'd lied to him), physically as well as mentally and who considered raping her himself :/ ] ended up with her in the end? I know his character does change A LOT but its not like those were things easy to forgive. I did like the series but that just seemed strange to me.

NSFW Language Warning: I enjoy cursing, so yep. Well-so the [expletive] shit, goddamn it to hell-so do I.

I had been reading manga hear and there but I think the big break through title for me was Paradise Kiss. I remember buying a volume reading it and going back the next day and buying the rest. I've always tended to like seinen even in my teens but that was the first shoujo manga that really spoke to me.

I do think there tends to be a perseverance of milquetoast female characters these days. I went and read stuff from the 70s and it seems there are much more stronger well defined characters. Maybe it's a bit of an effect from Sailor Moon/Fushigi Yûgi. (I do remember some interview where Yuu Watase she was quoted as saying she wrote Mika that way so girls could sympathize/relate to here which doesn't say much for young Japanese girls.) Maybe, it is just that I'm just reading the creme of the creme de la creme of 70s titles.

I never got to far in spoiler[Boys Overs Flowers] but in a lot of the smuttier shoujo you totally get stories about girls ending up with their rapist and liking it. I really don't know what to say about this, there are so many levels of just WTF I don't know. This delves to deep into another culture's psyche that maybe I just don't want to know about. A lot of the smutty stuff can be fun. I do love stories about good girls ending up with bad boys who really have a heart of gold. But for everyone one of those stories there are like 10 "I'm a creepy stalker/rapist and if you know what is good for you, you will be with me forever~"

On a different note, I really liked Shojo beat until they started changing their line up and messing around with the magazine. I had gotten it for Nana but read most of the titles in it. Then some were taken out half way done and I was like WTF? I think I had close to a complete set of the magazines but as time went on I kept reading less and less of the titles (and having flashbacks to Mixxzine). Was another title I liked going to be taken out? In the end when I moved away, so I just donated them to the local library. In the end it got me to read a lot of titles I other wise might not have but I don't see something like that being able to sustain it's self ever again.

It was cool to hear from Ed as always and super cool to hear Emi. I've been checking out shoujo-manga.com for many years now.

I've been waiting so long for their to be an all shoujo show, so this made me happy~ so thank you :3

First shoujo title for me was Sailor Moon. but if we're not counting magical girls, then I guess it would be Kare Kano. So it's been all downhill from there.

When Emily started listing off older anime shows that she would like to see licensed I'm going to put myself in that "who would buy these?" group too because i would buy all those shows she listed for any price (so there's 2 now! anime licensors, what are you waiting for? Anime hyper

) . It's sad more people aren't interested in older anime (shoujo or otherwise) because I think they're beautiful

I feel all excited now, I wanna go out and buy some girly manga

thanks again to Ed and Emily for doing this Very Happy

I'm not a big fan of shojo titles, but I can still appreciate a good one when I see or read it. Hearing about the sales of From Eroica With Love made me wonder how Kamikaze Kaitou Janne for CMX, because I really liked Janne and it made me want to look at other Arina Tanemura manga. Now I just reminded myself that I have to get the rest of Gentleman's Alliance Cross one day... And I wonder how the Janne anime is.

Honestly, I always want to check out more shojo but I am just more of a shonen guy in the end. Can't exactly help it, but I try to support shojo when it catches my interest.

Another great show this week, and both Ed and Emily really seemd to know their stuff on the topic of shojo. Personally, I learned quite a bit from this show, since my knowledge of shojo is admittedly rather limited. My main exposure to shojo first came through seeing the Fruits Basket anime series, and then checking out all of the volumes of the Fruits Baket manga through my local library system.

If you count Revolutionary Girl Utena as a shojo title, then I have seen all of the anime series. I've also seen the first episode of Sailor Moon, and I've also read the first volume of Kimi ni Todoke. I saw a lot of potential and promise in that first volume of Kimi ni Todoke that I read, and I hope that at some point in the future, I can find the time to check out other volumes through my local library system and read them.

After hearing this show, I definitely need to work at learning more about shojo.

Oh, wow those Eroica numbers hurt my soul. I love that series, with all of it's wackiness to bits. I will hold out hope for JManga to release the scans, at which point, damn the price, I'm buying every volume.

For some reason I thought this show would be focusing on olderish titles, hence my questions, but overall did enjoy the show a lot.

My tastes tend a lot more towards shonen, but I've picked up a few shojo titles, the ones I'm currently collecting being, Ouran, Dengeki Daisy, The Story of Saiunkoku, Lovely Complex, Gentlemen's Alliance, and maybe I'll get back into Library Wars. (Though I have a few titles I figure for more Joesi, Petshop of Horrors, Paradise Kiss).

My problem with a LOT of shojo is how a lot of it just comes off as misogynistic, or rape-happy. The titles mentioned are actually sort of known for being different then the run of the mill Shojo. And in fact if I'm interested in a Shojo title, one of the first things I investigate is how it handles the romance and treatment of the female characters, because I don't exactly want to put effort, time, and money into a series which will get me ragey. Though length of the series is also somewhat of a factor.

I avoid the smutty shojo for the most part unless it's straight up BL. I feel to much of it is like Black Bird or Hot Gimmick, aka "the rapist as the love interest".

Actually, the plethora of weak main characters is exactly why I tend to prefer older shojo titles. Sure, there are exceptions all over the place with modern stuff, but I feel like you just don't get Year24-like stuff anymore. I usually extend my list up through the 80s though, so stuff like the excellent Please Save My Earth is included in my list. I'd also say Banana Fish except, y'know, that series is a sausage fest so it's not as easy to point to a strong main female. But it did still start in the 80s! Sometimes I question if Banana Fish is really a shojo or some weird hybrid with seinen. I don't necessarily demand that every female be a metaphorical weight lifter, they can be just normal people too if not a bit shy, but they just can't be characters with no sense of self respect who let themselves be walked all over like extreme doormats or practice girls. Those are the characters that offend me.

But I actually didn't get into shojo until I saw Princess Tutu. I had read some shojo from the library before and even used to buy some shojo because I thought I was expected to. But Tokyo Mew Mew, I guess at least the main isn't an uber doormat, isn't exactly "good" and then I think I rented both Fushigi Yugi and Ceres and could not stand the main in both of them, so I naturally had assumed that all shojo sucked. Why not? I hated Peach Girl, where the main let her abusive frenemy screw her over at every turn, and Hot Gimmick (I found Teacher's Pet by the same author to be hilariously smutty though, but I read that more recently anyway) to suck a lot for other reasons (involving doormats and practice girls), so I'd tried some of the more popular stuff and determined from that that all shojo sucked. Of course, I think that some of those were trying to be purposely smutty, but I wasn't exactly expecting that and didn't really want it and if you're looking for something purposely smutty to be good in the way you expect other stuff to be good, it's just not gonna happen.
But then I finally found Princess Tutu and was absolutely blown away by it to the point that it is still my favorite anime (I didn't see it when it came out, didn't see it til maybe 2006-7ish). And that series made me entirely rethink my position on shojo, I realized maybe I was wrong and had just been reading garbage all along and skipping over the good stuff for whatever reason unknown to me (obviously the reason was not having heard about it). I had literally been avoiding shojo like the plague for years as a result of just reading bad stuff and there's a lot of shonen and seinen out there too, I didn't exactly have time to look at bad stuff when I could be looking at other stuff.
In my second attempt, however, I went back to the 80s. I got Banana Fish and Please Save My Earth as a result (got PSME's OVA first, then got the manga). I still don't like Peach Girl and Hot Gimmick and I'm still wary of any shojo produced in the 90s through today (I'll have to rent a volume or two first before I buy it) because there have been so many weak female protagonists since that time. I think I'm also more likely to enjoy a shojo with a male main character (for example, Here is Greenwood, NG Life, Banana Fish), but I have discovered plenty of great series so I am very glad that I found Princess Tutu.

Oddly enough, I think that women write the best shonen series by far. Just look at Fullmetal Alchemsit, Hikaru no Go, and Kekkaishi. I'm actually more likely to check out and like a shonen written by a woman than by a man, I feel like female authored shonen put in more character development and less fights compared to one by a male, I think it makes a better balance. I question if these authors grew up with mostly shojo, mostly shonen, or an equal mix of both.

And an aside question, anyone know of any male shojo authors? I can't tell just by the names unfortunately, the only thing I can think of is Osamu Tezuka and Princess Knight, but Osamu Tezuka did every genre as is anyway. And any of shojo by men that are published in English? I'm curious how they'd differ.

Oh yes, I've read the first volume of Hot Gimmick. *shudder* That one left me feeling rather uncomfortable by the time I finished it, due to the whole "rapist as love interest" business.

Sewingrose wrote:

I feel to much of it is like Black Bird or Hot Gimmick, aka "the rapist as the love interest".

Last edited by kyokun703 on Fri Sep 02, 2011 3:10 pm; edited 2 times in total

classicalzawa wrote:

And an aside question, anyone know of any male shojo authors? I can't tell just by the names unfortunately, the only thing I can think of is Osamu Tezuka and Princess Knight, but Osamu Tezuka did every genre as is anyway. And any of shojo by men that are published in English? I'm curious how they'd differ.

I don't know if you listened to the whole podcast or not, but this question was addressed at the very end.

Re: the podcast:

The estimated From Eroica sales numbers are truly sad, but I completely understand, since I didn't start buying the series until CMX's demise was announced. And now I love them. Naturally. Same with Swan. I just didn't hear much about CMX titles until way, way, too late.

I followed what seems to be the typical path of shoujo readers: TP's flipped Sailor Moon and Cardcaptor Sakura, and then Fruits Basket, and then things went out of control from there. Now that I'm older, I wish more publishers would start publishing josei, like Suppli and Tramps Like Us.

I never did get to read Boys Over Flowers, and it makes me sad.

First off, what a great podcast! As a male fan of anime & manga, who happens to also like shojo, this was a hilariously good send-up of bad shojo cliches and thoughtful discusion. Well done.

Zac wrote:

...likes to eat and get rescued alot.

I couldn't have said it better (or at all, I was laughing too hard to speak right then). Goodness, Fushigi Yuugi was a painful anime to watch (a girl I was dating liked it at the time). To pass the time I thought up a rather fatal drinking game by which you took a shot every time a character said "Miaka!" or "Tomahome!" or they played that same 80's saxophone riff they recycled 20 times a show during romantic moments.

Hearing you speak about "crappy shojo heroines" (and Fushigi Yuugi) I couldn't help but draw similarities to some of what we see here in the West with popular chick lit. fiction.

You more often than not have your "avg." woman dealing with some mystery or life-altering event whereby she's thrust into interacting with the book's Marty Stu, alpha male who -besides being impossibly rich, headstrong, gorgeous & physically strong- eventually falls for said "avg." girl in a relationship that starts out fiercely antagonistic or hostile. Said alpha male, besides -eventually- indulging all of her physical (See: sex), matrimonial and monetary fantasies (See: spending his money on clothing or shoes--ESPECIALLY shoes), usually serves as rescuer and savior to the often bumbling and illogical, but well-meaning (yet headstrong) "avg." female. The genre can even have reverse harem elements whereby a gaggle of hot alpha males all vie for her attention, one or more of whom could also be the villain.

That said, I still prefer shojo, but I thought the similarities were interesting.

I myself (as I said) enjoy shojo and wish more "good" shojo were being made (and especially not the rape-as-love or abuse-as-love fantasy you can see sometimes). Among my male anime/manga friends I think I'm still the only one who enjoyed, or even watched, Boys Over Flowers, Kare Kano or Fruits Basket. I'll even admit a manly "squee!" or two.

And speaking of crack (Fruits Basket), if you wanted an entry level shojo series I'd give that the seal of approval. I've lost count over the years of how many teen girls I've seen reading that manga at the library or in public, even today.

What I think is surprising is how many women/girls I know, or whom I see that are into shonen or shonen-esque shows like Naruto, Bleach, Inu Yasha, or FMA. But not DBZ. I don't think I know any girl/woman who's into DBZ.

Personally, I'm also looking forward to the re-release of Sailor Moon in its original form.

Edit: DAMN! HOW COULD I FORGET PRINCESS TUTU?! I freakin' LOVED that! Oh Mr. Cat, such a charmer.

I think the first manga I ever bought was Tokyo Mew Mew volumes 1 & 2. By the time I was re-interested in the series, I couldn't find the other manga in stores. Thank goodness that Kodansha is re-releasing it in omnibus!!

In Fushigi Yuugi, there was one scene where Miaka used Hotohori's sword to protect her Suzaku warriors but that's pretty much the only time she does something brave.

Eww...I've never seen (nor ever want to see) Jersey Shore but I understand that most people like weak characters because they want to feel superior. It's almost like saying, "Well, at least my life doesn't suck nearly as bad as yours."

Quote:

Zac (rhetorically asks): How do I get someone who really likes Batman into Twlight?

Answer: Easy, you lie and say that Edward is only an emo, sparkly vampire because he lost his parents to an insane, extremist clown (I mean, vampire) who bit him. So, in order, to recover from this trauma, he protects the citizens of (wherever the hell the story takes place) with his whiny sidekick named Belle. Oh, and he throws his bishie sparkles like shuriken because who doesn't like ninjas? XD

Shojo titles (for newbies) I recommend are:
Natsume's Book of Friends: Proves that not all male Shojo protagonists are in BL; the storytelling is warm & calm mabye even heartbreaking with mild supernatural elements.
Kimi no Todoke: Possibly one of the most purest Shojo I've ever seen.
The Class President is a Maid:The heroine isn't clumsy; she is somewhat of a role model (if not protector) of the female cast. And the guys are kinda cute.
Magic Knight Rayearth: Filled with fantasy and adventure; the trio of girls are not only friends, they are comrades so it's definitively an inspiring story.
Itazura Na Kiss: It can help newbies read more "step-siblings in love" romance; has good humor and somewhat slow character development.
Ouran High School Host Club: A clever parody of Shojo cliches but so much fun to read!!
Kyo Kara Maou: A harem of men with a male protagonist but not BL; there's adventure, fantasy, and silliness with serious moments.

As this thread's been going, and people start listing off more shojo titles, I'm like, "OK, I've seen an episode of that" or "OK, I've read a volume of that."

Apparently, I have a little more familiarity with shojo than I had initially realized. Some of these really should have no-brainers, such as Princess Tutu and [i]Tokyo Mew Mew[/i}; when I saw those, I was mentally kicking myself for not remembering that I had the first episode for both of those.

At this point, I'll be quiet now and follow the discussion... and find out how much other shojo I actually have familiarity with that I had forgotten that I had either seen or read.

I personally like clumsy/goofy shoujo leads. It makes them seem more human and fun to watch. Sailor Moon was a treat.

As for my current batch of shoujo, Suite PreCure, Pretty Rhythm Aurora Dream, Jewelpet Tinkle, and a few others are currently airing on TV and I'm enjoying. In the past I enjoyed Ojamajo Doremi, Tokyo MewMew, Sailor Moon, Ouran, Rayearth, Nana, Card Captor Sakura, and various others. None of those really had traumatic rape or anything in them as far as I remember.

Though overall, I feel anime is so varied that these terms should be taken with a grain of salt. You have shounen/seinen written by females, and shounen/seinen starring females as well as shoujo/josei written by men, and shoujo/josei starring males. Outside of content level, you don't really need to limit yourself to one bracket to find a show that suits you. It all kind of blends together and it's not like there's fences separating them from each other. Enjoy all that there is out there.

Lord Geo wrote:

Hearing about the sales of From Eroica With Love made me wonder how Kamikaze Kaitou Janne for CMX, because I really liked Janne and it made me want to look at other Arina Tanemura manga.

Let me answer that question...vaguely of course [i'd hate to get another email from nielsen about revealing industry data].

This series was one of CMX's best and more than half the series was well into 5-digits. That is actually great in manga terms. 60% of manga
never make it to 5-digits on Nielsen BookScan.

And while Eroica might depress some, SWAN did half as well. I don't think a single volume ever broke 4-digits. It's best was only a little more than halfway there, while most were barely squeaking into 3-digits.

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