Librarian
Magical Girls & Beautiful Boys: Shōjo Manga
Detail from The Rose of Versailles by Riyoko Ikeda
“We don't really distinguish one genre from another. All are the same. If a girl reads a manga, that’s a Shōjo manga for her; If a boy reads a manga, it's a Shonen manga for him. It's up to the readers.”
— Ohkawa Ageha, CLAMP, Manga: Sixty Years of Japanese Comics
The shōjo genre has its roots in illustrated novels serialized in monthly magazines such as Shōjo Sekai (Girls World), which focused on "appropriate" topics for girls in early-twentieth-century Japan: refinement, romance, marriage, and motherhood. Their illustrations combined imported European commercial art styles and fashion with Japanese beauty standards to produce the archetypal shōjo style: “Enlarged pupils, with long eyelashes; Long and thin arms and legs; and petite noses, mouths, breasts, and hips” (Gravett, 2006, p. 76). These illustrated novels would slowly grow in popularity as the decades progressed, with their focus increasingly shifting to the art rather than the text.
In 1953, legendary mangaka Osamu Tezuka debuted Ribon no Kishi (Lady Knight) in Shōjo Club magazine. While it was not the “first” shōjo (as is often claimed) the title had an outsized influence on the nascent genre: “His princess knight was no feminist rebel… but she was a prototype for the magical girls and sexual ambiguities that would become central to Shōjo manga” (Gravett, 2006, p. 77). Shōjo was dominated by male mangaka in the 50s and 60s, though many moved towards the more-lucrative shonen and seinen markets later in their careers; one exception was Fujio Akatsuka, whose Himitsu no Akko-chan (The Secrets of Akko-chan) was an early example of the "magical girl" subgenre.
Detail from From Eroica With Love by Yasuko Aoike
A New Generation: The Magnificent 24’s
In the 1960s, a group of young female mangaka who "shared their reader’s taste for imported pop music, fashions and films" began working in the growing girls’ comics market (Gravett, 2006, p.78). Known collectively known as "The Magnificent 24's" or the "Year 24 Group" (a reference the 24th year of the Shōwa era in the Japanese calendar), artists such as Moto Hagio, Riyoko Ikeda, Yumiko Oshima, Keiko Takemiya and Riyoko Yamagishi would come to redefine shōjo in the 1970s and 80s.
During this period, shōjo titles began exploring themes of identity, forbidden love and the fluidity of gender boundaries. A prominent example is Ikeda’s Rose of Versailles (1972), which featured the character of Oscar, a French noble girl who was raised as a boy to become captain of the royal guard. The work’s undertones of homosexual attraction—a theme which the other members of the Year 24 Group also explored—was almost totally avoided by the previous generation of overwhelmingly male shōjo mangaka. These explorations would lay the groundwork for the “shonen ai” (or “boy’s love”) subgenre, which began in earnest in the following decade with titles such as Akimi Yoshida’s Banana Fish (1985) and Keiko Takemiya’s Kaze to Ki no Uta (The Poem of Wind and Trees) (1987).
Detail from RG Veda by CLAMP
Today and Tomorrow: Modern Shōjo
As with the other manga genres, modern shōjo encompasses a bewildering variety of stories and styles, though they often explore recurring themes, such as “the pressures and pleasures of individuals living life in their own way and, for better or worse, not always as society expects (Gravett, 2006, p.81).
As the genre has evolved, the always-arbitrary idea of shōjo being "just for girls" has been totally eroded, as certain titles have garnered massive followings regardless of sex and gender. In 1991, Naoko Takeuchi began publication of Sailor Moon, which would become one of the most well-known manga of all time and the quintessential example of the “magical girl” subgenre. The all-female artist's group CLAMP's early work— including X (1992), Magic Knight Rayearth (1993) and Cardcaptor Sakura (1996)—were extremely popular, and their later forays into the shonen and seinen markets with Chobits (2000) and xxxHolic (2003) established a visual style that came to dominate Japanese comics in the 2000s, influencing an entire generation of young mangaka.
Read Shōjo
Princess Knight
Filled with narrow escapes, treacherous courtiers, dashing pirates, meddlesome witches, magical transformations, and cinema-worthy displays of derring-do, this early shojo (girls' comics) masterpiece by the "Godfather of Manga" is a fast-paced tale of a heroic princess who can best any man at fencing, yet is delicate and graceful enough to catch the eye of Prince Charming.
Claudine
Born as Claudine in a female-assigned body that doesnt reflect the man inside, this heart-wrenching story follows Claudine through life, pain, and the love of several women. Master shoujo mangaka Riyoko Ikeda explores gender and sexuality in early twentieth century France in this powerful tale about identity, culture, and self-acceptance.
Princess Jellyfish
Tsukimi has a strange fascination with jellyfish. She's loved them from a young age and has carried that love with her to her new life in the big city of Tokyo. There, she resides in Amamizukan, a safe-haven for girl geeks who regularly gush over a range of things from trains to Japanese dolls.
My Broken Mariko
Tomoyo has stood by her friend Mariko through years of abuse, abandonment, and depression. Their friendship has been the one reassuring constant in both women's lives--that is until Tomoyo is utterly blindsided by news of Mariko's death. In life, Tomoyo felt powerless to help her best friend out of the darkness that ultimately drove her over the edge. Now, Tomoyo is determined to liberate Mariko's ashes for one final journey together.
