Shoujo, translating to girl, is manga that is targeted towards a young female audience. Girls between the ages of 10-17ish is the target audience, which includes cutesy magical girl shows like the infamous PreCure or even just manga featuring main lead girls, like Akatsuki no Yona, are what is usually labeled under shoujo. Just to add on, josei is much like shoujo, it's just targeted more towards a mature audience of girls, labeling it as josei, translated to 'lady', than just younger girls.
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| Kaichou Wa Maid Sama |
But I'm here to talk about one of the most popular generic routes in a modern day shoujo manga. A tale of highschool romance revolving around a love obsessed, or eventually love orienitied, main girl. There are soooo many different branches of shoujo so I'll have to specify on this type specifically. For example, there is the reverse harem side of shoujo, the magical girl side, and even the occasional not romantic shoujo with just cute, perhaps even strong girls, going on adventures. By the way, I do not count moe shows as being apart of the shoujo genre. The reason being is that their target is not teenage girls or younger. There target is to shoot for the 'anime fans that like really cute girls doing really cute things and being little'. Like the moe boom back in 2007ish was not specifically aimed at young girls, but just anime fans in general.
But back to the specific type of shoujo that I mean. Recently I did a review on Lovely Complex which fits right into the realm of shoujo I'm talking about. This type of shoujo always opens on the girl, almost always on their way to the first day of highschool or they just recently became a highschool student/ start of the year. They are either pining for a boyfriend or are around/being suggested the idea of getting a boyfriend. There's a cool guy and the main girl gets a crush, or vice versa with the cool guy getting a crush on the girl. In this second form though, generally the main girl is at first, uninterested. It continues with the struggles of trying to get that boyfriend/girlfriend to like them, keep the boyfriend/girlfriend if they get together early, and the various side struggles that fluctuate in actual importance.
One other cliche trope in this type of manga is that the first love, or first introduced boy, always wins if there is ever a love triangle. This holds true for basically all of them discounting the few. Fruits Basket is one of them. However, Fruits Basket is a masterpiece all it's own and doesn't just fall into one simple category as shoujo anyway. Fruits Basket is a shoujo classic. If you haven't read it you really should.
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| Heroine Shikaku |
Let's take a step back again. There are two types of manga in this specific realm of shoujo. The mostly comedic one, and the mostly dramatic one. Both types involve each other regardless, but almost always focus on one or the other to add some fuel into the movement. Ouran is comedic with a dash of drama while Ao Haru Ride is drama with a dash of comedy. They balance each other out.
Going back to the character development, if the main girl has no personality and her entire existence is justified by her boyfriend without her having anything of her own, a lot of the times the series falls flat. Say I Love You, more dramatic than comedic, has the main girl acting like this. Thus, she wasn't the best of characters and I could've cared less about her relationship with the main dude until you add in a cute scene or two. Lovely Complex and Stardust Wink! are the same way, the main girl only being obsessed with this other person, or obsessed with love and having no other goals other than their significant other. In Stardust Wink! her personality is lacking, while in Lovely Complex Koizumi is lovable. Considering Lovely Complex is the one that's an anime you be the judge on which series did better than the other. Despite this, the main girl having no other interest than her love interest is still a pretty bad idea. It doesn't make for a bad series, in fact Stardust Wink! is pretty okay for an underground shoujo, but it makes the girls hard to relate to. All they have is their love for the main guy so all you have is how invested you are in their relationship as incentive to keep reading. Although I don't agree with it, the trope occurs a lot. In examples of dramatic shoujo manga, it works better if the couple has chemistry and has good pacing in getting together. Failed example of this done by Ookami-Shoujo to Kuro-Ouji. Popular, but not good.
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| Kyou and Tohru - Fruits Basket |
In the comdeic version of shoujo is it better to have a character who has ambitions other than the main boy. Done so in Kaichou wa Maid-Sama and Tonari no Kaibutsu-kun, both lead girls strove for something before they met the main guy, and though the main guy did become apart of their lives, they weren't always (I say this respectively...) plaguing their mind. Another one that did this very well was Shirayukihime, where the main couple had lived outside of each other even while falling in love. Though I personally didn't get too into it, I cannot deny that it's a pretty good show.
What I really want to talk about now is the other side of this coin. The overly dramatic one with the main characters having nothing but romance in their heads and a boy to chase. Possibly while another one is chasing them. Right now I'm reading Omoi Omoware, Furi Furare and Heroine Shikkaku. I just finished reading Hirunaka no Ryussei. All three are really cute. OOFF is written and illustrated by the same mangaka who made Strobe Edge and Ao Haru Ride. Both are high on my list of favorite shoujo mangas. Hirunaka no Ryuusei's mangaka is Mika Yamamori. I haven't read any of her other works, limited to spin offs of HnR, an unpopular manga known as Sugars, and Tsubaka-Chou Lonely Planet, which is fairly popular. The other mangaka, Koda Momoko, I haven't read any nor heard of any of her other works. But there's alot.
Anyway, HnR, HS, and anything by Io Sakisaka, which includes OOFF, the main girl(s) is(are) always thinking about love. In HnR it's pulled off reasonably well. With two different love interests that both got a chance at the girl in 78 chapters, she'd have to be. HnR did okay with this type of thing. I was reasonably invested in the relationship options of the main girl and was kind of upset when she didn't end up choosing who I wanted her to. (cries) In HS, it's done a little less well. The main girl is a little obnoxious, but is growing despite her insistence on stealing someone else's boyfriend. I'm a little less invested in the relationship, one, because I didn't see it as a viable option to begin with. He just simple was never interested. But, the queen of this type of shoujo based on what I've read has to be Io Sakisaka.
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| Futabu from Ao Haru Ride |
Strobe Edge was the first shoujo that I read and loved by Sakisaka. Still in the more dramatic, she followed the plan above exactly. The only reason it was still really investing was because of how hard it was to be in the relationship that the characters wanted. There were always too many obstacles, but unlike the annoying kind where the characters just don't understand the others feelings, Lovely Complex, Kimi ni Todoke, she makes them real issues that they have to get through to make it work. So far there has always been another guy that had absolutely no chance, but no one cares about them! She makes the characters develop and change despite chasing after something so simple. In a lot of shoujos, the main girl never changes. Or in some cases the mangaka says the main girl changed so she changed. In Io Sakisaka's works, you can see and feel the characters changing. Taking steps outside their comfort zone, make decisions for no regrets! It's inspiring and makes the main girls, saints or otherwise, worthy of being cheered on.
One last concept of shoujo manga because I know that this is getting really long. Naturally developing relationships. Shoujos are known for the tears, the overly dramaticness of not that big of a deal things, and relationships that either feel forced, idealized, or on a straight track. One that both does this, and doesn't do this is HnR. Spoilers if you are eventually going to read it. It's cute, so you can, but you could live without it as well.
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| Hirunaka no Ryuusei |
Hirunaka no Ryuusei was a love triangle between a 16 year old girl, her first male friend in Tokyo named Mamura, and the girl, Suzume's, homeroom teacher with whom Suzume fell in love with, Shishio. He calls her ChunChun by the way. In this, the teacher is 24, but very obvious age difference and very obvious problem. At first Suzume sees Mamura only as a friend and rejects his feelings, while her feelings with sensei are being returned? The two gradually grow into an unclear relationship with blurred lines between teacher-student, friends, and lovers. They grow together, and it happened right under our noses being completely natural, especially considering it's a relationship between a student and teacher. Sadly though, it's cut short due to her uncle finding out. Thus, right when her sensei is figuring out that he does, in fact, daisuki this girl, he forces himself to say otherwise in order for Suzume to have an easier relationship with someone she can truly rely on at all times. Time passes and eventually, Suzume is starting to notice how Mamura is always there for her. She convinces herself it's love and through various circumstances the two begin dating. It's obvious very quickly that they don't match well together. They were great friends but the two clearly have issues what with sensei in the past. This is where Yamamori messed up something she did so well. The trope where the main girl fails in her love thus moves onto the other guy just to try to get over it, but ends up just replacing that love with the new guy happens alot. And it happened in this. It's pretty obvious as to why this is wrong. In the end though, apparently Suzume did actually like Mamura as himself. To be honest, I thought she was pretty selfish and they both seemed like they were unnecessarily forcing the relationship. It seemed like a bad idea on Mamura's side and sensei, who eventually did confess his feelings, would've been a better match for Suzume.
The basic idea is that Yamammori created an easy relationship that flowed, followed by a forced one that was hard on both parties. The idea of toxic relationships in shoujo manga is an idea that I think should be explored more. Not like this exmaple of course, but more so towards Shishio and Suzume's relationship. Or like the main relationship in Heroine Shikaku where the main girl is toyed with accidentally over and over again by her childhood friend and crush. More cases where couples actually break up in shoujo because of this, or at least are affected by the bad relationship that is going on in there lives.
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Also from Hirunaka no Ryuusei but
she's really cool, because she added a
Japanese mixed girl (curly hair)
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This very well might be my longest post ever, and it's about shoujo. Whether you've reached the bottom or not, these are my opinions, thoughts and analysis on this relams of shoujo. Okie dokie! Bye for now!
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