Shōjo manga

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***Shōjo* manga** (少女漫画), also romanized as ***shojo*** or ***shoujo***, are Japanese comics aimed at a teen female target-demographic readership. The name romanizes the word 少女 (*shōjo*), literally meaning "young woman". *Shōjo* manga covers many subjects in a variety of narrative styles, from historical drama to science fiction, often with a focus on romantic relationships or emotions.

Strictly speaking, however, *shōjo* manga does not comprise a style or genre, but rather indicates a target demographic.

## History[edit]

### *Shōjo* magazines[edit]

Japanese magazines specifically for girls, known as *shōjo* magazines, first appeared in 1902 with the founding of *Shōjo-kai* (少女界, lit. "Girls' World") and continued with others such as *Shōjo Sekai* (少女世界, lit. "Girls' World") (1906) and the long-running *Shōjo no Tomo* (少女の友, lit. "Girls' Friend") (1908).

The roots of the wide-eyed look commonly associated with *shōjo* manga date back to *shōjo* magazine illustrations during the early 20th century. The most important illustrators associated with this style at the time were Yumeji Takehisa and particularly Jun'ichi Nakahara, who, influenced by his work as a doll creator, frequently drew female characters with big eyes in the early 20th century. This had a significant influence on early *shōjo* manga, evident in the work of influential manga artists such as Macoto Takahashi and Riyoko Ikeda.

Simple, single-page manga began 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's *Kurukuru Kurumi-chan* (くるくるクルミちゃん), debuted on the pages of *Shōjo no Tomo* in 1938. The Second Sino-Japanese War which began in 1937 caused paper shortages, and many of the girls' magazines merged or ceased publication. As World War II progressed, however, "comics, perhaps regarded as frivolous, began to disappear".

### 1950s and 1960s[edit]

Postwar *shōjo* manga, such as Shosuke Kurakane's popular *Anmitsu Hime* (あんみつ姫, lit. "Princess Anmitsu"), initially followed the pre-war pattern of simple humor-strips. But Osamu Tezuka'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 *Princess Knight* (リボンの騎士, *Ribon no Kishi*).

Until the mid-1960s, men vastly outnumbered the women (for example: Toshiko Ueda, Hideko Mizuno, Masako Watanabe, and Miyako Maki) among the artists working on *shōjo* manga. Many male manga artists, such as Tetsuya Chiba, functioned as rookies, waiting for an opportunity to move over to *shōnen* ("boys'") manga. Chiba asked his wife about girls' feelings for research for his manga. At this time, conventional job opportunities for Japanese women 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 Rachel Thorn:

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, began to draw stories featuring contemporary Japanese teenagers in love. This signaled a dramatic transformation of the genre. This may have been due to the baby boomers becoming teens, and the industry trying to keep them as readers.

Between 1950 and 1969, increasingly large audiences for manga emerged in Japan with the solidification of its two main marketing genres: *shōnen* manga, aimed at adolescent boys, and *shōjo* manga, aimed at adolescent girls. These romantic comedy *shōjo* manga were inspired by American TV dramas of the time. The debut of teenage girl manga artist Machiko Satonaka in 1964 meant that becoming a manga artist was something that girls could now aspire to. The success of the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, and the gold medal won by the Japan women's national volleyball team, influenced a series of sports *shōjo* manga, such as *Attack No. 1* (アタックNo.1, *Atakku Nanbā Wan*) (1968-1970). On December 5, 1966, the first *shōjo* anime series, *Sally the Witch* (魔法使いサリー, *Mahōtsukai Sarī*), premiered in Japan on NET TV. In May 1967, *shōjo* manga began being published in *tankōbon* format. By the end of the 1960s, *shōjo* manga had had a generational and gender shift; it was now a genre for girls, by girls.

### 1970s[edit]

Between roughly 1969 and 1971, a flood of young female manga artists transformed the genre again. Some, including Moto Hagio, Yumiko Ōshima, and Keiko Takemiya, became known as the Year 24 Group (24年組, *Nijūyo-nen Gumi*), or the Fabulous Year 24 Group (花の24年組, *Hana no Nijūyo-nen Gumi*), so named from the approximate year of birth many of them shared: Shōwa 24, or 1949. This loosely defined group experimented with content and form, inventing such subgenres such as *shōnen-ai* (lit. "boy love"), and earning the long-maligned *shōjo* manga unprecedented critical praise. Other female artists of the same generation, such as Riyoko Ikeda, Yukari Ichijo, and Sumika Yamamoto, garnered unprecedented popular support with such hits (respectively) as *The Rose of Versailles* (ベルサイユのばら, *Berusaiyu no Bara*), *Designer* (デザイナー, *Dezainaa*), and *Aim for the Ace!* (エースをねらえ!, *Ēsu o Nerae!*).[*volume & issue needed*] During that era, women's roles in Japanese society were changing, and women were being elected to the National Diet, and publishers responded by employing more female talent. Since the mid-1970s, women have created the vast majority of *shōjo* manga; notable exceptions include Mineo Maya and Shinji Wada.

### After 1975[edit]

From 1975, *shōjo* manga continued to develop stylistically while simultaneously branching out into different but overlapping subgenres. Meiji University professor Yukari Fujimoto writes that during the 1990s, *shōjo* manga became concerned with self-fulfillment. She intimates that the Gulf War influenced the development of female characters "who fight to protect the destiny of a community", such as *Red River*, *Basara*, *Magic Knight Rayearth*, and *Sailor Moon*. Fujimoto opines that the *shōjo* manga of the 1990s depicted emotional bonds between women as stronger than the bonds between a man and a woman. Major subgenres include romance, science fiction, fantasy, magical girls, *yaoi*, and "ladies' comics" (in Japanese, *redisu* レディース, *redikomi* レディコミ, and *josei* 女性).

## Meaning and spelling[edit]

As *shōjo* literally means "girl" in Japanese, the equivalent of the Western usage will generally include the term: 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*, *seinen*, and *josei* also occur in the categorization of manga and anime, with similar qualification. Though the terminology originates with the Japanese publishers and advertisers, cultural differences with the West mean that labeling in English tends to vary wildly, with the types often confused and misapplied.

Due to vagaries in the romanization of Japanese, publishers may transcribe 少女 (written しょうじょ in *hiragana*) in a wide variety of ways. By far the most common form, *shoujo*[*citation needed*], follows English phonology[*citation needed*], preserves the spelling, and requires only ASCII input. The Hepburn romanization *shōjo* uses a macron for the long vowel, though the prevalence of Latin-1 fonts often results in a circumflex instead, as in *shôjo*. Many English-language texts just ignore long vowels, using *shojo*, potentially leading to confusion with 処女 (*shojo*, lit. "virgin") as well as other possible meanings. Finally, transliterators may use *Nihon-shiki*-type mirroring of the *kana* spelling: *syôjyo*, or *syoujyo*.

## Circulation figures[edit]

The reported average circulations for some of the top-selling *shōjo* manga magazines in 2007 included:

For comparison, circulations for the top-selling magazines in other categories for 2007 included:

 Top-selling *seinen* manga magazine
 Top-selling *josei* manga magazine
 Top-selling non-manga magazine

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

## *Shōjo* magazines in Japan[edit]

In a strict sense, the term "*shōjo* manga" refers to a manga serialized in a *shōjo* manga magazine. 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*).

### Shueisha[edit]

* *Ribon* (monthly, 1955–present)
	+ *Ribon Special* (published 5 times a year, 1990)
* *Ribon Original* (bi-monthly, 1981–2006)
* *Margaret* (weekly, 1963–present)
* *Bessatsu Margaret* (monthly, 1964–present)
* *Deluxe Margaret* (bi-monthly, 1967–2010)
* *The Margaret* (bi-monthly, 1982–present)
* *Bessatsu Margaret Sister* (irregular, 2010–present)
* *Bouquet* (monthly, 1978–2000)
* *Bouquet Deluxe* or *Bouquet DX* (irregular, 1980–2000)
* *Bouquet Selection* (1983–1990) – terminated after publishing seven anthology and artist special issues
* *Cookie* (weekly, 2000–present)
* *Cookie Box* (quarterly, 2000–2009) – succeeded *Bouquet Deluxe*

### Kodansha[edit]

* *Nakayoshi* (monthly, 1954–present)
* *Aria* (monthly, 2010–2018)
* *Shōjo Friend* (1962–1996) – succeeded *Shōjo Club*
* *Bessatsu Friend* (1965–present)
* *Dessert* (1996–present)
* *The Dessert* (1999–present)

### Shogakukan[edit]

* *Ciao* (1977–present)
* *Ciao DX* (2014–present)
* *Ciao DX Horror & Mystery* (2009–present)
* *ChuChu*
* *Sho-Comi* (1968–present, formerly *Shōjo Comic*)
* *Betsucomi* (1970–present, formerly *Bessatsu Shōjo Comic*)
* *Deluxe Betsucomi*
* *Cheese!* (1996–present)
* *Premiere Cheese!* (2016–present, formerly *Cheese! Zōkan*)
* *Pochette*
* *Pyon Pyon* (1988–1992)
* *Pucchigumi* (2006–present)

### Hakusensha[edit]

* *Hana to Yume* (1974–present)
* *Bessatsu Hana to Yume* (1977–present)
* *LaLa* (1976–present)
* *LaLa DX*
* *Melody*

### Akita Shoten[edit]

* *Princess*
* *Princess Gold* (1979–2020)
* *Petit Princess* (transitioned to digital-only in 2016)
* *Bonita* (1981–1995)
* *Mystery Bonita* (1988–present)
* *Susperia Mystery*
* *Renai Max*
* *Hitomi* (1978–1991)

### Kadokawa Shoten[edit]

* *Asuka* (1985–present)
* *Monthly Comic Gene* (2011–present)

### Web magazine[edit]

* *Manga Airport*
* *Digital Margaret*, also known as *Digima!*
* *&Flower*
* *Mobile Flower*, also known as *Mobafura*

### Outside Japan[edit]

* *Shojo Beat* (2005–2009), published in North America by Viz Media
* *Wink*, published in Korea