‘For most Japanese below the age of fifty, such categories as shôjo ("girls") manga and shônen ("boys'") manga require no definition or clarification.’ (Thorn, M).
Shôjo is a japanese word that literally translates into ‘little female’. In Japanese kanji, these refer specially to women between 7-18 years old.
A shôjo story often centers around romance and love and is closely tied to the Romance and Drama genres. But strictly speaking, shôjo manga is not defined by specific style or genre, but rather its target audience. Shôjo primarily targets girls. But lately there has been a disassociation with the term because just as often males also enjoy reading it, and no one wants to drive away new readers.
Shôjo is the opposite of shonen - boys manga. The first boys’ weekly magazine, Shonen Magazine, was published in 1959, and the first girls’ weekly magazine, Shôjo Friend, was published in 1963. The demand for more ‘ladies comics’ quickly grew, and shôjo began to serve the function of reflecting readers growth from girls to women. While "getting the boy" was still a central concern in shôjo manga, more important now was the psychological growth of the heroine. "Finding oneself" is now often a theme, and it was not only the fictional protagonists but their real-life readers who "found themselves" in the pages of shôjo manga.
For a while, shôjo stories had a stigma attached to them because they were often viewed as ‘ladies soap operas on paper,’ (Thorn, M). So in the 1990s sophisticated and intellectually stimulating manga for women began to really get a foothold in the manga industry in Japan. These are a sort of sub-genre of shôjo, known as josei-muke ("woman-oriented") or josei ("women's") manga.
‘What fascinates the Japanese is that the shôjo nestle in a shallow lacuna between adulthood and childhood, power and powerlessness, awareness and innocence as well as masculinity and femininity.’ (Prindle 1998, p.35)
As a teenager, I was an avid anime/manga fan. I always found recent shôjo manga/anime to be uplifting, and inspiring, especially the Studio Ghibli films, such as Princess Mononoke. Shôjo touched on issues I was going through as a young woman, and made me believe that I could want great things, and if I worked hard enough, achieve them. Shôjo helped me to aim high. This is the appeal to its audiences, and so this is the function that shôjo often serves in anime.
References
One Manga. Showing: Shoujo manga. Retrieved August 21, 2012, from http://www.onemanga.com/directory/shoujo/
Thorn, M. (2001). Shôjo manga—Something for the girls. Retrieved August 21, 2012, from http://matt-thorn.com/shoujo_manga/japan_quarterly/index.php
Thorn, M. (n.d.). What shôjo manga are and are not. Retrieved August 21, 2012, from http://matt-thorn.com/shoujo_manga/whatisandisnt.php
Toku, M. (2005). Shojo manga: Girl power! Retrieved August 21, 2012, from http://www.csuchico.edu/pub/cs/spring_06/feature_03.html
https://autonline.aut.ac.nz/bbcswebdav/institution/Papers/166104/Publish/Reader_Weeks%205%20and%206.pdf
As a boy, I never really got into Shojo manga although I have encountered some for myself. I do feel that some of the Shojo manga are a bit superficial as some of the female characters want to date a beautiful boyfriend and want to look good themselves.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I do feel that the genre has progressed and we see more independent and stronger female characters. This is true not just in Shojo, but other areas of modern society for that matter. We have more tough female role models in Hollywood like Angelina Jolie or even Jennifer Lawrence.
I agree, some shojo manga is incredibly superficial, which is never something I've been able to relate to. That's why I think I enjoy the genre expanding into deeper stories, where young woman face difficult things and overcome them, learning about themselves on the way.
DeleteI guess with all the genres we've studied, they branch out into subgenres and subsubgenres haha, picking out all the small differences. And it's just about finding the subgenre or genre that suits you.
And I agree about the tougher female role models in Hollywood. Even though I think they glorify an ideal sort of beauty along with it, that touches again on the superficial, it's nice to see some girls kicking ass.