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[edit] Continuing History after WW2

End of shojo history section.

[edit] Text

Part 2 of Origins of Manga Manga After World War II


In the following decades (1975-present), shōjo manga continued to develop stylistically while simultaneously evolving different but overlapping subgenres (Ogi). Major subgenres have included romance, superheroines, and redisu / josei, whose boundaries are sometimes indistinguishable from each other and from shonen manga (Schodt, 1996; Gravett).

In modern shōjo manga romance, love is a major theme set into emotionally intense narratives of self-realization (Drazen 2003). Japanese manga/anime critic Eri Izawa defines romance as symbolizing “the emotional, the grand, the epic; the taste of heroism, fantastic adventure, and the melancholy; passionate love, personal struggle, and eternal longing” set into imaginative, individualistic, and passionate narrative frameworks (Izawa 2000).

These romances are sometimes long narratives that can deal with distinguishing between false and true love, coping with sexual intercourse, and growing up in a complex world, themes inherited by subsequent animated versions of the story (Toku, Schodt 1996, Drazen). These “coming of age” or bildungsroman themes occur in both shōjo and shonen manga (Graillat 2006-7= footnote 1). In the bildungsroman, the protagonist must deal with adversity and conflict (Moretti), and examples in shōjo manga of romantic conflict are common. They include Miwa Ueda’s Peach Girl, Fuyumi Soryo’s Mars, and, for older readers, Moyoco Anno’s Happy Mania, Yayoi Ogawa’s Tramps Like Us, and Ai Yazawa’s Nana, among many others.

In another shōjo manga bildungsroman narrative device, the young heroine is transported to an alien place or time where she meets strangers and must survive on her own (Hagio Moto's They Were Eleven, Kyoko Hikawa’s From Far Away, Yû Watase’s Fushigi Yûgi: The Mysterious Play, and Chiho Saito’s The World Exists For Me, among others). Yet another such device involves meeting unusual or strange people and beings, for example, Natsuki Takaya’s Fruits Basket -- one of the most popular shōjo manga in America (ICv2 2007) -- whose orphaned heroine Tohru must survive living in the woods in a house filled with people who can transform into the animals of the Chinese zodiac. In Harako Iida’s Crescent Moon, heroine Mahiru meets a group of supernatural beings, finally to discover that she herself too has a supernatural ancestry when she and a young tengu demon fall in love.

With the superheroines, shōjo manga continued to break away from neo-Confucianist norms of female meekness and obedience (Schodt 96, Kawai, Jp Psyche; Toku). Naoko Takeuchi’s Sailor Moon (Bishōjo Senshi Seiramun: "Pretty Girl Soldier Sailor Moon") is a sustained, 18-volume narrative about a group of young heroines simultaneously heroic and introspective, active and emotional, dutiful and ambitious (Allison, Grigsby). The combination proved extremely successful, and Sailor Moon became internationally popular in both manga and anime formats (Allison, Schodt 96). Another example is CLAMP’s Magic Knight Rayearth, whose three young heroines, Hikaru, Umi, and Fuu, are magically transported to the world of Cephiro to become armed magical warriors in the service of saving Cephiro from internal and external enemies. The superheroine subgenre also extensively developed the notion of teams (sentai) of girls working together (Poitras, 2001), like the Sailor Scouts in Sailor Moon, the Magic Knights in Magic Knight Rayearth, and the Mew Mew girls from Mia Ikumi's Tokyo Mew Mew. By today, the superheroine narrative template has been widely used (e.g., Kanan's Galaxy Angel and Nao Yazawa's Wedding Peach) and parodied (Rune by Tamayo Akiyama).

In the mid-1980s and thereafter, as girls who had read shōjo manga as teenagers matured and entered the job market, shōjo manga elaborated subgenres directed at women in their 20s and 30s (Ogi). This “Ladies Comic” subgenre (in Japanese, redisu, redikomi, and josei) has dealt with themes of young adulthood: jobs, the emotions and problems of sexual intercourse, and friendships or love among women (Ito, Jones, Ogi, Shamoon).

Redisu manga retains many of the narrative stylistics of shōjo manga but has been drawn by and written for older women (Schodt 1996, pp 124-129). Redisu manga has been often, but not always, sexually explicit, but sexuality has characteristically been set into complex narratives of pleasure combined with emotional risk (Schodt 96, Ito). Examples include Ramiya Ryo's Luminous Girls, Masako Watanabe's Kinpeibai, and the work of Shungicu Uchida (Toku, Schodt 96). Another subgenre of shōjo/redisu manga deals with emotional and sexual relationships among women (akogare and yuri), including work by Erica Sakurazawa, Ebine Yamaji, and Chiho Saito (Revolutionary Girl Utena) (Yuricon Manga Guide). Other subgenres of shōjo/redisu manga have also developed, e.g., fashion (oshare) manga, like Ai Yazawa’s Paradise Kiss (Masanao 2004), and horror/vampire/gothic manga, like Matsuri Hino‘s Vampire Knight, Kaori Yuki's Cain Saga, and Peach-Pit‘s Rozen Maiden (Winge, Macias, Tokyo Streets book, footnote 2).

By the start of the 21st century, manga for women and girls thus represented a broad spectrum of material for pre- and early teenagers to material for adult women.

Subsection ends here. Shonen is next.


Footnote 1: "The transformation into a superhero is in fact an allegory of becoming an adult." From Graillat, Ludovic 2006-2007 "America vs. Japan: the Influence of American Comics on Manga." Refractory: A Journal of Entertainment Media, Volume 10. http://www.refractory.unimelb.edu.au/journalissues/vol10/graillat.html. Accessed September 23, 2007. Literally, bildungs = education and roman = novel in German, hence a novel about the education of the protagonist in "the ways of the world" (Moretti).

Footnote 2: Oshare manga, anime, street fashions, costume play ("cosplay"), J-Pop music, and goth subcultures all interact in complex ways (Winge, Tokyo Streets book, Macias). Peach-Pit is the nom de plume of Banri Sendou and Shibuko Ebara. "A couple of DearS: An interview with Peach-Pit." TokyoPop Manga Magazine. Fall, 2005. pp. 42-43.


Allison, Anne 2000. "Sailor Moon: Japanese superheroes for global girls." In: Timothy J. Craig (editor) Japan Pop! Inside the World of Japanese Popular Culture. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe. pp. 259-278. ISBN 978-0765605610.

Bando, Kishiji (no date) "Shoujo Yuri Manga Guide." http://www.yuricon.org/essays/symg.html. Accessed September 23, 2007.

Cain Saga http://www.shojobeat.com/manga/gc/bio.php

Crescent Moon http://www.tokyopop.com/product/1244

Drazen, Patrick 2003. Anime Explosion!: the What? Why? & Wow! of Japanese Animation. Berkeley, CA: Stone Bridge.

From Far Away [1]

Fruits Basket http://www.tokyopop.com/product/1194/FruitsBasket/1.html

Fushigi Yugi http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/manga.php?id=1539

Galaxy Angel http://www.broccolibooks.com/books/ga/ga_index.htm.

Grigsby in Lent 1999.

Hagio Moto [2]

Happy Mania [3] http://www.tokyopop.com/product/1115

ICv2 2007. "Top 50 Manga Properties for Spring 2007: Fruits Basket." ICv2 Guide to Manga, Number 45, pp. 6, 8.

Ito, Kinko 2002. "The world of Japanese 'Ladies Comics': From romantic fantasy to lustful perversion." Journal of Popular Culture, 36(1):68-85.

Ito, Kinko 2003. "Japanese Ladies’ Comics as agents of socialization: The lessons they teach." International Journal of Comic Art, 5(2):425-436.

Izawa, Eri 2000 ."The romantic, passionate Japanese in anime: A look at the hidden Japanese soul." In: Timothy J. Craig (editor) Japan Pop! Inside the World of Japanese Popular Culture. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe. pp. 138-153. ISBN 978-0765605610. http://www.mit.edu/afs/athena.mit.edu/user/r/e/rei/WWW/manga-romanticism.html. Accessed September 23, 2007.

Jones, Gretchen 2002. "'Ladies’ Comics': Japan’s not-so-underground market in pornography for women." U.S.-Japan Women’s Journal (English Supplement), Number 22, pp. 3-31.

Macias, Patrick, Evers, Izumi, and Nonaka, Kazumi (illustrator). 2004.Japanese Schoolgirl Inferno: Tokyo Teen Fashion Subculture Handbook. San Francisco, CA: Chronicle Books. ISBN 9780811856904.

Mars http://www.tokyopop.com/product/1029

Masanao, Amano 2004. Manga Design. Koln, Germany: Taschen GMBH. pp. 526-529. ISBN 3822825913.

MKR http://www.tokyopop.com/product/1017/MagicKnightRayearthI/ http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/manga.php?id=1565

Nana http://manga.about.com/od/mangatitlesaz/p/nanaprofile.htm http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/review/nana-gn-1

Ogi, Fusami 2004. "Female subjectivity and shoujo (girls) manga (Japanese comics): Shoujo in Ladies’ Comics and Young Ladies’ Comics." Journal of Popular Culture, 36(4):780-803.

Paradise Kiss http://www.tokyopop.com/product/1044

Peach Girl [4] http://www.tokyopop.com/product/1041

Poitras, Gilles 2001. Anime Essentials: Everything a Fan Needs to Know. Berkeley, CA: Stone Bridge. ISBN 1880656531.

Ramiya Ryo (no date) "Luminous Girls." Tokyo: France Shoin Comic House. ISBN 4829682019.

Revolutionary Girl Utena use our review

Rozen Maiden http://www.tokyopop.com/product/1565

Rune http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/right-turn-only/2004-11-20

Sakurazawa http://www.animefringe.com/magazine/2003/12/reviews/06/

Shamoon, Deborah 2004. "Office slut and rebel flowers: The pleasures of Japanese pornographic comics for women." In: Linda Williams (editor) Porn Studies. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. pp. 77-103.

Tokyo Mew Mew http://www.tokyopop.com/shop/1114/TokyoMewMew/1.html

Tokyo Streets

Tramps Like Us http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/manga.php?id=3877

Vampire Knight need

Wedding Peach http://www.viz.com/products/products.php?series_id=198

Winge, Theresa 2006. "Costuming the imagination: Origins of anime and manga cosplay." Mechademia: An Academic Forum for Anime, Manga, and the Fan Arts, 1:65-76.

World Exists for Me (http://www.tokyopop.com/product/1477/TheWorldExistsforMe/2.html)

Yamaji, Ebine http://gaycomicslist.free.fr/pages/blogarch.php?month=2006-10

Yuricon manga guide http://www.yuricon.org/essays/symg.html

[edit] Comments

(TP) Rationale and references for including all the manga titles. These are simply references to plot details, and I suppose could be referenced to the associated Wiki articles on each, where they exist. If more is needed, I can dig up web pages that summarize the plots. This is like saying that Hamlet deals with vengeance; a reference to the play itself is sufficient to prove the point. For example, in Red River, the heroine is transported back to ancient Assyria and falls in love with some prince. It's just a fact, not a conclusion... There are an IMMENSE number of shojo manga like this.

Now, if I said that this plot device -- transporting the heroine back to Medieval France or Ancient Assyria or to Cephiro or whatnot -- is a way to get her out from under her parents' and school's supervision, then we'd need a reference. That inference is true, but it still would need a reference. But here I'm citing the manga only as examples and drawing no further conclusions. Timothy Perper 15:51, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

(TP) In some ways, it's only a matter of knowing what the word means. If you know what a bildungsroman is, then asking for a reference saying that Sailor Moon is a bildungsroman is like asking for a reference that Hamlet is a tragedy. It comes with the territory.

IGN's top then shoujo might be good. Fruits Basket article. Just putting these refs here as I'm trying to find a good inclusuion criteria. -

Another top ten. - Peregrine Fisher 01:59, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
Top Ten lists may be one way to go, if we can justify/explain the how they were chosen and who chose them. The IGN list has that no-no word "blog" associated with it, and overall I'd trust ANN more. But even so, ANN attracts many more male than female viewers.
We could use ANN's top 50 manga list, and select shojo manga from that. Take a look at their website: http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/ratings-manga.php -- it has the top 50 in a link.
Of the top 10, only one is shojo (Fruits Basket). Despite the fact that FB is one of the top selling manga in the US (see the ICv2 article I cited), it ranks only 7th. That's a reflection of rater bias, not reality. I've also found several Wiki discussion pages that assail ANN as being no more reliable than Wiki itself (whatever that means).
But as an inclusion criterion for this entry, ANN might not be bad. If it gets into the top 50, we can talk about it. HOWEVER, that will leave out some of the most significant manga ever done, because ANN's poll is a fan popularity poll, and is telling us about the people who are doing the ranking, not about the manga being ranked.
On the other hand, I don't like using ANN's database because it seems so biased against shojo. If so, then we don't have girls' rankings of shojo, but boys' rankings, and boys aren't the target market.
But I think we may be on the right track. Can you come up with more data along these lines?
Timothy Perper 04:41, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
I added four refs, covering Peach Girl, Happy Mania, They Were Eleven, and From Far Away. I'm trying to find refs for two of the examples in each list of examples. That's enough to justify a sentence like:
In another shōjo manga bildungsroman narrative device, the young heroine is transported to an alien place or time where she meets strangers and must survive on her own (Hagio Moto's They Were Eleven and Kyoko Hikawa’s From Far Away, among others).
Instead of
(Hagio Moto's They Were Eleven,[3] Kyoko Hikawa’s From Far Away,[4] Chie Shinohara’s Red River, Yû Watase’s Fushigi Yûgi: The Mysterious Play, and Chiho Saito’s S to M no Sekai, among others).
I can't find refs for all of them, but it gives us a tight inclusion criteria, and, I think, allows us to say what we want to say.
You've already got refs for Fruits Basket, Sailor Moon, and the Redisu paragraph.
So, I'm thinking we remove the extra examples from the groups where I couldn't find refs, the Crescent Moon sentence, and figure out what to do with the
By today, the superheroine narrative template has been widely used ref (e.g., Kanan's Galaxy Angel and Nao Yazawa's Wedding Peach) and parodied (Rune by Tamayo Akiyama).
sentence, and we're good to go. You decide if that's removing too much, or if there's something else you want to do. - Peregrine Fisher 22:19, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

OK, I see what you're doing. Let me see if I can find some reviews of the other ones, or at least some of them. I'll also try it in reverse, finding reviews and seeing if we can add the title. We already cite the Thorn piece. I'm particularly interested in keeping Crescent Moon. More later. Timothy Perper 01:11, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

This ref might support Hyper Rune as a parody of Sailor Moon. - Peregrine Fisher 01:33, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Yup. Perfect. Timothy Perper 02:12, 26 September 2007 (UTC)