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musouka
Apr 24, 2009
Hooray for this thread! Shoujo manga is a bit of a passion of mine--especially obscure B-list titles--but a lot of what I read remains sadly untranslated.

As long as we're dropping recommendations, I have to give one out for 7 Seeds. It's by the author of BASARA (another one you should buy and read) and starts off as a mysterious wilderness survival with horror elements and until the scope gradually expands.

If you're looking for something a bit more traditional, Akuma to Love Song is a good bet for its strong, compelling heroine. It's a semi-typical high school story, but because the heroine is unique, it makes most of the situations seem a lot fresher. It's fun watching her slowly make friends in a way that's similar to Sunako. (The problem with Maria is more that she's horrifically blunt as opposed to shy, though)

Akazukin Chacha is one of the funniest series ever created, and it only gets more funny as it goes along. (Which is why it's sad the scanlations haven't done that much of it yet.) I STILL laugh over Seravy's childhood trauma involving his father EATING all his pets.

Patalliro is also hilarious and the longest shoujo manga ever, though moreso in the beginning when it's all about ridiculous James Bond spoofs and less the way it is now with Mineo just cashing his paycheck every month. Notable points for this series is that its anime adaption was the first one to show semi-explicit gay sex on Japanese television--at family primetime no less--and it's written by a dude. (He also does some really nice horror manga.)

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musouka
Apr 24, 2009

Serious Frolicking posted:

I have a theory that the quality of a shoujo manga is inversely proportional to the number of times the heroine gets rescued from rapists by a love interest. Can anyone name an exception to this rule?

Fushigi Yuugi is pretty rape-tastic, but it's okay for what it is. If you want to avoid rape in shoujo manga, all you really need to do is avoid Sho-Comi titles, as that's where the bulk of those series come from.

Much like shounen series, the mood of a shoujo series is mostly defined by what magazine it runs in. It's just as helpful to know what a shoujo magazine specializes in as it is a shounen. Here's a quick rundown of the major players.

Publisher: Hakusensha
You might have heard of them from: Young Animal. That's their male-oriented publication that serializes things like Berserk and Ai Yori Aoishi.
Magazines of note:


Hana to Yume
This is their flagship shoujo magazine. It tends to orient more towards fantasy and humor than simple high school romances. Also notable because they also tend to have a higher number of male protagonists when compared to other shoujo magazines. Somewhat lighter on romance compared to other shoujo mags. Voted number one favorite magazine in a poll with female readers some years ago. Target demographic: 13-18 year old girls.
Notable Series: Fruits Basket, Skip Beat, Please Save My Earth, Glass Mask, Here is Greenwood, Baby and Me

LaLa
LaLa has similar content to Hana to Yume, but it has a much higher readership of adults. Most of their manga are still published under a shoujo label, but because they have an adult readership, they're sometimes qualified as "ladies". Target demographic: 18-24+ year old women.
Notable Series: KareKano, Ouran Host Club, Natsume Yuujinchou, Kaguya-Hime, Kaichou wa Maid-sama


Publisher: Shueisha
You might have heard of them from: Shounen Jump, enough said.
Magazines of note:


Ribon:
This is where a lot of famous magical girl manga came from. Other than that it's a mix of fantasy and romance mostly. It's mostly aimed at younger girls, but that became sort of muddled when mangaka like Yazawa Ai became popular within its pages. Target demographic: 9-13 year old girls.
Notable Series: Akazukin Chacha, Neighborhood Story (Paradise Kiss is a sort sequel to this), Hime-chan's Ribbon, Marmalade Boy, Aishiteruze Baby, Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne

Margaret:
This magazine is mostly romance-focused and tends to take place in the real world with relatively few fantasy elements. It has an impressive pedigree, as it's where Ikeda Riyoko published the bulk of her most famous works. It also tends to be very "girl-oriented" in that its protagonists are almost always female and it has a bit of a reputation for being yuri-friendly. Target demographic: 11-15 year old girls.
Notable Series: Rose of Versailles, Hana Yori Dango, Maria-sama ga Miteru (manga version), Ace o Nerae, Parfaitic


Publisher: Kodansha
You might have heard of them from: Shounen Magazine, home of Hajime no Ippo.
Magazines of note:


Nakayoshi:
One of the most interesting things about Nakayoshi is that in the early nineties they decided to be less romance-oriented and moved over to fantasy. This led to the creation of a little series you might have heard of: Sailor Moon. Since then, they've mostly held to that. Fantasy with romantic elements. Target demographic: 9-15 year old girls.
Notable Series: Sailor Moon, Princess Knight, Ghost Hunt, Sugar Sugar Rune


Publisher: Shogakukan
You might have heard of them from: Shounen Sunday, enough said.
Magazines of note:


Shoujo Comic (aka "Sho-Comi")
Smut, smut, smut. That is this magazine's reputation. Because of that, it's also responsible for many of the more infamous modern rape-rape-rape shoujo manga. This is actually a sad state of affairs, because this manga once had writers like Hagio Moto and Takemiya Keiko penning amazing sci-fi series for its pages. Target demographic: 13-17 year old girls.
Notable Series: Fushigi Yuugi, Kaikan Phrase, Kaze to Ki no Uta, They Were Eleven, I'm In Love With My Little Sister (in that you might have heard of it, not that it's a good series)

flowers
I mention this magazine because it is the single best shoujo magazine being published today. Mainly focusing on a mix of historical, slice of life, and horror elements, it has the single largest concentration of famous shoujo talent in its pages. People like Hagio Moto, Nishi Keiko, Tanemura Yumi, and Yoshida Akemi are still putting out series and this is where you'll find them. Since it's aimed at an older readership, several of the series are published under a ladies label, but others still fall under the general "flowers" line. Target demographic: Young adult women, people that love classic shoujo series and mangaka.
Notable Series: Kaze Hikaru, Barbara Ikai, 7 Seeds, Umimachi Diary, Sakamichi no Apollo

musouka fucked around with this message at 22:46 on Dec 29, 2010

musouka
Apr 24, 2009

darkgray posted:

I wish Sakamichi no Aporon was easier to find. :(

I need to get caught up. I have the first three volumes and the artwork is an absolute delight. The story is semi-typical coming of age stuff, but very well told.

musouka
Apr 24, 2009

Thirst Mutilator posted:

Seriously though, KnIM and GE are pretty decent reads for shoujo but sometimes the characters make you want to strangle sense into them.

Even though this is a general romance thread as well as shoujo, this is the part I point out that neither of those two series are shoujo and not all romance falls under the shoujo umbrella.

musouka
Apr 24, 2009

Serious Frolicking posted:

Wow, this was loving terrible. http://www.mangafox.com/manga/skip_beat/v29/c172/1.html

Wow, Skip Beat is still going? That series is long past its expiration date, as can be seen by this chapter.

musouka
Apr 24, 2009

Nate RFB posted:

I stopped a couple of months/chapters ago, but really I think the problem with Skip Beat boils down to the main love interest being by far the most uninteresting character. The story was at its best when it was about Kyoko trying to advance her career and her interactions with Shou, but it became bogged down with Ren's asinine mysterious backstory that is apparently The Key To Everything that I find it hard to really care anymore.

Ren isn't a terrible character (most of the time, he was pretty drat awful in this chapter) but you're right when you say that he's uninteresting. Shou is at least 90% a terrible person deliberately, which makes the times when he's not terrible more interesting than the times Ren goes into his now cliche "smiling with rage" moment.

musouka
Apr 24, 2009

resurgam40 posted:

To call it shojo is kind of a misnomer; it's more josei than shojo. (Josei is to shojo what seinen is to shounen: aimed more at older women than girls and deals with more mature themes.) And the reason why it's josei is because that mysterious young gang leader and the other main character, an aspiring photographer (from Japan, would you believe), engage in a homosexual relationship. And do so in a straightforward, realistic manner, wonder of wonders. It's not even the focus of the plot, which is the mystery of Banana Fish. It's pretty cool, completely written and translated, and you just reminded me I haven't finished it yet.

It's not josei (better termed "ladies"), it's a shoujo series that was aimed at girls. It was also incredibly popular with men, but that in no way takes away from the fact that it was published in a girls' magazine and printed under a shoujo imprint.

If you think shoujo is all romance and bubbles, you have a lot of catching up to do. Particularly in the gruesome horror department.

musouka
Apr 24, 2009
Iguana no Musume isn't hilarious crack, it's a semi-autobiographical short story by the "Tezuka of shoujo manga", Hagio Moto.

Pretty much everything she writes is incredible, except for her sort of middling ballet stuff. Try reading some of her sci-fi. It's great.

musouka
Apr 24, 2009

Nate RFB posted:

Now you see why so many of us have so much trouble watching the anime, no matter how good it is now with the pre-Volume 5 material. It's a giant, dark cloud that will forever loom over the story in all of its adaptations.

Not only that, but the ending deliberately ties Rin's behavior in the early chapters to her romantic feelings. So, for me personally, it even taints the early chapters.

musouka
Apr 24, 2009

Mad Lupine posted:

I'd also like to know if there's been any backlash in Japan. I couldn't find anything on Google about it in Japan.

I haven't checked 2ch or anything, but the reviews on Amazon are mixed. Still mostly positive, but with a lot more one and two star reviews than the earlier volumes. For the same reason outlined here, of course. A lot of outrage that Daikichi actually went with the flow and entered a romantic relationship with Rin.

As for Usagi Drop acting as a deterrent...I know I've held off on getting the latest volume of a series I've otherwise enjoyed because the cover obi started crowing about the high schooler getting "jealous" over the elementary school age girl's interpersonal relationships with other boys. (It started out a cute series about a little girl who dreams of becoming a baseball player and her crush on the older brother of one of her classmates.)

musouka fucked around with this message at 18:22 on Aug 15, 2011

musouka
Apr 24, 2009

The Black Stones posted:

So apparently a Shoujo manga called Sakamichi no Apollon is getting an anime adaptation in April in the noitaminA slot. Anyone here read/know anything about this manga?

I own (and read) the first couple of volumes, but I can't seem to locate them at the moment to refresh myself on the finer parts of the plot. What I do remember is that the art style is gorgeous, the characters were really engaging, and it was set in the sixties or thereabouts. I also seem to remember something about a band, but I can't remember if it was regarding the three kids, or people they knew.

That's probably not very helpful, but it's been a couple of years...

Anyway, I remember liking it a lot and I'm glad that noitaminA seems to be heading back towards its roots a bit, instead of shoveling out more crap like that Guilty Crown and Black Rock Shooter.

musouka
Apr 24, 2009

Asperity posted:

Is anybody else reading Kaze Hikaru? I'm not up to date with it yet, but so far I love it -- I haven't found any other shoujo romance manga where I can say, "ooh, mass beheading. This'll make a good stopping point."

From what I read of it, Kaze Hikaru was great. I can usually take or leave the Shinsengumi as used in popular media, but you can tell the author really did her homework in this case, so it feels different from the nth iteration of SHOUNEN FIGHTIN' SHINSENGUMI. It's also incredibly long (and still running, I think?) so I also ended up letting it fall by the wayside a while back. I'll get caught up one of these days.

musouka
Apr 24, 2009

Captain Invictus posted:

It initially starts out with promise but quickly dips into some of the worst aspects of shojo romance with will-they-won't-they shenanigans, actual near-progress interrupted by, among other things, classmates, phone calls, and stomach growling, and weird borderline-abusive stuff from the male "protagonist".

I wouldn't even say it started out well, with all the weird, borderline grossness of "I'm just naturally so sweet and feminine and so every single girl in my Jr. High class loathed me, so instead I'll start high school as an uncouth slob, that way I won't be hated (because all women are jealous bitches that only care about how attractive they are to men and seethe when they see someone else so naturally talented at it.) Like all shoujo heroines, I pick the worst people to make friends with and require the services of the male protagonist to tell me that the people I hang out with are assholes! Luckily, now that I've scored the guy I want, I can pretty much forget about my initial goal of 'chicks before dicks'! Onward to the slow-motion mating dance!"

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musouka
Apr 24, 2009

Sakurazuka posted:

On the other side of the fence, is there any decent BL stuff that isn't creepy rapey crap?

Kinou Nani Tabeta (released in NA as "What Did You Eat Yesterday?") is a slice of life about a gay couple and cooking. No rape to be found. It's also quite good.

Someone else recommended Banana Fish, which is my all time favorite manga, period. There is generalized sexual violence in it, but I wouldn't remotely call it "creepy rapey", and there's nothing of the sort between the two protagonists.

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