Beautiful, Broken, and Queer: The complicated interplay of sexuality and trauma in Banana Fish
Ash is a problematic depiction of a queer assault survivor, but also one that claws open some of my most private, difficult wounds.
shoujo Tag
Results-
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“Queering” Heteronormativity: Biological essentialism in genderbending manga
The framework of “[cis character] must pretend to be [“opposite” gender] before restoring their [femininity or masculinity]” invites biological determinism by making the plot’s stakes dependent on the successful concealment of the main character’s “true” (here, meaning “assigned-at-birth”) gender. The idea of a “true” biological gender is itself a transphobic trope that does harm to the gender-nonconforming communities that genderbending manga purports to represent.
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Shoujo Manga’s Lost Generation
The 1950s and 1960s were a time of incredible change, when a generation of young women emerged to forge many of the conventions and visual language we associate with shoujo manga. That makes it all the more tragic that this period has fallen into obscurity, as time and circumstances threaten to erase it.
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Every Rose Has Its Thorns: Vilifying female ambition in The Rose of Versailles
As a main character, Oscar is an all-encompassing figure who struggles with gender roles, duty, empathy, and more. But with Marie Antoinette and the women who act as villains, we see a more traditional exploration of female power, ambition, and anger.
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Subaru Sumeragi and the dark side of total empathy in Tokyo Babylon
The main driving theme of Tokyo Babylon is Subaru’s unlimited empathy for everyone, be it victims of supernatural occurrences, earthbound spirits, or simply an elderly man at the park. To Subaru, all deserve to be cared for, even at the cost of his own well-being.
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Harmful Gimmick: The normalization of abuse in shoujo manga
I became interested in shoujo manga after reading Fruits Basket, and I have not stopped reading it since. The more shoujo I read, however, the more I’ve noticed a disturbing trend. While many manga I have read feature sweet, supportive romances, just as many normalize unhealthy, even abusive relationships and victim-blaming.
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Demonesses and the Men Who Abuse Them: The real tragedy of Junji Ito’s Tomie
Tomie is just one version of a story we’ve heard about women over and over about the cruel, conniving woman who “gets what she deserves” after her manipulation of a man blows up in her face. This is how the stories justify and disguise their displays of male misogynistic violence: as uncontrollable supernatural urges in response to an unknowable, distinctly female evil.
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Fruits Basket’s Tohru Honda and her Path to Self-Acceptance
Selfless heroines are common in anime and manga, but Tohru is particularly noteworthy because her development throughout the series serves as an example of growing up, coming to terms with one’s feelings, and finding one’s voice. She navigates a very real, very familiar river, fraught with anxiety and self-doubt.
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Flowers for Zoisite: How Sailor Moon’s iconic queer villains raised the bar
While the romance between Sailors Uranus and Neptune has rightfully earned praise,Sailor Moon’s other explicitly queer relationship gets little notice. And that’s a shame, because Zoisite and Kunzite were remarkably progressive compared to both their contemporaries and what had come before.
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“The Courage to Speak”: Mental illness and recovery in Natsume’s Book of Friends
Using both its fantastical premise and grounded characters, Natsume’s Book of Friends tells a story with strong parallels to real-world mental illness and trauma. But what really makes it special is that it’s far more interested in exploring the recovery process, offering hope to its viewers who are trying to do the same.
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Fantasies and Nightmares in the Reverse-Harem Genre
While reverse harems often feature well-developed female protagonists, alluring love interests, and sweet romances, they can also fall into more harmful patterns of depicting passive girls trapped in abusive relationships. Typically, a reverse harem shows its best or worst features in how it portrays its female lead, love interests, and romantic encounters.
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Chatty AF 65: Shoujo Manga Part 2 (WITH TRANSCRIPT)
Part 2 of 2 in our super-sized Shoujo manga podcast with Caitlin and special guests Ashley and Lianne! Now that we’ve covered the basics of the demographic genre, the trio deep-dives into creators, licensing strategies, and audience understandings and expectations.
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Chatty AF 64: Shoujo Manga Part 1 (WITH TRANSCRIPT)
Part 1 of our super-sized shoujo manga podcast discussion with Caitlin and special guests Ashley and Lianne! In this part, the trio discusses their experiences with the demographic genre, its strengths, and weaknesses.
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From Evil Twins to Monthly Girls: The evolution of mangaka Tsubaki Izumi
Most western fans first heard of Tsubaki Izumi thanks to the anime adaptation of her manga Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-kun, but Tsubaki’s work goes far beyond that. A look at how her manga has evolved over the years shows that she’s a master at making cutting commentary, crossing demographic lines, and poking fun at gender stereotypes.
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Love, Sex, and Power in Fruits Basket
Experiencing abuse from a young age, lacking a healthy vision of how to love and be loved, can resonate through a victim’s life for years, even decades. This is explored thoughtfully and compassionately in the classic shoujo manga Fruits Basket.
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Fushigi Yugi: Adolescence Apotheosis
Through its raw, emotional, sometimes-frustrating narrative, Fushigi Yugi uses isekai trappings and the relationship between Miaka and Yui to explore common sources of desire and anxiety for teenage girls along with their potential consequences, both positive and negative. By tapping into the mentality of its audience and providing reassurance in its conclusion, Fushigi Yugi serves the function of a modern fable or fairy tale.
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The Sparkling Masculinity of Sanrio Boys
While there’s certainly a male audience for handsome dudes and fluffy mascots (like the guy writing this article), Sanrio Boys also wants to reach out to those conditioned to dislike cute things, directly addressing its male viewers through its musings on—and challenges of—traditional ideas about masculinity.
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Cardcaptor Sakura and the Stagnant LGBTQ Representation
While the currently airing sequel, Cardcaptor Sakura: Clear Card was created roughly twenty years after the original series, it so far seems less actively progressive than its predecessor. Specifically, it’s missing the original’s focus on explicitly representing LGBTQ characters as well as the way it sensitively portrayed their lives and emotions.
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My Fave is Problematic: Fushigi Yugi
Full of big adventure and bigger emotions, Fushigi Yugi scratched an itch I hadn’t even known I had: for fantastical, adventure-driven comics and TV shows that placed as much focus on character relationships and emotional turmoil as they did on action and intrigue, and treated those feelings not only with respect, but as powerful forces essential to the plot.
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Higashimura Akiko and the art of shoujo manga writing
Akiko Higashimura is in many ways an exceptional mangaka. You can catch a glimpse of it from her recent success with Princess Jellyfish and Tokyo Tarareba Girls, but there’s so much more to be told about this hitmaker.
