JAPANESE CULTURE, EXPLAINED

Shōjo manga: a publishing category with many stories

少女漫画

Shōjo manga is a publishing category developed for girl readers. It includes romance, history, sport and fantasy, with stories by both women and men.

Magazines and their creators

Magazines and their intended readers

Magazines, serialisation and book imprints identify a work’s intended readership. Shōjo publications carry several genres, and their stories often reach readers beyond the audience named by the publisher.

Girls’ magazines came first

Shōjokai, founded in 1902, and Shōjo no Tomo, founded in 1908, helped establish publishing for girls. Postwar stories circulated through monthlies, inexpensive books and rental outlets. Osamu Tezuka’s Ribbon no Kishi began in the monthly Shōjo Club in 1953. Weekly Shōjo Friend succeeded that magazine in late 1962; Margaret followed in 1963, carrying over serials and readers from the monthly Shōjo Book.

Women and men in shōjo publishing

Hideko Mizuno, Hoshi no Tategoto, Shōjo Club, June 1960 supplement. Meiji University exhibition.

Tetsuya Chiba, Yuka o Yobu Umi. Image from Meiji University’s shōjo manga exhibition.

Women and men both worked in shōjo publishing. Hideko Mizuno’s Hoshi no Tategoto and Tetsuya Chiba’s Yuka o Yobu Umi appeared in Shōjo Club in 1960; Meiji University’s exhibition brings them together as examples of the field.

Making romance carry the story

Meiji University’s exhibition quotes Mizuno Hideko’s wish to make a romance sustain an entire story, discussing Hoshi no Tategoto as an example. It also examines changing editorial attitudes towards romantic depiction and the growth of everyday romantic comedy. What could be drawn depended partly on a magazine’s editorial environment, alongside the artist’s ambitions.

Panels, history and fantasy

When a figure breaks the grid

Spoken dialogue — An original explanatory example, not a historical manga page. A tailed balloon marks speech; text in open space conveys an unspoken thought.

Unspoken inner voice — An original explanatory example, not a historical manga page. A tailed balloon marks speech; text in open space conveys an unspoken thought.

Macoto Takahashi, Tokyo–Paris, story by Sugako Hashida, Shōjo, September 1958. The full-length figure at right spans three panel rows. Yonezawa Yoshihiro Memorial Library; Meiji University exhibition.

Hideko Mizuno, Hoshi no Tategoto, Shōjo Club, October 1961: highlights in a character’s eyes. Meiji University exhibition.

In Macoto Takahashi’s Tokyo–Paris page, a full-length figure on the right extends across several panels. Clothing and pose remain a visual focus while adjacent panels carry conversation and movement forward. The page offers both a figure to contemplate and actions to follow. Interior monologue can alter this rhythm further. Studying characters in The Rose of Versailles and The Song of the Wind and the Trees, Antononoka Olga describes bodily lines merging with decoration and panel boundaries so that sequence conveys emotional flow as much as successive action.

Historical drama and invented characters

Ikeda Riyoko’s The Rose of Versailles places historical figures such as Marie Antoinette alongside invented characters including Oscar and André during the French Revolution. Their relationships develop through conflicts of social position and circumstance, joining romance to historical drama.

Fantasy changes the scale of a life

In Hagio Moto’s The Poe Clan, Edgar and his sister Marybelle belong to an immortal vampire clan and encounter the boy Alan. Their relation to mortal people places companionship within a different timescale. Takemiya Keiko’s The Song of the Wind and the Trees took another path through intimate relationships between boys. Such 1970s work contributed to later BL traditions without defining the whole shōjo field.

Editors, readers and new media

A route from submissions to books

Bessatsu Margaret’s manga school, begun in 1966, helped develop new artists including Miuchi Suzue, later known for Glass Mask. Magazines provided publication space, while collected volumes offered another way to encounter and retain a story. The Poe Clan’s book publication expanded its readership beyond its magazine appearances.

An expanding field of readers

Keiko Takemiya, Moto Hagio and other artists extended shōjo manga’s subjects and forms of expression during the 1970s. Publishing for adult women also grew: BE LOVE launched in 1980. Meiji’s exhibition follows later circulation through fan publishing and the web, alongside the established magazines and collected books.

Reading one episode at a time

Palcy, jointly operated by Kōdansha and pixiv, publishes catalogue works and app-exclusive serials for a broader women-oriented readership. Its help page describes how completing an episode with a ticket or coins earns cheers, which readers can exchange for tickets or extra likes. The service connects reading an episode with gaining access to more or responding to a work.

From the page to a stage

Takarazuka first staged The Rose of Versailles in 1974 and subsequently developed different versions. Its 2024 Snow Troupe production centred on Fersen and his relationship with Marie Antoinette. Selecting a focal character changes which part of a manga becomes the stage story. An audience familiar with Oscar’s story may therefore encounter a different narrative emphasis in another adaptation.

Check your understanding

Is manga by a woman automatically shōjo?

No. Publishing context and intended readership matter.

Must a shōjo manga be a romance?

No. It is a readership-based publishing category encompassing multiple story genres.

Must the tall figure show a later moment than every adjacent panel?

No. Its page-spanning placement can present appearance alongside the sequential action, rather than adding another moment to the sequence.

Why can stage versions of the same manga have different emphases?

An adaptation can select a different focal character, as Takarazuka’s 2024 Rose of Versailles centred on Fersen.

Sources and images