Early on, shōjo manga focused on simple, light-hearted stories and was aimed at an audience of younger, elementary-aged girls. It was also dominated by male mangaka, until a golden age of shōjo manga emerged in the 1970s. At this time, a new generation of female artists made their rise, incorporating more complex themes and reflecting attitudes from the women’s liberation movement. This generation of artists are known as the Year 24 Group, due to the fact that many were born in or around the 24th year of the Shōwa era. This group expanded shōjo manga to include more aspects from sub-genres like adventure, fantasy, and so on, and brought about a shift to a slightly older audience of teens and young adults. Shōjo also enjoyed a huge increase in both commercial and critical success with this shift, having been largely dismissed up until that point. Today, shōjo manga seems to carry the image of being about school-aged girls, romance, and more likely both. And while there are certainly many shōjo manga that reflect this, it also continues to be inclusive of a variety of sub-genres and should by no means be considered equivalent to romance. If one does want to define shōjo overall, a very common theme is the exploration of relationships (of all kinds) and emotions. I’ve picked out a selection of some of the best shōjo manga available to English-language readers today that hopefully reflects at least part of the wide range of stories that can fall under the category. Need even more manga recommendations? We’ve got you covered multiple times over with these lists of coming-of-age manga, romance manga, and the best manga overall! By the by, make sure you’re keeping up with our weekly censorship news roundups, because writing this description frankly felt eerily prescient and terrifying.
