Well, my vote goes to 07-Ghost, hands down. I've never even read any of the others, though 7 Seeds, Sakamichi no Apollon and Bokura no Kiseki have been on my 'to read' list for a while now. Generally I prefer Comic Zero-Sum josei, since they tend to be less like josei and more like shounen/seinen without the sexualisation of the female body, which is basically my ideal manga.

But, wow. Look at Nodame go! I wonder what's so great about it.... Maybe I should read it? *Looks at the genres, categories, and volume count. Backs away* Nah.

Bokura no Kiseki~


+1

I only know half of these series so easy vote for 7 Seeds

I don't know many josei series, what I know is 7 Seeds is one of the best manga that I;ve ever read so I go for it. I know Nodame from the drama (live action) series, it's good but as manga that is music themed, I wonder if I can like it the way I like the drama series.

Out of the list I have only read Gokusen and 07-Ghost, they are ok, but not enough for me to give a vote. Personally my favourite josei is Midnight Secretary. If Annarasumanara would make a cut I would have voted for it, or at least Hapi Mari. But as it stands now I will probably just read some other joseis that made the cut before making a decision.

Nodame Cantabile most likely gonna win this time as well. It's good after all.
But, it's 07-Ghost for me. 7 seeds is a decent read as well.

Gokusen? Seriously? That's been over and done with for years. Fun, yes, but best? Tough call with the rest 3-4 serious good ones there.

xxxHoLic was a no show as it had an abysmal ending and the sequel is a mess that now goes from one hiatus to another so that well is sadly poisoned. Let´s see how Tokyo Ghoul will be received in 6 years time too as i like it enough to write a review and i recommended it to my friends (the anime sucks btw.) but i only consider it to be a "flavor of the month".
I would have preferred if Miura again came in second as that is that is what the manga is famous for. Berserk was was the runner up last time, lost the Tezuka Grand Prize to Vagabond (No. 09 ), is the 2nd highest rated entry on ANN after Monster so i consider it to be the steady tortoise of the manga world. I also previously read all but one Shoujo title from all nominees/runner ups that were assembled during the last 4 weeks so this experiment introduced me to only 1 generic girls manga. A shame.

Honey and Clover is just a runner up so i go with my sole other nominee Sakamichi no Apollon which i also consider to be the 2nd best Josei i read and Watanabe´s team rushed the anime way too hard while the source material has one of my favorite endings ever. (Her new one is a more of a B+ btw. due to a ridiculous flashback narrative.)
The entire selection is clearly superior to the Shoujo one and the best after last week so well done MU and 07-Ghost is the sole entry that i will have to disagree with as being of notable enough quality for the top 10. It does show the current trend of publishing clear cut boys manga in magazines for adult women and such magazine´s fujoshi pandering is harmless yet undeniable so wouldn´t climb on any morality high horse that fast...
The utterly forgeable Comic Zero-Sum is to Josei what GFantasy is to Shounen or what the highly respectable Fellows! is to Seinen so this road goes all ways.
Nodame Cantabile will be crowned again as it won a poll in Japan this year too. It´s also one of the few modern female targeted manga to get a full anime adaptation so that is fine but i am not sure if it is her best work. She even switched to team Seinen without changing her style and is anyone surprised by the low amount of Josei nominees?

The popular catch phrase that Shounen/Seinen magazines are only porn and violence is a misconception that the scanlation scene made stick. I could say that all modern web Manhwa are porn by the very same logic and that would be nonsense too if i started to actually think about market realities. I could list hundreds of manga that have a level of success with pornographic material today. The constant bikini idol covers, gravure idol nude foldouts and weird as hell DVDs/adds in the magazine´s themselves will never be denied by me. I would even say that Japanese media is pretty shit to women overall (blame their antiquated society) BUT you will mostly have a tough time to make money with such nowadays. Golgo 13´s record is a fact bit it´s also a relic of a forgone time as you need to sell perpetual virginity in the year of our lord 2015 to make money with "sexy" manga and not sex. Waifu´s just didn´t exist back then and none would buy the official doujinshis, the sex pillows, the 3DS "fighting"/dating games, the mouse pads with breasts and so on if the goods were "spoiled" before even receiving all the non-print content. Print alone just can´t cut it anymore. I am not Saiyan that this tend is "better" (it kind of is though) but today´s porn is Idol Master, K-On and so on and current Shounen/Seinen publications are (mostly) nothing when put against what was the norm in the 80s. I've... seen things... you people wouldn't believe. (Berserk is from 1988 on top.)

I could even name Smut that would be very hard to publish in a premier hentai magazine but i will safe it for scarletrhodelia´s thread and isn´t it funny that Hapi Mari is the only clear cut sex narrative present of all the entries during the last 4 weeks. Berserk and Oyasumi Punpun are way more sexually explicit but Hapi Mari features barely any male nudity and a lot of female cumfaces and close up´s of breasts during the childish sex scenes while the other 2 went out of their way to even out the scales as much as they could. Interesting hm...

This is the poll I was most looking forward to.

I voted for Nodame Cantabile. It is one of the most satisfying stories I've read.

Sakamichi no Apollon was a very close second, also very satisfying.

7 Seeds might have gotten my vote if it were complete, waiting to see how it finishes.

Chihayafuru - loved the first few volumes I've read so far, but it seems that it might not need to be so long.

Kuragehime, so frustrating! Get a spine, girl! But wait, jellyfish don't have spines.

Gokusen is a fun read but don't think it merits being on this list.

Bokura no Kiseki looks like it would be up my alley, will try it. Same with 07-Ghost.

I'd heard of 14-sai no Koi but it hasn't yet made it to my 'to read' list. I read Game Over (MIZUTANI Fuka) on the strength of many recommendations and was thoroughly underwhelmed. Cheese in the Trap just doesn't look good to me, idk.

If Kimi wa Pet and Oishii Kankei had been on this list, I'd be pulling my hair out trying to pick between them. Really, Kimi wa Pet is the epitome of what a josei manga could and should be. I'd have also liked to have seen Yoshihara Yuki represented here. I'm not sad that Honey and Clover was left out. I read the whole thing in disbelief that it is thought of so highly - they did nothing but drink and pine about unrequited relationships. The 'humor' also didn't work for me - the girls can't cook, we get it. Nodame Cantabile does so much better with a similar premise, as we actually can understand what their art means to the music students as opposed to the art students of Honey & Clover who mostly goof off.

Now this has got to be the most difficult poll...all those titles but for me, it's these four~

Bokura no Kiseki
Cheese in the Trap
Chihayafuru
Sakamichi no Apollon

These four titles are amazing and cannot be compared considering the vastly different storylines!!

Oh boy, how can i choose...I'm not considering old titles (it just doesn't seem fair) which is how I've been voting till now so it's a toss up between the four...It'd be interesting to see the results if the nominations were restricted from a certain time period....

It's unusual that all my favourites aren't on the poll, in spite of josei being my favourite genre. I do like the nominations, but none of them stood out enough to be classified as a favourite :/ I suspect some of the best ones might be labeled as shoujo instead...

So, just because I can, I'll list some of my favourites here - in order of MU ratings.

- Paradise Kiss. I prefer Nana, but it's under Shoujo, so...go figure.
- Hapi Mari. Everything by Enjouji Maki.
- Shigeshoushi or The Embalmer. Not very josei-ish, but I love it.
- Yume no Shizuku, Ougon no Torikago or Drops of Dreams, The Golden Birdcage. By the same author as Red River, which is shoujo...?
- Oishii Kankei. There's also a live action drama.
- Midnight Secretary. One of my guilty pleasures
- Usagi Drop. Even has a movie.
- &. Anything by Okazaki Mari.
- Gold and Silver, Harlequin type romances by Fujita Kazuko.
- Totsuzen Desu ga, Ashita Kekkon Shimasu. A new series that got me hooked instantly.
- Ai wo Chodai. Feels a bit like a dating game. But Kandagawa is hot.
- Otoko no Isshou, Katsu Kare no Hi, Ane no Kekkon, and Koi to Gunkan all by Nishi Keiko. Otoko no Isshou was made into a movie this last Valentine's Day.
- Dame na Watashi ni Koishite Kudasai. The title is pretty self-explanatory.


/Edit: Wait, was this poll trying to avoid smut? That might explain why my favourites weren't there. Hah!

This is hard. 7 Seeds, Nodame Cantabile, Cheese in the Trap, and Sakamichi no Apollon were all good series. I choose Nodame in the end because well, it's Nodame. Surprised to see 07-ghost as second most popular, since it is the least josei out of all the series.

I'm a little surprised that I've never actually read any of these series (barring 07-Ghost, which I dropped several chapters in because of how stale and generic it felt). Too bad Karneval didn't make the cut; that might just be my top josei at the moment.

I'm also a huge Zero-Sum fangirl and their (more modern) style of josei, as I've always been an action/fantasy/mystery kind of girl as opposed to a slice of life/romance/comedy fan. (Maybe oddly enough, I tend to gravitate more toward romance/comedy in shounen and seinen series and action/fantasy in shoujo and josei series. I guess it's just interesting to see how those genres are presented for the more "unexpected" demographics?)

7 Seeds has been on my wishlist for awhile, but I've been so hesitant to start it despite the great things I've heard because I was completely and utterly turned off by the author's Chicago and how confusing and unengaging I found it. It was quite awhile ago that I read it, but the experience was apparently so horrible that I get this haze of foreboding every time I think about it. -shudder-

Bokura no Kiseki is also on my wishlist and sounds right up my alley, so I should probably get a start on that. Nodame Cantabile sounds cute but is... so... freaking... long!! And I'll admit, I'm sort of turned off by long-running comedy series, as oftentimes, without a strong overarching plot, they tend to wear thin rather soon (see: Ouran High School Host Club). I've heard a lot of great things about Cheese in the Trap as well, and since I'm already on a webtoon binge lately...

But anyway, no vote from me this time because I haven't read any of these series.