I'm looking for examples of what people consider to be typical shoujo manga, good or bad.

I'm preparing a presentation on non-typical shoujo manga. My premise is that people who don't read it have preconceptions that are not always true. I've already found a lot of great opinions on why people don't like shoujo from this thread - "Why do you not read Shoujo Manga", by Tiffany who was doing the same thing. What I need now are specific titles.

Please tell me what titles you think of as typical of shoujo manga, with your comments. It doesn't matter whether you've read them, just what you think of when or if you think of 'shoujo'. I'd also like to know if you consider 'typical' to be a good or bad thing.

Take my survey here. It's only ten questions, and if you want you can skip the questions asking for titles if you've answered in this thread.

I didn't post this in shoujo because I want to also get opinions from people who dislike it, so moderators, please don't move it.

Thank you very much.

Edit for clarification - 'shoujo' by demographic of magazine they are published in, as defined here on this site.

Last edited by scarletrhodelia at 2:23 pm, Aug 4 2014

done

for me typical shoujo is a regular school life romance without much depth. And pretty much all the regular cliches (which ones depending on the premise, like student-teacher/senpai/etc.)

that doesn't really mean it's bad. just, well, average...

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typical shoujo: your regular, average highschool girl falls for the hottie and somehow he loves her back. Insert cliches, add tonnes of doki doki moments to make the reader go 'kyaah' and there you have it, your average shoujo manga.

I basically agree with Lorska's definition (minus the school life setying, perhaps, though it is pretty common)

"that doesn't really mean it's bad. just, well, average..." <- could not have said it better

I think it's hard to define 'typical' shoujo manga - since there truly is a large amount of variation between works and authors. It's like asking people to define what a 'typical' person is like. I always think it's a shame when I see people commenting on a bad shoujo series and saying something like 'this is the first shoujo I read, and it taught me to hate shoujo'. No, man.

But I guess if you base a definition on clichés found in the genre -

The best example that I can think of is Good Morning Call. Excessively boring manga formed almost entirely out of cliché and no original elements whatsoever. It has a sequel called Good Morning Kiss that probably isn't much better.

Some others that are pretty cliché:

Marmalade Boy
Rocking Heaven
Aishiteruze Baby

And then you have shoujo smut cliché, which would be awful stuff like Desire Climax.

Last edited by hkanz at 2:51 pm, Aug 3 2014

A typical shoujo to me is pretty much an innocent romance between a not-so-perfect girl and a beyond-perfect guy with lots of cliched moments, but there are plenty of shoujo manga that deviate from the norm. I've read shoujo for a long time so I tend to avoid typical shoujo manga.

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Ok, I just want to ask for a clarification: when you say shojo are you just asking about content or serialization?
The reason I ask this is because a lot of manga might seem shojo, or shonen, or seinen, etc, etc, but the magazine they are being serialized is not what it seems, and so even though it could be a really sappy romance that people think is a shojo, it might be a josei or something.

I took the survey you linked to, and some of the series I've liked are classified as shojo because of the magazine that publish them, but they might not fit the typical "shojo" mold, for example Trinity Blood, X was really bloody, even though it ran in a shojo magazine for girls of around 11-13 years old? or for a short while Yumekui Kenbun was serialized in a shojo magazine before it moved to a shonen.

Now to answer the actual question:
A typical shojo for me is the one where the girl is a complete idiot and a klutz to boot, where the unbelievably hot, super smart and perfect-in-every-way-guy inexplicably falls for her. Of course this leads to all his crazy fangirls to become murderous b*tches, because the main character apparently is the only good looking guy in school, and all the other guys are ugly abominations or something.

The majority of shoujo I've read are typical or average in quality, like Lorska said. But the word typical does carry a bit of a negative stigma, so I wouldn't really say typical shoujo is great. That's just a case of semantics, though. I'm more or less indifferent to it.

Anyhow, I think manga with atypical quality has a limited selection regardless of genre.
I'd perhaps consider around 10% of manga is excellent, 15% great, 10% bad, 10% horrible and 55% average.
When applied to shoujo, the 55% would fall into the 'typical' category, where, observed from what I've read, the heroine may be:
intellectually dumb, emotionally overreactive, blushes a lot, childish, supposedly has some special personality trait that makes up for being average everywhere else, flat chested, naive about 18+ activities
And if it's romance the love interest may be:
cold, playboy/former playboy, 'kind' deep down/privately, out of heroine's league, has a snooty family, effortlessly smart, dates a mean witch, 'teases' heroine, the most attractive guy, has a troubled/dangerous life or past into which the heroine gets dragged, possessive
The setting seems to usually be:
school, a fantasy world, historical, or a mixture of the three. And the art ordinary.

As for the A-typical shoujo manga - it may still have some of those qualities, but the mc will work through troubles and faults and there is character and plot development. Some sort of original element is present. Trying to think of other valued qualities that buoy a manga out of the typical/average range...

Great survey and topic.

A typical shoujo for me is one that has high school elements, some times cute romance scenes, and for some reason a love triangle at some point in the story. They at times also include magical aspect.

I think that the most well known shoujo is Sailor Moon mostly because of the old anime.

^That is my definition of a typical shoujo too, and I usually avoid that type too. Also done the survey.

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In case it helps, here's a link to "Worst Shoujo Cliche!" http://https://www.mangaupdates.com/showtopic.php?page=1& tid=977

I think I have different ways to define "typical" shoujo.

There's the bad "typical" shoujo
- Emotionally weak female lead, dumb, and okay looking.
Hottest guy in school, mostly smartest too male lead.
For some reason they go out or like each other, but oh no the female lead is making mountains out of molehills and causes some huge misunderstanding. The world is over for the female lead. Lots of crying.
Male lead clears misunderstanding after a lot of headache inducing scenes.
(The above is for really short ones. For longer ones the above repeats along with the below.)
Next hottest guy, and sexiest/smart girl is brought in to produce love triangles. Nothing happens with the sexy girl, but there's a "They look so much better together" and most likely a misunderstanding somewhere. The other hot guy, he enhances the female lead's insecurities. Get closer to her, and steals a kiss or something that the male lead usually sees, or ends up saving her from.
Oh, I forgot damsel in distress. That seems to be very "typical" in bad shoujo.



The other side when I think "typical" shoujo
- Doey eyed female lead who's either really strong, really weak, or really plain. (Never really "normal")
Male lead who's hot, either most popular, or secretly hot.
School setting, fluff, cute, loads of cliches. Lot of "my heart is beating faster" and "why is there pain in my heart" sort of thing going on.


I took the survey, and listed some manga there. I hope I helped.

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Survey taken.

Typical shoujo for me:

Plain, insecure girl falls for

a) the most popular guy in school, who's usually a jerk

b) a delinquent who later on becomes the most popular guy in school when everyone realizes he's not as scary as he looks

c) a "prince", literally or figuratively.

Lots of melodrama ensues.

Well, I avoid these titles. Sadly they make up the majority of the translated ones.

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Wow, so many responses so quickly! Thanks very much for all the replies, and especially to those who took the survey. All of these answers are helpful, and I really appreciate it.

I'm seeing a clear trend here with the definitions. Still looking for more specific titles to fit those definitions! So if you haven't weighed in here or on the survey, please offer up your opinions.

That's it exactly. I hope to conclude that there is no such thing as 'typical'.Ugh, I read the whole thing thinking there had to be something that would eventually happen. Wasn't about to get suckered into the sequel.

Serialization. If it's in a magazine for girls, it's shoujo, period end of story. It drives me crazy when someone recommends a shoujo with an apology saying it's "technically shoujo" but doesn't "feel" like shoujo. Thanks for the question, edited top post.

I think I'm going to cite Sturgeon's Law - 90% of everything is crap. Shoujo as a whole is not worse - or better - than shounen, or seinen, or josei. IMO

Again, thanks to everyone! I'll be working on this for the next couple of weeks, so until then...