I don't know about panel design, but I do find the "typical" shoujo style to be a bit grating and hard on the eyes.

By typical, I mean the flowery, cutesy, disproportionate kind of shoujo that was purposefully drawn with "pretty" characters and "handsome" boys to appeal to young teenage girls in the 10-14 year old range (I'm guessing). However, I tend not to read those because the stories are too shallow.

I don't have a problem with josei since the art tends to be more simple and if not realistic at least more proportionately correct.

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i hate, detest, revile, and seriously want to murder modern shoujo. i feel sick when i read it(except for a very few exceptions ) as none of them actually take care in desiging and organizing panels. and the art is really bad. really, really bad. there are panels everywhere and yeah, its a 'clusterfuck' of retardedness.
now, old shoujo, on the other hand- the art is pretty good(i like the candy style for some reason) and the stories dont really have cliches in them. and the panels are nice too-but another reason why i hate shoujo manga is because it turned me off pretty boys. in manga and real life.
now who am i supposed to like? strong, manly boys arent my type. i guess i'll have to turn lesbian
i dont really like action manga panels/art because i can never tell who is shooting who

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Huh. Never noticed really.
I read a lot more shoujo before reading some shounen so I guess it was like going from something to harder to something easier?

As for the poll. I am a female who has no problem with panels whatsoever in either genre, and do not "deal with" anything. As well I do not consume everything because there is such a wide variety there is no need.


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Hey, there aren't many manga series that don't have big eyes. It's kind of a characteristic of the medium. Shounen and seinen series you see now that have slightly more realistic eyes are going against the trend.
Tezuka Osamu's Disney-esque art did play a part in this, but Japanese popular art pretty much all had crazy big eyes after World War I, especially shoujo art (as in art in girls' books and magazines), and these artists played a bigger part in forming the modern shoujo style than did Tezuka, in my opinion.
Check out this image. Kind of looks a lot like those 1970s melodramatic shoujo stories, right? But it was published around World War II.
What Tezuka did was popularize manga, not invent it.

I'm not voting because the poll is crap. I find most shounen paneling ugly and dull. Maybe you devour manga "'like a fat kid in starvation'" if you speed through so quickly you can't be bothered to figure out how to read panels.

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lol you guys are so knowledgeable. umm nah most shoujo mangas actually don't have big eyes. I am just saying that the ones that do irritate me.


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I have defiantly noticed clusterfuck.
but not really in the titles you mentioned.
In fact Fruits basket is one of my most favorite paneling styles, because of the spreads the picture bleeds and the very intentional way things are placed.
love com is in my opinion very easy to read.
Skip beats paneling is insane. I can not defend it.


Actually i just finished a josei/yuri that had fascinating paneling that i'm sure you would hate. called Love My Life. take a look let me know what you think!

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The panel design in shoujo doesn't bother me at all.
Of all the manga I've read only thought a few were hard to follow because of the art and panelling. I see how sometimes the panels can get crazy messy, but I don't things theres anything wrong with going outside the usual rectangle format.
In fact, if done right it can create good and interesting effects.
In this example, I think the panel arrangement enhances the movement of falling.
I suppose the only thing that really bothers me is when there is a lack of background. I dislike when I don't even get a sense of location and it looks like the characters are stuck in some screentone time warp.

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[Url=http://goo.gl/WMSVJ] k'><u>Looking for... shoujo with a canned peach confession.</u></a><!--url_type_2_end--><BR><!--url_type_2--><a href='<!--Auto_parse_begin--><a target='_blank' rel='nofollow' href='http://www.antimoon.com/how/pronunc-soundsipa.htm''><u>http://www.antimoon.com/how/pronunc-soundsipa.htm'</u></a><!--Auto_parse_end--> target='_blank'><u>Don't English Me I'm Panic</u></a><!--url_type_2_end--><BR><!--url_type_4.5--><a href='<!--Auto_parse_begin--><a target='_blank' rel='nofollow' href='http://www.mangaupdates.com/showtopic.php?tid=3839'><u>Guess'><u>http://www.mangaupdates.com/showtopic.php?tid=3839'><u>Guess</u></a><!--Auto_parse_end--> the Manga/Anime Name</u></a><!--url_type_4_end--><BR>'Shojo manga has no boundaries, and never did!’ -Shimizu Reiko, Himitsu - Top Secret fanbook interview

lol...someone's mad Well I apologize if you feel offended but just for clarification sake...bashing Shoujo/Josei manga has never been my intention when I've decided to create this topic...instead it was made for the sole purpose of personal research. Maybe you missed out on certain details of my original post but the main reason for creating a poll was this:



so it wasn't meant to gather general data (on the art/panel)...more of a specific kind. Therefore participation for those that have no issue at all with the art/panel isn't necessary. If it wasn't so...I would have entitle the topic differently. Although I later realized that the poll title itself is in a general manner so that was my fault...can't edit it so it's too late.

Just fyi I take my sweet time when going through every single page of a manga...almost as if I'm reading through a picture book - enjoying every bit of the details as I move along...from the scenery to the characters/objects.

Last edited by tt147 at 11:53 pm, Apr 21 2010

Shoujo art in general is pretty generic and formulaic. I believe that there are only 3 types of shoujo art styles in the world.

All shoujos use one of the 3 art styles. Very rare exceptions.

Shounen art looks much better, detailed, more variety and more organized. Shounen mangas usually have panels on every page but in shoujo, some times half the page has a giant portrait of a character that's "on top" of the panels.

im a girl, btw..

and no.. i dont really judge by the art when i read seine because i am always too into the story to really notice much...

but when i am reading shoujo.. i can notice that there isnt much background at its like all about your face, my face, what you say, what i say... which is kindda annoying and it kindda makes it boring for me... ahem*Charisma Doll*ahem...

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GUESS WHO??

I think the problem... is because of all those restrictions placed on Shoujo mangaka... most of them probably have little say over what they can write, how they can draw and so on. That's why a lot of female mangaka ran over to Josei, Shounen, Seinen, Boys' Love and other types of genres or demographics where they have more freedom to explore and more creative liberty.

After all, the publishers are mostly interested in milking the younger demographics, to earn as much as possible and also, I don't think the mangaka dare to defy them 'cos their careers could be crushed, with all their works removed from publication for good and also be banned from creating manga for life.




Wow, I didn't know that at all. Thanks for enlightening me.

Last edited by VampireBanana at 3:14 pm, Apr 22 2010

So it seems that you really don't want to hear from anyone who disagrees with your premise. I think it's a shame, because if you think that all shoujo/josei has bad art/panel design, then I think you've either not read enough or read the wrong things. There is a lot of amazing and well-designed shoujo art.

Fruits Basket, for example. One scene intercuts the current action with flashbacks to the past, a recent phone conversation, and another scene that just happened. While it might appear confusing at first reading, it reveals itself to be sophisticated and effective storytelling that delivers the scene with more emotional impact than it would have had just told sequentially.

Hot Gimmick, another example. The reaction shots are so well executed that they add an extra dimension to the story, often showing us that a character is thinking something other than what their words and actions are saying. In one of my favorite scenes, we can see the thought processes of one of the characters by the way in which the panels are presented.

I'm not suggesting that you should read more shoujo/josei -- it's probably just not for you. I'm saying that maybe you've formed your opinion from too narrow a sample.
These are all shoujo or josei:
Antique Bakery
Cantarella
God Child
Ludwig Kakumei
Saiyuki Reload
Tokyo Crazy Paradise
Yami no Matsuei

Not a big-eyed schoolgirl among them.

This poll is severely limited in plausible options. For instance, I find that there's an actual method to that madness in the paneling of shoujo and Josei comics. Maybe it also helps if you've grown up reading comics from right to left because I've never had any of these "issues" at all, and I don't eat manga like a starving kid.

As for the backgrounds being "simple" and "dry", you really have to get a taste of artists like George Asakura (the background scenes in Oboreru Knife and Piece of Cake are omg!worthy), Ikuemi Ryo and Iketani Rikako.

I don't believe all shoujo/josei is good, but I'm going to have to agree with another poster that said you may be reading all the wrong ones.

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I have no qualms with the panel arrangement, I don't pay much attention to it though.