I read a lot of shoujo and I realized there are a series of things that pop up in each and every shoujo manga. Some of the ones I could come up with are:

• Bully gang (or fan-club) against the main character (bonus creativity: best friend betrayal)
• Potential rape/sexual harassment of the main character
• Verbally abusive boyfriend with a heart of gold
  -Always one popular male (optional: heart-melting smile)
  -The adorable rejected guy you were rooting for even though you knew he'd lose
• Generally weak lead: pretty but not ridiculously popular OR normal looking with a talent OR a flat out Mary Sue
• Reverse harem/love triangle/polygon
• Little to no character growth

Any other ones? xD I guess for some discussion, why do you guys think that shoujo manga, which is so predictable in a lot of cases, stays so popular?

http://i.imgur.com/LxhWm.jpg (will reformat this some day…)

The last few shoujos I read involved a bunch of trivial secrets, all of which aggravate you since their was no real reason to keep the secrets a secret. 'Just because' secrets annoy me.

Yeah, the verbally abusive love interest with a heart of gold is definitely there 99% of the time, and just ONCE would I like to see the protagonist friend-zone his ass and go for the non-verbally abusive love interest - who also has a heart of gold. Ewww male tsundere is ewww.

Mascot characters. Examples: Tonari no Kaibutsu - Haru's cock. Hana-Kimi - Yujiro. Even when a former shoujo author starts doing a shounen series, their shall be mascot characters. Example: Open Sesame - Danjou's cock. Code Breaker - Puppy.

the one thing that comes to mind when I read these cliches: you read the wrong shoujos...
I guess the adorable/popular nice guy is often in there and most shoujos have weak leads, sorry but may I ask, were those mostly smutty shoujo's that you read? Because the rape/abuse thing isn't that common (at least not judging from what I read so far).

The reason it stays popular is because of the ones that aren't predictable and that are pretty well made. Though it's easier to find the bad cliched ones, I agree...

and there is a thread for this already:
Worst Shoujo Cliche!

in need of romance?
uncommon, sad, sweet

For the most part, they're the shoujo recommended to me. They are the really good art style but tend not to be smutty overall. I like to read josei or shoujo meant for the 16-18 crowd normally but there are only a handful of those I like and/or can find that are being scanlated.

And thanks, I looked back for a while to find something but it never popped up. 🙂 Thanks!

http://i.imgur.com/LxhWm.jpg (will reformat this some day…)

There is certainly one thing I notice a lot that really bothers me every time. Somehow, the main character and some girl are locked up in a room. The dude falls on the girl, at the same time in which the dude's crush opens the door to see. Of course, the dude's crush takes this the wrong way and runs away. Bleh, this scenario has been overdone too many times >_<

[img]http://i1080.photobucket.com/albums/j333/wutkyle811/misaki.png[/img]
[color=black]"It's just pure, mindless vandalism!" -Robert Sheehan[/color]

What is cliche? Calling mangas cliche. How many different scenarios can you have between a boy and girl, which is the typical topic of shoujo mangas. Try reading a different genre.