I know there are shoujo that have a guy as the main character such as DNAngel, but how is Koko wa Greenwood a shoujo?

I don't know how one can tell that a shoujo with a guy as a main character is indeed a shoujo. I guess plot elements and what magazine it was published in are the only way to help caterogize it? Because it was published in Hana to Yume (magazine several other shoujo titles).

I guess the main character is a guy instead of a girl, and it's suppose to be shoujo, is messy business distinguishing that it's a shoujo. xD (Yep, yep, I'm even confused too!)

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The art style is definitely more shoujo-ish, and even though the main characters are all guys the story fits with the usual shoujo (high school relationships, romance, relatively little action/fighting, etc.). There's also the gender-bender & shounen-ai aspect of it, which is quite shoujo. Most of the stories that run in Hana to Yume are *very* shoujo, though there are a few that aren't (Kaori Yuki's stuff, for example, runs more towards horror, at least by my standards).

Even though Koko wa Greenwood may not quite fit the shoujo stereotypes, it fits better there than any other category I can think of.

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"[English] not only borrows words from other languages; it has on occasion chased other languages down dark alley-ways, clubbed them unconscious and rifled their pockets for new vocabulary."
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Cause the translators and the scanlator actually read it and decide it's a shoujo? I have seen plenty shoujo with guys as main characters. Not all shoujo are the stereotype types consisted of a miserable girl who is in love with some guy.

Why is there even a need to try and distinguish some manga what type it is. There are mangas which abit of this and bit of that, a mixture.

It's not Shounen, I bet you that.

Perhaps you're a bit angry that I ask why this title seems to be a shoujo. And as for this "seen plenty shoujo with guys as main characters" I don't count the guy the girl is in love with as the starring character or necessarily the focus. I believe it's fair to think that shoujo up to 99% of the time will have the main character is a young girl because that's the audience tends to read it and it is aimed at (I've heard some guys say they read it too, and I'm not shocked or surprised by that news).

Also, in I thnk the Best Shoujo thread, there was someone asking for a shoujo starring a male character. Along with DNAngel, there were only a few titles mentioned.

And "miserable girl" wouldn't necessarily be the stereotypical girl. If Sailor Moon, at least the anime, would be considered the "typical shoujo" the girl isn't totally miserable, but pretty close to hyper.


So you mean it's wrong to caterogize it? Or is it because I question that this title is a shoujo because a guy is the main character.


Maybe, maybe not.

But thank you for making it seem like I wanted to pick a fight rather than a discussion. (Yes, I was aiming for the latter.)

Last edited by Takiko at 3:56 pm, Apr 6 2007

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My avatar was Yves Saint Laurent's The Black Evening Dress (with big bow) first shown in 1983, photographed from his 2002 retrospective and final show. [color=#CC0066]Check out some of his collections for free (pre-2008) HERE[/color] courtesy of FirstView.

God, this discussion is like time-travelling 10 years to 1997.

It's shoujo because it ran in Hana to Yume. END OF STORY. Why, you ask? Because the author and editors decide which magazines to run stories in, based on the artwork and content. Yes, guys read shoujo and girls read shounen, but when it comes to marketing, if it runs in a magazine with tampon ads, it's aimed at girls. Can this "aim" hit guys too? Sure, but it's not initially marketed towards them, and that's what categorizes it as shoujo.

I wouldn't say there are a ton of shoujo manga with male main charas, but lessee... other than Greenwood...
* DNAngel
* Angel Sanctuary
* Pet Shop of Horrors (yes, it's shoujo/josei... a LOT of psychological horror manga runs in the chick mags. Does this mean it's unmanly to like it? Not at all.)
* Megami Kouhousei
* X/1999
* xxxHolic
* Tsubasa Chronicle
* Banana Fish <3
* Kaikan Phrase (well... more or less. especially the anime, the manga less so.)
* all yaoi/shounen-ai of course XD

Honestly, I don't read a ton of shoujo and my tastes are mostly kind of old, but I'm sure there are more. I'd tend to agree that a majority of shoujo titles have a female main character (there are actually way more shounen/seinen titles with female mains, even if it is just for fanservice reasons), but it certainly doesn't mean they all do. You know what happens when you assume!

A lot of the CLAMP manga you named there is shounen. o__O;

Shoujo manga are manga that target female >_> as which it does not matter what sex is the main character. We can say shoujo smut should be rated as ecchi o.o but then shoujo smut targeting for desperate women, we can also say some works like Mars should be seinen o.o but it is targeting the business women not men.

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Detective Horror Series

Tracker BakaBT

Tsubasa Chronicle is shonen.

xxxHolic and Megami Kouhousei is seinin.