Recently fell in love with historical/ancient setting manga! I am looking for more, refreshing historical shoujos/josei where it's not all about romance and where not every other good-looking guy is head-over-heels for the girl! The girl has to be strong in personality, or she has to be the type who can grow up and mature through the series into a strong lead, no Mary Sue-type female lead please 🙂

Some examples of series that I really love in this category are: Koukyuu Days - Shichisei Kuni Monogatari, Joou no Hana, Dokuhime,Akatsuki no Yona, Bride of the Water God, and Basara. Does anyone have any other mangas to recommend?

I'm not a big fan of historical mangas, but here are the ones I know, some I read, some I haven't:
Red River
The Story of Saiunkoku (watch the anime for this one)
Ookami-heika no Hanayome
The Great Merchant Kim Manduk
Akatsuki no Aria

Some may not completely suit your request, but I still recommend them. I highly recommend this one too: Otoyomegatari- it fist your request perfectly, it has very elaborate art and well, breathtaking (well, romance is not really there though).

I'm in idol hell T.T

The first thing that comes to mind is Ichi.

Tales from the Land of Daughters - ShengNan's Story

you've read saver right?

you should read Ooku

[img]http://oi50.tinypic.com/1p7xj6.jpg[/img]

thanks for the suggestions guys! I'm already reading Ooku, and I've watched the Saiunkoku anime and read Saver as well. Hmm, anymore to recommend?

The only ones I have left to suggest aren't perfect fits. Nevertheless, they're quite good.

Sengoku Strays has a girl from the present going back to the Sengoku era.

The first thing that came to mind for me was Rurouni Kenshin... but it isn't a shoujo/josei, and the main character is male. However, if you somehow haven't read it, by all means do. It's phenomenal. Anyways I bring this up because Donten ni Warau is a shoujo apparently similar in genre and categories.

Sora wa Akai Kawa no Hotori realy good but realy loong

As an addition to other people's suggestions, I would add Yume no Shizuku, Ougon no Torikago and Kaze Hikaru.