Hrmmm...here are my reasons for not really liking shoujo (even though i write these damn tacky things myself in my own manga because I'm a sucker for gushy crap)

1. Why does someone always end up going camping, falling off a cliff and getting injured, missing for hours, gets found by their lover and shares long awkward moments until they finally make out and get caught at the best part? First off, why go camping?...that's not very romantic. (ie: Hana Kimi, Kodocha)

2. Love Triangles can go to hell. It's like the mangaka is saying to you, "Hey look, look over here! You like this character? Aren't they awesome? want them to get together? Yes? Yes? NO! Sorry. Here's the other character instead while i write off the other character to some random new significant other or make them go to some other country..."

3. I'm okay with a character being stupid, it happens. I just wish they weren't so dense and thick-headed. Although it makes for a good tension builder it's really upsetting. No one's ever THAT lacking in real life...at least i hope not.

4. Why do couples have a wedding as their happy ending? They're in high school. They're like...17/18 and they want to get hitched the second they get through graduation and the story ends there with their smiling faces. No! After you get married you most likely have to go through bunches of hardships and it's not so easy. Damn you shoujo manga, don't give young women false illusions! *tears*

*5. What is up with all those flowers Flowers EVERYWHERE! You can't even see the lovemaking because the flowers are in the way!! So many kinds...lilies, chrysanthemums, roses...they flood the page and haunt me in my dreams. Bouquet's don't spew out of every orifice when you're naked together >< . They distract my eyes and kill the lovey moment I'd been waiting 2-gazillion volumes to get to!! *more tears*

sigh... that is all... there are many more but they've been said quite often, plus I' dont mind them too much as long as the story has some kind of nice twist.

** For those who hate love triangles, read "Dice", it's a love SQUARE. It's a little obvious but it's cute and i had to second guess who the young feisty heroine gets which is a good thing.

I think you just answered your own question there.

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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."
-James Nicoll, can.general, March 21, 1992

Lets see, off the top of my head a couple are:
1) The childhood friend
2) The amnesia act
3) Tsundere female lead
4) The dense/utter idiot female lead
5) The rose symbology

Something that also happens is when there's a plot of some girl falling for some guy who's a robot or alien or something, then they love each other and because they love each other, the person turns human and they live happily ever after..... UGH!!! way to ruin good mangas.

Oh god when i mostly read shoujo mangas mostly in every one, the heroine and some group of people(including the guy she like) go to the beach -_- and WHY does the heroine always have TWO BEST FRIENDS in almost every shoujo i read its the same @_@

Last edited by souless_cat at 4:25 pm, May 29 2008

Bishies!!!! Although necessary to any romance shojo plot, I find bishies obnoxious. They're either Oh yea also the "I gotta make chocolates on valentines day." I wonder where that tradition spawned anyway.

I'm not sure if this has been mentioned but one of the shoujo cliches that REALLY SERIOUSLY annoy me is that the guy the main character is in love with is the most popular guy in school, AND happens to have this over-adoring fanclub which always have a motto along the lines of " the prince is to be SHARED by everyone ". So ofcourse when the main character starts going out or gets too close to the guy she gets bullied and the guy often rushes to her rescue, losing his temper with the fanclub... you know?
Whenever I see something like that, I just wanna bang my head on the table and ask those fanclub girls to get a life... I'm not sure if there are such things as fanclubs in Jap schools but where I'm from, girls aren't that crazy over guys.

Dont you dare mock the bishies!!! lol


The valentine's thing is a bit weird though.


I always forget about it ~

What are Bishies?

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Glados is a bitch. She made me kill the companion cube, the only friend I'll ever have. :cry:

Chibidoro-sama=Neko-freak

bishounens.


The pretty guys that people squeal about :3

oh. then bishies are the exact reason that I try to avoid Shoujo.

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Glados is a bitch. She made me kill the companion cube, the only friend I'll ever have. :cry:

Chibidoro-sama=Neko-freak

Yup....


and the exact reason I don't =D

they're just too unrealistic to me.

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Glados is a bitch. She made me kill the companion cube, the only friend I'll ever have. :cry:

Chibidoro-sama=Neko-freak

Isnt it wonderful?


lol

But they've invaded shounen too-just look at some of the more popular series.


I kind of find it cute when it's done right, but every manga I've seen seems to follow the "girl made some->boy rejects (by accident, on purpose, whatever)->mistake gets cleared up->boy gets" or if the girl is the type to not make, the boy still ends up with chocolate from her for some reason. How about a good spin? Christmas chapters are almost as bad for the same reason.


Same here-I've never even seen celebrity fan clubs that bad, forget about anything devoted to the hot guy* in school.
A phenom (one guy getting all the attention) I've only experienced in my tiny elementary/middle school anyway, and even then the guy wasn't nearly as popular as a shoujo prince.

Lately I'm finding the love-triangles in shonen to be more compelling than any of the ones I've seen in a shoujo manga lately. Usually I have a clear favorite with the boys (often 'cause the author has made the other one so boring/stale/unlikable) so I just think they're all idiots. What is with all the love at first /childhood friend nonsense? What about meeting someone/knowing 'em half your life, and I don't know-not wanting to sleep with them?

One of these days, I want the couple to actually kiss/sleep together/etc. on the school/beach trip that authors are so fond of. They annoy me mostly because they're almost always teasers. There are usually some great character development moments, but anything too interesting always gets cut off by other people walking in. The entire world has fabulous timing in shoujo manga-always coming in right before anything happens.