Rija Faisal
What is the ‘shōjo’ and how does it often function in anime?What is the ‘shōjo’ and how does it often function in anime?
Shojo is a specific genre in Japanese comics and in animated films. Shojo means “young women”. The term is usually used to refer to girls aged twelve and thirteen. Shojo can also refer to young girls making the transition from childhood to adolescence, and the word can also symbolically refer to the changes one goes through, from childhood to adulthood, powerlessness to power and innocence to awareness.
In Japanese manga, the Shojo genre is primarily aimed at a young female audience, for instance, teenage girls, and it is characterized by the focus it places on romantic and personal relationships.
The Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki uses the concept of shojo in his works as a way of portraying female characters who are strong. His shojo girls are portrayed as very independent and are often quite assertive. Strong female characters give young girls an idol image to look up to, providing them with a sense of power and leadership.
Miyazaki’s female characters are also very ‘shojo’ in their physical appearance. Take the heroin of the Japanese animated film Spirited Away: Chihiro. At the beginning of the movie, Chihiro is portrayed as a typical little girl. She embodies what we can call the stereotypical image of the Japanese ‘shojo’ girl. She is young, cut and sexually innocent. Through her experiences and the time she spends in the fantasy world, Chihiro comes across and interacts with different characters, she grows as a character and becomes ‘mature’ in a sense, reaching a new level of understanding and self-confidence that previously may not have been there.
So Miyazaki’s female heroins display the ‘shojo’ traits in their age, cuteness, innocence, their love for cute animals, etc, but at the same time, they are also endowed with the more ‘masculine’ characteristics: Courageous, adventurous, assertive, etc.
Miyazaki’s females experience and go through a progression. He uses the stereotypical image of the ‘shojo’ girl to mould and shape his characters into stronger, more ‘developed’ versions of themselves.
References:
Freda Freiberg (July 2006) Miyazaki’s Heroines Senses of Cinema. Retrieved from: https://www.sensesofcinema.com/2006/uncategorized/miyazaki-heroines/
Pop Genres 2020 