Within this blog I will be discussing what exactly is ‘shōjo’ and how does it function in anime. I will be mentioning Princess Mononke, Sasameki Koto, and Slow Start.
As mentioned in the previous blog anime contains a multitude of genres specifically directed at an audience. ‘shōjo’ or Shoujo refers to target teenage female readers and viewers “the transitional stage between infancy and maturity, and its admixture of sexlessness and budding eroticism” (Cavallaro, 2006).
However, at the same time, Shojo manga and anime’s main appeal is the teenage female as Dani Cavallaro points out that Japanese males are a significant number among the shojo audience (Cavallaro, 2006). It is through this, once again, an individual realises the vast expanse of the anime and manga medium.
Because while shojo can contain deeper more philosophical theories about the nature of life itself such as the anime Princess Mononoke, which attempts to depict humanities relationship with nature, and the difficulty of finding a balance between the two, as they battle each other the humans can be seen as honourable through the character Ashitaka who stands out as a human who wants to rebuild while at the same time as greedy seen through the depiction of jigo a character who would even blaspheme as he poses as a monk to gain an opportunity(Miyazaki, 1997). While nature can be majestic yet kind as we see Moro the wolf god who acts as an adoptive mother to the human San while at the same time not immune to corruption as seen through the boar god Nago (Miyazaki, 1997).
You can also find the kawaii sub-genre depicting female characters as cutely innocent and often shy in Slow Start the anime the main character Ichinose Hana is shy and along with other characters is cute, wears school uniforms, and just go about their day in a way that is cute (Hashimoto,2018). That’s the basis of the anime. No large growth no deeper meaning.
Still in the shojo subgenre one will also find shojo-ai a genre showing the “girls love” trope in which romance starts to form between female characters (Cheeky Kid, updated January 2018) like in the anime series Sasameki Koto or Whispered Words where main characters Sumika and Ushio evolve their longstanding friendship into a relationship (Suganuma, 2009). The audience watches the relationship evolve and imagines a world where two female characters love can be accepted in 2009 japan when in 2019 the OECD society at a glance still shows japan as having an overall low acceptance of LGBT people (OECD, 2019).
To bring this blog to a close shojo refers to young females in regards to anime and manga it refers to the target audience of young females and they do attempt to appeal to their audience however connected to the targeted young female is also a large group of male consumers. I believe one could probably conclude this can be both true because the shojo subgenre has many branching subgenres from it such as kawaii, shoujo-ai, and many more not mentioned in my blog.
References
Cavallaro, D. (2006). Introduction. in the anime art of hayao miyazaki (pp.5-13). London: McFarland & Company
Hashimoto, Y(dir). (2018). Slow start. Japan: Tokyo MX, GYT, GTV, BS11, TVA, KTV
McFarland & Company.Cheeky Kid (auth). (updated January 2018). A complete list of anime genres with explanations. Retrieved from https://reelrundown.com/animation/Anime-Genre-List
Miyazaki, H (dir). (1997). Princess Mononoke. Japan: Toho
OECD. (2019). Society at a glance 2019: how does japan compare?. Retrieved from https://www.oecd.org/japan/sag2019-japan-en.pdf
Suganuma, E (dir). (2009). Whispered Words. Japan: TV Tokyo
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