Shoujo manga discussion thread

Oh man, I completely forgot about this series, but if you like realistic drama, please read Mars by Fuyumi Souryu. This manga is just awesome.

If you want epic and funny in a shoujo manga, please read Don't Cry, Girl. I'm serious. Best shoujo manga I've ever read. How can I describe it? It gave me hope.

I just finished reading Chapter 1, and I'm already in love with this manga. Thank you for this amazing recommendation, OtomeGamer.

This manga just made my life.

T-thank you for showing me this (ノ＞▽＜)

AHAHHAH. This is fabulous. brb. dying of laughter.

Thank you for this recommendation! It was awesome!

This was awesome (need..more...), but I'm still so conflicted about which male character I like the best! What do.

I thought I was burnt out of cross-dressing shoujo manga after reading series like Hanakimi and W Juliet, but this series proved that I was totally wrong. For some reason, I found it refreshing and fun. There's just something about it. Also, my favorite characters are

.

I read all of this I could find over the weekend. For the first few chapters I wasn't sure if I liked it, but towards the end I was like, OH MY GOD.

I've started reading Oresama Teacher and it's really enjoyable. It's just a whole bunch of funny, goofy fun. And I love Mafuyu, she's awesome.

For people who've read it, I pretty much lost it when this thing happened:

Hayasaka, you so silly.

Oh my god I am a sucker for shoujo, good shoujos even more so. I have a whole list of to-reads, and. . . well, after this thread it's even longer now.

Anyway, I'd like to throw out my short list of recommended shoujo, too, plus my very enthusing descriptions.

Orange (Takano Ichigo) - One day, Naho receives a letter from ten years in the future, written by her 27-year-old self. The content accurately details the next few days of her life, such as transfer student Kakeru. In the letter, her older self tells her 16-year-old self that her biggest regret is that Kakeru is no longer with them in the future, and asks her to watch him closely.
This is actually really sad. But also incredibly heartwarming.
Also Suwa is the best guy oh god oh god oh god I cried. Unfortunately, it seems like the author is on hiatus. . .

Hajimari no Niina - Niina has the memories of her past self as a girl named Chitose.
Forewarning, there's a fifteen years age difference between Niina and her love interest. And this is also another sad-touching story. Especially when it got to the familial stuff.

Tomodachi no Hanashi - Plain girl Eiko and popular girl Moe are best friends. Moe will only go out with boys if they promise to put Eiko before her.
My only gripe with this was that it was too short. Apparently there's still one more chapter left to be translated, but it's unrelated to this story. Anyway, I really liked the progression in this and enjoyed seeing how the characters developed. Actually, I do wish there was more focus on the first boy but, ah.

Tonari no Kaibutsu-kun - Studybug Shizuku finds herself stuck when her eccentric classmate, Haru, claims they are friends.
Fun story with really nice art. A little bit of a twist on the main characters of a shoujo, but their flip-flopping can get a little frustrating.

Not exactly sure if it counts as a shoujo, but the art is fairly cutesy and the plot is dramatic and Marika is otome as fuck, so I recommend Bokura no Hentai.
... I wish it had a less embarrassing title
For something lighter and fluffier, Yotteke! Otoko Mura and Yandere Kanojo are really funny~!

These beautiful things...how do you keep finding them?

To be fair, in Japan, Hentai means pervert, not 18+ Anime/Manga/Game.

Recently I read Marmalade Boy.

Did you like it?

Thoughts?

It was a lot better drawn than most of the shoujo manga I have read in my life. The story had low points but it was funny and awesome.

If you like the art, I suggest Mint na Bokura and Ultra Maniac by the same mangaka. I recall the former being very funny.

Very well then.

I've been meaning to get into Marmalade Boy. The premise was so ridiculous it sold itself to me.

It's also better in that the protagonist hears her parents' plan and is like, WAT?

Exactly.

If you guys like more "pure" shoujo, try +Anima (no romance though), Akagami no Shirayuki, Oresama Teacher (not much romance here either), and Last Game. So sweet that my tooth aches from thinking about them.

Marmalade Boy is a case where the source material - the manga is a lot more subdued than the very popular anime. I haven't watched the anime, but from what I understood, it's aimed at an older audience, and can get infamously melodramatic. Many of the major plot beats are the same between the manga and anime, but the anime handled them in a different way, and also added more characters, more plot twists, more "stuff" in general (because it came out faster than the manga).

The success of the anime also forced the manga to drag. It's a simple story for younger girls, and really should have been shorter.

Oh my god. Don't watch the anime. It drags. a lot. It's 52 episodes, whole lot of crying and I hated protag-chan after that.

The parents were pretty lolwhat. HAI GUYS. we went on holidays and came back and swapped spouse. The kids handled it surprisingly well.

Yeah, I tried watching the anime and gave up and tried looking for the manga but only found it recently, so!

I just read Koe no Katachi. It's a one-shot, but I really enjoyed it and its punches to the feels.

As a warning, bullying is a theme in it if that is a sensitive topic for anyone.

This isn't really that I want a shoujo per se, it would in fact probably be a shounen, but I really, really want a softball manga :(

You could totally have a sports shoujo. There's one on basketball, volleyball, and uh. ... Damn, I forgot the name. You jump over a bar? Whatever, there's one on that. I'm also pretty sure there's a shoujo on soccer.

So yeah, they're a rare breed, but they exist! And a softball manga would be interesting, actually.

High jump. :)

Just googling for "softball shoujo" brought up a couple things like Hybrid Berry, but I haven't read any of them and can't comment on the quality.

Does anyone have any pure fluff-type shoujo to recommend? They don't have to be earth-shattering in terms of plot, but I just want something that leaves a good feeling after I'm done reading it instead of the typical jealousy/misunderstanding/anger shoujo fare.

Kimi ni Todoke is the cutest, most feel-good manga I have ever read that was not actually about kittens.



Granted, like most shoujo it runs almost entirely on misunderstandings between people, but without nearly so much of the jealousy and anger and hurt feelings and nigh-endless sulking and grudge-holding that usually comes with it, because the two leads are incredibly nice people who actively want to believe the best of those around them. Sawako's wide-eyed sense of wonder at every new way she manages to connect with other people is endlessly precious, and Kazehaya is the nicest most-popular-boy-at-school you ever saw, so the whole thing is basically sheer unadulterated adorable.

What I like most about it is that even though it's all about a socially awkward girl trying to learn how to make friends, Sawako never has to change any of the things that make her who she is in order to meet anyone else's standards. It's more about making herself understood to others so that they can appreciate her unique qualities, which may be why the misunderstandings don't frustrate me as they normally would - learning to understand each other is basically the main theme.

It's not completed, but I love Akagami no Shirayuki. No jealousy/misunderstanding/anger, and very fluffy. There's some unrequited love, but it's for a side character and he never mentions it to the heroine. Poor Obi. :(

The plot is basically about a girl with rare red hair who becomes a castle pharmacist for a prince (they're both in love with each other). There's no real overarching plot, but it's more of them solving problems in the prince's land with the assistance of the girl. The art is very cute. :)

trapezium: I second the recommendation for Kimi ni Todoke, but I was hesitant to recommend it as I often hear people really dislike its slow pace style, and the misunderstandings. However, it's the best feel-good manga to me, to the point where its anime OP is one of the songs that will cheer me up because I'd get reminded of Sawako and her adorableness.

While on search for something similar to Kimi ni Todoke, when I came across sukitte ii na yo, Mei the main character is fairly straightforward girl which is refreshing. There's also Akagami no Shirayuki, Eensy Weensy Monster and Ultra Maniac. Try for one shot or one volume manga, there's usually less room for drawn out drama and more for fluff. I also recommend Lovely Complex for its hilarity <3

I'd like a reimagining of Ranma 1/2 as a shoujo.

For fluff, I'll throw out Taiyou no Ie. The art's really cute, Mao is really cute, etc. And even though there's the underlying tragedy throughout due to the characters' situations, it's still very heartwarming. Also, family plays a big part in everything.
Also, Ore ga Akuma de, Aitsu ga Yome de. Demon Anzam finally makes his first contract with a human; a young girl named Uika. And her wish is . . . that he'd marry her.



Anyway, more general recommendations because I can;
Male protagonist edition.

Ore Monogatari!! - One morning on the train to school, Takeo saves a girl named Yamato from a molester. Is this the start of his love story?
Just the fact that Takeo is . . . well, Takeo, and the protagonist of this manga makes for a refreshing story. Plus, his best friend, Sunagawa, is an ultra bro.

Men's Kou - Following the various love stories of the students at Seihou High School, an all-boys school.
It goes from heartrenching to gutbusting, honestly. There were a few times I actually had to stop and just laugh. The first volume is a bit typical, but I definitely think it picks up after that.
Oh, and as you can imagine, the humour can be a bit vulgar.

Akuma ga Kitarite - A short and sweet oneshot. Ruiji is in love with Wakatsuki, but she's absolutely terrified of him. He writes her a love letter everyday but never sends them.
Super cute and I think the ending was very suiting.

Joyful Days? - Another oneshot. Keigo has a crush on his friend, Arai, and tries to make her fall in love with him.
This was just. . . cute. Especially the protagonist. I also found some scenes to be especially well executed.



Anyway, does anyone else have any shoujo romance with a male lead recommendations (BL aside)? I'd really like to read more myself.

Shoujo by definition is manga aimed towards 10 ~ 15 year old girls, so it'd be pretty difficult to find something like that I think. Otomen was the first that came into mind, a boy who likes girly things. Then Mint na Bokura which had a boy enrolling into a new school as a girl (it's a boarding school, and the male dorms were full?) in order to look out for his twin sister.

Not shoujo, but Pretty Face could be of interest as well.

I clearly don't read enough shoujo.

Yeah, that's why I'm interested in finding more male lead shoujo romances since they aren't that common. I mean, there are a lot of shoujo with male leads out there that have nothing to do with romance. I should probably just read shounen romances or something. But shoujo bubbles make me feel all warm and fuzzy on the inside.

I'm not that fond of genderbending, but I'll check Mint out.

Thank you for the recommendations!

W Juliet is now and always will be my favorite manga. It's entertaining and sweet with minimal angst/misunderstandings as well as being one of the few genderbenders I like :D

Thanks for the rec! I don't know why, but I just laughed so hard...

...My sense of humour seems to respond to random wacky shit happening. Like a bird head appearing on the rooftops out of nowhere.

So, having not much going on this weekend, I decided to marathon Princess Tutu. It's a silly series about a ballerina that's a duck that's also a magical girl. It will surely be simply and silly and fluffy and have no unexpected twists nor utterly break my heart, yeah?

haha
ha
sobbing

So happy
So sad

I'm just going to curl up in a ball and sob for the next week.

Will you dance with me, Phoenicity-san?

And now I found out that the best/most popular Princess Tutu AMV is set to a Swedish song: