February 2018 – I Have a Heroine Problem

This Week
Black Bird vol. 18 (conclusion!)
Boys Over Flowers vol. 16
Dawn of the Arcana vol. 13 (conclusion!)
The Demon Prince of Momochi House vol. 10
Dengeki Daisy vol. 9
A Devil and Her Love Song vol. 8

So… much… data…

I’ll keep this short, because this installment is already long enough.

Two series finish this week, one that I’ll miss and one that I definitely won’t. In the past, when series wrapped up, I just posted the total points for wrap-up. But I’ve been taking much more granular data than that, counting up how many instances of different forms of abuse occur. And this week, as I finished up Black Bird, a series that has been a thorn in my side since the very start, I thought, “What’s the point of that granularity if I don’t actually do anything with it?”

Continue reading “Abusive Relationships in Shoujo Manga by the Numbers: Week 18” →

This Week
Black Bird vol. 17
Boys Over Flowers vol. 15
Dawn of the Arcana vol. 12
The Demon Prince of Momochi House vol. 9
Dengeki Daisy vol. 8
A Devil and Her Love Song vol. 7

Prestige Shoujo

Have y’all checked out Children of the Whales yet? Netflix is still holding the anime hostage, but the first volume of the manga is out in English. It’s good, solid fantasy that builds up a world I’m interested in exploring more, with an interesting magic system and plenty of mystery. The character writing is a little stiff, but the intrigue more than makes up for it.

It’s also the first shoujo series to be published under the Viz Signature line. For the uninitiated, Viz has a few imprints: Shojo Beat for their shoujo titles; Shonen Jump for, well, Shonen Jump; Viz Select for smaller digital releases; and Viz Signature, which they define as “Bringing classic and cutting-edge graphic novels to an audience of discerning readers hungry for sophisticated stories and superlative art.” This is great, except the line reminds me more of the tastes of old-school comic book guys that blocked shoujo out of the US manga scene for much of the 80’s and 90’s. Yes, it does have some complex, challenging series, such as the various works of Naoki Urasawa and Inio Asano. But, other than a couple of Fumi Yoshinaga works and Children of the Whales, it’s almost universally seinen.

Continue reading “Abusive Relationships in Shoujo Manga by the Numbers: Week 17” →