Forum - View topicA question of all the other women on the boards...
|
Goto page 1, 2 Next |
| Author | Message | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Arachne
 Posts: 35 Location: Charlotte |
|
|||||
|
Hi there,
I am doing a research paper on the evolution of shojo manga as pop culture in America, and I would like to get some responses from different women on the boards. What I need is to hear about how you discovered shojo. Were you once a American comic book fan? When you were a teen, did someone show you a bootlegged copy of "Akira". Were you done in by Sailor Moon reruns? How did you discover that there was a genre of manga written by women for women? Thanks for any of all responses! ~Arachne~ |
||||||
|
||||||
littlegreenwolf
 Posts: 4796 Location: Seattle, WA |
|
|||||
|
Well, I was a fan of the Sailor Moon show since I was about 12. Sailor Moon got me into getting Sailor Moon fansubs online, and from there, a VHS in my blockbuster with the words "From the Director of Sailor Moon" on a vol one to Utena which probably triggered my intrest in other anime. I wasn't aware at the time that the original Sailor Moon comic was out here.
So, one day I was walking through a comic shop that just opened up in the mall, and low and behold there was a graphic novel *at the time I thought the art style in the manga was really ugly* that said Sailor Moon across it. I of course bought this since I was a giant Sailor Moon fan, and merchandise was hard to come by. For the longest time I just bought sailor moon manga. Then the Sailor Moon comic shelf was joined by Magic Knight Rayearth and Peach Girl, and then I started to buy those as well. Peach Girl was just a really new experience for me because it was so... weird. There wasn't a single person in there with supernatrual powers, and the world wasn't going to end. Yet I was hooked. Sailor Moon is to thank for my CLAMP obsession as well. When I found out that that manga was written by four women, I got intrested. When later Cardcaptor Sakura came out, and the X movie *under the name of "From CLAMP, creators of Magic Knight Rayearth*, I became obsessed and they became my new role models. So anyway, through those Mixx graphic novels, I found Tokyopop's website, and got a free subscription to their magazine which also had manga. Got that, and that opened me up to all the other anime and manga out there. *bought the first sorcerer hunters dvd after seeing a chapter in that magazine, and looked up other anime that intrested me by the anime reviews* It was in the Tokyopop magazine I discovered the names of the anime/manga genres, and other shoujo titles. Sailor Moon is to blame for my obsession. |
||||||
|
||||||
Yotsuba
 Posts: 6 |
|
|||||
|
Can you say Azumanga Daioh? I Found out about manga when i had a trip to san fransisco, japan town recently, and this is the one that caught my attention. I didn't even know what it was, but i bought it (the last of the great impulse buyers! nya ha haa!) it turned out really good. from then, i descended in to all other manner of things, like other shoujo, but i don't recall which one. yata!
I'm done now. |
||||||
|
||||||
molloaggie
 Posts: 578 Location: Texas |
|
|||||
|
Fushigi Yugi was my hook and sinker. My sister loaned me the first 3 Fushigi Yugi books and then later the anime series. That was back in '98 I believe.
I never read any comics except the Sunday comic section. However, I was always a big fan of the comic based cartoons in the afternoon. Spiderman and X-men are some of my favorites because their plots were always so good. Though I like shoujo, I prefer shoujo action (like Basara & Fushigi Yugi) over romance and angsty titles. You can call it pop culture but a lot us of aren't teenagers anymore. |
||||||
|
||||||
ames_909
 Posts: 37 Location: Canada |
|
|||||
|
I don't really think my response applies to this question, since I was first exposed to shoujo while living in Hong Kong. But... I'll reply anyway
Funny you should mention that; Sailormoon was the first series that introduced me to the shoujo genre. I was either 5 or 6 years old at the time... and really thought nothing beyond the fact that a bunch of girls had magical powers... oh, and they had a talking cat. I was really too young to fully comprehend all the facets of this manga series (it wasn't until later that I watched the anime). I didn't really care about the romance aspect; I just found some parts to be really funny and the fighting to be cool. |
||||||
|
||||||
qollocust
 Posts: 182 Location: Philadelphia |
|
|||||
|
When I first got into anime, I was into a lot of stuff on TV (tenchi, gundams, digimon, etc.) not neccessarily shojo stuff. The Fushigi Yuugi anime was my first experience with the shojo genre and I LOVED it. From there I did what I could to get my hands on other shojo animes and that got me interested in shojo manga. My first shojo manga was Mars. I'm now totally hooked on shojo manga and actually prefer shojo in it's manga form as opposed to the animes. The majority of the manga I buy now is shojo (the only non-shojo series I'm currently collecting is Kenshin and the other non-shojo series in my collection still revolve around female characters and have a lot of romance).
|
||||||
|
||||||
HunterJumper197
 Posts: 13 Location: NC |
|
|||||
|
I would have to say that the first Anime i watched was sailor moon, i really loved the series and tried to watch it every day. I think this was probably in around 1997? I didn't really realize that sailor moon had started out as a manga, or that such a thing as manga really even existed. My friend introduced me to Ranma and Revolutionary Girl Utena about 3 years ago. I liked them alot and i bought one or two comics, but the Manga that really got me into Shojo was MARS. My friend let me borrow it the summer before last and i was hooked. It was terrific and i had to collect the whole series.
|
||||||
|
||||||
RabbitRevolution
 Posts: 218 |
|
|||||
|
Like many shoujo fans out there, Sailor Moon was my gateway drug.
 Even when I was in 7th grade and first started watching it, I felt a little silly for liking a show about girls in mini-skirts who save the world (multiple times). Still, the romance and fun characters drew me in, just as these elements have caused me to become addicted to countless other shoujo anime/manga. My first manga was a Sailor Moon one as well.
I started to really get into shoujo when I began visiting an anime store in my mall. There I could rent Utena and Cardcaptor Sakura videos in Japanese with subs. Although I bought my first manga at that store too, most of my initial manga collection came from amazon.com. At Amazon I could read lists of recommended manga from other shoujo fans, so I got into series like Peach Girl, Magic Knight Rayearth, and Fushigi Yugi. Besides Amazon, I think Walden Books should be credited as being one of the first mainstream book sellers to carry a decent selection of shoujo manga. It was really a shame that Walden's much larger affiliate Borders had such a poor selection of manga, especially shoujo manga, about four years ago. Even today, the manga selection at the small Walden Books stores rivals that of Borders. As others have suggested, this situation could be attributed to mall-loving girls who stop by Walden's for their shoujo manga fix. In my opinion, shoujo manga has the potential to become a real presence in American pop-culture (instead of merely a sub-culture as it is now). The romantic themes in most shoujo manga have a broad appeal to many females. Certainly friends I have lent shoujo manga to, who are otherwise not into anime/manga, have enjoyed titles like Fushigi Yugi, Ceres, Hot Gimmick, and Hana-Kimi. Good luck, Arachne, with your research paper! I would love to read it if you ever post it online. |
||||||
|
||||||
Jadress
 Posts: 807 Location: Seattle. It purdy and nerdy! |
|
|||||
|
I think I may have seen some shojo anime before, but I think the first real shojo explosion for me was Fushigi Yugi, and it's still one of my favorite stories. From there I saw more shojo like Nurse Angel Ririka, Marmalade Boy, Hana Yori Dango, Utena and more. I didn't really get into manga until more recently (since so many titles are cheaper and more available now), but I like the shojo manga just as much as anime. Petshop, Mars, Please Save My Earth, and Fake are great. ^^ In pretty much all cases, I have seen an anime before I've seen the manga.
|
||||||
|
||||||
|
Arachne
Posts: 35 Location: Charlotte |
|
|||||
I'm curious, what does the fact that most of us are no longer teenagers have to do with it not being pop culture? Anything that is not high culture is pop culture, it has nothing to do with age. ~Arachne~ |
||||||
|
||||||
|
jsyxx
|
|
|||||
|
Not that I have much to add, but alot of the most knowledgeable shojo fans are male.
|
||||||
|
Arachne
Posts: 35 Location: Charlotte |
|
|||||
This is very true, but since this thread is help for a paper I'm writing, I have to get information from women. ~Arachne~ |
||||||
|
||||||
|
xluvskyx
Posts: 8 Location: USA |
|
|||||
|
I loved Cardcaptors and Sailormoon since the first time I saw it on cartoon network. I admit I never new it was anime based on the mangas since I didn't know much about manga back then. Thanks to this girl Stephany in my seventh grade geography class I began to read my first manga Marmalade Boy. I loved it and I loved Kodocha even more. It just started right off and I got really hooked. I guess thanks to her I know about these kind of manga.
|
||||||
|
||||||
|
qollocust
Posts: 182 Location: Philadelphia |
|
|||||
I'm confused by this, are women more reputable sources than men? I wouldn't limit your information to just the opinions of female readers. It's actually quite interesting to read male opinions on a genre so aimed at females. |
||||||
|
||||||
|
Arachne
Posts: 35 Location: Charlotte |
|
|||||
In the paper, I am having to define shojo manga through the six definitions of popular culture. One definition is that popular culture is created from the group not in power. Since comic books in America is generally defined as a male interest, I am looking at how American women became interested in shojo manga, and while not created in America, they have made shojo and manga in general a force in American publishing. |
||||||
|
||||||
 |
All times are GMT - 5 Hours |
|
|
|
Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group