Shôjo manga, or romance comics for teenage girls, is an extremely popular and prominent genre of comics in Japan. This genre is characterized by a very dense visual style, including flowery backgrounds and big-eyed, androgynous boys and girls. Why is this genre so appealing to girls? Where did it come from? And why do so many of the stories feature androgynous characters or even homosexual romance?

The main focus of the lecture will be on Ikeda Riyoko's 1972 hit The Rose of Versailles (Berusaiyu no bara), the "shining masterpiece of shôjo manga." This lush, sweeping epic about the French Revolution not only visually appealed to girls' sensibilities, but also provides an example of the struggle in shôjo manga between the fantasy of an androgynous, homosocial world free of oppressive gender roles, and the desire to depict heterosexual romance that is both realistic and empowering to girls.

The History of Shôjo Manga (Girls Comics) in Japan is co-sponsored by The Institute for Japanese Studies and the East Asian Studies Center and is made possible by a U.S. Department of Education Title VI Grant. For more information contact Janet Stucky at 614-292-3345.