What Does Shoujo Mean in Anime?

Shoujo is a word that is commonly used in the Japanese Anime and Manga series. Shoujo is spelled as Shojo. Regular viewers of Japanese visuals are familiar with this word. In this article, we are going to discuss the term “Shojo.”

What Is The Meaning Of Shoujo?

Shoujo is a common word used in Japanese series which refers to a young adult girl. Shoujo does not refer to any specific genre or style. Basically, the Japanese comic market uses two words in order to represent males and females called Shounen and Shoujo respectively.

What is the History Of The Word “Shoujo”?

Shojo is a Japanese word that is frequently used for girls but mostly girls are referred to as onna no ko. The term “shjo” refers to a social group of girls and young women between the ages of childhood and marriage that emerged during the Meiji era (1868–1912).

Generally speaking, this refers to adolescents in school, who were connected with an image of “innocence, purity, and cuteness”; this contrasted with the moga (modern girl, young working woman), whose image was more independent.

After the end of the Meiji era, Shojo continued to be associated with an image of youth and innocence.

The Japanese magazines target the young audience, referred to as Shonen. These magazines were mainly focused on the topic of interest of boys. And the demand for the magazine was raised.

Then the first shoujo magazines were introduced which specially focused on the concerned topics of girls. The first Shoujo magazine was Shojo-Kai published in 1902. After four years the next magazine released in the market was named Shojo Sekai.

And then various magazines were published such as Shojo no tomo(1908), Shojo Gaho(1912), and Shojo Club (1923). These magazines were mainly focused on Shojo Shosetsu which is a famous Japanese fiction genre aimed at an audience of girls. In a literary format, the genre has been published novels, short tales, essays, and poems.

We can say Shojo Shosetsu played an integral role in establishing Shoujo culture and the major themes of Shojo manga have been founded which primarily focus on love stories and friendships.

The most renowned author of Japan of 20h century, Nobuko Yoshiya was one of the prolific writers who wrote novels on romance and adolescent girls’ fiction such as Hana Monogatari.

This novel is mainly written about romantic friendships between girls and women. Soon after, the visual conventions of Shojo manga were enormously influenced by the illustrators, and it was published in magazines.

Most of the anime series is adapted from the manga series which are sold in chapters. Shojo is often translated as “young girl” which is the opposite of Shonen.  The basic themes of the manga series are love, affection, care, and friendship.

Let’s read what Shoujo Means In Terms Of Anime??  When Shoujo is used in anime series it tells the specific type of genre. Now, you are thinking that it’s all about a young girl whose age group is seven to eighteen years. However, the exact meaning of Shoujo in Anime is that the story centered around a teen girl or say, a young girl.

Moreover, Shojo is defined as a sharp feature of females in anime, like females having big eyes which were drawn by Osamu Tezuka in the early 20th century.

To conclude, Shoujo is the most commonly used word in Japanese manga and anime series which refers to a young girl for her cuteness and innocence.