Josei manga (女性漫画,lit. "women's comics",pronounced[dʑoseː]), also known asladies' comics (レディースコミック) and its abbreviationredikomi (レディコミ, "lady-comi"), is an editorial category ofJapanese comics that emerged in the 1980s. In a strict sense,josei refers to manga marketed to an audience of adult women, contrastingshōjo manga, which is marketed to an audience of girls and young adult women.[a] In practice, the distinction betweenshōjo andjosei is often tenuous; while the two were initially divergent categories, many manga works exhibit narrative and stylistic traits associated with bothshōjo andjosei manga. This distinction is further complicated by a third manga editorial category,young ladies (ヤングレディース), which emerged in the late 1980s as an intermediate category betweenshōjo andjosei.
Josei manga is traditionally printed in dedicatedmanga magazines which often specialize in a specific subgenre, typicallydrama,romance, orpornography. Whilejosei dramas are, in most cases,realist stories about the lives of ordinary women, romancejosei manga are typicallysoap opera–influencedmelodramas, while pornographicjosei manga shares many common traits withpornographic manga for a heterosexual male audience. The emergence of manga for an adult female audience as a category in the 1980s was preceded by the rise ofgekiga in the 1950s and 1960s, which sought to use manga to tell serious and grounded stories aimed at adult audiences, and by the development of more narratively complexshōjo manga by artists associated with theYear 24 Group in the 1970s. The category became stigmatized in the late 1980s as it came to be associated with pornographic manga, though it gained greater artistic legitimacy in the 1990s as it shifted to social issue-focused stories.Josei manga has been regularly adapted intoanime since the 2000s.
Several terms exist to describe manga aimed at an audience of adult women:
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While manga aimed at a female audience has an extensive history that is expressed through the development ofshōjo manga, for much of its historyshōjo manga was targeted exclusively at an audience of children and young girls.[8] This status quo began to shift in the late 1950s with the emergence of the concept ofgekiga, which sought to use manga to tell serious and grounded stories aimed at adult audiences. By the late 1960s,gekiga was a mainstream artistic movement, and in 1968, the women's magazineJosei Seven published the firstgekiga manga aimed at a female audience:Mashūko Banka (摩周湖晩夏) byMiyako Maki.[8] Maki was ashōjo manga artist who debuted in the late 1950s and pivoted togekiga as her original audience aged into adulthood.[8] Two magazines dedicated to women'sgekiga were founded shortly thereafter:Funny (ファニー,Fanī) byMushi Production in 1969, andPapillon (パピヨン,Papiyon) byFutabasha in 1972, though neither were commercially successful and both folded after several issues.[2]
Despite the commercial failure of women'sgekiga, the 1970s nonetheless saw the significant development ofshōjo manga through the efforts of artists in theYear 24 Group. The Year 24 Group contributed significantly to the development ofshōjo manga by creating manga stories that were more psychologically complex, and which dealt directly with topics of politics and sexuality.[9]Junya Yamamoto [ja], who as editor ofShōjo Comic published multiple works by the Year 24 Group, became the founding editor of the magazinePetit Flower in 1980, which targeted an older teen readership and published adult-focused works by Year 24 Group membersMoto Hagio andKeiko Takemiya.[10][11] Consequently, the readership ofshōjo manga widened from its historical audience of children to incorporate teenagers and young adult women.[12] Publishers sought to exploit this new market of matureshōjo readers by creating dedicated magazines, which came to be described using the genre name "ladies' comics".[4] Notable magazines includeBe Love byKodansha andYou byShueisha in 1980, andBig Comic for Lady [ja] byShogakukan in 1981;[12] all three magazines shared the common traits of originating as special issues ofshōjo manga magazines that were spun off into regular publications, and an editorial focus on romance stories that emphasized sex.[12]
Open depictions of sexual acts came to be a defining trait of ladies' comics,[13] in contrast to the editorial restrictions still placed on sexual depictions inshōjo manga.[14] The manga artistMilk Morizono, renowned for her "porn-chic" stories, emerged as one of the most popular ladies' comics authors of the 1980s.[12] Ladies' comics magazines proliferated rapidly in the latter half of the decade, from eight magazines in 1984, to 19 in 1985, to 48 in 1991.[15] By the 1990s, large commercially-published ladies' comics magazines declined as a result of theLost Decade and corresponding economic crisis,[7] leading to the proliferation of smaller magazines focused on erotic and pornographic content. Consequently, ladies' comics developed a reputation as being "female pornography".[16]
Contemporaneously, new manga magazines aimed at adult women in their early twenties emerged:Young You in 1987,Young Rose in 1990, andFeel Young in 1991.[6] Manga published in these magazines came to be referred to as "young ladies" manga, originating from the word "young" appearing in the title of all three magazines,[6] and was positioned in the manga market as an intermediate category betweenshōjo and ladies comics.[6] Young ladies manga grew in popularity asshōjo artists who wished to create manga for an older audience while avoiding the stigma associated with ladies' comics migrated to the category.[17]Teens' love also emerged as a subgenre of manga marketed towards women, which utilized the sex-focused narrative structure of ladies' comics, but with teenaged instead of adult protagonists.[17] Ladies' comic magazines responded to this new competition by focusing on manga addressing social issues. The strategy was successful, and by the late 1990s had gained greater legitimacy as a literary genre and attracted a more general audience, with multiple ladies' comics titles adapted as films and television series.[16] The termjosei manga also emerged during this period, used primarily by academics to distinguish manga aimed at adult women fromshōjo manga.[3][6]
Josei as a category is generally less popular thanshōjo,seinen, andshōnen manga.[18] In 2010,You was the top-sellingjosei manga magazine, with a reported circulation of 162,917; by comparison, the top-sellingshōjo magazine that year (Ciao) had a reported circulation of 745,455, while the top-sellingseinen andshōnen magazines (Weekly Young Jump andWeekly Shōnen Jump) had reported circulations of 768,980 and 2.8 million, respectively.[19]Anime has been a significant influencing factor in attracting a mainstream audience tojosei manga since the 2000s, with thejosei seriesParadise Kiss (1999),Bunny Drop (2005),Chihayafuru (2007),Princess Jellyfish (2008), andEden of the East (2009) all either originating as popular anime, or enjoying breakout success after being adapted into anime.[18]
There are three primary subgenres injosei manga:drama,romance, andpornography.[13] In 2002, drama and romance titles collectively represented roughly 80 percent of sales in thejoseicollected volume market, while pornography composed the remaining 20 percent.[16] Drama and romance titles are typically released by large Japanese publishing companies, while pornography is typically published by smaller publishing houses.[16]
Manyjosei dramas arerealist stories about the lives of ordinary women.[20] These stories are typically focused on aworking woman in a given profession, most commonly ahousewife,office lady, orpink-collar worker.[21] Narratives typically focus on common personal issues such as dating,childcare,eldercare, beauty standards, workplace issues, marital strife, or adultery. Many also address social issues, such as aging anddementia,prostitution, orviolence against women.[22]Josei manga does also feature male protagonists, typicallybishōnen (literally "beautiful boys", roughly analogous to the Western "pretty boy") who often appear in stories withhomoerotic subtext.[23]
Stories are sometimes based on the experiences of readers themselves, who are actively invited to submit stories based on their own life experiences, and receive payment if their submissions are chosen to be adapted into manga.[24]Josei manga magazines often publish special issues dedicated to a specific topic, such as issues devoted to divorce,[25] illnesses,[26] andcosmetic surgery.[27] These topic-based issues occasionally include non-mangacolumns that provide information about the subjects covered in the issue.[26] Sociologist Kinko Itō considers thatjosei dramas serve as a form ofcatharsis for the reader by depicting a character who is enduring greater hardship than they are,[25] while manga scholar Fusami Ogi considersjosei dramas as presentingrole models and potential ways of life for female readers.[20]
Josei romances typically eschew the realism ofjosei dramas, instead more closely resembling the heightenedmelodrama of asoap opera or aHarlequin romance novel.[28][b] Stories often adhere to commonromance novel story formulas, such as a woman who encounters aPrince Charming-like man with whom she embarks on a variety of adventures and ultimately marries.[28] Sexual encounters between the protagonist and their partner are commonplace, whileromantic fantasy themes often manifest in the setting (frequently either foreign or historical) or through heroic protagonists (princes and princesses, ghosts, people who possess supernatural abilities, etc.). Variant sexual identities, such as gay andtransgender characters, also appear in these narratives.[29]Josei romances target both a younger and older readership, with many stories aimed at teenaged girls, as evidenced by the extensive use offurigana as a reading aid.[28]
Pornographicjosei manga shares many common traits withpornographic manga for a heterosexual male audience, though stories are typically written from a female rather than malepoint of view.[30] Traits common to heterosexual pornography, such as female domination and objectification, similarly recur in pornographicjosei manga; a common story formula injosei pornography is one in which a shy and intelligent woman is transformed into anymphomaniac or asex slave.Lesbian relationships also appear in pornographicjosei manga, suggesting a lesbian readership ofjosei manga.[31] Manga scholar Deborah Shamoon considers that the appeal of pornographicjosei for a female audience lies in the ability of drawn pornography to depict subjects that are not easily depicted in filmed pornography, such as the femaleorgasm.[32]
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Whenjosei manga initially emerged in the 1980s, it differentiated itself fromshōjo manga by exploring adult topics such as work, sex, and life after marriage, and was directed at a readership of women who were "no longer ashōjo".[30] Manga scholarYukari Fujimoto notes this focus on realism as a primary distinguishing mark ofjosei stories, compared to the more fantastical narratives common inshōjo manga. This manifests in the careers commonly held by protagonists in each respective category: actresses, models, and musicians inshōjo manga, compared to ordinary working women injosei manga.[33] Fujimoto further considers depictions of marriage as a primary dividing line between the categories, withshōjo depicting life before marriage, andjosei depicting life afterwards.[5]
Since the emergence of young ladies manga, distinctions between the categories have been increasingly blurred.[5][34] In narratives, protagonists of all ages can readily be found in bothshōjo andjosei manga, withshōjo stories featuring adult protagonists andjosei stories focusing on teens and younger characters.[35] Stories that depict sex have been published inshōjo manga magazines such asSho-Comi,[17] while sex is virtually non-existent in somejosei magazines such asMonthly Flowers.[36]
At the editorial level, there is no consistent standard for segmenting manga aimed at a female audience, with terminology and categories varying across decades, publishing houses, and magazines.[34] Since the 2000s, some large publishers such asShueisha andKodansha have grouped all manga magazines aimed at a female audience under a single category.[37] Formatting oftankōbon bound volumes, where larger and more expensive books are traditionally reserved for titles aimed at an adult audience, similarly follow no formal rules, with adult manga sold in small and inexpensive formats and youth manga sold in large formats.[36]
It is common for authors to createshōjo andjosei manga simultaneously, withMari Ozaki [ja],George Asakura, andMayu Shinjo among the numerous artists who produce works across categories. This dynamic contrastsshōnen andseinen manga, where artists generally produce works in one category exclusively, and artists that do switch categories rarely switch back.[38]
There have been several examples ofjosei works that share common traits withshōnen andseinen manga, or that blur distinctions between the categories.Saiyuki byKazuya Minekura was serialized in theshōnen magazineMonthly GFantasy, though its sequelSaiyuki Reload was published in thejosei magazineMonthly Comic Zero Sum.Fujio Akatsuka's 1962 manga seriesOsomatsu-kun was originally serialized inWeekly Shōnen Sunday, though when the series was rebooted in 2015 as the anime seriesMr. Osomatsu, its manga spin-off was published in thejosei magazinesYou andCookie. Anthony Gramuglia ofComic Book Resources identifies the anime seriesLupin the Third: The Woman Called Fujiko Mine, part of theLupin the Third media franchise, as a notablejosei adaptation of aseinen manga.[18]