Well, I’m a girl and usually girls love shoujo manga (well, that’s stereotype but okay) and at some point, I loved reading shoujo manga. I was young, filled with expectations that boys with good looks and capable of anything exist in this world. Well, maybe they do exist, who knows?
Aside from that, I love the art of shoujo manga as well – it’s pretty with clear linework. There’s nothing wrong in the term of the art, but just, the stories. I don’t like it – I gradually realized that such things don’t exist. Well, they do but often times, they don’t.
Manga: Crayon Days
I’m not saying this without proof though certainly I won’t tell you what. I had experience and I realized it’s not as beautiful as shoujo manga made it out to be. And there is no boy who is capable of anything while maintaining good looks with sketchy background. You get what I mean. The boy will not always be there for us as well – not because they don’t want to, they are just in the predicament that they don’t know when we need help or in emergency. They are not entitled to us, you know? Just like the MPDG’s movie trope, this is a manga trope we must break free from. They are their own person and they won’t spend 24/7 watching us (and please, that would be creepy.)
Because of it, I realised I have impossible expectations for a boy I like and that’s very, very bad. It’s better to have no expectation at all. The other bad example Shoujo Manga gives is usually the MC is portrayed as this damsel-in-distress type of girl – unable to do anything, always waiting to be rescued. Do we really want to be like that kind of a girl? And the girls always get confused a lot and just… yeah, um no (for me, at least)
Aside from that and this is just a personal preference of mine, shoujo manga is just a story about a boy and a girl who falls in love yadda yadda yadda and it’s boring for me. I want something more exciting, something that keeps me on edge so shoujo manga is not really a cup of my tea.
There are some shoujo mangas I like though and I totally recommend ’em – it’s different than the usual:
Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun, Horimiya, and My Little Monster. Check em out!
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