The intent was to target the series as “summer reading” aimed at “modern female sensibilities, with real-life situations and problems.” However, the planned “advertising, online promotion, and retailer positioning” never materialized.Īlso 2005: Tokyopop releases two volumes of short stories - Sweat & Honey by Mari Okazaki and Galaxy Girl, Panda Boy by Junko Kawakami - under the umbrella brand of “Passion Fruit”. This is my favorite josei, and the series that introduced me to the genre.Ģ005: Tokyopop announces “ Manga After Hours“, a marketing campaign to promote certain titles, including Sakurazawa, Tramps Like Us, and Happy Mania to “older, intelligent, independent, and discerning” women. To the best of my knowledge, Viz has never branded works as “josei”, although several of the titles they have released qualify, in my opinion, including Ai Yazawa’s Nana, which launched at the end of 2005.Ģ004-2008: Tokyopop publishes 14 volumes of Tramps Like Us, one of the most successful josei series in the U.S., although fans object to the renaming (original Japanese title Kimi Wa Petto is closer to “You’re My Pet”, which better gets at the series concept). It’s labeled “shojo” but the explicit sex scenes earned it a Mature reader rating. Also released in this time period are 11 volumes of Happy Mania, a romantic comedy (emphasis on the latter) about a young woman desperate to find love.Ģ004-2007: Tokyopop brings a majority of the works by Mitsukazu Mihara, a gothic-inspired horror storyteller, to the U.S.: Doll (6 books), The Embalmer (4 of its 6 volumes), R.I.P.: Requiem in Phonybrian, Haunted House, Beautiful People, and IC in a Sunflower.Ģ004-2007: Viz, meanwhile, releases 18 volumes of Sensual Phrase. Unfortunately, the last book in the series ends “to be continued”, with the remainder never published here, which is frustrating. In the former category are such titles as Suppli and Tramps Like Us examples of the latter are the LuvLuv line of “ladies’ comics” or the Harlequin manga adaptations, about which more later.Ģ003-2004: Tokyopop publishes six books by Erica Sakurazawa, in an attempt to create creator awareness by branding unrelated books prominently under her name. For more information on josei manga, which is manga aimed at adult female readers, check out this 2008 overview article or this post about examples of the genre.īroadly speaking, there are two types of josei that we’ve seen in the U.S.: that of interest because of its subject matter (such as stories that focus on the challenges of being a working woman or maintaining adult relationships) and that marked for adult women because it’s a love story with explicit sexual content. Sadly, putting this together has reminded me of how much we’ve lost over the past decade as most manga publishers with significant josei output have gone out of business.
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