This what-is-manga article in the St. Petersburg (Florida) Times does a great job of explaining what shoujo manga is and why girls like it. The reason, as in the Baltimore Sun article I linked to earlier, is that the writer went out and talked to some real shoujo readers, rather than assembling the usual stereotypes.
I liked this:
For $10, a young reader could get 200 pages of adventure, peril and life – all easily tucked into a backpack.
(Think of it as portable angst.) Here’s 14-year-old Lyndsi Williams explaining why she likes Revolutionary Girl Utena:
“She’s just different. She’s not afraid; she’s individual,” said Lyndsi, a cherub-faced student at Palm Harbor University High School. “Like me, I’d rather go outside in the rain than shop.”
Girls like Lyndsi are drawn to manga, in part, because they identify with the characters.
“In shojo, a girl will run into a wall,” said Lyndsi, who is a member of the school’s anime club, which is mostly female. “That I can relate to. That’s something I’d do.”
And in case you think teenagers can’t smell the difference between authenticity and a cheesy commercial product, here’s Lyndsi again:
“When I first saw manga stuff I was interested because I hadn’t seen it before,” Lyndsi says. “It was something that didn’t have Hollywood written all over it.”
The girls nod in agreement.
“It’s something about it,” says Meteka Smart, 15. “Like I can come here and hang out and read this and feel totally safe.”
Reporter Nicole Johnson interviews the usual suspects—Milton Greipp of ICv2, who seems to be everywhere this weekend, someone from Tokyopop, manga-ka Svetlana Chmakova, and the manager of the local Barnes & Noble—to produce a nicely balanced article that has the ring of authenticity to it. It’s worth taking 10 minutes to read the whole thing.
