ShoujoShoujo in simplest terms is any anime or manga series that is aimed at a female audience. The general age of that targeted female audience is normally 10 to 18. Shoujo usually has romance in the storyline and that romance often takes up a large part and/or focus of the story. It also normally (though not always) has a female lead (and often a cast of sexy and/or beautiful men interested in said lead) and beautiful art. The types of stories you will find in the genre are varied. Some may be sweet stories of young love set in high school, some are very smutty, some are very angsty, some involve love triangles, some are comical and involve crossdressing of some kind, some have elements of magic or fantasy and still others may be epic and long running historicals. I suppose it is useful (and important?) to note that even though shoujo is aimed at a female audience it may be enjoyed by men as well. Anyone who enjoys a good story, pretty art, and romance will enjoy a good shoujo!I'm not going to list specific shoujo series on this about page. I am going to assume most people visiting are familiar with shoujo series (or at the very least the more popular ones). There are countless lists of shoujo series throughout the world wide web and since there are such a large amount of shoujo series published, I feel it would be misleading to list only some more well known or popular ones (especially when I personally champion little known and underappreciated shoujo series constantly). I likewise would not be able to do any justice to any kind of indepth and more inclusive list because of how much is out there. You can see a huge variety of series featured on this fanlisting's layout skins and link back codes. I am going to note that I am taking some liberties in my interpretation of some series falling into the shoujo genre. While shounen and seinen may be more easy to distinguish (shounen being shoujo's counterpart; manga aimed at a male audience between the ages of 10 to 18 roughly and seinen being more mature manga aimed at older men), I believe that josei or 'ladies comics' (anime/manga aimed at older women with more mature storylines) and shoujo are not as easily deliniated. Target audience in Japan is normally established based on readership/audience of specific manga magazines. Take Cookie for example: Cookie is a manga magazine aimed at teenagers and young female readers. I considering it a shoujo magazine, but some people may consider certain stories in it, like Nana or Clover, to be josei. I personally see those series as shoujo. Since I'm the owner of this fanlisting and I believe in a broad application of the term shoujo and it's target audiences I have used images of series that may be open to debate, but that I personally believe are classified as shoujo. I do not think this will cause any problems or issues to the vast majority of visitors to this fanlisting, but I felt a need to mention my thinking on the matter in case it is a cause of concern or interest to anyone visiting.
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