Shoujo for the uninitiated refers to manga with a target audience of young to teenage girls; a show based off a shoujo manga is also considered shoujo. Because of the target audience, shoujo features many particular tropes and "genre" conventions that may be repulsive to people outside the target demographic (adult men are particularly outside of it). The generalized equivalent (G.E.) would be the same "target audience" but referring to any form of work. The term "chick flick" comes to mind for films that seem to cater mainly to a female audience.
Now, as a man - rather someone who identifies as a man and adopts such a label, fitting into some amount of normed gender - I am not the target audience for shoujo (or the G.E.). As a boy, I preferred fantasy, a rather masculine-dominated genre, and video games; until I hit high school I age, the sound of female vocalists was grating to me. The meshing of the feminine and art was foreign and not very likable in my eyes. As I hope to convey, this view involved contradictions and cognitive dissonance. But don't worry, I probably will skip to the past couple of months after 9th grade.
However, despite participating in this gender interplay, I did engage works of art with female characters - notably Hermione from Harry Potter and Lyra from His Dark Materials. Both are capable and independent, without falling neatly into feminine gender roles. And both characters push their respective series forward. Certainly being exposed to them - though people that I've personally known also played a part - has encouraged me to steadily become more progressive with the art that I consume.
In 9th grade, far from abandoning the trend, it appeared to continue more - which coincides with my maturation and increasing ability to appreciate different viewpoints. English class offered a chance between two books: a science fiction book whose name I forgot and a book called The Secret Life of Bees. Having been exposed to a billion such books before, I decided to try out something new and go for the latter. As one may have picked up on, I am positing a "gendered" differential - the sci-fi book falls under what a teenage boy should read, and the other book obviously does not. Yes, it was pointed out to me that I had picked the "girly" book, but ultimately I enjoyed reading it. In a sense, this choice reflected my interest in coming-of-age stories, but it also allowed me to think of coming-of-age from a female perspective (though I acknowledge that there is no homogeneous perspective that could be called "female").
Despite reading these few books, my interests in the arts tended to fall into the "masculine" (again, I am invoking typical masculine gender roles) domain. However, my efforts to experiment, even a little, helped me understand the world around me to a greater degree. Somehow, during college, I made a sardonic goal of focusing on "feminine" works of art. And, of course, works that challenge simplistic, binary notions of gender - during my sophomore year of college I saw Shinsekai Yori, and read Invisible Monsters and The Left Hand of Darkness, all of which offered insights into gender and sexuality, especially uncommon representations.
Earlier this year, I completed the shoujo manga My Little Monster, which features many characteristics associated with female gender roles, but at the same time, it avoided outright falling into cliche. It has since become one of my (so-far) favorites. My point is mainly that I've grown open to works that target audiences other than myself, in particular the audience of young girls.
Now, having gained an appreciation, I have volume 1 of Fruits Basket, a manga so obviously shoujo that the name screams it out. It's interesting to see how many strides I have made towards embracing "feminine" works of art, and also how much progress remains.
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