This magical adventure is a comedy and a romance, but overall, you get a sense of a willful, brave, goodhearted girl who you watch grow as a person. They’re known for Cardcaptor Sakura, a shoujo that I grew up with, and a more controversial project, Chobits.Ĭardcaptor Sakura is about a girl, Sakura, who opens a book that contain magical cards, Clow Cards, that scatter across her hometown. A case study would be two stories created by CLAMP, an all-female mangaka group who have been in the industry for many, many years. Sometimes, this can lead to a development of strong, admirable female characters with interesting development, but it can also lead to oversimplification, sexualization, and objectification as well. So what does this mean for female characters? Well, as certain characteristics are visible in dramas or sitcoms, the protagonists of josei and shoujo, or any genre in general, have relatable but sometimes simple personalities: innocent characters, tsundere characters, the kind and helpful characters, the cute and oblivious characters, and so on. However, because of this, it is understandable that certain character traits would be more prominent in one genre than another. Anime and manga tend to fit into more than one genre and are not only organized by subject but age group. Both can encompass romantic plots, but romance can exist as its own genre.

For example, josei is a genre generally aimed at young adult and adult women while shoujo is more geared towards younger girls.

In order to explore the magnitude of anime with essential female characters, a general understanding of genres involving female characters comes in handy. While the subject of female characters in anime and manga is not as frequently written about as other popular entertainment such as LOTR or Game of Thrones here at The Mary Sue or even in North America overall, it nonetheless has become a topic of discussion not only by the Japanese consumers but also by those who, like myself, have only a limited but enthusiastic experience of watching anime and reading manga and would want further discussion of the subject. The girls in Sailor Moon mean something different than the protagonist of Princess Mononoke, and they are also different from the female characters created by the all-women’s group CLAMP. The portrayal of female characters in anime and manga is a complex discussion, not only because of the various tropes that exist but also because of the cultural perspectives through which they must be filtered and digested.

Images of adult women in anime