Akagami no Shirayuki Hime and Women with Agency

Last post, I discussed how we were able to apply and connect Twilight criticism to the Japanese manga Black Bird. When looking at popular culture, from any country, I am always looking into what kinds of behaviors that piece is trying to teach the target audience. Does this show/book/song try to tell people what is considered masculine? Is it trying to tell women how to attract men? Are the young men and women reading that YA novel truly connecting and understanding what the author is trying to imply they are going through? How does that particular fandom respond to certain characters and what kind of fan enterprises are they embarking on? These are all questions that many pop culture critics and scholars research and expand on to further, scholastically, understand what constitutes "popular" and what a phenomena reflects back on to the culture that is consuming it.

While I was reading Black Bird, it was impossible not to see the obvious and tonal connections between the book/movie and the manga. As I said last post, Twilight could have been a shojo manga, it's tone, characters, and plot fit into the established genre so well. It was no surprise that the Japanese market picked it up and was widely popular. Never mind what unhealthy information about relationships the two imparted to its readers.

This post, I am looking at the complete other end of the shojo spectrum with a manga that's not too widely popular and a lot less soapy. Out of LaLa magazine, the one publishes Natsume Yuuchincho, comes the story of Shiyuki, or Snow White, is a rather inverted look at the fairy tale.

Tanemura Arina and Ribbon Magazine

     

So previously, I explained a little about the manga industry and how it is kinda failing on one side but also gaining ground on another. On the magazine side, there are numerous manga magazines that are aimed at certain age groups and genders. Those who read scanlations online might not know the complete workings, but they understand that Naruto and One Piece come out of Shōnen Jump magazine. While Jump is aimed at young kids from elementary school to middle school, any age can and does read it. I saw a middle aged man reading Jump on my train to Kyoto last week and I couldn't help but chuckle a little. It does look pretty funny.

The main publishers; Kodansha, Shogakukan and Shueisha have manga magazines for every age group and gender. Some are more popular than others, but they all compete against each other. In the shōjo scene there is Ribbon, Sho-comi and Nakayoshi. They all fight each other to the death over sparkly eyes, cool guys and slightly sensitive girls.

Today, I will be focusing on a mangaka that has only appeared in Ribbon, Tanemura Arina. Those of you may remember her from Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne and Full Moon Sagashite. They were both pretty popular in both the 90's and 2000's. I remember my friends and I huddling around the compter for the new episode of Full Moon when fansubs were just starting to take over the internet.