It was in the 1950s and 1960s that the distinctive genres of shōjo and shonen manga really began to take shape, with Tezuka Osamu’s Ribbon no kishi (1953) considered as the first epic adventure for girls. Although shōjo manga is only one subgenre, the author strongly argues in favor of its study since it has influenced both manga itself and girls’ culture since the end of World War II, while the manga publishing industry has become the backbone of contemporary popular culture in Japan, supplying stories for television, movies, video games, etc. Gendered division of work Chapter 2 traces the history of the shōjo manga genre within the context of the publishing industry in postwar Japan. Jennifer Prough’s research originality is to investigate shōjo sensibilities through the affective labor provided by both editors and artists, that consistently use the phrase ‘what girls like’ to define what shōjo manga is and to explain how it is produced. Although a foreigner researcher, she differentiates herself from most non-Japanese academic writings on manga that tend to highlight aspects that are different from Western comic traditions and to focus on adult content. During her fieldwork within the top four shōjo manga publishing houses, Jennifer Prough conducted seventy interviews with a wide range of publishing industry personnel, artists and scholars. With Straight from the Heart, Jennifer Prough brings us beyond the manga success story and behind the scenes of shōjo manga conducted in the heart of its production process, her ethnographic research illustrates how shōjo manga is heavily shaped by gender norms and expectations.
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