In comics drawn outside of Japan, China, and Korea, there's a separation of the job of writer and artist. The mega stars are companies DC and Marvel. These lineage of comics were written and drawn by many different male artists and writers over decades.
Where are the women? I thought. I racked my brain and Google to find a citation of a female artist or writer that has ever written a Batman, Superman, or Spiderman story. I couldn't find one with a quick five minute search and stopped looking.
Really now? How is this possible. The list I complied below of female japanese mangaka is just scratching the surface. This list is only based on manga that I've personally read and all of these names are like the JK Rowlings of Japan.
You all know ofcourse that JK Rowling had to crop her name into initials to hide gender because her publisher thought boys wouldn't read a story by a female author. Stupidity seems to be still entrenched in our society today.
Fortunately, the huge influence of manga has brought an onslaught of female mangaka outside of Japan that I can rattle off without hesitation; Nina Matusmoto: Yokaiden, Svetlana Chmakova: Dramacon, Mark of the Succubus: Irene Flores and Ashly Raiti...and that's a good thing. :)
Hiromu Arakawa: Full Metal Alchemist
Takahashi Rumiko: Inuyasha, Ranma 1/2
Clamp: X1999, Tokyo Babylon, xxxholic, Magic Knight Rayearth
Akira Amano: Katekyō Hitman Reborn!
Yellow Tanabe: Kekkaishi
Yumi Hotta: Hikaru no Go (writer)
Katsura Hoshino: D Gray Man
Kozueko Morimoto: Gokusen
Yuki Urushibara: Mushishi
Fuyumi Ono: 12 kingdoms
Yoko Kamio: Hana Yori Dango
Ikeda Rikoyo: Rose of Versaille
Yazawa Ai: Paradise Kiss
Watase Yuu: Fushigi Yuugi
Natsuki Takaya: Fruits Baskets
Masami Tsuda: Kare Kano
Naoko Takeuchi: Sailor Moon
Shoujo Ai
Chiho Saito: Utena
Shonen Ai
Fumi Yoshinaga: Antique Bakery
Yun Kōga: Loveless
Tomo Takabayashi: Kyo Kara Maou
12 comments:
I too declare daily public love for Hiromu Arakawa and Fuyumi Ono, but there are many DC/Marvel female artists and writers who also create for top books: http://tinyurl.com/yhukbmp
Women such as Devin Grayson (Batman, Nightwing), Pia Guerra (Y the Last Man), Nicola Scott (Secret Six) and plenty others are celebrated in western comics. Actually, Gail Simone (Deadpool, Birds of Prey, Wonder Woman) just announced her relaunch of Birds of Prey, a comic commonly called the DC Gateway Drug because it was so accessible to both men and women.
I know the point of your article is to highlight awesome female manga creators, but it's a little saddening that you would base their triumph over the prominence of DC-Marvel-women on five minutes of research. While many women writers still face problems in the west, even Hiromu Arakawa's name was an androgynous cover for her feminine real name, Hiromi Arakawa.
Anyway, I definitely don't mean to be down on your post - especially as it celebrates something so important. Manga opens doors for girls who would otherwise have no interest in the medium, and the works that come from western manga creators like the ones you've listed give me even more hope for the future of women in comics!
Hi Soaperly,
Thanks for your thoughtful post and the link. You're right that five minutes of research does not cut it. That was a bit cavalier, but also my point.
My point was that it is still hard for me (without a lot more digging than I did) to find women artist and writers that easily came to mind as the japanese mangaka I listed.
In general, I don't want to dig for specifically female artists or writers when it comes to my reading material.
I want to pick up a comic or manga, thoroughly enjoy it, then be aware of the gender as the last thing.
Hi Akemi,
Agreed. :)
Regarding what you said, that you didn't specifically look up female writers when picking your reading material .... I was wondering, did you also find that you went out and looked up the writers of your favorite manga because you loved the way they portrayed women i.e. she's not a stereotype or not there as a love angle / male fantasy? And then found out it was written by a woman? That's what usually happens to me.
Hi Amy,
Ahhahah. I can usually tell that it's written by a male writer just by how they portray women. For example, as much as I enjoy Gantz, the women are wince inducing. They are there as what you say.
On the other hand, I was amazed that a man wrote Stranger's in Paradise. The women are portrayed so well. I got faked out by the author's name, Terry Moore, which I assumed was a woman's name.
Kekkashi is another manga where I was fooled. I really thought it was written by a male writer since it followed that old shonen manga pattern. The main female character in the story kept surprising me though -- and I became suspicious.
Oooh SiP looks cool, must look for it in local shop. This conversation has also made me wonder about the different shonen manga that have kickass female characters. Should be fun future research. :)
Strangers in Paradise is definitely recommended for future research then. :)
I really enjoy your site http://mangaloid.net we seem to have the same interest in analyzing manga.
Are you the article writer for that site?
Great post! I've been thinking about trying to find more female mangaka to read lately.
I have to put in for my favorite: Kazuya Minekura of Saiyuki/Saiyuki Reload/Saiyuki Reload Blast/Saiyuki Gaiden, etc. :)
HI Caddy,
i love the art style of saiyuki, but the story didn't interest me much. even if it was based on journey to the west.
nice website.
Listing female authors of shoujo manga doesn't make sense. Why? Well, it might come as a suprise to you, because you are used to thinking most comic books authors are men, but the overwhelming majority of shoujo authors are women, and men are a tiny minority.
Most manga authors used to be men, whether the manga they drew was aimed at boys (shounen) or girls (shoujo), but in the 70's, women took over in the shoujo manga field ), and men writing shoujo manga became a minority.
When male authors dominated shoujo manga, the stories were mostly Cinderella type stories about poor orphans and the misadventures befalling them, or comic strips like Mafalda. Romance was taboo, and couldn't be the main subject. When female authors took over, mangas corresponding tothe stereotype of shoujo mangas (romance stories) that exist nowadays, appeared, but also sci-fi, horror, action etc. For example, Sci-fi was very popular in shoujo manga during the 80's, and most horror manga in Japan used to be shoujo ( while in North America horror is considered to be a genre aimed at males).
There are a lot more women who drawn shounen and seinen series, than men who draw shoujo and josei series.
Nowadays, there are just as many women as there are men who are manga authors.
Female authors dominate shoujo manga, and they are also far from rare in shounen and seinen.
And you missclassified several series in the wrong genre:
Clamp: X1999, Tokyo Babylon, xxxholic, Magic Knight Rayearth
Except for xxxholic, these are all shoujo series, not shounen. Most Clamp mangas are shoujo.
Many people in Western countries believe or used to believe that series like X, Tokyo Babylon and Magic Knight Rayearth had to be shounen, because there's violence and blood, so there's no way it could be aimed at girls... *rolls eyes*
Kozueko Morimoto: Gokusen
This is josei (targeted to women in their 20's)
Fuyumi Ono: 12 kingdoms
It's a series of novels, not a manga so it doesn't belong.
As for shounen whose authors are female,
the author of Kateikyôshi Reborn (one of the most popular shounen mangas in Japan right now) is a woman. So is the author of To Love Ru, another manga from shonen jump.
As for whether a series is shoujo or shounen, it depends on the magazine it was serialized in, not on the contents.
Just because a series has action, blood and violence like X or Magic Knight Rayearth doesn't mean it's shounen (aimed at young boys/male teens)
And just because series like Love Hina, Negima and To Love Ru are romantic comedies doesn't mean they are shoujo (aimed at young girls/female teens).
The series is created to fit a certain magazine, and usually authors work for one magazine. Each magazine has their own color and style which authors have to follow. The gender and age of the target audience has an impact too.
For example, usually shounen magazines don't allow their authors to create female heroines or to put too many prominent female characters, because they think it will be offputting to young boys who are still in the "eww, girls have cooties" phase.
Shounen Jump is a shounen magazine, all the series published inside are shounen, while Nakayoshi (which serialized Magic Knight Rayearth, but also Card Captor Sakura, Tokyo Mew Mew and Sailor Moon) is a shoujo magazine, so all the series serialized inside are shoujo.
In Japanese bookstores, the collected volumes will be found in the shounen section. The same thing goes for shoujo, seinen and josei. Seinen and josei magazines will be shelved in different areas, and so will the collected volumes be.
Listing female authors of shoujo manga doesn't make sense. Why? Well, it might come as a suprise to you, because you are used to thinking most comic books authors are men, but the overwhelming majority of shoujo authors are women, and men are a tiny minority.
Most manga authors used to be men, whether the manga they drew was aimed at boys (shounen) or girls (shoujo), but in the 70's, women took over in the shoujo manga field ), and men writing shoujo manga became a minority.
When male authors dominated shoujo manga, the stories were mostly Cinderella type stories about poor orphans and the misadventures befalling them, or comic strips like Mafalda. Romance was taboo, and couldn't be the main subject. When female authors took over, mangas corresponding tothe stereotype of shoujo mangas (romance stories) that exist nowadays, appeared, but also sci-fi, horror, action etc. For example, Sci-fi was very popular in shoujo manga during the 80's, and most horror manga in Japan used to be shoujo ( while in North America horror is considered to be a genre aimed at males).
There are a lot more women who drawn shounen and seinen series, than men who draw shoujo and josei series.
Nowadays, there are just as many women as there are men who are manga authors.
Female authors dominate shoujo manga, and they are also far from rare in shounen and seinen.
And you missclassified several series in the wrong genre:
Clamp: X1999, Tokyo Babylon, xxxholic, Magic Knight Rayearth
Except for xxxholic, these are all shoujo series, not shounen. Most Clamp mangas are shoujo.
Many people in Western countries believe or used to believe that series like X, Tokyo Babylon and Magic Knight Rayearth had to be shounen, because there's violence and blood, so there's no way it could be aimed at girls... *rolls eyes*
Kozueko Morimoto: Gokusen
This is josei (targeted to women in their 20's)
Fuyumi Ono: 12 kingdoms
It's a series of novels, not a manga so it doesn't belong.
As for shounen whose authors are female,
the author of Kateikyôshi Reborn (one of the most popular shounen mangas in Japan right now) is a woman. So is the author of To Love Ru, another manga from shonen jump.
As for whether a series is shoujo or shounen, it depends on the magazine it was serialized in, not on the contents.
Just because a series has action, blood and violence like X or Magic Knight Rayearth doesn't mean it's shounen (aimed at young boys/male teens)
And just because series like Love Hina, Negima and To Love Ru are romantic comedies doesn't mean they are shoujo (aimed at young girls/female teens).
The series is created to fit a certain magazine, and usually authors work for one magazine. Each magazine has their own color and style which authors have to follow. The gender and age of the target audience has an impact too.
For example, usually shounen magazines don't allow their authors to create female heroines or to put too many prominent female characters, because they think it will be offputting to young boys who are still in the "eww, girls have cooties" phase.
Shounen Jump is a shounen magazine, all the series published inside are shounen, while Nakayoshi (which serialized Magic Knight Rayearth, but also Card Captor Sakura, Tokyo Mew Mew and Sailor Moon) is a shoujo magazine, so all the series serialized inside are shoujo.
In Japanese bookstores, the collected volumes will be found in the shounen section. The same thing goes for shoujo, seinen and josei. Seinen and josei magazines will be shelved in different areas, and so will the collected volumes be.
I know this is and old blog post, but I was looking for somthing like this. Though I agree with the other posters, I have to say that for the most part you can tell if the author was a man or a woman.
I hate the sterotypical female anime character, and I've noticed that watching too much anime or reading too much manga has caused most of us American men to think that this is how real Japanese women are...
Buuut! On the other hand manga and anime is fantasy, so the fantasy perfect woman is also part of that fantasy. I love the original Japanese voices when I watch anime, because for one: the jokes are delivered in the original way the author intended and two: while unlike the American voice actresses (with the exception of Kagome on Inuyasha)the Japanese female voices have that cute innocent sound that goes with the character unlike the hard and harsh sounding American female voice actresses...
Plus, with most of the American voice actresses you can tell it's a late 20, early 30 something voice actress trying to sound like a 16 year old girl... At least I can... No matter how cute the character is, a bad sounding voice actress makes her unappealing
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