What is the ‘shojo’ and how does it often function in anime?

   The term ‘Shojo’ is generally understood to mean a young woman(少女) as a Japanese word (Naver Cast: Who is the Shojo, 2005). These young women play an important role in most Japanese anime and manga. These days, in Japan, ‘Shojo’ is used in many areas such as Japanese cartoons, animations, movies, music, etc. ‘Shojo’ has gradually appeared more than other characters in Japanese anime and manga. I also think that ‘Shojo’ can be described as a vague nostalgia, and it looks like sexually inexperienced, but it has a pure eroticism. Moreover, ‘Shojo’ is not a child or adult, also not a man and mature women, but in-between of those figures. Thus, meanwhile, ‘Shojo’ is hard to define exactly, because it is an ambiguous and mysterious being.

   For those reasons, ‘Shojo’ has become a popular character of Japan anime. In anime, ‘Shojo’ perform several functions. First of all, ‘Shojo’ give off fresh charm and also cheerful atmosphere to audiences.  Secondly, the character of ‘Shojo’ has healing powers as an innocent girl. In other words, ‘Shojo’ can change people who have a selfish mind and a destruction of nature to people who recover pure humanity. Thirdly, ‘Shojo’ as a medium reflects the image of an innocent girl, so it can connect nature and humans that can communicate with nature in anime. Fourthly, ‘Shojo’ symbolises reconciliation between nature and humans. Lastly, ‘Shojo’ is expressed cute and sweet to audiences, so they can easily like the main character, ‘Shojo, in works. Napier (2005) states that most Japanese anime`s heroines “still tend to have conventionally female gendered aspects like sweetness and cuteness, which, as has been shown, are typical of the Shojo” (p. 238). Therefore, directors can use ‘Shojo’ characters to express many things in their works.

   Many Japanese directors have used ‘Shojo’ characters in their works. Among them, Miyazaki Hayao is the one of the famous directors and well expresses the ‘Shojo’ characters in his works. There are many cute and sweet ‘Shojo’ characters in Miyazaki Hayao`s anime. For example, ‘Lana’ of Future Boy Conan (1978), ‘Clarisse’ of The Castle of Cagliostro (1979), ‘Nausicaä’ of Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984), ‘Princess Sheeta’ of Castle in the Sky (1986), ‘Satsuki’ and ‘Mei’ of My Neighbour Totoro (1988), ‘Kiki’ of Kiki's Delivery Service (1989), ‘Chihiro’ of The Spiriting Away of Sen and Chihiro (2002), etc (Naver Magazine: Animation World of Miyazaki Hayao, 2013). Most of the Miyazaki`s anime include various ‘Shojo’ characters as a heroine. However, ‘San’ of Princess Mononoke (1997) was described bit different from earlier characters of ‘Shojo’, because, for example, San was a wild half man half wolf.

References

Napier, S. (2005). Anime: from Akira to Howl’s Moving Castle. Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan.

Naver Cast: Who is the Shojo. (2005). Retrieved September 16, 2014, from http://terms.naver.com/entry.nhn?docId=1053204&cid=42629&categoryId=42629

Naver Magazine: Animation World of Miyazaki Hayao. (2013). Retrieved September 16, 2014, from http://today.movie.naver.com/today/today.nhn?sectionCode=EXPIRED&sectionId=1757