What is the ‘shojo’ and how does it often function in anime?
A subgenre of Anime, it describes a type of young female character in Anime who is (from what i can tell) exempt from the "sexualising" that often dominates characteristics of female characters in widespread forms of literature including Anime. This appeals to me for many reasons being a female myself it's often insulting to see oversexualised females in literature.
"What fascinates the Japenese is that the shoujo nestle in a shallow lacuna between adulthood and childhood, power and powerlessness, awareness and innocence as well as masculinity and feminity" (Prindle 1998, p. 35). This would suggest that a child female in Japanese culture must embody these attritubtes which makes little sense to me. As upon first reading the definition of Shoujo I immediately thought "paedophiles". As the explaination I read included the words "...admixature of sexlessness and budding eroticism." which did not make sense to me in any way.
From what I can gather (putting aside my own comments on the genre) Susan J. Napier states that shoujo characters "embody the potential for unfetted change and excitment that is far less available to Japanese males,.." which shows me escapism is one of the main functions of the Shoujo subgenre.
REFERENCES
Cavallaro, D. (2006). Introduction. In The Anime Art of Hayao Miyazaki. (London: McFarland & Company) pp.5-13
You make some interesting critical comments - but it is necessary to discuss how these play out in the primary texts - (e.g Mononoke) Doing this might provide some further insights and answer some of the questions you raise in your responses to the theoretical literature.
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