Shojo manga are filled with rivalries between innocent and naive young girls and evil older women. Antagonism between pure-hearted young women and villainous older women has been communicated to shojo manga from bishojo manga written by and for men through the process of narrative consumption and reproduction. To understand why this is so, this essay examines the work of three Japanese cultural theorists on the topic of the bishojo, or beautiful girl, character type. The ultimate goal of this essay, however, is to argue that female manga artists are fully aware of the cycle of narrative consumption and reproduction, and are thus able to intervene in and disrupt the process and offer new interpretations of female character types that are empowering to female readers.

On February 9, 2011, the New York Times published an article entitled "In Tokyo, a Crackdown on Sexual Images of Minors." (1) Although the "sexual images" in question come from a variety of media, such as adult films and role-playing video games, the Tokyo Metropolitan Ordinance Regarding the Healthy Development of Minors (Tokyo-to Seishonen no Kenzen Naikusei ni Kan Suru Jorei), or the "Tokyo Youth Ordinance Act," passed by the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly on December 15, 2010, specifically targets manga featuring young female characters in what are deemed to be sexually compromising poses or situations. (2) The journalist who penned the article, Hiroko Tabuchi, quotes Tokyo governor Ishihara Shintaro as saying of the manga in question that "these are for abnormal people, for perverts." The article sensationalizes the media that Ishihara hopes to censor as child pornography by emphasizing the young ages and sexual exploitation of its models without differentiating between young women who exist in the real world and those who exist solely on paper. It is only in the last line of the article that a seventeen-year-old male manga reader is quoted as saying, "I don't even think about how old these girls are. It's a completely imaginary world, separate from real life."

The style of illustration targeted by the Tokyo Youth Ordinance Act is known as bishojo-kei, or "bishojo style." A bishojo is a female character in a manga, anime, video game, or light novel that belongs to a genre generally regarded as targeted at a male audience, such as science fiction or adventure fantasy. Examples of such characters are Nausicaa from Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind (1984, Kaze no Tani no Naushika), Nadia from Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water (1990-91, Fushigi no Umi no Nadia), and Ayanami Rei from Neon Genesis Evangelion (1995-96, Shin seiki Evangerion). Bishojo are rooted firmly in fantasy, whether that fantasy is a post-apocalyptic wasteland or a halcyon year of high school. These characters need not be connected to an actual narrative, however, and can be depicted in original stand-alone artistic compositions, such as those printed on the postcards and pin-up posters enclosed in monthly manga magazines. These illustrated girls are often characterized as not only strong and competent but also somewhat naive and innocent;...