Teu Week 5

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

The ‘shojo’ basically means young female, in the few anime that I have seen the ‘shojo’ has been a essential character to the film. I recently watched the anime ‘Arrietty’ and ‘My Neighbor Totoro’ in these two films the protagonists are both ‘shojo’. I like the way Tamae Prindle describes the ‘shojo’ as “a shallow lacuna between adulthood and childhood, power and powerlessness, awareness and innocence as well as masculinity and femininity” Prindle (1998, P.35). I think this depiction of the ‘shojo’ is on point, I completely agree with Prindle in this analysis. In the Anime ‘Princess Mononoke’ the protagonist is a male warrior that comes across a ‘shojo’ this shojo being ‘San’ also known as ‘Princess Mononoke’. San is strong and brave, she is very loyal to her home which is the forest and her family or you could say pack as she is living with wolves. I have found that the ‘shojo’ has many functions in Anime, sometimes the ‘shojo’ is the protagonist and usually the love interest. I personally really love the ‘shojo’, I have found out of the few Anime I have watched I have enjoyed the ones where the ‘shojo’ is the main character, I liked ‘Arrietty’ and ‘My Neighbor Totoro’ over ‘Porco Rosso’ and ‘Princess Mononoke’ but in saying that I very much enjoyed them all.

Cavallaro, D. (2006). Introduction. In The Anime Art of Hayao Miyazaki (pp.5-13). London:

McFarland & Company

Miyazaki, H. (Director). (2006) Princess Mononoke. Tokyo: Studio Ghibli Productions.

Miyazaki, H. (Director). (1988) My Neighbor Totoro. Tokyo: Studio Ghibli Productions

Miyazaki, H. (Director). (1992) Porco Rosso. Tokyo: Studio Ghibli Productions

Yonebayashi, H. (Director). (2010) Arrietty. Tokyo: Studio Ghibli Productions