Shoujo House
Hello! I'm very glad you're visiting my site. I feel sorry but I can't offer a decent English version of my page yet. When I started planning Shoujo House it was supposed to be a bilingual page, displaying the same material in Portuguese and in English. But the page had grown too much (And is still growing!) and the webmistress is too lazy and busy to prepare a decent English mirror as quick as it deserves.
Now I'll tell you a little about the purpose of my page. First of all, my page is about shoujo anime and manga, and talking a bit about how it is seen in my country, Brazil.
So, What is Shoujo?There's no didatic answer for the question, but many things may be said about this topic. Shoujo means girl in Japanese and is the name given in Japan to the comics made by women for women of all ages. Although people in the West enjoy labelling shoujo as simply romantic and cute material for girls, shoujo is much more than this and I bet a great part of shoujo works would not be recognized as such by people used to think shoujo is only Sailor Moon and Clamp manga. Of course, this kind of idea is in agreement with the prejudices against women that portrait us as being just interested in catch a man and marry him. But in Japan, the number of shoujo publications in Japan is enormous and rich in themes and styles, from historical to daily life, from romance to horror, from science fiction to pornography. In fact, we'd get closer to understanding if we just consider shoujo as what comes from girl's or women's oriented magazines, what means, comics by a female point of view. For a far best explanation I suggest Matt Thorn's site.
Shoujo in BrazilBrazil - my country - is the largest one in South America. But when the matter is anime and manga we're behind our neighbours. In the 80's, we had no manga (it's not very different from other countries, I know) but our televiosions broadcasted just a few series, so we didn't watch the most part of the Japanese classic animation. The Rose of Versalles, Touch, Hokuto no Ken, Ace Wo Nerae, even Candy Candy was interrupted around episode 28. In the mid 90's things started to turn in our favor thanks to Cavaleiros do Zodíaco (Saint Seya), but shoujo anime was treated as non-profitable stuff. Sailor Moon was interrupted, Wedding Peach dubbed but not released, Rose of Versalles had 12 episodes for video only because of Shingo Araki character design (same of Saint Seya). Rayearth was praised but as CLAMP material not as shoujo.
Shoujo is not well-known in my country. Here, as in many places, cartoons and comics are seen as children's or nerd's stuff. So, it looks that people is not well prepared to see anime and manga not as target on children but with options to all ages, tastes and genders. Out of that, even among anime and manga fans, shoujo is despised just for prejudice. We don't have nothing like that in West, women generally don't read comics because they don't have anything for them, and in a macho society women's stuff is seen as a inferior thing that deserve disdain or suspicion. People don't know this kind of material very well, and when they find out that the manga and anime are girl's oriented in Japan they just forget about it or start to criticize.
Most are Dragon Ball fans and think of anime and manga just in terms of violence and action; others don't know any shoujo besides Nakayoshi material, what means, Sailor Moon, Card Captor Sakura, Rayearth. They are not aware that there's shoujo for all ages and of many different kinds that may be even amazing. But even with very successful experiences in North America and Europe, our publishers continue to ignore shoujo manga just for prejudice or ignorance. So, my site tries show the diversity of shoujo stuff and talk about series that deserve to be known but never got any attention in my country.
What you'll find in my pageInformation about most part of the shoujo anime and manga that were released in Brazil. Till the moment we have Fushigi Yuugi, Rayearth, Card Captor Sakura, X and Peach Girl released. We have watched some good anime series such as Candy Candy (partially), Hana no Ko Lun Lun, Rayearth Card Captor Sakra, Sailor Moon and other minor series. In Sailor Moon the dubbing version was not very good but we had not any censorship during the series, the same for Card Captor Sakura. Nowadays, most anime are released on television with changings and cuts maybe some American influence. Besides that, I'll talk about some manga and anime classics - such as Ace wo Nerae, Haikara San ga Tooru and Glass Mask - and about my favorite series, The Rose of Versailles, Ryoko Ikeda's masterpiece, and Shoujo Kakumei Utena.
I like new series and also some shonen, so I'll make sections for other series, so you'll find some information about Mahou Tsukai Tai!, Super Gals! Kotobuki Ran, Fruits Basket, Touch and others. Of course, most of the Brazilian sections are done, the English ones unfortunately, not. You may visit my links' page, most of the sites in this section, are about shoujo series. But I have a section with links to academic studies about anime and manga too. Most of them are in English or Italian. Go there and take a look!
At the moment I'm offering my mp3 list, Winamp skins, some anime and manga reviews, a ROV Gallery and my draws. You can take any of my skins but if you put any of them in your page please link to my page or give me credit.
I expect you to return to my page. I'll begin to put sections in English as soon as possible. For now I should say that I'm very glad for your visit. Feel free to make any criticism or suggestion and I'll be very happy if you sign my guestbook or my guestmap.
