[GoLLuM13]

The month of March is soon coming to an end and with it the theme of the month. And since it will soon be Demon Slayer release of the new season, I wanted to talk about ladies mangakas, because some people don't know it, but some of the greatest manga/anime were written by women. And I'm not even talking about the fact that the main Japanese voices of heroes like Goku, Naruto and Luffy are dubbed by women.

So I start with of course the manga that inspired me this subject, Demon Slayer, which is a Shōnen, which is the "king" genre in terms of manga, basically intended for a male audience, we quickly realize that this barrier is not. Manga fans are all familiar with Demon Slayer which has amassed 150 million sales worldwide as of February 2021. And yes, it was written by a woman, Koyoharu Gotōge. This manga tells the story of a young boy named Tanjirō Kamado. After his family is slaughtered by demons, he becomes a demon hunter to avenge their deaths and save his sister Nezuko who has been turned into a demon. The manga follows his journey through feudal Japan as he encounters other demon hunters and battles powerful enemies in his quest to find a cure to cure Nezuko and end the reign of the demons.

Another Shōnen that will appeal more to thirty-somethings, because it's a classic, I'm of course talking about Ranma 1/2. This manga was written by Rumiko Takahashi, who is currently one of the oldest in the genre. This manga tells the story full of twists and misunderstandings of Ranma Saotome and his fiancée Akane Tendô. Many characters change upon contact with cold or hot water, starting with Ranma who transforms into a girl upon contact with cold water and a boy upon contact with hot water, which causes many gags and adventures.

Another mangaka, but this time we move on to another popular genre, it's Shōjo which is intended for a female audience. Have you guessed which manga it is? This is Sailor Moon which was written by Naoko Takeuchi. Another classic, it tells the story of a banal and clumsy teenager girl, who is actually Sailor Moon, a heroine with magical powers. Fighting evil in the name of love and justice, she is joined by many allies, all placed under the protection of a planet in the Solar System.

There are of course plenty of other manga written by women, like Nana and Full Metal Alchemist, but I'll leave it up to you to tell us about your favorite manga written by women !

[firelordzukoo]

Great post. I just read through it and it made me googld for some other mangas written by women and I'm surprised at how many of them were actually written by women! They need to definitely be appreciated more. I would also like to add that even a few major characters like Ray from The Promised Neverland, Killua from Hunter X Hunter and even Himeno from Chainsaw Man are all voiced by the same person, Mariya Ise, it's crazy how she can do any role! Even other characters like Armin from AOT and Ash from Pokemon are all voiced by women.

I would like to thank OP for bringing my attention to this, women in the space need to be appreciated more and well, woman in general for that matter.

Much love!

[GoLLuM13]

@firelordzukoo thank you 😊

I read some of the stories to write this, and I wanted to let this one as a "bonus" I only mentioned it, it's about Full Metal Alchemist, it was written under a false name, a man's pseudonym. Hiromu Arakawa's real name is Hiromi Arakawa, she changed the "i" into a "u" to sound like a man, but she's a woman. This mighs seem like a small, and trivial story, but it reflects a Japanese reality: writing Shōnen when you are a woman is not necessarily well seen. But with Full Metal Alchemist, one of the few manga to have benefited from 2 anime, Hiromi provided the best answer.

[AhmedOsmaan]

Thank you for sharing this interesting and informative post about the role of women in the manga industry. I agree that it's important to acknowledge and appreciate the contributions of female mangakas.
Personally, my favorite anime is Demon Slayer, and I had no idea that it was written by a woman until now.

[GoLLuM13]

@AhmedOsmaan You're welcome, I was astonished myself when I discovered this 😀

[DoctorEldritch]

@GoLLuM13 I replied in the Nordic thread, but I'll copy the answer here as well:

To be honest, when it comes to reading mangas, I do not always look into who the author is, just if the manga is good. But I do look into them out of curiosity in general sometimes. That being said, I do not read that many mangas in general, not have enough time for that, so I watch more animes than I read source mangas. Out of the ones you mentioned, I watched Fullmetal Alchemist and Demon Slayer (as much as it is currently out), but I have not read those.

There is also an odd feeling for me that reading manga sources is a spoiler for anime, which is odd because I do not see reading books to be spoilers for the films based on them. I wonder why that is, maybe due to both anime and manga having a strong visual component, while books only have textual, maybe.

But there is one woman mangaka that I can name for record-holding achievement, the lady called Machiko Hasegawa. She was the author of Sazae-san, an anime (based on her manga) which began airing in Japan in October 1969 and holds the Guinness World Record for the longest-running animated television series. It is an institution now, a block of Japanese culture, and the credit goes to Machiko Hasegawa.

I have a couple more examples that I liked, like Hikaru no Go and Shion no Ou. I like it when the story rotates around an intellectual game with different symbolic aspects that can arise from that, and when the fights are happening not as martial art displays, but on a board.

But herein lies an interesting observation. In Demon Slayer, Koyoharu Gotōge is both an author and an illustrator, which is not the case for both Hikaru no Go and Shion no Ou. Hikaru no Go was written by a woman Yumi Hotta but illustrated by a man Takeshi Obata (who also illustrated Death Note and Bakuman). Same for Shion no Ou - it was authored by a woman, a professional shogi player Naoko Hayashiba, but illustrated by a man named Jiro Ando. So in these cases, the credit is shared.