Manga, or Japanese comic books, is a 4 billion dollar a year industry, making up 40% of the country’s published works. Yet, contrary to Western comic books which often focus on targeting male readers, in Japan, a particularly prominent and developed genre of manga is shojo manga (Girls’ manga), with women across the nation’s demographic making up a large percentage of target readership due to its reflection of female desires and aspirations.

Celebrating the UK’s biggest manga exhibition at the British Museum (23 May – 26 August 2019), the Japan Foundation is proud to welcome Professor Yukari Fujimoto, a manga expert from Meiji University specialising in gender and feminist theory. Overviewing the girls’ manga genre by talking about some notable features, she will discuss how manga has played a vital role in empowering female creativities as well as the readership body; in particular, by contextualising the way female sexuality and attraction – especially between same sex – has been drawn as women’s values continued shifting.

This event will provide you with an insight into an obscure yet currently relevant terrain of manga, one of Japan’s most renowned cultural imports.