Sunday, December 15, 2002

I’ve been engaged in a wonderful e-mail conversation with a lovely young lady, and our conversation has ranged from religion to art to anime. She had this to say recently about shonen (action-oriented boys’ anime) versus shojo (character-oriented girls’ anime), and it made me stop and think for awhile.

“I think I like the action shonen kiddy stuff because it lets me feel things, or not, depending on what I want to do, whereas shojo seems like it’s always heavy on feelings (like Sailor Moon, and Magic Knight Rayearth), and it can just get to you after awhile. Like, you kind of have to hold yourself back from it when the characters get all emotional, even if you’d react the same way in the situation. It’s just too much. (Maybe I just haven’t seem any good shojo yet.) In contrast, simplistic fighting and buddy shows (like Yu Yu Hakusho), seem like refreshing outlets.”

— AMR