I’ve touched on Weekly Shonen Jump and Weekly Shonen Magazine quite a bit and have even dedicated an article to Weekly Shonen Sunday! However, while certainly the most popular, there are other manga demographics besides shonen. Therefore, I thought it might be interesting to take a look at some shojo magazines, specifically the three most important, Ribon, Nakayoshi and Ciao.
The earliest of these is Nakayoshi which saw its first issue released in 1954. Published by Kodansha, the magazine has been continuously running since and has sold over 400 million copies over its lifetime. One of the earliest manga that I’m aware of from Nakayoshi is the remake of Princess Knight, a popular series from legendary mangaka Osamu Tezuka, and has made very significant contributions to Japanese popular culture since with numerous popular series such as Candy Candy, Sailor Moon and Cardcaptor Sakura running in the magazine.
Ribon soon followed with its first issue releasing in 1955. Published by Shueisha, Ribon has arguably been the most successful shojo manga magazine of all time with estimated sales of over 590 million copies sold as well as having numerous spin-off magazines such as Ribon Comic, Ribon Deluxe and Ribon Original. A couple of manga series that were serialised in early releases, those being Sally the Witch and The Secrets of Akko-chan, laid the foundation for the whole subgenre that we’re now familiar with called Magical Girl. Additionally, one of the most watched anime of all time, Chibi Maruko-chan saw the manga from which it was based off of originally released in Ribon!
Ciao is by far the most recent of these magazines with the first issue being released in 1977. Published by Shogakukan, while I haven’t been able to find any figures related to how many units Ciao has sold overall, it does seem that it currently has the highest circulation of any of the shojo manga magazines on the market with an estimated 147,000 copies sold on a monthly basis. As for series published in Ciao, notable titles include Revolutionary Girl Utena, Hamtaro and the Mitsuru Adachi series Slow Step.
The impact that each of these magazines has had on both the manga industry and on popular culture in general is immense and I think that they deserve greater recognition by the Western fandom. Let me know your thoughts on these three important shojo magazines, whether you had heard of Ribon, Nakayoshi or Ciao before, what manga you’ve read that were serialised in these magazines, what you think about their impact on the manga industry and on popular culture and any additional information you might have on the topic.
Hopefully you have found this article interesting and informative and, if you wish to seek any of the works I mentioned, don’t hesitate to use amazon.co.uk or amazon.com for all of your needs!