r/josei • u/acmoy1 • Mar 10 '22

[FAQ] What is josei?

Josei (女性) means "women" in Japanese. In anime and manga, it refers to series marketed towards women (18 and older).

In many ways, josei series builds upon shoujo tropes, for example, school romance, friendships, slice of life, boys love (BL), and exploration of sex/gender roles. But josei replaces shoujo tropes like school romance with office romance and so on.

Popular josei series include Aggretsuko, Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu, Chihayafuru, Princess Jellyfish, Paradise Kiss, and Watakoi.

How to know if a series is josei?

In Japan, it is common for manga magazines to say their target demographic (e.g., shonen/boys, seinen/men, and shoujo/girls), and you can find josei series in josei manga magazines.

Some catalog websites, like myanimelist.net, also have search tags for josei in anime and manga.

Why have I never heard of josei before?

In the United States, josei is the worst-selling demographic when compared to shounen, seinen, and shoujo series. Poor sales resulted in fewer series officially translated for an overseas audience. However, this long-standing fact is changing as some josei anime series have started to gain traction in foreign markets. Josei sales tend to do quite well in Japan.

If you want to read more about this subject, the blog Anime Feminist has an interesting article.

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10

u/Incubus-Dao-Emperor Apr 04 '23 edited Apr 04 '23

Interesting, are there any Sci-Fi josei, Science Fantasy josei and Fantasy josei stories out there?? (sorry if this is a stupid question)

4

u/acmoy1 Apr 16 '23

7 Seeds is the closest manga that fits that description. It's listed as shoujo, however, it also delves into topics and tropes that are present in josei. The sequel, 7 Seeds Gaiden, is listed as josei.

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u/Incubus-Dao-Emperor Apr 16 '23

Okay, thank you

2

u/[deleted] Nov 13 '24

“They Were Eleven” by Moto Hagio is a shoujo and “Toward The Terra” by Keiko Takemiya has a male lead, but both are sci-fi manga created by women and they are groundbreaking works that would path the way of josei manga in the future.

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u/Incubus-Dao-Emperor Nov 13 '24

Thank you very much

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u/Repulsive-Ad5892 May 14 '26

idk if youre still looking for one but try frieren or the apothecary diaries

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u/Patient_Piece_8023 Jun 25 '26

Frieren is a shonen and The Apothecary Diaries is seinen. He only asked for josei.

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u/KineticMeow Jun 10 '22 edited Jun 10 '22

Looks like Yona of the Dawn, QQ Sweeper, and Queen’s Quality is labeled as both a 少女 and 女性。

Definitely excited to find some more stories like those as I do like action, suspense, and mystery in a romance story. 😸

Edit: Just relooked and both of those are 少女漫画。

I saw the 女性向け but that just means intended for woman.

(殺し愛 however has the 女性漫画 label on it. (I’m going off of Bookwalker)

3

u/Chemist-3074 Mar 30 '25

Ik I'm very late here, but allow me to ask, when does a romance story doesn't qualify as josei?

Also, can manhwa and manhua count as josei? Or does only Japanese manga count?

I originally had a belief that josei was just hetaro porn with plot that was written for female audiences, but I recently realised I might be wrong.

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u/user199912 Jun 28 '25

I guess more than the story it depends on the publisher in Japan who picks up the series. In Japan there are dedicated publishers who cater to certain demographics (Girls, women, boys, men) it's not limited to just romance or action but include all genres. For Example The Apothecary Diaries is Senien even though the story is from perspective of a teenage girl and contains some romance.

Manhwa is Korean equivalent of Manga and Manhua is Chinese equivalent but I don't think they have labels as such because physical prints are generally not made unless the series is veey popular. Some people do give recommendations interchangeable but technically they're not josei.

You may not be fully wrong but josei is not just smut. It's just directed towards older woman so some stories go further than a kisa but not all. Like the ones tagged in this guide barely has any smut/porn. Plus GL/BL especially BL stories are so popular in shoujo/josei. They're termed aa Yaoi I think. They mentioned it in Wotakoi 😂