West Indian Girl

There has been tons of press on us lately but it’s this kind of press that makes me smile the most. we were mentioned in the horoscope section of this months shojo beat magazine.

If you are like me and didnt know what that mag was all about read below. how awesomely random is this. i guess it’s just a harbinger of our impending deal over in japan.

Welcome to Shojo Beat, the biggest shojo manga magazine ever published in the United States, proudly presenting six series’ worth of manga frontier for you to explore. While we expect that a great many of you have been reading manga (shojo or otherwise) for years, we also have an inkling that a few of you may not know what manga is (shocking!) or why you should care about reading it. Well, we’re here to show you, because while we’re not sure what you’ve been doing all these years, we’re positive that 90 percent of it wasn’t as fun as reading manga. The time has come for you to delve into the drama—to laugh, cry, love, and get inspired via this beautiful and unique art form, and to take a step into the brave new world of manga.

Here’s a bare-bones introduction to shojo manga for the uninitiated—and for those of you who may need a refresher.

Manga (mahn-ga) means “random pictures” or “whimsical pictures” in Japanese. Manga combine pictures and words to convey a story—in short, they’re comics. But unlike American comics, Japanese comics are often first serialized in telephone book-size magazines and then later compiled into complete graphic novels. They are also usually printed in monochrome tones rather than in color.

Shojo (show-joe) means “girl” in Japanese. Shojo manga are often characterized by a moody, abstract art style, with close-ups of characters’ faces intermingling with dreamy backdrops. In contrast to action-oriented shonen (boys’) manga, shojo manga ruminate on themes of emotion, love, identity, and responsibility that often play out internally. That said, shojo manga are by no means just for girls. Shojo stories are about aspects of life that concern everyone—boys and girls, old and young. Note: The word shojo normally appears with a circumflex or macron over the first o, as in shôjo; we removed it for the sake of simplicity and readability in the magazine.