By: Nick Santangelo

Was it a boy or a girl? Most College of Liberal Arts (CLA) students gathered in Anderson Hall to hear Vassar College's Hiromi Tsuchiya Dollase talk about "shōjo manga" couldn't tell. The character being shown had been drawn with large eyes and a slim body, fooling almost every student in the room into thinking it was a girl. It was, however, a boy.

But that's not surprising given the nature of the talk. Shōjo, after all, is a type of manga (a genre of Japanese comics and graphic novels) created for teenage girls in which characters often have gender fluidity. Dr. Dollase's talk as a guest of CLA's Asian Studies Department and Japanese minor program explained to students—many of whom had brought their own passions for and knowledge of manga and anime—how this genre was developed throughout the 20th century.

In shōjo manga, gender is a choice," said Dr. Dollase. "In shōjo manga, it does not matter if a character is a boy or a girl. Gender is just the reader's fantasy.

Why is that? According to Dr. Dollase, the explanation traces back to the early 1900s when Japanese people began eagerly consuming Western culture. It was during this era that the country first decided educating girls was essential to its future. That may sound astonishing, but Japanese girls' educations simply weren't a priority in earlier eras. In fact, girls were previously not even allowed to attend colleges or universities.

This new pivot towards educating girls meant there was an explosion in literature aimed specifically at young girls. Most girls, however, had little interest in the government's nationalistic works and instead gravitated towards sentimental and romantic writing, according to Dr. Dollase. The shōjo genre ("sho" meaning "small, immature" and "jo" meaning "woman") thus rose to prominence.

In shōjo manga, it does not matter if a character is a boy or a girl.

Dr. Dollase showed students a series of images pulled from 1930s shōjo and had them identify similarities to today's shōjo. Students pointed out that characters all had slim bodies, fair skin and large eyes, giving an overly youthful appearance.

"This suggests a viewer's psyche in which girls want to be viewed as shōjo, not the woman they'll become," said Dr. Dollase. "The nationality in these pictures is also vague, which makes shōjo a blending of Western and Japanese."

Continuing, the professor noted that while gender ambiguity has historically had negative connotations, it's always been seen as a positive aspect of shōjo. Many young, female readers wanted to see young girls—even in traditionally male roles—and wanted romances to be mostly between females.

"Shojo's 'immature' qualities and social marginality gave authors the power to express their thoughts without worrying about the reaction of authority," explained Dr. Dollase.

Shortly after the release of the popular Ribbon Knight series in the late 1950s, manga started to emerge in Japan, as did shojo mangas. Ribbon Knight featured a character named Sapphire who had the body of a girl but the spirit of a boy, so Sapphire had to hide her female appearance in order to fight.

Girls want to be viewed as shōjo, not the woman they'll become

Ribbon Knight was so popular that it led to a flood of crossdressing girl heroes that has continued to this day. For example, Dr. Dollase referenced 2014's Tenka Ichi, a manga about a girl's father who raised her much as a boy would traditionally be raised so that she could learn martial arts.

"Girls' culture created over a century ago has kept evolving and empowering young girls in shōjo manga," said Dr. Dollase.

As another example, she referenced The Rose of Versailles, a popular manga from the 1970s "Golden Age" of shōjo manga. The manga featured the female Oscar who behaved like a male in order to become a great soldier for Napoleonic France. In the story, Oscar eventually falls in love with a male named Andre. Their romance is only able to flourish because Andre never asks Oscar to compromise either her feminine or masculine sides.

"Girls' fiction in manga always affirm whatever desire young females have," concluded Dr. Dollase. "Girls' culture has always served as a protective space. It doesn't matter if characters are male or female or whether history is correct or incorrect. There are only dreams and fantasies."