Female friendships and/or romances in manga

[oyceter]

Joy Kim recently posted on female friendships in shoujo, and I found myself doing a lot of "It's not shoujo, but..." Ergo, another list!

What are good manga series that respect and celebrate female friendships? And because it's so rare to find in manga, good manga series that respect and celebrate female romances as well?

Since Joy's list has the shoujo series, anything but shoujo here!

Here are some of mine:

Azumanga Daioh, by Azuma Kiyohiko - Not only is there a LOT of female friendship in this, there are only two or three male characters I can think of. And out of those, only one is human!

Claymore, by Yagi Norihiro - Like AzuDai, the ratio of female to male characters is heavily weighted toward the women. I love that the series takes all my favorite shounen tropes—being willing to literally give your comrades your arm, "I will get stronger to protect my precious people!," "I must defeat you one-on-one to prove my strength!," and camaraderie in the face of near-impossible odds—and gives almost all the major roles to the women, leaving the few men to be damsels in distress, comic sidekicks, or villains. There is so much depth to all the relationships among women in this series.

Emma, by Mori Kaoru - Although the driving plot is het romance, I love the many secondary female characters, from Mrs. Stowner to Aurelia and Mrs. Meredith's friendship to Emma's friendship with the maids to Eleanor and her sisters to Eleanor and Grace to Grace and Vivian. I particularly appreciate the many age ranges of the female characters.

Gunslinger Girls, by Aida Yu - Possibly controversial, as Aida also did the character designs for a hentai game that I think eroticizes underaged girls. But I very much love the bonding among all the little cyborg girl assassins and how they are each others' only family, makeshift though it may be.

Yotsuba&!, by Azuma Kiyohiko - There's the Ayase sisters and Mom, Ena's friend Miura, and Asagi's friend Torako. And, of course, Yotsuba! I like very much that the friendships are between sisters, mother and daughters, and across quite a few ages as well.

Sadly, I have read next to no yuri. Erica Sakurazawa is a bit hit-or-miss for me, and the Utena manga is nowhere near as awesome as the anime. There was a super-cute (and very NSFW) all-color yuri romance that I think octopedingenue recced to me, and I know I've seen several mentions of Kashimashi Girl Meets Girl and Maria-sama ga Miteru on my reading list. And, of course, Rose of Versailles, which I also haven't read.

Although I think both Naruto and Bleach have some great female friendships, what I've read of the series constantly underprivileges the female relationships for het romances or for the male friendships and rivalries, which is why I'm leaving them off this list. And though I love Urasawa, he tends to do the "single girl/woman." His female characters are frequently awesome, but they're also almost always the lone woman in a world of men.

Comments

[snarp]

Sugar Sugar Rune, by Moyoco Anno - Insane shoujo manga about two little witch girls, Chocolat and Vanilla, who are best friends, but are forced to compete with one another in a competition to become the next queen. The competition? Which of them can manipulate enough human boys into falling in love with her, without falling in love herself! It's so cynical! While both girls eventually, as you might guess, fall in love with guys, how they cope with being in competition with one another while still being friends is important throughout the series.

Strawberry Shake/Strawberry Shake Sweet, Hayashiya Shizuru - Experienced model and tsundere-stereotype Julia is asked to mentor a new girl to her agency, the impossibly sweet and innocent Ran. She's prepared to hate her, but falls in love at first sight. Wacky hijinks ensue! No, they actually do ensue. This is a pretty straight-up comedy manga, kind of similar to the early volumes of Ouran. Not very deep, but it's cute.

Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou - Very long, beautifully-drawn, largely-plotless series about a robot woman named Alpha who runs a coffee shop, and her relationships with the people who stop in. These including another robot woman, Kokone, who becomes her best friend and falls in love with her without realizing it; "Sensei," an old woman who is the local doctor and may have helped build Alpha (though Alpha doesn't know it); and Makki, a local girl who is initially jealous of Alpha for her popularity.

Battle Angel Alita, by Yukito Kishiro - In which, in between beating up everyone and everything in the world, splattering the intestines the subset which possesses them, a cyborg bounty hunter named Alita makes some unusual friends. The women tend to be less likely to die horribly and provide angst than are the men in her life, but most of them show up late in the series. My favorites are Lou, a dorky, amazingly innocent bureaucrat in a corrupt government who initially thinks Alita is a barbarian, and whom Alita rightly thinks needs protection from her less-pure superiors. Lou has a little Alita doll with tactile feedback - when she pats it on the head, Alita feels it, and is not amused, and Zazie (from the sequel series Last Order), a bodyguard who acts silent and stoic to hide her complete lack of social skills. (At one point she laments, "I don't know how to have a conversation that's not about guns!") Zazie is also the only female black manga character I can think of. (Kishiro's favorite of Alita's female associates is clearly Caerula Sanguis, whose backstory gets a whole volume to itself, but I kind of want to whap her sometimes.)

[lnhammer]

Yes! on Sugar Sugar Rune, and YES!! on YKK.

Kare Kano has some problematic aspects, but a major part of the first half is about Yukino gaining actual female friends, and what this means to her.

There's a really sweet single-volume shoujo I read recently, Onna-no-ko wa Yuko! by Kyouko Hikawa, in which the relationships between the three heroines is very much more important than their erractic romantic lives. (Unlicensed, scans complete)

The main relationship of the long shoujo historical fantasy Crystal Dragon is between two women, who travel together across most of the western Roman empire over the course of the series -- as well as places out of it (it starts on the west coast of Ireland).

And one that no one's mentioned yet: Aria (with prequel Aqua), in which the main cast is entirely female, dividing into older and younger trios of close friends. And is gorgeous, using its setting of the canals of a Venice recreated on Mars to excellent effect. Is shounen, just like Yotsuba&!.

---L.

[oyceter]

Definitely second Kare Kano (I think it's listed in Joy Kim's post? All the shoujo series are over there)... If you're up to it, I encourage putting your shoujo series in her comments!

Aria's been on my TBR list for a while now, I need to get around to it.

[lnhammer]

I'm of two minds whether to suggest starting with Aqua, Aria, or the anime. (I should mention, it's all one manga with a title change when it moved publishers -- much like Saiyuki/Reload.) The thing about the manga is, even by the standards of relaxed-pace slice-of-life series, it's slow. As in, five volumes in, and the last members of the core six characters are still being introduced. Plus it takes Amano a few volumes to get the hang of what she's doing. The anime jumps into the middle and remixes some of the backstory, both by shuffling the order of episodes and by adapting it differently. Plus there's the music and scenery porn (of Venice! on Mars! with spaceships and floaty things in every sky!) But then, the anime, as wonderful as the anime is, it isn't what the manga eventually grows to be. Plus, it's hard to avoid just how annoying the cat is when he's animated, and there's an anime-only character who does useful things structurally but tastes a bit like diabetes when she's on stage.

So, um, take your pick. Half the manga series is in print from Tokyop (2 volumes of Aqua + 5 of Aria, while the third and final season of the anime comes out next month.

---L.

[oyceter]

Awesome. Strawberry Shake in particular sounds so cute!