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

[lnhammer]

By the same author of Aoi Hana (which I also recommend) is Hourou Musuko, the main characters of which are pre-op M2F and F2M, following them from first realizations in sixth grade onward (currently they're in late middle school), with a variety of friends-and-companions, more of them female than not, more of the straight than not, but all types represented.

I like how the last couple Japanese volumes of Yotsuba&! have been deepening the friendship specifically between Yotsuba and Ena.

My current (though it's about to end) favorite shonen series, Cross Game, grounds two female-female relationships among the central five, including one between sisters and another between neighbors. My second-favorite, Kekkaishi, alas not only has a dearth of female friendships, but may not even be able to pass the Bechdel Test, even after 20-odd volumes, despite having a female mangaka. Hmph.

---L.

[octopedingenue]

Well, the female kekkaishi talk to their female dog spirits...? No, doesn't count. I do double the rec for Hourou Musuko and triple it for Aoi Hana / Blue Flowers!

Chibi Vampire / Karin is adorable I-can't-believe-it's-not-shoujo romcom shonen about day-walking, blood-injecting vampire Karin Maaka and her male human classmate Usui. Their friendship-to-romance is fatality-level cute, but there's a ton of stuff also with Karin's normal!vampire family, who love her but worry constantly over her non-bloodsucking: particular plot emphasis goes to her mother, her paternal grandmother, and her little sister Anju, the last of whom Karin is very close with. Karin also has a female human best friend who appears regularly and is important to her, though not as much to the plot.

[lnhammer]

Actually, both dog spirits are male. One happens to be gay, as in flaming enough to sound female in Japanese, but still quite male per Word of God. And that one is Yoshimori's, not Tokine.

---L.

[rilina]

I sort of love that the dog spirit is gay, by the way. Though frankly not enough to have kept up with the series after the first few volumes.

[oyceter]

OMG how do you find all these things? Female!vampire, male!human = hard to find! That sounds adorable.

[oyceter]

!!! Transgendered people in manga who identify as transgendered (?) ! I have to look that up.

[lnhammer]

Or at least, being adolescent, trying to work out how they identify. But the main pair do spend time practicing dressing as non-birth gender together (in another township). And while doing so, they made an adult friend who is pre-op M2F who is saving up for the op.

The first four volumes were scanned by Kotonoha and should still be available on their site; when they went hiatus for a while, a group called ? took over, and they've kept current on scans with chapters up to mid-what-will-be-volume 10.

---L.

[oyceter]

Still cool! I mean, I love the fantasy bodyswapping and stuff like that, but I also like seeing transgendered issues in a more real-life setting as well.

[lnhammer]

So do I, and this is one of the better works about transgendered adolescence, in any format, I've read.

---L.