Full Moon

I read a LOT of shojo manga in middle school. It wasn't the only thing I read though, I also read a ton of shounen. I went through some of my old books, and there was one mangaka that I ADORED so so so much. Her style is so pretty, and from what I remember, her stories were captivating. The mangaka is Arina Tanemura. She is one of the big reasons why I started getting back into art in middle school. I would look at her work, and try to redraw it. She was a huge inspiration for me back then.

Anyways, I went back and reread a little bit of Full Moon. I can definitely see this work targeting girls. There's a LOT of flourishes and shiny things in there, as well as the abundant use of shiny shiny shiny hair. It's just very captivating to look at. Along with that, there's the basic plot. There's elements of wanting to be all grown up right away, even when you're a kid still. I feel like a lot of girls can relate to this, because we were constantly held to a higher standard of behavior than the boys were. "Boys will be boys". I think because of this, along with everyone saying that girls mature faster than boys, it instills a sense of wanting to/ already growing up too fast. This is only a very small portion of what the story is, but I still think it's an important element to why it's so appealing to young girls.