''Four Shōjo Stories'' is a

shōjo manga is an editorial category of Japanese comics targeting an audience of adolescent females and young adult women. It is, along with manga (targeting adolescent boys), manga (targeting young adult and adult men), and manga (targeting adul ...

anthology In book publishing, an anthology is a collection of literary works chosen by the compiler; it may be a collection of plays, poems, short stories, songs or excerpts by different authors. In genre fiction, the term ''anthology'' typically categ ...

released by

Viz Media VIZ Media LLC is an American manga publisher, anime distributor and entertainment company headquartered in San Francisco, California. It was founded in 1986 as VIZ LLC. In 2005, VIZ LLC and ShoPro Entertainment merged to form the current VIZ M ...

in February 1996. It contains two stories by

Keiko Nishi is a Japanese manga artist. Life After graduating from Kagoshima Prefectural Ibusuki High School, she attended Tsuru University from where she graduated with a degree in Japanese literature. While still attending Tsuru University, Nishi made h ...

, and one each by

Moto Hagio is a Japanese manga artist. Regarded for her contributions to ''shōjo'' manga ( manga aimed at young and adolescent women), Hagio is considered the most significant artist in the demographic and among the most influential manga artists of a ...

and

Shio Satō (6 December 1952 – 4 April 2010) was a Japanese manga artist. Satō was a member of the Post Year 24 Group, a group of female manga artists considered influential in the development of shōjo manga. She also wrote under the pen name . She ma ...

. This was one of the earliest (if not the first) shōjo titles released in

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...

Plot

;Promise The brother and father of Reiko, a teenage girl, died not long after she was born. She must cope with her mother neglecting her, including her mother's decision to remarry. Reiko begins skipping school and she often meets by chance a boy who had helped her when she was little. He helps her get used to her new situation. ;

They Were Eleven is a Japanese science fiction manga series written and illustrated by Moto Hagio. It was serialized in three issues of Shogakukan's ''Bessatsu Shōjo Comic'' magazine in 1975. The following year, it won the 21st Shogakukan Manga Award in ...

Ten young space cadets are put onto a decommissioned spaceship as their final test. If they pass this test, their lifelong dreams of being valued people in their respective societies will come true. They find upon reaching the ship that they have an eleventh member. The crew suffers

hyperthermia Hyperthermia, also known simply as overheating, is a condition in which an individual's body temperature is elevated beyond normal due to failed thermoregulation. The person's body produces or absorbs more heat than it dissipates. When extreme ...

because their ship is too close to a star, and they must find out which of their number is the spy. ;The Changeling In the distant future, Lin is employed to check up on Earth's

terraforming Terraforming or terraformation ("Earth-shaping") is the hypothetical process of deliberately modifying the atmosphere, temperature, surface topography or ecology of a planet, moon, or other body to be similar to the environment of Earth to make ...

efforts. She runs across a peaceful-seeming world, but her ship is nearly sabotaged. ;Since You've Been Gone An unfaithful husband is with his lover as an earthquake devastates his home. His wife refuses to be evacuated, as she wants to find a purse with "deep sentimental value".

Releases

Rachel Matt Thorn Rachel Thorn (formerly Matt Thorn; born May 12, 1965) is a cultural anthropologist and an associate professor in the Department of Manga Production at Kyoto Seika University's Faculty of Manga in Japan. She is best known in North America for he ...

, a noted anthropologist, translated all four stories in the anthology. This anthology is unusual in the fact that Viz did not ask permission to publish the four stories as an anthology, and they had to pull it from the shelves when the original rights holder (

Shogakukan is a Japanese publisher of dictionaries, literature, comics (manga), non-fiction, DVDs, and other media in Japan. Shogakukan founded Shueisha, which also founded Hakusensha. These are three separate companies, but are together called the Hit ...

) found out what they had done. Of the four stories, ''They Were Eleven'' was distributed separately by Viz as a "monthly comic series" in 1995, ''Promise'' and ''Since You've Been Gone'' have been compiled in one floppy by Viz called ''Promise'' which came out in April 1994, and ''The Changeling'' was serialised in ''

Animerica ''Animerica'' was a monthly magazine published by Viz Media containing news, feature articles, and reviews on manga, anime, and related media, as well as a section that serialized manga published by Viz. After an initial November 1992 preview is ...

''. *''Four Shōjo Stories'', , Viz Communications, February 1996

Reception

Shaenon Garrity Shaenon K. Garrity is a webcomic creator and science-fiction author best known for her webcomics ''Narbonic'' and '' Skin Horse''. She collaborated with various artists to write webcomics for the Modern Tales-family of webcomic subscription serv ...

describes it as being "an odd mix" of stories, attributing this to the "very little" amount of shōjo manga available in English at that time. She describes ''Promise'' as being "affecting", and regards the story of ''The Changeling'' to be "engaging", although she describes its art as "sparse and uneven". She believes the best of the four to be Hagio's ''They Were Eleven''. Garrity describes ''Four Shōjo Stories'' as being one of the best short manga anthologies in English. Debbie Carton, writing for Booklist, regarded the book as a "fascinating introduction to the world of shojo manga" and regarded the range of stories included to be a positive. She recommended it for any collection including

graphic novel A graphic novel is a long-form, fictional work of sequential art. The term ''graphic novel'' is often applied broadly, including fiction, non-fiction, and anthologized work, though this practice is highly contested by comic scholars and industry ...

s.Carton, Debbie. "Four Shojo Stories."

Booklist ''Booklist'' is a publication of the American Library Association that provides critical reviews of books and audiovisual materials for all ages. ''Booklist''s primary audience consists of libraries, educators, and booksellers. The magazine is av ...

July 1996: 1818. Literature Resource Center. Web. 7 Jan. 2016.

References

External links

BookSwim reviews
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Four Shojo Stories 1996 manga Fantasy anime and manga Manga anthologies Moto Hagio Romance anime and manga Science fiction anime and manga Shogakukan manga Shōjo manga Viz Media manga