''Four Shōjo Stories'' is a

manga are comics or graphic novels originating from Japan. Most manga conform to a style developed in Japan in the late 19th century, and the form has a long history in earlier Japanese art. The term is used in Japan to refer to both comics ...

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 related fiction/non-fiction excerpts by different authors. There are also thematic and g ...

published by

Viz Media Viz Media, LLC is an American entertainment company headquartered in San Francisco, California, focused on publishing manga, and distribution and licensing Japanese anime, films, and television series. The company was founded in 1986 as Viz, ...

in 1996. It is a collection of manga – manga aimed at an audience of adolescent girls and young adult women – containing two works by the

manga artist A manga artist, also known as a mangaka (), is a Cartoonist, comic artist who writes and/or illustrates manga. Most manga artists study at an art college or manga school or take on an apprenticeship with another artist before entering the indus ...

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 he ...

and one each by the manga artists

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 al ...

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 mad ...

. It was one of the earliest published works of manga released in English. The book was later pulled from publication, as Viz did not seek permission from the original publisher

Shogakukan is a Japanese publisher of comics, magazines, light novels, dictionaries, literature, non-fiction, home media, and other media in Japan. Shogakukan founded Shueisha, which also founded Hakusensha. These are three separate companies, but ...

to publish the works collected in ''Four Shōjo Stories'' as an anthology.

Works

;''Promise'' by

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'' by

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 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 te ...

because their ship is too close to a star, and they must find out which of their number is the spy. ;''The Changeling'' by

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 mak ...

efforts. She runs across a peaceful-seeming world, but her ship is nearly sabotaged. ;''Since You've Been Gone'' by Keiko Nishi 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".

Release

''Four Shōjo Stories'' was published by

in February 1996, and translated by

Rachel Thorn Rachel Thorn (formerly Matt Thorn; born May 12, 1965) is a cultural anthropologist and a faculty member at the Kyoto Seika University's Faculty of Global Culture (in the Japanese Culture Course) in Japan. She is best known in North America ...

. It was one of the earliest manga released in English in North America. Viz did not seek permission to publish the four stories as an anthology, and were forced to pull the book from distribution when the original rights holder

learned the stories had been published in this format. The titles would later be distributed individually by Viz: ''They Were Eleven'' as a monthly comic series in 1995, ''Promise'' and ''Since You've Been Gone'' as a single comic book titled ''Promise'' in April 1994, and ''The Changeling'' was serialized in ''

Animerica ''Animerica'' was a monthly magazine A magazine is a periodical literature, periodical publication, print or digital, produced on a regular schedule, that contains any of a variety of subject-oriented textual and visual content (media), ...

'' in 1995 (volume 3, issues #5 and #6).

Reception

Shaenon K. Garrity described it as being "an odd mix" of stories, attributing this to the "very little" amount of 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 self-contained, book-length form of sequential art. The term ''graphic novel'' is often applied broadly, including fiction, non-fiction, and Anthology, anthologized work, though this practice is highly contested by comics sc ...

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 ...

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

References

External links

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