If you were to ask me about my favorite fujoshi-themed manga, I would predictably answer that it’s Genshiken Nidaime. However, if you were to ask me this question before 2010 (when Genshiken re-started), I would have said Fujoshissu!: Maniac High School Girls Comedy by Okachimachi Hato. I’ve mentioned it a few times over the years on Ogiue Maniax, and have even devoted multiple Fujoshi Files to its characters, but I’ve never really spoken about it to any major extent. Now that the manga has concluded after seven years of publication, I find that it’s all the more important that I share what has been one of my favorite manga in recent memory.

Fujoshissu! (meaning “We’re fujoshi!”) is the story of three fujoshi friends who have to navigate high school while in different stages of their romantic relationships. Satou Megumi is the artist of the group and meets a classmate working at a convenience store and developing a mutual attraction. Aoi Yuki is the resident cosplayed, who begins the series already dating her childhood friend. Yoshizawa Eri is the writer, and who finds herself attracted to her younger brother’s best friend.

Though this seems to follow more or less the formula of so many other manga and especially fujoshi-themed manga, what appealed to me about Fujoshissu! from the very beginning was its approach to portraying its characters, as well as their connections to both each other and their respective boyfriends. In many manga about female otaku, be they fujoshi or otherwise, characters are portrayed as having their fandoms factor extremely heavily into how they find significant others. Boys will fall in love with fujoshi because they love their honest enthusiasm, or girls will work actively to hide their BL fandom. Though generally meaning well, these series often reduce their characters to bare-bones elements, with little characterization beyond the extent of their fandom.

Though this has changed since 2008 when the manga first began, I do think it’s important to note how much Fujoshissu! treats the fact of their fujoshi identities very naturally, especially in the development of their respective romances. Being fujoshi is shown to be very much a part of their identities, yet it is not their sole defining trait or the only impetus for their interactions with others. Their relationships do not hinge on whether or not they can accept their fujoshi selves or whether or not the boys are either attracted to or learn to love their energy, but are more multifaceted concerns having to do with topics such as concern for the future, worrying about personality compatibility, body image, among other things.

In regards to body image in particular, the character Eri is focused on extensively, and her story really explores the idea in ways that are frequently ignored in manga in general. Eri is depicted as short and chubby, and not just “chubby because the manga says she is” as one often finds in series (Yomi in Azumanga Daioh being a notable example). Though not lacking in fashion sense, she reveals over the course of the manga that, due to having internalized a great deal of bullying she experienced when she was younger, she doesn’t believe herself to be beautiful. To Eri, her fashion choices compensate against her own self-perceived ugliness, and she doesn’t even believe her own boyfriend when he says he finds her to be attractive. The combination of not just having this subject talked about but having a character who at first glance reasonably shows through her design why she would come to this conclusion is remarkably poignant, as is the ultimate resolution of this particular narrative.

Even with subjects this emotionally heavy, however, the manga always feels delightfully romantic and fun because of how close and invigorating the friendship between the three main girls is depicted to be. The depths of their personalities come across in times of joy just as much if not more than in times of pain, and their shared hobby of anime, manga, and BL becomes the lens through which we see this deep friendship. It also embraces a manga aesthetic that for the most part can be called shoujo, but the roughness of the artwork is not quite the same as what you’d normally see, more of a BL style that’s been re-translated back into shoujo such that it embraces the expressive qualities of its own lines much more thoroughly.

Interestingly, Fujoshissu! runs in Sylph a magazine largely devoted to BL stories. While the subject matter of fujoshi isn’t that far off, it also shows that a manga title need not be entirely beholden to its own magazine’s themes, and that readers of BL can have just as much interest reading manga about other topics. This isn’t exactly a revelation, especially with magazines such as the recent Comic it, which advertises itself as being manga for female otaku that aren’t so obsessed with love, but the fact that Fujoshissu! successfully ran for seven years shows that this quality is appreciated.

—

If you liked this post, consider becoming a sponsor of Ogiue Maniax through Patreon. You can get rewards for higher pledges, including a chance to request topics for the blog.