Kentaro Miura understood the importance of the shojo genre long before it became popular. Now, to be fair, there have always been some die-hard shojo fans throughout history.
However, the way the category has been battling popular shonen manga and anime for the top spot in the past few years would be unimaginable even half a decade ago.
Interestingly, though, Kentaro Miura, the creator of one of the most popular seinen manga, Berserk, used to be a fan of the genre since he was young. In fact, many fans might be unaware that Berserk itself was inspired by a few shojo manga series from the 1970s.
Kentaro Miura understood the importance of shojo manga long before they became popular
Kentaro Miura once said in an interview published in the Berserk Official Guidebook that he was heavily inspired by Riyoko Ikeda’s The Rose of Versailles.
According to him, the ‘70s shojo manga opened him up to a completely new horizon a manga could explore in its storyline. Especially as his ideas weren’t set in concrete about all the nuances his masterpiece delved into from the start.
It was a good opportunity, so I thought I’d switch weapons and come at it from the angle of The Rose of Versailles (by Riyoko Ikeda) and Kaze to Ki no Uta (by Keiko Takemiya). And as this was new ground for me, I figured maybe I could put people around me into the story, as well as memories from my youth.
He further admitted that The Rose of Versailles not only helped him etch out the intricacies of his female characters better, but also made him come up with the idea to create Serpico. According to him, Serpico is the ideal kind of man any woman would want around them in times of need.
My intuition was that he’s the kind of man they would want to have around. To be frank, he’s André from The Rose of Versailles. For a woman exhausted by society, he sees to her needs and considers her before all else. I thought this might be a woman’s everlasting dream.
A CBR article also explained his thought process beautifully. As per the outlet, Kentaro Miura wanted to balance the heinous brutality and the delicate threads of vulnerability, raw emotions, and sensitivity that are needed to portray such incidents properly.
In fact, the art style itself in Berserk was seemingly inspired by the shojo manga genre, with the antagonist Griffith being its biggest example.
The shojo genre is finally claiming its rightful place in the anime industry in recent years
Although Kentaro Miura realized the importance of the expressive storytelling of the shojo manga series long ago, it has taken the rest of the world quite some time to catch up.
To be fair, it is somewhat understandable, as not everybody can be the kind of visionary genius the late mangaka was. Thankfully, though, in recent years, more and more shojo manga series are becoming popular.
In fact, some of those manga series have become popular enough to give even the most popular shonen manga series a run for their money. For example, Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End, The Apothecary Diaries, Witch Watch, Violet Evergarden, and many more titles have been reigning supreme in anime fans’ hearts.
Their delicate character designs, whimsical storytelling, and the perfect balance they strike between keeping a light-hearted tone while dealing with some of the darkest themes are the reasons behind their soaring popularity.
While it’s nothing but a shame that Miura is no longer here to witness this gradual shift in the industry, it is still a positive change that will help shape many such masterpieces in the future. Or so fans seem to believe.
Berserk anime is streaming on Crunchyroll.
This post belongs to FandomWire and first appeared on FandomWire
