Stereotyped Female Roles and Figures

Throughout the history of shōjo manga, typical women’s roles are depicted. For example, female characters in manga mostly wear skirts and put on makeup, which shows a stereotyped female role to be feminine and elegant. Among such shōjo manga, “NANA,” written by Ai Yazawa in 2000 is a clear example that represents typical women’s roles and female figure. In “NANA,” the act of crying is depicted mostly with female characters. Nakagawa Yumi conducted the graph below to show the ratio of the act of crying depicted with female characters and male characters.

Figure 1. Nakagawa Yumi中川裕美, Zero nendai no shōjo manga ga kaku joseizō: Yazawa Ai『NANA』ni okeru gender ゼロ年代の少女マンガが描く女性像：矢澤あい『NANA』におけるジェンダー (Aichi shukutoku daigaku, 2012), p. 91

The x-axis represents the number of volumes, and the y-axis shows the percentage of the ratio. The black-painted bar represents female characters, while the gray-painted bar shows male characters. As it can be clearly seen, the act of crying is depicted as “a typical female act,” which shows the weakness of women. Conversely, it can be concluded that men are depicted as “stronger figures” than women. Moreover, “NANA” captures ideal female roles and figures as a mother. One of the female characters named 奈々, her mother is depicted as an ideal mother figure. As 奈々 is told to admire and learn from her mother in the volume 8, her mother is always smiling and cooks delicious meals for her family. This depiction represents the ideal female figure as a mother that mothers should be cheerful, and commit to house work. [6]

[6] 中川裕美「ゼロ年代の少女マンガが描く女性像：矢澤あい『NANA』におけるジェンダー」, p.90, p.91

Ai Yazawa, NANA

(Shuei-sha, 2000), Volume1