"It has witches, magic and French words."

My 8 year old niece, Salem, recently read Boing Boing for the first time. She appears to have liked it a lot and felt she had something to share. She'd like to tell you a bit about manga:

~~Shiju~~ Shojo Manga is a type of Japanese comic for tweenage girls (7-12 years old). I should know because I am a tweenage girl –I am 8! Sugar Sugar Rune by Moyoco Anno is a shojo manga, duh! And it is good for tweens because only the first book has cursing so the language is OK. It’s also good because it is an action-packed romance novel and it has witches, magic, and French words. Ooh la la! If you think traveling through a door on the dark side of the moon to a place where people can fly, do magic, and eat clouds that taste like cotton candy, then Sugar Sugar Rune is the book for you.

Jason Weisberger is Boing Boing's publisher. He often does what he ought, instead of what he should. On instagram and twitter he is @jlw

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Boundegar

Salem.
Witches.

What could possibly go wrong?
http://www.luketemplewalsh.com/ Luke Temple Walsh

This is the second time today I’ve found out on this site that kids like comic books, and not just like, but write about them humorously and intelligently. Was also introduced to the same idea by Ramone in the comments section of the ‘Todd McFarlane Spiderman cover that sold at auction’ article. Lesson learnt. Hope this doesn’t read as patronising by the way.
http://twitter.com/Epers Eddie Perkins

Interesting. Never heard the term ‘shiju’ before and can’t seem to find any reference to it. Figured she just meant ‘shoujo,’ but that’s for a slightly older market.
- wangston
  
  there is no ‘shiju manga’. she presumably means shojo, and honestly it’s kind of disappointing to find this kind of ching-chong-wing-wong in posts about foreign cultures. the fact that the author is a kid doesn’t excuse the absence of an editor with a background in japanese media.
  
  > but that’s for a slightly older market.
  
  young girls generally consume media that is “meant for” a slightly older market :)
  - dculberson
    
    ????
    
    “Editor with a background in Japanese media??” You are aware that this is a personal blog, right? How would you feel if someone ripped apart something by you or your daughter on your blog?
    - wangston
      
      i don’t agree that boingboing is a personal blog. the audience here is enormous! i think that the size of boingboing’s audience ethically compels it to put some effort into editing it’s posts for accuracy, etc.
      
      i don’t think my comment “rips apart” the authors. the specific phrase i used was “kind of disappointing”, and my intent was constructive.
      
      if a stranger being “kind of disappointed” about a small part of something you made “rips you apart”, then you should probably avoid sharing your work in public (however, i would be surprised if either author felt this way!)
      - Antinous / Moderator
        
        i don’t agree that boingboing is a personal blog.
        
        Your agreement in superfluous. This is a personal blog.
- http://boingboing.net/ Jason Weisberger
  
  Spoke with her mother. You are correct. It is fixed. Thanks!
  - http://goodsharer.com/ Aloisius
    
    You missed the second ‘shiju’ instance a little bit further down.
  - http://twitter.com/Epers Eddie Perkins
    
    Happy to have helped. Just thought it might be some new manga subset I hadn’t heard of yet. Just for the heck of it I’ll point out that it’s correctly written shoujo or sh&#333jo. But, doesn’t really matter, I guess. Often words are changed when borrowed from other languages and ‘shojo,’ without the long ‘o,’ seems to have become the American English word for girls comics from Japan or an art style often found in them.
    - wangston
      
      it seems like the most popular/well known japanese words in english lose their long vowels.
      
      i have a friend who is married to a japanese woman named yoko.
      
      he’s an anime nerd, and she once made fun of the cover of dragonball z budokai for omitting the long o in budokai.
      
      i pointed out that yoko also has a long o :) maybe it’s the beatle’s fault that it’s never spelled that way in english…
      - Alex Mauer
        
        Except removing the macron doesn’t change the pronunciation (“lose the long vowel”) The macron just tells the reader that it’s a long vowel. I doubt anyone would pronounce “yoko” as [IPA] “jɒkoʊ” (or likewise shojo or budokai) even without the macron.
      - wangston
        
        in english, i suppose that’s true. only the most diehard otaku would make a point of stretching out the vowel.
        
        and the same thing happens in reverse when the word ‘anime’ is printed with an accent over the final e, to hint that it’s not a silent e…
novium

I thought “tweens” were 11-13. Surely 7 and 8 year olds are just “kids”
- Boundegar
  
  Everybody from age 0-100 wants to be teen age. Get over it.
  - novium
    
    Really? The further I get into my 20s, the more fervently glad I am not to be a teenager. Anyone who wants to revisit their teen years must not remember them terribly well.
  - novium
    
    Really? The further I get into my 20s, the more fervently glad I am not to be a teenager. Anyone who wants to revisit their teen years must not remember them terribly well.
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  Now that puberty starts at 5, the age brackets have changed.
Melissa Jeffrey

Well I went to go look it up (I work at a library)… our supplier says the publisher is out of stock indefinitely!
John Fleming

Witches, magic, AND French words? I’ll alert the American Family Association immediately! Someone should buy this child a comic book that reflects wholesome ‘Murican values, like the Punisher.
pl1x

And after shoujo is josei: (comics for women)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josei_manga

Which Moyoco Anno’s ‘Happy Mania’ is a good example:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_Mania
http://plagmada.org Tim H

Are we back on that Golden Boughs thing?
ninechars

I watched the anime for, uh, research purposes. You may want to explain to this kid that collecting boys’ hearts by use of magical cosmetics is only one possible way to navigate the bildung …

I guess it’s not so bad since the premise is that the tomboyish Chocola has to find her own path in contrast with her girly friend Vanilla. But it’s still all about gaining currency, basically, by appealing to boys (and sometimes girls).
http://profile.yahoo.com/I5CZSC7I4PCGGW6FBBPPIC3KAY fsharp4565

Single greatest BoingBoing post ever? Duh!
Jorpho

Ah, this is the one whose anime adaptation has a theme song cribbed from “Poupée de cire, poupée de son”. So, that’s kind of nifty?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUJdPEUgA28
disillusion

While I don’t wanna bash this particular series, the name always throws me off when I’m trying to remember Sugar: A Little Snow Fairy. Shame the manga for that one didn’t get released in america, but the anime did http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/anime.php?id=1018

Also, another manga/anime I’d suggest (both versions are in English, if you can find em) would be Tokyo Mew Mew. It also falls under a similar genre to this one, though it might not be to everyone’s tastes (what is?).
http://www.tumbleweed.net/ tyger11

I figured manga had hit the mainstream in America when I noticed a whole section devoted to it in the local Barnes & Nobles stores. I see kids sitting down in those aisles all the time reading them.
- malindrome
  
  The section that blew my mind at the local B&N is “Teen Paranormal Romance”. Undoubtedly an artifact of the Twilight boom, but still … How many paranormal romance stories can a person read?
  - Antinous / Moderator
    
    Is that a dare?
Patrick Jonke

I looked at this series to see if it might be a worthy successor to Zita, but was totally put off by the description on Amazon. Is it correct?

“Outspoken Chocolat and shy Vanilla are best friends, but only one of them can be Queen of the Magic World. To determine who deserves the title, they must go to the Human World and enter a strange competition. Whoever attracts the most human boys . . . claims victory!”
- http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000500177841 Rachel Banzhaf
  
  It’s accurate, but the concept is expanded as the story continues on. One important factor: For a witch to “collect” a boy’s affection, he loses that affection (essentially resets to zero). There’s different values for “aw she’s cute” through love and even strong friendship, but there’s a question of whether it’s worth sacrificing the relationship just to cash in.
  
  Later on the competition takes a back seat to a full fledged magical war.
- http://twitter.com/snarp Sarah Pin
  
  That is, in fact, the premise, but it’s a fairly subversive series – Anno has a very cynical view of romance. There’s a funny “seduction battle” between Chocolat and a witch boy. Shaenon Garrity has a good review of the series here:
  
  http://shaenon.livejournal.com/39858.html
http://twitter.com/shay_guy Shay Guy

If you think traveling through a door on the dark side of the moon to a place where people can fly, do magic, and eat clouds that taste like cotton candy

…If I think it what?
tudza

Is it roo neigh or rune like a letter in a runic alphabet? Hard to guess since it comes after an English word.

Wait, found a Japanese cover and it’s written ru n so it does sound like rune.
http://celesteagnes.blogspot.com/ Sekino

I’ve been more into seinen and gekiga for the past 10 years, but even I sorta want to check this out… Good job Salem!
AsteriskCGY

OH snap I remember reading this on and off back in high school. Can’t remember what happened in it. Time to find out again.
Terry Sunderland

Moyoco Anno is not just any shoujo manga writer – she’s seriously good, and writes manga in multiple genres. Her Hataraki Man is one of my favourites. Time for me to read Sugar Sugar Rune – thanks, Salem!
Frank Diekman

‘Duh!’ ought to be used in more BB posts.
- benher
  
  Olympics chief rings in the games, Duh!
  Are you a two percenter? Duh!
  Early iPhone mockups show Sony influence, Duh!
  
  This works with a surprising amount of Boing Boing post titles.