Yes, I remember you as the one person I’ve encountered who has heard about or read it, heh, heh. I’ve been trying to collect the books in English, but it’s been really difficult because it went out of print in English! It’s only available as an ebook in English, which I’m not interested in. I have no problem with second hand books, but even finding any that way is really difficult, since they’re either in poor condition or vastly over-priced (or both). In theory I could get it in the original Japanese, but I also want to be able to lend it to people to read…
Well, that’s a little disconcerting, if even they’re reluctant, ha, ha! Nausicaa is another manga I’d like to own, but again, I’d rather have it in English.
I would suggest ゆるキャン if you’re just looking for something wholesome. I haven’t read the manga yet (it’s been sitting on my shelf for 6 months) but the anime is super relaxing.
I strongly second NANA too! It’s one of my favorite manga!
… Ah, but it doesn’t fit the requirement of being fantasy. Oh well, still recommended.
Now that I have a bit more time, here a list of stuff that would fit OP’s requirements (with my subjective ratings)
Note: I’m not going to mentions things that were already recommended in the thread.
… and that’s it, I guess. (Obviously, I would usually recommend 本好きbut it was already mentioned in the thread).
Hopefully, something in there will strike your fancy!
i’m here to second とんがり帽子のアトリエ!! after finishing the english releases, i decided to catch up on the jpn releases! its definitely above my level but i made a google spreadsheet with every word i didn’t know so i could refer back to it. it’s SO good and i cannot recommend it enough!!!
Ah I missed the fantasy part. Fushigi Yuugi is probably still my favourite ‘aimed at girls’ fantasy manga/anime, though might be a little old these days as it came out in 1995!
I also really liked 十二国記, The Twelve Kingdoms anime and would really like to read the novels but it looks far too hard for me at this stage. I think the anime was a bit different as these are supposed to be standalone stories.
It’s not shoujo but has a strong female main character and a cool story.
EDIT: Also laid back camp now added to my crunchyroll watch list, looking forward to later
Yeah, the books are mostly standalone stories in the same universe, sometimes with overlapping characters. I haven’t read the prologue “book 0” yet but suspect from the cover that the MC is male (also wikipedia claims it’s “horror” and wasn’t exactly intended to be part of the fantasy series). Book 1 (published in two volumes) is Youko’s story and is where I started and would recommend starting; then books 2 and 3 are other characters and time periods. Book 4 then comes back to Youko as one of three lead characters whose stories are intertwined. Book 1 works 100% as a standalone with a satisfying ending.
I agree they’re kind of difficult reads. The author loves making up fake Chinese-ish words for things; these get furigana of the real word (eg だいどころ) occasionally but you have to be confident enough in character recognition to pick these up on the fly and not find yourself wasting time looking up imaginary words in the dictionary.
I’ve got this on my list since I’ve watched the anime and really enjoyed it.
Didn’t know about Twin Spica though, might check that out.
I’ve seen Yotsuba recommended a lot for newer readers but it’s not quite what I’m looking for. I just don’t feel like I’d enjoy it from what I’ve read of it.
I’ll check this one out as well, it looks quite good.
If you don’t mind the “pure” type of story (i.e. no sexual content at all, mostly aimed at tween/teen), I would recommend searching for “shoujo” (少女) instead of “josei” (女性) or “joseimuki”. This is partly because “josei” as a category is actually a pretty recent term.
暁のヨナ is generally categorized as shoujo, as are two of my other faves: “Skip Beat!” (which, incidentally, also has a book club, but no read-aloud sessions) and “Ao Haru Ride” / “Blue Spring Ride” / アオハライド.
This would be a good list to start from for those types:
I’d also recommend:
Chihayafuru
Snow White with the Red Hair (I only watched the Anime for this, but I plan to read the manga someday soon)
ウテナ is a manga aimed at girls, about a girl who met a prince and decided she wants to grow up to be a prince (not a princess). There’s duels, magic swords, and complicated relationships. I admit I liked the show more than the manga (which I haven’t finished) but it’s still fun.
異世界の名探偵 I’m not quite finished with but it is fantasy and the female characters so far have not be sexualized at all. Probably aimed at middle school or thereabouts if I had to guess by the writing style. It’s a light novel. It has a temp rating of 25 on Natively but I’ll probably grade it higher as the vocab spread is pretty big.
I mean…Prince of Tennis (and most shounen sports stories) is definitely targeted towards people who like men, haha. No sexualized women here (mostly because I can count the number of female characters on one hand, especially in New Prince of Tennis lol).
It’s only available as an ebook in English, which I’m not interested in. I have no problem with second hand books, but even finding any that way is really difficult, since they’re either in poor condition or vastly over-priced (or both). In theory I could get it in the original Japanese, but I also want to be able to lend it to people to read…
I’ll definitely check these out and thanks for taking the time to suggest these.