• DOI:10.1080/09574040802137243
• Corpus ID: 194050280

Girls Return Home: Portrayal of Femininity in Popular Japanese Girls’ Manga and Anime Texts during the 1990s in Hana yori Dango and Fruits Basket

@article{Choo2008GirlsRH,
  title={Girls Return Home: Portrayal of Femininity in Popular Japanese Girls’ Manga and Anime Texts during the 1990s in Hana yori Dango and Fruits Basket},
  author={Kukhee Choo},
  journal={Women: A Cultural Review},
  year={2008},
  volume={19},
  pages={275 - 296}
}

• Kukhee Choo
• Published 1 November 2008
• Art
• Women: A Cultural Review

URING the later months of 2005, a live-action television drama entitled Hana yori Dango (the Japanese term for ‘Boys over Flowers’) aired on Tokyo Broadcasting System (TBS) in Japan. This drama was based on a record-breakingly popular shōjo manga (the term for girls’ comic books; no italics henceforth) that was serialised from 1992 to 2004, and which resulted in a series of thirty-six books, a television animation that aired in Japan from 1996 to 1997, and two live-action television drama series (shown in Taiwan). The Japanese television drama was such a success that the sequel aired on TBS from 5 January 2007 to 16 March 2007. Additionally, in a TBS weekly report on 23 February 2007, Hana yori Dango topped the charts with 26.3 per cent of viewer ratings (on the Ōsama no Buranchi television programme). What is significant about this example is that many of the current Japanese live-action television dramas are being adapted from popular comic books, mostly shōjo manga, and this trend has gradually increased since the early 1990s. 1 Two drama series were produced in Taiwan, from 2001, under the title Meteor Garden. Additionally, the four male characters (F4) featured in the Taiwanese drama maintain their popular entertainer status in Taiwan under the same group name. D w K U K H E E C H O O .......................................................................................................