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Josei is a demographic category of manga, anime, and other entertainment aimed at female audiences from age 18 onwards. Like its male counterpart, it's notable for more realistic, less idealized portrayals of romance and life than in works for younger girls.
It typically uses a more realistic artistic style. Most are written by women, and feature in magazines or anthology collections directly sold for the demographic. Stories typically portray everyday life for young Japanese women — usually adults, but occasionally high school age.
Fuji TV's NoitaminA anime block is notable for focusing on this demographic.
Compare Seinen, which is aimed at young men of the same age; and Shoujo, which is aimed at younger females.
Examples of Josei include:
- +C: Sword and Cornett
- Amatsuki
- Amakusa 1637
- Bara No Tame Ni
- Blue (manga)
- Bunny Drop
- Butterflies, Flowers
- Cocoon
- Chihayafuru
- Deep Love
- Dokuhime
- DOLL
- Double House
- Eden of the East
- Ero Meruhen aka Erotic Fairy Tales
- Free Soul
- Fushigi Yuugi Genbu Kaiden
- Fushigi Yuugi Byakko Ibun
- Fushigi Yuugi Byakko Senki
- Genji Monogatari 1987
- Genji Monogatari Sennenki
- Genju No Seiza
- Gokusen
- Happy Mania
- Hotaru no Hikari
- Honey and Clover
- Indigo Blue
- Inorihime Wa Sora Ni Warau
- Karneval
- Kasei Yakyoku
- Kaze Hikaru
- Kimi wa Petto
- Kuragehime
- Legend of Chun Hyang
- Love My Life
- Michiko to Hatchin
- Midnight Secretary
- Musashi Number Nine
- My Broken Mariko
- Night Of The Beasts
- Nodame Cantabile
- Oiran Chirashi
- Omiai Aite wa Oshiego, Tsuyoki na, Mondaiji.
- Only Yesterday, the last Studio Ghibli film to be brought to in America (there isn't a big josei market).
- Papa Told Me
- Paradise Kiss
- Pet Shop of Horrors
- Pieta
- Planet Ladder
- Pride
- Private Actress
- Private Prince
- Ristorante Paradiso
- Rouge Noir
- Sakamichi no Apollon
- Sakura Gari
- Satou-kun to Tanaka-san - The Blood High School
- Satsuriku no Tenshi (aka Angels of Death)
- Seven Seeds
- Seigi no Mikata
- Shin Galboy
- Shirokuma Cafe
- Spotted Flower
- Suppli
- Vampire Girl
- Walkin' Butterfly
- With the Light
- The works of Erica Sakurazawa
Series sometimes mistaken for josei:[]
- Nana, which is really close to a josei, but it's a Shojo.
- Kuroshitsuji (known as Black Butler in English) seems to be a mix of Shojo, more so in the anime, and Seinen, more so in the manga. As such it is often thought of as a Josei but it's actually a Shounen.
- Comic Zero Sum is a magazine targeted at women of all ages. This often leads to confusion as to whether a work is shoujo or josei. These include Amatsuki, Loveless, 07-Ghost, Karneval and Hatenkou Yuugi.
- Works by Mayu Shinjo like Sensual Phrase, Haou Airen or Akuma na Eros, due to the extremely high sexual content that often includes Rape Tropes. The melodramatic storytelling, however, is more shoujo-like; the only one which might qualify as jousei would be Love Celeb.