Are you a female manga or doujinshi reader?
Do you know what exactly BL, shounen-ai and yaoi stand for?
And most important of all, are you into BL?
If ALL of your answers for above are YES :
Congratulations! You've earned yourself a 'fujoshi' title! (and you can start dancing with joy, or feels dejected for being labeled as such)
If ALL of your answers are NO :
You should skip this post altogether. And be very aware of the BL label and yaoi warnings in this blog.
If your answers are mixed between YES and NO :
I still recommend you to skip this post. *laugh*
Fujoshi Kanojo Vol.01 Cover
The basic understanding for the title :
'Fujoshi', literally means "rotten girl", is a term for female fans of BL (Boy's Love), yaoi and shounen-ai genre, which the genres are all about romantic relationship between men. Fujoshi is also considered as a subculture of otaku culture, as you could say all fujoshi are otaku, but not all female-otaku are fujoshi. (This superb phrase is quoted from this post about fujoshi from Reverse Thieves blog). 'Kanojo' is a japanese word for girlfriend. By now you should have grasped half of what this Fujoshi Kanojo series is all about.
The series starts with Mutou Taiga, university student looking for a part-time work for some extra cash. He landed with a job right after he fell in love at first sight with a female employee, Ameya Yuiko in the hiring company. Determined and blindly in his crush mode, he made his way to get her attention and courageously confessed to her. To his luck, Yuiko responded positively, but she meekly confessed that she's actually a fujoshi. Taiga who was still very nervous with her reply, accepted her right away without knowing the real meaning of her confessions. Soon enough, Mutou realized that he'd gotten himself into something he would least expected, especially when Yuiko started revealing her true side of a hardcore fujoshi!
The first time I read this, I was thinking along the line, "Ah, it's so familiar!". It's probably like how otaku feels when they're reading Densha Otoko? Although Fujoshi Kanojo do it much better about Yuiko not hiding her fujoshi side to Taiga. IMHO, Fujoshi Kanojo is the first novel/manga series that actually let a fangirl openly declare her BL interest. I don't know about how the Japanese or the Western view BL, but it isn't something you can openly say out loud in this country. People here are more closed-minded that they show sometimes in public, and you get weird glances if you stand at the yaoi section in Kinokuniya for too long. Unfortunately enough, the yaoi books and the other shounen shoujo books are next to each in one large section, so sometimes it's not actually a direct hit on BL readers alone, but the general manga readers as well.
Although I've long since accepted that curious wonders, it still amused me a lot when someone stumbles upon my years of shounen-ai collection in my bookshelves. Yaoi books are very hard to find in here, although I did found a couple of One Piece and Houshin Engi doujinshis back then. I remembered flipping away the saucy pages so fast that I hardly understand what the whole book were all about, it's hard to accept a full yaoi make-out scene when you were just 16 back then! It's something I'll never be apart of, together with all my other mangas definitely.
