From Jusuheru to Jannu: Girl Knights and Christian Witches in the Work of Miuchi Suzue

Abstract

In the vast and diverse world of manga, war is traditionally considered to be the domain of shōnen manga, or boys’ comics, while shōjo manga, or manga for girls, are perceived as primarily concerned with romance. As Kotani Mari and Saitō Tamaki note, love and war merge in the sentō bishōjo or “battling beauty” motif, in which these traditionally separate themes are combined, allowing identification on the part of different readers and making it a particularly popular and increasingly visible figure in contemporary Japanese popular culture.1 The sentō bishōjo is a productive trope that spans different genres and appears in boys’ and girls’ manga alike, as well as in their animated versions and related merchandising. In this article, I want to look at the uses and implications of another figure that, by contrast, appears almost exclusively in shōjo works: the “girl knight.” While battling beauties and girl knights share a number of traits, including their challenge to traditional notions of femininity, they differ in some significant aspects, most importantly, as I will try to demonstrate, in their epistemological approach to, and use of, war/time. I therefore propose to study the peculiar combination of themes of war, time, and cultural and gender identity in the girl knight trope as a means to reflect more broadly on the uses of history in shōjo manga.