In the 1970s, Moto Hagio was part of a wave of female Japanese comic-book creators whose work helped define shojo manga (girls’ comics). Fantagraphics Books has collected 10 different short stories of Hagio’s in one volume, along with an essay and a lengthy interview first printed in The Comics Journal. The stories reflect the effect Hagio and her contemporaries had on the industry—whereas earlier, most comics aimed at girls were formulaic romance stories, in her work, Hagio employed sci-fi, fantasy and humour, along with a fair amount of melodrama. The collection covers a wide span of Hagio’s career—while her earlier work is almost painfully sweet, her later stories demonstrate why her style is so iconic.
This article appears in Mar 3-9, 2011.