Shojo Beat is a shōjo manga magazine published in North America by Viz Media. Released in June 2005 as a sister magazine for Shonen Jump, the magazine features serialized chapters from six manga series as well as articles on Japanese culture, manga, anime, fashion and beauty. Since its initial launch, the magazine has undergone two redesigns, becoming the first English anthology to use the two-color tone pages common in Japanese manga anthologies. Viz launched related "Shojo Beat" imprints in its manga, light novel, and anime divisions to coordinate with the magazine's contents.

Targeted at women ages 16–18, the first issue of Shojo Beat launched with a circulation of 20,000 copies. By 2007, average circulation was approximately 38,000 copies. Half of its circulation comes from subscriptions rather than store sales.

History

In February 2005, Viz Media announced the creation of a new manga anthology, Shojo Beat. Marketed as a sister publication of Viz's existing Shonen Jump, the magazine started with six manga titles: Crimson Hero, Kaze Hikaru, Baby & Me, Godchild, NANA, and Absolute Boyfriend. Of the six titles, two each came from Japanese publishers Shueisha, Shogakukan, and Hakusensha. The first issue was released in June 2005, featuring Nana Komatsu of NANA on its July-dated cover. Yumi Hoashi was the publication's original editor-in-chief. In November 2006, Hoashi left Viz and Marc Weidenbaum replaced him as the magazine's editor-in-chief.

The magazine's panda mascot, Moko, was first introduced in the October 2005 issue, though he remained nameless until the July 2006 issue. He later was given his own MySpace account run by Viz. With the magazine's first anniversary issue, dated July 2006, Shojo Beat switched to using cyan and magenta ink tones for the manga pages. Though this mirrors the format of Japanese manga anthologies, it was a first for manga anthologies published in North America.

Shojo Beat launched another redesign with the January 2007 issue. The new design included more vivid color schemes and fonts and a new "Girl Hero" column to spotlight women Viz felt were charitable and selfless to inspire the readers. The existing columns were also expanded. The issue introduced a new mascot for the magazine, Beat Girl, who was included in each issue on the "Editor's Letter" page as the magazine's "illustrated spokesperson," drawn by different artists each time. In the March 2008 issue, a third mascot, a star named Hoshiko, was introduced as a friend for Moko.

Features

As a manga anthology, the bulk of Shojo Beat's content is its manga chapters. Additional features include a letter from the editor, manga related news, a preview chapter from another Viz manga title being published under their "Shojo Beat" label, and articles on Japanese culture, current trends in Japan, and fashion and beauty. The end of the magazine has fan related sections, including fan art, letters from readers, manga drawing lessons, and cosplay how-to guides and highlights. The magazine's official website includes additional articles, downloads of templates for dressing up the magazine's panda mascot "Moko", and online previews of many of the manga series being published under the "Shojo Beat" label.

Series

Shojo Beat contains chapters from six different manga series. Fourteen series have been featured so far, with seven having ended their runs to be replaced with other series. Only four of those remained in the magazine until all of their chapters had been published. Each title serialized in the magazine is also published in tankōbon volumes under Viz's "Shojo Beat" label. Viz notes that they periodically remove series from the magazine that have not been completed yet to help "keep the magazine fresh" and to allow them to speed up publication of the individual volumes.

This is a complete list of all titles to be serialized in Shojo Beat. It does not include single chapter previews of titles. The titles currently running in the magazine are highlighted.

Title	Author	First Issue	Last Issue	Completed?
Absolute Boyfriend	Yuu Watase	July 2005	March 2008	Yes
Baby and Me	Marimo Ragawa	July 2005	September 2007	No
Backstage Prince	Kanoko Sakurakoji	October 2006	March 2007	Yes
Crimson Hero	Mitsuba Takanashi	July 2005	Ongoing
Gaba Kawa	Rie Takada	April 2008	August 2008	Yes
Godchild	Kaori Yuki	July 2005	June 2006	No
Haruka ~Beyond the Stream of Time~	Tohko Mizuno	November 2007	Ongoing
Honey and Clover	Chika Umino	September 2007	Ongoing
Honey Hunt	Miki Aihara	September 2008	Ongoing
Kaze Hikaru	Taeko Watanabe	July 2005	September 2006	No
Nana	Ai Yazawa	July 2005	August 2007	No
Sand Chronicles	Hinako Ashihara	August 2007	Ongoing
Vampire Knight	Matsuri Hino	July 2006	Ongoing
Yume-Kira: Dream Shoppe	Aqua Mizuto	April 2007	July 2007	Yes

Imprints

With the launch of the Shojo Beat magazine, Viz Media also created new imprints for its manga and fiction lines, with the "Shojo Beat" label including both series featured in the magazine and other shōjo manga titles licensed by Viz since the magazine's conception. Published under the "Shojo Beat Fiction" imprint, Viz began releasing a few Japanese light novels that relate to its "Shojo Beat" manga titles. In February 2006, Viz launched the "Shojo Beat Home Video" line to release anime titles targeted towards the female audience. The first title under the new imprint was Full Moon o Sagashite, the anime adaptation of the same titled manga already being released by Viz Media. To promote the new anime line, Viz included a preview disc of the first volume of Full Moon in the June 2006 issue of Shojo Beat.

Circulation and audience

When Shojo Beat launched, it had a circulation of 20,000. In 2006, its average circulation had increased to 35,000, with 41% of copies distributed through subscriptions, and the rest sold in newsstands and stores. In 2007, the circulation grew to 38,000, with subscription distribution growing to 51% of copies.

The magazine's audience is overwhelmingly female, comprising 91% of its readers. Targeted towards "young women", over half of the Shojo Beat audience is between the ages of 13 and 19, and over 84% of readers are at least 16 years old.

Reception

In reviewing the premiere release of Shojo Beat, IGN's Jessica Chabot sharply criticized the magazine. She felt it looked and read "like a teenie-bopper magazine" and referred to the issue's cover as a "bright, hot-pink, migraine-inducing, bubble-lettered spectacle". She considered the contents boring, and disagreed with Viz's selection of series, noting, "It's as if Viz had taken everything from their backed-up reject pile and tried to pull one over on the female populace. 90% of what I was reading was either poorly drawn or poorly written (more often than not, it was both). Comic World News' David Welsh disagreed, as he felt that the magazine had several good series, and he praised Nana, Absolute Boyfriend and Crimson Hero as the top three series of the initial issue. Greg McElhatton, co-founder of Wizard: The Guide to Comics and former reviewer for iComics.com, praised the magazine's mainstream appearance, calling it a "smart" decision, as it would draw in its target audience by visually showing them that its a magazine for teenage girls. While he felt two of the manga titles in the premiere issue had weak openings, he found that the magazine was "off to a good, if not great start".

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