This status quo began to shift in the late 1950s with the emergence of the concept of gekiga, which sought to use manga to tell serious and grounded stories aimed at adult audiences. By the late 1960s gekiga was a mainstream artistic movement, and in 1968 the women's magazine Josei Seven published the first gekiga manga aimed at a female audience: Mashūko Banka ( 摩周湖晩夏) by Miyako Maki. Maki was a shōjo manga artist who made her debut in the late 1950s, and pivoted to gekiga as her original audience aged into adulthood. Two magazines dedicated to women's gekiga were founded shortly thereafter: Funny ( ファニー, Fanī) by Mushi Production in 1969, and Papillon ( パピヨン, Papiyon) by Futabasha in 1972, though neither were commercially successful and both folded after several issues.
Ĭespite the commercial failure of women's gekiga, the 1970s nonetheless saw the significant development of shōjo manga through the efforts of artists in the Year 24 Group.
