For reals. People are not one dimensional. It's like they forgot that
Tbh my understanding of shoujo mangas are just light hearted romances in general. Like honey lemon soda or sign of affection, yamada-kun to lvl999 no koi wa suru. Ngl I wouldn’t ever classify darker romance stories as shoujo, and that may not be technically correct but I typically wouldn’t recommend a dark romance story if a friend asks for a shoujo recommendation.
Sadly, doing that just perpetuates the problem. Titles like Tomie, Senrei, Basara, Servamp, Tenjou Renka, Koroshi Ai, Limit, etc are all shojo and have different genres.
You made me sing the last parts in your sentence lol
i agree, people don't realize shojo doesn't mean "hs romance!!!" like you mentioned, shojo means the general audience is for younger females lol
Let's not forget that Banana Fish 's also tagged as Shoujo
Suuuuper off-topic but I find kind of weird how some people gets all "this is not a shoujo!1!1!1" as if their understanding of that demographic was "shojo = hs romance". Demographics are merely targets and inside each of them almost all genres and themes have a place. Don't be the typical idiot that thinks seinen is super serious and shit and shoujo is all about hs romance kiss kiss fall in love.